Released April 2021

SOME SPOILERS FOLLOW

With time itself at stake and all signs pointing to George Sheldrake and the Gallifreyan technology at the heart of his for-hire time travel services nearing launch, the Doctor, Anya, and Mark must split up to find a way to rewrite history in John Dorney’s ‘The Wrong Woman.’ But with even the Doctor an unknown quantity and a foe that has every advantage in staying one step ahead, the future may never be the same again.

‘Buying Time’ ended with an immense cliffhanger that challenged all established preconceptions, and ‘The Wrong Woman’ wastes little time in establishing the new dynamic among Anya Kingdom, Mark Seven, and Gemma Whealan’s titular woman. Anya and Mark had just about come to terms with crossing paths with the Tenth Doctor after previously interacting with the Fourth, and Jane Slavin and Joe Sims give another strong performance as they must again adapt to accept and discover just who this newest mysterious figure who so effortlessly seems to assume control with a boundless knowledge and energy is. Whealan is immensely charismatic in her role, and her self-assured approach to Sheldrake’s security systems that takes a slightly different approach than the Doctor’s previously certainly lends credence to her confidence and desire to guide events and those around her as the Doctor stresses that history can still be put back on its proper course.

Of course, the Doctor’s discovery that this chronoclasm has delivered him to a time before the Time War was even a thought is immense and immediately opens the door to an infinity of potential storylines and threats while providing a means for closing the mystery of just who brought him to Mira in the first place. The Daleks are again absent from affairs until they arrive in response to a temporal anomaly to set up this set’s finale, but it’s another callback to “The Daleks’ Master Plan” that rightfully steals centre stage as the truth behind the impending end of time becomes known. With this temporal setting known, there is little mystery behind who this new woman is given the time Big Finish has previously dedicated to detailing a propensity for assuming the Doctor’s identity. Nonetheless, her involvement here is assuredly thrilling for fans and the Doctor alike, particularly since it allows David Tennant to emote on just how much anguish his Doctor has experienced and just what the possibilities of being here with the abilities afforded him could allow. It initially seems as though the Doctor will have a fairly limited role from afar in guiding these affairs, but the final result as an all-too-familiar face reveals itself and what’s old becomes new again end up being a conduit for a truly unique and powerful performance from Tennant that effortlessly incorporates a remarkable range of emotions.

‘The Wrong Woman’ is abundantly confident and filled with incredible performances and strong visuals even if including dinosaurs and the like in the background is a fairly derivative shortcut to hint at time collapsing, and Tennant and Whealan perfectly tap into the long history of their respective characters and interactions to give a brilliant tease of just what Doctor Who may have been without the utter devastation the Time War wreaked upon all of creation. Slavin and Sims do end up being sidelined somewhat as a result, but their scenes are integral to both setting up and resolving the plot threads in play as the Doctor begins to forgive while Anya looks for redemption, and the downfall and pleading wishes of Sheldrake whom Mark Gatiss again plays with such conviction in limited time is an apt conclusion that perfectly sets the scene for the arrival of the Daleks. ‘The Wrong Woman’ may not focus on the most obvious creation that originated in a Terry Nation script, but the burgeoning journey of Dalek Universe with the Doctor still trapped in one time has been an incredibly immersive and exciting one so far, breathing new life into the Tenth Doctor who is so very full of life already.