The Mega

"War isn't a game."

Writer: Bill Stretton (Adapted by Simon Guerrier)

Format: Audio

Released: December 2013

Series: Lost Stories 4.04

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

"This is a warning. Your aggression cannot go unchecked. The West must disarm. We will make you disarm."

When an assassination follows the first demonstration of a deadly new weapon, it appears that an alien race has fired the opening salvo in a new war – a war... for peace.

But is that truly their intent? The Doctor is unsure. The answer lies deep in the heart of a distant country. A place where a man might be a hero or a traitor. Where a man has to face the menace... of the Mega.

Verdict

The Mega was a very decent Lost Stories adventure! I think it's quite incredible that this is the only release in the range to feature the Third Doctor as surely there must be more 'lost' scripts out there from his era, but this was a nice instalment and a story that I think would have fitted right into the early Third Doctor seasons. I liked how it was clearly placed there with the Doctor still holding a grudge against the Brigadier for the events at the end of Doctor Who and the Silurians. I must say that Katy Manning and Richard Franklin did a terrific job with the narration of this story, with the former in particular impressing with her impression of Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor really holding up well. She was fantastic and that was no easy task given the length of this adventure. I do think that a run time of over three hours did hurt this story a bit as it just didn't need to be that long, I think it could easily have fitted into the traditional 6x25 minute episode format and just dragged on a little too long by the end, but I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and story at heart. The titular Mega initially seemed like it would just be one single creature that was a clone and far from home, but a really good cliffhanger revealed that they were on Earth in abundance. Their plan to actually use the Doctor to essentially destroy Earth and then come and act as saviours to the world they had themselves doomed was very good. It was a foolproof plan actually as they'd used the Doctor's own double crossing against him to show even the Time Lords that it was him who had interfered in the development of the planet. That was impressive. I liked the use of all of the UNIT personnel in the story and the Brigadier once again being challenged on his shoot first ask questions later policy against aliens was powerful stuff. Prince Cassie emerged as a surprise villain in the piece and that was done very well as we learned that he had an army of Mega at his command. His villainous tendencies shone and I liked how he was convinced that the Doctor and Jo had resigned from UNIT to deal with the extra resources on show in the nation of Golbasto. The scale of the threat in this story was impressive and having the Prime Minister vaporised on live television was quite something! I must admit I was quite disappointed by the later revelation that it was just a double. That didn't do a lot for me. The threat of chemical weaponry was great and I really liked the ending with the Doctor turning it against the Mega and ensuring that it would only take them out instead of humanity. The Mega threat encompassing London was good stuff and a molecule ray just sounded dangerous which was good. I liked the real world exposure that this adventure had and it reminded me a lot of the news footage in The Ambassadors of Death, with something similar definitely working well here. I thought the adventure would have fitted right in during the era and it was so much fun that the Master was involved without featuring, being revealed as the architect behind the plan at hand. That was amusing given his proximity to the Third Doctor. As a whole, this was a good story that sadly just went way too long which made it a slight struggle to maintain my interest and concentration thoroughly. If it was trimmed down a little and compressed to inject a bit more pace, I think I'd have enjoyed this even more. Still, a worthwhile listen! 

Rating: 7/10