Cloud Eight

"One big holiday in the sky."

Writers: Lauren Mooney & Stewart Pringle

Format: Audio

Released: February 2026

Series: Ninth Doctor Adventures 4.04

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis

The Doctor and Rose travel to the 47th century, Earth's 'Second Dark Age', but when they arrive in the floating box city of High High Wycombe, it's more like a paradise. The residents live an existence of endless leisure, and at night sleep a blissful, dreamless sleep.

But cracks soon begin to show on its perfect, polished surface, and something terrible is brewing in the mind of teenage Else – something ancient and hungry – something that sounds like a nightmare.

Verdict

Cloud Eight was another very good episode to continue the fourth series of Ninth Doctor Adventures along very nicely! I was glad to get away from the present day setting of the Powell Estate because that has felt a little repetitive and lacking range as this series has started, and it's just good to take Rose somewhere that felt off world even if that wasn't quite the case. I do think New Earth was being ripped off a little with the New New York city when it came to High High Wycombe and I find that just a bit of a cheap joke, but I did like the setting very much. I was fascinated by the idea of the forty-seventh century being home to the Second Dark Age and I find it almost unfathomable to think that this could happen more than two millennia into the future! It's staggering to think how the world might be at that point in time but with the way data is harvested, stored and collected in the modern day, it seems crazy to think that an entire century could be lost to the record. Surely something would survive? More than something? But then that did pose the question of what could be so bad that it needed to be deleted from history which was fun. I'm not convinced we ever quite got back to that in full detail, but it was still good to ponder on. I enjoyed the closeness of the Doctor and Rose's relationship with the latter now making her own efforts at piloting the TARDIS! That's tremendous stuff and her intended destination being to see Jurassic Park up close and personal is marvellous. That's such a good time and place to go as a teenager when put in charge of a time machine. Of course she'd want to see dinosaurs! My four-year-old son would be very happy with her choice. I thought the floating city concept felt suitably futuristic and the relationship Rose fostered with Elsa was good. I was fascinated by the residents all being named after fictional characters from movies of over two millennia ago and Rose even predating the release of Frozen really does make me feel old. She was a very nice character though and I like how she was asking Rose for a sleepover. It would be her first one. Just like the movies. The importance of sleep in the city was interesting to explore and the idea of breaking curfew was unfathomable to the residents. It was primed so they had optimal sleeping hours so why would they stay up? Oh what I'd give to have what is deemed an optimal night's sleep being the father of two very energetic children! The Doctor knowing that something was wrong was excellent and I can understand why Rose was questioning him on if he ever just turns up and enjoys his destination. But he was trying to fix things and when he realised the locals never actually slept but were being harvested as essentially memory banks, he had to put a stop to it. It was a pretty cruel concept and the resolution did seem quite simple in the Doctor just reversing the wifi signal, but sometimes we don't need to overcomplicate things. It was an interesting look into the future and what might be, with humanity in peril. Elsa not knowing about dreams or nightmares should have been the first sign and I thought that was really well presented. Marty as her father was also a great character and Rose even forgetting much of her day was one thing, but the Doctor being impacted also really did sell the threat. Something fishy was going on indeed. Overall, a really good listen!  

Rating: 8/10