Continuing his solo travels, the Fourth Doctor arrives in a small British seaside town near a power station that seems to be haunted…

David Llewellyn’s tale for the fourth Doctor serves as an introduction to Nerys Hughes’ Margaret Hopwood. As with Colin Baker and the late great Maggie Stables’ Evelyn Smythe, this combination of Time Lord and more mature partner makes for a very different relationship to the standard Doctor/assistant team-up, and you can see why the potential for more interaction between them was clear.

Some of the dialogue feels quite stilted at times – almost a conscious period feel – but it’s great to hear Richard Earl outside of his accustomed Big Finish role as Dr Watson. His character almost feels like a holdover from the Jon Pertwee era, and you half expect the Brigadier to be butting heads with him at some point. Toby Hrycek-Robinson makes the end of episode attacks convincing – there’s easy potential there for them to be less powerful than they need to be – and director Nick Briggs allows the tension to rise appropriately: there are Hitchcockian elements to this which he brings out.

Verdict: With no regular companion, we don’t know who bar the Doctor will survive this, but it seems to be the start of another beautiful friendship. 7/10

Paul Simpson

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