The Shadow of London

Fourth Doctor Adventures #7.5

Released: 16 May 2018

Listened: 4/14/22

This one is OK, pretty much. It’s another one of those stories in which the TARDIS lands in what seems to be London, in this case in 1940, but something is off. There aren’t enough people, it’s unusually quiet and cold, and the few people they meet are acting oddly. Experienced listeners might suspect Kraals, which isn’t the case, but that just points up how often the show does this plot. K-9 isn’t in this one either, probably because his scanners would reveal what’s up far too early. This story continues the pattern from this set of spending all of Part 1 trying to figure out what’s going on, rather than resolve it. Of course, there’s a monster, because there has to be, but it doesn’t leave much of an impression. Leela is getting a little better at operating in urban areas, but the Doctor seems oddly annoying this time. He often doesn’t explain his odd phrases to Leela, but this time he seems on the verge of mocking her with them. And he’s much less concerned about people getting killed than he has been in other stories. It’s a fine story, but no more than that.