Platt has lost the sauce apparently because this is so boring

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Invasion of E-Space

This is a very strange story that tackles some nice themes. Most notably immaturity and growing up. I like the development this story gives to Adric but it's such a departure from his characterisation in Season 18. That coupled with the fact that Matthew Waterhouse's voice and performance of Adric have changed immensely since the 80s makes it really hard to picture him as the same character. Still, that's all mainly because this is my first story with Adric on audio, once I get accustomed to the differences between audio and TV it won't be much of a problem.

The main villain has a lot of parallels to Adric, both are quite childish and have a tendency to throw tantrums and this is used effectively to highlight how much Adric has grown by the end.

I found K9's role in this story really weird, he also gets a bit of development, if you could call it that. He makes a friend that's really only a plot device to save him at the end after he "dies". This was the most tonally weird part for me. There was never any feeling of concern after he died because we all know K9 doesn't die here anyway but you had this big event of the Doctor delivering a eulogy for him and all the characters being really sad. And then he comes back 10 minutes later as if it's supposed to be some huge twist.

Otherwise, I found it quite good and the depth of character it affords Adric (and to some extent K9) is great.

Next Story: Chase the Night