Review: Doctor Who: AudioGo: The Nu-Humans

The Doctor, Amy and Rory land on the planet Hope Eternal where a misjudged joke lands them all in trouble with the colonists…

Cavan Scott and Mark Wright’s recent Blake’s 7 novel captured the voices of the Liberator crew from that show’s first season, and they’ve done it again with this audio adventure for the current TARDIS team. Assisted by a first-rate reading by Raquel Cassidy (in a story where her connections to the TV series play nicely), this really feels like an episode we should have seen.

Cassidy’s voice for Rory is perhaps a little unusual, but she captures the cadences of Matt Smith’s performance, as well as Karen Gillan’s Amy. It means that a scene where the Doctor butts in unexpectedly works because you know instantly that it’s the Time Lord speaking – not something that can be said of some of the other recent releases.

The storyline is moderately straightforward but the various developments are derived from the characters, rather than it feeling as if they’ve been plugged into a pre-existing plotline. People take control of their own destiny as they find out the truth, and their reactions to a situation at the end of the story are different from how they would have been at the start – the sort of journey that has sometimes been overlooked in the quest for a fast-paced tale.

Verdict: One of the best of the 11th Doctor audio stories.  8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Doctor Who The Nu-Humans from Amazon.co.uk