Jonathan Carley does an astonishing job of bringing this character back to life. This goes way beyond an actor doing an impersonation of another actor. Yes, it does sound incredibly like the late Sir John, but there is nuance here, a sense of living through the lines. In many ways the best of Big Finish feel like that. John Culshaw never just sounds like an impersonator, he too breathes lives into characters believed lost. From the opening lines he just does something remarkable. All three stories show growth, in character and narrative complexity as the Time War begins to distort the notion of who the good guys are. It opens on gloomy Karn, with the Sisterhood under pressure from their allies The Time Lords. This iteration of The Doctor rejects and rails against his very own name. He is at odds with everything, this incarnation born in violence and fire. The fires of The Sisterhood. Its a very arcane beginning, all mysticism and elixirs and such, before it spills out into a wider universe of apocalyptic events.
One episode even feels like one of the classic wartime dramas of my youth, a movie like The Heroes Of Telemark or The Guns Of Navarone. These are stories which can spring from character driven intimacy to the fields of war in an instant. Hats off to all involved, oe more accurately "helmets on" cause its gonna be a bumpy ride.
