The Ribos Inheritance

Silver and Ice #2

Released: 29 June 2022

Listened: 7/3/22

The Doctor is in kind of a melancholy mood, so after a pep talk by Mel, he aims for Ribos (of “The Ribos Operation”). He hopes to arrive during “sun-time,” but instead finds that “ice-time” has gone on for over a decade too long. There’s a new king on the throne, and he seems somewhat odd. Which of course means there’s a rebellion brewing in the forests, but the Doctor and Mel don’t meet them straight away. Instead, they’re saved from wildlife by a self-declared barbarian, who has a Jamaican accent, for some reason. Garron, the con-man from “The Ribos Operation” is still hanging around on the planet (although played by a new actor), and he’s got a part in all of this, but that only becomes clear slowly. In fact, a lot about this story goes slowly, because there are mysteries that the characters and the listener can’t be allowed to figure out right away, because the Doctor has to get there first. In fact, the Doctor runs eagerly, almost aggressively, in pursuit of the mystery, and takes the first chance he gets to start meddling. The coda at the end has the Seventh Doctor at his coldest, and it’s quite believable. The change in the Doctor’s characterization from Season 24 to 25 has always been a question: Did something change in him, or was the chessmaster always there underneath, hiding behind the clown? This story makes a good case for the former, which puts an interesting conclusion on a story that’s a bit dull up to that point.