Time Walkers have descended upon the Earth. This alien race, known as the Vist, has claimed an area of time for itself. Any species entering into the immediate future will pay the most terrible forfeit. The human race is in a state of panic, but one woman knows the truth. Her name is Polly Wright, and she visited that future many years ago, when travelling with her companions the Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Ben Jackson. She has stepped into the Forbidden Time - and this is her story...

It’s been two years since Anneke Wills recorded a Companion Chronicle, the twelve-part bonus adventure The Three Companions - though it doesn’t seem that long because that saga took a year to unfold. Now she’s back, and once again she’s not alone. This time she’s accompanied by fellow companion Frazer Hines, alias Jamie. Most of the tale is told by Wills, as Polly recalls one of her adventures with the Second Doctor, while Jamie’s scenes are played back via the storytelling device of Dictaphone recordings.

Rather like the coffin-loaders in The Three Companions, the creatures encountered in this story are a simple but effective menace. The Vist move through time by natural ability, just as we would walk across land, rather than with the aid of time-travel technology. Their realisation, courtesy of writer David Lock’s description, Iain Robertson’s cover illustration, and Wills’s electronically treated voice, is very creepy, as is their environment. In another similarity to The Three Companions, which featured the same TARDIS team, the Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie arrive in an eerily desolate urban setting.

Jamie’s cameo appearances are frustratingly brief. I would have preferred Frazer Hines to have had a full-on co-starring role alongside Anneke Wills, or for the entire story to have been told by Wills. I was also a little dissatisfied by the frame narrative, which removes some of the impact from the cliffhanger ending to Episode 1, and ultimately seems rather pointless.

On the whole, though, listening to The Forbidden Time is to be encouraged rather than prohibited.

7

Richard McGinlay