Doctor Who: Warlock's Cross

This is the concluding part of the ‘Daniel Hopkins' trilogy, following up on The Helliax Rift and Hour of the Cybermen. Here, the Seventh Doctor encounters Hopkins a few years after the events of the second story and once again clashes with the post-‘70s version of UNIT (the story is set three years prior to Battlefield, and Bambera isn't yet in charge). Notably, of course, as is obvious from the cover, he also meets Elizabeth Klein, although there is no mention of the cliffhanger ending of the last story to feature her, which remains unresolved.

The story is somewhat mixed, and how much you like it may depend on your attitude to UNIT, at least in this era. The monster is a decent one, and the segment set inside the abandoned base where it resides is atmospheric and effective. And there's decent use of the various characters, showing how each of them can be tempted to do the wrong thing for different reasons; in many respects, the story is about how talking can be more effective than using weapons, a common theme in Doctor Who.

But that necessarily tends to put UNIT in an adversarial position. We once again have a commanding officer who shows all the failing of the military mind, although he's at least trying to do the right thing. It's reminiscent of the debates between the Third Doctor and the Brigadier, but without the mutual respect. Hopkins, of course, has also changed and become less sympathetic than he was before; his motivations are clear enough, but without having seen the intervening years through his eyes, it's harder to empathise with him. Furthermore, while Klein's arc gets some degree of closure here, Hopkins' story just peters out, as if Lyons wasn't quite sure what to do with him.

For me, the central story about the threat to Earth was enough to overcome these issues. They do make the story somewhat bleak, but at least some characters do get redemption at the end, and it's not as wholly dark as it might be. The way that the monster twists people's minds and how they respond to it is well done, and the Doctor comes in for almost as much criticism as UNIT does. But, if you're a big fan of UNIT as an undoubted force for good, you might find this a little too dark and negative.