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“THE HELLWOOD INHERITANCE: GHOST SAFARI GONE WRONG”

The Hellwood Inheritance takes a classic ghost story and fuses it with a Jurassic Park-style premise, throwing the Doctor and Leela into a spooky safari park where the ghosts are all too real. A young earl returns to his inherited estate, joined by his stepmother, to transform the mansion into a tourist attraction featuring supposedly harmless spectral illusions. But the Doctor soon discovers that the park's ghost machine isn’t just a trick – it’s creating apparitions by pulling real souls from the past, in a process that involves actual deaths.

The setup is eerie and atmospheric, fitting the Doctor Who era of Seasons 14 and 15 well, but the slow build-up lessens the impact. While the concept of ghosts created through past executions is chilling, the danger feels muted for much of the first half. The ghosts appear sporadically, yet the tension never quite escalates into true horror.

TIME TRAVEL, TREACHERY, AND WITCHES

The second half shakes things up as the Doctor is transported back to the 16th century, meeting the first Earl of Hellwood and the infamous Dark Mistress, a feared witch of legend. Meanwhile, Leela remains in the present, battling the ghostly forces and holding her own against Lady Ellwood, who is revealed to be scheming for control of the operation. The narrative deepens with the revelation that the ghosts aren't just echoes of the past – they’re direct victims of the machine's grim process.

Despite the strong premise, some of the performances fall flat. Tom Baker, while still a commanding presence, occasionally sounds less natural than usual, and both Edgar and Lady Ellwood lack the energy needed to fully sell their roles. The tension in key scenes, such as the Doctor and Leela’s initial encounter with the ghosts, is undercut by performances that don’t quite match the dramatic weight of the story. Even the grand reveal of Bonaparte Baptiste and Stone as the villains feels predictable, largely because Baptiste’s name alone screams “bad guy” from the start.

📝VERDICT: 5/10

A story with an inventive concept, The Hellwood Inheritance combines historical horror with sci-fi intrigue but struggles with pacing and performance. The ghost machine’s twisted mechanics provide a morbidly fascinating mystery, but the execution (pun intended) doesn’t always land as effectively as it should. The eerie setting and the Doctor’s time-traveling detour keep things engaging, but a lack of urgency in the performances weakens the overall impact. A solid idea, but not quite a haunting classic.