Unregenerate!

The Doctor's been locked up in an asylum, the walls of which echo with the screams and cries of the other patients around him. The TARDIS returns to Earth without him, and Melanie realizes that her friend is in trouble but beyond her reach. Meanwhile, the powers in charge of the asylum are making deals with people on Earth to collect them the day before they die and siphon off their memories to preserve them - but towards what ultimate end?

I have to admit, this one went a totally different direction from where I thought it was headed. Melanie has to survive without the Doctor for over half of the story, and when she does find him there's not much left of his mind to engage. The staff of the institute are aware that he is a Time Lord, and that he has recently regenerated, and at times it feels as if the persona that is the seventh Doctor is being wiped out and the sixth (or someone else) is trying to emerge. There' a certain amount of disharmony amongst the staff as well; Klyst (played by Jennie Lyndon - her first role in Doctor Who was on the big screen with Peter Cushing as the Doctor) is starting to feel a certain amount of responsibility for the people they are inadvertantly harming with their work, Louis shows compassion for them as soon as he recruits them but abandons it when they are collected, and Rigan just wants everyone to follow orders, and heaven help whoever disobeys. Add the latest human recruit, Johannes, to the mix and a strange alien named Shokhra in the next cel, and the place is brimming with well defined characters. And let's not overlook Mel's defacto companion for the episode, the Cabbie; he adjusts to the situation quickly and forms a protective interest in her, but not quite a romantic one.

And let me say: when the truth about what's going on in the institute came out, I was really surprised.

If this actually was the second adventure with the seventh Doctor, it's debatable if it would have flown on television. For starters the effects of the show might have been too much; the institute is linked to a facility in space on an asteroid (shades of the tenth Doctor's predicament in 2007's Smith and Jones). But there's the sudden absence of the seventh Doctor; with the audience still in a bit of shock after the regeneration it wouldn't be too wise to remove the character and drive him nuts. Still, this is all retcon and the rules are different.

The joy of retcon is anyone can get in on it. Big Finish does it for as many aspects of Doctor Who as they can (including Sarah Jane Smith, the Daleks, Cybermen, UNIT and Professor Bernice Summerfield), Magic Bullet got a piece with the Kaldor City adventures, and BBV are in on it as well, going beyond the bounds here and there, including their own sequel to the seventh Doctor's debut story...

NEXT EPISODE : THE RANI REAPS THE WHIRLWIND