Review by Cavan Gilbey
A new boxset for The Doctor, Harry and Naomi is upon us and we’ve come across a more fantastical theme for the trilogy of stories that form the middle chunk of this thirteenth season of Fourth Doctor Adventures. We’ve got the returns of two classic villains, the first of which feels quite well timed given the events of the TV show and the 60th anniversary celebrations, plus an episode which just be one the most silly conceptually we’ve had from this series in a while. 
One aspect that did worry me about this set was the return to the two part story structure. There was an issue with the earlier seasons of this range where the stories never quite had enough room to breath or felt like a big concept squished down to fit roughly an hour. Going forward know that this is symptom of the stories in this set; so while good know they are somewhat held back by their length as it is clear that all three of these could be improved with that extra bit of development and plotting.
Now this is going to be my first time encountering this particular TARDIS team, especially the character Naomi (played by Eleanor Crooks) who is completely new to me. To quickly just cast aside some worries people may have about jumping straight in to this set; don’t fret you can start here. Naomi is characterised well enough by our three writers that you get an immediately clear sense of who she is and what her dynamic with The Doctor and Harry is. Naturally if you’ve heard the previous 4DA boxset or the Harry and Naomi stories with Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor then you’ll be very familiar with this duo and their dynamics, but they aren’t essential listening for understanding the characters or stories here.
Aurora Fearnley opens up the set with Matryoshka. The Doctor, Naomi and Harry find them self dragged to Earth by a mysterious force, soon they meet toy and game maker Lord Charles Preston. It’s clear that Preston is saddened by the disappearance of his daughter and the TARDIS team are accompanied by a medium on their visit to Preston’s home. However when a séance goes awry, an ancient enemy of the Doctor manifests itself in our reality once more hoping for revenge.
This is the story which I think suffers the most from the runtime being reduced from four parts to two parts. The Toymaker is a character which can work in these shorter stories, just look at Solitaire as a prime example, but they are also a character which needs a lot of time to set up the rules of their game and their machinations. I don’t think these shorter, but wider cast stories are a great fit for the character. Annette Badland feels like inspired casting for the role but I don’t think they fully get to flex those sinister muscles as their version of the Toymaker ends up coming across a standard cackling baddie, when they could have been so much more had they been given the development time of the full four episodes.
The rest of the story doesn’t quite bolster the rest of it either. The imagery isn’t abstract enough for the villain or the setting to really come to life, and the atmosphere is nothing short of your stock gothic horror setting. A big haunted mansion can only work as a setting so many time before you start to role your eyes at it’s inclusion. Even having a toy and games maker as the central focus can’t save it, imagine the horror you can play with there. Using his toys as methods of torture or having him being manipulated over time by the Toymaker to craft an insolvable puzzle to get revenge on the Doctor. But Lord Preston is sidelined fairly quickly, and doesn’t really play much of a role in the conclusion of the story, basically just leaving as soon as he gets his daughter back.
As set openers go it is a bit of a weak one; never quite hitting its stride with the pacing and often not quite utilising the full potential of the characters it has to play around with. Thankfully the rest of set picks up the slack.
5/10
Matthew Sweet brings us out next story with The Caged Assassin. Our story takes us back to Victorian England where the Doctor and co come across a tiger omitting a suspicious radiation, this leads them to strange menagerie of Charles Jamrach and the artist Dante Rossetti. But lurking in the shadows are wombats, wombats who are out for revenge.
Now let me say this straight out the gate, I don’t really remember much about this one and I listened to it yesterday. Writing reviews for stories like this are always difficult because you want to give it a chance, but sometimes you run in to the roadblock of the story just not being particularly noteworthy. Now the story isn’t bad, it’s full of strong performances (Mark Gattis as Rossetti in particular is a standout of the set as a whole), a fun campy concept which fits nicely in to this era, and the pacing is pretty good. But the narrative lacks an adventurous streak, the revenge story from the wombats is nothing new and you can figure out where it’s going fairly quickly, the involvement of Rossetti gets sidelined fairly quickly and feels like it was just thrown in because the artist was famous for his animal portraits.
I think Baker sounds like he’s having the most fun here though, his performance is laced with that same shine and comedic wit that was seen throughout his era. Naylor and Crooks manage to match this energy really well, which is especially true for those opening moments of Part 1 where they are dealing with the tiger; making this moment a clear highlight of the story.
There’s the seeds of something really fun in here somewhere, but I don’t think that Sweet quite hits the mark. A shame because Sweet has shown his talents with the comedic or the surreal with stories like Year of the Pig or The Magic Mousetrap.
5/10
Lisa McMullin closes the set with its strongest instalment, the titular Metamorphosis. Arriving on the planet Jaxus, the TARDIS Team become quickly embroiled in a mystery involving vanishing villagers. Every time the fog descends someone goes missing, including Naomi as she whisked away to a strange prison complex. However lurking in the shadows is an old foe, and he’s bided his time long enough. Tonight, he will be reborn.
I actually really liked this one, because I feel like it does something we’ve not seen the Master do in a long while; be a subject of horror. The scenes he shares with Harry in particular are so well written by McMullin, the sinister tones of Beevers’ performance blend so well with Naylor’s ability to capture Harry’s selflessness and politeness so well. We know that The Master is up to no good, but it’s that build up and that tension which makes each moment between the two characters feel like agony. There’s some great body horror as well at points, utilising the Master’s mesmerism really well.
I think this story is the one that sold me on Crooks as Naomi as well, that opening scene with her and Baker talking about embracing the adventure outside of the TARDIS is so energetic and bouncy that it’s hard to not to like the character and the performance. Another great turn here is Lydia West as Cahlo, she’s great here and does a good job at filling in a bit of companion role with Baker while Harry and Naomi are dealing with the Master.
While the extra episodes might have saved this story from a slightly rushed conclusion, McMullin gives us a tight and tense little horror story which utilises its iconic villain to full potential and has a script which feels so perfectly from its era.
8/10
Metamorphosis doesn’t quite come together as a full set, although I do feel like much of that is the hour long runtime for episodes but that final story is really quite well done despite this and more than makes up for the two other stories which really weren’t my cup of tea. One thing I will say this set has succeeded in warming me to this new TARDIS team of Harry and Naomi, I’m eager to listen to some of their other stories now, especially those with McCoy.
6/10
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