Donna’s years of waiting for her favourite genocidal maniac finally come to an end, and half of us rejoice.
The Doctor and Lucie battle a rockstar environ-mentalist intent on turning the Earth into a Brussels sprout.
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The Doctor receives a call on the Space-Time Telegraph to pop by Earth during a period of extreme drought. His mission is to take a closer look former rockstar Alex Marlowe (played by Nigel Planer of The Young Ones fame), who has reinvented himself as a pseudo-fascist environmentalist intent on saving Mother Nature from the destructive forces of mankind. And in order to do so, Marlowe has constructed five gigantic bio-domes, in which – spoiler alert – he is growing Krynoids.
Meanwhile, Lucie Miller, properly teaming back up with The Doctor for the first time since his 600-year stint on Orbis, has infiltrated Marlowe’s compound.
But Marlowe knows to expect them both, and our heroes will need more than weed killer to save the day.
Hothouse is a very serviceable Eight Doctor Adventure story. There isn’t anything particularly noteworthy beyond the excellent pre-credits ‘reveal’ of Lucie as a violent activist, which comes as even more of a surprise after Orbis having her settle back in with the Doctor.
Paul McGann is clearly enjoying himself in this story, as he seems to be in this entire series. His chemistry with Sheridan Smith is excellent as ever and his interactions with the rest of the cast enjoyable as he infiltrates the bio-dome.
Nigel Planer bright a lot of life to the otherwise stock character of ‘rock-star turned eco-activist’ Alex Marlowe. Planer is a fine voice actor and I particularly enjoy his voicing of the Auditors in Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather. Marlowe’s confrontations with the Doctor convey the faith in his misguided cause.
I can’t speak much on the audio adaption of the Krynoids as I’m saving The Seeds of Doom to be my final classic Who story, but the transformations here from human to Krynoid seem particularly grotesque as the human voice is lost in the alien lifeform. The cover of this story confused me for a while as it seems to be an Axon creature on the cover, unless they reused the costume for the Krynoids in The Seeds of Death? JD, help!
If TARDIS-wikia is to be believed this story ties in well chronologically with the 5th Doctor main range story Loups-Garoux, a favourite of mine, where the rain-forests of the world have turned to desert, making the society shown in Hothouse all the more believable. Nice internal consistency here with the timeline, a rare treat in Doctor Who!
I’d give Hothouse a 3.0.
I agree with Gallifreyan Buccaneer. Its a three. Its nice that some of the older aliens are brought back in the eighth doctor’s series.