Legacy of Death

Fourth Doctor Adventures #5.4

Released: 13 April 2016

Listened: 6/27/22

This story continues on from the previous, with 100% more timey-wimey. In particular, the flavor of timey-wimey in which people in the past can leave messages for people 1,000 years in the future, and people in the future can leave messages that later travel to the past to affect earlier events. Even Doctor Who doesn’t go to this well all that often (Steven Moffat notwithstanding), but Douglas Adams wasn’t afraid of it, and Johnny Morris is channeling that here. There’s also an unusually high body count, given that in the first half, the two sides tried to avoid killing each other. There’s also a religious cult and double agents confusing things, and I think only K-9 knows the whole story. I’ve said before I’m not really a fan of “wait here for 1,000 years and then do a Thing” plans, and this one isn’t giving me reason to make an exception. Still, if you’re going to do a time-twisty plot, doing it when the companion is also a Time Lord, and therefore doesn’t need to ask for exposition, isn’t a bad idea. So far, this story is the most notable of the season.