The Paradise of Death

The Parakon Corporation is set to open Space Wold - a new theme park showcasing rides and attractions and monsters all from out of this world. But mysterious deaths attract the attention of UNIT and the Doctor, as well as that of journalist Sarah Jane Smith. The Doctor realizes that the monsters in the exhibits are real although they are not correctly named by Space World, and the Brigadier tries out some all too realistic virtual reality. But Sarah finds her way deep inside the amusement park and is transported to the planet Parakon, where the plans for Earth are far from amusing.

Imagine this for a moment: it was 1993 and Doctor Who had been off the air for four years and despite rumors and misleading information in fan networks there was no way the series was going to be back anytime soon. Virgin Publishing was keeping us all amused with a new novel every month and then the BBC did something surprising: they commissioned a new Doctor Who adventure. Hope that it would be televised was raised and then it became known that it would start the trio of Jon Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen, all of whom would be visibly older now than they were in their original run on television twenty years earlier. BBC Radio would broadcast The Paradise of Death and bring these characters back for another episode together, and it was one of the best things to be produced for the series that year.

Paradise was made to drop right in after The Time Warrior and featured the first meeting of Sarah Jane Smith and the Brigadier, which was until then seen to have happened in the following televised story. Normally I would at this point shake my fist angrily and protest these egomaniac writers trying to retcon everything but as the story was written by Barry Letts, who produced the show for all of Pertwee's run as the Doctor I will say nothing. Letts knew what he was doing. Of course he did. More or less. Unlike a Big Finish audio some of the dialogue is there to replace missing narrative and there can be annoying runs of people just saying what is going on around them in unconvincing rants, but it doesn't happen too much. And the Doctor is still rooted to Earth and working with UNIT just as he was in the stories around this one; yes he is free of the exile but Earth has become home base, and it's an interesting question as to how long it would have stayed so if the Doctor hasn't eventually regenerated.

Paradise has the distinction of giving Sarah her own companion as it were in the form of the annoying and dorky Jeremy Fitzoliver. I imagine he was supposed be the comic relief but he's actually pretty cringeworthy and could have been done without. But he and the background of what's going on in Sarah's professional life at Metropolitan are new facets to the popular companion's life, fleshing her story out a bit more. She's not just jumped into the TARDIS right away now in this slightly reimagined setting; she's gone back to work as a journalist but she's also drawn back to the Doctor and comes in contact with UNIT properly. She knows there is a story wherever the Doctor is, but does her editor, Clarinda, buy any of it?

The cover isn't much to look at; they went for the same kind of arts and crafts decoupage look as the

Original cover. Dull.

other BBC Audio releases but it's kinda uninspiring. The original cover used on the cassette release, mind you, left even more to be desired. At least the CD cover used period images. There have been a lot of alternates created on sites like deviantart.com and they gravitate to the new norm of the Big Finish audio covers which are smashing.

Sound design is great although there is a puzzling use of a version of the theme song which would be used from 1980 to 1985; surely the Pertwee era theme would have been a better choice. If we can tinker with the coves til our hearts content, how about the sound? Then we could get some of the sound effects fixed up like the TARDIS doors which are sound effects from The Dominators. No way to make Jon Pertwee sound younger though.

Back to TV now.

NEXT EPISODE: INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS