Rose awakes from the most recent jump – without her cannon…

Lizzie Hopley starts off this latest box set of adventures for Rose Tyler as she plies her way across the multiverse in search of the Doctor, in the backstory to Series 4. The last set ended on a cliffhanger, with Jackie making it home, but Rose not with her, and although I initially thought that meant she’d be stuck on that same world (and given the strength of the characterisation in that story, that would have been no bad thing), it actually means that she somehow got diverted. And when she arrives, she’s in big trouble.

From the publicity (and indeed the subtitle of the set, Trapped), it looks as if we’re in this particular dimension for a bit of time, and that allows Hopley to do some wider worldbuilding than there’s usually been time for in this series. Over the course of the hour, we learn the importance of “’paths” and the perils that face the inhabitants of this world, with Rose’s common sense and strategic skills meaning that she takes an increasingly important role.

All that is set against the revelation of who this world’s Jackie is (and I do wonder if there’s a slight spoiler in the credits) and the person she’s protecting – the build-up to which works very well. There’s a number of threads left hanging at the end of the story between Rose and her young friend Danni, not least the way that Rose refers to Jackie as “Mum”, but there’s plenty of time in the succeeding sets to investigate this.

Em Thane makes a good impression in their first appearance as Danni, and Camille Coduri once again gets a chance to show other sides to Jackie. This feels like one of Billie Piper’s best performances reprising Rose, and director Helen Goldwyn and sound engineers Joe Kraemer and Aiden Van Lier Kraemer do a great job selling the environment and the various dangers.

Verdict: A change in format for the range seems to pay dividends. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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