Review by Philip Scholes

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Big Finish first got the licence to produce stories set in the Time War nearly ten years ago, and boy, have they made the most of it. First, there’s the War Doctor series, which starred John Hurt as the War Doctor – the same grumpy bearded man we saw in The Day of the Doctor – and explored the horrific choices he had to make during the Time War. This series was given a semi-reboot in 2021 as The War Doctor Begins, starring Jonathon Carley as a younger version of Hurt’s Doctor (i.e. the young Doctor we saw at the end of The Night of the Doctor, rather than the old Doctor we saw in The Day of the Doctor).

In 2017, Gallifrey: Time War and The Eighth Doctor: The Time War entered the fray, exploring the Time War from a slightly more political angle in the former’s case, and exploring the Eighth Doctor’s struggle to keep on being the Doctor in the middle of a horrific war in the latter’s. Then add to the mix: Susan’s War, The War Master, The War Doctor Rises, Gallifrey: War Room, A Genius For War (from the Once and Future miniseries), The Sontaran Ordeal and Day of the Vashta Nerada (from the Classic Doctors, New Monsters boxsets), Shadow of the Daleks and also The First Doctor: Volume Two (a Companion Chronicles boxset from 2017 which revolves around the Time War-era Daleks attempting to disrupt the First Doctor’s timeline)…

What I’m trying to say is that the chances of finding new angles to explore the Time War are getting ever slimmer. This is partly why I loved 2023’s Cass, which acted as a soft reboot of the Eighth Doctor’s Time War-era adventures. Time War: Uncharted – Reflections continues on from that boxset, with four-ish new adventures for the Eighth Doctor, Cass and Alex. (The reason why I say “four-ish” will become clear later.)

Katharine Armitage’s opener, Nowhere, Never, takes place a short while after the ending of Cass, or maybe it doesn’t. It’s hard to tell, given how Armitage plays around with time so skilfully in her script. Cass finds herself alone in a futuristic household, with only a talking robot fridge and a friendly neighbour for company, although it’s actually the 1940s, although it’s not quite that either. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Alex are in a field hospital where time is out of joint and where Alex is wheelchair-bound in one area, yet able to walk in another. Soon all three are fighting to escape, but the price of freedom may be too high…

After more than a year, it’s a joy to hear this TARDIS team again. Emma Campbell-Jones brings out the more vulnerable sides of Cass wonderfully, showing us how out of place Cass is in a suburban environment. The two McGanns are very strong together too, yet it’s Hattie Morahan who steals the show as Hieronyma Friend (previously played by Jaye Griffiths in Cass). When an actor is closely associated with a particular role, it might be hard for them to make any other roles they play different and distinct. This isn’t the case with Morahan’s iteration of Hieronyma. She is, dare I say it, a character I’d like to hear Morahan play more often, given how it feels so compelling to hear her silky smooth creepiness. Big Finish seem to be setting up a mystery involving how Hieronyma Friend can wear the faces of the Doctor’s old companions (given how she wears the face of Audacity Montague in Cass and how she wears the faces of Helen Sinclair and C’rizz in this boxset). This has to be one of the most unique mysteries in Big Finish’s Doctor Who range and I’m certainly intrigued to find out the solution…

I also loved the weirdness of this story and how it never quite seems to be set in one place or time. One minute it’s in the 1940s, the next we’re hearing Helen Goldwyn play a sassy robot fridge (and I’m certain the idea of a ‘sassy robot fridge’ would be the last thing you’d think of as a ‘Time War’ thing). This weirdness draws the listener in, making us feel the temporal distortions of the war in a way few Time War stories have managed to achieve thus far. David Roocroft’s cinematic sound design aids this, making you physically feel the memories draining away from the Doctor and making the various temporal bomb blasts all the more tangible. Nowhere, Never is a distinctly weird adventure, redefining the idea of a Time War story and setting up the rest of the boxset to come.

So, after Nowhere, Never ends on a slightly abrupt cliffhanger, we plunge into Tim Foley’s The Road Untravelled. And “plunge” seems to be a very appropriate word to use, given how The Road Untravelled takes place seconds after Nowhere, Never. The Doctor, Cass and Alex have escaped Hieronyma Friend’s prison and have arrived on a mysterious Time Lord galleon in the Void. There are alternate versions of the galleon outside, but inside the ship there are strange roots growing everywhere, unusual fruits that make you see your alternate counterparts and an enigmatic time-sensitive called Sinsa who seems to know more than she’s letting on…

It’s fair to say that The Road Untravelled is an intriguing tale. On the down side, there is a fair amount of technobabble about alternate universes and the constant mentioning of “reflections” does get irritating after a bit. Also, it’s annoying how the threat of colliding into alternate versions of the galleon the Doctor and his friends are on is quickly thrown to the side, despite how ominously that threat is set up early into the story. However, where this story triumphs is how Foley both explores and plays around with the Doctor and Alex’s relationship. It’s clear that they’ve spent some time together and that time is explored in this story. And then, in a masterstroke, Alex discovers the horrifying truth about who he is and that the Doctor’s been lying to him all this time. The moment of confrontation between the Doctor and Alex soon arrives and is made all the more honest by the genuine familial chemistry between the two McGanns. And so the once-strong bond between the Doctor and Alex starts to decay, which should set up some intriguing possibilities in future stories.

Hieronyma is still in this story, but is now in the new form of “Captain Hieronyma Friend” and played by Conrad Westmaas. It is a little jarring to go from Morahan to Westmaas without any explanation for the transformation, yet that feels somewhat appropriate for a Time War release. While Morahan’s iteration of Hieronyma was a silky smooth purring psychopath, Westmaas makes the Captain a sneering, almost punchable character, egging on the chaos and desperate to see the Doctor and Alex’s bond break. This is enjoyable, yet it does feel like a step back from Morahan’s portrayal of Friend in Nowhere, Never.

And this is the point where I address why I think this boxset contains “four-ish” adventures for the Doctor, Cass and Alex. The Road Untravelled and Borrow or Rob (the fourth story in this boxset) are a two-part story, broken up by James Moran’s Cass-cade. Whether that makes Borrow or Rob a sequel to The Road Untravelled or merely the concluding part of the story is anyone’s guess, but this has to be the first time a Doctor Who narrative has been presented like this in any media (as far as I know). With that in mind, let’s address James Moran’s Cass-cade. Cass is falling through the multiverse, colliding with other versions of the Doctor and Alex. She has to fight for her survival and to help her friends remember who she is…

After the intense focus on Alex in The Road Untravelled, it’s nice to see the focus shift to Cass. This story may, on the surface, sound to some like fifty minutes of Cass meeting all the Doctor and Alex variants out there in the multiverse, but Moran’s script is so much more than this. At first, we see a few alternate iterations of the Doctor and Alex, but we soon zone in on one particular environment. This makes Cass’s fight for survival much more personal and contained, plus it allows Cass to dominate the story. That’s not to say that the Doctor and Alex have nothing to do – they have plenty of fun moments. But from asking a robot waiter for “chip chips” to cleverly remembering the future in order to save the day, Emma Campbell-Jones makes Cass a far more memorable companion than previous stories have done.

The only flaw that has is that it is quite easy to lose track of the subplot. Once again, there’s a lot of technobabble in this script and, combined with the time-jumping and multiverse-jumping, you do start to forget about who’s who and what’s happening where. The main villain of this story is a character who doesn’t appear for much of the story, making the revelation that they’re a villain fall a little flat. But this is a big story and, like the other stories within this set, quite experimental, so you can’t expect perfection from a story as wild and as mad as this.

Tim Foley’s, erm, finale (?) Borrow or Rob picks up moments from the end of The Road Untravelled. This does mean that listeners may find it hard to understand this story, after the complex Cass-Cade, but this story is a true surprise. The Doctor, Alex and Friend are still stuck on the galleon, struggling to escape the Void. There are intruders breaking in, but there’s a bigger problem: why have Alex’s eyes changed colour?

This is a proper finale to this boxset, connecting to everything that’s come before. Elements of Nowhere, Never return in a meaningful way and, after all the reveals in The Road Untravelled, we see Alex grow away from the Doctor. One pivotal moment sees a key scene from the classic series echoed, albeit in a way that doesn’t feel unnecessary or forced. What especially works in this story is how the Doctor’s a bit slow to work out the truth, which is always an effective trick. The Doctor, at first, thinks that the “intruders” outside are Time Lords or Daleks, but he’s wrong on both counts (although maybe a bit less on the first count – you’ll have to listen to this story though to understand what I mean by that). Everything leads to a dramatic conclusion, which sets up multiple threads for whatever comes next (and I do hope there’ll be a next – this set’s called Uncharted 1, which suggests this is the first instalment of the Uncharted saga, hopefully…)

Overall, I think this is a boxset for a certain type of Big Finish listener. This adds a Christopher Nolan-esque edge to the Time War, playing around with time rather than doing endless stories about battlefields and Daleks. If you like your Big Finish simple and understandable, you should probably give this a miss. But, if you’re an advanced listener, one who likes the weird and the strange and the timey-wimey Doctor Who adventures, this boxset is perfect for you. Whatever future lies ahead for the Doctor, Cass and Alex, whenever the next Uncharted boxset comes out, I’m eagerly waiting to see how it all plays out.

Reflections is available on CD or as a download from http://www.bigfinish.com