Water Worlds: Maelstrom

"I'm wearing a stolen body."

Writer: Jonathan Morris

Format: Audio

Released: May 2022

Series: Sixth Doctor Adventures 1.03

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Mel, Hebe

Synopsis

The Doctor, Mel and Hebe visit the archipelago world of Veludia, only to discover a planet beset by electromagnetic storms where three survivors traverse the seas in a ramshackle township. These survivors are 'corps' – bodies used as hosts for minds stored in the vessel's 'mind-drive' – and the Doctor, Mel and Hebe are seen as welcome replacements. But there's something lurking in the waters below, something of rage and power that wishes to destroy them all: the Maelstrom!

Verdict

Maelstrom was a great audio story to conclude Water Worlds and the first series of Sixth Doctor Adventures! This has been a thoroughly enjoyable opening series for a new TARDIS trio and it concluded very well. I've enjoyed the water theme and that's fitted in well for Hebe as a marine biologist, something I am sure will play to her strengths as her adventures continue in the future. I enjoyed the setting of Veludia very much and it didn't take long for us to delve into the issue at hand here with only a few survivors left. These survivors were unique though as whilst there were three bodies, there were a vast number more minds that could be downloaded into the corps. That entire concept was fascinating and mentioning it in the frame of being efficient and seeing bodies as resources was incredible. It was a little uncomfortable to hear how natural those minds felt the process to be, but they'd been living like this for nearly ten years. The threat of the three remaining corps not having long to live didn't tie in well for the Doctor, Mel and Hebe's arrival as they were seen as replacements, and it didn't take long for Mel to fall foul of that. Alef being downloaded into Mel's body was really well done and I thought it was a nice change for her to not be happy with her father for using the body without the original host's permission. That's not usually the case when we have mind or body swaps so that was a change of pace I appreciated. I thought it was fun for Alef to try and convince the others that she was still Mel and from past adventures, we know that doesn't exactly work out well. Hebe caught on rather quickly and it was fun for Alef to say she should have kept it secret. The incorporation of Hebe's wheelchair use was done well given the difficulties of the terrain on the planet, and the Doctor pushing along a bumpy ride was quite fun in parts. With the desperate situation regarding the lack of corps, finding out about Saskar's experiments was very good. Hebe spotted the research and it turned out she had actually been experimenting on the local fauna life to see if they could act as hosts! That explained the initial conversation between the Doctor and the marine life on the TARDIS arrival, and when they had been rejected Saskar simply through them back into the sea. Except they weren't always dead or wholly failed. That was disturbing and just intriguing. I liked how the link was intentionally broken to prevent Alef's presence being detected, something she also didn't agree with. I didn't think the titular Maelstrom was as emphatic as the synopsis made out, but it did provide us with a decent cliffhanger. The action that came with the combined effort to access all of the minds again and link the systems back up again was nicely done, and the moment the Doctor deduced Jom as the culprit was really well done. Speaking of cliffhangers, I liked how Hebe's call with Elise was a little distorted and resulted in a nice lead into Purity Undreamed as she also had an SOS from Evelyn that she was now signalling for, and it wasn't the only source of trouble being detected! I look forward to hearing where things go from here. Overall, a strong end to a brilliant series! 

Rating: 8/10