The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (played originally by Elisabeth Sladen, but here, a role taken on by her daughter, Sadie Miller) are off travelling into the future! Following their adventures with UNIT in The Ministry of Death, we have three standalone two-parters in the second volume of 4DA Series 15. All set during Season 13, these stories stay true to the vision of Philip Hinchcliffe by visiting unexplored locations beyond Earth.

We land on a Green and Pleasant Planet, by Tim Foley, as the Doctor and Sarah join a British space expedition and discover a mysterious model village residing on a planet. Nobody has visited this planet, and yet the village is full of toys that appear inanimate at first… and then become sentient and start wreaking havoc. This is a clever, whimsical story which aptly paraphrases the English hymn Jerusalem in the title. I like to think of the main setting as Bekonscot model village in space, but with horror vibes.

The Continuum, by John Dorney, sees Daedalus on its voyage with an invisible malevolent force from another universe lurking on the space station. The Doctor and Sarah are treated as suspects for murder, and they must stop the threat before it’s too late. The story utilises the experimental one shot approach with the real time format, along the lines of 42 by future showrunner Chris Chibnall (which took inspiration from 24) and the award-winning Netflix drama miniseries Adolescence. Very suspenseful with the realistic sound design, despite it being Dorney’s final Big Finish script for Tom Baker.

And we take a curtain call for The Audience, by Lizzie Hopley, with the Doctor and Sarah entering the world of theatre on Gakoria. But Sarah gets automatically dragged onto stage as a replacement, when a cast member dies during a performance, and is forced to star in The Passion of Joan of Arc before an audience filled with emotionless robots. A fascinating take on theatrics which brilliantly evokes method acting and breaking the fourth wall, with Sadie’s dramatic performance standing out as the definitive highlight.

I know it sounds like I’m nitpicking, but it’s a huge relief that Lethal Progress hasn’t repeated the same mistake of using one of the story titles as the overall boxset title, with Metamorphosis and The Ruins of Kaerula being the worst examples in the 4DA range. While those two anthology titles are misleading, I’m glad they chose something thematic for this boxset as producer David Richardson explains that “the travellers visit other worlds and other times in Lethal Progress, which, as the title might suggest, finds that scientific advancement doesn’t always benefit the human race”. And if I could go back in time, I would change The Ministry of Death to “Summoned” as the anthology title, in reference to the Brigadier summoning the Doctor and Sarah back to Earth.

For Lethal Progress to give the Doctor and Sarah more original space-themed adventures as a duo is such a wonderful change, with futuristic concepts and visits to distinctive planets. While the three stories could’ve each benefitted from being slightly longer, I couldn’t be more impressed with the strong performances from the entire cast. Nonetheless, let’s hope that 4DA Series 15 will round off with a four-parter in the third and final volume.

Lethal Progress is available now from Big Finish, with The Continuum Part 1 also available as a free digital download.