Last of the Zetacene

The Ninth Doctor Adventures Series 2 #2.2

Released: 17 August 2022

Listened: 10/10/22

One side of the Ninth Doctor that we haven’t seen in this series so far is the darker, angrier side that comes out fairly often in Series 1. That side definitely shows up here, as the Ninth Doctor rarely misses a chance to be contemptuous of the super-rich. This story has a quartet of “rich enough to buy planets” types who all get together periodically to play games of chance for super-rare prizes, in this case a Zetacene Swine. It’s the last of its kind, and of course that’s a trigger for the Ninth Doctor, who immediately recruits a companion substitute to help him rig the game and free the swine. Unfortunately, it gets loose before the Doctor can free it, and starts killing the gazillionaires, to which the Doctor isn’t even slightly sympathetic. James Kettle is normally a comedy writer, so there are a number of comedic elements, like a dance revue starring sentient spiders, and one of the players who’s an “aroma enthusiast.” But the story is actually kind of dark, and the plot really isn’t very deep. The big draw here is that one of the players is played by Maureen O’Brien, who played Vicki back in the Sixties. Even though she’s done a pretty good Vicki in the Early Adventures, you’d never recognize her here without the credits. Aside from that bit of trivia, though, the story didn’t really grab me.