The Light Keepers

"A beacon can be two different things."

Writer: Roy Gill

Format: Audio

Released: August 2018

Series: Eleventh Doctor Chronicles 1.03

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor

Synopsis

Dorium Maldovar has a problem. The self-styled 'Beacon People' are bad for business, and now they're in his shuttle park, digging for mysterious minerals.

When the Doctor crashes into his life once again, Dorium enlists him to find out what these scavengers are really up to inside their lighthouse.

But a lighthouse signals danger – and this beacon was placed to warn of something more ancient and powerful than anyone knows. Something that is returning...

Verdict

The Light Keepers was a great audio adventure to continue the first series of the Eleventh Doctor Chronicles! I've really enjoyed this boxset thus far and as I now near the end, I think it's wonderful to extend the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor and Jacob Dudman continues to do a sublime impression of Matt Smith to ensure that these stories have a genuine feel to them. It really does help that Dudman sounds like Smith and his performance as the Doctor is fantastic. I really liked that he was paired with a familiar character for this audio with us getting to meet Dorium Maldovar once again and his reaction to the Doctor's arrival and the threat posed by the TARDIS almost crashing into his Moldovarium was terrific. The pair only having slight knowledge of each other was good and the Doctor being remembered by Dorium based on an unpaid bar bill including tea and a large number scones was perfect for this incarnation. As a whole, this story ends up serving as why the Doctor is owed by Dorium as we would see in A Good Man Goes to War which I thought was very good and I'd love for future Doctor Chronicles to showcase that for the likes of Strax and Vastra amongst others. That would be lovely. The setting of the Maldovarium and its close surroundings for this story worked very well and I liked the prospect of there being so much mining by the Beacon People that the planet had began to lose mass to a level that its whole planetary orbit was of course. Hence the Doctor almost crashing into it. And to think he nearly blamed the TARDIS! Shudder the thought. Dorium struggling to prevent the mining on his grounds was good and his enlisting of the Doctor to help pay off his bar bill and the damage caused by his arrival was great. The Doctor couldn't resist a big lighthouse! That really is right up his ally and we've seen them be quite significant in the likes of Horror of Fang Rock and Fugitive of the Judoon and the same can be said here. The lighthouse actually being a colossus was intriguing and hearing the Doctor's descriptions of the ascent up the body was very good. He knew all along that this was a vessel and eventually got his confirmation, not that it was really needed. Plume was a really nice character and her explanation of what the light meant and the fact the lighthouse was actually a light prison was a good revelation. The links back to the song about working until the light was gone suddenly made perfect sense and they had to sacrifice themselves until the lister was no more. Quite the life! The light at the top of the vessel turning out to be the Lux was something I didn't see coming but this ended up serving as a brilliant little prequel to the Tales of New Earth boxset. That was very nicely done and some good continuity amongst ranges. The Doctor recognising the voice was good and I think it works to only have had the Lux involved for a short time at the end of the audio. The true story for that enemy lies in the aforementioned Tenth Doctor series. The Doctor was confident that after deflecting the Lux and sending it hurdling through time and space that one of him had got it covered, as was depicted during that series. Overall, I thought this was a very entertaining hour that gave us a strong and solid adventure, some fun interaction between the Doctor and Dorium where we see why he owes the Time Lord, and also brings back an unexpected enemy! A great listen.

Rating: 8/10