Expanded universe material can get very dumb very quickly, but sometimes, it’s a great way to explore stuff that the main canon didn’t have time for. Just like it was a delight to have Christopher Eccleston back as the Ninth Doctor, getting more from John Hurt as the War Doctor is a treat. The story is interesting enough, but it’s really just fun to play with these action figures for a bit,

Doctor Who is not often high art, and neither are radio plays, but this was good enough. Besides, I didn’t realize how damn much I missed Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor, and I would have struggled through a much worse story just to hear his “lots of planets have a north” voice.

I had started listening to the recent Audible adaptation, believing that it was a BBC adaptation, but between not loving Audible and it feeling overdone, I ditched it pretty quickly and found this actual BBC adaptation instead. For bonus points, Christopher Eccleston is in the lead role!

I feel like it’s the kind of adaptation that you have to know the original to really appreciate, but that doesn’t make it bad. I haven’t read the novel for years but still enjoyed it.