Originally released : August 2026

Listened to: August 2026

Written By: Tim Foley

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper

Context: I love a 9th Doctor and Rose adventure coming around again, it will be sad when this run finally ends, but few more to go yet and now we are free of the Powell estate…interested to see where this one goes.

THE REVIEW

What I thought: very much enjoyed this one, with 9 and Rose rocking up on a sort of medieval space ship skirting the mysterious Dark Tides and interacting with space Knights and a ship hologram that isn’t what she seems (Dr Vivian Rest, so well played by Doon Mackichan, lovely creepy and evil performance). The story sees Sir Cal pretty much sell out his squire Mervyn for glory, which doesn’t go down so well with the 9th Doctor. The pure light villain that is Dr Swan gets stronger and darker (no pun intended) which culminates in a great tussle in the TARDIS and around it. The final part of the episode is some interesting and moving stuff between Rose and the Doctor, great episode.

Rating: 4 out of 5 lightbeams: a refreshing change to recent stories, nice to be back in dark sci-fi territory for this adventure.

What am I left thinking?

• Not a lot to add here, its a pretty stand alone episode (I think) which is nice in light of the Powell estate arc that has just included, be interested to see where the reminder of the 9th Doctor run goes.

Memorable bits

• Holbrock and Cal’s relationship is cool/very sweet and so sad what ends up happening to them
• Sir Cal, what a cad!
• The TARDIS lamp becomes an important part of the story, fantastic!

Cast

Christopher Eccleston (The Doctor)

Billie Piper (Rose Tyler)

Ben Arogundade (Sir Cal)

Doon Mackichan (Dr Vivian Rest)

David Shaw-Parker (Holbrook)

Sam Stafford (Mervyn)