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“HOOKLIGHT 2 – A TIME-TORN TALE OF TWO DOCTORS”

Hooklight 2 is a rare beast: a Doctor Who story that dares to stretch its limbs across six parts (making twelve in total with Hooklight 1) and still keeps its emotional stakes front and centre. Tim Foley’s conclusion to this grand fantasy epic picks up where part one left off—except now, the Eighth Doctor is stepping into the fray, and things are about to get even more complicated.

While the Fifth Doctor and friends work to prevent the titular Hooklight from freezing time itself, we discover that it’s actually the Eighth Doctor whose earlier failure triggered the situation in the first place. It’s a clever twist that adds a retrospective weight to both halves of the saga. There’s also a poignant return for Nyssa, now fused with the Hooklight, as well as Adric and Tegan—each given their own emotional arc, their own sense of purpose in the endgame.

SPLIT TIMELINES, STRANGE WORLDS, AND FAMILIAR TRINKETS

Foley continues to weave beloved classic Who lore into his intricate tapestry: time rings, hypercubes, and even the TARDIS key and lantern get a nod. These details never feel like throwaway references—they’re smartly used touchstones anchoring the more out-there fantasy elements to something recognisably Doctor Who. They also serve to keep long-time fans engaged while Foley explores stranger, more impressionistic territory.

Once again, the characters are scattered across time and space. The Fifth Doctor journeys in the past with the knightly Davlin, while Adric—also under Davlin’s wing—finds himself in the present. Foley's doubling of Davlin across time gives the story an almost mythic tone, and the mentor-student relationship between Davlin and Adric is particularly rewarding, offering Adric a rare moment of growth. He tries to live up to “being a Doctor” himself—Foley’s take on what it means to be heroic in the shadow of the Time Lord.

TEGAN’S CHAPTER AND A MELANCHOLY REUNION

Part 8 is a bold structural choice—an almost standalone chapter focused entirely on Tegan and her husband. At first, it feels oddly divorced from the rest of the narrative, like a bottle episode in a season finale. But then Tegan meets Eight. His brief, cryptic remarks (“I know who you are”) drip with potential, and for a moment, it feels like we’re peeking behind a curtain the show rarely dares to lift. Eventually, she’s reunited with the Fifth Doctor—three years later from her point of view—and the emotional weight lands beautifully.

It’s a reunion tinged with sorrow and growth. Foley understands that time doesn’t always travel in a straight line, and neither do relationships. The fact that the Doctor has barely blinked since their last meeting while Tegan has lived years is a classic Who heartbreaker, and it works brilliantly here.

EIGHT'S GOODBYES AND ADRIC’S UNTOUCHED FATE

One of the loveliest threads running through Hooklight 2 is the Eighth Doctor’s journey through his own past—not via time travel, but by reuniting with his former companions. Each one brings a little emotional clarity, a little unfinished business. It’s especially touching that he saves Adric for last. He clearly wants to warn him, to prevent his eventual death, but of course, he can’t. That tragic restraint, that desperate wish to interfere with fate but knowing he mustn’t—it’s pure Eighth Doctor pathos, and Paul McGann plays it perfectly.

THEMES OF CONTROL, GROWTH, AND LETTING GO

As the Hooklight tightens its grip on reality, the central characters all grapple with their own inner struggles. Nyssa is the standout here, torn between being used by the Hooklight and her lingering insecurities—some going all the way back to her first days in the TARDIS. Her arc is delicately drawn, and it helps ground the fantastical plot in recognisably human emotion.

Adric, too, continues to shine under Foley’s pen. So often the butt of fandom jokes, he’s given real space to grow here. His attempts to do things his own way while still honouring Davlin’s guidance make him feel more real—and more heroic—than ever before.

THE FINALE: RESOLUTION, RESET, AND A TOUCH OF SADNESS

The conclusion ties everything up with admirable neatness. The Hooklight is defeated logically, and all the narrative threads are wound back into place. It’s satisfying in that traditional Doctor Who way… but there’s a twist.

As the dust settles, the characters slowly begin to forget what happened. It’s a controversial move—especially in a story so rooted in emotional development. The reset feels bittersweet: these characters have grown so much, yet they won’t remember why. But perhaps that’s the point. Growth doesn’t always require conscious memory; it can linger in instinct, in emotion, in the quiet way someone moves forward after the adventure is over.

Yes, it helps preserve canon. No, it doesn’t rob the story of meaning. But it might leave you wishing just one character had been allowed to remember it all.

📝VERDICT: 82/100

Hooklight 2 is an epic conclusion to an already ambitious tale, mixing sweeping fantasy with introspective character drama. Tim Foley delivers another structurally bold, emotionally rich narrative that plays with time, myth, and memory to explore what it truly means to travel with the Doctor. The storytelling is intricate, sometimes even overwhelming, with its many timelines and character arcs, but the payoff is worth the patience.

It’s a story of reconnections, identity, and the cost of knowing too much. There are battles and betrayals, heartfelt reunions and quiet farewells. The Eighth Doctor’s doomed attempt to rewrite a friend’s fate, the Fifth Doctor’s tireless push to heal his fractured TARDIS family, and Nyssa’s struggle against her own insecurities all combine into something truly moving.

Hooklight 2 doesn’t just shine—it burns with mythic intensity, offering a rare kind of Doctor Who story: one that dares to forget itself… but never forgets what matters.

That was excellent. Definitely my favourite 5th Doctor adventures so far.

The plot threads from part 1 are continued and subverted, with Tegan getting sidetracked, Adric and Davlin continuing their travels together but ultimately clashing as not Tegan but Adric takes on the Sam role, the epic return of the Dawnbrides and with Nyssa slowly succumbing to the hooklight. Meanwhile, the Doctor is slowly figuring out what happened and needs to happen, while the 8th Doctor slowly nudges things such that the Hooklight disaster may be truly averted.

This play has tones of not only Lord of the Rings, but Dark as well, and it is expertly realised. Every single plotline is engaging, every character is well-realised and has good development (Davlin Crux gets my vote for best side character in recent audio plays) and the resolution is satisfying and feels earned, which I think is a major achievement in something as bendy as this. I'm also getting the feeling that Tim Foley is a particular fan of 8 and 5 and co, as he gets their characters extremely well.

I'm also happy to say that the boxset manages to insert some peaceful moments into the narrative, and the timejumps and skips feel more organic than in part one. Especially 8s interludes were very welcome, and satisfy both in-story as well as lore-wise (I love 8 meeting Adric), but Tegan's journey and 5s story time when he meets up with Tegan again were also lovely.

Lastly, I love how the Time War was included here, the whole debacle being kickstarted by unfortunate consequences of Time Lord exploits in the Time War, and how it contrasts with Shadow of the Daleks' more focused attack by the Daleks. Two sides of a Time War coin.

In my opinion the best 5th Doctor Adventures ever made and some of the best Time War content ever made (I still like Reflections a bit more).

Hooklight started out with building up just a ton of lore about this realm called Morning, one of the oldest places in the universe and the spark that gave it life. Behind the scenes was the mysterious oracle, which ends up being the Eighth Doctor. Now, there is very little lore left to reveal and tie together, and it's more about the characters. He's not sidelined from the action, but the Fifth Doctor doesn't have quite the character development his companions have.

Tegan gets all of part eight dedicated solely to her leaving three years with a man, Oscar. It is very similar to her storyline in The Edge of War from a couple years ago so it feels slightly trodden ground. Adric discovers that he is not, in fact, the Doctor, and shoots (non-fatally) Davlin Crux. Nyssa has a lot of inner dialogue with Neura, the power at the heart of Hooklight. Ultimately, it is the death of our fourth companion, the resolute Kessica Myles who manages to successfully stamp everything with a big reset button.

Ultimately, despite my Fifth Doctor fandom, I am not as Hooklight-pilled as most after this volume. I think it's getting harder to explore different facets of these characters, and was ready for a more complex story involving the wild lore that Tim Foley put together. In many ways, the tale of Morning is not quite finished, as seen by the fact that the Eighth Doctor decides to travel with Davlin at the end of the story. They should've leaned into the Fifth Doctor and Davlin having a relationship more.

Still, it's a big massive story with excitement like the queen of the space spiders, many close calls, and a good blend of action and contemplation. Definitely a good candidate to return to one day and see how my feelings evolve.

In the ancient realm of Morning, a massive danger is about to be unleashed across the universe. The planet Rift has been attacked, a tear has been created in time, and one of the Doctor's companions has been taken over by the ever-shining Hooklight. As the rest of the TARDIS team struggles to resist the oncoming chaos, victory seems remote. This is especially true when a presence from the future reveals itself and it's going to make things extra complicated for the Doctor.....both of them.....

"Hooklight 2" is the second half of a grandiose Fifth Doctor epic, advertised as something different compared to the usual audio faire this crew gets. Tim Foley's script picks up right where part 1 left off with some weird flourishes that paint the bigger picture in a whole new, if less interesting, light. The unique setting remains strong, and the soundscape still feels massive, but in making the Hooklight itself a sentient force (no matter how big or multi-dimensional), the plot falls into somewhat predictable territory with unsurprising roles for all involved.

To that end, it certainly remains a Davison era story through & through. Nyssa becomes evil and possessed by a sentient malevolence, Adric gets stuck handling the TARDIS, and Tegan goes on a long personal journey that's different but is surprisingly the most emotional part of the saga. The biggest addition that shakes things up is the presence of Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, venturing in from the early days of the Time War to intervene but soon getting caught up in the Hooklight's grip. His influence as the Oracle is wider than you might think, and the writing makes full use of the potential in having two very different Doctors caught up in different threads of the same story.

The second half of "Hooklight" then is a fascinating and fun listen, not any better or worse than the first, but in a way that feels appropriate. Enjoyable & recommended along with its first half for all fans looking for something new.

-- 8.5 / 10

Oh my god didnt think I'd love this story at all but in the end 5 stars for me love it! Fivey my goat.

Another hooklight banger it STICKS the landing