Doctor Who: Time War 5: Cass Review

Fans of the Eighth Doctor are being really treated the last few months, we’ve had three Eighth Doctor releases which has been telling smaller stories, both What Lies Inside? and Connections have two or three individual stories but Cass sees the Eighth Doctor return to the big and explosive Time War.

Fans of the Eighth Doctor would have been delighted to see Paul McGann return in 2013 in Night of the Doctor, which re-introduced a number of concepts and characters but also introduced the ill-fatted Cass, played by Emma Campbell-Jones. Cass is doomed to die and her death is what leads to the Eighth Doctor’s regeneration in John Hurt’s War Doctor. Here though, Cass Fermazzi joins the Doctor and his grandson Alex Campbell, played by Sonny McGann. But what is happening? What happened to Bliss and why aren’t both Cass and Alex dead?

Tim Foley’s opening story, Meanwhile, Elsewhere is a simple opening tale that is set up to introduce us to the brand new TARDIS team. On that front, it certainly succeeds but the story felt a little light on the ground. This is strange for a story from a writer like Foley, but he had been busy plotting and writing the great River Song: Friend of the Family. With the Doctor and Alex investigating temporal disturbances they not only meet Cass but also the villain of the piece, the shady diplomat Hieronyma Friend, played with gusto by Jayne Griffiths. She elevates the slightly thin plot but luckily for the listeners the strength of the cast really makes this story stand out and feel completely new and fresh.

The second story, Vespertine by Lou Morgan, explores Cass’s past as she meets a childhood hero. When the Doctor, Cass and Alex find a team of researchers looking into the crash of the Vespertine which the legendary Captain Hudson Sage piloted. Sage proves to be the element that will lead to hopefully more adventures for this set of time-travellers as we learn that the Doctor and Bliss had previously met him. Simon Shepard gives an excellent performance as Sage with Indigo Griffith’s brilliant as Rin, a scientist who doesn’t know she has ties to the downfall of the Vespertine. It’s an interesting little story that gives some which give us some exploration of Cass’s past, someone who had only previously been in one ten-minute adventure as well as some hints of the storyline to come, hopefully over the next few boxsets.

Previously, Next Time – written by James Moran brings Cass to a close. This is perhaps the closest to the Time War we get in this set, as the other two stories rightly decided to stay away from the subject. It has the air of an experimental Big Finish audio adventure with the story being told out of chronological order with plenty of paradoxes and timey-wimeyness to keep you entertained. Unfortunately for Moran, trying to keep all of these balls juggling, some do get dropped. Character development and exploration seem to go out of the window and it’s never made particularly clear why the story has to be told out of chronological order. In fact, the flashbacks we have through the opening episode retell what we have already been told and serve to confuse things even further.

Unfortunately, Previously, Next Time is in the end quite boring, endlessly walking through Dalek factories doesn’t really fire the imagination, the only saving grace from it being turned off completely is the brilliant chemistry between the main cast. And the Doctor, Cass and Alex seem surplus to requirement as the resolution of the story depends on an unexplored guest cast, most of whom play characters so completely unlikeable that the conclusion falls completely flat and makes you wonder what the point in the story was in the first place.

Not every Big Finish release can be absolutely amazing and there have been some truly fantastic stories on offer so far this year. It’s a shame then that Cass ends on such a duff note because the opening two stories were a real blast to listen to. So much has been said about Paul McGann’s fantastic performances in the past that it’s no surprise he’s still just as excellent here. Sonny McGann gets a chance to really shine as Alex Foreman, a character whose life was cut short by the Daleks in the “Original Timeline” so its brilliant to see how he fares as a fully-fledged companion and having a character with another Time Lord-level intellect brings a completely fresh feel to the TARDIS dynamic.

What of the titular companion though? Well, Emma Campbell-Jones is fantastic as Cass. She was already a favourite character despite only having less than five minutes of screen time but Jones more than lives up to the previous companions and compliments the Eighth Doctor really well. I hope this isn’t the last we hear from her as Cass as this TARDIS trio is most definitely the strongest thing this boxset has to offer to feel completely new and like a breath of fresh air.

So while Cass might not be one of Big Finish’s strongest releases, it does feel completely fresh and new, something that Doctor Who audios haven’t felt like in a little while.

You can pick up Doctor Who: Time War 5: Cass on physical and download from Big Finish now.