Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures, Volume 3

The recast version of the First Doctor adventures continues with one straight historical and one SF tale. In this case, while the historical is good, the other fails despite the gimmick of having Carole Ann Ford in the cast, leaving this the weakest of the three volumes so far.

The Phoenicians – The TARDIS arrives in the ancient city of Tyre in 814 BC, where the Doctor and companions soon become involved with the feud between King Pygmalion (no, not the sculptor) and his sister. The first half of the story follows the usual formula of close scrapes in Tyre, dealing with mysterious assassins and sinister prophets. In the second half, we're off across the Mediterranean in one of the longer trips that typified this era of the TV show – concluding, of course, with the Doctor witnessing the founding of Carthage.

In some respects, this is most like The Aztecs, with the clash between modern sensibilities and iron age culture being a recurring element. Given the intended audience, the temple prostitutes are only alluded to, but there is plenty of casual slavery and some (‘off-screen') human sacrifice with none of the guest characters coming out of things well from a modern perspective, although the Scythian amazon comes close. On the downside, the first two cliffhangers are particularly limp – both revolve around a central character being apparently killed off when we know they can't be, and an almost casual resolution of why they weren't in the next episode. But otherwise, it's a strong example of this particular type of story, exploring an ‘alien' culture that happens to be human, as the earlier historicals on TV tended to. 4 stars.

Tick Tock World – The second series TV serial The Space Museum is chiefly notable for the first episode, in which the TARDIS managed to jump slightly out of its usual time stream. Once things are restored to normal at the end of that episode, the remainder of the serial is comparatively mundane. Here, a similar premise to that first episode is stretched out over a full 2-hour story... and it turns out there isn't really enough in it to carry a story for that length.

The travellers find themselves on a world of ruins that has been affected by a similar sort of time jump, so that they are seeing echoes of the past, and of their own futures. They team up with some other survivors and we get the usual leisurely exploration of the setting for which the First Doctor's era was often known on TV. Which, in this case, doesn't particularly go anywhere, even once the monsters turn up and start eating people. And what is it with killing off LGBT couples in the audios of late? The main positive in the story is an examination of the Doctor's relationship with Susan which can also be seen a commentary on her being underused in the TV series itself after An Unearthly Child. But even this is achieved largely by making the Doctor unlikeable; he's at his most cantankerous here and unwilling to accept help even when he clearly needs it and others are in a position to provide it.

I can see what Adams was trying for here but, while the result has some good points, he doesn't quite pull it off. 3 stars.