Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Virginia Hey, Bethan Walker, Gbemisola Ikumelo, James Joyce.

What terrors are there in the dark? The imagination seizes upon the sparks of the obscured, the unseen threat waiting in the shadows to maim or do injury to and whilst we can turn on a light, make our way to a bright area in which to calm the nerves, what if the light brings the terror closer to your door? What if the light actually accelerates the peril and causes more destruction

When the fourth incarnation of The Doctor and his companion Leela find the Tardis is in the way of a missile heading for a planet they make emergency procedures to try and warn anybody there and yet for the first time The Doctor finds himself completely in the dark. With time running out and the real enemy, not for the first time science leads the way in that respect, revealed, the question is will The Doctor realise just who is the plant?

There are many influences at play within the story, the listener cannot but help but think of films such as Pitch Black, Alien, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Faculty for example or even delving into the Time lords past in Colony In Space or even to a lesser extent the David Tennant era episode Midnight. The fear of the unseen, the terror in being slowly taken over by an external influence until all that is left is a shell of what passed before has always been one that sits uncomfortably with the soul and is used to good effect in Alan Barnes’s script.

Whilst not a stand out episode of the latest in the brand new adventures starring Tom Baker, it is nonetheless entertaining and sets the imagination racing. There are moments in which the listener, those with long memories certainly and a love of classic British cartoons will find themselves wondering if the episode was filmed at the time of Tom Baker’s tenure in the Tardis would it make use of the great technique Cosgrove/Hall used to save money and shoot most of it completely in a black beguiling room. Only Tom Baker’s eyes peering out from the television screen in the same way that Dangermouse did when stuck in the artic wilds.

White Ghosts is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall