Eccleston and Piper have lost none of their magic as Snare transports Doctor Who fans back to 2005 with a recreation of Series One that’s just… fantastic
Big Finish’s Snare opens with an art college student Kevin visiting the council flat where he grew up following his father’s death. He’s with his rather more posh classmate Marlene who, with shades of Pulp’s iconic anthem, wants to see whatever common people see. But what they see is Something Weird, with a capital S and a capital W, growing in the bathroom. A quick escape to the neighours’ brings them face to face with Jackie and Rose’s new Northerner friend in the old leather jacket. “How weird are we talking?” Cue the scream into Murray Gold’s first, and arguably best, take on the Doctor Who theme, full of driving base and rattlesnakes of coiled electronica.
It’s the perfect cold open to an episode that transports you back to 2005 as effectively as any TARDIS.
If previous series of the Ninth Doctor Adventures have given a slightly different take on our hero, here Eccleston makes it hard to believe two full decades have passed
Writer Tim Foley leaves no doubt we’re firmly back in the world of rewinding VHS tapes, mini-Battenbergs, and waffley versatile breakfasts. More than that, he so keenly evokes the style and concerns of that first year of Doctor Who’s revival that even your mind’s eye renders the action in Standard Definition. The very familiar setting of the Powell Estate helps too; a place where every unfinished painting job of the Tylers’ flat and the exact spot the TARDIS has parked itself, sits cosily in every fan’s memory.
It all seems to help Eccleston slip smoothly back into the Doctor’s Timberland boots, too. Blogtor Who has written in reviews of previous Ninth Doctor Adventures about adjusting to the Big Finish Doctor being an alternate take on the character. Yet here Foley and Eccleston combine to give us absolutely the man who grabbed Rose’s hand and urgently whispered “Run!”
The inclusion of Camille Coduri’s Jackie Tyler proves another genius move by the Big Finish team. The dynamic between Jackie, Rose, and the Doctor is as wonderful as ever and awakens the actors’ muscle memory as they banter, bicker, defend, and adore each other. Not that Jackie and the Doctor would ever admit that last one, Eccleston proving at times that, yes, you can hear someone roll their eyes.
There’s an infectious joy to it all, and Eccleston in particular seems to be having a, well, fantastic time.
In classic 00s Who fashion, the character relationships and themes work together beautifully, the aliens and danger grounded in real emotions
As with the best Doctor Who, or certainly the best of Russell T Davies’ first run of Doctor Who, the actual plot and the relationships between our characters are indivisible. Fresh from the events of Father’s Day, Rose is spending some time back home, though she’s still not ready to tell her Mum why. The Doctor understands and, for his part, is actually making an effort to get along with Jackie and ignore his itchy feet.
Throwing into this the character of Kevin, the neighbour who recently lost the father with whom he had a difficult relationship is, as Eccleston says in the extras, “very Russell.” The same could be said of giving Rose the chance to glance in her own rear view mirror for once. On screen, Rose tended to write off the first 19 years of her life as simply a time when “nothing happened,” as she runs headlong towards the new, better way to live that the Doctor represents. But Snare forces her to look back at the person she was as a teenager, and the things she did, through the eyes of who she is now. It’s a universally familiar feeling, heightened in that very Doctor Who way, by all the time travel, monsters, and running up and down corridors.
Those, too, are very on brand. The “evil Narnia” (TM Jackie Tyler) that is the Snare of the title neatly dovetails with the themes of disconnection, regret, and nostalgia. While the animal headed aliens wandering its jungle are classic 00s Who. In fact, the whole episode, from concept to script to performances, feels like it could have gone in front of the BBC Wales cameras way back when, and fit seamlessly.
Thomas Wolfe famously claimed you can never go home again. Big Finish clearly mean to take listeners on the trip of a lifetime trying
The only thing absent is Mickey who, honestly, is hard to miss anyway under the circumstances. Though with this new run showing signs of spending quite a bit of time on the Powell Estate, Blogtor wonders how thin the ‘gone to see a man about a dog’ type excuses will get by the end.
Snare asks an age old question. Can you ever really go home again? While Kevin may find one answer waiting for him among the overgrown, slightly glowing, plants of the Powell Estate, it provides the listeners with another. The new Ninth Doctor Adventures for the Doctor and Rose may not be able to reverse time and make you a kid again. But they can make you feel like one.
Welcome home.
Doctor Who: Snare
Kevin left the Powell Estate a long time ago. He wasn’t going to be trapped there. But all these years later, he’s back and clearing out his dad’s old flat. At least his neighbours, the Tylers, are still here.
But Rose has a strange new man in her life. And this Doctor’s going to show Kevin a world he never knew existed. Unfortunately, something ancient is stirring on the Estate. Perhaps Kevin will be trapped here after all…
Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Snare is now available to purchase from just £9.99 (download to own) or £11.99 (download to own + collector’s edition CD), exclusively here. Please note: the collector’s edition CD is strictly limited to 1,500 copies and will not be repressed.Â
