Doctor Who: Kingdom of Lies

The TARDIS lands on a world with a medieval social structure but futuristic technology, where a recently-married duke and duchess are at each other's throats. Soon, the Doctor is mistaken for an assassin sent to resolve the situation and has to go along with the ruse in order to have any chance of escape.

The result is a mixture of comedy and court politics in a setting that has a number of unusual features. Much of the comedy comes from the TARDIS crew's attempts to appear as cold-blooded killers - although it turns out there's a logical reason as to why their explanations are accepted. In fact, the story has a number of twists in the second half that make sense of events in the first (I did spot one coming in advance, but appreciated the way the misdirection was done, so that it actually enhanced things for me).

Tegan is also paired with Adric for the first half of the story, giving them a chance to bicker, although this is less of a feature in this release than in some others. While I can't say I'm particularly warming to Adric's presence in the series, he's written more reasonably here than he was on TV, and it seemed to me that Waterhouse is getting better at faking a teenage voice than in some earlier audios. Interestingly, while all the companions do get plenty to do, the story is as much about the (larger than usual) guest cast as it is about them, with the enmity between the duke and duchess lying at the core of it.

It's a fun romp, and certainly not to be taken too seriously, with some changes of pace in the third and fourth acts that prevent it from feeling overly long. The comedy typically works, although it's not as strong as in (say) Peri and Piscon Paradox or The Kingmaker and this isn't one of the greats. 3.5 stars, perhaps, but I've given out a lot of 4s recently, so I'm rounding down.