The Trouble with Drax

"They're all Drax!"

Writer: John Dorney

Format: Audio

Released: June 2016

Series: Fourth Doctor Adventures 5.06

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II

Synopsis 

Altrazar. The temporal Atlantis, a place lost to time. Believed by many to be a myth, it has long been the perfect location for the rich and powerful to hide away their most dangerous secrets.

Until now.

Because the somewhat crooked, not exactly honest, wheeler-dealer cockney Time Lord known as Drax has found map that leads to its location. And, at the behest of a manipulative businessman, he's going to use it.

When the TARDIS is dragged out of the space-time vortex, its crew aren't best pleased to see the Doctor's old school friend, even less when he pressgangs them into joining a raid on the most secure safe-house in history. However, with Romana and K9 held hostage, the Doctor has little choice but to agree. With Drax in tow, he heads for the planet.

Which is where the trouble starts...

Verdict 

The Trouble with Drax was an excellent Fourth Doctor Adventures audio! This really was tremendous fun and a splendid way to spend an hour in the morning on the last day of work before a holiday. It’s always wonderful to have the Fourth Doctor alongside the second incarnation of Romana as that’s a pairing that is awfully difficult to beat when it comes to my enjoyment, but the continuity from The Armageddon Factor here where she was mistaken for the Princess Astra by Drax. That was a lot of fun and actually played an important role in realising just what Drax was up to. He’s a fun character as a cockney Time Lord and has certainly made an impact since debuting! It’s always interesting to have the Doctor encountering another Time Lord and there’s just an added layer with Romana as the companion given the fact she’s a Time Lord too and has encountered him before, albeit in a different incarnation. That shouldn’t matter to Time Lords though as even with Drax in a new incarnation, the Doctor and Romana still recognised him instantly as should be. However, Romana wasn’t recognised and that showed that Drax was playing with technology he ought not to me. The fact he lured the Doctor’s TARDIS was pretty fun and enlisting him as essentially a scapegoat for his plan was very amusing. I really enjoyed the mystery and legend of the lost city of Altrazar with it being the perfect haven for criminals and the like. Where better to hide artefacts or evidence than a city that didn’t exist? It was the perfect basis for Drax to have a scheme. The supporting characters of Rosser and Kirkland were really strong and the revelations that they were just different incarnations of Drax was hilarious. It almost got to the point of being silly, especially when Inspector McCormick was also revealed as a future incarnation when arresting the other incarnations of Drax! But I couldn’t help but smile and I think the fact the Doctor also admired his plays helped the listener. He wasn’t exactly evil, just a little meddlesome. But he was never going to pass as the Master as he initially hoped when Romana realised there was another Time Lord present from the body replicator device. The use of a Blinovitch Limitation Effect inhibitor was good and I liked how that only aided Drax in his scheme. He was always one step ahead of the game given that he retained knowledge of meeting his other selves so he could anticipate the next move. The moment where Drax revealed that the Doctor had actually stolen the inhibitor for Drax was tremendous. He’d been using it throughout ten incarnations! The scale of Drax’s plan was quite something and was to be admired. He was committed to the cause that’s for sure. I thought the early continuity from the Key to Time saga was a nice inclusion and set the timeframe well as K9 was still leading the Black Guardian on a wild goose chase whilst Romana wanted to make good use of the randomiser. I appreciated that. K9 didn’t have a huge amount to do here but when he was called into action he was usually effective. The state of temporal grace was an amusing moment though as Time Lord technology was shared ensuring K9 couldn’t use his stun gun. Drax’s comments on the first incarnation of Romana were further comic value and the moment where Romana revealed she was the very woman he’d described was terrific. Overall, the plot of this one was ludicrous and just great fun with the Doctor not even getting the upper hand on the fellow Time Lord. A hugely enjoyable listen!

Rating: 9/10