Voyage to Venus

Jago & Litefoot #4.5 / Special

Released: 25 October 2012

Listened: 6/4/20

After the previous set of adventures, the Doctor offers to take Jago & Litefoot on a trip in the TARDIS, which the Fourth Doctor never did. So he takes them to Venus, which doesn’t seem all that far, galactically speaking, but there it is. The Doctor has mentioned Venus, and the natives thereof, many times in the past, but they haven’t actually appeared before. I’m not sure that the world actually needed an explanation of why the Venusian lullaby the Doctor used to pacify Aggedor in “Curse of Peladon” was sung to the tune of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” but now we have one. On the whole, it’s an attempt at sticking the Doctor into a Victorian style sci-fi story, a la Verne or Wells. So the trappings are strange, but the reactions of the aliens are very human, and caricatured. All Venusians are women (more or less) and of course the leader is a shrieking despot, so that’s not too interesting. For their part, Litefoot seems to be having a grand time, and Jago seems uncomfortable and out of his depth, which fits both of them.