For a long time there was a fabled lost story called "Song of the Space Whale by Pat Mills" that was going to be a Davison story and then was going to be a Baker story and eventually fell off the radar forever. Until now. Except that it’s not "Song of the Space Whale" any more – Cardiff (presumably) put the ixnay on that title because of Doctor Who’s recent encounter with a star whale under Great Britain. When the title changed, Big Finish’s podcasters didn’t really say anything about the change – just that it was now Song of the Megaptera and that it was coming out soon. Well, it’s out, it’s proud and I’ve listened to it. It’s not great.

I’d say its main problem is that it doesn’t quite know what it is. At various points it tries to be:

There are probably a lot more but that’s the gist of it. It feels like there are some bits which feel very 1980s and are probably unchanged from the original drafts while other parts are contemporary and have been added to bring it up to date. But it’s been done clumsily and is like updating Knight Rider by making it sound like Michael is listening to Katy Perry while driving and trying to digitally turn Bonnie into a black woman.

When it tries to be funny it is quite embarrassing. The ship’s computer goes a bit nuts and starts talking like an 80s computer gamer. No real reason – just for a laugh. I squirmed. The guards too have a "witty" banter that is never obviously a send-up of guard banter so I have to assume it is genuinely meant to be funny. They aim for Jago and Litefoot and end up with those two from Meglos who aren’t funny either. Half way through we get a cynical old space hand who’s seen it all and done it all and has earned the right to be sarcastically insubordinate to the Captain. I only dwell on this because the extras contain the bizarre claim that what attracted the production team to this script was the characters in it. A more boring collection of witless clichés would be hard to invent.

It does have some good bits in it – the civilisation living inside the whale are quite a neat idea. They’re really just there as episode 3 padding and they aren’t even slightly believable but by episode 3 padding standards they’re quite good. The script also manages to make the idea of space whales rather plausible. Something the TV version never did. If you’ve accepted Doctor Who’s version of science – and if you’re listening to Big Finish then you probably have – then the explanation for what space whales are and how they work is quite a convincing one.