Sheridan Moorkurk has just been elected president of Earth... but the harsh realities of who really runs the planet are just beginning to dawn on her. And what's more, she's starting to hear voices.  Meanwhile, the Doctor and Romana encounter a mass of aliens heading to Earth... Aliens who have already made the mistake of upsetting the infamous Cuthbert, all-powerful CEO of The Conglomerate, by destroying one of his space platforms.  Will the Doctor and Romana be able to avert inter-species war that will destroy all life on Earth?

Having kicked off the latest “season” of the Fourth Doctor Adventures with the underwhelming “The Auntie Matter”, Big Finish hits the ground running with a much more interesting adventure with “The Sands of Life”.  What seems at first to be a standard stand-alone story about a mysterious invasion of Earth by aliens turns into something much more complicated.

As the promotional blurb suggests, this is just as much about the political status quo of Earth during this time period as it is the “invasion”, which means The Doctor and Romana have a lot more to deal with than determining the motivations of the Laan.  Sheridan Moorkurk is the newly-elected president, but she has to deal with the reality that Cuthbert’s megacorp, The Conglomerate, more or less controls everything.  Even worse, Cuthbert backed her opponent, so their relationship is less than stellar.  (Cuthbert is a bit of a sexist, too, which doesn’t help.)

Tom Baker and Mary Tamm resume their duties as The Doctor and Romana, and both of them know exactly what they are doing at this point.  Baker’s liberal influence on the script and dialogue is occasionally evident, especially when certain one-liners don’t quite work, but that’s so much a part of the legacy of the Fourth Doctor that it fits the period during which this is set.  Oh, and John Leeson reprises his role as K9, a character that is somewhat more tolerable on audio.

The guest cast is equally good, and for that matter, equally legendary at this point.  David Warner, a longtime genre standout, brings his distinctive voice to Cuthbert.  It’s very easy to picture what he and his character would look like, had this been a filmed production.  Sheridan Moorkurk is voiced by Hayley Atwell, who is perhaps best known in the US for her role as Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger.

A large chunk of the episode is devoted to uncovering the motivations of the Laan, as they “infest” the Sahara and also cause an unusual telepathic effect on Romana and Sheridan.  Thanks to an accidental “attack” on one of The Conglomerate’s space stations, Cuthbert uses his influence to push for military intervention.  The true reason for the Laan’s presence on Earth is soon revealed to be relatively benign in intention, but in a nice touch, rather devastating if allowed to continue.

The story is left unresolved, so there is at least one more episode that will deal with the Laan and their presence on Earth.  The upshot is that Cuthbert and Sheridan are recurring characters over the course of the rest of this “season”, so this is not just setup for the multi-part Laan story, but also the tensions that dominate Earth in this period.  Big Finish is not afraid to take the long view in releasing multi-part stories, so they’ve had a bit of practice at it.  Plus, it also echoes the episodic structure of the classic Doctor Who serials.

If there is a downside, it is the fact that this episode culminates in a rather major action sequence, and those are notoriously difficult to depict well in audio alone.  This is one of the better examples, as I was able to understand what was happening, but some parts can be a little confusing.  Also, the military commander is played as a trigger-happy American, which is a bit of a tired stereotype for some of us.

I’m not sure if the producers wanted to use “The Auntie Matter” as a warm-up for Baker and Tamm, before throwing them into something a bit more substantial, but that’s how it seems after listening to this story.  This episode feels like it should have been the first episode of the “season”, and if it were my recommendation, I would say to skip right to this one and enjoy!

Released: February 2013
Price: $8.99 (download version)
Acquisition method: Big Finish website