State of Bliss written by Matt Fitton and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it About: Bliss has lost her home, her family, and her friends – an orphan of the Time War. The Doctor attempts to find out where things went wrong. Across a multiverse of possibilities, Bliss discovers the many paths her life could have taken – but do they always lead to the Time War? And if Bliss can save her past, will she destroy her future – and the Doctor’s?

Physician, Heal Thyself: Where does Paul McGann fit into a story like this? As an interloper in each of the timelines in a different guise. Does that make sense? Not really. Listen to him in the last scene. He doesn't sound particularly motivated by any of this.

Bless Bliss: This seems like the perfect time to talk about Bliss because she hasn’t been an enormous success as a companion in my eyes and its worth trying to find out why, Why does somebody like Adric fall into fan consciousness as a failure and Sarah Jane as a success? Does accomplishment equate to a companion being well defined, developed, well-acted and likable? My initial problem with Bliss is that she was rather foisted upon the Doctor thanks to a quirk of the Time War, rather than meeting him naturally. In that first series of Time War adventures she was side-lined a lot in favour of more interesting guest characters and I couldn’t get a handle on who she really was and what her stake in the Time War was. The second box set dropped and we had a story where we visited Bliss’ home world, a genius notion that should have had me on side from that point on. Despite being written with more humour and less mediocrity, I still found myself drifting away from caring about the character but now I think the issue is that Rakhee Thakrar plays the part with all the gravitas of somebody that has evening meal at stake rather than the entire Time War. She’s so casual about everything, reacting to huge, universe changing events as though she is still walking the streets of Albert Square. Trust me, this isn’t me condemning actors for appearing in soap operas, there have been plenty of examples of actors who have left from soaps to Doctor Who with enormous success. When I compare the chemistry of Paul McGann and India Fisher and Sheridan Smith, his scenes with Thakrar are flat and insubstantial. It’s the oddest of things, chemistry. There is no exact science to it but I do think that once it has been tested out and unsuccessful (as this has in my book) then somebody making this needs to step back from the production and say ‘this isn’t working, let’s try something else.’ Now perhaps those in Big Finish towers think that Bliss and Thakrar are a roaring success (good for them) but then they are clearly looking at these things from a massively different critical standpoint to me. What do you think? Am I the crazy one? Has Bliss snuck into the upper echelons of your favourite companions? Or is she to you, like me, an unmemorable interloper who is giving this potentially fascinating range a black mark? Explain to me why I like Flip so much and Bliss so little, because the performances really aren’t that different.

Bliss has an aptitude for applied quantum mechanics. Has she? Or is that in one of the alternative universes? In many of the realities, Bliss is so distrustful.

Standout Performance: Anjili Mohindra is one of my favourite performers out of all the Doctor related spin offs. But her turn here as Calla just goes to show how well defined and characterised Rani was in the Sarah Jane Adventures. In comparison, she is shockingly unmemorable here.

Great Ideas: A quantum visualiser shows an infinity of different realities. Time is breaking down. The barriers between realities are falling. Something is happening across the universe. With Bliss, Deepa can tune into alternative universes. We are in the here and now but the visualiser can show the alternative routes that can be used to get here. Just the past, not the future. In each one, there is a person who looks like the Doctor. There are technology parasites emboldened by the Time War. They strip planets clean. Deepa isn’t just opening windows to other realities, she can tweak them too, even walk into them if things aren’t going well. She has a quantum anomaly that allows her to enter them and keep things on track. Deepa as all of her possible selves at once – that’s the most exciting idea at play here.

Isn’t it Odd: It’s hard to pick Thakrar out of the crowd in this story. Which is a sure sign that something unique is not standing out. Had this story featured Evelyn or Hex or Erimem, I would have had no problem at all. There’s a scene where it seems Bliss will be killed as the oxygen is bled out of the Rover…but it had none of the required tension because Thakrar sounds like she is laughing, not asphyxiating.

Standout Scene: There’s an implication that Deepa changed Bliss’ timeline so that she would end up with the Doctor. That literally makes her the Sam Jones of the audios. An undercooked companion who would have been nothing without interference to her timeline, who is supremely irritating because she has been placed in the Doctor’s path. Well, there’s a thing. It should be a heart-breaking discovery. Imagine if this had been Evelyn or Hex or Erimem (sorry I keep mentioning them) – this would be revelatory. With Bliss, it’s another reason why perhaps she is so ill-defined.

Result: ‘This place is built on sand. Sand shifting from one reality to another!’ Remember Turn Left? Of course, you remember Turn Left, it’s one of the most memorable episodes of new series to date and a regular top ten poller. Huge, high concept ideas, an emotional rollercoaster with the whole of reality at stake…and with Donna Noble at its heart. Brilliant, bold, silly, funny, self-critical, vulnerable Donna Noble. You can cut through complicated ideas because you’re following the path of a character we know and love. I feel that is what Matt Fitton was going for in State of Bliss. A complicated, big stakes story…but this time it is with Bliss as it’s emotional core. Unremarkable, ill defined, stress-free Bliss who seems to cut a path through the Time War by behaving as though she is navigating a supermarket. By centring the whole premise around Bliss I found myself really not giving a damn about much of it. This feels like it is trying to be The Wrong Doctors all over again and whilst you think a story featuring the sixth Doctor and Mel would be the nadir of what Big Finish can achieve, their characterisation enhanced that story tenfold. Bliss’ increased priority here has the reverse effect. State of Bliss flies from one alternative universe to another, one protracted and underwritten dialogue scene to another, with no clear narrative running through it. I think writing confusing stories and trying to pass it off as a fault of the Time War is about as slack as these stories could possibly be. Matt Fitton has written some very effective adventures elsewhere but between this and The Conscript he really doesn’t seem well suited to the Time War. Ken Bentley does his damndest to make the incidents count and you could say that there are a number of dramatic moments, but I was highly unengaged with the whole thing. Pretty much how I have been across all nine stories I have listened to, aside from the stories written by John Dorney and Jonathan Morris. These Time War sets have form in positioning the best stories of the set first. I’m hoping that the reverse is true of the third boxset: 4/10