Prisoners of the Lake, by Justin Richards, continues as with a gradually unfolding storyline that makes use of its four episodes well.  The cliff-hangers are traditional “scary monster growls at/traps heroes”, but that’s almost to be expected.

THE THIRD DOCTOR ADVENTURES, VOL. 1

In the second episode, the Doctor is delayed in his rescue of Jo and Freda due to the advanced diving suit going haywire, preventing the reattachment of the airlock tunnel to the alien spaceship.  He implements a temporary fix whilst learning that the suit has been infected by a form of audio intelligence played through from a recording of Freda’s initial encounter with the rocky creature.

Meanwhile, Jo and Freda learn more about the ship.  They discover a vast room full of cryogenically stored wolf-like alien creatures, together with a “newsreel” style evidence tape.  The nasty-looking aliens are apparently responsible for some hideous and barbaric crimes.

In the third episode, the Doctor learns that there are two rocky creatures in the ship – one is for defence, the other for prosecution.  They are, in effect, legal counsels for the frozen alien prisoners who were on their way to trial before the ship crash-landed on Earth centuries ago.  Each counsel is totally dedicated to proving the innocence or guilt of their prisoners.  The Doctor correctly determines that it’s been so long since the proposed trial that the charges no longer apply, and the defence counsel will release the prisoners.  Fortunately, the defence counsel is out of energy and, without the appropriate spherical “key”, the prisoners can’t be released anyway.

The Doctor strikes a deal with the prosecution that, if the humans leave the ship and effectively quarantine/isolate it, they will be allowed to leave freely.  This they do.

Back at base, Mike Yates discovers where the missing artefacts have gone and that the dig’s director is involved.  After a confrontation, they are attacked by the advanced diving suit that is now controlling its occupant.  It has a mind of its own, and it understands that the director knows where the spherical key is.  The Doctor arrives just to late to stop it being taken back to the ship, but not too late to save Mike from the suit’s deadly intentions.

They follow the suit down, and the Doctor tries to convince its occupant to take back control.  The suit realises this, and ejects him into the water.  Jo is on hand to “buddy-breathe” a rescue back to the surface, but the Doctor has to stop the suit from releasing an army of barbaric alien wolf-creatures on Earth.

The gradually-unfolding nature of the story gives the adventure a very “70s Doctor Who” feel without any of it feeling like padding.  At first, the Doctor’s delay in rescuing Jo in order to save the diver does feel like a bit of a diversion to justify the running time, but it quickly turns out to be a key element of the plot.

Treloar’s continuing effortlessness in capturing Jon Pertwee’s third Doctor voice is now more than capable of making up for Katy Manning and Richard Franklin not quite sounding like their younger selves.  Manning’s voice continues along the same level as before, but is slowly becoming a little more tempered and tolerable that you end up accepting it as “this is how Jo is going to sound from now on” rather than wishing she’d sound more like Jo really was in the 70s.  Franklin’s unenthusiastic tone sounds more suited to a “Brigadier” style character than Captain Mike Yates, but is ever so slowly getting better.  By the time of the third episode, however, these two things are very minor and certainly no longer enough to distract you from the adventure.

So far, then, this is proving to be a first rate Third Doctor adventure and I can’t wait for the final episode…