a prequel to the classic Fourth Doctor story The Talons of Weng-Chiang, telling the future history of how Magnus Greel (played by Angus Wright) got his alien sidekick (played chillingly by Rupert Frazer) to design the Peking Homunculus, and eventually fled the ruins of the 51st century leaving conflict and destruction behind him. The hints that we are given in Talons are considerably augmented by Platt's vivid imagination, in particular how he manages to insert Nyssa and Turlough into Greel's inner circle; the world of Magnus Greel is credibly sketched out. It would have been very easy to write a bad prequel to Talons, and we have instead a good one. (Though the story's treatment of the Time Agents seemed to me at odds with what we know of them from New Who and Torchwood.) ( )