Time in Office

 

Time In Office by Eddie Robson

No one aware of Time In Office's existence will be surprised to learn that it is rad as hell. It's one of the few modern Big Finish monthly plays with a truly incredible reputation - it's closest relative I can think of may be Static, although the stories have nothing in common aside from critical acclaim. As a matter of fact, Time In Office is a deliberate skew of Doctor Who in general, kind of telling Doctor Who to stop for a bit while it reinvents the entirety of it into a sci-fi political sit-com. Yeah, Time in Office is legitimately the closest you'll get to "Hi Doctor I'm Home" in Doctor Who. It's one of the few stories where I actually feel safe in saying there's actually nothing else like it. From digs at the size of the capital dome since the Time Lords spent a few millennia debating what design it could be, to one of the few mentions of an actual monster only being a Raston Robot's Head stuck on Leela's Kitchen Wall, Gallifrey, while not boring to the audience, is sedate. It's funny, and that's the point of it - especially since comedy has always been one of Robson's best skills ever since he came up with lines like "I will use my special time lord powers of looking out the window." back in Memory Lane. Peter Davison slots into this story magnificently (like I said, this story is different and I don't think anyone else could play the Doctor here, it's uniquely tailored to Five) his droll wit and subtle exasperation really adding a tinge of brilliance to the entire endeavor. Davison is perfectly suited to this - hell, it goes back to his sitcom roots, and the story is at it's funniest when we deal with Five and his difficulty with bureaucracy. A story highlight is when a Time Lord says that they should do something about the plot before something happens, and Five replies, "oh no, we wouldn't want anything to happen, would we? that would be terrible." Not to say Davison isn't the only hard-hitter in the script. Tegan gets to utter the immortal line "But I didn't MEAN to commit genocide!" and Leela is Leela and as awesome as she always is and I would really really like a lot more releases with Five, Tegan and Leela. They fit together like a glove - I'm sorry to Nyssa and Turlough but neither of them have this brilliant level of chemistry as Tegan, Five and Leela do. The story is carried effortlessly by these brilliant figures. Reviewing comedy is difficult because you don't want to ruin all the jokes for anyone who wants to do the story, and a lot of the brilliance behind Time in Office is the jokes, true. There's wonderful gags like a planet made of Toothpaste, sure, but saying Time in Office is only good as a comedy is sort of like saying Leonardo Da Vinci was only good as a painter. The central concept of the Doctor actually serving as president of Gallifrey is genius. Making it almost an mini-season like anthology of a time where Doctor Who decided to be a sitcom is equally smart. The thing is, and this is the thing that I can't quantify about the story or anything, is that Time in Office is inexplicably just as engrossing when it's not being funny as it is when it is. I keep saying it's a sitcom or a comedy but the story is smart and knows when to put out jokes, and when to just do it's plot. It's a level of smartness that even the best comedies don't master - when and when not to be funny. If you aren't serious or at least not laying a contrast at least some of the time, the humor loses it's merit. Time in Office should be by no means as good as it is - being so inexplicably brilliant all the time even when it's not being funny is something that I can't describe. But the thing is, well, it is. Time in Office is just like that. It's just how it is. 10/10