The Oseidon Adventure

Fourth Doctor Adventures #1.6

Released: June 2012

Listened: 2/28/22

This is the second part of the finale of the first season of Fourth Doctor Adventures, and honestly, it’s a bit odd. It continues from the previous story, but it’s almost completely different. The previous story seemed rather of its time period (the classic series) with the small-town mystery. This one is full-blown alien invasion, and much of it is borderline farcical. All the nonsense from the last episode was so that the Master could bring the Kraals to Earth. Having failed in “The Android Invasion,” they want another go. Which forced the Doctor to call in UNIT, just not any characters we actually recognize, but rather the second string. And Kraals mean androids, specifically android duplicates who are so convincing that they can fool almost anyone, including themselves. Alan Barnes plays this for laughs, as he so often does, but it does become a little silly with duplicates on top of duplicates, most of them created almost instantly. Nobody seems to take the Kraals particularly seriously, so they end up more or less stand-ins for the Sontarans, and it’s not helped that they’re clearly voiced by veteran Sontaran actors Dan Starkey and John Banks. Add in some absurd dialog about Z-radiation, and O-radiation, and Z-O-radiation, and it’s hard to take any of it seriously. The entire cast seems to be having a ball, but it’s kind of a weak finish for a new series. Fortunately, there was never any doubt whether Big Finish would continue it.