Doctor Who: The Wreck of the World

Skipping over the fifth TV season due to the passing of Deborah Watling, the Early Adventures series jumps to the final black-and-white season for a story featuring Zoe and narrated by Wendy Padbury. In fact, the narration is used rather better here than in the previous few releases, mostly being employed when there's a particularly neat visual to describe, enhancing the atmosphere rather than feeling like an unnecessary add-on.

The story series the TARDIS crew encountering the wreck of a vast colony ship in deep space, its human crew long dead. It's a horror story beginning with a slow-burn exploration of the abandoned hulk and with the ‘monster' not turning up until the half-way mark. When it does, it's more supernatural than alien, which, while not inappropriate for Doctor Who in general, is less of a fit with the Second Doctor's era on TV. I'll also add that the nature of the spaceship's power supply is particularly implausible, although whether that dents your suspension of disbelief or not is likely a matter of taste.

The science fiction setting puts Zoe centre-stage, keeping her at least as active as the Doctor, although Jamie gets rather less to do. Atack plays up Zoe's unusual background and gives her plenty of chances for her to display her scientific and technical skills. There are even a couple of fun scenes where she's using technobabble to flirt with a similarly inclined character and a theme that fits in with her arc through the course of TV series (which was, to be honest, more implied than stated at the time, this being '60s TV). Her interactions with that computer specialist and with a diagnostic robot of limited vocabulary give the story heart that counterbalances the horror elements and make you care about what happens to them.

Speaking of which, there are twists and turns along the way, especially once the initial wandering-through-spooky-half-lit-corridors element is over. For me, these, and the strong use of Zoe more than made up for the few weaknesses mentioned above and kept the story going despite its relatively limited setting. This is a good story, especially for fans of Zoe, who has generally been well-used in the Big Finish audios.