Doctor Who: Trouble in Paradise

The sixth story in the series is read by Nicola Bryant, who played companion Peri Brown on the TV series.

This time, we get the plot arc element out of the way right in the opening scene, before the TARDIS lands on Columbus's ship just as it makes landfall in the Bahamas. There's an alien stalking the ship (it's not clear how it got there from the shore), Columbus is a complete arse, and the Doctor and Peri get into a lot of arguments.

Ironically, the real problem with this story is, from another perspective, its only strength: it feels a lot like the sort of TV story we got during Six's era. And those were mostly rubbish. Many of the worst traits of those episodes are on display: the Doctor is needlessly arrogant, Peri is petulant but unjustly abused, the alien is a bit silly, and the whole thing just feels charmless. There is even a scene with charnel house gore in it, for no particular reason, and we're specifically told at one point how much Peri's wet clothing is sticking to her figure.

Frankly, the most likeable character in it is the goat.

Those who have listened to the regular series of Big Finish plays featuring the Sixth Doctor will know that they have (mostly) repatriated him, not only giving him decent scripts, but smoothing his prickly exterior while still keeping him recognisably the same character. Here, Fountain goes all out to emphasise his worst qualities, possibly because that was what the line editor wanted - a believable introduction to what his TV era was actually like.

I almost feel that I should be more generous to this because it does have one genuinely good feature in the quality of Nicola Bryant's performance. Notably, she's really quite good at doing Six's delivery, which at least brings things alive. But, no, I did not like this, and, for the first time in ages of listening to these things, I'm going to give it 2.5 stars, and round down.