The Foe from the Future

Lost Stories Special

Released: 9 January 2012

Listened: 2/21/22

This story comes from a boxed set of Lost Stories released during Series 3, but not officially part of that series. Why, I have no idea. This story was originally intended as the finale to Season 14, but writer Robert Banks Stewart was unable to finish it, so Robert Holmes wrote “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” instead, and it’s hard to argue that wasn’t the better choice. Anyway, that means this is a six-parter, making a sharp contrast to the Short Trips we’ve been doing for the last little while. There are a number of elements that are present in “Talons,” such as a man from the future coming back to the present and being badly damaged in the process, an interesting and sadistic henchman, and the involvement of the police. However, unlike “Talons,” this story jumps to the future, where we see exactly what the people of that time are afraid of, and spend a lot of time running around there. It’s still early days for Leela, but she’s starting to get the hang of things, and is generally pretty fearless in the face of danger. She’s still fairly vicious, though, threatening the villains when the Doctor isn’t around, and wanting to hunt down giant insects for fun. The villain, Lord Jalnik, is quite memorable, especially because he doesn’t have despotic ambitions for a change. Special mention should go to Charlotte-from-the-village (as she’s often called), who was apparently invented by John Dorney for the adaptation, but it’s hard to imagine the story without her. I’d never want to replace “Talons,” especially not Jago & Litefoot, but this probably wouldn’t have been a bad story either.