The Rotting Deep

Water Worlds #1

Released: 17 May 2022

Listened: 5/26/22

The “Water Worlds” boxed set from 2022 introduces a new companion for the Doctor and Mel: Hebe Harrison, 21st century marine biologist and wheelchair user, played by Ruth Madeley. In her introductory story, Hebe gets most of the spotlight in this base-under-seige story set on an oil rig. She’s got a bit of a spiky personality, which meshes well with the Sixth Doctor, but doesn’t shout “companion material.” Perhaps to compensate, everyone else on the rig is phenomenally unlikable, but they’re all doomed anyway, so nobody misses them. There’s a lot of time spent on exactly how Hebe does and doesn’t want to be treated, and to be fair, it’s complicated. Mel is naturally helpful, and from an earlier era, so she gets things wrong a lot, but apologizes and gets better. The Doctor is better at accepting differences, of course, but he’s not perfect. The story could come across as a little preachy, but I can tell they were trying to avoid that. With all the interpersonal stuff going on, there’s not a lot of time for story. Although there is a very real menace, resolving it is pretty straightforward. Oddly, Ruth Madeley and Bonnie Langford would both appear on TV in 2023's "The Giggle" and 2025's "Wish World / The Reality War," but Ruth Madeley was playing UNIT scientific advisor Shirley Bingham. I haven't seen any behind-the-scenes material yet that acknowledged these Big Finish stories.