Doctor Who: The Seeds of War

A grimmer than usual tale, in which the Sixth Doctor and Mel arrive in the immediate aftermath of a war between star-faring humanity and a mysterious foe. The story jumps about between a number of different locations and planets, with the nature of the immediate threat to the characters changing with each 30-minute segment. This does, at times, make it seem a bit choppy, jumping about in a way that might be more suited to a novel than the 2-hour audio format, but nonetheless, it works.

Another oddity is that the Doctor has previously encountered the entity behind the threat to Earth and its colonies, but we, the listener have not - it was brought back in subsequent stories, but this is its first appearance in the series. While the Doctor does, of course, explain exactly what the thing is to Mel (and thus, the listener), it does feel as if we're jumping in half way through a story arc. Which we are, chronologically, but not in terms of publication order.

Set against this, the story does have a number of strengths. The depiction of the struggling colony world, while not directly relevant to the plot per se, does help to set the atmosphere and provides a human touch to the grander storyline. Indeed, we cut away to the colony for a number of scenes long before the Doctor gets there, or it's clear how the relevant bits of the story are connected. The news stories from the official Earth broadcaster, many of them blatant propaganda, also provide some context to the broader setting.

For the most part, the villain remains in the background, although it does monologue an explanation of its plot at one point (to thin air, apparently). It's not unlike others that have previously been seen in Doctor Who, but it does have the advantage of it being quite difficult to see how it can actually be defeated in the long term. And it's certainly a worthy opponent, and no surprise that it was brought back in later stories.

Despite a few flaws here and there, this is a good story, with some well written guest characters, a decent, if somewhat shadowy, opponent and a solid science fiction setting. It's rather darker than usual, dealing with themes of famine and societal collapse, but that's a nice change for Six, since it's more commonly Seven that gets those kinds of story.