With the influence of new producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Christopher Bidmead, there was a conscious effort to bring the show up to date. With a new electronic version of the theme, plus a new logo and modernised credit sequence, their intention was to lose the overtly comic elements of the Graham Williams era and push a more scientific angle.
Having failed to arrive at the opening of the Royal Pavilion, the tale beings with a grumpy pair of time travellers having what amounts to a domestic squabble on Brighton Beach. With K-9 promptly sidelined in the interests of storytelling, the Doctor and Romana head to Argolis, first of the leisure planets, and promptly become embroiled in adventure.
At stake is the fate of the dying Argolin race, a proud and formerly warlike people who are enduring their last gasp as an interstellar tourist attraction. Their hope, such as it is, comes from the potential investment offered through their human accountant Brock, as well as the exploitation of the Tacyhon particle and its mysterious abilities to move faster than light, as demonstrated by their Recreation Generator. Consequently, the story has more than its fair share of technobabble to deliver, albeit sparked from real scientific conjecture.
As well as the Argolin we meet their former enemies, the reptilian Foamasi. Freed from the constraints of lumbering costumes, the alien mobsters do well here with their con-trick plan and human skin suits presenting as a slightly less gruesome ancestor of the Siltheen. Their clicking and whirring natural voice is represented with an impressive sound effect.
Despite the show’s attempts to push in a new direction, David Fisher’s novelisation clearly has one foot in the past. Of the changes that he implements, the most interesting is a memorable expository chapter. Before the TARDIS arrives on Argolis, he chronicles the native race, their development and motivation, as well as their brief but climatic conflict with the Foamasi. Providing a solid background to their antagonistic outlook, it is all done very entertainingly and much in the vein of Douglas Adams.
Fisher also provides a bit of bite in his prose, with the horror of being torn apart in the generator becoming far from the bloodless exercise it was on screen and he beefs up some of the emotional content too, making more of the relationship between the Scientist Hardin and the Argolin Heresiarch Mena.
Lalla Ward is an accomplished reader who moves effortlessly from the frail older Argolins to the imperious young Pangol. Her take on the aged, forgetful Doctor is amusing and she recaptures his banter with Romana perfectly. John Lesson contributes K-9’s voice for a few meagre lines at the beginning of the story.
This is an enjoyable tale which benefits from the expanded room afforded by the prose. It is also backed by some excellent sound effects work which give it plenty of scale.
Released on Thursday 4 July 2013 by AudioGO.
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