Phantoms of the Deep (2013)

The latest Fourth Doctor adventure takes place under sea. I can’t recall in the 10 years that I have been listening to Big Finish plays that a story has ever taken place in the sea. When the story starts the TARDIS is on the bottom of the ocean.
 
K9 was actually quite good in this story. He serves a purpose instead of running out of energy after 10 minutes. The moments when K9 goes bad are amusing but its still the best performance or anything approaching the best that I think we have had from K9 for many years. In fact I would probably say that he was the best character in the entire piece. The Doctor was his usual self and Tom Baker played him in the only way that he could be played in this story. Mary Tamm is really good as she doesn’t put a foot wrong in this. The most noticeable name on the credits is Alice Krige who I remember as playing the Borg Queen in the Star Trek movie ‘First Contact’ back in 1996. Here she plays Dr Patricia Sawyer and what I like about the character is that she seems to just go along with things after the initial reluctance to trust either the Doctor or Romana. By the end of the story she sacrifices her life is probably a tad bit soppy but to be honest it was the best way really that she could leave the story. It’s a noticeably small cast which I always like as it means that there are less name and characters to have to remember.

This story wouldn’t half as good were it not for the mystery of what is at the bottom of the sea. There is a squid that is quite intelligent and there is also someone who has been trapped and kept alive for 100 years but to him it doesn’t seem that long. The squid as it turns out is looking for intelligence and was keeping the office alive, it shows that the squid though might be powerful aren’t without compassion.

Jonathan Morris is one of Big Finish’s top writers and I think that the reason is he knows how to tap into what makes a good story. It’s not complicating things for the sake of doing so but doing a story that could easily work on TV. This is another fine offering from him and I like the reference to the Great Space Elevator which Morris wrote and was released in the companion chronicle range back in mid-2008.

I really liked Phantoms of the Deep as it had that ‘base under siege’ vibe to it and as the TARDIS had gone there was no realistic way of anyone escaping alive. It’s a very atmospheric tale which is helped in a large part by Jamie Robertson who creates a wonderful atmosphere. I think that this story would have worked better as a four part adventure as opposed to two, that said I think that it’s my favourite story of this series so far.