Doctor Who review: The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: Buried Memories features a great mix of fresh stories
By James Aggas
With a brand new team of writers and a strong mix of standalone stories, Doctor Who: The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: Buried Memories feels like a fresh start for both Benny and the Unbound Doctor.
Compared to previous box sets in the series, Volume 5 of The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield is a little bit different. In some ways, that’s rather true of all the volumes. The Triumph of Sutekh, The Unbound Universe, Ruler of the Universe – they each aim to be different from the previous volume in a subtle or crucial way.
But this might be even more true for Buried Memories. A key reason for this is how much this box set moves away from the arc structure. While previous box sets had focused around huge, epic events – or even stories simply linked by a core theme or idea – this one is more about Benny and the Doctor just having adventures together.
Which isn’t a bad thing, especially as this isn’t a Doctor that’s familiar with our universe. In both the previous two box sets and the Doctor Who Unbound audios, David Warner has been playing an alternative version of the third Doctor, one that was never UNIT’s scientific advisor. That’s how his story started, anyway.
More recently, he was the ruler of the universe. His universe, at least, which admittedly, there wasn’t much left of. He also didn’t exactly do the best job of it. Thankfully, he left that responsibility to someone else and ran away with Bernice back to our universe. Now that he gets to travel the universe again and have fun, how are their adventures together?
Once again, Lisa Bowerman and David Warner lead a strong cast in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: Buried Memories.
(Photo credit: Bernice Summerfield/Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.
Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)
New writers, strong stories
Overall, rather fun and fresh. A fantastic hook for this box set is that it’s written by writers completely new to Big Finish. This is a bold step for the company to take, and a key reason why the standalone nature of the box set works so well. With these writers just starting out, it’s good to let each of them find their own voices first before having to work with and involve any intricate arcs in their stories.
What’s really impressive is how well each of these stories fit Benny so well. And that’s the key thing with The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield – while they do feature the Doctor, whether it’s a Doctor we’re familiar with or not, it’s always important to make Benny the main character and to make the stories suit her. Don’t get me wrong, Warner’s Doctor is given plenty to do across each of the four episodes. But overall, this is Benny’s series, with stories that are suited to her. And each of the writers have understood that and handled it brilliantly.
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Capturing Benny
Two particular stories that stood out for me were Pride of the Lampians and Dead and Breakfast. Not that Clear History and Burrowed Time weren’t great stories themselves. They were full of genuinely interesting ideas, and felt suited to both Benny and the Unbound Doctor.
But both Lampians and Breakfast stood out just a little more for how well they explored Benny. The former story, rather fittingly, fleshed out the flaws of Benny as well as her strengths, and gave us a deep insight into the character as a result. The latter explored Benny as a mother, despite remaining separated from her son, and featured some really fantastic and believable characters, too. Both episodes of course telling really great stories at the same time.
Overall, Buried Memories is a rather enjoyable box set, and a very easy one to jump on board with. I still recommend checking out earlier Benny series, particularly the previous two volumes, but that’s as much due to how fantastic those earlier stories are as much as explaining where the Unbound Doctor comes from. Another strong instalment in a really fantastic series.
Next. Why the introduction of Alex Macqueen’s Master was huge. dark
Are you a fan of Bernice Summerfield? Have you checked out previous stories of the character? Are you also a fan of David Warner’s unique incarnation of the Doctor, too? Let us know in the comments below.