MRB 10: The Five Companions (Eddie Robson)

Yeah, I agree. Really neat. It's one of those ideas that, a fair while ago, tended to get the tutting expression of: "Oh, no, no, no, can't be done..." And yet... It's kind of marvellous, isn't it? A way to sort of append the contributions of longterm Big Finish companions to The Five Doctors in their own celebration. With Sontarans. And Daleks. In fact, it may have paved the way for the Early Adventures later because a lot of these characters -- Ian, Sara, Steven and Polly -- weren't seen outside of the Companion Chronicles range. I remember it was a little surreal, at first, adjusting to the lack of narration, but that quickly passed.

The character development for all the Doctor's companions here... I don't think I've listened to this in years, but I still remember the Doctor's conversation with Polly ("You didn't think we would last, did you?" she asks him of Ben). There's a nice bit of deferred characterisation in how he mentions he was proud of her for standing up to the Cybermen's expeditionary leader at Snowcap. Ian also had a quite frankly brilliant idea to overpower (or underpower, rather) a Dalek that relied on brain over brawn.

It's an easy release to overlook as a subscriber special, but Eddie Robson does this wonderful job of bringing that feeling from The Five Doctors back. "Look how far we've come," it says.