Return to the Web Planet is a charming tale which extrapolates various details from The Web Planet to craft a new, yet familiar story.  The 5th Doctor and Nyssa arrive on Vortis when, again, the TARDIS is forced down on the planet.  Now, of course, it is a jungle world (as re-established in The Naked Flame) but they are soon at the mercy of the Zarbi again when they get caught in a stampede and have to be rescued by two Menoptra.

The two Menoptra, a father and daugher called Acheron and Hedyla, are living away from the Menoptra cities partly because Hedyla is wingless and, as such, shunned by society and considered ugly.  This builds nicely on the wingless Menoptra of The Web Planet who are victims of torture and the wingless Menoptra in The Naked Flame, who is also considered 'second-class'.  The Zarbi are apparently behaving strangely and Nyssa has spotted a human in the jungle.

The mystery builds nicely with Acheron and the Doctor travelling to the Zarbi hive with the Doctor riding a Zarbi called Arbara so he can keep up with the flying Acheron.  The idea that Arbara's name has entered Menoptran culture is a lovely additional detail.  At the hive they discover a second human who has become absorbed into the hive mind.

There is a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and eventually the story ends in a mass Zarbi mating!  The development of the Zarbi is one of this story's strengths with mass migrations influenced by gravitational forces, hive minds and the story ending with human-zarbi hybrids.  The Menoptra aren't developed as much with Acheron and Hedyla very much fitting the mould of characters like Prapillus and Hlynia from The Web Planet but they are played very well by Sam Kelly and Julie Buckfield.

The strength of Return to the Web Planet is that it continues that story's admirable attempt to develop an alien ecosystem and adds details which make a lot of sense - the gravitational forces are centred around a 'lode seed'; Acheron's tower where he and his daughter live, is made out of paper - created by the Zarbi in a way similar to how wasps make nests.  There is also the inclusion of the poetry prevalent in The Web Planet's script with talk, in this story, of the overland (space) and spacecraft being referred to as ships and their pilots as sailors.  Hedyla also can't pronounce Nyssa's name, using a warped version like Arbara and Heron were used in The Web Planet.

And yes, the Zarbi bleeping is still present - but strangely comforting and reassuring (and evocative, helping to further connect this story to its progenitor).

The 5th Doctor and Nyssa are a perfect TARDIS pairing for this story with their close relationship, bound by science and compassion, mirrored beautifully in the similar relationship between Acheron and Hedlya.  Davison and Sutton are on good form as is usual.  Matthew Noble and Claire Wyatt have less to do as the two stranded humans but work well in their roles.

All in all this is a worthy sequel to the original story and proof, I feel, that there are more stories that could be told about this strange, insectoid world of Vortis.

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

Previous Story: Circular Time: Autumn

It was definitely brave of Big Finish, as an audio company,  to make a sequel to the Classic story infamous for it's poor sound design. I'd say they handled the sound design quite well and it's probably the best part of the story.

In my opinion, The Web Planet was made fun by the TARDIS team and their interactions with each other. 5 and Nyssa just don't have that, they are only really interesting depending on the situation and are especially boring in this. This story is also quite weird because it has a lot of technology and general ideas that don't make any sense but are presented as logical.

Just a strange story and I don't really know what to think about it other than I disliked it. I really expected to like this one aswell, I thought The Web Planet was actually quite good.

Next Story: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster