Doctor Who: Serpent Crest, Part 4-The Hexford Invasion

The Fourth Doctor at Nest Cottage #14

by Paul Magrs, Tom Baker (Narrator)

It’s been many months since the Doctor was in Hexford, and Mrs Wibbsey keenly feels his absence. As her grave suspicions about her new neighbour grow, she is in danger of becoming ostracised from village life. When Mike Yates turns up at Nest Cottage with a visitor in tow, Mrs Wibbsey’s life is turned even further upside down. Why has this strange new fellow appeared - and can he really be who Mike thinks he is? With UNIT watching the skies, and a strange forest growing daily around the village perimeter, it comes as little surprise when an enormous spaceship slides into view and dominates the skyline. Who is watching Hexford, and what do they want? Never has Mrs Wibbsey needed the Doctor more. But can she cope with two...? With Tom Baker as the Doctor, Susan Jameson as Mrs Wibbsey, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates, Cornelius Garrett as Reverend Tonge, David Troughton as the Visitor, Nerys Hughes as Deirdre and Joanna Tope as Tish, The Hexford Invasion is the fourth of five linked stories written by Paul Magrs.

1 CD. 56 mins.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Audiobook

1 pages, Audio CD

First published December 8, 2011

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the whole, the BBC audio series by Paul Magrs with Tom Baker reprising his Fourth Doctor have not really grabbed me. But I felt that The Hexford Invasion, the fourth of the Serpent Crest series, was a significant improvement, largely because the excellent Susan Jameson is given her head as the Doctor's housekeeper / companion Mrs Wibbsey. She was rather callously left behind to do the dishes at the end of the last episode; now she must suddenly deal with Mike Yates and UNIT, showing up with a scruffy but authoritative little man who calls himself the Doctor but is nothing like "her" Doctor. Magrs, and even more so Jameson, superbly capture the fannish feeling of confuion and loss when the Doctor one knew best is replaced by someone else (especially if your favourite Doctor is Tom Baker) and though the plot is as absurd as usual the three main cast are all brilliant. David Troughton doesn't sound hugely like his father (I thought he was more Pat-ish in Titus Andronicus), but we are left in some doubt as to whether his character really is the Second Doctor, and anyway he is up to his usual standards. And the Tom Baker / Susan Jameson chemistry has never been better. I hope that the final episode in this sequence matches this.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I particularly enjoyed this latest instalment in the Serpent Crest series. It is another one in which in some ways not much happens and in others a great deal. I liked the setting entirely in the Doctor's chosen village of Hexford. The redoubtable and long suffering Mrs Wibbsey has been left holding the fort (in an ordinary housekeeping sense) at Nest Cottage, when Captain Yates fetches up again. Initially she is delighted to see an old friend to relieve the lonely waiting and then she finds out he and his soldiers from UNIT are moving in and have brought another Doctor with them. David Troughton plays his father's old role superbly, aided of course by us not being able to see him.

We might be glad to see him back, and he charms the villagers but Mrs Wibbsey is outraged and by the end of the episode we still don't really know what he is up to, or why he might be working for the serpently aliens I'm not going to attempt to spell. The idea of Doctor vs Doctor is certainly an intriguing one.

Set against what feels (bizarrely for Doctor Who) like the milieu of 'cozy crime' the culminating events are dramatic and conjure up vivid images.

[Leila Anani · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the 4th instalment in the 5 volume Serpent Crest Series by Paul Magrs.

I must confess my attention really wandered off in this one. Aliens invade Hexford and seem to be aided by a different incarnation of the Doctor! This is again very different from all 3 previous stories in the series and doesn't gel particularly well.

David Troughton voices his father as The second Doctor. I like the fact that he seems to be aiding the aliens - It's quite fun to see two Doctors supposedly working against each other. However the story is heavily involved and this really doesn't work well as a stand alone. Its also a departure from the previous 3, where the central thread had been the cyborg boy Alexi Romanov.

Not my favourite Dr Who audio, but Tom Baker is a fantastic narrator and it hums along merrily enough.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun as Tom Baker's Doctor always is, a story just cannot recover after it kicks off with Mrs Wibbsey...