The Fifth Traveller

An intriguing story that has a lot going on. Maybe even too much.

 

Our party lands in a jungle, where apes with mental abilities live. It’s interesting seeing how each member reacts! Vicki and Barbara are assaulted by some birds, while Ian, the Doctor and Jospa discover the acidic nature of the planet.

 

…..Wait what’s a Jospa?

 

This story has 2 storylines that mesh and mingle along the way. First is the heated discussion among telepathic apes about the way they should live. Should they connect their minds, or should they live on their own? It’s a relatively standard adventure for Doctor Who. Nice for what it is.

 

But the second storyline is the one that makes it intriguing. The party suddenly has a fourth member, one that they all remember. Yes, this is very much like that one Torchwood episode, if you’ve seen that. He’s mixed in with the regular adventure, but slowly the party realizes something is amiss.

 

“Mind battle” stories are always a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they usually allow for a deeper look at the main cast and their drives, since those are usually used in the manipulation. On the other hand, winning the mind battle is very hard to justify. How does a character earn the defeat of a mind manipulator. How do they break free?

 

Sadly, both those ups and downs do come back in this story as well. We learn some neat stuff about Vicki’s approach to travelling, for example. But the party first breaks free, because Jospa loses his grip. It’s not a clever realization or an adding up of weird events. They were just out of range for a bit.

 

Maybe these downsides are the consequence of the monkey plot. It’s still quite substantial in its own right, and has a lot of events. This gives the actual mind battle less room to breathe. It could have helped if the monkey plot was a bit simpler, so we can give more attention to the more interesting bit. Flesh it out just that little more.

 

For now it very much feels 50/50, and while that works, I feel like 60/40 would make it a bit more unique. Make it a more personal tale. Now we switch from mind controlled party to telepathic monkeys and it makes the story feel wobbly. It just didn’t have the foundation to build either concept as much as it would’ve liked, and that makes it crumble when the finale hits.

 

Performance wise, it is also not the strongest. The voices are all fine, and Maureen O’Brien continues to be one of the best storytellers, but I feel like William Russell slips up a bit in this one. His doctor and his Ian voice sometimes become too alike. This hasn’t happened before. Maybe it’s the writing? I can’t really tell.

 

Still, it’s far from bad!  And that goes for the whole story. I genuinely like the monkey characters and their abilities, which is hard to do if something else is going on. And the story wraps up neatly enough for my liking.

 

We also get plenty of character moments. Ian shares his old home-memories with a monkey. Vicki gets some nice backstory material about how her parents fell in love. It all adds up well.

 

It just feels like it should’ve had one final push to be something truly special. Maybe it should’ve been longer, although I doubt that would’ve helped. But it’s still a really neat idea with a decent execution. Not a 10, but still worth your time.