The team wake up on board a ship where you will enjoy yourself.  Or else.

Christopher Hatherall’s story maintains the new Counter-Measures’ moderately grounded in reality approach with mentions of real life CIA projects alongside the usual shenanigans. There’s hints of The Macra Terror about the enforced jollity and the regular slogans but the antagonists are very much human – in fact, in an odd way, almost too human, with an almost mundane motive behind what’s going on.

The story plays out very effectively, with a different sort of opening, and a new character played by Caroline Harker who everyone feels that they have to trust, simply because she tells them to! Hatherall builds plot twists out of the characters of our core team, with Gilmore’s slightly old-fashioned (even for the 1970s) chivalry making things difficult for his colleagues in particular.

Joe Meiners’ sound design and Ken Bentley’s direction ensure that we’re never unclear where we are within the story – even when the characters themselves might not be quite so sure.

Verdict: An aquatic assignment for the team shows their strengths and weaknesses well. 8/10

Paul Simpson