‘TIMEJACKED!’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Adventures in Space and Time with the Twelfth Doctor and Kiera
It’s time to check out some more ‘Doctor Chronicles’ in ‘Doctor Who’ by Big Finish. 🙂
In case you missed my reviews on ‘The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, Volume Two’, Big Finish decided to change the format of ‘The Doctor Chronicles’ range by making them full-cast audio dramas instead of audiobook readings, which is what they were in the first four ‘Doctor Chronicles’ box sets.
I prefer the full-cast audio drama format as opposed to the audiobook readings for the first ‘Doctor Who’ box sets of ‘The Ninth Doctor Chronicles’, ‘The Tenth Doctor Chronicles’, ‘The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles’ and ‘The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles’. Although, they’re still very good box sets. 🙂
When Big Finish did Volume Two of ‘The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles’, it was four stories featuring the Eleventh Doctor between ‘The Wedding of River Song’ and ‘The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe’. For the second ‘Twelfth Doctor Chronicles’ box set, a very different thing was done here.
Sadly, there’s no Clara, Bill or Nardole travelling with the Twelfth Doctor in ‘Timejacked!’, but he does get to travel with someone new. This happens to be a Time Agent called Kiera Sanstrom, played by Bhavnisha Parmar, who is well-known for playing Sonya Khan, Yaz’s sister in ‘Doctor Who’ with Jodie Whittaker.
Kiera Sanstrom isn’t what you’d call a proper travelling companion of the Twelfth Doctor in this set of audio adventures. She threatens the Doctor at gunpoint and hijacks the TARDIS (or rather, ‘timejacks’ the TARDIS – Cute 😀 ), so that she can be taken from Earth to get to the planet Calandra.
‘Timejacked!’ is unique in being a three-part audio story, with the first episode called ‘Flight to Calandra’ by Matt Fitton and the second and third episodes called ‘Split Second’ and ‘The Weight of History’ by Lou Morgan. All three episodes of the ‘Timejacked!’ story are directed by Helen Goldwyn.
Like ‘The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, Volume Two’, I decided to purchase ‘Timejacked!’ as a download from Big Finish rather than as an audio CD box set. This is going to be the same for the rest of ‘The Doctor Chronicles’ range of Big Finish audios when I get around to checking them out to review.
It should also be noted that ‘Timejacked!’ takes place before Series 10 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series – presumably between ‘The Return of Doctor Mysterio’ and ‘The Pilot’. This is due to the fact that the Twelfth Doctor is lecturing at St. Luke’s University in Bristol during his 70-year period on Earth. 🙂
Also, Nardole has been disabled by Kiera when the Doctor tried calling for him at the beginning of the three-part story. Jacob Dudman returns to play the Twelfth Doctor in ‘Timejacked!’, having played the character in the first ‘Twelfth Doctor Chronicles’ box set and in the Short Trip audio stories.
It was fun to hear Jacob Dudman and Bhavnisha Parmar together in this ‘Doctor Who’ collection of audios where they play the Twelfth Doctor and Kiera. In ‘Timejacked’, the Twelfth Doctor must fix several mistakes that Kiera made when she was on Calandra before she ended up on the planet Earth. 😐
Will ‘Timejacked!’ prove to be a better set of Big Finish audios than the first five ‘Doctor Chronicles’ box sets where the episodes are standalone? Will the full-cast audio drama approach and this being a three-part story help to make ‘The Doctor Chronicles’ worthwhile? That is what I hope I will find out.
Before we begin talking about each of the three episodes of ‘Timejacked!’ in turn, I want to make a special mention about the box set cover art by Caroline Tankersley. Normally, I wouldn’t talk about this, but ‘Timejacked!’ was Caroline Tankersley’s first commission by Big Finish to do some cover art.
Beforehand, Carrie did the cover art for some of the Divergent Wordsmiths anthologies, including ‘Genesis of Terror’ and ‘Unbound Imagining, Volume 2’, which I’ve contributed stories to. Since ‘Timejacked!’, Carrie has done plenty more cover arts for Big Finish audios with a variety of Doctors.
This includes artwork for ‘The Ninth Doctor Adventures’ like ‘Back to Earth’ and ‘Into the Stars’, some more ‘Doctor Chronicles’ box sets with the Eleventh Doctor, and spin-offs like the ‘Rose Tyler’ series and ‘The Lone Centurion’ series. Her artwork, especially for ‘Timejacked!’, is pretty impressive.
I’m pleased that Carrie has done well for herself in providing the cover art for many ‘Doctor Who’ audio box sets by Big Finish. It’s an incredible achievement. Big Finish must be proud to have Carrie on board. I’m sure the Divergent Wordsmiths were very proud to have her aboard for their anthologies.
Wolfie:
As well as being a long-time digital artist for the Divergent Wordsmiths, Carrie has also contributed a marvellous ‘Unbound’ story with us, the cover to the five-part novel – ‘Eden by Annihilation’ – and remained a constant source of indefatigable support for locating her fellow artists. Her work will feature again in an upcoming 2024 release from the Divergent Wordsmiths. I can’t say much for now, but it’s one of our most striking covers yet. We’re proud and delighted that Carrie was able to cross the threshold to professionally-licenced work. It was a privilege to see one of our Wordsmiths achieve their dream.
Thanks, Wolfie. (to audience) Now let’s check out the ‘Timejacked!’ episodes themselves. 🙂
1. ‘FLIGHT TO CALANDRA’
‘Flight to Calandra’ by Matt Fitton is ‘Part One’ of the ‘Timejacked!’ story. Matt Fitton is no stranger to writing epics. Unsurprisingly, he and producer Alfie Shaw are script editors on ‘Timejacked!’ itself.
The first episode opens with the Twelfth Doctor playing his electric guitar in his study, wanting a peaceful afternoon. Apparently, Doctor Twelve is playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on the guitar.
I must say, listening to Jacob Dudman as the Twelfth Doctor is mesmerising. For the story’s majority, you wouldn’t think it was Jacob Dudman. He puts on the voice of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor effortlessly.
You could easily visualise it being Peter Capaldi’s Doctor interacting with Bhav Parmar as Kiera as well as other characters when he’s in his study; when he’s in the TARDIS; and when he’s on Calandra.
I know Jacob, like Jon Culshaw, can do very good impressions of Doctors in ‘Doctor Who’, but it’s amazing he’s able to project Peter Capaldi’s Scottish tones when hearing him in these audio stores. 🙂
The Doctor’s peaceful afternoon gets interrupted when Kiera breaks into his study and, at gunpoint, she forces him to take her to Calandra. The Doctor is reluctant, but he does agree to her demands. 😐
Thankfully, the Doctor doesn’t get tied up in his TARDIS and he goes with Kiera to find out what’s happening on Calandra. The Doctor learns Kiera has made a mistake when she was last on Calandra.
They find the population being put to sleep by street-sweeping robots called Sweepers, I think. The Sweepers take away about ten hours of the victims’ time streams. Goodness, that sounds so painful.
I found it funny when the Twelfth Doctor kept calling the robots ‘Sweep, Sooty and Soo’. Having watched some ‘Sooty’ episodes on ITVX recently, it was very easy to appreciate the joke in the story.
Matt Fitton manages the capture the grumpiness of the Twelfth Doctor well, especially through the dialogue when spoken by Jacob Dudman. There’s a lot of sarcasm in the Twelfth Doctor’s dialogue. 🙂
The Doctor and Kiera meet up with two others – Charlie Hamblett as Science Leader Vetch and Hannah Genesius as Security Leader Milla. Recognising Kiera from her previous visit, they arrest her.
They arrest the Doctor too, but they let him go lightly when he offers to help the people of Calandra. The Doctor is taken with Vetch to help out, whilst a bitter Milla takes Kiera away to be put in a cell. 😐
It turns out Kiera’s role as a Time Agent was to observe the Calandran civilisation. She became bored and soon dissembled her vortex manipulator to bypass the limits paced upon it by the Time Agency.
To cut a long story short, Kiera tried to help the Science Bureau so she could repair her vortex manipulator, resulting in the creation of duplicates on Calandra once someone used the transmat system.
The duplicates ended up being called ‘the Confused’, especially since their life-force is being drained away. And there happen to be ‘confused’ duplicates of Vetch and Milla on the planet Calandra itself.
Instead of putting Kiera in a prison cell, Milla attempts to kill her instead. Yeah, it turns out Milla is the villain of this episode. Didn’t see that coming. 😀 There’s also a gunfight between Kiera and Milla.
Kiera manages to escape, since she’s a fast gunslinger (Of course, she is) and she reunites with the Twelfth Doctor and Vetch. The Doctor, Kiera and Vetch must stop Milla once she’s causing trouble. 😐
The relationship between the Doctor and Kiera isn’t an easy-going one. Aside from being threatened at gunpoint, the Doctor condemns Kiera for her attempts to interfere with the history of Calandra.
Kiera is adamant and tries to justify herself, but he’s having none of it. It’s clear the Doctor doesn’t like Kiera very much in this episode. I wonder if that will change as the ‘Timejacked’ story progesses. 😀
After stopping Milla and saying goodbye to Vetch, the Doctor tries to take Kiera back to the Time Agency in the TARDIS. Kiera tells the Doctor about a rogue Time Agent causing damage to history. 😐
Soon, the Doctor and Kiera end up back in Bristol on Earth. They find St. Luke’s University and the rest of Bristol city are gone. The Doctor is convinced Kiera is responsible for this change to history….
‘Flight to Calandra’ rating – 8/10
2. ‘SPLIT SECOND’
The second episode of ‘Timejacked!’ is called ‘Split Second’ by Lou Morgan. I believe this is the first time Lou Morgan has written a ‘Doctor Who’ story for Big Finish compared to writing for spin-offs. 🙂
I first came across Lou Morgan when she wrote two episodes of ‘The War Master’ story ‘Killing Time’, including ‘A Quiet Night In’ with Katy Manning as Jo Jones and ‘The Orphan‘ with Sarah Sutton as Nyssa.
In ‘Split Second’, following on from the end of ‘Flight to Calandra’, the Twelfth Doctor and Kiera find that a massive wall has been built around Bristol. They both use the psychic paper to enter the gate.
It turns out that the city has been inhabited by both humans and aliens. The technology includes a Calandran transit station. It’s a combination of the primitive and futuristic, which is very troubling. 😐
Having seen what’s in Bristol, the Doctor and Kiera return to the TARDIS. The Doctor soon confirms that Kiera’s jump through the time vortex and her actions on Calandra have caused a huge fracture.
The fracture itself is compressing the histories of the planet Calandra and the planet Earth. Detecting anomalies connected to the facture, the Doctor and Kiera must seal the splits to save the universe. 😐
Most of this episode is a two-hander between Jacob Dudman as the Twelfth Doctor and Bhav Parmar as Kiera. It was engaging to hear these two together and how their relationship developed. 🙂
Twelve gradually softens to Kiera, especially when she admits the errors of her actions on both Calandra and Earth. He’s still sarcastic quite a lot of the time, but he grows to appreciate Kiera more.
Kiera herself has become more interesting and helpful to the Doctor, especially when they visit various places and times to seal the splits in time. I do like how her character progresses in the story.
The places that the Doctor and Kiera visit to seal the splits in time include the Battle of Crécy in 1346. They use temporal shock grenades that must be placed correctly in the splits before they are sealed.
After that, the Doctor and Kiera close off splits in the Victoria and Albert Intergalactic Spaceport in Old Dundee, a 1950s Arctic research station, pre-historic Ethopia and an American Wild West saloon.
I like how this episode has the Doctor and Kiera going off to different places and times to seal the splits. It allows for more variety in terms of how a space-and-time travel story can be told enjoyably.
They also visit a place called Newground, where they’re given a tour of the place by Harley Viveash as Pennou. Harley Viveash has guest starred in two episodes of ‘The War Master’ story ‘Killing Time’.
The first and fourth episodes, actually. He’s also been in ‘Madquake’ with Nyssa, Tegan and Marc. Apparently, the place Newground has several exhibits of anachronistic artefacts and materials there.
This includes a sculpture that depicts the destruction of Newground city by a waterspout. The waterspout soon comes too early ( 😮 ) and the Doctor and Kiera must seal the split in time from it. 😐
Once done, the duo heads off to visit Bath in 1830. This put me in mind of my Fifth Doctor story that takes place in Bath called ‘The Austen Code’. I also recall the Big Finish audio story called ‘The Behemoth’.
The Doctor and Kiera briefly encounter Holly Jackson Walters as Havilland. Holly Jackson Walters has voiced several characters for Big Finish Productions, including one of the ‘Lady Christina’ episodes. 🙂
After sealing the split in Bath, the Doctor gives Kiera her vortex manipulator so that she can close the final split, which is twice as unstable as the others. Thankfully, she succeeds with sealing up the split.
Whilst sealing it up, Kiera informs the Doctor that she believes she saw someone moving in the split. The Doctor claims that it can’t be the case, but Kiera is very insistent upon her return to the TARDIS.
Once all the splits are sealed, the Doctor and Kiera return to Calandra in order to look for Vetch. They’re surprised to find that nobody by that name works there. 😐 Kiera is quite weak by this stage.
Returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor and Kiera are greeted by…Kiera. Yes, this happens to be another version of Kiera, which really has the Doctor and Kiera surprised once they meet her in the TARDIS….
‘Split Second’ rating – 8/10
3. ‘THE WEIGHT OF HISTORY’
The third and final episode of ‘Timejacked!’ is ‘The Weight of History’ by Lou Morgan. I found this to be a satisfying conclusion to the ‘Timejacked!’ story, featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Kiera as a duo.
The episode follows on from the end of ‘Split Second’ where the Doctor now has two Kieras in his TARDIS. He names them ‘Kiera 1’ (the one who has travelled with him) and ‘Kiera 2’ (the new Kiera).
I like how Bhav Parmar has distinguished the voices of the two Kieras – with Kiera 1 being the tired and weary one whilst Kiera 2 is the livelier one. You’ll have to listen closely to hear how they both differ.
Kiera 2 claims to be from the future, but as it turns out, that isn’t really the case. In actual fact, Kiera 2 happens to be a ‘confused’ version from the original – Kiera 1. The Doctor worked that out himself.
Earlier, the Doctor tells the two Kieras not to touch each other – Blinovitch Limitation Effect and all that. Kiera 1 stays behind in the TARDIS whilst the Doctor and Kiera 2 go off and explore Calandra’s city.
The Doctor and Kiera 2 find that all the roads lead to a cube. They’re warned away from the cube by a guard, who soon informs the Great Founder. Oh no! The Founders of the Dominion are in this story! 😀
No, it’s not anything ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’-related in this. 😀 The Great Founder happens to be Holly Jackson Walters as Havilland, ‘the woman with the hat’ that the Doctor met in Bath 1813. 😮
Yes, it turns out Havilland is the rogue Time Agent and the Time Agency’s most wanted that Kiera mentioned in ‘Flight to Calandra’. 😐 Kiera 2 recognises Havilland once she and the Doctor meet her. 🙂
Compared to her brief appearance in ‘Split Second’, Havilland happens to be unhinged. Holly Jackson Walters take the opportunity to go full-on over-the-top when she’s playing the villain in this episode.
When the Doctor and Kiera 2 sneak into the cube, they meet up with George Naylor as Attis, who is a cleaner. George Naylor has done other Big Finish audios that feature the Sixth and Ninth Doctors. 🙂
The Doctor and Kiera 2 are led to Havilland by Attis, and they’re soon arrested. The TARDIS is also confiscated. It’s then that Kiera 1 exits from the TARDIS and she soon frees the Doctor, Kiera 2 and Attis.
Heading back to the throne room, the Doctor, the two Kieras and Attis find the walls closing in on them. Attis self-sacrifices himself to save one of the Kieras before everyone else enters the TARDIS.
It’s inside the TARDIS that the Doctor and the two Kieras deduce that Havilland jumped into the fracture in Bath. She was who Kiera thought she saw when sealing up the final split in ‘Split Second’.
Since then, Havilland has been harnessing the facture’s energy to rearrange reality. Unlike Kiera who has admitted her errors, Havilland doesn’t care about the lives she kills because of what she’s done.
It’s at this point that the Doctor realises Kiera 2 isn’t from the future when she and Kiera 1 accidentally touch each other. The Doctor sends Kiera 1 to the TARDIS library, and he talks to Kiera 2.
Understanding what Kiera 2 truly is in being a Confused, the Doctor soon hears Havilland knocking on the TARDIS door to summon him. The Doctor goes to talk to her whilst the Kieras have work to do.
What the Kieras end up doing is cutting off Havilland from the fracture by using a temporal isolation field. Time resets once the facture closes. Calandra is restored and Havilland is forced back to 1813.
The Doctor and one of the Kieras briefly reunite with Charlie Hamblett as Vetch before saying goodbye to him. Kiera 2 is absorbed back into Kiera 1, after an emotional farewell between them.
Once that’s done, the Doctor takes the original and restored Kiera back to the Time Agency to report on Havilland’s whereabouts in 1813. I like how the Doctor and Kiera part company on good terms. 🙂
Kiera also apologises for disassembling Nardole. The Doctor hopes to reassemble him on his return to Bristol on Earth. He suggests he might come back to check on Keira at some point, which she likes.
The episode ends with Kiera finding Havilland in 1813 and she arrests her for her crimes. Havilland declared revenge on the Doctor once she was sent back. I wonder if she will follow through on that. 😐
‘The Weight of History’ rating – 8/10
Jacob Dudman and Bhavnisha Parmar in ‘Timejacked!’.
The CD extras are as follows. At the end of each of the three episodes of ‘Timejacked!’, there are behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew, including Jacob Dudman, Bhavnisha Parmar, Holly Jackson Walters, Charlie Hamblett, Hannah Genesius, writer Lou Morgan and producer/script editor Alfie Shaw. I’m surprised writer/script editor Matt Fitton and director Helen Goldwyn weren’t interviewed. There’s also a music suite for ‘Timejacked!’ by Ioan Morris to enjoy.
I greatly enjoyed checking out ‘Timejacked!’ with the Twelfth Doctor and Kiera. It’s a very good three-part story in ‘The Doctor Chronicles’ and it works well as the second volume in ‘The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles’. Dare I say it, I found ‘Timejacked!’ a better story than ‘The Monks Trilogy’ on TV.
This is also a Big Finish audio collection that matches well to ‘Ravagers’ with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor compared to the later ‘Ninth Doctor Adventures’ anthologies. From hearing this story alone, it seems that this might be Kiera Sandstrom’s only entry in the ‘Doctor Who’ universe. 😐
But who knows? Maybe the Twelfth Doctor and Kiera will reunite in a future box set. Who knows what Volume Three of ‘The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles’ will be like? I’ve enjoyed Bhavnisha Parmar as Kiera and Jacob Dudman continues to impress me, especially with playing the Twelfth Doctor on audio.
‘Timejacked!’ rating – 8/10
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