Doctor Who: Shockwave

The seventh story is the series is read by Sophie Aldred, who played “Ace”, the last companion of the classic TV series.

The Doctor and Ace arrive on a space station just as the solar system it is in is about to be destroyed by a stellar anomaly. Most of the action takes place on the large passenger liner bearing the last of the fleeing refugees from the system. It's the sort of setting that would be ideal for a longer story - a novel, perhaps, or at least a 2-hour audio play. Here, however, the plot is necessarily curtailed by the available length, and we don't have much room the explore the wider ramifications of what's happening.

In Seven's true style, he has an ulterior motive for travelling on the refugee ship, and it's one he's not sharing with Ace. The story is almost entirely told through Ace's eyes, which helps to maintain this mystery, although, honestly, it's not all that hard to figure out. It's all fairly straightforward, although the plot arc elements are subtly different from what has gone before, and arguably more key to events than in the previous six episodes.

I also have to say that something felt a bit off with Aldred's reading of the Doctor's lines - it's a Scottish accent, certainly, but I'm not wholly convinced it's the right one. Otherwise it's a good performance, though, and the limited number of other characters we see are well developed. It's not a remarkable story by any means, and might have benefited from a different format, but it works well enough, so 3.5 stars rounded up.