Immortal Beloved

Eighth Doctor Adventures #1.4

Released: 21 January 2007

Listened: 9/11/21

This one is fairly high concept, but doesn’t really have the room to breathe at this length. The Doctor and Lucie land in the middle of what appears to be a Romeo & Juliet scenario, but turns out to be much more complicated, with cloning, mind-swapping, and individual rights all involved. It takes half the story for the Doctor and Lucie to figure out what’s going on, so the resolution seemed rather rushed. The “high tech but devolving” society doesn’t really get much attention, and the characters we should sympathize with don’t have time to establish themselves. Watch out for a pre-Churchill Ian MacNeice playing Zeus, though. The distrust between the Doctor and Lucie that was missing in “Glam Rock” is back here, as a major development hinges on Lucie’s inability to tell when the Doctor is running a bluff and automatically assuming the worst. However, it seems like the Doctor isn’t really trying to get Lucie home anymore, but is just having the usual sort of adventures.