Zoe is separated from the Doctor and Jamie as the travellers discover an iconic piece of Earth’s history.

Timothy X. Atack’s first contribution to the Early Adventures very much evokes the period of the TV series in which it’s set, with Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines stepping back nearly half a century with seeming ease, as well as the BBC Missing Adventures audio range, with the narration used to set the scene visually in a deft and economic manner.

Padbury switches from narration to character clearly in a story that builds not just on how she portrayed Zoe on screen but also the attention given to the young astrophysicist in the Big Finish audios. There’s a very different pair of relationships for her – one with the Gnostic robot that she originally encounters, and the other with one of the party that the TARDIS travellers encounter, a young man of similar background to her nicknamed “Twenty” (a nuanced performance from Adam Newington) – and both are developed well.

As director Lisa Bowerman points out in the extras, some of the other members of that party could easily have become cliched – they’re certainly archetypes to a degree – but Judith Roddy, Don McCorkindale and Richenda Carey add little touches that keep them from that in line with the way Atack presents them in the script. Hines’ Doctor and Jamie are as polished as we’ve come to expect, and there’s a fun evocation of a particular sequence from The Invasion (although the extras are edited oddly with reference to that!)

Verdict: A new piece of Season 6 that slots nearly into place. 9/10

Paul Simpson