Apparently in imitation of the style of the new television series, each season of The New Eighth Doctor Adventures has incorporated a two-part finale that brings back a returning villain of some sort. 2007 gave us Eddie Robson's Human Resources with the Cybermen, while in 2008 we heard Nicholas Briggs's Sisters of the Flame/The Vengeance of Morbius with, as you might imagine, the ex-President of the Time Lords, Morbius. The villain barrel must be running dry, though, because this year we get Eddie Robson's The Eight Truths and Worldwide Web with the spider-things from 1974's Planet of the Spiders.

"Dull" is what sums up this story through and through. For a story about a second sun appearing in the sky above earth (the return of the stellar manipulator from The Vengeance of Morbius and Orbis), it's surprisingly low-key. The eighth Doctor spends much of his time running around in circles being ineffective in pretty much doing anything: finding lost space probes, doing something about the stellar manipulator, investigating the Eightfold Truth, or even rescuing Lucie from their clutches. Nothing he does seems to add up to much, but he doesn't seem worried about this either, just continuing to pluck at events haphazardly and disinterestedly.

I don't know if it had anything to do with the return of an old villain or not, but The Eight Truths was just not very engaging listening. Frequently dull and displaying a curious lack of urgency or engaging ideas, this story is not up to the levels of either previous efforts from Eddie Robson or the first parts of the previous NEDA finales. My anticipation for the follow-up, Worldwide Web, is pretty much nonexistent.

You can read a longer version of this review at Unreality SF.

The season finale, by Eddie Robson, takes Lucie and the Doctor to near-future London where I have to admit that I was pleased and delighted by the revelation at the end of the first part of who the baddies actually were (though the titles of the plays contain pretty good clues). That was the best bit of it, unfortunately; yet another religious cult turns out to be brainwashing people for alien invasion, and the Doctor and Lucie spend a lot of time running around being imprisoned and attacked. Poor Stephen Moore, as the displaced cult leader, sounded more and more like Marvin as his lines got less and less interesting. ( )