📝6/10 = SLIGHTLY ENJOYABLE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

REVENGE OF THE GREAT TREE!

Philip Reeve and Sophie Aldred transport us to a massive tree space station in space, where the Fourth Doctor and Leela are met with people hell-bent on revenge against them—it’s The Face of Evil all over again!

The story is mostly preoccupied with building a mystery of what the Doctor has supposedly done (or will do) that has made him a villain in the eyes of the Heligans. They spend a good chunk of the story arguing about whether or not this Doctor is the man of legend, while the Doctor and Leela get nothing to do.

The culture, people, and surroundings of the Heligan Structure are also explored in detail.

We eventually learn that whatever has happened took place 900 years ago for the locals but is still in the Doctor’s future, when he is the Eleventh Doctor.

I love the real energy Aldred puts into her narration. Her Leela is superb and helped by Reeve’s accurate dialogue for her. Four also has many recognisable moments, and Aldred pouts in a great effort to sound as bombastic as Tom Baker sometimes did.