The Valley of Death

"They say anyone who enters will never return."

Writer: Philip Hinchcliffe (adapted by Jonathan Morris)
Format: Audio
Released: January 2012
Series: Lost Stories: Fourth Doctor Boxset 02

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Leela

Synopsis

A century after his great-grandfather Cornelius vanished in the Amazon rainforest, Edward Perkins is journeying to the depths of the jungle to find out what became of his ancestor's lost expedition. Intrigued by what appears to be a description of a crashed spacecraft in the diaries of that first voyage, the Doctor and Leela join him on his quest. But when their plane runs into trouble and ends up crash landing, everyone gets more than they bargained for.

The jungle is filled with giant creatures and angry tribesmen, all ready to attack. But in the famed lost city of the Maygor tribe, something far, far worse is lurking. Something with an offer to make to mankind. Who are the Lurons and can they be trusted? Will the Doctor defeat the plans of the malevolent Godrin or will he become just another victim of the legendary Valley of Death?

Verdict

The Valley of Death was another great audio adventure and a very good way to complete the Lost Stories Fourth Doctor boxset! I really do consider using a free credit from an Audible free trial that I cancelled right away as a right steal and although I can see why the collection is a pricey one, I would never justify spending the amount of money that they ask for on just two stories. Now this one wasn’t quite on the level of The Foe From the Future but I still thought it was a brilliant little story. I particularly enjoyed the first two parts and whilst I thought the second half of the story was still very good, it was not on the same level as the first two parts in my opinion. The setting of the Amazon rainforest was terrific and that really did throw the Doctor in a tricky predicament. I liked the use of Edward finding the diary of his great-grandfather and with the potentiality of him discovering a crashed spaceship, along with the lost city of Maygor, there was a very exciting premise. The Doctor using his position as UNIT’s scientific advisor was good but it was a shame that the Brigadier had to be replaced by Hemmings. He wasn’t a bad character at all but it’s rather difficult to fill the boots of old Lethbridge-Stewart. Valerie was a wonderful character and I loved her relationship with the Doctor. She was a journalist and was always asking questions and I also really liked how she managed to get her way onto the Luron mothership when it entered Earth’s atmosphere. Tom Baker gave another excellent performance as the Fourth Doctor and it really was great to hear a two-hour story with his incarnation of the Doctor. That doesn’t happen often. The emergence of Perkins, the actual great-grandfather of Edward, was quite a shock and I must admit that my face lit up on the train when that was revealed. The connection between 1873 and 1977 did puzzle me but I thought the explanation was pretty decent. Godrin was a good villain and the way he had slowed time down inside the bubble of the rainforest was good. Edward getting to meet his great-grandfather was a nice moment but I loved how the Doctor knew that Godrin had him wrapped around his little finger. Edward’s death actually came as a little bit of a shock to me, not so much in that Godrin had betrayed him but by its manner. It was rather disturbing. I thought the plane journeys were intriguing and the flight arriving back two years after it had disappeared was very good. I thought Leela was brilliant in this story and I loved that we got to see her in her natural habitat of a jungle. The arrival of the rest of the Luron had received Godrin’s signal was good and I thought the inclusion of the duplicates was a very neat touch. Even though the latter stages involving the demise of the Doctor and Leela’s duplicates was a little predictable, I thought it was terrific. I really enjoyed how they even had to trick Edward and Valerie. The ending was very good with the Doctor overcoming the clever catch-22 to just decrease the Luron sun’s output which meant that they could think clearly for the first time with Godrin eradicated. It was well paced and a little surprising and I rather liked it. Overall, a great little audio adventure that spanned quite a distance and timespan! 

Rating: 8/10