Helmstone

Subscriber Short Trips #2017.3

Released: 12 September 2017

Listened: 2/25/20

This is one of the bonus Short Trips for subscribers, which means very little music, minimal sound effects, and in this case, the narration is by Stephen Critchlow, which is something of a surprise after hearing Peter Purves for so long. Some time has probably passed since the last story, as Steven isn’t overcome by grief. It’s one of those stories where the TARDIS crew seems to be welcomed by a group of people, and they have some odd customs the crew doesn’t really understand, which turn out to be masking something horribly wrong. Except in this case, even the natives themselves don’t know what’s wrong, so we’re spared the usual tying up the outsiders and sentencing them to death. The Doctor seems to be unusually tight-lipped for this period, leaving Steven to stumble around by himself, trying to solve what he believes to be the problem. Being a short and rather spare story, it doesn’t exactly stick in the mind, but it’s a nice brief diversion.