Doctor Who: The Empty House by Simon Guerrier (CD review).
The Doctor arrives with the Ponds on Earth in the middle of a storm. While Rory returns to the TARDIS for an umbrella for his beloved wife, the Doctor and Amy try to discern the owners of a spaceship recently crashed in a nearby muddy field.
One of the impressive things about the Doctor is the power of his olfactory senses and despite his chin being a feature in a recent TV episode, more might be said about his incredible nose. He does seem to use his nose quite a lot and could probably duel with Rory’s.
Inevitably, the companions are split up and this gives the opportunity to develop a storyline that does not involve Rory’s nose or indeed much use of Rory at all.
I’m not sure what the brief was here but the actual plot seems drawn out for an hour and I became impatient with its progress and the fact the Doctor seems to take an age to work things out. It does build nicely at the end, but getting there seemed to take too long. There is a creditable sense of dilemma at the conclusion which mostly manages to overcome the knowledge that none of the characters can be broken in this outing.
Read again by Raquel Cassidy, this is written by Simon Guerrier and, despite that team, I was disappointed by this. All credit to the effort and maybe I’ve been subjected to too much of the Eleventh Doctor to get a perspective. The recent half-series has polarised fans like me and I long to get back to adventures about the Doctor out in the universe.
Sue Davies
(pub: Audio Go/BBC. 1 CD 68 minute story. Price: CD: £ 7.99 (UK), Download: £ 6.11 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-40846-882-1)
reader: Raquel Cassidy
check out website: www.audiogo.co.uk
