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Kaleidoscope                                                                   


The Third Doctor Adventures                                                                                



Jenny Nettles - a rival reporter to Sarah Jane, is on telly, she’s discovered an alien called Kaleidoscope. It’s news to UNIT though. However a UFO found at Hampstead Heath three days earlier is enough for the Doctor to spot a connection…


This really wasn’t the adventures I was expecting, the cover gave an impression of something more action orientated. The title Kaleidoscope was perhaps some organisation, or tool to take over the world. But the Kaleidoscope we encounter is a somewhat nervous alien who doesn’t know who he is or where he’s from. Not only that but he’s largely side character for most of the 6 episodes.


Its hard to actually describe the plot, aside form Kal, they deal with a UFO being shot down and the nanobots that come as a result. But then even this plot line seems to vanish, as the Doctor and Sarah are kidnapped. It just seems to drift from one thing to another with no discernable goal.


It may sound that I didn’t enjoy this, yet I did. There’s nice rivalry between Sarah and Jenny. And as someone who doesn’t read a lot about the audios: Harry Sulivan - a nice, and welcome, surprise for me. There’s the Doctor’s new car, The Brigadier meets a, not quite, old flame. 


Kal himself has ‘superpowers’ being able to control things with his mind, though he is central to the plot, he’s quite passive, so the payoff at the end isn’t there.


There are some twists and turns. Rather bizarrely a rock star - an obvious take on Mick Jagger - enters the plot during the latter episodes and again this bit fizzles out. Its been a few days and I can’t remember what happened to him. It didn’t help that while I got through the first 5 episodes fairly rapidly the last part I heard in bits a few days later and the momentum had gone.


Another listen of this would benefit, enjoyable but somewhat meandering.

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