Doctor Who: Last of the Colophon

A planetary survey team in the 40th century comes across the last survivor of an extinct race, held captive in an underground bunker by a robot nurse. I imagine that it won't really come as a surprise to anyone discover that he is being kept locked up for a very good reason, but that's not the story's main twist. (Which doesn't come until around the half-way point, so I'll consider it a spoiler, although I note that other goodreads reviewers disagree).

This is, admittedly, a fairly straightforward tale, not really breaking any new ground. But it does bring out some of the flavour of the Hinchcliffe era, with some good use of both the Doctor and Leela. Perhaps the closest parallel is with The Brain of Morbius in that that, too, is a fairly straight reworking of one of the Universal Horror films of the '30s moved to an SF setting. This isn't as good as that, and strays further from the plot of the original, but the nature of the villain is essentially identical, so I suspect listeners may differ as to whether it's a homage or a rip-off.

For me, it worked well, fitting its 60-minute length, with the second half being more dramatic once the nature of the opponent is revealed. On the downside, with the exception of the villain, none of the supporting characters are particularly well developed or noteworthy, and it's basically a run-around, full of the tropes of the Fourth Doctor's first few seasons, but without really building on them. Whether you enjoy it may depend on whether you're after nostalgia or genuine surprises, but I'm going to give it 3.5 stars rounded up to 4. It may not have been great, but I found it fun.