Winter for the Adept

Oof, that was disappointing. I was really hoping for something after such a rough run of early Fifth Doctor audios in the early big finish range.

I like Nyssa, Turlough, and Peri in these early stories. It is great to see them returned in these early stories with the original actors, and they all feel very much in form with their reprisals. Yet Nyssa here in Winter for the Adept is pretty useless, only with a couple interesting stuff around Nyssa's psychic abilities. Peter Davison is pretty great here, too, but on the other hand India Fisher as Peril was notably awful. I'm surprised people enjoy it, as I just found her almost unbearable here, but I'm glad she wound up as Charly down the road as clearly that worked out. Knowing how talented Fisher is, I more blame the writing.

The writing is rough, too. I was all excited for an Andrew Cartmel script but it really didn't amount to much of anything. I had a lot of trouble getting through Winter for the Adept as a result of all this, basically forcing myself through the audio just to finish it and be done with the story after several false starts.

It is a shame too, because the idea of the plot is a pretty fun one. The idea of a potentially haunted schoolhouse is fun, and there are some moments to Winter for the Adept I appreciated, such as when Nyssa gets rescued on the Alps early on, or when the Doctor causally starts insisting they need to do a seance. That stuff was fine, but too much of this audio is devoted to nonsense about a couple eloping, or other details that hold it back like some lacklustre music (although some impressive special effects to balance that category out a bit, to be fair). All told, it was okay. I don't hate that I listened to it, but I didn't love getting through it, either.