The Abandoned

Fourth Doctor Adventures #3.7

Released: 11 July 2014

Listened: 3/8/22

This story is remarkable for a number of reasons: It’s written by Nigel Fairs and Louise Jameson, in her writing debut. It also takes place entirely within the TARDIS, although there are more than two characters present. The gist of this one is that there’s a malevolent entity trapped in the TARDIS, which has been there since before the Doctor “borrowed” it. And now it’s doing something that involves other people’s imaginary friends? You’d best be in the mood for giggling and cackling, wailing and shrieking, because there’s a lot of all of those in this story. And painting. Lots of painting, which doesn’t really translate on audio. Louise Jameson seems to like the stories that have a more dreamlike quality, but I prefer them to have a bit of internal logic, and I wasn’t finding that here. I remember liking this one on my first listen, but it didn’t work for me this time around.