Doctor Who review: The Sons of Kaldor (Fourth Doctor audio)
By James Aggas
The Fourth Doctor and Leela once again face the Voc Robots in The Sons of Kaldor. But this time, are they really the villains of the story?
The seventh season of Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Adventures kicks off with The Sons of Kaldor. While it’s not exactly a direct sequel to the classic Fourth Doctor story The Robots of Death, it does explore key elements from that story. These include the people of the world of Kaldor, and of course, the very distinctive Voc Robots.
This isn’t the first time that Big Finish have told a story with these distinctive mechanical men. Back in 2011, the Seventh Doctor encountered them in Robophobia. That seemed to be a spiritual sequel to the original story. However, it also brilliantly subverted it, in several key ways.
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The same is true for The Sons of Kaldor. Writer Andrew Smith was very clever about how he did this. Particularly as its very different from both The Robots of Death and Robophobia. While the latter focused on the fear humans had of robots, The Sons of Kaldor focuses on the Robots in a new light.
The world of Kaldor
In fact, Andrew Smith is very, very good at exploring the world and culture of Kaldor in a new way. The culture, the people living there, the different groups, and especially the tensions between them. We get a greater sense of Kaldorian society in this story than in previous ones.
It’s really impressive just how much gets explored, especially in just an hour. The human characters are really fleshed out, but in this case, it’s definitely the Voc Robots who are the stars of this story. So it’s great that we get a brand new side to a great Doctor Who creation.
Toby Hadoke and John Dorney both give great performances as the Voc Robots. While they’re able to portray those very distinctive, sing-song voices that the robots had very well, they’re also able to give depth to their characters, too. It’s subtle, but it works really well.
The Sons of Kaldor is a great start to this year’s season of Fourth Doctor audios. A highly recommended listen.
Next: Retro review: The Doctor’s Daughter (Tenth Doctor story)
Have you listened to The Sons of Kaldor? Are you a fan of The Robots of Death? Do you think the Voc Robots should appear in the New Series? Leave your thoughts in the comments below?