DOCTOR WHO: TIME LORD VICTORIOUS

Daleks In Distress

RELEASED DECEMBER 60 minutes each | Cd/download

Publisher Big Finish

AUDIO DRAMA Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor finally enters the Time Lord Victorious arc in Genetics Of The Daleks . Something is very wrong aboard Starship Future. While 10,000 souls rest in cryo-sleep, a small group are awake and experimenting with the salvaged remains of a Dalek. But is it really as dead as it seems? (Spoiler: no).

The plot is traditional Who fare, but Jonathan Morris’s script builds the tension well, keeping the Doctor off-stage for a long time and exploring the motivations of the different factions on board the ship. When he does arrive, he’s straight to work saving the day, but that brings some nice subversions of expectation. For once, a Dalek doesn’t want to exterminate the Doctor, which leads to an excellent scene for Baker. An enjoyable story that riffs on past Who classics while adding a few twists of its own.

Mutually Assured Destruction caps an Eighth Doctor TLV trilogy. Alone and trapped on a Dalek time-ship, the Doctor must make his way to the command bridge to retrieve his TARDIS, relying on his wits to survive.

Big action stories like this – the plot’s almost The Raid with sink plungers – rarely work well on audio. A scene where the Doctor must dodge gunfire while in zero-g is amusing, but this is not its ideal medium. Where the tale succeeds is in focussing on the power struggle within the Dalek Time Squad. As their schemes start to fall apart, the Time

Commander and the Strategist begin actively working against each other, while the Executioner goes on a demented rampage. Lizzie Hopley’s script ekes decent drama out of voice-of-the-daleks Nicholas Briggs effectively arguing with himself for an hour, while Paul Mcgann’s Doctor runs rings around his perennial enemies.

Will Salmon

Big Finish’s final TLV release, Echoes Of Extinction (debuting as an Asda-exclusive vinyl LP) is now due in February.