The Mind Runners

Fourth Doctor Adventures #7.3

Released: 18 January 2018

Listened: 4/11/22

The next two stories are really a single four-parter, no matter how they’re numbered, although the tone of each is different. This is a John Dorney story, and it’s stuffed with high concepts. There’s the Mind Runners, who use headsets to tap into the consciousness of strangers and look out through their eyes. All they do is watch, though, so it’s less intrusive than other such tropes. There’s the “Digitals,” people who’ve uploaded their consciousness into robots, and would like everybody else to do the same. There’s a mysterious assassin of unusual abilities. There’s a malevolent force that’s apparently killing mind runners. There’s a rocket that’s supposed to evacuate the population of the planet, but oddly this is only a minor point in the first story, barely mentioned. All of it against a Blade Runner style sci-fi-noir backdrop. K-9 is present in this one, which is good, because he’s quite useful. Leela also transfers her hunting skills quite easily to the urban jungle, in ways that are surprising, but explained plausibly, because Dorney is just that good. The secondary characters are well drawn and sympathetic. The longer format really benefits the story here, because we still have very little clue what’s happening at the end of the first part, even though rather a lot has happened.