Seasons of Fear

Main Range #30

Released: 25 March 2002

Listened: 8/1/21

Charley finally gets to keep her appointment in Singapore, and the Zagreus storyline kicks off. Charley’s date isn’t actually of any interest, but the Doctor meets a man named Grayle, who has a longstanding hatred for him, and claims to have already killed him in the past. Because Grayle has kicked off a temporal bubble, that allows the Doctor to break the rules and cross his own timeline to meddle in Grayle’s past. Things get a little bit timey-wimey at that point, but it’s written by Paul Cornell along with his wife Caroline Symcox, which means you’re in safe temporal hands, and the religious history will be quite accurate. The structure allows for each episode to be set in a different time: Ancient Roman Britain, the court of Edward the Confessor, and the 19th Century Hellfire Club. Unfortunately, Grayle doesn’t make the best adversary, as for most of history, he doesn’t really know what’s going on, and he’s a puppet of his masters. Who those masters actually are is unexpected, because they haven’t appeared much on audio, but also not the most interesting villains either. It’s really the puzzle that drives the plot, and the Doctor seems to enjoy all of it a bit too much. There’s some narration, very unusual for a Main Range entry, with the Doctor telling this whole story to someone else, at a point where they both know that the temporal shenanigans had a deeper meaning...which we’ll see shortly. There’s also a random Dalek in Roman Britain, which won’t be explained for a few episodes either. It’s not a bad story, but I expected a little more from Charley reaching her goal.