Merlin's Trap

"I really hate wizards."

Writer: Hannah Kennedy

Format: Audio

Released: October 2025

Series: Halloween 1.04

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor

Synopsis

When Lainey leads an expedition into the ancient Merlin's Cave System, the group is warned by Merlin's ghostly voice to explore no further. As Lainey and her team push deeper into the mysterious cave, they encounter things far beyond their comprehension, including Merlin himself.

Verdict

Merlin's Trap was a great episode to conclude the first Halloween series! I hope this isn't the last of the series as it's a really good concept and I love a boxset that jumps around numerous eras. This time we came to the time of the Twelfth Doctor which is magnificent as his era is probably one of the least expanded on at Big Finish at the moment. I do hope that one day we will get Peter Capaldi on board for his own series but other than a couple of Twelfth Doctor Chronicles and the odd Short Trip, this is an incarnation still waiting to burst into audio life. Whilst we (hopefully) await Capaldi to get on board, I thought Jon Culshaw did a stellar job in his impression of the Twelfth Doctor. It was uncanny and whilst it may have been aided by the episode essentially being a Doctor-lite one and a lot of his dialogue coming in a distorted fashion through the hologram, it felt incredibly authentic. That's always a big bonus, especially when concluding a boxset where we've already had the actual actors for the lead characters. That could have been a daunting prospect, but instead we got a really strong guest cast. I find the idea of Merlin a very intriguing one and whilst it's a shame we didn't get much at all of a reference to Battlefield other than the Doctor jokingly mentioning that he and Merlin were one and the same, but alas a long time has passed for the Doctor since that serial. I was a big fan of the setting and the whole concept of a cave system is fascinating to me. I recently read a few articles on people who got stuck in caves whilst exploring and that's such a horrifying prospect to me. The line about breathing in really resonated with me as some of the stories I've read of people getting stuck and either suffocating or just starving to death is brutal. What a way to go. I'm more than happy with just an open cave! Lainey was a strong personality and she kind of had to be to lead her expedition. She was blunt and to the point, even when it came to her girlfriend Flo. The pizza topping of ham and pineapple is just dreadful too by the way, but unfortunately they would never get to have it. I thought Lainey threatening Alice when she wanted out because of the warnings was a powerful moment as if she didn't come further in her role as the expedition's archaeologist, she would not be getting paid. I thought Ezra complimented the women well and added a slight sense of comic relief in what was otherwise a rather serious situation! The mysterious Stone Age drawings of the Eye were intriguing and it's a shame we didn't have visuals with this format! The Doctor having set prerecorded warnings was fun as it was always going to be enjoyable when he found out they had been repeatedly ignored. He wasn't exactly surprised though when they got so far that the TARDIS was having warning signals triggered. I thought the idea of the bronze statue teleporting was good and initially seemed like a disintegrator! Flo being the only one of the crew to survive was a pretty bleak conclusion and certainly tied in with the horror theme of the release. She was just hearing echoes of her girlfriend and friends, whilst what the Doctor had dubbed as Eyela was doing what it naturally did in defending itself with time. That's something that could have been elaborated on a little further, but it was an eery and somewhat beautiful concept. Overall, a very different kind of horror and one that worked really well with the contained cave setting. A lot of emotion! A great listen to finish the series.

Rating: 8/10