The Third Doctor Adventures: The Return of Jo Jones

 

The Third Doctor Adventures: The Return of Jo Jones

We've had plenty of adventures with Older Companions returning to the TARDIS in Big Finish - it's sort of a little tradition at this point to get one, once in a while, because with characters like Nyssa having aged and returning to the TARDIS, it adds an additional form of subtext to the actors themselves - Big Finish is not Classic Who, it is not a poorly funded group of beautiful idiots running around a quarry in order to make some absolutely gorgeous nonsense out of a tin can and some bits of string.  Things have changed - so runs the passage of time. Of course, The Return of Jo Jones as a boxset is the most overt this theme has been yet. Older Nyssa and Slightly Older Peri, and the handful of other aged up versions of the companions we love so - well, while a good deal of them sound exactly the same, and so you get the slight problem where Young Nyssa sounds exactly like Old Nyssa, and you forget. The Emerald Tiger is a story that even realized this, and in-universe aged Nyssa back down without an issue. There are some actors that however well performed their performances are - the idea that it is 1972 will strain credulity. 

I'm talking about Katy Manning. Oh my, Katy Manning though! She is such a treasure of a woman that it would be abhorrent to let the mere passage of time stop her from having a goold old run in the TARDIS, and quite right, too. Anyone who has had any form of contact with her (or basic knowledge) will attest to how kind a woman she is. The Return of Jo Jones is a boxset literally themed around HER being back - and while it may feel a little disingenuous to have it proclaimed to be the return of Jo and everything (She was in volume 8!) I think the set does justify it's existence due to that aforementioned passage of time - that it HAS been 50 years for Katy Manning. It is so fitting to reflect on this considering this is a show about Time Travel. Even if this set's existence was a mere conceit to do three more random Jo stories, the story does manage to create a reunion with some very moving material in a way that you wouldn't believe would work until you actually did it. 

Supernature by Matt Fitton

Supernature took quite a bit of time to get under my skin. I think the largest problem was the opening few scenes using Classic Who Third Doctor sound design when it takes place in the modern day and people are talking about podcasts. It's confusing tonally, to hear all these effects in modern day - of course, it works well once Three shows up and we, and Jo, are back in Classic Who themed territory, but the opening felt jarring and I wasn't a fan of it for most of Part One. The story is aggressively typical Classic Who. Three and Jo both show up on the Isle of Wight where a icy scientist villain lady is running experiments on animal life which she promptly loses control over. 

The idea is solid enough, even if it's trying to do something as ambitious as Hitchcock's The Birds in audio format. The story still would nearly lose you in parts as just mindless Classic Who if it wasn't for the sheer level of genius in the character work being delivered here. Jo is dealing with the concept of mortality especially hard ever since she lost Cliff, and this allows for some utterly phenomenal scenes throughout based around this. The whole story is basically a bouncing board for us to get to the point where we get Three and Jo in the TARDIS again and can get them both to admit that they are both lonely, and for them to realize the solution to that. It's just such impeccably moving material, which is sort of even more elevated by the fact that it's Treloar, not Pertwee delivering these lines that he won't always be around. It's melancholy in just the right way that it let's you believe that Three and Jo would choose to travel together again, even if they've both changed a good deal. It's utterly delightful - not to say the least of the tribute to Stewart Bevan.

It does raise the question of how much of a typical run-of-the-mill story can be elevated by it's ending, but the story itself is charming enough, and the ending is so perfectly uplifting that it sort of doesn't matter in the least. Supernature opens the set well as far as I'm concerned. The emotional beats are so powerful, and both of our leads are on such top form that it's hard not to enjoy it when it comes to it's conclusion.

The Conservitors by Felicia Barker

The Conservitors is really, really good, a hike back to the 70s in a much more natural sense than Supernature. Like some of the best sci-fi concepts, it can be summed up in a single simple sentence: The Doctor and Jo arrive on a planet where all forms of Risk are illegal, monitored by a series of conformist drones. Taking influence from both Classic Who and 60s Star Trek, The Conservitors works off of this simple concept to create a really quite interesting morality based play. 

Like I said, it's a very simple but really effective story. and it really benefits from Jo Jones being in it and not Jo Grant - it has a great usage of activism and how Jo has matured into a confident figure who's good at what she does over the years. She's still just as sweet, she's just not as ditzy and naive, and because of that, The Conservitor's story is much more in Jo's comfort zone than I (or the Doctor) was expecting. That being said, Tim Treloar is on top form. You won't believe it's not Butter  Pertwee, but there's also a really strong central performance behind that impression. 

I really like this one for the worldbuilding and strange but understandable logic it operates under. It's really unassuming, and I doubt that it will ever reach someone's top ten audios list, but I absolutely love it for it's interesting classical sci-fi ideas and how well it treats both of our main characters. The set's highlight. 

The Iron Shore by Lizzy Hopley

Based on both this and The Miniaturist, I believe Hopley's greatest strength is slow-burning Classic Who horror stories. Taking influence from The Companion Chronicles, The Iron Shore is deeply atmospheric with some scary but beautiful imagery that really grew on me as the story went on.

Starting with an In Medias Res scene of Doctor Who fucking drowning, the story flashes back, with a bit of helpful and melancholic narration from Jo - to the start of the story, where The Doctor and Jo arrive on a dock where they encounter a man who believes himself to be cursed, as every single one of his friends and family that he has ever grown attached to, has died. There's some really chilling stuff in the opening here, as we slowly begin to realize that on this dead world where even the ground is made entirely of Iron, there is something in the water.

The Iron Shore, like most Who horror stories, is best when considering the unknown, and as such, Part Two, while good, is immeasurably less strong than Part One, simply because of the sheer atmospheric horror content. It's certainly my kind of stuff, doing some deeply uncomfortable character work and strange spooky ideas - that always works much more for me as horror content than some dude with a knife, cheap jumpscares and screaming. Part Two doesn't do that either, mind you, but given the fact that it's part two of two, it does have a fair deal of plot to get through before it's all said and done. Luckily, by taking influence from Hinchcliffe's more gothic side of Who, even when Part Two is less scary, it's still very strong stuff. 

Katy Manning's brief melancholic narration really adds to this, and Tim Treloar is exceptional - The Iron Shore shows Three at his most manipulative, and this really works for the kind of story that The Iron Shore is going for, even I sort of hoped that Jo would call him out on it a bit more. Still, I think it's always good when Three gets some depth and character beats - he is perhaps the most normal of all of the Doctor Who's, a stolid and professional British gentleman, and while he's still unequivocally the Doctor, showing him doing something a bit different is always interesting. I just wish the story didn't rely so much on his apparent death - you aren't tricking anyone, we know the Third Doctor gets better! I suppose the emotional impact of it on Jo is of course, what ultimately matters, and there is the delicious subtext that gets echoed from Supernature of Three and Jo both being aware that they're reaching the end... and so I can see why it was chosen, but it does not do the story any favors.

I really deeply loved this story, and even with how it develops from an atmospheric horror to a more traditional Hinchcliffian one, the story is well plotted, paced, and leaves you ultimately wanting more. Oddly emblematic of the set itself - this has been a very consistent blob of three stories that I could absolutely recommend. While like most Big Finish things these days, it's probably overpriced, it's still an absolutely joyous walk in the park and a very strong boxset indeed. It was utterly surprising how damn good this set was - I almost never am so kind to recent releases. That being said, it is more than earned. Without even trying, The Return of Jo Jones makes several other ranges look like an exercise in futility.