Purity Unbound: The Wrong Side of History

"What you're doing is built on a lie. "

Writer: Robert Valentine

Format: Audio

Released: August 2023

Series: Sixth Doctor Adventures 4.03

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Mel, Hebe

Synopsis

Mel, Hebe and Elise find themselves inside a plastic bubble-city in a distant future of humanity where robotic 'Purifiers' police the sticky populace. Purity rules this antiseptic nightmare from her high tower, and with the Doctor as her unwilling new helper, she can finally make everything... perfect.

Verdict

The Wrong Side of History was a great story to conclude the Purity Unbound fourth series of Sixth Doctor Adventures! I must admit that this wasn’t quite the conclusion to the Purity arc that has consumed the range over the past three series, but that was absolutely fine! It was nice to get a firm threat and the returningc villain of Khavul was nicely done. In hindsight I should have guessed that something like this was going to happen but alas it was a nice surprise for this listener when he emerged returning being behind Purity! Hearing the separation of Purity and Patricia McBride was good and a long time coming really as her vision of perfection had gone too far by this point. She was striving for a perfect world and it just wasn’t going to happen. She kind of knew that what she hoped to achieve wouldn’t be possible but yet she couldn’t stop herself from trying. That hinted at something more to come behind Purity which was good, but more of an allusion to that in the series so far would have made it even better in my opinion. Hebe getting a glimpse of 26th century Sheffield in a world designed by Purity’s image was intriguing. The idea of ordinary people being petrified of unfiltered air was quite something and not exactly my idea of perfection. Imagine living in fear of every single little disease, even pollen! That was quite frightening really. I liked the conversation between Elise and Mel and the latter being referred to as almost the poster girl for Purity’s vision by the former was hard to disagree with. She was a fine model for the concept of purity. Mel of course disagreed and apart from that for a finale I thought she had a pretty quiet episode. Hearing the breakdown of Purity as the episode went on was strong stuff as Khavul emerged to take control and provide that villainous streak that has perhaps been missing from the arc so far. His despair when Silkreth was proclaimed to have passed away with her vital signs not registering set him off brilliantly and meant he wouldn’t be thinking clearly which worked to the advantage of the Doctor and his companions. He was a little mad in his deranged ways and certainly overestimated his abilities. He hoped to even conquer the Time Lords before the universe as a whole, but the Doctor knew he had the advantage. Harking back to Chromancer was done very well with the Doctor calling in Khavul’s own race to unexist him. He’d been shown mercy before, but now this was a fate worse than death. I thought the extra detail of Silkreth returning to modern day Sheffield was a little overdone, but it allowed Ron to quite humorously save the day by short circuiting her time suit. That seemed odd but then we got a lovely letter from Evelyn read out where she brought this great new team together and gave her a nice sense of closure which I think is wonderful. Overall, a great finale!

Rating: 8/10