‘ONE BAD APPLE’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

P’tarr and the Cyberconverted with the Fourth Doctor and Leela

This story called ‘One Bad Apple’ is by Simon A. Forward. It features the Fourth Doctor and Leela. In the story, the Doctor and Leela visit a jungle planet where the sentient species called the P’tarr live. The Doctor and Leela help to defeat some partially Cyberconverted humans threatening the P’tarr. 🙂

I enjoyed reading this story. I’ve come across Simon A. Forward before as a ‘Doctor Who’ writer, as he wrote the ‘Short Trip’ audio story ‘The Mistpuddle Murders’. He’s also written the stories ‘Constant Companion’ for ‘Short Trips: Zodiac’ and ‘Balloon Debate’ for ‘Short Trips: Companions’. 🙂

It was fascinating to uncover ‘One Bad Apple’ as a sort-of Cybermen story. The crew of the spaceship Acolyte, led by Colonel Joshua, are partially Cyberconverted when the Cybermen came to invade the P’tarr homeworld. Since then, they have struggled to survive with their adapted Cyber technology. 😐

I don’t think we’ve had a proper Cybermen story with the Fourth Doctor and Leela. I know there’s the Big Finish audio story ‘Return to Telos’, but that was set during ‘The Tomb of the Cybermen’ and it had the Second Doctor and Jamie in it. ‘One Bad Apple’ is close to be an original Cybermen story. 🙂

There are obvious biblical connotations featured in ‘One Bad Apple’, especially with two of the Cyberconverted soldiers being called Cain and Abel. There’s also the forbidden fruit analogy where Colonel Joshua eats some of the P’tarr fruit and discovers the truth, which I found a very nice touch.

‘One Bad Apple’ rating – 7.5/10