The Doomsday Quatrain

"I'd like to know how the world will end."

Writers: Emma Beeby & Gordon Rennie

Format: Audio

Released: September 2011

Series: Monthly Adventures 151

Featuring: Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

"When the river is gone, ships sail in the sky, monsters bring fire from the heavens. All will fall into a grey and endless sea, and Doomsday has come."

Florence, the sixteenth century. No one thought to pay much attention to the prophecies of the so-called seer Michael de Nostradame, otherwise known as Nostradamus. Until the canals of Venice dried. Until the soothsayer's sayings started coming true...

Because Master Nostradamus is right, in all respects. The end of the world is nigh. The ships are coming. The monsters are coming. The fire is coming. There's only one thing he didn't see coming, in fact: the sudden apparition of a certain strange Doctor, in his even stranger TARDIS. Today, the Earth dies screaming. And all the Doctor can do is watch.

Verdict

The Doomsday Quatrain was a great story to continue my way through the Monthly Adventures! After a weird little break to celebrate the 150th release with a series of shorter stories in Recorded Time and Other Stories, it was nice to get back to a more traditional style of adventure following the Seventh Doctor on his solo travels. I'm not entirely sure what the objective is by having this incarnation of the Doctor travelling alone and whilst it is absolutely fine and quite new, I always prefer to have a companion present. It was fun for the Doctor to be interacting with the TARDIS at the start of proceedings when the readings on her instruments contradicted the existence outside of her dimensions. The Doctor mentioning how he thought they were done playing that game was very fun and it's one that has been played for centuries and beyond. I liked the initial assumed setting of Florence in the sixteenth century and having Nostradamus in a prominent role was a lot of fun as he's obviously a very important historical figure. His prophecies were intriguing and people being annoyed that he'd foretold of their death was excellent and amusing. I thought Nostradamus trying to give the Doctor his prophecy was tremendous and him thinking that Gallifrey was somewhere south of France was magnificent. Nostradamus was pretty cheerful in giving that take on the Time Lord's future, but him later realising that Time was governed by the Doctor rather than the other way around was a nice way for things to come full circle. As the story developed, I'd have actually much preferred if events stayed contained to Florence but of course we weren't actually even on Earth but more so the Poldagon research planet. The entire concept of that planet was fascinating with it being able to reproduce any planet and time that they had on file. The agents at work in trying to obtain the test subject of Nostradamus were good and I really liked Garilund in particular. I thought she was definitely the standout and it was obvious she was onto something when she was essentially fired without notice and left to die as the invasion began early. That provided a good sense of action and the helplessness just increased as she continued to try and get in contact. Kren was a lovely character too in going against the uppers to save her and they developed a really nice relationship by the end, ending up with a little dinner! I thought it was fun for the Doctor and Nostradamus to be in the TARDIS together by the end and the former actually offering the latter the truth about how the world ended was excellent. Of course, Nostradamus had predicted doomsday and sparked himself into arrest for a false prophecy and what he envisioned coming in the form of the crocodilian Kro was nicely done. I wasn't a massive fan of their make up and design, as well as the voices sounding borderline silly, but in the end they made for more than decent villains. I liked that the Doctor and the Time Lords were known to the Poldagons which presented a fun dynamic, and the action that came at the conclusion made for an exciting end! Overall, a fun little audio adventure!

Rating: 8/10