The Quest of the Engineer

"A ship disguised as a planet."

Writer: Andrew Smith

Format: Audio 

Released: February 2020

Series: Fourth Doctor Adventures 9.04

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, Romana II, Adric, K9

Synopsis

The TARDIS crew's attempts to escape E-Space lead them to a strange planet with a surface that shifts and changes constantly.

Losing their ship down a fissure, they venture into the depths of this world and encounter the man who rules this place – a man known only as 'the Engineer'. He tells them that he's on a quest for illumination, and to find a rumoured portal in space that may lead to another reality, with knowledge unknown in this universe. 

It seems he may be on the same quest as the Doctor and his friends. But can he be trusted? And who is he really?

Verdict

The Quest of the Engineer was a great story to conclude the second volume of the ninth series of Fourth Doctor Adventures! I have really enjoyed this series with it being an exploration through E-Space with a TARDIS team we only saw on television three times, with one of those seeing an arrival and another seeing a departure. So to flesh out the quartet of the Fourth Doctor, Romana, Adric and K9 was a brilliant idea and I thought this was a good way to finish! I liked the mystery of their arrival and also starting seemingly mid-adventure was a unique little twist that had me guessing if I had accidentally skipped ahead on the Big Finish app. The planet that was actually was a ship was a really intriguing concept and the Doctor realising that fact was very good. The Engineer made for a brilliant villain and he was a pretty deranged man. The scientific element was really nicely done and I think the imagery of the ship and how it was moving around at incredible speed with zero inertia technology was terrific. I don't think this kind of story would have worked during the Season 18 era, so it was a fine use of the audio format which I always enjoy being taken advantage of. I thought Anla was a wonderful character and I really enjoyed her relationship that was built with the Doctor. I loved how he even stated that he thought they would get along so I was stunned at the cliffhanger to part two when she lovingly went to embrace her son who she had held dying in her arms, only for him to shoot her amidst a violation of the rules! The resolution at the start of part three was pretty weak sadly with her still surviving intact, although it did provide for a difficult dynamic as she had to deal with Jonas and him not actually being her son. At least, not anymore. She appealed to the Engineer later in the story that Jonas was more than just the physical carcass that the Engineer had created and experimented upon to merge muscle and metal, but he was too deranged to understand. The truth about the Engineer was clear when he found to that Romana was from N-Space and the portal through which he was searching, and simply asked if they had the technology to save the soul. That was chilling. His assumption that he had gathered all knowledge in E-Space and wouldn't find anyone superior really did say a lot about him. His reaction to finding that Adric was actually from his own universe was amusing. I also thought K9 being taken out and largely inactive for the story was a shame and I felt he could have contributed more with the Enforcers in particular. Finding out that the Engineer was doing everything he was for his wife was a little unexpected, but going so far as blowing up a moon to get the debris headed towards a space where a CVE may be was incredible. That really was quite the moment. Regis Tal was a fine character and he enjoyed a good relationship with the Doctor too which was nice. He added a lot of local knowledge, but Anla was the main party there for me and her knowing about the truth of the Engineer when his name was revealed was very good. His staying behind at the conclusion to die despite 

Rating: 8/10