Ladies and gentlemen, Human Resources is our favourite 8th Doctor Adventure thus far. If you haven’t heard the audiobook yet, and you’re at all concerned about spoilers, then do so before you listen to our review. As per usual, we spoil the living daylights out of it on the podcast, and this audiobook is absolutely worth adding to your collection.
Remember Lucie mentioning, back in A001 Blood of the Daleks, that she was on her way to her first day at a new job when she suddenly found herself with the Doctor? Well, Human Resources starts off with her waking up on that first day at work. It’s as though her adventures with The Doctor never happened, and he, the TARDIS, the Daleks and (thankfully) even Tommy Tomorrow’s freaking stylophone were all just a figment of her imagination. The Headhunter (played by Katarina Olsson) is there to show her around, too, and soon Lucie meets her new colleague/social doppelganger, Karen (played by Louise Fullerton), and her line manager, Jerry (played hilariously well by Owen Brenman).
It transpires she’s been brainwashed to work a boring data entry job, weirdly not in London as she was lead to believe, but in Telford, of all places, which – by the way – is actually also not where she really is. Confused? Not half as confused as The Doctor is about to be when, meanwhile in England, a fellow Timelord by the name of Straxus (played by Nickolas Grace, screenshot here below) pops up to give him a Time Ring and send him off to retrieve his companion…
Nickolas Grace previously on Doctor Who as Albert Einstein in ‘Death Is The Only Answer’
… which he does. Once in her new office, however, he realises something’s amiss, re-brains Lucie and has all of his worst fears confirmed by Hulbert (played by Roy Marsden, screenshot here below), the head of the company.
Roy Marsden previously on Doctor Who as Mr Stoker in ‘Smith and Jones’
Throw in some classic Cybermen and a handful of giant robot warrior office complexes, and you’ve got ‘Human Resources.’ Treat yourself to a listen. It’s fantastic.
The Ratings-and-Reviews section of this podcast episode starts at:
1 hour 26 minutes
U.N.I.T. can't decide whether to battle Global Warming, a flesh-eating virus, nuclear holocaust, dinosaurs or planet-usurping man-geckos.
Here's what we think of A006 Human Resources
We rate Doctor Who stories on a scale from 0.0 to 5.0. For context, very few are excellent enough to merit a 5.0 in our minds, and we'd take a 0.0 Doctor Who story over a lot of other, non-Whovian stuff out there.
We rate Doctor Who stories on a scale from 0.0 to 5.0. For context, very few are excellent enough to merit a 5.0 in our minds, and we'd take a 0.0 Doctor Who story over a lot of other, non-Whovian stuff out there.
Here's what you think2 Responses to “A006 Human Resources”
Gallifreyan Buccaneer
Very quick mini-review!
Easily the best story of series one of the EDA’s. SPOILER The idea of the mundane office meetings and to-ing and fro-ing of office life, as the operating of a war machine is inspired, and brilliantly works on audio. A brilliant cliffhanger at the end of part one, pity it doesn’t have Earthshock levels of surprise as the cover has bloody Cybermen on it but alas!
The Cybermen voices are, as usual, great and like the Daleks work brilliantly on audio. Walking down the street with Cybermen in your ears is a gleeful experience that I recommend to any Who fan.
The regular cast is fantastic as usual, and the Headhunter plot finally comes to fruition. Nice to see Straxus as well who will return later.
I couldn’t agree more with your mini review – hope you’re enjoying WhoBackWhen… You’re right about the Earthshock levels of surprise – but in these days of spoilers everywhere I think they’ve given up all hope of surprises !
I wished they’d named “Revelation of the Daleks” something else to maintain that surprise back in the day!
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Very quick mini-review!
Easily the best story of series one of the EDA’s. SPOILER The idea of the mundane office meetings and to-ing and fro-ing of office life, as the operating of a war machine is inspired, and brilliantly works on audio. A brilliant cliffhanger at the end of part one, pity it doesn’t have Earthshock levels of surprise as the cover has bloody Cybermen on it but alas!
The Cybermen voices are, as usual, great and like the Daleks work brilliantly on audio. Walking down the street with Cybermen in your ears is a gleeful experience that I recommend to any Who fan.
The regular cast is fantastic as usual, and the Headhunter plot finally comes to fruition. Nice to see Straxus as well who will return later.
I’d give Human Resources a 4.4.
I couldn’t agree more with your mini review – hope you’re enjoying WhoBackWhen… You’re right about the Earthshock levels of surprise – but in these days of spoilers everywhere I think they’ve given up all hope of surprises !
I wished they’d named “Revelation of the Daleks” something else to maintain that surprise back in the day!