Doctor Who: The Dispossessed

The Doctor and his companions become trapped in a modern tower block that has somehow been pulled out of the regular world in a story that has quite a mix of styles. Much of it takes place inside the condemned tower block, made bleaker than it already is by the perpetual night and the near-starvation of the few residents that remain alive. Quite a lot of the story is an exploration of the setting, trying to figure what's going on, with the individual responsible being heard by the listener in voice-overs but not turning up directly until past the halfway mark.

Zombies patrolling the halls provide the action elements, along with a psychic battle once the villain shows up. There's also rather a lot of exposition in the third segment. Although this is handled well and there's the added element that we hear two different perspectives on what happened interspersed with one another, you're never really in any doubt as to which of the two expositors is the one giving the more accurate account.

The story is prevented from being entirely grim by the addition of an alien hunter who speaks in Mancunian idiom due to an automated process that allows her to blend in with the locals. Despite being on a quest that's actually quite serious, her irreverent asides and frustration with what's happening and with the ‘primitive' nature of 21st-century technology add some much-needed lighter moments to the story. The guest characters are well-drawn, although the sub-plot with the woman recovering from an abusive relationship doesn't have space to go anywhere.

There are a couple of weak points, that are just enough for me to lower it to a 3... but only just. The first comes right at the beginning with a pointless and poorly acted scene on a spaceship that doesn't add anything to what follows later (I imagine it's meant to intrigue the listener, but for me, it didn't achieve this). The other is the resolution, which is achieved a bit too easily, and largely ‘off screen', albeit offset by some more dramatic stakes for those who are ‘on screen' at the time.

The story ends on an unrelated cliffhanger that leads directly into the next release in the series.