The Sandman (2002)

The Sandman is the first Sixth Doctor/Evelyn story for quite some time. In fact it was back in August 2001 (Project: Twilight) that we last had an adventure featuring these two. The reason for the extended absence was that the Eighth Doctor’s season was extended from four stories to six. This story also has the hard task of trying to match such modern classics as Spare Parts and The Chimes of Midnight.

I quite liked the twist that this story gave on the Doctor’s reputation. You would imagine that everywhere he goes, the Doctor is considered a hero or a saint. It’s the same around the world. There are people that you would consider to be good but to others would be bad and evil. There are faults with this story. The problem that I have with this story is that the voices are unbearable. I just found them really distracting and so it put me off a bit.

Colin Baker isn’t on his usual good form in this story. This isnt because of him but more to do with the writing. He seems very over the top at several times during the story. This story sees Colin Baker playing Doctor with a dollop of the Sandman thrown in for good measure. Maggie Stables isn’t used very well in this story, it was because of her acting abilities but because of what the writer has not done.

The guest star is Anneke Wills who played Polly during 1966 with the First and Second Doctors. She plays Director Nrosha who is interesting because she has a grudge against The Sandman. Ian Hogg is also a name from Doctor Who’s past to feature in this story. In that he played Josiah Smith in Ghostlight (1989) but in this he played something far different but nowhere near as entertaining.

At the end of the day this is one of the weakest stories to feature the Sixth Doctor. I think that it was a messy plot that didn’t really go anywhere and I felt a little disappointed when it finished.

Dreamtime (2005)

The Harvest was a superb vehicle for Hex and I had hopes that his first adventure as a member of the TARDIS would be a much better one than what we got here. Dreamtime is the second story to come from Simon Forward who wrote The Sandman (2002). Unfortunately I didn’t like Sandman so its sad that I have the same opinion of this story. The problem that I have with this story is that it seems to be a bit to pyscadelic and just didn’t grip me at any point of this story. It just seemed like they were going through the motions of getting Hex’s first adventure out of the way. Hex is given enough to do the classic companion thing of being in awe of an alien world. Forward uses Hex in a good way. Ace is also good in this story which continues to show her growing up from the backpack carrying Nitro9 explosive youngster that we saw on TV. There are some interesting moments the does standout for me in this story such as the use of Galyari who is aggressive and is a thankful saviour to the supporting characters of this story.

Take the novelty of having Hex in the TARDIS out of the equation then what we are left with is an average story that isn’t as good as it should be. I found my attention slipping several times during this story which isn’t good. A shame for Hex’s first story as an official companion.