Downward Spiral

Short Trips #10.7

Released: 28 July 2020

Listened: 7/31/20

I’m setting this one here because the Doctor and Nyssa have been together long enough to start arguing with raised voices. This story is remarkable because it’s told by Nyssa in the second person, to an astronaut named Siobhan, who’s on one of the first trips from Earth to Venus (why an expedition would have only one astronaut, I can’t say). She’s got an AI for company, but runs into...something...that affects both her AI and her ship. Fortunately, the Doctor and Nyssa are there to help. It’s a fairly standard story from their end, although the Doctor seems a little less empathetic than usual, a little more like the Sixth than the Fifth. The writer also uses the word “roared” quite a bit to indicate shouting, and neither the Fifth Doctor nor Nyssa strike me as the roaring type. Still, it’s a nice emotional short trip for Nyssa, and Sarah Sutton reads these very well.