The Skies of New Earth

Tales from New Earth #3

Released: 6 March 2018

Listened: 10/29/22

We’ve had cats, and trees, so why not get a little crazier? This story takes place on several floating islands above New Earth, mostly inhabited by sentient bird-people, one of whom is played by Nina Tussaint-White (Mels). There are also sentient “solar bears” who live on clouds and get around with jet packs, because why not? The primary bear we meet, Oscar McLeod, is played by Toby Hadoke with a comical Scandinavian accent. Devon is here to investigate the Lux, but they’re not doing a lot this time. Instead, there’s another power company, Cloudburst, who can generate energy by “fragging” the clouds (the parallels are pretty obvious). Of course, the birds and bears aren’t thrilled about that, and think the process is dangerous, which, whoops, it is. And since the Lux want rid of Cloudburst, they’re willing to exploit that. At least, until the Doctor shows up to put a stop to it with some judicious sonic-ing. Kieran Hodgson’s Tenth Doctor is getting better, especially on lines like “Brilliant!” but it lets him down a bit when he’s got to do exposition, sounding more like a Matt Smith impersonator with a head cold, which is unfortunate. The Lux are apparently defeated in this one, but with one story left to go in the box, we know better.