Doctor Who - Circular Time (Spring, Summer & Autumn)

STORY PLACEMENT

THESE THREE EPISODES

OF THIS STORY TAKE

PLACE BETWEEN THE

BIG FINISH AUDIO

DRAMA "THE GAME"

AND THE COMIC STRIP
ANTHOLOGY "THE TIDES
OF TIME."

PRODUCTION CODE

6C/H

WRITTEN BY

PAUL CORNELL &

MIKE MADDOX

DIRECTED BY

JOHN AINSWORTH

RECOMMENDED

PURCHASE

BIG FINISH CD#91

(ISBN 1-84435-175-0)

RELEASED IN JANUARY

2007.

BLURB

Summer to winter, the

seasons turn.

In the springtime of a

distant future, the

Doctor and Nyssa

become embroiled in

Time Lord politics on

an alien world.

During the stifling

heat of a summer

past they suffer the

vengeful wrath of

Isaac Newton. In the

recent past, Nyssa

spends a romantic

golden autumn in an

English village while

the Doctor plays

cricket. And finally,

many years after

their travels

together have ended,

the two friends meet

again in the

strangest of

circumstances.

Four seasons. Four

stories.

Now close the door

behind you, you're

letting the cold in...

| | | | | | | |

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Circular Time

JANUARY 2007

(3 EPISODES)

1. SPRING 2. SUMMER 3. AUTUMN

Big Finish’s ninety-first monthly release is one of the most diverse plays in the entire range. Written by Paul Cornell and Mike Maddox, this production is broken up into four discrete episodes, each typifying a different kind of Doctor Who story: alien planet, pure historical, social realism and shameless fan service. Circular Time is thus a crash course in Doctor Who, and would perhaps even be viewed as the quintessential Doctor Who digest were it not for its audacious eschewing of tradition in its second half.

Long ago in an English spring…

The anthology’s first episode, “Spring”, is a well-crafted and enlivening tale that’s buoyed by some superlative sound design. Like a good short story, it throws listeners straight into the thick of things, before sending them off in one direction only to spin them right back around with a pleasing twist. It’s also a very imaginative episode - whilst the idea of an avian-descended species is not a new idea by any means, the writers have clearly put a lot of thought into the mechanics of how such a species would function, and it is on such subtleties that the plot turns. The ‘justice’ subplot is similarly clever, and particularly appealing to someone who works in the legal profession and wrote his undergraduate dissertation on jurisprudence.

Long ago in an English summer…

“Summer” is another intelligent, pensive episode, characterised by a dark and brooding sense of humour. Unlike Mr Cornell’s good lady wife, I’m no great historian, and so I can’t comment on how accurate this episode’s portrayal of Sir Isaac Newton is. What I can say though is that painting the celebrated discover of gravity as an Arianist extremist and pitiless torturer makes for some breathtaking drama, especially with perennial baddie David Warner cast in the role. Davison and Warner spark off each other marvellously in their scenes together, eking every ounce of drama out of some already penetrating dialogue and meaty subject matter.

Long ago in an English autumn…

“Something is added to cricket by the angle of the sun as it stands at four o’clock in early September. The shadows are longer, there is a suggestion of colder days approaching, of circular time; of aspects of our lives dying away, and returning. The other sort of time in called linear time; modern time. Life is hard, and then one dies. If that is something one is liable to do…”

However, each episode of Circular Time is better than its last as the writers move further away from convention, slowly shedding the series’ staples and embracing the sort of gritty character drama that one might find buried in the yellowed pages of an old Virgin paperback. “Autumn” is a case in point, situated in the fifth Doctor’s comic strip stomping ground of Stockbridge but devoid of science fiction trappings of any kind. It’s ostensibly a quaint, heart-warming tale about the Doctor helping a small village’s cricket team to avoid relegation and Nyssa falling in love for the first time. Yet, despite its assuming nature, “Autumn” is by turns moving and powerful. As the Doctor and Nyssa’s bookending soliloquies summarise so beautifully, their enemy here is not an alien, monster or megalomaniac – it is simply time, and all that it brings.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REVIEW OF WINTER

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

The first three episodes of this release (those entitled Spring, Summer and Autumn) take place between the audio drama The Game and the Doctor Who Magazine comic strips set in Stockbridge. The Winter episode takes place much later, during the final moments of the fifth Doctor’s life.

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