The War To End All Wars, The Founding Fathers, and The Locked Room [Doctor Who, Diversion 6]

The War To End All Wars, The Founding Fathers, and The Locked Room by Simon Guerrier

2014 - 2015

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I swear, it was actually unintentional that all the Hartnell-period audios I covered but one ended up being by the same author... When selecting my picks for this era, my only conscious decision was that the ones I had a look at should fit into the stories around them and fill in narrative or character gaps that I thought would benefit from it. It's a testament to Guerrier's talent in emulating this era that such a high proportion were more or less randomly selected by me, so hats off.

Compared with the previous two character-focused trilogies of his that we've covered here, though, I have to say that this one is the weakest, albeit not by a colossal margin or anything. The first story, The War To End All Wars, is a fairly strong one, with the central mystery of why Steven would have abdicated his throne being a quite compelling one. Of course, it makes sense to us as the listeners that Steven might not have had long-term success as monarch of an entire planet - after all, it's not as if he had any particular qualifications for leadership aside from having a lot of machismo and a great jawline. Heavy lies the crown, especially for a fellow who I'm pretty sure just wanted a quiet retirement...

The planet Comfort and its main computer throwing generations of people into an endless war are a classic example of a "broken spring" story, as lampshaded by Guerrier himself in the commentary at the end of the audio, but it works. The subversion of what seems like a "war is a racket" plot at the start into being caused by a faulty machine is an intriguing one, as is seeing Steven and Dodo try (and fail) to game the system. Sida, Steven's granddaughter, is also likable from the beginning, though a slightly flatter character than the comparable role of Robert from the Sara Kingdom audios. Her better moments come in the third audio of the story.

Interestingly, due to the shift from regular Companion Chronicles releases to box sets between The War To End All Wars and The Founding Fathers, the latter two parts of this trilogy were released together as part of The First Doctor: Volume One in 2015, meaning there's essentially no gap between the last two parts. As for their relative merits, The Founding Fathers is alright. It's good to see the Steven and Vicki team together again even if in an abstract form, as the two really didn't have anywhere near enough time as a team on-screen. The subverted expectations that Abigail might be a fellow time traveler are also fun. Generally though, it doesn't do a particularly strong job of stitching its central story (a celebrity historical featuring Benjamin Franklin) to the overarching theme of the trilogy. The Doctor's proverbial brain in a jar, though, is a neat evolution of the imprint of his consciousness that affected Jano in The Savages and does feel like a part of the same narrative universe.

The strongest of the three, though, is the last, set years after the first two during the completion of Steven's pet project, a powerful radio telescope that succeeds in "rescuing" the Doctor from his death in Antarctica in 1986, at least temporarily... This "flash forward" to The Tenth Planet works well at this position of my marathon, and seeing Steven's reaction to the Doctor's impending regeneration is a nice, fan-pleasing little moment. The shock revelation that the Vardan who Oliver gave his life to dispel in The First Wave has used this occasion to reconstitute herself is also a fantastic twist. It's nice seeing Sida (now president of the planet Steven once ruled) take charge of the situation, as well as the replica Doctor's gambit to trick and trap the Vardan once and for all. Although the individual parts of this trilogy aren't as strong, seeing all their elements come together, along with the callback to the Oliver audios, is still satisfying, so I would personally give these my recommendation.

Well, with all that said and done, all that's left of Season 3 for us is The War Machines, coming soon.

(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 5 May 2020.)