The Stuntman [AUDIO/2022.9.14]

★★★☆☆

  Hearing Sarah Sutton try out a different role (or to be exact, as different as Nyssa in a fabricated reality gets) is rather pleasing; you get the sense that she's a wonderful actor who was never truly given demanding enough material during her tenure on the show. She's delightful as always as the Trakenite companion, now older and wiser and in search of a dangerous Time War fugitive, but she's also very noteworthy as Kasey-Ann Frost, the fabricated identity and famed stuntperson. Sutton was always very good at displaying innocence in the face of evil, and the role certainly calls for plenty of that.

  I won't lie, I think The Stuntman is a step down from Splinters, but that's only because Splinters turned out to be such a surprise hit. This may deal with alternate dimensions and identities for our heroes, but it's bread-and-butter Doctor Who and it does its part in its boxset. Jon Glover's great as Time War criminal Dr. Gommen, and Lizzie Hopley devotes the hour to explore both how the virtual-world machine acts on its own logic and how the Doctor reacts to meeting old faces after the Time War. David Tennant is predictably great in these stories, as his personal nerdy side leaps out at every chance. He's palpably excited to meet a past conpanion, and it lends the story some much-needed energy. The Stuntman is a worthy, if less brilliant, successor to Splinters in the Tenth Doctor Classic Companions boxset.