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The Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith help the Brigadier investigate a death at Space World…

It’s got to be over 25 years since I last listened to this first new Doctor Who full cast story of the 1990s – given the plethora of material that’s available now, even while the TV series is in a longer than anticipated gap between seasons, it’s hard to remember just how little we had back then, outside of the New Adventures and the DWM comic strip. As has been argued persuasively elsewhere, Jon Pertwee effectively was the Doctor once more at this point – he played the part on stage for The Ultimate Adventure and then reprised the role with Lis Sladen and Nicholas Courtney for this and The Ghosts of N-Space, and, one suspects, if the TV movie hadn’t moved up a gear, there would probably have been more.

Nowadays, we’d have Tim Treloar, Sadie Miller and Jon Culshaw playing the leads, but there is a wonderful nostalgia in hearing Pertwee, Sladen and Courtney in Barry Letts’ tale. It’s probably best remembered for mangling continuity – like Invasion of the Dinosaurs, it’s set directly after The Time Warrior – but it’s an enjoyable romp that allows Peter Miles and Harold Innocent to go to town with the roles of Tragan and Freeth, while Maurice Denham (who’d have a larger role in the sequel) is suitably vague as the President of Parakon.

Letts uses the freedom of audio to have scenes the TV series he produced would never have afforded (although I have no doubt he’d have tried!), and some of the visuals brought to mind are intriguing. There’s an attempt to be slightly more adult (although sadly it mostly comes over as jejune), and a new “companion” added in the form of Richard Pearce’s Jeremy Fitzoliver.

Listening to it in one go on a long drive makes you realise the breadth of the story, and also that Letts never lost his desire to use the Doctor to crusade for ecological themes. There’s plenty borrowed from previous stories but Letts blends it together well.

Verdict: A surprisingly enjoyable romp jammed into Pertwee’s last season. 7/10

Paul Simpson