Doctor Who: Dark Tides

The Ninth Doctor Adventures #4.7

by Tim Foley, Christopher Eccleston (Narrator ), Billie Piper (Narrator )

A long-lost ship, the Vesterbold, has returned to normal space. And the Knights of Atlas seek her treasure. But two strangers have joined their expedition - the Doctor and Rose, who warn of danger. For the Vesterbold has drifted free of the Dark Tides at the edge of the universe. And she may have brought something back with her. Not even the bravest knights are ready for the evil which lies inside...

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

Audio CD

First published August 11, 2026

About the author

Tim Foley is an artist and illustrator born in Flint, Michigan, in 1962. Over the past quarter century, his clients have included national and international magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies such as the Wall Street Journal, Cricket Magazine, New York Newsday, LA Weekly, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally the 9th Doctor and Rose have left the Powell Estate on planet earth and they travel really deepspace where they land on a deepspace vessel geared toward deepspace salvage andvin particular a vessel called the Vesterbold a long lost mapping vessel. The Doctor and Rose are recognized as spaceship inspectors by the crew of the salvage vessel who recognize themselves as a knight order.
The Doctor finds lifesigns on this missing vessel, whereas the knight see it as a search for riches . They allow our intrepid duo to tag along to this ship with its riches and secrets.
Aboard they discover a survivor who wants nothing less than leave this vessel. It seems this treacherous reach of space has some dangerous secrets as the Doctor and Rose are to find out.

An excellent tale with the amazing Piper & Ecclestone having fun in their roles and the cast of this episode being in good spirits and enjoying the experience that BF offers them.

Fun to have our dynamic duo back into space which I love best about the tales of a certain Doctor.

[Seb Hasi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark Tides was the perfect opener to the second half of the Series 1 set 9DAs. My highlight memory is Rose putting the chauvinistic knights in their place, incorporating social commentary in a loveable and justified way. That isn’t all yet though, as there is so much to appreciate here. From the baddie to even the shy squire boy, each character is fleshed out so vividly with conversations that add little details and what we know about them; done of course in Tim Foley’s natural and organic way or writing absolutely class dialogue. Eccleston is clearly having a great time with the script as his enthusiasms explodes everywhere! His dialogue is delivered with such convivial, both the climatic moments and the quips, his action scenes feel as tense as you could picture them in your head and rather less critical and more childish of my observations; he really does feel like he’s my Doctor again! Jane from Toast of London plays the odd guy here, her natural sarcasm playing into her favour as she gives a pretty great turnaround as the creepy, if not ultimately easily beat, evil entity. There is a marvellous use of music in this story near the climax where subtle sound effects are used to create her increasing evil presence and it is done to perfection. Almost as if it wires up your nerves back to front with each shaky buzz. Alas my only criticism is that the story did wrap itself up a little too quickly, but I think that’s mostly down to the pacing. So much is made of the mysteries and the questions that the concepts are constantly expanded rather than resolved. I’m not shocked it’s a ‘one solve all’ kind of resolution as far too much exciting stuff was being developed even by the time there was only about 15 minutes left of the runtime! I would say don’t go into this story expecting perfection, if you can do that then oh boy you’ll have a phenomenal time listening to this adventure!

[Alyce Caswell · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly ordinary outing for the 9th Doctor and Rose, the type of story you feel like you've encountered a thousand times before, though the space setting was most welcome after many Earth-based instalments.

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Ninth Doctor Adventures previously has been focused exclusively on the Powell Estate. The Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) have been frequenting the past, present, and future of the council estate. Finally, however, following the conclusion of Thirteen O’Clock, they have travelled further afield. With writer Tim Foley at the helm, we see them break free of the Powell Estate and travel into the furthest reaches of space.

Dark Tides involves the Doctor and Rose landing on the long-lost ship, the Vesterbold, which had ventured far into the reaches of the titular Dark Tides of space. There, they encounter the Knights of Atlas, who are searching the ship for treasure. Dark Tides feels very much like a Series 1 story, taking place within one location with the Vesterbold spaceship, and never featuring the Doctor and Rose venturing any further. It’s the point of the revival where alien planets didn’t feature, and spaceships were the closest they came to other worlds.

I had high hopes for Dark Tides, being the first audio of this Ninth Doctor run to break from the Powell Estate. The story is fine, but a little unremarkable, and didn’t live up to my expectations. The pacing is fairly slow, featuring a lot of the Doctor and Rose wandering around the Vesterbold for the first 30 minutes. It has the same measured approach to how the narrative unfolds as The End Of The World and The Long Game, but it doesn’t have as much of the strong character work of the former.
When the threat emerges, it’s not a surprise that Doctor Vivian Rest (Doon Mackichan) isn’t who she seems. She seemed very untrustworthy from the start, with even Rose herself expressing uncertainty as to whether she can be relied upon. The twist that she is a sentient hologram is a fun development, working similarly to Mr. Ring-A-Ding in Lux in that she is basically a light construct. Doon Mackichan does a good job at voicing Vivian, too.

The climax is where the Vivian storyline shines. The final conflict between the Doctor and Rose, and Vivian is tense and exciting, and there are consequences in their victory against Vivian. The fact that she is so powerful that she temporarily causes the TARDIS to lose power after she is defeated shows just how much of a credible threat she was, especially as the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver was taken out earlier in the story, too. Rose’s concerns that she enjoyed taking on Vivian too much is solid character work also, leading to the Doctor admitting that Rose has helped him through his Time War PTSD just as much as he’s helped her grow in confidence.

The Knights of Atlas are brilliantly quirky characters. Their Medieval English manner of speaking is delightfully bonkers, feeling rather Douglas Adams-esque in the way that they operate in space far into the future. Rose’s disdain at their sexist attitudes, calling her ‘fair maiden’, brings some levity to an otherwise eerie story akin to The Ark In Space and Smile. I wouldn’t mind hearing the Knights of Atlas pop up in another Big Finish audio drama. They could make for a decent inclusion in a War Doctor story, with his grumpy demeanour likely to clash with their rather oldy-worldly speech patterns.

Overall, Dark Tides is a fine Doctor Who. The pacing is slow, and the villain twist is obvious. having said that, Doon Mackichan shines, and the climax works especially well. The Knights of Atlas also make for worthy additions to the storyline. Dark Tides is hardly a revolutionary Ninth Doctor audio, but it’s serviceable. We can only hope it leads to more adventures away from the Powell Estate going forward.

[Daniel Cork · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, we're finally out of The Powell Estate and back onto weird and wonderful adventures with the 9th Doctor and Rose. I've been really looking forward to seeing how this duo does off-world and we're already off to a great start!

A long-lost ship The Vesterbold has drifted off into normal space and a now a crew of space-knights wish to uncover its secrets. The Doctor and Rose arrive to warn them of their impending doom and getting caught up in the Dark Tides. Boarding the lost ship, they all begin to hear and discover some strange things. A ghost is onboard and it isn't friendly.

Tim Foley has written a really atmospheric and spooky deep-space story that is essentially a futuristic ghost story. I loved this one more than I was expecting the concept behind the haunting is simple but original, the idea of the human race regressing into another dark age with its sense of morality and moral values taking a few steps back was interesting, and honestly, I really felt for a couple of its character. Most of the knights were terribly sexist with incredibly out of date values, but I found Mervyn to be quite a progressive character despite his colleagues and felt for him and his struggles in life.

Overall: An incredible story that is very haunting. 10/10

[Kim · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

The second half of this latest series of The Ninth Doctor Adventures kicks off by (finally) taking Rose and the Doctor away from the Powell Estates and into the deep reaches of space, far into the future where, oddly enough, human society is experiencing a bit of dark age-esque regression, personified in the Knights of Atlas.

This was a decent story. It wasn't mind-blowing or anything, but it didn't have to be. It was a solid story with a mildly terrifying villain and some brilliant character beats between Rose and the Doctor. The Knights of Atlas characters - Holbrook, Sir Cal, and Mervyn - were also well-played by their actors and fit well into the parts they were meant to play. That said, I'd have liked to have seen a bit more. Sir Cal got what he had coming to him, and I felt terrible for Holbrook and Mervyn. Neither of them deserved what happened to them, and it made me sad that neither Rose nor the Doctor ever knew the whole story of what happened to either them or Sir Cal. It wasn't necessary for the story for them to know, ultimately, but it felt like a bit of a hole in the story nonetheless.

Again, a solid, well-done story. Can't wait to see where else Rose and the Doctor end up in this second half of the series!

[Toby Sutton-Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

So the 9DAs depart from the Powell Estate (and as some would say, at long last), and this is where we end up. Most of the stories in this season have been very good character pieces, and this is no exception. The focus is a bit less on the Doctor and Rose, but instead we get some nice stuff between them and the guest cast as they solve the mystery. I wish this story could have been slightly longer though.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in deep space! And at the edge of the known universe. That place where anything is possible because nothing has coalesced into known reality. It’s like Lovecraft’s things from beyond known space, or Event Horizon. Spooky stuff. Great fun. Good stuff!

[Marcel van Driel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a decent enough story elevated by Doon Mackichan performance as Dr. Vivian Rest.

[P.J. Benney · Rating 5 out of 5]

They finally got out of the Powell Estate! The true "nature" of Dr. Rest was quite obvious but I'm not even mad. This series has FINALLY hit its stride after six frustrating episodes.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved it

[Jon Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

A perfectly executed SF ghost story with a striking similarity to Red Dwarf’s ‘Quarantine’, enlivened by Doon Mackihan having a whale of a time.