Another Hazardous Seed

The Sixth Doctor and his companion Mel encounter the violent aftereffects of an abruptly halted war in the 2013 audio play The Seeds of War. Not to be confused with the television stories The Seeds of Doom or The Seeds of Death. There are no literal seeds involved this time but some kind of telepathic entity called The Eminence inciting people to violence. It's not a bad audio, not remarkable, but pretty solid.

Once again the Doctor (Colin Baker) has ended up at the place he intended but 80 years after the date he intended. The nice outing he'd planned for himself and Mel (Bonnie Langford) instead turns into a confrontation in a war zone where incredulous military personnel have trouble believing the Doctor and Mel know nothing of the factions involved.

Mel is pretty inconspicuous in this one except for an amusing reference in the climax to her fondness for carrot juice. But there's not a lot of levity in this one, in fact it's fairly grim. In one moment I liked, Mel tells someone whose father is dying, "If anyone help, it's the Doctor," and the Doctor irritably interrupts with, "Stop making promises on my behalf!" abruptly breaking up the almost deification of the Doctor that sometimes happens in these stories. This one certainly gives an impression of stakes which makes the ending a great deal more satisfying. Six is kind of known for being involved in some particularly grim stories in his television run but this older audio Six is portrayed as more sombre, subtly altering the tone of the story, in this case for the better.

A Travel Society

The Sixth Doctor and his companion, Mel, get trapped in an ancient spaceport in the 2013 audio play Spaceport Fear, a decent story with a fun concept. The two encounter a culture that sounds like it was descended from modern day air travel commuters--tribes are separated into "Business" and "Economy" classes; their guide is a young woman who describes her childhood as a time when she was "carry-on".

There's a generally tongue-in-cheek quality to the story but it's not a total parody like the 2001 Six/Mel audio The One Doctor. Mostly it's a fairly straight-forward story about the Doctor (Colin Baker) and Mel (Bonnie Langford) trying to help Economy Class in their struggles against Business, a concept with a broad allegorical quality that thankfully never takes itself too seriously. On seeing the Sixth Doctor's infamous patchwork coat one character from Economy sympathetically says that her people often have to make clothes in the dark, too. Later in the story there's a segment set in total darkness, always a handy device for audio plays because characters are forced to describe everything to each other.

There's also some nice business in this one about the Sixth Doctor having awareness of computer technology from the 21st century, referring to Wi-Fi, smart phones, and tablets, while Mel, a computer expert from the 80s, talks about her knowledge of FORTRAN. An amusing bit involves the Doctor and Mel sending messages to each other via high scores in a Tetris-like video game.