Doctor Who: The Lost Resort and Other Stories

A set of three stories featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan, unconnected beyond them likely taking place consecutively. The title story is two hours long, the others an hour each, and it's worth noting that each has a different tone.

The Lost Resort – Reuniting after the events of a previous audio that saw the Doctor travelling alone, the TARDIS crew lands on a planetoid that is home to a decaying medical facility, its robotic staff and their few remaining patients. The place turns out to be hiding secrets, not the least of which is the sudden appearance of what's seemingly a ghost. The resulting story, unfortunately, is a bit of a mess, and the good points suffer for the lack of any grounding in reality.

The presence of the ghost is eventually explained (and key to the larger plot) but the other details of the planetoid seem to be oddity for oddity's sake. The robotic hospital staff are strangely inconsistent, as is the reaction of some of the characters to them – hostile one moment, willingly allied the next. A scene involving antigravity is not only difficult to visualise but highlights the fact that the details of the “planetoid” (whatever it's supposed to be) don't make much sense. On the bright side, and saving the story from a lower rating, it does have some worthwhile things to say about loss and grieving, paralleling the stories of two of the patients with the Doctor's remorse over the death of Adric.

The story also manages to keep the mystery going for most of its length, although once the explanation is revealed, it's immediately obvious how it is going to be resolved. Some of the guest characters are simply odd (although the grieving mother with a surrogate child is a lovely touch), and, for all that he's relevant to the antigravity scene, new companion Marc doesn't really seem to do much. In the end, it's all a bit too weird for its own good, although if you don't find that sort of thing detracts from the emotional elements, you'll like this far more than I did. Because, honestly, that part of it is very good indeed. 3.5 stars.

The Perils of Nellie Bly – Nellie Bly, for those who are unaware, was a pioneering female journalist in the late 19th century who, among other things, emulated the fictional Phileas Fogg by travelling around the world in less than 80 days, racing against another female journalist travelling in the opposite direction. Here, the Doctor encounters her towards the end of her journey, as she seeks to get back to New Jersey before the deadline and her rival. It's a straight historical, and one that's entertaining rather than grim.

The basis of the story is that Bly's rival (also a real person, although only mentioned here indirectly) has bribed saboteurs to delay the trip – which, in the real world, she presumably didn't. This gives it something of the feel of some of the TV versions of Around the World in Eighty Days, with the Doctor and companions trying to foil the saboteurs and allow history to take its course. Assuming you accept the premise, it's fun yet mostly quite down-to-earth (save for the section where Bly puts on an implausibly effective disguise) and Tegan and Marc, in particular, are well-used. 4 stars.

Nightmare of the Daleks – Following the adventure romp, the final story is much darker. It's a sort of base-under-siege, although the Dalek threat is more subtle than it usually is. The initial mystery of how Marc appears to be in two different places at the same time is quickly resolved, but from there on the puzzle is how and why the Daleks are doing what they are doing. Despite the unusual situation, however, this is in some respects a fairly typical Dalek story, with them repeatedly threatening to exterminate the main characters and never quite getting around to it. Still, there is a body count, and also an off-screen torture scene, which combine with the confined setting and the unpleasant working conditions for those on the base to make this both atmospheric and grim.

Among the companions, the focus is primarily on Marc, with Tegan and Nyssa reduced to supporting roles by the short length of the story. It makes slightly better use of Marc's condition than the previous stories do, where it was primarily a hidden bonus, rather than the disadvantage it's supposed to be, although it's clear that the writers have already explored its psychological toll as much as they were willing to and didn't want to flog a dead horse by this point. It's not the strongest Dalek story ever, but it does win points by at least coming up with an unusual situation to put them in, forcing them to rely on different tactics for their larger plan. And there's a good emotional ending to it, as well. 4 stars.