Technophobia

"Don't be scared. You can really have fun with technology." 

Writer: Matt Fitton
Format: Audio
Released: May 2016
Series: TDA 1.01

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Donna

Synopsis

When the Doctor and Donna visit London's Technology Museum for a glimpse into the future, things don't go to plan.

The most brilliant IT brain in the country can't use her computer. More worrying, the exhibits are attacking the visitors, while outside, people seem to be losing control of the technology that runs their lives.

Is it all down to simple human stupidity, or is something more sinister going on? Beneath the streets, the Koggnossenti are waiting. For all of London to fall prey to technophobia...

Verdict

Technophobia was an excellent audio adventure that has kicked off my listening of the Tenth Doctor Adventures in quite some style! It has nearly been a year since these audios were released and I have been looking forward to listening to them for quite some time! I finally took my chance today to start the range and I must say I was absolutely delighted with what I heard. To get a set of brand new performed adventures featuring the Tenth Doctor and Donna is simply wonderful and I must say that both actors were on stellar form and it was as if neither had stopped playing the role! I really did love it in the opening sequence when the Doctor arrived on the scene as it was just superb to be hearing brand new dialogue from the Tenth Doctor. As David Tennant was the Doctor when I first got into Doctor Who back in 2007, I have seen the majority of his episodes countless times but this story is fantastic because it's fresh and well, brand new! I really do hope that this is just the start of performed adventures with modern Doctors and given how much Tennant loved playing the Doctor, I'm sure he'll be back at some point. As if having David Tennant and Catherine Tate back wasn't a treat enough, Matt Fitton provided us with a stellar script that I was very close to giving full marks to! I really was impressed and I just loved the technological theme. I liked how for the companion of the story, the adventure was set in the near future but for the listener and the time of release, that was some five or six years ago in the past. That allowed for some clever writing with mention of a royal wedding but technology hasn't grown massively since then in my opinion, in terms of usage anyway. The fact that technology was actually making people stupider, or so it seemed, rather than helping with their everyday lives was a good plot to play on and I really liked that London's Technology Museum was the main setting. Now, I've never actually been to London city centre so I can't appreciate it too much but setting a story in a museum is good in my books. Bex was a lovely character and I liked how she and Donna managed to instantly get on. Their shared humour about the Doctor's appearance was good and I liked how the fact both had been out of the country for quite some time would lead to the Doctor discovering how to defeat the Koggnossenti. They were an intriguing villain and I did like how their voice suited the theme of the audio. Their plan of making the human race stupider by interfering with brain patterns through infrasound was terrific and that is certainly a unique mode of invasion in the Doctor Who universe! I really liked it. Kevin was also a good character and I liked the humour that he shared with Donna. He really helped things as he was one of the 1% that the infrasound didn't have an effect on and would also drive a train into their signalling device on the Underground. That would prove vital as when the signal was jammed and everybody was coming to their senses, the Doctor would show his genius whilst suffering the effects of devolution. He had reversed the signal which meant that it was actually the Koggnossenti who would become stupider, to put it crudely, and the Doctor's reaction to making that happen was brilliant. He was very proud and had saved Julie Meadows and co from being scared of their own inventions. Overall, a fantastic audio adventure!

Rating: 9/10