Doctor Who review: Prisoner of the Sun (Eighth Doctor audio)

The Eighth Doctor has been desperately trying to save two billion lives for six years. Will he forever remain a Prisoner of the Sun?

Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Sun is probably one of the most stand-alone stories in the whole of season four of the Eighth Doctor Adventures. With the exception of the ending, it doesn’t share any plot elements with the rest of the season. It almost feels like a break for the Doctor. Except that, for him, it’s a break that lasts for nearly six years.

Living in just a few small rooms, in a hi-tech complex at the heart of a sun so unstable that it threatens billions of lives, he has been spending every day making sure that two entire worlds are kept safe from it.

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We get quite a few interesting characters in this one. The Mercurials are an interesting group of alien mercenaries. Very intelligent, but they’re also very concerned about one thing – money. Gliss in particular is so wonderfully upfront about her priorities that it’s hard not to like her.

It’s also nice to hear Sheridan Smith in this story, even if she isn’t playing Lucie this time. Instead, she’s playing two android assistants to the Doctor, both programmed with the voice of his old friend. It’s a nice way of having Smith involved in the story, even while we miss Lucie herself.

There are a few twists and turns in this one. Particularly with the two characters trying to rescue the Doctor from this fate. They claim to be rebels against the Consensus, the controlling organisation that captured and imprisoned the Doctor in the first place. They also claim that they are there to rescue him. But are they all that they claim to be?

The Eighth Doctor finds himself trapped while trying to save billions of lives in Prisoner of the Sun.

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

The Doctor’s responsibility

Even with these twists, the story is more or less straightforward. However, what makes this story so compelling is how it examines the Doctor’s character. While it’s in a different way to The Resurrection of Mars, there are similar themes that Prisoner of the Sun explores.

In particular, it’s very keen to explore the impact the Doctor and his reputation can have on people. He’s thought of as nothing more than a legend to some people. Could he possibly live up to the kind of reputation that he has?

But it also explores the Doctor’s strong sense of morality and responsibility. In The Resurrection of Mars, he had to make some very difficult choices, choices that not everyone might agree with. In this one, it’s hard not to love him for the choices that he does make. You can tell that he’s not simply trapped there. He’s really doing this to save two billion lives, just because he can.

Prisoner of the Sun is a story that feels both very small and huge in scale. As previously mentioned, it’s a story that has very few ties in terms of its plot to the rest of the season. But its character study of the Doctor makes it an integral part of it.

Next: UNIT: Cyber-Reality review (Doctor Who spin-off audio)

Have you listened to Prisoner of the Sun? What did you think of it? Do you enjoy stories that look at the Doctor and his sense of morality? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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