Heart of Orion

"Control, take over, dehumanise."

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

Format: Audio

Released: January 2022

Series: Charlotte Pollard: Further Adventuress 1.04

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Charley

Synopsis

The TARDIS intercepts a strange signal, returning the Doctor and Charley to the Garazone System – where once they had a terrifying encounter with the Cybermen, and foiled a bid to change the course of a terrible android-human war.

Now, people are going missing from all over Garazone Central. The Orion War is far from over, and the Doctor and Charley have landed at the heart of it, again!

Verdict

Heart of Orion was a great story to conclude The Further Adventuress of Charley Pollard and the Eighth Doctor! This has been a terrific set to revisit a famed era of the Monthly Adventures and I really do hope that this isn't the last we hear of the pair together. I really like the idea of having a sequel from an early story in their run and Sword of Orion is certainly a fine choice. It's been eight years since I listened to that particular adventure and I must admit that I was a little hazy on the details, but after rereading my blog entry from 2014 and as the story went on, things soon familiarised themselves. I liked how things started with the scrap ship and the captain and Dilly salvaging and claiming ownership of a rogue android ship. It set the tone early as Dilly was quickly killed and sorely told her captain to get running with her final breaths. Once it was established that the TARDIS had received a distress signal from the Garazone System, along with the message continuing familiar words to the Doctor, the harkening back to Deeva was intriguing and I liked that Charley wanted to be cautious. She could see how much it meant to the Doctor to investigate though, so off they set! They found themselves in a bleak situation with missing persons acting strangely as upon their being found they had no knowledge of previous events and saw witness statements withdrawn. I thought Bly was an excellent character and she got on well with the Doctor, which made her concern for the previously missing all the more interesting. Her daughter was one of those and she had been very strange since returning. I thought it was fun to have some Drudgers around in a welcomed return and the female android controller that was running things recognising the Doctor and Charley was great, though it was beyond obvious that it was Deeva. Despite that, her reveal and Charley recognising her did make for a pretty strong cliffhanger. I think it would have been better and more impactful if the Doctor hadn't mentioned his concerns about her and the message. Deeva explaining how she survived after shutting down in space and even being pulled apart was welcomed as it's always good to get an explanation for a return of someone thought dead, even if they're an android! Charley heading to processing was a good threat and I liked that the Doctor and Bly were on the hunt for her. Selka was a decent character as Bly's mysterious daughter and the fact she wanted to report her mum when she and the Doctor were to embark on their mission showed something wasn't quite right. She was being controlled by a signal and that was the case for all of the missing. The impending arrival of the Seventh Fleet was good and I liked how Deeva's mission was to stop it and replace the crew with androids! The Doctor realising that Charley wasn't the real article was amusing, especially with the revelation that came late in the episode.  Deeva revealing that she didn't bring the Doctor and Charley to kill them was good explanation and she saw the Doctor as a means for non-androids to understand her kind's cause which I thought was nice. Deeva actually getting into the TARDIS was fun but she then wanted to kill herself as she was the amplification of the android activation. That was admirable after a lot of wrongdoing! Bly wanted to take out the fleet was a tense moment as Deeva then appealed to her revealing that she hadn't actually wiped everyone out and Selka was alive in the gas tanks. It was a pretty decent moment of emotional release. The birthing modules were intriguing to explore and finding out that Charley was the real article all along was so well done. I didn't see that coming! Her android was never activated. I liked the ending and the irony of the Seventh Fleet celebrations with androids who didn't know they were androids celebrate the culling of androids. Overall, a strong finale to what has been a great boxset! 

Rating: 8/10