The Morton Legacy

Early Adventures #4.3

Released: 14 September 2017

Listened: 57/21

This story begins with the TARDIS materializing in London, leading Ben and Polly to briefly believe they’ve gotten home, which sets them up to have conflicted feelings about leaving. However, it turns out to be the 1860s rather than the 1960s, they lose the TARDIS again, and in tracking it down stumble across a murder mystery. There’s safari explorers, treasures from dark continents, thugs from the workhouse, a mostly silent butler, and the lord’s lonely young daughter, who Jamie takes a shine to (and Ben and Polly won’t stop teasing him about). The Doctor thinks that the murders may be connected to one of the native artifacts, which may itself be extraterrestrial, but there’s a twist that I won’t spoil, except that it’s a twist that Doctor Who almost never goes for, possibly never at all. Still, the story takes a while getting to that twist, and I’m not certain this needed to be a full-length story. The Doctor has a bit more expository dialog than usual, and sometimes Frazer Hines’ natural accent shows through, but one can overlook that. It’s a fine installment, and the last appearance of Elliot Chapman in this project.