Doctor Who: The Pursuit of History

This is the first half of a story concluded in Casualties of Time. I am reviewing both parts here.

This is a sequel to the earlier two-part audio stories The Sands of Life/War Against the Laan and The Dalek Contract/The Final Phase. The Laan make only a few brief appearances here, but the main villain does return, resolving some significant dangling plot threads from the earlier parts of the trilogy. It's a tale with plenty of time travel; the Doctor pursues the villain through four different time periods, while Romana is trapped in a fifth one, the two only interacting significantly in the final 30-minute segment.

As with its first predecessor, the story also deals with some moral dilemmas, with the villain's scheme having been responsible for some good along the way - which might be undone if he is stopped. Splitting up the Doctor and Romana allows the latter to take on the former's role in her scenes, show-casing her as his equal in a way that few other companions of the era were. The story also moves along at a decent pace, feeling shorter than its 2-hour length when both parts are listened to back-to-back.

There are some weaknesses, however. The cliffhanger at the end of the first half makes a later dramatic revelation rather obvious well in advance, although it's quite a good use of the character in question. The ending is also rather pat, introducing a sudden unexpected reversal of fortunes for no particular reason and then hand-waving it away again... yes, the hand-waving has been foreshadowed, but it doesn't make a lot of sense. Possibly, there's more explanation of this to come in later releases, since part of it is left open.

This is a decent, if not stunning, story with some good use of time travel and fun incidental aliens. It is, however, certainly not standalone, and, indeed, also has connections back to some stories of the classic TV series. It's the end of its “season”, but, fortunately, Romana is back in the next one, too...