Doctor Who: The Secrets of Det-Sen

Near the beginning of the Second Doctor TV story The Abominable Snowmen, the Doctor remembers that he has to return a sacred bell to the Det-Sen Monastery following an unseen prior adventure. This is that prior adventure, a prequel that sets up the TV story in the closing minutes.

It's a return to the format of the earliest releases in this particular series, heavy on the narration, provided here by Peter Purves, who also plays the Doctor in addition to Steven. It has the feel of a pure historical, differentiated from one only by the presence of the ‘real' Yeti - which are described as looking nothing at all like what's on the cover and don't have anything like the central role that their robot counterparts do in the TV story.

The story is also unusually slow, with no action and virtually no sense of peril until the halfway point. Indeed, a large chunk of the first 30 minutes is taken up by discussions on Buddhism, tying in with the Third Doctor's era but otherwise providing little of interest. The slow pace does give some time for character development of the companions, which is a plus, but even this doesn't feel very inspired. Steven also gets a love interest, but, naturally enough, it's obvious that that's never going anywhere. When the villains do turn up, they just aren't interesting, or even as threatening as they're supposed to be.

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the story, though, is the presence for the first time in a Big Finish audio of Dodo as a primary character - she has been narrated before, but never properly played by a cast member. Given how little they had to work with, the story brings out her on-screen persona effectively and hopefully, she can be given more to do in future stories, so that we can see rather more of an underused character. As it is, she is crucial to the resolution of this one, but only via a lampshaded-but-never-explained plot point that's a little hard to take seriously. An interesting decision is to have her actor use the Lancashire accent Dodo had in her original appearance, rather than the BBC English she used from then on - it makes her more distinctive, but jars with the few surviving TV stories that feature her.

This feels like something of a missed opportunity. It doesn't quite know whether it's supposed to be a character piece or an action-adventure and ends up doing neither very well. It isn't bad, and has some good elements here and there; the romance may be doomed, but it does at least work, and Dodo is written well. But it's nothing to get very excited about either.