Lethbridge Stewart - The Schizoid Earth

Colonel Lethbridge Stewart was supposed to be headed to Tibet on a mission but instead is found to be investigating what appeared to be crashed spaceships in the English countryside. While this sort of thing looks to be the start of routine work for him, he is still working with the nagging suspicion that he is forgetting things, he has headaches, and the world around him seems slightly different to what he feels it should be. Meanwhile as more of the same space capsules are discovered, people from other periods of time are also found including pockets of German and British soldiers from the first world war. Professor Travers and his daughter Anne are recruited to help out in a scientific capacity but the one big mystery hanging over everyone is where Colonel Lethbridge Stewart has gone; despite being on the case himself, nobody knows where he is.

As with The Dark Path here we have another one written by David A. McIntee with his clever and effective science fiction prose style giving the story some interesting twists. He starts out slowly with it though; given that the guidelines of this series are to develop Lethbridge Stewart's involvement with the unusual and not just drop him right into it; he still needs to remain a skeptic by the time he comes into contact with the Doctor once again. The science tech is kept to a minimum and the heavier aspects that do come into play are given to Travers and Anne to handle; their involvement in the series in this capacity allows them to be, in effect, the Doctor. And while the Doctor is not there himself, elements from the present and future series are, loaning a bit of foreshadowing in some occasions, and in others just a bit of a fanboy snarf here and there. Still, as the novel heads towards its conclusion I found myself a bit more aware of how more fantastical things were becoming, and I couldn't help but feel that things got a sudden push towards their conclusion. That's my only real concern with this one.

As with The Forgotten Son some of the Doctor Who references come from episodes which from the perspective of theses spin off stories have not yet happened. Schizoid Earth has its premise and indeed some of its setting loaned from the upcoming episode Inferno and from far future episodes Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel. But the tales are not all linked as such to their parent series; we're only two stories in but the continuity of Lethbridge Stewart's past and his childhood continues to be brought up; he has been surrounded by the unusual all his life but he himself cannot see all the connections just yet, nor will he ever as this immersion really started with the Doctor himself in the future and tangentially touched Lethbridge Stewart's past. All the spin off series so far have been about what came after, but as I said on the last review, here we get to see the before... even if the after is playing heavily into it.

Terry Molloy reads the episode as he did before and while maintaining his skills for voicing Lethbridge Stewart himself manages to do a very good impression of Travers as well - mostly derived from watching The Web of Fear I should imagine, as he mimics the professor's bluster and slight stammer very well. Looking ahead and seeing that he is going to be the voice reading the other two episodes as well is good news: with one reader for the series we'll get the same cadance and storytelling style across all of them, making the Lethbridge Stewart universe a more complete experience. It's just too bad there are only four on audio right now and my personal trip into Lethbridge Stewart's past for this blog will end soon; logistically getting hold of all the material is a challenge as the books do not have North American distribution as such. Yeah there's ordering online as well but the amount of material would really just delay the main focus of my blog here. This sample of other lore is good enough in this size I think.

NEXT EPISODE: THE BLACK HOLE