The TARDIS brings the travellers to early nineteenth century Japan – where simply being a foreigner is punishable by death…

This is one of those stories that you really have to pinch yourself that it’s not a Lost Story, a script that the team have rediscovered down the back of Waris Hussein’s settee – with the possible exception of one scene right at the very end (from which I’m sure we would have cut away much quicker in the 1960s), this feels like a remounting of a first season story. As with John Dorney’s SF tale that preceded it, Andrew Smith has captured the essence of what made the historicals of that period work – including the slightly didactic nature of the storytelling (can you imagine Colin Baker or Christopher Eccleston’s Doctors or their companions being educated in the niceties of a tea ceremony…?)

Those who are fans of wider television and film in this era than just Doctor Who will recall the presence of Patrick Allen in many tales – I’m particularly thinking of his performance in The Saint episode The Man Who Could Not Die – who would be spot-on casting for Knox in this story were it being filmed in 1964. Andrew Wincott brings Knox to life in 2018 with the same superior manner, ensuring that the character has the capacity to surprise you with some of his choices.

Once again, Nick Briggs has assembled a strong group of actors, respecting the diversity of the storyline (in a way that perhaps wouldn’t have happened in the Sixties).  Simply by their voices, the TARDIS crew feel like foreigners, and we’re never left in any doubt as to the perilous and precarious position they’re in – or just how capricious those in authority can be when their very word is law.

Andrew Smith’s research into the period shows in many small ways, and it really feels as if, like the travellers, we’re being immersed in a very different society to the one we know (assisted by Howard Carter’s appropriate music score). Which is precisely what Sydney Newman wanted from Doctor Who in the first place…

Verdict: Up there with Big Finish’s finest historicals over the last 20 years – complementing John Dorney’s tale to create a must-have set. 10/10

Paul Simpson