The Thief Who Stole Time

"All of time is mine!"

Writer: Marc Platt

Format: Audio

Released: September 2017

Series: Fourth Doctor Adventures 6.09

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II

Synopsis

A god has died. A crime has been committed. And an even greater threat lies beneath the surface. 

On the ocean world of Funderell, Romana has been reunited with her old friend from Gallifrey, Sartia, and the Doctor is investigating the history and religion of this strange world. But events have quickly spiralled out of control. 

Why is this planet of such interest to the Time Lords? What lurks in the depths?

The life of more than one world is at stake. But time is running out. 

Verdict

The Thief Who Stole Time was a terrific episode to conclude the story already started in The Skin of the Sleek and to finish the sixth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures all together! On a personal note, this brings an end to my blogging of the single releases from this brilliant range and moving forward now I should do it in chronological order from Series 10 onwards which is rather exciting. Perhaps my jumping around style is why this as a whole didn’t feel like a roaring finale, but this second episode was definitely an improvement. The stakes were raised and that’s not much of a surprise given that the first part is setting things up! This is where we really saw Sartia in her element as a villain now that the secret was fully out. She was tremendous and I really do hope that this isn’t the last we have heard from her. I’d love to delve more into her history with Romana and their days together on Gallifrey. There’s so much potential there and they were obviously close because Sartia even had the Mana nickname for her. Both were clearly accepting of that moniker which was good and I like the idea of Romana having something akin to the Master for the Doctor. It’s not quite up to that level yet but with further exploration it certainly could be! I thought Lalla Ward was impressive in selling the impact of the cliffhanger where she was left to drown, and it was fun for Sartia to own her action in leaving Romana. She was proud of it and was solely interested in the power within the planet that was Funderell. Exploring more of the planet here was great and the concept of it not having an ocean floor and the core just being pure energy was a little difficult to comprehend, but that was music to Sartia despite her fruitless attempts to offer half in return for the discovery and keeping quiet about it. Her suspicions were roused in a big way quite obviously but she didn’t hold back in dealing with any potential whistleblower! The Doctor was onto her though and that was nicely done. The Time Lord involvement in the planet was intriguing to explore and arguably could have been even more of the focus. I loved the idea of it being a plug in a sinkhole of timelines as the potential there was huge, and I would say not fully realised which was a bit of a shame. Romana being able to save the day in ensuring that Sartia’s own attempts to harness the energy knocked her out, but I can’t help but feel her escape via a time ring was a little weak. She deserved to meet her fate and her getting away with it will be fine if we do get a return at some point in the future. However, as far as I’m aware that is yet to materialise. I thought the enigmatic narration was good in adding to the atmosphere and the planet actually reverting back to its default at the end was actually a little disappointing considering the whacky nature of it! There was more to explore in my opinion. Overall though, a really entertaining listen and a strong villain! Not to mention a fantastic cliffhanger with the Doctor set to be consumed by a Sleek. 

Rating: 8/10