The Seventh Doctor is known for being manipulative and cunning, but this story has him unhinged - I suppose that the New Adventures in the 90s were for adults and could get away with epic, mortifyingly dark stories like this - However, we're looking at the Fifth Doctor and his team in this review, and I'll talk about 7, Roz and Chris when I get round to him.

Despite there being two Doctors, I think that the Fifth Doctor is the lead here - With the Seventh Doctor being enigmatic and dark, hiding in the shadows and manipulating the events, the Fifth Doctor takes the role of the hero. His interactions with Patience are so beautiful, despite the manipulation of events being rather confusing to follow. My favourite moments in the first act are definitely with Tegan, Nyssa and Chris - the dialogue throughout those scenes are top tier and always amusing. Tegan's definitely shaping up to be one of the most iconic companions of Classic Who. I'm still really confused as to what to say about Nyssa. She's not a bad character by any means, her writing is good, but I just don't know what to say about her. Her interactions are fun, but she really only acts as someone to exposit to. In this story, the same can be said of Adric. It's difficult, especially with such a large core cast - two doctors and five companions is extremely unmanageable, so they end up being relegated, which is a disappointment. I found it very funny that even the cast found it particularly complicated too!

This is a very strong story, but I think that the plot itself is very drawn out - for a novel, that's to be expected, but since this is an audio adaptation, I think there's lots that could've been cut out, and it could've easily been four parts. The Ferutu don't even show up until the final episode, and a lot of it is just build up for a forty minute conclusion. Like I say, because it's definitely a Seventh Doctor story, you've got to put all your efforts into following it, because it can be very confusing. That's not to say it's bad, though. I thoroughly enjoyed it in the opening half, because it's an interesting mystery, with excellent writing and plot developments, but it just took too long to get to those points and my attention started to weaken a little bit by the end.

This world is so beautifully realised - The environment appears like a nice holiday at first, but there's an underlying hostility with the adjudicators and the hidden conspiracy developing. There's so many settings that help to build up this society and they're always so interesting - it's a shame that there's no visuals to accompany this story, because I'm sure it would be fantastic to look at, but such a vivid picture is painted in my mind, with a very magical arctic village, but an air of fear constantly surrounding it.

Patience is an odd inclusion - I feel like her featuring is a lot of padding - I'm not exactly sure if her contribution to the story is very important because there's so much to consider with this story, but her chemistry with Five is so fantastic. There's also everything with the adjudicators which is rather boring, in my opinion. The best moments are amongst the core cast rather than the side characters because all these new people are very unengaging and bland, unfortunately.

The music and sound design, once again, is phenomenal - It sounds so much like the Classic Series, but not as wacky and feels a lot more atmospheric. They've really perfected the way that this era works, and I'm so excited to explore more of it!

This is my first exploration into the 90s New Adventures, and it's so epic - the scale is enormous, the dialogue is astoundingly well written, and the cast are having so much fun. There's quite a bit of padding and it definitely didn't need 6 parts - since it is an audio adaptation, there's quite a bit that they'd need to make it fit to the audio format, so there's no point in making it follow exactly the same beats as the story, fitting six parts.

Its the character moments in this that make Cold Fusion really sparkle. The interactions between Tegan and Chris pretending to be the Australian “Mr Jovanka” are priceless.

Unlike other multi-doctor stories they don’t get caught up in the boring process of comparing personalities - as there is actually a plot and they have something to do (even if it is just a bit of a run around). The idea of having the 7th Doctor as more of a background figure means that his presence continues to pack a real punch whenever he pops up.

After listening to it twice over the last couple of months I’m still not sure I 100% understand all of the facets of the plot - but it’s thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless (and it gives me an excuse to spin it a third time some day).

I was quite looking forward to this, though I don't know why as I didn't know much about it.

The Fifth Doctor along with Tegan, Adric and Nyssa arrive on a planet where some time disturbances are happening; the interesting thing is the the Seventh Doctor is also present accompanied by Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej, throw in another timelord and it would seem to be a packed adventure.

It took a bit of time for stuff to get going, and maybe the fact this was a novel is why. Also a few episodes in I was wondering what the plot was. Nyssa and Tegan separated from the Doctor early on and didn't seem to be achieving much, while the Doctor and Adric seemed to be drifting along with no real intent.

There are a number of strands in this, with the companions all off doing different things and it was a case of suddenly picking up from where we left them but it being so long that it took a bit of thinking to remember what they were up to. By which time you've missed what they're doing now.

Although I knew the names Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej it didn't really occur to me who they were till halfway through - I wasn't a follower of the new adventures and some of the references I wasn't that familer with.

Its 6 parts long the last being nearly 40 minutes, so its bit to get through.

I feel this was probably a good novel but hasn't translated as such in audio, there are some nice things going on, good settings, and possibly a relisten would help.

Now this was a pleasant surprise.

I was initially dreading this audio as I disliked the novel that it's based off of. But the audio adaptation managed to fix some of the biggest issues that I had with the original.

Spoilers below for a 30 year old book and 5 year old audio ahead.

So one of the things that angered me so much about the original novel was the ending where the doctor's wife was killed for seemingly no story reason other than to give the main character more man pain that he didn't need. It was a classic case of fridging; introducing a female character just to be a love interest and then killing her off for the sake of the male character's development.

Oh I still hate it to this day!

The audio changes this up somewhat. It's not a perfect solution, but instead of getting murdered by the bad guy, the character of Patience disappears in a time vortex.

It's still removes her from the narrative abruptly without closure and is confusingly presented on audio, but at least it doesn't kill her off. Her fate from that point is left ambiguous and she can be brought back later if anyone wants to.

And as I like the character, I do hope she comes back.

Patience is given so much more personality in the audio that was missing from the book, and I enjoy the idea of the doctor running into a person from his past that he can't quite remember, but knows he has a connection to. At least conceptually I like it, poor execution can drag this idea down hard. (glares daggers as River Song and Moffat)

But on to other things I liked, I liked how the Tardis crews were presented and how they all had things to do. Adric was my personal favorite and it was good to hear him back. I liked his chemistry with everyone, especially with the Seventh Doctor.

Speaking of the Seventh Doctor, I have never really cared for the New Adventures take on the character, and there are still things here that annoy me slightly, but McCoy breathes so much life into his performance that I can manage to swallow some of the more dodgy aspects of the character.

It's not a major improvement, but it is an improvement.

I also didn't even mind the Other or the Looms this go around. For one, it's left ambiguous as who's memories we're really seeing, and it's hinted that Patience may be from another dimension entirely. One where Gallifrey was destroyed by the aliens that are invading reality/time.

If taken to that conclusion, couldn't the Other be a Doctor from another universe? One who has a different history to our own? Our even a connected one, if you prefer?

Anyways, I like the headcannon and I'm keeping it.

Now on to what I didn't like. Even at six episodes, the story was rushed. The one advantage the novel has over the audio is that things can breath more.

The ending suffers the most as the weight of things, (Patience's 'death', the villain reveal and his comeuppance, the Seventh Doctor's betrayal, ect.) doesn't have time to really be felt by the audience or the characters before we're off to the next thing.

Furthermore the wrap up is, well, a bit fanw*nky and fails to provide a conclusion to the Doctor's new found animosity towards himself. And it all ends rather abruptly without any real closure. Meh...

Still this doesn't hamper the lead up to the final episode which is still loads of fun, and that's what good Doctor Who should be, fun.

Would you class this as a 7th doctor story or a 5th doctor story either way it f**king slaps