Thirty years on from the Daleks' invasion of Earth, the scars still haven't healed. The survivors inhabit a world thrown back two hundred years, a world of crop shortages and civil unrest. A world where the brightest and best of its young people are drawn to the xenophobic Earth United group.
A world sliding into a new Dark Age, believes Susan Campbell, widow of one of the heroes of the Occupation. A world in need of alien intervention. A world in need of hope.
But as Susan takes drastic action to secure the planet's future, she's oblivious to the fact that her student son, Alex, ensnared by Earth United, is in need of alien intervention too. Or so Alex's great-grandfather thinks.
Marc Platt is a British writer. He is most known for his work with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
After studying catering at a technical college, Platt worked first for Trust House Forte, and then in administration for the BBC. He wrote the Doctor Who serial Ghost Light based on two proposals, one of which later became the novel Lungbarrow. That novel was greatly anticipated by fans as it was the culmination of the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan", revealing details of the Doctor's background and family.
After the original series' cancellation Platt wrote the script for the audio Doctor Who drama Spare Parts. The script was the inspiration for the 2006 Doctor Who television story "Rise of the Cybermen"/"The Age of Steel", for which Platt received a screen credit and a fee.
It's really lovely to hear Carole Ann Ford play a more mature Susan.
Being that she was a teenage actress in the early 60s, it was inevitable but nevertheless a shame that her tenure in the show (1963-1964, I believe) saw her playing a screaming child, even though the show had already established that the Doctor and Susan were a) aliens from a much more advanced species and b) much older than they both appeared.
Throughout the Big Finish stories set during her travels with the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara, she's definitely had an opportunity to play show-era Susan with more nuance, but to hear her play this Susan - without having to make her voice sound younger, without having to act as the exposition or surrogate for the audience - was a real treat. Carole Ann can bring so much more to the role now that her character has been fleshed out and treated with real care: she's a resistance leader, a diplomat, a mother, a widow, and, of course, still a granddaughter.
Though naturally, in classic Susan style, she does still manage to cause an alien invasion.
Also I'm loving the little tidbits of lore that are confirmed in this:
*WARNING: extreme nerdery ahead*
- Susan didn't complete her education at the academy (or perhaps didn't go at all, though I'm inclined to say she went for a bit because Time Lords usually start at the academy aged ~8) - Susan was probably less than 100 years old when she appeared in the show (based off of the fact that Romana I was 125 when she met the Doctor and had only recently graduated) - And of course, most importantly, this audio adds fuel to the 'Do Time Lords do the nasty?' debate, which only sci-fi nerds could be so bloody passionate about u weirdos: Humans and Gallifreyans are now confirmed to be, uh, compatible (fanfic authors rejoice); they can have children together, at least with the combo of human father and gallifreyan mother; still up for debate as to how the biology of a human-gallifreyan hybrid would work, as the dialogue on how many hearts Alex has ('one on his father's side') could be interpreted either way; and Gallifreyans CAN have mammalian pregnancies (which begs the question why they need the looming process?? Is it space IVF? Is it some weird and worrying Time Lord eugenics thing? Is it population control for a very long-lived species? Do the writers just not want to think of the Doctor boning someone?? So many possibilities.)
If you made it this far, I'm sorry you had to read my abstract on reproduction in Doctor Who. Now it shall haunt you as it haunts me.
There's a moment in the new Doctor Who when River Song turns to the Doctor and says, "That's cold even for you." Which I always found a bit harsh as it seems so rarely the Doctor comes across as cold. But in this audio I really felt what she meant. Here eight regenerations after he's left Susan, 100s of years his time, if only 25 years hers, he is a voice in the crowd, he rummages through her appartment, he goes in search of her son and only has the reunion with her by accident. It just goes to show how alien the doctor is. How his emotions aren't the same as ours. How his priorities aren't the same. He comes across as very cold, even though he's happy to see her. I feel like she deserved better. I feel like she also deserved better than to call down an alien menance on them.
But I really loved this audio. It was good to have more of an ending to Susan's story. Good to see the fate of the Earth after it's thrown off the dalek oppressors. See a distopia that's not quite a distopia but struggling.
This one was very good and very emotional. I thought it would be odd listening to the Eighth doctor without Lucie but this was just as good.
Susan Foreman remained on Earth after a Dalek invasion was prevented. Her grandfather continued his journey through time and space as The Doctor. Twentyfive years later Earth is recovering but turning xenophobic and there is Susan adult woman with a son Alex. She asked the heavens for help and gets an answer from an alien race who want to help. At the same time the xenophobic forces roar their ugly head again. This time they want to use Alex as the posterboy for their cause. Then there is an Alien, a Timelord, coming because his grand daughter asked for help. The alien race is not happy with this New player on the field, the feeling is mutual according the Doctor.
This is not the 1st Doctor returning but The eight Doctor. and Carol Ann Ford herself from the earliest Doctor Who episode returns herself to play an adult version of herself. She and Paul McGann really are believable and emotional in their reunion which is perhaps the most important in this episode. The Doctors greatgrandson is less of a storypart and as a youngling mostly annoying.
This is one of the huge stories for Who fans that was made possible by Big Finish. for which you can only be happy it finaly was made happen.
I loved this audiobook so much. I was so happy to hear Susan again, and to see Susan as a more mature person was so lovely, and the interactions between the Doctor and Susan, and even the Doctor and Alex, oh it was lovely.
It was a bit sad to see the comparison between them, that the Doctor has changed bodies 8 times and still hasn't changed, and Susan has remained the same and managed to grow, and that ending between them just hammered that home.
The ending almost had me in tears. For 60 minutes this is a brilliant short story, the doctor finally goes back to Susan 30 years later from the dalek invasion of earth, and well I won't spoiler anymore but it's fantastic.
When it comes to doctor who, my favorite doctor has always been the first doctor. One of the things that always irked me though was that there was never a TRUE reunion with his granddaughter Susan after he left her back on Earth in the hartnell era. We THOUGHT we'd get a teary reunion during "The Five Doctors" But no, we didn't because the show runner at the time John Nathan Turner was a loser. I thought i'd get a reunion in "Legacy of the Daleks", an 8th doctor novel. but nope, they missed each other back and forth like this were a reenactment of "An American Tail". So after doing some research I found out that if you wanted a Susan/Doctor reunion THIS was the story to hear. And thankfully, we actually DID get that reunion scene. FINALLY. and that scene specifically, did not disappoint. However the real question is, was the actual story any good? Well...it was..okay? Long and short of it, the story ignores Legacy of the daleks and says that Susan has a kid while legacy says she couldn't because she's gallifrean. David's still dead and they're trying to rebuild. Susan makes contact with an alien race to help them, and that's where we start. As is most of these audioplays, it's short. only about an hour. However, they DO manager to pack it full of stuff in that one hour. Having Mcgann interact with Susan is definitely cool and it's nice to see the doctor and susan in action again. By far the worst part of the story was the son. Alex is an absolutely AWFUL character. He's whiny, annoying, and honestly, i wish he weren't part of the story. if you removed him from the story, it would actually have been much better. He didn't really add ANYTHING to the story they were trying to tell and didn't need to be there. I feel like Susan's story should be an amalgamation of Legacy of the Daleks and An Earthly child. Just mix the no kids and the off to an adventure of Legacy and the tearful reunion and saving the earth of Earthly child and you've got a great story. i'm pretending that alex is not canon because he's actually one of the worst doctor who characters i've ever come across. Still though, if only for the reunion and the quality of the voice work and seeing 8th with susan i'm giving it a 3.5 rounded up to a 4. Still though. Screw Alex.
Platt does a good job envisaging Susan’s future life and a reunion with her grandfather (in his eighth incarnation)! Carole Ann Ford and Paul McGann work well together but the Doctor—not uncommonly in Eighth Doctor stories—contributes little to the resolution.
A story that shows Susan after her happily ever after in the Dalek's Invasion of Earth. The Doctor shows up and finds that Susan is in trouble, as she has invited alien help to Earth to help with the cleanup from the Dalek invasion. This one is pretty exciting but I do find Susan’s son Alex to be a little annoying, like Adric but worse.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
An Earthly Child is a Big Finish bonus release that follows on from Death in Blackpool. The Eighth doctor visits his Granddaughter Susan who now lives on Earth in the twenty second century after she, the Doctor, and her to be husband David helped liberate the Earth from the Daleks.
Whilst not perfect, I did really enjoy this. The cast was great, and I enjoyed seeing the Doctor and Susan back together and the plot intrigued me. One point of intrigue is the introduction of Susan and David’s son, Alex, played by Paul McGann’s own son Jake McGann. His character becomes associated with the anti-alien group “Earth United” which added extra tension and intrigue to the story due to his lineage and the fact that his mother seeks extraterrestrial assistance in rebuilding the Earth, which is still struggling to move on after the Dalek occupation.
I felt that it all made for an intriguing story, and I am looking forward to the rest of this last series in the “Eighth Doctor Adventures” range.
I'm half in minds how to rate this audio. 3/4 stars? I'll settle 3.5*
It was lovely to hear a more mature Susan, and how she is looking after herself. And it was also great to get such an insight on how the Earth is recovering after the dalek invasion, and how they are slowly rebuilding and the paranoria of aliens and technology still sits deep in trauma on the people. I did really enjoy that aspect.
The Doctor being the Doctor, how does he greet his granddaughter first? Not like a normal person, getting in contact with them and asking to meet up, or knocking on their door. Oh no. He goes snooping around her house for information. (But he does support her at her public speaking which made me smile).
But the actual reunion is reuniting with Susan in a jail cell, and the two hugging and crying each other with joy is rather lovely and just so typical of the Doctor and his granddaughter.
I loved that we got to see adult Susan again. her interactions with the Eighth Doctor were bittersweet. I am intrigued by the idea of Susan's son training at the Time Academy on Gallifrey. Carole Ann Ford was great again, and Paul Mcann was stellar.
Despite that we got to see a fully grown Susan, and were given some major plot points, the story just kind of felt hollow. It was like there was a general plot layout but no substance. It had potential to be so much better than it was.
Also note that at the end of this there was an interview type thing with McGann and his son. I don't understand how you can be the lead in such an iconic show and not even realize that your character was a grandfather.
This lived up as the closure between The Doctor and Susan that I needed. I know they meet each other again later, but I’m happy with this nonetheless. It’s been such a shame that Susan hasn’t appeared at all in NuWho, so I’m glad that Big Finish has been able to touch upon the relationship again and show how Susan has grown as a person in the decades since The Doctor left her behind.
The story itself is fairly ordinary, but what really makes this audiobook is the characterisation of the Doctor. It really rings true here... especially in how he has not changed and yet Susan has. This shows his less-than-admirable side.
I put off listening to this until I'd had time to watch The Dalek Invasion of Earth. This was really in no way necessary to understanding or appreciating this audio, but this story does make a nice kind of emotional bookend to Susan's departure story.
The reunion between the Doctor and Susan was well-written and beautifully performed. And honestly, it's reason enough to listen to this story. However, there is the rest of the story to deal with. While it's as crammed full of neat ideas as you'd expect from a Marc Platt script, it doesn't quite satisfy on the character front.
First off, we're told that Susan is a respected former freedom fighter and political figure. Even the Doctor makes a point of praising her wisdom and good sense. And yet somehow it doesn't really feel like wisdom and good sense. For example, Susan is convinced that despite the paranoia and skepticism of the Earth council, Earth needs help from aliens if it is going to prosper. So far so good, but then she decides that the best way to win over this paranoid and skeptical Earth council is to conduct secret negotiations with aliens behind their backs. There are moments that show that Susan really has grown up - most notably at the end, when she decides to stay on Earth and face the consequences of her actions rather than go travelling again with the Doctor, but in many respects she's still too much the naive teenager who left the show in 1965.
Then there's Alex Campbell, the Doctor's great-grandson. My dissatisfaction with his character is milder and harder to pin down. I think it's mostly that he's a bit underexplored, what with everything else going on in the story. He's a smart, idealistic young man who's fallen in with a xenophobic anti-alien group. And then he discovers that he's half alien himself. This has got to deeply shake his sense of identity, but he barely has time to even process it before the play is over. It feels like a missed opportunity.
This sounds like a rather grumpy review, and it really shouldn't be. The story is good, the aliens are interesting, and the whole cast give good performances. It's a pleasure to listen to. It just feels like it could have been more.
This was a fun one. You really need to know a bit of the show's history to appreciate it. This story takes places some years after the First Doctor's story, "The Dalek Invasion of Earth". The Doctor's grandaughter stayed behind on earth. He has not seen her , except in the Five Doctors, since then. She now has a family of her own. The story itslef was kind if weak. I gave it 4 stars more for the nostalgia value. It was very amusing to have a grown up Susan refer th the Eight Doctor as grandfather. It was also a nice touch to have Paul Mcgan's real life son play his great grandson. I also enjoyed the interview at the end. I wish they had interviwed Carole Anne Ford as well. THis adventure is not for the casual Who listner. You need to know the shows history to enjoy it.
It's really great to have Carol back again, and the initial scenes of catching up are pure joy, but the plot does become draining after a while. A post Dalek invasion earth is a really interesting area for the story to explore, and I really enjoy how anti-alien everyone is, especially considering Susan and her son are living there. The alien threat is really dull, and honestly, I've listened to this three times and still don't know how it's resolved. Susan's son makes an iffy introduction, but in later stories he does start to grow on me. This story is essential for later parts, so it's worth listening to.
As fun as it was to hear the Doctor finally making good on his "one day I shall come back" promise he made to Susan in "Dalek Invasion of Earth" (albeit 7 regenerations later and not entirely intentionally), I wasn't really nuts about the story. Susan's behavior was not in keeping with the older and wiser character she is supposed to be at this point in her life and her son is a bit of a brat. Still, Paul McGann and Carol Ann Ford do a fairly good job in their portrayals.
Well, now we know what has happened with Susan Foreman ;)
An Earthly Child takes us to Bristol where Alex Campbell has joined with a group dedicated to keeping aliens off of Earth. Well that is until his dear old mum finally succeeds in getting help from other worlds and bringing the end of Alex's world as he knows it.
While the plot is a bit mundane, there's a bit of magic in bringing the 8th Doctor together with Susan. Having Paul McGann's son Jake McGann play his grandson Alex Campbell is a stroke of genius. For our full review, visit http://travelingthevortex.com/?p=8844
Enjoyable, though it felt like having access to only the middle of a story while not getting either the beginning or the end. We get xenophobia, fear, hope, family, and secrets.