Before continuing, please be aware that all of this content is made possible by the goodwill and support of my backers on Patreon. If you enjoy the work on this site, please consider supporting the creation of more content like this by clicking the button.
City of Spires begins with me pointing at the speakers like the Leo DiCaprio meme and announcing to my partner, “HEY LOOK HUN. JAMIE’S BACK.” Frazer Hines. Actual Jamie McCrimmon. Tartan. Attitude. History.
“Who?” he replied.
Reader, I considered annulment.
Anyway. City of Spires drops Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor into Scotland during the Highland Clearances, which is already a bleak enough sentence without adding science fiction. This is a period defined by forced relocation, cultural erasure, and landowners deciding that sheep were more economically viable than people. It is ugly history, and the story does not soften it. The Doctor arrives into a land already being bled dry, and immediately runs into Jamie, now a grown man, deeply angry, fiercely principled, and fighting on two fronts. One against English forces enforcing eviction, and another against a shadowy group doing something very wrong to the land itself.
The emotional hook lands fast. Jamie does not remember the Doctor. Not this one. Their shared past is gone, wiped by Time Lord intervention decades earlier, and the dialogue around that loss is quietly devastating. The Doctor remembers everything. Jamie remembers nothing. And yet the connection is still there. Trust without memory. Loyalty without explanation. It is one of those Big Finish moments where the emotional continuity of Doctor Who really shines, and both actors sell it without a shred of sentimentality.
The mystery deepens when it becomes clear the second enemy is using technology wildly out of time. Drilling rigs. Industrial machinery. Oil extraction a century and a half early. The central question of the story clicks into place with a heavy thunk: what happens if the Industrial Revolution hits Scotland generations before it is meant to? The answer is not subtle, and thank God for that. The industrialists turn out to be literal alien leeches. Creatures who drain the land and its people for profit, leaving nothing but ruin behind. It is allegory with teeth, claws, and a Glasgow accent. The story is not interested in pretending this is morally complicated. Exploitation is exploitation, whether it comes wrapped in Empire or progress.
What really elevates City of Spires is the cast. Frazer Hines is phenomenal. He slides back into Jamie like he never left, all fire and moral certainty, and he goes toe to toe with Colin Baker’s Doctor without being overshadowed for a second. Baker, meanwhile, is on glorious form. This is the Sixth Doctor at his best. Furious at injustice, verbose in his condemnation, and utterly incapable of staying neutral when people are being crushed by systems. Their chemistry is electric. You can hear how much fun they are having, and how seriously they are taking the material.
The story also understands class. Not just in a vague “Empire bad” way, but in the specifics. Landowners. Tenants. Soldiers following orders. People trapped in systems that grind them down while insisting it is for their own good. It all lands with uncomfortable clarity.
The ending opens the door for more, with the Doctor taking Jamie along for further adventures, and honestly? I was grinning. This is a strong start to a trilogy, politically sharp, emotionally grounded, and powered by two actors who know exactly who these characters are.
Final Thoughts
City of Spires is smart, angry, compassionate Doctor Who. A historical that refuses to be polite, elevated by stellar performances and unapologetic politics. Exactly my bag.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 alien oil leeches sucking the soul out of Scotland.