Point of Entry

"I fell in... into my own reflection."

Writers: Barbara Clegg & Marc Platt

Format: Audio

Released: April 2010

Series: Lost Stories 1.06

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Peri

Synopsis 

The 16th century. Playwright Kit Marlowe is attempting to write Doctor Faustus when a darkness descends on his life, in the candaverous form of a spaniard called Velez. The monstrosity is in search of a stone blade that was brought from South America...

After a near-disastrous collision with an asteroid in space, the TARDIS makes an emergency landing in Elizabethan England. 

These two events are connected. The Omnim are ready. And the point of entry approaches...

Verdict 

Point of Entry was a pretty decent Lost Story audio but I must say I'm not surprised that it didn't get made into its intended television story. I don't know the backstory behind it not getting produced but I would imagine that it was intended to go out in the originally intended Season 23. Of course, a hiatus came and we eventually had The Trial of a Time Lord take up the entire season which is a serial that I love but I must admit given the high quality of the Lost Stories I have done from this debut season thus far, I was disappointed with the audio. I mean, that's not to say I didn't enjoy it but I just thought it could have been better. Earlier in the season, the three stories that I have listened to were tremendous. The Nightmare Fair, Mission to Magnus and Leviathan were all fantastic stories and although I am yet to purchase the two audios in between, it seems the standard has somewhat dropped. Colin Baker gave an excellent performance as the Sixth Doctor, as he rarely fails to do, and I thought the relationship between him and Peri was a real positive of the story. The pair are one of my favourites to have ever occupied the TARDIS so if a story is somewhat lacking, like this was in places, they can always brighten up what's going on. I'm probably making the story out to be worse than I actually thought it was, as is reflected in the rating, but I think in a story that was overly long it needed to be better. I think the Main Range audios work much better than the Lost Stories of this type because four parts works so much better than two. When a story is over two hours long and it's only two parts, it has a tendency to drag and I think that's exactly what happened here. Even if the story was simply split into two more parts I think the rating might have increased. It was difficult to keep absolute concentration, something which is fundamental to an audio story, in a story as long as this that was lacking in action. The plot was actually good and I really liked the mystery surrounding Velez but I was looking for something a little more exciting. There seemed to be extended dialogue in places where it just wasn't needed. However, the lengthy scene between the Doctor and Peri, whilst the latter was possessed by the Omnim, was probably my favourite moment of the entire audio adventure. The atmosphere was captured really well and there was quite a lot of tension felt which was a big positive. The noise of the flies whenever the Omnim were close was interesting and at first it didn't seem to be relevant to the story but once it kept on getting repeated, it was obvious it would count for something so I enjoyed it once that revelation came. The setting of 1590 was a good one and I think Elizabethan England has a lot of potential for a great Doctor Who story but I wasn't overly struck on the focus on Kit Marlowe. I like the idea of a playwright being targeted and the character was pretty good, but something just seemed off for me which was a shame. Peri impersonating the Queen was a little cheesy with the accent but it did inject some humour into what was actually a pretty serious story up to that point. The story surrounding Jack was quite sad and I did like the reference to The Mark of the Rani but with all the Aztec references that were going on, I was actually amazed we didn't get a The Aztecs reference. The climax though was very exciting which was great to listen to. Overall, a decent story but I'm not too disappointed that it didn't get made into a televised story. 

Rating: 7/10