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 | Reviews for The Third Doctor Adventures: The Unzal Incursion / The Gulf |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 26 November 2024 |
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| Rating: |   8 |
This collection gives us two four-part series, The Unzal Incursion representing the 1970 season, and The Gulf representing the 1974 season. The first is the better of the two. The Unzal Incursion finds The Doctor, Liz Shaw, the Brigadier, and UNIT fighting another invasion. This time, it is an invasion by stealth. A new training program for soldiers turns out to be an alien brain-washing system to make the Earth soldiers work for the alien invaders. UNIT has been infiltrated, and The Doctor, Liz, and The Brigadier become fugitives, trying to escape capture while also ending the alien menace. The story fits into the 1970 series in being both a rollicking adventure while at the same time a rather sombre exposé of human shortcomings. The second story brings back together Sarah Jane Smith with Doctor 3. Bopping around Time and Space, they land in the future, on an ocean world. Set upon the poisonous ocean is a decommissioned "spin drifter," designed for mineral extraction, now used as home to an artist collective. The story quickly becomes a haunted house narrative, with semi-corporeal aliens that have telepathic abilities forcing people to cry so that the aliens can remove the salt from their bodies. As with most of these things, motivations are somewhat unclear. I would like to see aliens motivated by more than just hunger. Also, I cannot help feeling that The Doctor and Sarah are butting their noses in. At the beginning of the story, they don't really have a stake in what is going on, so why get involved?
Both of these stories include the daughters of the original actors taking the roles of their mothers. Daisy Ashford, daughter of Caroline John, plays Liz Shaw, and does so quite well. They have some vocal similarities, but Ashford does not try too hard to be exactly like her mother. Sadie Miller, daughter of Elisabeth Sladen, is much closer in vocal manner to her mother. She really gets the little characteristic mannerisms, when the voice raises or lowers, distinctive pronunciations, and so on. It is really nice joined with Tim Treloar's marvelous Doctor 3 impression and John Culshaw's equally marvelous Brigadier impression, giving one the feeling that the old gang is back together.
A peculiar aspect of this box set, and I do not know whether this was intentional, is that it is a big exercise in girl power. Both companions are played as strong, independent characters, not just hanging onto The Doctor. Additionally, in The Unzal Incursion, we get the villain, the villain's assistant, and the guest companion, Sergeant Attah, played by women. The entire cast, apart from The Doctor, in The Gulf is female. I find this neither good nor bad, just interesting.
