Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun

This one-off story was released out of sequence, having been recorded way in advance and then brought out to fill a gap during the pandemic. This means that it doesn't fit with the 4th Doctor stories around it, featuring Leela and being back to the usual one-hour format after the two-hour E-Space releases. By and large, it works, although it's not without its problems.

It sees the TARDIS arriving on a luxury liner, where, as we learn from the opening teaser, things are about to go badly wrong for the passengers. After a fairly relaxed few opening scenes exploring the apparently empty liner (the sort of thing that would be more common in a First Doctor story) we do eventually meet the ship's occupants, leading to a race against time for everyone to escape apparent doom.

There are some parallels here to the 10th Doctor TV episode 42 but, despite the fact that there is a clock ticking and everyone is due to die, this has less of a sense of tension than that did. That may partly be the audio format not being able to convey what's presumably an increasingly uncomfortable atmosphere on board ship, but, especially for Doctor Who, there's also remarkably little running. Furthermore, there are some apparent inconsistencies in the plot, where events don't seem to make sense - perhaps some explanatory scenes were cut for timing reasons.

Some listeners might find the fact that almost all the guest characters are male to be a disappointment, and the motivations of many of them aren't explained beyond “he's mad”. On the other hand, people do do such daft things in the real world, and explaining why this happens is probably a bit deep and dark for a DW story. And the Doctor and Leela are both well-written, accompanied by a great turn from the unfailingly polite and slightly camp ship's computer. Nor is the plot itself bad, when you get down to it; it may not be the greatest or most original of tales but it's perfectly functional and fits well with the era.

And, hey, you've got to give them some credit for the entire thing being recorded during lockdown, from the actors' bedrooms and so forth instead of studio sound booths. Honestly, you'd never know; that's some quality sound work right there and nudges out any of the minor problems I mention above.