It’s the centenary of the Revolution but the Doctor knows that something is very wrong with Time…

Una McCormack’s new Seventh Doctor tale is a smart alternate history story in which she juggles three separate plot threads successfully until it’s time for them all to start to weave around each other. One strand sees Ace in East Berlin shortly after the Berlin Wall came up; another follows the Doctor and Mel in pretty much contemporary times – but in a world with a very different history; the final one is based around a space expedition to Mars and what’s found there. McCormack bases one of these around the clever notion that Mel’s memories are somehow altered to fit the new history so that she doesn’t find the new status quo as surprising as the Doctor.

Sophie Aldred barely shares a scene with her co-stars, instead teamed with Matt Barber’s Tom Elliot, an agent caught up in the realpolitik of the Cold War. The Berlin of the period is brought to life well by both their performances as well as Joe Kraemer and Josh Arakelien’s sound design, with director Jamie Anderson, as ever, pacing the story well. Bonnie Langford and Sylvester McCoy also work well as a team and McCormack’s script giving both some unexpected emotional moments as they try to survive in the Republic of Mokoshia.

Verdict: An intricately plotted tale that thematically echoes some aspects of the early New Adventures while charting its own distinct course. 9/10

Paul Simpson