Chase the Night

Fourth Doctor Adventures #9.2

Released: 22 January 2020

Listened: 7/11/22

The TARDIS answers a distress call from a pretty high-concept planet: it’s too close to its star, but the night side is habitable. However, it’s not tidally locked, so the only way for anyone to survive is to keep moving, at about 10 mph. Which this particular ship did by constructing a railway track all the way around the planet. Unfortunately, if anything goes wrong, they’re all dead…and things are going wrong. The Doctor and Romana cause some of the problems themselves by lying when first asked who they are and where they’re from. Still, the colony has been engaged in some pretty brutal social Darwinism for a while now, and that’s impairing their ability to trust anybody. The image of being stuck while the terminator creeps closer is pretty tense, although the story goes to that well a few too many times, resulting in a few false climaxes. Where the story gets weird is in the resolution, and the revelation of how life on this planet actually works. There’s an interesting coda in which Romana ponders what she wants to do with her life, and wonders if it’s compatible with the Doctor’s lifestyle. Credit for a good concept, and some strong tension, although it maybe goes on a bit too long.