The Doctor and Mel pursue Patricia through time…

Chris Chapman takes the reins for this chase through time and space that starts in New Zealand and ends somewhere very different, as Imogen Stubbs’ Patricia McBride slowly but surely becomes completely immersed in her quest to change the timeline – with results that the Doctor and Mel are well aware of. It’s very much a dramatized example of the butterfly effect at work – save one life (on more than one occasion) and then follow the resulting impossible girl, guiding her towards a destiny that will not make things better…

There’s quite a bit of time given over in the first episode to Patricia and her plans, which unfold without interruption from the Doctor’s viewpoint. It allows us as listeners to get to know this new version of her better, and means that we can judge just how much her manipulations are changing her as well as the timeline. She sees herself as a fairy godmother – but we’re more in the Maleficent range!

Chapman writes the scenes between the Doctor and Mel very well: he is aware of the changes as they’re happening and they’re having a physical effect, and while Mel wants to help restore Hebe, she is also affected by the plights of those who Patricia is helping – it might be “right” to let them die, but there’s no way that she’s going to stand there and watch it happen (a dilemma that was also at the heart of the recent Timeslip story). There’s another strong confrontation between Colin Baker and Stubbs’ characters, but if the latter ever was going to listen to reason, that time has long gone…

Verdict: Another tense instalment in this well-created saga. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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