The Feast of Axos

Main Range #144

Released: February 2011

Listened: 6/26/20

This story is much less frenetic than the last one, and also leans further into Brewster’s character. It involves Axos, the energy vampire from the Third Doctor story “The Claws of Axos” back in the 70s. The Third Doctor left Axos in space, in a time loop, and now it’s started to decay, so various Earth entities are trying to reach it to extract its energies. Axos itself, while a threat, doesn’t seem to be doing very much except trying to break out of the loop. However, it does suborn Brewster, who’s put in the very Adric-like position of joining the bad guys, maybe to betray them, maybe to his own advantage; who knows? Evelyn once again seems to be in a highly snarky mode, taking everything in stride and being sarcastic about it, right up to the point where she’s out of her depth. There’s a bunch of minor characters involved, all of whom know what the Doctor is and what he can do, which makes a nice change. There’s an extended spacewalk scene that results in a pretty effective slow-motion cliffhanger, which probably would have worked pretty well on TV, at least in the modern series. It’s a decent story that moves Brewster’s arc forward.