A Travel Society

[setsuled]

The Sixth Doctor and his companion, Mel, get trapped in an ancient spaceport in the 2013 audio play Spaceport Fear, a decent story with a fun concept. The two encounter a culture that sounds like it was descended from modern day air travel commuters--tribes are separated into "Business" and "Economy" classes; their guide is a young woman who describes her childhood as a time when she was "carry-on".

There's a generally tongue-in-cheek quality to the story but it's not a total parody like the 2001 Six/Mel audio The One Doctor. Mostly it's a fairly straight-forward story about the Doctor (Colin Baker) and Mel (Bonnie Langford) trying to help Economy Class in their struggles against Business, a concept with a broad allegorical quality that thankfully never takes itself too seriously. On seeing the Sixth Doctor's infamous patchwork coat one character from Economy sympathetically says that her people often have to make clothes in the dark, too. Later in the story there's a segment set in total darkness, always a handy device for audio plays because characters are forced to describe everything to each other.

There's also some nice business in this one about the Sixth Doctor having awareness of computer technology from the 21st century, referring to Wi-Fi, smart phones, and tablets, while Mel, a computer expert from the 80s, talks about her knowledge of FORTRAN. An amusing bit involves the Doctor and Mel sending messages to each other via high scores in a Tetris-like video game.