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Arrangements for War is one of those rare Big Finish stories where you look down halfway through and realize, oh, that wasn’t my heart breaking—someone just swapped it out with a box of shattered glass and told me to keep breathing. It’s a romance, it’s a tragedy, it’s the Sixth Doctor stripped bare, it’s Evelyn bleeding all over the soundscape in a way that’s too human to be comfortable. And it’s beautiful.
Let’s rewind: Evelyn Smythe is done. She’s grieving Cassie, furious at the Doctor, and this story actually has the guts to sit in that space instead of skipping ahead to the next corridor chase. The Sixth Doctor tries to comfort her and utterly fails because Colin Baker is playing him as a man who feels everything too loudly but has no clue how to thread grief into compassion. So, they take a break. Which is code for: “Let’s drop Evelyn into a central European fairytale powder keg and see what happens.”
Világ is a planet that’s all ballrooms and balconies and bad political marriages waiting to implode. Princess Krisztina is being shoved into an arranged union, but she’s secretly in love with a soldier. Evelyn, still raw and brittle, falls—unexpectedly, beautifully—for Governor Rossiter. And here’s the kicker: the story lets her. We get a romance written with actual tenderness. Not a wink, not a throwaway subplot—Evelyn falls in love. Maggie Stables carries the whole thing like she’s daring Big Finish to let a middle-aged woman have desire, vulnerability, and joy on her own terms.
And of course, this is Doctor Who, so the peace talks collapse, the Killorans march in, and the whole story turns from candlelit dinners into smoke and rubble. Evelyn and the Doctor are split, imprisoned, tested. Evelyn’s grief smashes headlong into her fear of loss, her fear of mortality, her stubborn insistence on living anyway. Meanwhile, the Doctor has one of the rawest breakdowns of his audio life. This isn’t “shouty coat man.” This is Colin Baker collapsing under the weight of guilt, knowing he failed Cassie, failed Evelyn, and might fail an entire world. It’s not just moving; it’s devastating.
The pacing? Delicious. Slow burn romance, then whiplash into war without ever feeling cheap. The sound design? Ballroom strings that curdle into wartime drums. Thematic core? Love isn’t a neat solution. It’s messy, painful, and worth the risk. Evelyn teaches the Doctor that lesson with every word she breathes.
Final Thoughts
Arrangements for War isn’t just a story. It’s a bruise you keep pressing because you need to remember what tenderness feels like. It’s the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn at their rawest, their realest, their most human.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 tragic love stories.