Time Lord Victorious – Eighth Doctor (1 of 3): He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not by Carrie Thompson (audio cd/download review).
The Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) is on a sightseeing tour but is taken back when his planned visit to one of the Seven Hundred Wonders Of The Universe is a failure due to a very missing Wonder. In fact, the planet is nothing like the brochure and it seems he’s ended up in a western. One of his first encounters is with an Ood called Brian (Silas Carson), who has a job to do and it’s not waiting on tables. Meet the Ood assassin.
The object of Brian’s attention is Felicity (Misha Malcolm) who has run away with her wife, Sophie (Melanie Stevens). Brian would very much like to kill Sophie, that’s his contract after all. He consults Mr. Ball a lot. That’s the additional brain of an Ood attached by an umbilical. Brian is quite mad. I can’t help thinking that Brian is a scrambled Brain.
Despite the subject matter, this feels like quite a laid back intro into the ‘Time Lord Victorious’ adventures. There doesn’t seem much trepidation and there’s quite a lot of chatting. The Eighth Doctor also spends a lot of time talking to himself. That’s what travelling without a companion does for you and. being an audio, the view out of the TARDIS window often needs to be described. Lots of the dialogue is playful and the western theme is full on with the local Sheriff (Pauline Eyre) amping up the accent and relishing every goddam word. There’s another Doc (Martin McDougal), too, who’s the archetypal one-horse town medic along with the saloon owner Samson (Jack DeVos) who lives in hope of paying customers.
‘He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not’ is one of the audios that make up the multi-platform experience of the ‘Time Lord Victorious’. This time we meet the Eighth Doctor who is about to get scooped up into the whole dang mess that the Tenth Doctor is creating elsewhere. This first story is all about getting the pieces on the chessboard and adding in some stuff that might come in useful further down the line.
This adventure is the first of three. It is around 55 minutes long with another 20 minutes informative and entertaining background with some of the participants and the full music suite at the end. The production team are more or less the same except there are three different writers for the three stories. The adventures are more or less contained but do form a cohesive whole.
Sue Davies
February 2021
(Big Finish, 2020. 1 CD 75 minutes. Price: £10.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-83868-304-7. Download: £ 8.99 (UK))
cast: Paul McGann, Silas Carson, Jack DeVos, Pauline Eyre, Misha Malcolm, Martin McDougall and Melanie Stevens)
check out website: https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-time-lord-victorious-he-kills-me-he-kills-me-not-2257
