When an injury the Doctor received from an alien plant becomes seriously infected, Susan has to venture forth in search of medicine. She finds herself in what seems to be an abandoned hospital on a colony world that uses nanotechnology to monitor wellness. Unfortunately, that reliance on nanotech has left the populace open to terrorist acts from a mysterious hacker, as evidenced by the soldier she comes across that is simply...shut down.
The story, by Martin Day, of 'The Sleeping Blood' is at turns compelling and sound. It surprises me that the various writers working with Big Finish haven't exploited the time before 'The Unearthly Child' more. However, I found this first part lacking. Day spends so much time in expository mode where he explains the technology, the culture and the world--he even takes a few lines to explain how this planet was named--that the plot doesn't seem to start until the last few minutes of the episode. And because it takes so long for the story to get underway, I get no sense of the stakes or the characters--when one is killed by the hacker shutting down the nanotech in her body, I felt nothing. There had to be a better way to either better disseminate the backstory or put everything in one place.
I'm not sure where this story is going, but the feeling I got was that this segment of the play spent a little under a half an hour to get to the point where the story actually begins. In these two parters, I should feel in the middle of the second act by the time I get to the cliffhanger...but I feel like we're in the earliest part of the first act. I'm still interested in what develops...I just worry I am about to be disappointed by this serial overall.
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