Doctor Who: The Outliers

Once again Anneke Wills provides the narration in this Second Doctor story featuring Jamie, Ben, and Polly. It's set in the far future (there's an Earth Empire, although when the date is eventually given it's far enough ahead that it probably isn't the one we usually see) in artificial caverns beneath the surface of an alien world. For much of the duration, it's a mystery story, with the monster remaining ‘off-screen' until the final 30-minute segment.

The first half of the story is building up this mystery and its setting; there's evidently something deadly going on, but we don't know what or why. In fact, here, there are some parallels with the Third Doctor's era with corporate greed as the primary motivation for the villain - who has a habit of using so much management-speak that the TARDIS has difficulty making anything meaningful out of what he's saying at times. Obviously, the existence of an Earth Empire also fits with Three's era, although, here it's tied in more directly with a certain element from The Power of the Daleks.

There are a couple of weaknesses in the story. For one, it seems overly reliant on narration and, like the previous story in the series, has a large enough cast that that doesn't really seem necessary. There are also some inconsistencies in the setting itself; in particular, it's unclear why it's so difficult to get off the planet once it becomes clear that the deaths aren't the mere “outliers” in the statistics that they're originally made out to be. After all, nobody seemed to have difficulty getting on to it, and they must have regular supply runs, not to mention shipping the “product” off-world.

Set against these, however, are a number of good points. Jamie is more used here than he was in the previous story although, again, it's Ben and Polly who are more the focus. The flooded setting is also atmospheric, especially in the third part, taking advantage of the audio format to do things that would be difficult on TV. Keeping the monsters in the shadows for so long is surprisingly effective, and they're particularly original and interesting when they do turn up. In fact, their manner of communication provides some interesting scenes in and of itself, even if Ben's are the only ones we ‘see' firsthand.

This isn't quite the semi-hard SF that Guerrier often writes, but the last segment in particular is relatively high-concept for DW and there's good use of the various characters. There may be some shades of the Third Doctor's era in the story's themes, but it's undoubtedly a Second Doctor story that would be very different with a different incarnation or different companions.