Concluding the latest 5^th Doctor Adventures boxset, the third and final story of the set brings the team to 80s London. What should be a familiar location, however, has changed dramatically. Private security rules the streets with an iron fist, and people’s impossible wishes are coming true.

The TARDIS arrives in London, 1980, but something has gone wrong with the timeline. The city is a quasi-police state, overseen by a mysterious new company, Luqos, which promises miraculous gifts to its followers.

As Tegan takes off to reconnect with an old friend, and the Doctor teams up with young activist Zan, Turlough is pulled into the heart of Luqos by the shadowy ‘M’, where they discover an old enemy at work beneath the city.

Big Finish Synopsis

Writers Mooney and Pringle return to pen Helter Skelter’s closing statement, Land of Fools. A quasi-sequel to The Field of Miracles, it takes place in a dystopian version of 80s London and sees the return of the Asteri and the mysterious M.

Much like its prequel, this story’s greatest accomplishments come from its ambience and setting. Starting slow, Mooney and Pringle convince listeners of their dystopia by spending time getting to know some of the differences between this version of London and the one that our protagonists remember. In this world they’ve created, private security controls the city with an iron fist, there’s a complete separation between public and private land, and there’s also the Luqos cult, who can make wishes come true. It’s a detailed exploration into the wider world, creating a vivid world that jumps from the script, easily hooking any potential listeners to the actual plot of the story.

What the writers ultimately hook their listeners into, however, is a much more mixed experience. The story’s main plot revolves around M (revealed to be Mathew from the prequel), who wishes for his mother back, and creates this dystopian company and world to feed the Asteri and their stardust powers. His actions, however maniacal, are meant to be an exploration of the all-consuming nature that grief can take. While this is all well and good, the problem, then, stems from the fact that it has little breathing room to develop these themes or characters beyond a surface level. Despite the story being a supposed exploration of Mathew’s grief manifest, we barely spend any time with his character. As a result, instead of giving him a sympathetic angle, his actions killing and oppressing people end up making him thoroughly unlikable.

Mathew isn’t the only character to suffer these problems, and they also persist with the TARDIS trio, specifically Turlough. From the outset of this adventure, his character is frustrated with life on the TARDIS, feeling that The Doctor is choosing Tegan over him time and time again. These frustrations lead him to be captivated by Mathew’s mysterious M personality. Unfortunately, these themes go nowhere from here because Turlough spends the rest of the story brainwashed by the Asteri’s stardust powers.