Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Terry Malloy, Elizabeth Counsell, Christopher Beeny, Mike Grundy, Colin Baker.

All the secrets are soon to be out in the open, nearly all anyway, as Justin Richards brings the fourth season of the adventures of Jago and Litefoot to an edifying and interesting conclusion in The Hourglass Killers.

With the mysterious Professor Dark revealed to be the sixth Doctor, portrayed in usual auspicious style by Colin Baker, and thankfully for fans of the Doctor’s prickly yet colourful sixth incarnation there is no let up in his dramatic art even when away from the main canon of work; Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago are thrust straight into the end game of a long and complicated plot to take something very precious from The Doctor’s life.

The Hourglass Killers, by its own title sort of gives the final game away but thanks to Justin Richard’s well drawn out script, and by the very sheer presence of Colin Baker’s Doctor, the easy finality of it all is suspended perfectly. With Lisa Bowerman, who directs with a great sense of acclaim the overall series, coming from behind the monitors to give more credence to the character of Ellie Higson and the brief encounter with another Big Finish stalwart Terry Malloy playing the part of Lord Ampthill, there is much to take from the set of stories as a whole.

If there has been an issue with the series it is perhaps only in that much more could have been made of the foes stalking in the background, Mr. Kempston and Mr. Hardwick. Politely popping up every so often to put panic into the veins of the intrepid heroes, they don’t strike in the end as being anywhere near the enemy that they could have been. Unlike the very real threat of sands counterpart, that of liquid in the tenth Doctor’s television adventure The Waters of Mars, the idea of creatures made of such matter is something that doesn’t exactly sit well within the realms of the overall arc of Doctor Who, let alone in the stomach.

It’s hard to argue with a series though that as it stands has given the best episode in the lives of Jago and Litefoot, that has continued to embrace the notion of life after The Doctor, and as well as slotting back in as easily as a Tardis blending into the background; but there will always be that slightly nagging thought that the series as a whole could have gone just one step further, one stride into the darkness that Victorian London and Jago and Litefoot deserved.

The Hourglass Killers is available as part of the fourth season box-set of Jago and Litefoot. Jago and Litefoot Series Four is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall