‘THE INVERTEBRATES OF DOOM’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

Raining Alien Jellyfish Led by Hydra Sowerbii with the Seventh Doctor and Mel

This story is by Andrew Collins and it features the Seventh Doctor and Mel. Andrew Collins has mainly written prose Short Trips for ‘Doctor Who’ and he wrote ‘The Man From DOCTO(R)’ for ‘Short Trips: Companions’. I enjoyed reading this short story adventure with the Seventh Doctor and Mel. 🙂

In the story, the Doctor and Mel track down ‘anomalous concentrations of artron energy’ which has driven the TARDIS off course. They end up at a research facility in 1978 where they meet Dr. Leech and his assistant Ly examining an artefact. It was found in some caves by eight university students. 😐

It isn’t long before ‘raining jellyfish’ starts to happen as a spaceship containing alien jellyfish arrives. The jellyfish happen to be the Cnidarians, led by Commander Hydra Sowerbii. The Cnidarians want the Earth for themselves as they soon start converting the humans into Cnidarians with tentacles. 😮

I like how the story is resolved with Mel and the Seventh Doctor working out that the Cnidarians are dependent on pure water. They can’t survive in Earth’s oceans as its waters are salty. Very soon, the Cnidarians’ artefact is given back to them and they are sent off packing with their ship leaving Earth.

There is a sense of this story fitting nicely into the Season 24 period of ‘Doctor Who’ with the Seventh Doctor and Mel featured in it. I liked that moment where Mel said she’d been once stung by a jellyfish in Bournemouth. I’ve met Bonnie Langford in real-life at the ‘Bournemouth Film and Comic Con’ in 2015. 🙂

‘The Invertebrates of Doom’ rating – 8/10