The second story in the second set of the Fourth Doctor Adventures volume 8 is Fever Island by Jonathan Barnes. As is often the way it serves as an interlude amongst the other stories and provides a break from the Syndicate’s activities. It is nonetheless rather splendid!

Fever Island

You can a sense of the story from the synopsis:

Jason Vane is England’s suavest secret agent, and today he’s on his deadliest mission yet. Tracking down the evil Okulov… before he destroys the world.

The Doctor, Ann and K9 are, in contrast, finding their own mission a little hard to complete. A strange storm in the vortex has swept them back in time, back to Earth in 1978 and a strange place called ‘Fever Island’. 

A place where their worst nightmares are about to come true…

Jason Vane (Gethin Anthony) is a very tongue-in-cheek Bondesque hero on a mission. He arrives on Fever Island around the same time as the TARDIS (which was blown of course by a vortex storm) and we soon find things aren’t always what they seem, and Okulov may prove too much for even the Doctor to defeat. Add a fanatical scientist, ill-advised experiments and a strange mist and you get all the ingredients for a romp with unlikely narrow escapes, noble sacrifice and even some romance. Tom Baker even gets to take on a very different aspect of the Doctor and seems to relish the experience.

A great cast also includes Barnaby Edwards, Carolyn Seymour, David Rintoul and Bettrys Jones and it’s entertainment plus some musings on the nature of dreams.

It might not advance the bigger story, but does let us see Ann Kelso back in 1978, almost when she joined the TARDIS. Has she been changed by her time in the TARDIS or have we merely learned more about who she is? Or not? Next stop the two-part finale!