The Doctor and Mary encounter an army of skeletons…
The latest trilogy featuring the Eighth Doctor comes to a close with this bleak tale from Jason Arnopp, which is an effective piece, despite an occasional tendency to make the Doctor sound a little too glib, as if he’s thinking of a smart-alec line too much of the time.
As with its predecessors, it’s centred on an idea that appears in Mary Shelley’s writings, something which has perhaps been a little limiting, implying that Shelley wasn’t gifted with a great imagination, but was simply reworking stories from her own experience. If, as Paul McGann says in the CD extras, Mary’s travels do continue, it would be good to expand her horizons – maybe even give her an experience that, try as she might, she would not be able to use in a book?
There are a few oddities: the end titles on part four don’t mark the end of the episode, so don’t stop once they crash in, as you’ll miss an important scene. The CD extras (on the CD not the download) are oddly pitched, which makes all the interviewees sound like they’re gargling mud. And for some reason the trailer for the first of the Sixth Doctor/Flip adventures doesn’t feature the “subscribers get more” tag, which is most disconcerting!
Verdict: There are some neat ideas enfolded in this story, which make for an enjoyable listen. 7/10
Paul Simpson
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