Doctor Who: Night of the Whisper

The ninth story in the series is read by Nicholas Briggs, who provides the voices of the Daleks (among others) in the modern TV series. While I'm guessing that this might have been because Billie Piper was unavailable, it does have the great advantage that Briggs is a professional voice actor, and it shows: his impersonation of Eccleston is particularly effective.

Furthermore, because of AudioGo's one-off license for the 50th anniversary, this was the first original audio story (albeit a third person audiobook, rather than a play) to directly feature the new series or any of its characters. As in all the releases in this series, it uses the theme music of the appropriate era, and, together with incidental music that also seems to fit the modern show, that helps to convey a distinctly Nu Who feel. It's also, of course, about the right length, and, if anything, a little longer than modern episodes are (the older TV stories varied, but were most commonly around 100 minutes - these audiobooks are all 60 minutes, so that they fit on a CD).

The story concerns a homicidal masked vigilante stalking the darkened streets of an offworld casino town. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack Harkness are all on the vigilante's trail, and there are quite a number of references to things seen in Nine's brief tenure on the show, alongside a few to things that turn up later. The story also packs in a good deal of action, and the plot is less straightforward that those of some of the earlier offerings in this series, although not so much that it's difficult to follow.

Perhaps because of the choice of narrator, the focus is more on the Doctor himself in this story than on his companions. Rose and Captain Jack aren't entirely reduced to bystanders, but they do have less to do than their counterparts in the first eight episodes. In fact, the guest actor, playing the local police chief, doesn't have that much to do, either. But this is a fun adventure tale, definitely in the style of the more upbeat stories from the Ninth Doctor's era, and recommended for those that wish it had been longer.