The Doctor needs to rescue Nova – if he can save himself first, that is…

Time is askew in the middle part of Nicholas Briggs’ opening salvo for Christopher Eccleston’s return as the Doctor, and you do need to concentrate when you’re listening to this to keep up with all the shenanigans that cross time and space. All the wrong things are happening, and they’re happening in the wrong order – leaving the Doctor with a lot to sort out in the finale.

Briggs has written a very busy story, and he keeps a firm hand on the tiller as director, allowing scenes that need some more space to breathe, rather than keeping up a madcap pace. Eccleston, Camilla Beeput and Jayne McKenna’s characters are all bouncing off each other in somewhat different ways from the opener, and Iain Meadows’ sound design has to do a lot of heavy lifting here – not least to distinguish certain elements of Eccleston’s performance from similar but different effects from the TV show. Howard Carter’s music is an integral part of the audio, reflecting what’s happening more than the TV scores tended to manipulate the emotions.

Verdict: Very much the middle act of the story, Cataclysm makes us reconsider elements of the opener, and sets up a high stakes finale. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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