Hexagora

"Nothing can ever be perfect."

Writer: Paul Finch 

Format: Audio 

Released: November 2011

Series: Lost Stories 3.02

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan

Synopsis 

When a newspaper reporter goes missing, the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa uncover a case of alien abduction. The trail leads them to the planet Luparis, and a city that appears to be a replica of Tudor London. 

What are the monsters that lurk in the shadows? And what is the terrible secret at the heart of Luparis? To save a world, the Doctor must try and defeat the evil plans of Queen Zafira.

And one of her plans is to marry him...

Verdict 

Hexagora was an excellent audio adventure! I listened to this on the train back to university ahead of my final term of first year and I was delighted with what I listened to. It was fantastic from start to finish and it was worth every penny of the mere £2.99 that I paid for it. I'm not sure why Big Finish were offering the story for that little of a price but I am certainly not complaining! It looks like they are going to be offering a story for this price every month which I sure hope to take advantage of and also this month I received a free audio adventure simply by being a subscriber to the Big Finish newsletter! The audio I received was the first in the Cyberman audio series so I'm intrigued to see how the series ranks alongside Dalek Empire. But for now I was doing a Fifth Doctor audio and I was actually surprised that this was a Lost Story as it certainly seemed more suited to an audio landscape rather than the televised format. The cliffhangers though were easily realised from the television version that this story was based upon and they all worked really well. I liked how there wasn't really a main threat but the story still provided excellent cliffhangers. That can be quite difficult on times but there were no such worries with this audio adventure. The guest cast were very impressive with some brilliant actors playing some of the roles. After listening to the impressive Only the Monstrous boxset, it was great to hear Jacqueline Pearce playing Queen Zafira here as I thought she was fantastic. Her character was rather impatient and grew tired of husbands quickly which provided considerable humour when she decided she wanted to marry the Doctor! I thought the chemistry between Pearce and Peter Davison was superb and a real highlight of the story. The Doctor also had a good relationship with Astorius in the audio and that came good towards the end and in the climax. I really liked both companions in the story with them having two very different roles. Nyssa was played wonderfully well by Sarah Sutton as per usual and I liked her relationship with Jezzavar with him wanting to plan a revolution and sit Nyssa on the throne as queen in place of Zafira! It wax rather bonkers on her behalf but I liked the action that sparked as a result of him putting his ludicrous plan into action. Tegan was focal to the story and the reason for the TARDIS landing on Luparis as her longtime friend Mike Bretherton had uncharacteristically gone missing. Upon arrival and some investigation, it turned out that his body had been taken over by someone else and he was an insect known only as a Sleeper. The Hexagora were an intriguing species and seemed to be a bit of mix between Zygons and Krillitane mashed into one. They took over the bodies of the inhabitants of planets they conquered but they had to almost do a body swap. It was interesting and the concept was quite disturbing but it did all make sense which was good. Dan Starkey played the role of Zellenger magnificently and I loved how he brought out the jealousy of the character. It was interesting to hear him not playing the role of a Sontaran but he really was excellent. The plot was very solid and the setting of a Tudor London replica on an alien planet was quite remarkable and I absolutely loved it! The action that came in the climax was very good with the Doctor just about getting the upper hand thanks to some timely help from Astorius. The references to The Keeper of Traken and Logopolis were marvellous and this story didn't really have any negatives about it. Davison was again fantastic as the Fifth Doctor and although I think this story is better suited to an audio format, it's a shame we never saw it on television. Overall, an excellent story! 

Rating: 9/10