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Recorded Time and Other Stories is the 150th of these I’ve listened to. Jesus. This collection is what happens when Colin Baker and Peri Brown get handed four completely different narrative toys and told “go on then, break them in interesting ways,” and honestly? It’s a mixed bag, but the kind where at least two of the items are secretly incredible and one is… well. We’ll get there.
The first story, Recorded Time, kicks off in the court of Henry VIII, which already feels like a playground for Six and Peri. Big personalities, political chaos, and the Doctor absolutely refusing to behave himself in front of royalty. Delicious.
The central hook is fantastic. A royal scribe is being forced to literally write the king’s future into existence. Not metaphorically. Actually. And the story leans into that with this lovely blend of historical intrigue and timey-wimey meddling. It’s clever, it’s funny, and it feels like it could sustain something bigger. Like you could spin this into a full four-parter and just let it breathe.
Performances are sharp, dialogue snaps, and the whole thing balances humour with genuine stakes in that very Sixth Doctor way where everything is slightly heightened but still grounded enough to care.
Final Thoughts
A witty, energetic historical with a brilliant central concept that absolutely could have supported something bigger, but still shines in short form.
4.5 out of 5 increasingly stressed Tudor scribes rewriting the king’s bad decisions in real time
Next up is Paradoxicide and… Oh no. We go from “clever historical sci-fi” to “time paradox soup but someone forgot to season it.”
The Doctor and Peri land on Sendos, where there’s a paradox involving an all-female military force, a bunker, and a distress call from Future Peri. Which should be intriguing. SHOULD be.
Instead it’s… clunky. The time mechanics feel like they’re being explained with a shrug and a whiteboard that’s already been erased twice. The gender stuff? Painfully on-the-nose in a way that feels dated rather than insightful. And the whole thing just sort of trudges along like it’s tired of itself.
There are ideas here. You can see them. They just never quite assemble into something engaging.
Final Thoughts
A muddled and frustrating entry that never quite gets its paradoxes or its themes to line up in a satisfying way.
2 out of 5 time paradoxes that needed at least one more editing pass and a strong cup of tea
After that, we have A Most Excellent Match. Okay, this one is just having fun and I respect that.
The Doctor and Peri get dumped into a virtual reality mash-up of classic literature, hopping between things like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, while being hunted by a villain who keeps re-skinning himself as various brooding literary men. It’s chaotic. It’s theatrical. It’s a bit indulgent.
And the cast clearly has a GREAT time with it, switching tones and styles like they’re in an acting showcase. If you’re deeply into the source material, there’s a lot to enjoy in the pastiche. If you’re not, it’s still entertaining, just maybe not as rich. It doesn’t go especially deep, but it doesn’t need to. It knows exactly what it is, and it commits.
Final Thoughts
A playful, theatrical romp that leans hard into literary parody. Not deep, but undeniably fun.
3.5 out of 5 aggressively dramatic literary heartthrobs lurking in digital moors
Finally we have Question Marks. Oh. Oh THIS is the good stuff.
We open on pure confusion. The Doctor, Peri, and a handful of others wake up with no memory, trapped in a collapsing underground station, trying to piece together who they are and what’s going on. It’s tense, it’s stripped back, and it trusts the audience to keep up.
And then the twist lands. They’re copies. The originals already escaped. These versions, the ones we’ve been following, are effectively echoes left behind to die. EXCUSE ME???
It’s bleak. Existential. Quietly devastating. There’s a real SOMA energy here, that same question of identity and continuity and whether being a “copy” makes your experiences any less real. The answer, emotionally, is a resounding NO and that’s what makes it hurt. This is Doctor Who doing proper sci-fi. Thoughtful, unsettling, and willing to end on a note that doesn’t neatly resolve.
Final Thoughts
A standout piece of science fiction that delivers a genuinely haunting premise and sticks the landing with brutal elegance.
5 out of 5 doomed duplicate consciousnesses having a truly terrible day