Death in the New Forest

Tales from New Earth #2

Released: 6 March 2018

Listened: 10/28/22

With Devon now part of Senator Hame’s team, he takes a trip to the New Forest – a continent populated entirely by sentient trees – to tell Thorn’s family how he died. Except he can’t find them, because there’s people going missing here too. Which brings him right smack into the Doctor, who’s investigating the disappearances along with Sapling Vale, a cutting of Jabe of the Forest of Cheem, which means she can be played by Yasmin Bannerman, which is always good fun. Sadly, David Tennant isn’t here, so Devon mostly narrates the story, meaning that Kieran Hodgson has to imitate the Doctor. And he does a reasonably good job, especially when the Doctor gets excited and shouty, which to be fair, he does a lot. From there it gets pretty complicated. There are some sentient termites who are the prime suspects, and have a legitimate claim to the continent, but of course the Doctor thinks it can’t be that easy, and Devon thinks the Lux are involved, and it turns out they are trying to convert the trees to Lux-ism, starting with their religious leaders. But the whole thing turns out to be more complicated than that. The story turns into a runaround, with lots of shouting and sonic-ing that doesn’t necessarily make sense, but it’s decent fun.