Ghost Machines

"There's love after death."

Writer: AK Benedict
Format: Audio
Released: September 2019
Series: Rose Tyler: The Dimension Canon 03

Featuring: Rose, Pete

Synopsis

Pete decides it's time he accompanied Rose on one of her dimension jumps. But he couldn't have picked a worse time. They arrive in a world where technology took an extraordinary path, and where the recently deceased Pete Tyler had a very different kind of success.

As machines start to break down, Pete meets his widow, and he and Rose must confront truths about their 'family'. But they may not escape this Earth alive.

Verdict

Ghost Machines was another very good audio adventure to continue Rose Tyler's The Dimension Canon spinoff series! This one made things take a dark turn as we went into a parallel universe where things took a harrowing turn. It started off with Pete getting killed whilst on the phone to Jackie which was quite tough to listen to as I can't imagine how she must have felt hearing her husband get hit in similar circumstances to what occurred in Father's Day. The parallels there were excellent and it was good for Rose to look back on those events when she found out what had happened to this universe's version of her father. Pete continued to be an inventor in this universe and he was on a pretty large billboard promoting his SoulTech company. The concept of that was intriguing and at first I initially thought the spelling was SolTech meaning the planet. The truth was a whole lot worse. No wonder there was considerable graffiti going around displaying 'Let them go.' The idea of an anti-progress group of people was good and I liked how things were subtly fed to us regarding the truth of who exactly needed letting go. Arriving at Castle Tyler was very good and once Jackie was introduced into the episode, I was very surprised to find that she knew all about other universes and that they were dying. She'd heard so from the Elders which was very interesting, but the idea of a Centre for Parallel Worlds where you could and watch what was happening in different realities or universes was incredible. I loved that a lot and I think it could be fun to explore that further. Jackie pretending to know about the Doctor so Rose and the alternate version of her dead husband wouldn't shoot off back to where they came from. That was a little obvious, but it did work well when Rose discovered that was the truth. Jackie talking about the ritual her and the mysterious Wallace did to summon the Doctor was intriguing and I found it quite funny that the ritual was afternoon tea. I am still not sure if I was laughing for the right reasons. When it was revealed and confirmed that the technology behind SoulTech somehow involved taking the dead and putting them to technological use I was quite stunned despite it being quite easy to predict after all of the signs throughout the story. The kettle scream was honestly very difficult to listen to and I just can't imagine what it would be like for a life in technology after death. No wonder people wanted letting go when they were forced into literally driving taxis or being kitchen appliances. It was awful to think about. Discovering that Wallace was behind the death of Pete was hardly surprising and his plan to keep Pete's consciousness to put him into his own technology was very good. He'd manipulated the system into getting people to sign up for SoulTech and despite everything, Rose couldn't stay detached from this universe's version of her mother. Pete getting the chance to join Rose in what I guess would be the companion role was magnificent and allowed him to shine with Clive left behind on Pete's World and being able to hack into Wallace's system to bring it down. It really was a stunning concept that was harrowing and in some parts actually quite difficult to listen to, but it made for great Doctor Who and was good in showcasing the differences of parallel universes. Overall, a very good audio!

Rating: 8/10