Shades of Fear: The Colour of Terror

"Get out of my shop!"

Writer: Lizzie Hopley

Format: Audio

Released: February 2023

Printed in: Ninth Doctor Adventures 8.01

Featuring: Ninth Doctor

Synopsis 

Mrs Bevell wants to keep the star rating for her charity shop – but why does she stock so many items of one particular shade?

When West Morebry residents start to notice disappearances, the Doctor assembles a motley band to do battle... with the colour red!

Verdict 

The Colour of Terror was an excellent start to the Shades of Fear eighth volume of Ninth Doctor Adventures! I thought it was fun and rather unique to start things off in a charity shop and I liked that the significance of the colour red was established early on. Mrs Bevell was a really strong character and she was immediately warned of being dangerous and hiding things that were important. She was surprisingly exactly what I would expect from a charity shop manager. Marla as the bride to be was good and her disappearance after putting on the red wedding dress was very intriguing to set the scene well. Robbie as the charity shop volunteer was a very fun character and the comment regarding no police coming to investigate the disappearance of Marla being followed by the arrival of the TARDIS behind the changing room curtain was just magnificent. A fine pre-credits moment. The West Morebryy setting was decent and I loved the mystery of animals going missing with red fur. Their last sighting was at the Chariot charity shop which is unusual for animals to hang out. The concept of the energy sourcing bleeding through the light spectrum and the dominant red was fantastic, almost as much as the talkative nature of Pete Snow who was a brilliant character too. Sahdna Chang as the cafe owner next complimented the cast well in what was an impressive assembly of characters. Ginger as Pete’s cat and speaking through him was a freaky introduction for the Vermine as they wanted to be set free. I liked that they were trapped in the red spectrum and they could actually travel through it, but they intended on domination. They weren’t friendly as they might’ve first appeared and they planned on an invasion which was a good turn of events. The direction of the story heading towards needing to find the source of having them trapped and paint it anything other than red was great. The Doctor’s reaction to nobody being fazed by the TARDIS interior dimensions was a very humorous moment. Kath’s arrival as the fiancé of Marla injected some strong emotion as we learned that the latter had been robbed of her physical self as the Vermine tried turning her into many forms. But of course energy cannot be destroyed. The link to Kath and communicating through the TARDIS empathic circuits was very good and I liked the simplicity of Marla being in the ether. She was holding on and it wasn’t easy. I thought the threat of the sunrise turning the sky red was outstanding and if that did happen then they could take everyone. They could invade the entire universe! The scale and means of their potential invasion was very exciting. Bevell having painted the TARDIS red was superb and she’d gone full on crazy and possessed in painting herself red too along with wearing all red clothing. She had become a vessel for the Vermine but that actually helped the Doctor as it held all of the invasion force in one place. The Doctor gathering all of the glass items from the charity shop was good use of the location and everything was to be focused on Bevell in turning the shop into a prism and endless refraction. It was neat and tidy! The use of the TARDIS as bait was done well and I liked that the Vermine were just shut in the box to see them out. Overall, a tremendous episode!

Rating: 9/10