Time Reef

"He's dead and dying, over and over again."

Writer: Marc Platt
Format: Audio
Released: September 2008
Series: Main Range 113a

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Brewster

Synopsis

A curse on this damned reef – and curse the Doctor who brought us here!

Drawn by the siren call of a distress beacon, the TARDIS crash-lands on an uncharted time reef. However, the Doctor, Nyssa and Brewster are not the only mariners marooned on this barren rock. Commander Gammades and his crew of returning war heroes have been similarly shipwrecked, as has the beautiful but mysterious Lady Vuyoki.

But there's something else here, too. A thing of darkness which crawls blindly across the surface of the reef hunting for prey: the Ruhk.

Verdict

Time Reef was a very good audio adventure! I’m liking this unexpected story arc with the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Thomas Brewster and I can’t quite believe that it’s only been three stories! I’m definitely a fan at the moment. Exploring what Brewster got up to when he stole the TARDIS in The Haunting of Thomas Brewster is a terrific concert and it could so easily have been ignored. I’m delighted that it wasn’t and I loved how sceptical this allowed the Doctor to be. He wasn’t impressed with being stuck in the Victorian Age for five months but he was at least happy to have his TARDIS back. However, it wasn’t quite as he left it. The Doctor checking the memory bank and returning to the reef was intriguing and I thought it was quite funny that Brewster had posed as the Doctor during his first visit. It was a concept that worked very well and to think that he’d just left the Gamma crew stranded after selling them some of the TARDIS equipment was very comical. The Doctor’s reaction to that was unsurprisingly not too pleasing. I thought Peter Davison was excellent as the Fifth Doctor here and the nature of the writing with the Doctor really not giving up on hammering home to Brewster what he’d done allowed for a powerful performance. I think I’m getting a bigger fan of Nyssa with each story she features in and I just love how her knowledge is on a level similar to the Doctor. It provides a unique dynamic and having Brewster around really allows her to show off in a rather subtle way. The Gamma crew themselves were pretty decent and I hadn’t read the synopsis before listening, so to initially think that the Doctor was the one that had left them stuck was very good indeed. I thought the Ruhk made for a great element of the story, but I can’t help but think their part in the conclusion needed a bit more clarity. I felt things were going all so well but the ending was just a bit quick and sudden after a potential buildup for a war. That didn’t seem consistent and whilst as a whole it was exciting, I just felt more explanation would have been beneficial. The attraction of the geometer was decent and I loved that the food machine was featured. Even more so to find that Brewster had given it away to Vuyoki to get in her good books. I thought she was a weird character, in a good way, and her reaction when she found that Brewster hadn’t brought her anything was a little stuck up which provided a sense of the character. If that wasn’t enough, her relationship with Gammades filled in any gaps. I liked him for the most part as a character, but the pirate resemblance was something I probably could have done without in all honesty. The ending was intriguing but rushed for my liking and Brewster sacrificing himself to rebuild the TARDIS could have been so much more impactful! I know it was resolved almost instantly after, but that moment could have shocked the listener. Overall though, this was still a terrific little listen!

Rating: 8/10