While a sequel to the classic Robots of Death sounds like a good day, the actual execution in Nicholas Briggs' new Big Finish audio is severely lacking. Mainly because the mystery here is no mystery.
If you remember the original, a sandminer was terrorized by a ship full of robots that had been reprogrammed to kill. It also introduced the idea of "robophobia," an unconditional fear of their mechanical helpers. That gets expanded somewhat here. This time, the isolated location is a large space freighter ferrying more than 100,000 robots. Crew members start to die and it looks like the robots are to blame.
The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) is on the case in that mysterious, "I know what's happening but I'm not going to tell the characters any of what I know, ha ha" way. There's no companion here, but the handful of characters - especially medtech Liv (Nicola Walker) - serve that role. Part of the problem is that they are so dim. That might have been an interesting approach to the story, but I don't think it's intentional. Instead, their inability to see the solution staring them in the face for most of the story is there to make sure the story stretches out over four episodes.
The key problem is that Briggs' script doesn't take any twists at all. Suspicion falls onto one character early one and never wavers at all. Even that character's dark secret is incredibly easy to guess.
On the upside, the performances are good throughout the cast and it's nice to hear McCoy bouncing off different actors (not that I don't love the regular companions) for once.
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