The Transcendence of Ephros

Third Doctor Adventures #2.1

Released: 3 November 2016

Listened: 7/1/21

More space adventures for the Doctor and Jo, because that seems to be what they’re doing right now. (Although it’s still in the same time zone as “Frontier in Space,” because the Doctor knows the President of Earth personally.) They show up on Ephros, which is supposed to be a garden spot, but it’s desolate. In fact, it’s about to explode soon. Which should be bad, but there’s a big galactic corporation there ready to harness the energy of the explosion, and also a religious group who believe that standing on the planet when it explodes will cause them to ascend to a higher state of being. Writer Guy Adams puts a lot in here, from the cranky, nasty corporate project leader to the friendly but snarky religious leader, and also gives Jo a moral dilemma to struggle with, because she’s in favor of religious freedom, but doesn’t want people to die. Then Adams turns just about everything on its head in Part 4. [Spoiler: The religious leader is a former companion of the Master, which allows for a Master-like villain without the need to recast Roger Delgado. And the corporate type remains cranky even while helping the good guys, so that’s a nice reversal.] Jo and the Doctor spend a lot of time apart in this one, which allows for Jo to use her intelligence on her own, and also allows for an empathetic reunion scene. Jo is becoming a very capable person by this time, which is good, because she’s about to go off to do her own thing. I remembered this one as being someone long on my first listen, but this time around I didn’t find it so. I appreciated the twist in the writing, which marks this out from a lot of the Third Doctor stories.