The nightmares keep coming as the three series of Classic Doctors New Monsters come to a close. Following the 8^th Doctor and Charley, If I Should Die Before I Wake finds them facing their own battle with the Kantrofarri, as a labyrinthian path keeps them amid Greek myths.

The Eighth Doctor and Charley are lost – in a labyrinth of monsters. And somewhere, lurking, are the Dream Crabs…

From the Sphinx to Gorgons, Cerberus and Pegasus, the Greek myths are alive and threatening the TARDIS duo with death at every turn. How long until their Fates unravel, and the truth is revealed?

Big Finish Synopsis

As the second Kantrofarri story of the boxset, If I Should Die Before I Wake differs from Eclectic Dreams by taking these brain-sucking crabs in a more fantastical direction. Set in a dreamscape, it finds the TARDIS duo instigating and acting out a series of different ancient Greek myths. With the Doctor acting as the chief narrator, he keeps putting Charley (playing the myth’s protagonist) in more potentially fatal scenarios with the aim of killing her in the dream and waking her up from a dream crab attack. The problem is, Charley keeps finding ways of escaping from the jaws of death!

Even from the pre-credit scene, you can tell that both Rayner and Dorney had an immense level of fun while writing this story. Clearly fans of ancient Greek mythos, the two of them have put a lot of effort and time into creating a story that manages to weave several different tales together and, in no uncertain terms, Doctor Who-ify them. Despite how messy this concept could be, it is well paced, moving from story to story in a timely manner, and manages to include some interesting small cast parts, such as the very informal Sphinx.

Unfortunately, if you can sense a big but coming, then you’d be right.

I have a problem with this story. Despite my attempts at subjectivity, I can never come to love a Doctor Who story that falls so deep down the rabbit hole of fantasy or idolises a form of literature to the point where it takes control over everything else. No matter how well they’re written (and this one’s written pretty well), the result for me will always be the same. Every time, without fail, these types of stories come across as twee and self-indulgent, a chance to play all the greatest hits and leave listeners uninterested in the source material drowning under the sheer deluge of references.

On a more constructive note, this story does very little with the Kantrofarri that we don’t get to see in the originally broadcast story. Much like Last Christmas, the Kantrofarri in this story act like more of a vehicle (or maybe excuse) to explore fantastical elements that would never normally work. The difference between them is that the fantastic elements in the former serve to repair the relationship between The Doctor and Clara.