A tonne of foreshadowing and a very common courtesy unit, plus the very first appearance of Professor River Song (on our timeline)
Doc and Lucie go to Stockholm to steal art from the King and match wits with an Italian chap from outer space.
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Before you go any further, consider that this is in some ways a sequel to (A006) Human Resources, an audiobook you really should have a listened to because it’s awesome and bombastic. You won’t need to have heard it to follow along with this one, but you may appreciate it more if you do. Ok, all clear? Good. Let’s go on.
The Doctor and Lucie materialised goodness knows where and goodness knows when, but at the moment they’re rocketing along the rails on an actual electric train bound for Stockholm in 1896. We can only assume that the TARDIS is stowed somewhere onboard.
Anyway, also aboard the train is Simonsson (Michael Maloney), art dealer to King Oskar of Sweden, who is transporting two works of art by renowned Italian artist Claudio Tardelli (Christopher Benjamin), who – spoiler alert – isn’t really from Italy but some other planet entirely. Also onboard are The Headhunter (Katarina Olsson) and Karen (Louise Fullerton) of Human Resources fame, who have teamed up and arrived there to steal one of said works of art. All parties collide and so begins a race between the two baddies and the two goodies to steal it first, along the way of which we witness them hypnotise Swedish royal guards (Colin Spaull and Sebastian Armesto), impersonate aristocracy, bludgeon academics and fight for an entire universe. Pretty neat.
The cast is star-studded, and some of these actors have appeared on Doctor Who before. Behold!
