ZYGON HUNT

The final adventure of the third season of Big Finish’s Fourth Doctor Adventures see Leela (Louise Jameson) and the Doctor (Tom Baker) landing on a planet, Garros, that reminds Leela a little of home.

They’re captured as possible assassins during some down time for a team of Earth Force Knights. The Knights defend the solar system but, on Garros, their chosen pastime is the hunting and killing of large pterodactyl-like creatures.

On arrival, the travellers befriend one of the creatures that has been wounded, but not killed, due to the not exactly expert targetting of the Knights’ Commander-in-Chief Gregor Saraton (Michael Maloney). They encounter Saraton’s adjutant, Mina (Gillian Gearney), and Leela is quick to suspect there’s something not quite normal about her.

When questioned about their presence, the Doctor tries to calm the eager hunters down. Later, when they try to escape, they encounter a giant beast that surprises even the Doctor – a skaracen. He tells Leela about his previous encounter with a group of Zygons on Earth, headed by a fellow called Broton. That team were preparing to poison the Earth’s atmosphere to better suit the arrival of the Zygon race. With the Brigadier’s help, the Doctor scuppered their plans, and the only remnants is a Skaracen swimming about in Loch Ness, occasionally popping its head above water for a few blurred tourist photos.

It’s now, apparently, some hundreds of years later and this group of Zygons, headed by Mina-Zygon, plan to capture and duplicate themselves as the Knights with the intention of carrying out their plans to occupy Earth. They’re not all that concerned that they’ve not had any report back from Broton.

The Doctor and Leela must thwart the Zygons’ plans, but they’re helped by an unexpected source.

Zygon Hunt sees a welcome return by the Zygons of the TV adventure Terror of the Zygons. They work surprisingly well on audio. As with the other Fourth Doctor Adventures, Zygon Hunt is a one-hour story split into two episodes (with not a particularly effective cliffhanger this time).

The story is well written by Nicholas Briggs as it interweaves a typical “great white hunter” story, together with an alien infiltration staple adventure, whilst linking it as a good sequel to the televised adventure. The only thing that saddened me was that we no longer have Elisabeth Sladen to reprise Sarah-Jane Smith. Added the loss over the years of Ian Marter and Nicholas Courtney leaves us wondering what this sequel this could have been with the same team encountering the Zygons again.

The adventure is followed by some trailers for other adventures, plus some behind-the-scenes chats with the actors and director (Nicholas Briggs again). It’s fun to hear Briggs explain his reasoning for doing a Zygon story and I can’t help but agree with his sentiments. It’s no wonder this works well as a sequel.