Review: Stranded 2 – The Long Way Round (4/4)

Still locked down on Earth in 2020, the Doctor, Helen and Liv face an easing of restrictions in this month’s Stranded 2. The TARDIS is slowly coming back to life, allowing for visits to the planet’s past and its doomed future. But does this newfound freedom enhance or detract from Stranded’s unique premise?

In talking about John Dorney’s The Long Way Round, it’s tempting to point to how you’d never dream of doing a Doctor Who story – let alone closer to a boxed set – that was purely interrogation scenes before Jed Mercurio wrote Line of Duty. And yet, it’s a format that is perfect for audio drama. It’s also fitting for the Stranded format, putting a focus on character and relationships ahead of spectacle and plot twists.  

The Doctor and his companions have been captured upon visiting Earth’s doomed future (at an earlier point before the nuclear catastrophe) and are interrogated one by one by the fearsome Holbrook who is determined to unmask the Doctor as the murderous arch-manipulator that he really is.  

Back in 2020, meanwhile, a young girl is fascinated with a disappearing big blue box and frequently visits it on Camden High Street, never summing up the courage to talk to its mysterious owners. Until one day, she meets a kindly old Curator who teaches her all about magic tricks, childhood and being silly. 

Tom Baker is utterly magical, and there’s a real twinkly charm to his performance that sets him apart from the more bombastic Fourth Doctor. It’s very Big Finish to turn a reverential cameo from an anniversary special into a full-blown character, but it’s refreshing to hear Tom Baker do something a bit different. The mystery around the Curator’s motives (there is no mystery around who he is, he is and always has been a future incarnation of the Doctor!) recalls one of Steven Moffat’s earliest pieces of Doctor Who. The innocence and wonder of childhood are juxtaposed beautifully with the violence and hopelessness of the future and there’s a real emotional punch when the two time zones knit together.

It’s interesting that the inclusion of the Curator never feels irritating in the way that the inclusion of Torchwood does. Firstly, the decision to have him stroll around in the background just being magical and Tom Bakery removes the need for him to regularly remind the audience that the current Doctor must never know of his existence. Secondly, Stranded appears to be telling a story of 2020 as a pivotal year for the future development of mankind – though not for the reasons you’re expecting! – it’s fun to see a future Doctor nudging things along for his previous self.  

What’s interesting about The Long Way Round is the way it interrogates the role of the Doctor as a moral arbiter. Who gave him the right to interfere in other cultures? Should he be venerated or feared? We’re usually on the Doctor’s side during an adventure but what happens when we’re not? It’s these questions that the story explores, as Holbrook paints a not so flattering portrait of the Doctor’s character throughout her interrogations. Wisely, Dorney waits until the closing scenes to bring the Doctor into the interview room, by which time we’ve begun to question if he is indeed the true villain of the Stranded arc. That’s a question I won’t answer here, but the reveal at the end neatly ties together several threads from the previous stories into one or two big questions. It’ll be interesting to see how the boxed set plays out, and whether the Doctor and his companions can reverse whatever damage is done in 2020.

If only we could all be that lucky, eh?