Doctor Who: Hooklight 2

The Fifth Doctor Adventures #14

by Tim Foley

There is a light that must never be lit...
The TARDIS team are scattered throughout Morning. The Doctor is trapped in the past, Tegan is lost on the edge of the system, and Nyssa wrestles with the most terrible of forces. Only Adric remains to finish this quest, yet the young Alzarian will find himself sorely challenged. Can they all reach the Dark Forge in time? Who will be lost along the way?
For there is another who works in the shadows. Someone who once made a terrible mistake and will stop at nothing to put things right. The Doctor is following the plan of the Oracle, someone who knows him all too well and may try to oppose him.

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook, Time Travel

Audio CD

First published May 15, 2025

About the author

Tim Foley is an artist and illustrator born in Flint, Michigan, in 1962. Over the past quarter century, his clients have included national and international magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies such as the Wall Street Journal, Cricket Magazine, New York Newsday, LA Weekly, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Reviews

[Seb Hasi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hooklight 2 picked up after a very strong first boxset, and I am pleased to say it did not disappoint. What I appreciated in this set was the fact that the focus was much more on character than on plot. We got more than enough plot in the last instalment, so it was a pleasure to hear Adric be the Doctor, Tegan fall in love, and Nyssa do some evil nonsense. Only the most interesting of side characters have a strong presence in these episodes and that did resolve the problem of too much going on, and beside the final episode being fully focused on the hooklight; it was the effects of the Hooklight on the characters that was the focus. My only criticism is that the story was a little bit lacking in Adric, but that is easily explained by his heavy presence in Hooklight 1; although he didn’t really get to do much there when the focus was on Davlin Crux. It was good though that he wasn’t entirely absent and did play a part in the resolution, I just always want more Adric as he is one of my favourite companions. When it comes to Tegan my expectations were limited, as I was used to her unhelpfully complaining about every situation and blaming people when she could easily help. It was a very crazy surprise to me then, that she has arguably the best character journey/tragedy of the whole story. Her unexpected romance with Oscar was so sweet, and I did fight it at first, but eventually I was just laughing along to all the silly adorable moments between the two. It’s very rare for me to care at all about the side characters in a story to any great extent, but even I was just hoping for the happy ending I knew could never happen. The Doctor is more involved with Davlin Crux in the very narrative driven part of the story, and the two make a great pair so the dialogue there did actually entertain rather than just confuse; considering the amount of technobabble and general sci-fi nonsense. It could be argued Nyssa is the main character as the most important member of the Tardis team to the narrative, and sort of the villain (the cover does render that not a spoiler at all), so I did look for positives there. I’ve always found Nyssa to be quite bland and it’s hardly like Hooklight gave her character a fun injection, it’s more that she gets to play a more sinister and psychological character than just ‘the quiet one who asks a lot of questions’. I found the scenes with her conversing with the Hooklight very interesting, and it felt like the power struggle between the two was rather clever; especially in the fact the audience are the only ones privy to the what’s going on, so the other characters wild assumptions do allow the Hooklight to reign evil given they are often doing the wrong thing to stop it. Dr Myles is barely in the set, which was a strange decision considering she features so heavily in the previous which had way too much going on. What did help it feel like it was not a waste at all is that she is effectively paired with the gorgeous 8th Doctor. His presence is explained quite simply, evil Time War stuff needs the Hooklight so he needs to stop it from becoming out of control as it did in his fifth incarnation. Paul McGann doesn’t have too much to do in the story, and that’s a shame but he does have some lovely scenes and that was absolutely enough. It’s clear from the offset that it’s not going to be a multi-doctor story, so I did keep my expectations limited there; but the fake-out cover they used which only got changed to the Mcgann one on release day does somewhat make you assume he’ll have more to do. Initially that point made me think it isn’t a set deserving of five stars, but the realisation that I still loved all that when on regardless proved it did. My only other note really is that defeating the Hooklight was quite an ex machina, but it was done with self-aware bombast and made for some very exciting and fun scenes at the end.

[Jacob Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hooklight, like too many great Doctor Who scripts, builds up a convoluted tapestry in the promise of an eventual clarity that never quite arrives. To illustrate this point, here are a few specific gripes:

The Eighth Doctor's plan never really makes sense, for all that we see it work.

Adric's banging on the Jade Pagoda in earshot of the Eighth Doctor at the end of Hooklight 1 promises a convergence that never pays off, though one can rationalize the timey-wimey logistics if one has to.

The resolution, as also in too many great Doctor Who scripts, feels incredibly rushed, despite the methodical pacing of the rest of the story. It is never once suggested throughout the Nyssa-Nura relationship that Nura will wear Nyssa out or need a new host, so the fact that Nura instantly agrees to take on a new host in Dr. Myles, allowing for Nura's defeat, is both confusing and anticlimactic. It's also a real shame, given how easy one imagines that could have been to establish earlier.

Finally, the same reality reset that makes a story like Steven Moffat's The Big Bang a triumph sadly, in the context of Hooklight, only removes the stakes that made the story so great. I recognize that from the moment Tegan spent three years apart from the TARDIS team, such a reset was inevitable, it is just that it makes this brilliant story and its excellent character work feel a bit cheap, a bummer of a taste to leave in the listener's mouth right at the end.

Despite all of my nitpicks, and for all that Hooklight 2 fails to stick the landing of the incredible Hooklight 1, this is still a brilliant epic that Tim Foley has given us. The world of Morning feels fleshed out and alive in a way that even stalwart Who locations like Skaro, New Earth, and Gallifrey rarely have. The adventure feels both familiar and unprecedented, successfully walking the line that famed Who pastiches like Pyramid of Mars and The Curse of Fenric do. Overall, it simply does what all Doctor Who stories should be striving to do: showing us something we've never seen before.

And it's better than The Caves of Androzani.

[Daniel Cork · Rating 5 out of 5]

So here we are with the concluding set for "Hooklight", a 12-part epic written by Tim Foley. I adored the first set, meaning this second set had a lot to live up to. Despite Big Finish updating the cover, though, I will leave one or two things left unsaid.

Hooklight has escaped. Nyssa is in danger. The Doctor's time has run out. Tegan is gone and Adric is alone with a man he's only just met. All of Morning is in danger and only one man can stop everything from crumbling into entropy. The end is here.

Tim Foley's concluding final 6-parts for Hooklight continues to raise the stakes with brilliant ideas, atmosphere, moments of terror and plenty of emotional character drama. This is a box set that concludes the previous set brilliantly. Such an imaginative 12-part adventure with plenty of twists and turns. I absolutely adored these sets, and the cast were all amazing.

Overall: It's hard to say much about the second set without spoiling anything from the first one, but I'd highly recommend this 12-part epic, it's phenomenal! 10/10

[Joseph S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stay after the credits!


Was a little hard to follow.

[Marcel Driel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good, really epic and sometimes even touching, with a satisfying ending. Could have been a bit shorter, though.