Hogan Reviews

The latest Fourth Doctor Adventures set nears its end with this fun, albeit straight forward, four-part adventure featuring the Weeping Angels, the only “new series” monsters to gain any forward momentum as a “classic” enemy, so much so that Big Finish have just blatantly ignored the Eleventh Doctor claiming to have only encountered them once before… Anyway, let’s take a look at the story!

“Stone Cold” takes place on a barren volcano world where a pleasure cruiser ship has crash landed and most of the crew and passengers have mysteriously vanished. This has led the ship’s captain Felsa (Olivia Poulet) to put those remaining on lockdown and put up the slowly diminishing energy shields to keep whatever is killing everyone out (very Forbidden Planet, which thanks to my “Sci-Fi movies I haven’t seen” marathon a few years back I actually got the reference!) The remaining people are head of security and bored ex-soldier Mia (Shvorne Marks), engineer Garlon (Guy Adams), pretty normal but understandably nervous passenger Tench (Joe Sims) and extremely spoiled and self-entitled passenger Huthro (Victor McGuire), who loves to talk about giving things a bad star-rating online, which was a funny gag the first time or so, but got ran into the ground a bit by the end…

The story starts with Huthro and Tench having snuck out of the ship to take some photos of the nearby volcanoes to at least get some holiday out of the experience, though Tench is not as up for it given all the other passengers having vanished by doing the same thing and all that so he leaves, which leads to Huthro getting attacked by something in the mist. It’s at this point where The Doctor (Tom Baker), Leela (Louise Jameson) and Margaret (Nerys Hughes) arrive, find a marked grave that’s been left for over 100 years despite the planet not having native intelligent life, and soon join the survivors onboard. In the first two parts we get the ex-soldier not trusting them so has them tied up and wishing to execute them because they “must be the killers”, we have the more understanding Captain happy for their help, and The Doctor helping the engineer strengthen the energy barrier and even setting up a wider-reaching distress signal. So basically a lot of classic set up while the Angels skulk around in the mist but not really attack.

Great cover, even if Margaret doesn’t look very fussed (only so many pictures they took I guess…)

In the latter half though it gets a bit more intense and claustrophobic as an Angel gets in through someone’s photos (what holds the image of the Angel becomes an Angel and all that) and we find out Huthro is under the control of the one the Angels as well. The Doctor tries the “trapping them in a circle of mirrors” trick but the mirrors are broken by the aforementioned mind-controlled Huthro, so that was a nice “bet you though we’d use this already-used resolution, didn’t you?” moment. The Doctor puts two-and-two together and realises the Captain shares the same name as the person buried in the grave and given the Angels’ powers to send people back in time knows she won’t make it out of the situation alive (well, technically she does live out her life, but… you know what I mean). Sadly for her he lets slip this information out loud for her to hear just as they’re about to make a break for the TARDIS across the deadly landscape…

Like I said nothing here is new, it’s either your basic “base under siege” storytelling or it’s Weeping Angel stuff that’s been done in other Angel stories, but regardless of all that it’s a good story, well acted and with a good soundscape (crucial for the Angels, given their method of moving and scaring people is very visual…)

The Continuity:

Another look at the collected box cover. Really don’t like Margaret and the burning hand just being in floating diamonds with plain white backgrounds… Sticks out a bit…

The Weeping Angels have reached that point where I can’t list everything they’ve been in, but I will say that they first appeared in Tenth Doctor TV story “Blink” but a lot of the lore used here comes from their second appearance in Eleventh Doctor TV story “The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone”.

Overall Thoughts:

“Stone Cold” is both a by-the-numbers base under siege story and a by-the-numbers Weeping Angels story, but it’s also a very entertaining story. Sure it’s a little slow to start and lacking is surprise so I can’t give it full marks by any means, but I sadly enjoyed it more than the more experimental stories that came before it in the set… (I know, I’m part of the problem this time round, sorry!) It’s very comfortable and enjoyable Who.

Tench tries to escape via the crashed ship’s escape pod but it too crashes and he manages to crawl out before being zapped to the past, and Mia and Garlon likewise are zapped during the escape attempt. As The Doctor takes a detour to change the distress beacon to a warning one he is nearly zapped but Captain Felsa sacrifices herself to help. Huthro switches between betrayal and his normal obnoxious self but doesn’t make it out unlike everyone else. The Doctor, Leela and Margaret make it to the TARDIS on time but it seems the stress and near-death experiences hasn’t been very fun for the latter and Margaret asks to be taken home. This might be the first time we’ve had a companion travel a few times, realise its not for them and then ask to be dropped back. Realistic I guess!

For the record Captain Felsa wakes up at a time when the planet was lush with greenery and finds the rest of the crew there (at different ages), so presumably lives a happy life until her eventually found burial.