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Lords Of The Red Planet


Doctor Who: The Lost Stories 4.3



The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrive on Mars way into the past, and they run into some familiar faces…


This story was replaced by The Seeds Of Death. You won’t be surprised to discover that it features the Ice Warriors, and it serves as an origin story for them.


Its sounds a strange thing to say but it is vey much a classic 2nd Doctor story. Part one sets the scene introduces characters while The Doctor and Co are off doing there own thing. We discover that the Ice Warriors have been artificially created by experimentation. There is a nice moment when our heroes refer to them as Ice warriors and as a result of being overheard they are named as such.


The narration is split between Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury. Frazers’ narration is a little flat to begin wit but soon he get in the swing of thing and does a good job. He also plays the the second Doctor and its great how easily he does the two characters and it keep an air of authenticity. Also this stars Michel Troughton, son of Patrick, who now is playing the second Doctor for Big Finish.


Life on Mars isn’t great, this being the last city remaining. Micheal Troughton’s character Quendril, is forced into unpleasant experiments to create the new creatures -  once a slave race they now seem to be taking the dominant stance, 


There are a few no so nice moments, Zoe taking a risk by shutting down an experiment that shows the suffering of the ice lord. Deaths of characters, dependancy of the ‘life drink. And the destruction of the city, which somewhat changes things in the later part.


There are parallels with Genesis of the Daleks, as some plot elements are quite similar. There are classic tropes, such as creeping down mine shafts. And one or two twists.


Its 6x33ish minute episodes, - so a long story, though some is just getting split up and the usual runaround type stuff, there are some nice ideas. 



A good audio.


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