The Ultimate Evil

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

Previous Story: The Nightmare Fair

While I'm mixed on the quality of the stories themselves, the Lost Stories range is one of the most consistently era-authentic ranges out there. This is a story that's plucked straight out of Season 22, from the score to the way the plot is structured. Even Sixie's personality is 100% accurate to how he was at the beginning (for better or for worse). Because of all that though, I have very little to say about this story as I had very little to say about most of Season 22.

It's got a really interesting concept; a ray that can cause anyone to feel immense hatred (even the Doctor). Unfortunately I don't think this was used as great as it could have been, it often felt like pointless padding to build artificial tension that was then quickly resolved by the ray being turned off. That's my main and only gripe with the story in all honesty. This would have definitely been interesting to see on TV. With how era authentic it is though, it's not difficult to imagine. Overall, the story itself doesn't interest me so much as the work that has gone into making it.

Next Story: Mission to Magnus

The Ultimate Evil is pretty polarizing. I can see why, too. There's lots of elements to it very true and characteristic of the Sixth Doctor era of television, warts and all. There are a lot of parts to this audio that don't hold up very well as such, with these surviving scripts sort of feeling like they may have been junked for a reason during the troubled production of the time

There's lots of potential and even stuff kind of worth checking out here. Nicola Bryant and Colin Baker are really giving it their all, even if a lot of the Sixth Doctor's mannerisms leave quite a lot to be desired. The rest of the cast is a little more middle of a road. It feels like, to me, they do alright with some pretty dubious material.

I like the idea of The Ultimate Evil, this wave of energy that can spread hatred and violence was pretty cool for a concept, but feels like we didn't really get to explore the full nature of these effects on these people as much as it could have been. It comes across as pretty lacking. It wasn't a miserable experience, but wasn't exactly easy to get through as an audio, either. All that being said, I did enjoy how much the audio successfully captured the feel of the Sixth Doctor era as it was, especially through the music and sound effects.