Blogtor Who: AUDIO REVIEW: The Abandoned

The Point of Stillness. A place the Time Lords are forbidden to go. Deep within the TARDIS, something unusual is happening. One of the ship's oldest secrets is about to be revealed, someone long-forgotten is ready to reappear.

This is a particularly fantastic story and certainly the highlight of the largely consistent third season of Fourth Doctor adventures. Massive kudos to Louise Jameson and co-writer Nigel Fairs for a memorable outing. We know that it was the TARDIS that stole the Doctor; we know Clara recommended that The Doctor take the particular one he did; and, thanks to Big Finish, we even know who was fixing the ship when it was stolen; but to whom did the TARDIS actually, originally belong? That question is answered in this wonderful and imaginative adventure.

Not only is this long unanswered question resolved, but there are also some particularly inspired ideas on offer. Without giving too much away Jameson and Fairs have personified imagination as embodied characters. This fantastic innovation reminds one of wonderfully well developed concept stories featuring the Mara from the Peter Davison era.

I would be very interested to see how much of the writing was handled by Louise and how much by Nigel. From the interviews included with the release it certainly seems the ideas were Jameson’s and and the pair equally shared the writing of the piece.

Stephanie Cole, a co-star of Jameson's in the memorable BBC series Tenko, is fantastic as Marianna, and the assembled Mandi Symonds, Andy Snowball and co-writer Nigel Fairs himself make an excellent ensemble. Both Tom Baker and Louise seem very invested in this adventure and are really buzzing as a team.

This one comes very highly recommended. Louise Jameson co-wrote it, it adds a great new part of the Who mythology and it has some very out of the box thinking and ideas. Please do give it a listen.