The First Doctor Adventures star David Bradley as the Doctor’s original incarnation, along with Claudia Grant as Susan, Jemma Powell as Barbara, and Jamie Glover as Ian. Volume 1 contains two hour-long dramas: The Destination Wars and The Great White Hurricane.

The Destination Wars is set on a distant planet in “Space Year 2003”, which is a lovely nod to the sort of futuristic story the 60s produced and that now seem quaintly retro. It features robots, warring species, and an almost godlike figure called “the Inventor”. Now who could that be…?

The Great White Hurricane, meanwhile, is a straight-up historical, plunking the TARDIS crew in New York City just as a raging blizzard is about to set in. Barbara, as a history teacher, knows all too well how dangerous the city is going to be if they can’t stay together—and then they get caught up in a gang war!

The structure and pacing of both stories beautifully echo the original series; each story is divided into four “episodes” of approximately 25 minutes, and each episode after the first very briefly repeats the last couple of lines of the previous episodes. This makes the set especially handy for listening to in chunks. David Bradley gives an excellent performance as the First Doctor; although the First Doctor has a reputation for being cantankerous, Bradley doesn’t play that note constantly. When he *does* fire off acerbic one-liners, they are that much more effective.

Of the two stories, I greatly preferred The Destination Wars. Retro-futuristic stories are somewhat my jam, and all of the companions had some good moments. I especially enjoyed Barbara and Ian teaming up to fight the Inventor (who’s actually the Master — it’s not really a spoiler…).

I was less satisfied with The Great White Hurricane, because the American accents drove me to distraction. I’m not sure how many of the actors were actually American, and I couldn’t tell. Perhaps I am just so used to hearing accents from the British Isles on Doctor Who that American accents sound “wrong” for the context (which I admit is a bit snooty), but I would not be surprised if there were non-American actors trying to sustain the American accent for a long period.

Edit June 17, 2018: I just finished listening to the "behind the scenes" disc and two of the actors seem to have come from the States, so I'm more inclined to favour my hypothesis that the problem was on my end more so than on theirs ;)

It does occur to me that there were slightly dodgy American accents in the original series—the cowboy at the top of the Empire State Building in “The Chase” springs to mind—so perhaps we can call it an homage ;) I also found the rival gang member cartoonish in his desire to avenge his friend’s killing, particularly toward the end of the story. But the overall idea for the story was a good one and could certainly prompt people to find out more about the historical circumstances that inspired it.

I would guardedly recommend this set, more for David Bradley’s performance and for the evocation of the original show: the combination of sci-fi and historical stories, the structure and pacing, and the sound design (and that lovely original theme!). I will be interested to see what stories come up in Volume 2. ( )