The Lagoon Monsters

"You are not the first to challenge faith with reason."

Writer: Gary Russell

Format: Audio

Released: October 2023

Series: BBC Audio 19

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Martha 

Synopsis

The waters of the Pacific Ocean form the backdrop of this foray into Eighteenth Century seafaring for the Doctor and Martha, when the TARDIS materialises on board the Blue Groper sailing ship.

Grudgingly accepted as stowaways by Captain Sadler's crew, the travellers learn that the ship is on a mission to Luna Puesta, 'the land where the moon has set'. 

There, just off the coast of New Zealand, Professor James Tomlinson hopes to locate a missing archaeological link between dinosaurs and man.

But what the expedition finds on arrival is far beyond the Professor's wildest dreams...

Verdict

The Lagoon Monsters was a great little BBC Audio adventure! It seems like ahead of the sixtieth anniversary celebrations that BBC Audio really did jump on the bandwagon with a barrage of releases and that's absolutely fine by me, although it would have been nice for them to give us something of an anniversary adventure. We didn't get that, but further adventures with the Tenth Doctor and Martha is all good with me. I was intrigued to see that Sean Carlsen was the narrator for this one as he's obviously most notable as Narvin from the extraordinary Gallifrey spinoff series from Big Finish. I'm not entirely sure he was the best choice as I do always prefer to have an actor or actress that appeared in the television series alongside the TARDIS team if it's not going to be one of the team themselves, and whilst his narration and storytelling was absolutely fine I thought his impressions of the Tenth Doctor and Martha were lacking. It's not a big deal, but it does help when they get close to sounding like our main characters but that's something I never felt was close here. The writing for the characters was more than sufficient to compromise for that though which is testament to the author. I really enjoyed the setting of the Blue Groper ship and going to 1790 in particular was a nice and unique setting. It's not like anything Martha experienced on screen which is tremendous and I liked how they were immediately accepted as stowaways. It's something that happens so often in Doctor Who but with different TARDIS teams and pairings it can always feel new and that was the case here. I liked the idea of exploring science in this time period with Martha's nature as a female and being a doctor almost ridiculed. She had to deal with some strange and unflattering comments on more than one occasion but she dealt with it admirably even if her anger and annoyance was evidence. I loved the concept of Professor Tomlinson trying to tackle the missing link in historical records and evidence between humanity and dinosaurs. Why in all of the dinosaur discoveries was there no record of man? Tying this in with the Bible and religious teachings was delightful fun as it was clear that science very much trumped faith. Dinosaurs came before any notion of Adam and Eve and hearing that tackled with was excellent. I thought Wyn Thomas was a fun character and getting a Welshman involved is always good in my book. It was quite humorous to describe him as having a temper and his relationship with Sadler was very interesting. The titular monsters in the forms of the Mantosaurs were pretty good and I liked the description of the scale. Martha being right in believing that they didn't have evil intentions but were actually studying the human race was great stuff and all along it turned out they had been looking after the missing Payne. The Doctor appreciated that and would help them get home in what turned out to be a somewhat straightforward adventure and conclusion, with a fascinating insight and discussion on the dilemma of faith and reason in the late eighteenth century. I wasn't too surprised to find that Tomlinson wanted to go with the Mantosaurs when they would be going home and who wouldn't want to take up the opportunity to see what was out there in the stars? He knew that the Doctor was alien and the humour that came from his confidence in saying he'd been to Gallifrey was tremendous. It's always somewhere off the coast of Ireland! Overall, a really strong little adventure! 

Rating: 8/10