‘METHUSELAH’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

10th century Constantinople and Mephistus with the Fifth Doctor and Peri

This story is by George Mann, and it features the Fifth Doctor and Peri. I found this a fascinating story to check out in prose and on audio. It has the Fifth Doctor and Peri visiting Constantinople in the 10th century where they meet an old man called Mephistus, who seems to be able to see the future.

The audiobook version of this story by Big Finish is read by John Banks. As with ‘Only Connect’ and ‘Tweaker’, John Banks does a good reading of ‘Methuselah’. He does good voices for the Fifth Doctor and Peri, and I especially enjoyed it when he was voicing the old man Mephistus throughout the tale.

‘Methuselah’ was first released to Big Finish subscribers with ‘1963: Fanfare For The Common Men’, along with ‘Tweaker’. It’s currently available to Big Finish subscribers who have ‘Daleks Among Us’ and ‘1963: Fanfare For The Common Men’. I’m glad I have the audio story on one of my MP3 players.

It’s interesting how the Doctor and Peri interacted with Mephistus. It turns out he’s receiving an SSO message from a ship in hyperspace called the Methuselah. Methuselah is also the name of a Biblical person. He’s mentioned in the Book of Genesis and is a part of the genealogy between Adam and Noah.

The Doctor soon goes off to sort out the Methuselah ship that’s trapped in hyperspace whilst Peri has to stay behind to look after Mephistus. Peri finds it difficult to look after Mephistus, especially when he goes into unusual fits once the Doctor cuts off the SSO message that is being sent to him. 😐

Aboard the Methuselah spaceship, the Doctor meets Jennifer Morrow, who is the captain of the ship. There’s also Wilson, one of the crewmembers. It’s nice when bits of history get mentioned in the tale, such as Nostradamus, whom the Seventh Doctor would later meet in ‘The Doomsday Quatrain’. 🙂

There are also the Ottomans mentioned as well as the Sarkovian (though they’re more from the future than part of Earth’s history). The story opens and closes with quotations from a Byzantine poet, which turns out to be Mephistus. It’s very intriguing how that gets unveiled by the story’s end.

‘Methuselah’ rating – 8/10