Review by Daniel Mansfield

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When you start listening to The Beautiful and the Damned, you’d be forgiven for thinking: here we go again, another Doctor Who story about the perils of social media.

Just you wait.

Katherine White‘s script starts off as you’d expect, with the Doctor and Ash arriving on a planet where everyone is obsessed with an Instagram-like app called BestLife. Jon Culshaw‘s Doctor gives a stirring speech or two about how awful it all is, but this isn’t anything Who fans haven’t heard before.

Then come the twists. Lots of them. The Beautiful and the Damned transforms from a pretty standard commentary on social media into a damning indictment of our obsession with vanity and the ruthlessness of the rich. These are familiar themes for Doctor Who, but White manages to find a genuinely fresh lens through which to explore them.

While central antagonist Monty (Malcolm Sinclair) is written in broad strokes, Ella Dale‘s Georgia proves a fascinating character, with an unexpected journey that keeps the listener guessing until the very end. Despite being utterly irredeemable, her motivations feel very human, which makes her a delightfully complex villain. Meanwhile, Raffiella Chapman is so compelling in her role as the troubled Sky that you’ll be dying for her to hop aboard the TARDIS at the end of the story.

My one complaint is that the Doctor and Ash’s grief, which has been at the core of the series so far, is largely ignored here. White’s script sows some intriguing seeds for future stories, but, on its own, the character work feels a little underbaked compared to the previous two episodes.

That said, The Beautiful and the Damned is a thought-provoking, creative and truly shocking story so full of red herrings and twists that you’ll be hard-pressed to work out where it’s going. Add to that a heart-stopping cliffhanger, and you get another fantastic instalment in the series.

The Beautiful and the Damned is available as a download from http://www.bigfinish.com

The Twelfth Doctor Adventures continue next week with Wings of Steel