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TARDIS Guide

Review of Trail of the White Worm by Ryebean

3 June 2025

This review contains spoilers!

REVIEW ALSO POSTED IN THE OSEIDON ADVENTURE

I'm considering this a four-part story, so part 1 and 2 is Trail, and 3 and 4 is Oseidon. Finale? Pfft.

The Doctor really doesn't get much to do at all in this story. He walks about for a bit, talks to some locals, walks around a bit more and gets captured. Leela's the real star here, getting to fight the Master at the start of Part 2, then basically saving the day with her new best friend - Pink Gin! However, the relationship between the pair has so clearly grown that they are having great fun, especially when they escape!

I can't really see the Master in this situation. The first half of the story is more realistic, hiding away in the big house, getting Spindleton to do his dirty work whilst he is dying, but the second half, he's way too practical for someone who's basically been fried. He's also very out of character, probably due to the android stuff, but I'll get onto that later.
The White Worm had some great setup, but it was just a monster to help the Master's real plan.
Spindleton was alright. There were far too many villains for me to understand all their motives and who was helping who, but from what I gathered, he was helping the Master, then the Kraals, then the Earth? I get why he was in the story, but it was far too complicated.
Kraals. To be honest, I liked the Kraals. But this story made them very comic-y and grumpy. I'm not sure what their plan was, and why Grinmal ended up siding with the Doctor and Leela. It's a shame that they weren't used properly, because I was excited for them to return.
The final villains, the androids. They properly confused me. I couldn't tell who was who, and when someone was or wasn't an android. However, I liked how they used the same sound effects for the finger weapons. Great work there.

Whoo, that was a lot.

The side characters didn't really have anything to do here. Unfortunately, there were so many villains that the locals really didn't have anything to do aside from... rob a house for some reason and... chase the White Worm?

Disappointing end to an average season of the Fourth Doctor Adventures. The main problem with the season is how it tried to use nostalgia to drive the stories instead of the actual plot itself. Won't be reviewing FDA1 just yet, will review all the audios together before I start Season 15.


Ryebean

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