The 2020 run of Short Trips kicked off with Sharon Bidwell’s first Big Finish story – The Infinite Today. Clearly a riff on Groundhog Day, Katy Manning performs this Jo Grant and Eleventh Doctor story. Nick Briggs takes the director’s seat and it runs at around 45 minutes.

The Infinite Today

The form is obvious from the synopsis:

Jo Jones is travelling. Setting out from London Gatwick to Mexico, she lands back at Gatwick.

Jo Jones is travelling once again. Setting out from London Gatwick to Mexico, she lands back at Gatwick with the same crew and passengers.

Jo Jones is travelling once again. Setting out from London Gatwick to Mexico, she lands back at Gatwick with precisely the same crew and passengers, again.

Jo Jones is travelling once again…

The story riffs around various slices of Jo’s attempted trip to Mexico, giving Katy plenty of opportunity to display her vocal versatility. The story slowly tells us what’s going on with the Eleventh Doctor appearing and revealing just what is going in in stages. It’s all very satisfying but the meat of this story is near the end.

Time loop eliminated there’s a powerful, well-written scene where Jo has a very frank conversation with the Doctor about his perspective on death as a time traveller, with a particular focus on Jo’s own future.

It’s deep territory the show tended to always shy away from and well-delivered in this thoroughly decent story. Roll on the rest of 2020!