I’m one of those people that dearly miss the old BigFinish Monthly Range, but I can accept that most people don’t remember the stories from #200 onward.
This is kinda unfortunate, because that’s when we were introduced to Leading WREN Mrs. Constance Clarke - who would latter come to be known as “Connie” by Flip.
Received pronunciation and a stiff upper lip could easily describe our Mrs Clarke, but she proves herself to be so much more than that.
She’s awfully protective of her charges: discovering that one of them has been forced to work three shifts in a row by the Doctor, she marches over to his office and tells him what for!
Strong-willed and formidable, I want to know what your favourite stories with her are.
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Great post. I need to go back & listen to her first story. A wonderful companion & I think her & Flip are probably the best companion duo across all Doctor Who media.
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I’ve decided to work my way through Connie’s solo stories because I haven’t listened to them in about three years.
Honestly shocked how much I enjoyed her firs trilogy
Criss-Cross - 10/10
Planet of the Rani - 9/10
Shield of the Jotunn - 8/10.
Totally agree. I actually think the Flip and Connie dynamic shares a few similarities with the earlier Peri & Erimem team - like having two sisters travelling through the TARDIS.
Except that the Flip and Connie dynamic is really taken advantage of by the writers, especially Chapman.
Highlighting the differences between them during ‘Scorched Earth’ was fascinating!
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I love Constance! She’s such a sweetheart, and the dynamic between her and Flip is brilliant. I need to go back and listen to her earlier stories—Criss-Cross and Quicksilver look really cool, but I haven’t heard them yet! Apart from that you’ve mentioned a lot of my favourites. Static was so good—and I also loved her story from the Last Adventure, The End of the Line.
I’m also really looking forward to whenever Calypso returns to the 6DAs. A non-binary bounty hunter from the future who Constance is (maybe?—possibly?—) romantically entangled with… what a fantastic character. Get on it, Rob Valentine!
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I would love to hear Calypso return, but I don’t know how likely that will be given how busy Valentine will be over the next few years - since he’s taken over as producer of the War Master now Handcock has gone.
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I am literally SO close to hitting her stories (I’m on MR 198 right now) and I’m really excited to meet her! I’ve not heard that much about her and I don’t have any idea what happens to her, but this makes me want to get there faster!
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She’s an interesting companion, and gets some incredible stories.
I know I’ve already mentioned this in this thread, but ‘Scorched Earth’ is honestly one of her best. Pitting her against another companion with wildly different beliefs is fascinating - especially when both of them look to the Doctor for his opinion.
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My only problem with Calypso was having their first appearance be in The Lovecraft Invasion. They seemed to be used as a plot device to highlight Lovecraft’s bigotry. I would have prefered them to have been an already established character rather than be introduced here.
Sorry, a bit off topic.
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In all fairness, said story was an incredibly troubled production. Obviously it was released during the height of the BLM protests, and it was delayed by BigFinish and rewritten a couple of times.
Honestly, it’s a miracle it saw the light of day to begin with.
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I don’t have many of her stories, the ones I do are basically because I wanted to take advantage of the subscription discount for other stories, so I have Scorched Earth, The Lovecraft Invasion, Colony of Fear and The End of the Beginning. I don’t think these are the greatest sample? I enjoyed them all but none of them have stood out too much in my memory, but the companions themselves do. I like Constance! I like that her and Flip seem like such a clash but work together so well, it’s nice to give the Sixth Doctor a historical companion!
But the praise for Scorched Earth has me interested in giving it a second listen in a way I wasn’t before. It’s the one I remember the least about and I think my experience may have just been dampened by the fact that I was suddenly in the deep end with two companions I hadn’t even heard of about 5 minutes prior. I feel like I vaguely remember a scene where Flip takes offence to something in Constance’s time, who then gets all defensive about it while the Doctor hums and haws about it and thinking that it was an interesting team setup. If I give it another go anytime soon I’ll be sure to report back.
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I love Constance. At first I didn’t care for her (she’s a bit of an acquired taste, I think, due to how stiff she is), but her teaming up with Flip got the arrow to swing in the other direction. They work great together. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why she was paired up with her so soon, because of that acquired taste. Either way, I’m officially a Constance fan; and despite her stiffness, it’s that aspect of her I appreciate considering she’s a historical companion. This is in comparison to Charley, who’s also from the early 20th century, but comes across more as a 21st century girl.
Count me out for the Scorched Earth fans, but I loved Static, The Middle, The Lovecraft Invasion, Quicksilver, and The Behemoth.
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I listened to Criss Cross and Planet of the Rani a while back and wasn’t overly taken with Constance but then I revisited her for the stories set in and around WW2 as part of my marathon and instantly fell in love with her.
The dynamic between her and Flip is brilliant, especially in Scorched Earth but her introduction in Criss-Cross was so much better than I remembered and I loved that story second time round. I’m excited to hear more of Constance (and Flip) as I work through finishing off the Main Range (next up will be Order of the Daleks).
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My Constance reviews
And I was reminded of this Short Trip read by Miranda Raison:
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Argh I’m about to finish Shield of the Jötunn and I like Constance well enough but I have to say I was disappointingly underwhelmed by her first three stories here. Criss-Cross was definitely the highlight out of these three and I wanted so desperately to like Planet of the Rani because, well, the Rani but… idk it really gave me a ~motherhood is the destiny for all women~ vibe and that rubbed me the wrong way the whole way through to the point of dislike. Jötunn has been kind of fun but god WHY are we back on the shoddy American accents… why…
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I agree with you that Clarke seems to work best in a WW2 setting
Maybe she should’ve been more of a D. I. Menzies character instead of a full-time companion
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