Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Matthew Waterhouse, Robert Whitelock, Phil Mulryne, Camilla Power, Bethan Walker.

We are made up so many different facets in our genetic and mental make-up that it somewhat surprising that more is not made of the split personality within the world of Science Fiction. For The Doctor, the many personalities that have lived and also have the potential to do so hides perhaps a frightening question, does the Doctor ever really know himself, even he meets parts of him in someone else?

Psychodrome sees the newly regenerated fifth Doctor plunged into a world with his three companions, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric, in which to choose a side is really the last thing you might want to do. If The Doctor has issues with being a new man and his innermost demon is allowed to run wild and drain him emotionally then it doesn’t bode well for those trying to get used to the man with a new face.

It is perhaps a constant consternation to many of the classic series fans of Doctor Who that not enough was made of character development; more was made of the story at hand than how companions of the man from Gallifrey reacted to certain situations. None arguably more so than when the Doctor regenerated in front of the ones the previous incarnation had left behind. Regeneration is perhaps the great leveller when it comes to emotions inside the blue box.

What Big Finish, or more specifically Jonathan Morris and John Dorney have managed to is to fill in the blanks, to bring a semblance of proper continuality to the episodes that filled Peter Davison’s first season as the Time Lord. Instead of going from the effects and fall out of Logopolis/Castrovalva through to the fairly happy atmosphere that preceded the events of Earthshock, the team are subjected to the reality of life of getting used and more importantly of trusting a new Doctor; a Doctor whose regeneration was traumatic, a real shock to the Time Lord system.

To have the first line-up of Peter Davison’s tenure back in the studio once more is nothing short of a delight. To have Tegan, Nyssa and Adric back but in a way that seems fresh, certainly exhilarating and overall erring on the side of majestic is something that fans thirty years ago perhaps never thought possible. The tension that was glossed over in the several stories that covered the foursome’s time on board the Tardis is laid bare and Matthew Waterhouse has managed to make the time become seamless as he takes on a role he hasn’t played since 1982. It is perhaps to Janet Fielding that the listener takes great joy in reliving in the footsteps of. One of the all-time popular companions to have travelled with The Doctor, to take the actor back to a time in which she was one of the finest, argumentative firebrands, full of doubt and fear is to realise just how important she became to the Doctor’s life.

Psychdrome, like Iterations of I, is the join between Time; the chance to actually understand how the team learned to trust one another instead of being constrained to a television schedule which arguably at the time didn’t have the best interests of the programme or its development at its heart. This is one of Big Finish’s finest hours and should be seen as such.

Psychodrome is available as part of the Fifth Doctor Box Set 1 which is available from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall