Doctor Who: The Smugglers (BBC TV Soundtrack) [Box set] [Audio CD]

Anneke Wills (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

Further dramatized adventures of the time-travelling Doctor Who, this time in the murky world of pirates and hidden treasure.

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: BBC Worldwide Ltd.; Abridged edition (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563535040
• ISBN-13: 978-0563535041
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,601,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Story #28, April 14, 2010

By 

Dark Star-The Other One (The Bus To Never Ever Land) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Smugglers (BBC TV Soundtrack) (Audio CD)

The beginning of the show's fourth season is notable for a couple of reasons: It's William Hartnell's next to last story as well as being the first one to feature Ben and Polly as traveling companions. They were present in the last story,Doctor Who: The War Machines (Story 27) and at the end wandered into the Doctor's TARDIS as it was leaving. Unfortunately, aside from a few brief censor cuts, Doctor Who - Lost in Time Collection of Rare Episodes - The William Hartnell Years and the Patrick Troughton Years nothing currently exists in the BBC video vault. Thankfully, off air fan audio recordings were made and remastered with linking narration by Anneke Wills (who played companion Polly).

As far as the story itself, it's above average and involves the Doctor and his new companions landing in 17th Century off the coast in Cornwall and our heroes end up involved in murder, pirates, mistaken identity and the whole nine yards. The main cast is in fine form and I love the bit where Hartnell pretends to be a pirate. Good stuff!

4.0 out of 5 stars Buster and Paul, October 9, 2010

By 

S Maslin (Utsunomiya, Japan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Doctor Who: The Smugglers (Audible Audio Edition)

A couple of days after episode two of 'The Smugglers' was originally broadcast, Scotland Yard arrested Buster Edwards, suspected of involvement in the Great Train Robbery back in 1963. In the 1988 film 'Buster', he was somewhat inaccurately portrayed as a loveable rogue, which was more than a little insensitive towards the robbery's victims. If it's a genuinely engaging, street-wise Londoner you're looking for, without any stain on his character, then Dr Who had one of the finest ever in Ben Jackson. One of the most memorable aspects of Season Four as a whole is not only his distinctive voice and boundless energy but also his being 'one of us' (in a way that Steven Taylor never was). The contemporary feel kick-started in 'The War Machines' is, in spite of The Smugglers' 17th century setting, maintained by his and Polly's very 20th century reactions. Without these two charming individuals, the season curtain-raiser would be nothing but a fairly flat slab of hackneyed melodrama. (The biggest nonsense of the story is that no-one notices that Polly, as "Paul", is not the lad she is passed off to be. Fair enough, if the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens are anything to go by, then the ideal of womanhood of the 17th century tended towards the chubby but even so! One is left with the uncomfortable feeling that the script is actually questioning the sanity of the good people of Cornwall. Shame on you Brian Hayles!)

One imagines a few exasperated sighs around the BBC about a programme that had looked to redefine itself as 'with it' a few months previously, retreating to the realms of the traditional but don't get me wrong: as an audio, I like 'The Smugglers' (though it is a somewhat guilty pleasure: something to put on for International Talk Like A Pirate Day). With the absence of music (only the sound of the sea), Anneke Wills silky narration and its double archaisms (the historical setting and the era of television that put it on screen), it is an enjoyable enough time to spend in your headphones.