"We'll be succinct / The Doc's extinct! / Yes, we killed that no-good Doctor dead!"
Oh, now this one was such a surprise and a delight. Musical episodes are my weakness, and frankly it's shocking that one has never properly unfolded on televised Doctor Who! Gunfighters aside, at least. Big Finish has picked up some of the slack and put out several over the years. The Scorchies is one of the Companion Chronicles, and therefore a relatively short story focusing on, in this instance, lovely Jo Grant. She's been kidnapped by a bunch of insane alien Muppets who have apparently killed the Doctor!
The eponymous Scorchies are actually the creations of Professor Baffle, a member of an alien race who invented the television, only to see his people destroyed by it. Ever since, the Scorchies have been visiting developing worlds who have discovered television, hypnotizing them with their catchy songs, and then incinerating them all. And my God, those songs are absolute earworms! I'm humming Jo's Making a Thing still a full day after I listened. Despite it being a purely audio experience, I feel like you can still vividly imagine the mad puppet show that's going on. In fact, I found that picturing the puppets on the cover bouncing around and singing while Jo looks distraught was entirely appropriate for the experience.
Katy Manning is as stunning as always as Jo, and even puts in a couple of extra vocal credits as some of the Scorchies. Her distress at the Doctor's apparent death is sold very well, and her bond with Professor Baffle is just so nice. Melvyn Hayes also deserves a good deal of credit for the other Scorchies and the Professor, the latter being an especially heartbreaking performance.
This is a short post, but only because I'm too much in love with this audio to be especially coherent. It's creepy, it's bizarre, it's a little heartwarming in places, and it's undoubtedly a Companion Chronicle that's worth listening to.
From strange to stranger, it's a quick bus ride to Verdigris next.
(Modified from the original posted at Gallifrey Base on 4 April 2021.)
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