The Quantum Possibility Engine

Main Range #244

Released: 16 October 2018

Listened: 2/10/21

This is a bit of a strange one, with several familiar characters, and an overall goofy tone provided by Guy Adams. Mel’s debts from “A Life of Crime” are still outstanding, and are now owned by Josiah Dogbolter, a frog-like capitalist mostly from the comics, but who has appeared in “The Maltese Penguin.” He’s also now President of the Solar System, a fairly obvious nod to American politics in 2018. He demands that Mel bring him the TARDIS, and she does, by betraying the Doctor and Ace. Mel thinks she can steal it right back, but because it’s a time machine, Dogbolter manages to provide the technology to his younger self, enabling him to create a bubble around the solar system in which he can control probability to provide himself the best outcome. This abuse of Gallifreyan technology attracts the attention of Narvin, usually seen in the Gallifrey series, giving him the opportunity to meet Ace for the first time. The Doctor, Ace, and Narvin get written out pretty early, brainwashed and forced to live other lives on Earth. That leaves Mel to spend a bunch of time with Hob, Dogbolter’s robot assistant, who’s got a rather slimy, evil laugh, for a robot. In the middle of all this, there’s an invasion going on that Dogbolter can’t stop, from a group of aliens obsessed with media and public perception. Which actually makes them pretty easy to defeat, because the Seventh Doctor is expert at manipulating perceptions. Mel gets some character growth here, or at least gets to behave other than sunny and chipper, and reveals just how dangerous her hacking skills can be. Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred get the fun of playing different versions of their usual characters. And the guest voices, Toby Longworth, Wayne Forester, and Jules de Jongh, are all hamming it up tremendously, but the story calls for that. The first time I heard this, I was expecting a full resolution of Mel’s story, and while one phase of it seems to be resolved, she doesn’t leave or anything. It’s also somewhat goofy for a story that’s supposed to carry dramatic weight, so it’s good that it wasn’t an ending. While that’s all for Mel at the moment, she'll be back again, much later than expected. Ace is also a bit more sporadic from here on out.