Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles: The Jigsaw War
Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles: The Jigsaw War – Starring Frazer Hines & Dominic Mafham & Written by Eddie Robson – CD / Download (Big Finish www.bigfinish.com)
The Doctor, or rather, Jamie, embraces an Le Carre Cold War style inquisitor versus prisoner in the Orwellian nightmare of a chronologically crazed interrogation in which both participants leap forward and jump back on time, occasionally switching roles, as Jamie vainly tries to figure out what’s happening to him, how it’s happened, and ultimately how he can break the seemingly never ending way in which time is skipping like a needle over a badly scratched record and escape the prison cell in which he’s found himself and the questions that he’s forced to answer over and over again. Is he the prisoner, or is he the inquisitor or is he both? ‘The Jigsaw War’ is a wonderful tale that flips your expectations on their head, placing Jamie in an all together different situation, one in which he has to use intellect rather than muscle, and as a much wiser man than me once said, ‘Different is good. Different is very good’. Balancing the superb interplay between Jamie and his supposed captor, Moran, with a gripping story that the listener, like Jamie gradually works out as the non-sequential narrative jumps that correspond with the out of sequence time jumps that the story is based around (hence the title, gradually fitting the pieces of the ‘Jigsaw’ together), begin to coalesce, ‘The Jigsaw War’ is an intelligent, thought provoking entry in the ‘The Companion Chronicles’ that encourages and rewards repeated plays through it’s incredible detail, in both story and plot. Just when you thought you were beginning to get used to the magicians act, someone goes and pulls a multi-coloured rabbit out the Tardis, opening yet another realm of possibility. Absolutely, and thoroughly recommended… Tim Mass Movement
