Big Finish, Fourth Doctor Series
This story is almost so fast paced that I can’t keep up with it. I like the two distinct locations – 18th century England and Nerva docking station. Quite the clash of cultures! The Drellerans definitely acted honorably, despite the crazy colonialism that Lord Jack imposed on their race. How he managed to almost single-handedly take down a peaceful race with just a handful of Victorian-aged men is a bit difficult to contemplate, let alone figure out how to make their technology work. Perhaps a case of some too trusting aliens who get taken advantage of!
The Doctor does make reference to Nerva being a bad luck location, thanks to aliens infiltrating more than once. And with the space dock not being quite up to snuff (communications keep failing) it seems to attract the badness, though this was more of a badness to contain the humans instead of take them over. There are more complexities to the aliens than with the original TV story, The Arc in Space, but there are similarities with the humans being infected by the alien spores. Perhaps they’ll visit again in the future! The almost cheesy/80s nature of this story actually makes me want to rate it higher but the almost too simplistic nature of Lord Jack and his team as characters just there to conquer makes me think twice. So a good story it is!
Tom Baker and Louise Jameson
Writer/Director: Nicholas Briggs
Release: January 2012