Doctor Who - The Fate of Krelos Review

Doctor Who:
The Fate of Krelos
By Nicholas Briggs
Starring Tom Baker, Louise Jameson
And John Leeson

The Doctor and Leela arrive on the planet Krelos and it appears to be an ordinary planet and for once nothing going on.  The Doctor should have paid more attention to the TARDIS as K – 9 is not acting normal and appears to have been taken over by an outside force.  It seems this unknown entity is trying to get K – 9 to get the Doctor to a certain place so they can extract revenge on him by messing with the TARDIS and in the long term try and take over complete control of the TARDIS.

While on Krelos The Doctor and Leela find a man named Geralk.  Geralk is trying to do some fishing but there is one thing peculiar about him.  He is using a mind controlled suit and he is not even it but sitting in his home somewhere off the mountain.  But something bad does eventually happen as K -9’s messing around has brought The Doctor and Leela ahead in time where the planet Krelos has been taken over by a strange race of zombie like robotic creatures.   Doing something unlike him The Doctor retreats to the TARDIS and runs away at the ire of Leela who wants to stay and fight.  She literally screams at him to help but he concedes that this is too big for him to handle.  Then the TARDIS takes off and The Doctor is surprised that K – 9 was the one to do it.  Then they land and find themselves on a planet The Doctor has been before.

If this wasn’t part one of a two part adventure I would have to say that this story wasn’t all that good.  But since it is and it is building up to something bigger in the next part it did its job even if I didn’t really feel this story at all.  I was more interested in K – 9’s story than I was with The Doctor and Leela and when they started bickering I just lost interest all together as they did not seem to be recognizable as the characters I have listened to on Big Finish.  The way The Doctor and Leela interacted just seemed foreign to me and I just could not grasp why they were acting that way.  It seemed like Leela has gone from savage warrior to the holier than now character who seems to know what is best for everyone and even challenges The Doctor into doing what she deems right.   Have to say this wasn’t my favorite imagining of The Doctor and Leela for Big Finish so far.

With that said with The Fate of Krelos the first part for The Return to Telos it just seemed to me to be a throw away story.  Unless they plan on going back to Krelos then what is the point of this story anyway.  They could have had a story based on the TARDIS centered on K – 9 being taken over.  I would have preferred that to what they gave us instead.   Now I am looking forward to the next part and I am hoping it is better than this one.  It does look promising with Frazer Hines guest starring but it is being written by Nick Briggs so it is 50/50.  Fingers crossed.
Grade D +