Doctor Who: Mistfall

As the cover picture makes clear, this is a sequel to the TV story Full Circle, and is, in fact, written by the same author/scriptwriter. Given the location of that story, it's also the start of a “Second E-Space trilogy”, with the Doctor once again trapped within the pocket dimension that forms the setting of much of season 18 on TV.

In this story, descendants of the crew of the starliner in the original story return to Alzarius to learn more about the marshmen from whom they are descended and study the ‘mistfall' phenomenon. This, of course, is exactly where the TARDIS crew arrive after falling through a second CVE (there is, to be fair, a reasonable explanation for this, with Adric having messed things up shortly before his death).

There follows quite a lot of running about in the jungle, Tegan screaming at things, and Turlough trying to avoid trouble. In addition to the menace of the mostly non-speaking marshmen, and getting lost in the mist, it turns out that saboteurs are trying to wreck the expedition's chances of survival, for reasons that only become clear in the final quarter. In fairness, that motive is at least a reasonable one, even if the chosen method is questionable. The supposed mystery of the main saboteur's identity is also pretty easy to guess.

The story attempts to expand a little on what we know of both the marshmen and the New Alzarians from the old starliner, but it's fairly minimal, and the former aren't really an interesting foe, mainly grunting and smashing things. Although Nyssa comes out of it reasonably well, her fellow companions don't, and, while the story is competent, it's also fairly routine. Its problem, perhaps, is that it's mostly a re-hash of a story that was merely average the first time round.

The story ends on a cliffhanger.