The Age of Sutekh

Fourth Doctor Adventures #7.8

Released: 16 May 2018

Listened: 4/15/22

The concluding part of the story isn’t quite as good as the setup, but it does come close. The issue is that Sutekh has a very primal objective: He wants to wipe out everything, full stop. That’s a little tricky to work with, so Guy Adams has him in a situation where his power is limited, and he needs to conserve it. Which leads to the best sequence, Leela out-maneuvering him in a jungle while calling him “horse-face” all the while. Leela versus a god is a match I wouldn’t really like to bet on, but don’t tell Leela that. She’s very nearly at the peak of her capability in this story, able to read and pretty good at understanding technology, while still retaining her fighting and tracking skills. The guest cast in these stories, beyond Gabriel Woolf, is worthy of note: Sophie Myles (Reinette from “The Girl in the Fireplace”), Eleanor Crooks (Naomi Cross in various UNIT stories), John Dorney as Carlton Joyce, and Barnaby Edwards as the entire rest of the population of the planet. That’s some quality Big Finish casting there. Oddly, K-9 is left out again, meaning he’s barely appeared at all in this season.