Doctor Who: The Third Doctor Adventures, Volume 8

Two more stories, one in space, and one featuring UNIT. They feature different companions but both manage to evoke the era, with the ‘70s style incidental music, as usual, adding to the ambience.

Conspiracy in Space – The first story features Jo Grant and is a sequel of sorts to Frontier in Space, being set on Draconia a few years before the latter story. An interesting aspect of this is that almost all of the guest characters in the story are themselves Draconian – something that would be unlikely to work on live-action TV. But it does give quite an opportunity to explore Draconian culture from the inside and do an alien-based story that ties into wider Doctor Who lore without being The Web Planet.

As the title suggests, the story is about court intrigue and a conspiracy within some of the highest echelons of Draconian society. The result is rather “James Bond with space-samurai”, riffing off another trope of the show in this era, as well as providing links to both Frontier and Colony in Space. Part of the Bond feel comes from the frequent use of space-parachutes, as well as a villainous threat to use a doomsday weapon. At times, some of the physical nature of this doesn't entirely make sense and if Barnes grasps the true scale and nature of interstellar space, he certainly isn't letting it get in the way of the story. (For a key element to work, Earth and Draconia would have to be in the same solar system, which clearly, they aren't).

If you don't let that get in the way, though, it's a fun romp with double-crossing villains, honourable and dishonourable aliens and a good use, and expansion, of the general setting. A notable feature is how many of the senior Draconians are female, which gives a better variety than we would expect from Frontier in Space – an apparent contradiction addressed in the closing coda, but a definite plus in this story. 4 stars.

The Devil's Hoofprints – While the second story starts out in the UNIT era, as is common with these collections, most of it takes place in 1855, where the Doctor runs into the eponymous footprints – an actual piece of local folklore that is here given a science fiction explanation. This time, he is accompanied by Sarah Jane; the Brigadier also features but has relatively little interaction with the other leads after the first 30 minutes.

Sarah Jane is perhaps less associated with the UNIT era than Jo or Liz, but she still belongs and fits right in here, at least in those segments set in the present day. Otherwise, she's strong and independent, as she was in this era. That's slightly offset by her being held hostage by the villains at one point, Jo Grant style, but even then she is given more agency than her predecessor often was on the TV show.

My problem with this story is that it's often difficult to work out what's going on, with plenty of action scenes, some involving the Doctor and Venusian aikido, but a larger number with the Brigadier. Since the latter is on his own, aside from the villain, we don't have the usual stand-in of somebody explaining what's just happened out loud and, honestly, I just have no idea in places. Otherwise, it's a decent story, using some of the tropes of the era, even if the historical setting was only rarely used during it (although, obviously, that includes The Time Warrior, so Sarah Jane is an obvious fit). 3 stars.