Doctor Who: Watchers

Doctor Who: The Audio Novels

by Matthew Waterhouse

When the TARDIS is trapped in the Vortex, the Doctor and Adric realise that there is something immensely powerful that is draining time itself from the universe.
The wrecks of other time ships – the products of countless experiments in time – exist in a fused cluster in the Vortex. None of them can escape and many of their crews are dead. As the Doctor tries to free the TARDIS, he and Adric encounter threats from other groups, desperate to escape, including a hostile reptile species, mechanically enhanced cyborgs – and Daleks!
But there is someone from the Doctor's own world who is watching. Someone who will prove useful when this Doctor reaches the end of his life…

This enhanced audiobook of over seven hours features specially composed music and sound effects.

Read by Matthew Waterhouse with Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks

This story takes place between the two 1981 Doctor Who television stories: The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis.

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook

Audiobook

First published January 12, 2022

About the author

Matthew Waterhouse played companion Adric, a companion of Tom Baker and Peter Davison's Doctors from 1980 to 1982, in Doctor Who from Full Circle to Earthshock, with cameo appearances in Time-Flight and The Caves of Androzani. After leaving the series, he began a stage career.

Waterhouse began his career as a clerk in the BBC news department before securing a role in the television drama To Serve Them All My Days in 1980. Shortly afterward he auditioned for and won the role of Adric. He was a confirmed Doctor Who fan and had had at least one letter printed in Doctor Who Weekly before he took up the role.

Between 1998 and 2016 Waterhouse lived in Connecticut in the United States, though he regularly visited the UK. He has since returned to live full-time in the UK alongside his American husband, Tim.

In 2010, Waterhouse joined a growing number of Doctor Who actors in publishing an autobiography. In his book, Blue Box Boy, he writes candidly about his experiences making Doctor Who. Waterhouse also appeared in the 2019 documentary A Weekend with Waterhouse that appeared on the Doctor Who: Season 18 Blu-Ray release.

Since 2014, Waterhouse has been reprising his role as Adric in Doctor Who audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions. He has also written two novels for the company's range of Audio Novels based on the series, the most recent being Prisoners of London, released in July 2023.

Reviews

[Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doctor Who: Watchers is the second installment of The Audio Novels, written and read by Matthew Waterhouse who also plays as Adric, with Nicholas Briggs play as the Daleks, this installment that is wedged between The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis, the length of this is 428 minutes approx. Making this being about 7 hours long (Not counting the Behind the Scenes), it is shorter than Scourge of the Cybermen with that one being almost 8 Hours long (Not counting the Behind the Scenes and the Music Suite)

Now the rating in the end will be bias because since I started reading novels and getting more hooked to the Audiobook format, I always wanted Big Finish to do something like this so when the announced The Audio Novels I was immediately onboard with this.

The Synopsis got me really hooked, just everything about it sounds really interesting, even known yes it is a Dalek Story, but One I will give credit to Waterhouse is that Watcher is really a creative story, His narration and his writing is really well done especially with Part One. There is one thing down side to this release does have a down side, is that this one does have pacing issues, I know, I know, when it comes to my books reviews I always tend to mentions about pacing issues but this one does have one luckily it’s not the entire story.

As Part One have a good start with introducing things and settling up the plot, the Plot in Watchers doesn’t kicks off until Part Four making Part Two and Three felt like padding, but listen to this I understand it because Watchers is not a light listen as this have a lot of ideas and concepts, and with the padding, Matthew is flushing them out.

The Synopsis make it seems like it’s complicated but the plot is easily understandable but like a said there is a lot of ideas being tossed into this most of them are related to the Time Lords and of course the concept around The Watchers. But can’t say much as it is telling.

I will give this 8.5/10

I really did enjoy this one and looking for to the one in July.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, and narrator, is, in case anyone doesn’t realize this, the actor who play Adric in the classic Doctor Who series. He was a fan before he appeared in the series, and was (and still is I believe) the youngest regular cast member on the show. He writes about his experiences in his memoir Blue Box Boy, which is quite good, and has written other books as well: Vanitas, Precious Liars, Fates, Flowers, Sugar: A Quartet of Stories, Old acquaintance and (apparently) KONGLISH: The Ultimate Survival Guide for Teaching English in South Korea. He’s also returned to play Adric in several Big Finish Productions over the years and has worked in some of their other ranges as well. So he brings a lot of first hand knowledge to this story, knowledge about the character of Adric (who isn’t as prominent as I had expected he’d be) and the Doctor, but also a lot of knowledge of a life long fan of the series. Set shortly after the Doctor and Adric have left E-Space and are traveling alone in a “Bachelor TARDIS” like the first Doctor and Steven did briefly, or more memorably, the second Doctor and Jamie. Romana and K-9 have recently left and the Doctor is in a kind of distracted state just before his whole demeanor seems to alter once Nyssa and Tegan arrive. So this narrative helps fill some of the gap of these changes to the Doctor’s character at the end of season eighteen. I enjoyed this quite a bit, the prose from Waterhouse is nicely done and his voice is perfect for reading it, as is often the case with an author reading their own work, as it provides the right nuance and inflection. A very interesting and entertaining story.

[Dan Billing · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s the first of Matthew Waterhouse’s books that I’ve read. Like Matthew, I’ve been a Doctor Who fan of many years, but although my life and personal experience is different from his, and that of Adric’s I resonated more with that character and his performance now as an adult, than perhaps more than I did as a child. (I was 4-6 years old when Adric was a regular character.

This is a beautifully observed book, and the novel is wonderfully read by Matthew. It acts as both a novel in its own right, and as a bridge between Tom Baker’s final stories, setting the scene and narrative journey towards the regeneration in Logopolis.

The inclusion of the Daleks was exciting (I do love a Dalek story). They seemed both vengeful and uncommonly cunning. Whilst the cover refers to 70s/80s era Grey Daleks, the description in the novel offers a variety of liveries and ranks. Also their purpose was adjacent to the narrative, rather than the driver of it, which was interesting.

Very character driven, both for Adric, and the new character of Marcel. Whilst the Doctor was present, it was very much told from the perspective of Marcel and Adric, not that of the Doctor. It leant itself some more soul and human (Alzarian) centred focus, around relationships, love, hate, feelings of utility, sexuality and adventure. The action was pretty good too, pulling elements from Doctor Who’s past, but adding to its canon in a very positive and interesting way.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's some excellent descriptions in this that feel so true to life. A lot of Marcel's journey seems to mirror and justify Adric's - petulance of a child who has suffered a major loss, and the inner monologue which accompanies it. A young man out of time and place.

I only wish something would tie together the dangling starts (not ends) of plot threads.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Waterhouse is a good narrator, but the story didn’t interest me quite as much as others.