Gallifrey Lies…
Returning to her original homeworld, Romana finds Gallifrey to be cold and empty… the corridors of the Capitol lie silent and the wastelands are populated only by a handful of primitive monsters.
Her only hope lies with the appearance of a strange young woman: a woman with a masterplan so devious it makes Romana’s own masterplans look decidedly not-devious-at-all…
How far would Romana go to save her world? Would she risk the Web of Time? And who is the mysterious stranger watching from the shadows…?
GALLIFREY: RENAISSANCE
So after the Daleks gave the Gallifrey series a much needed and long awaited shot in the arm in “Extermination,” we follow it up with a story featuring exactly four (and a fifth at the end) characters on an otherwise deserted Gallifrey? It’s an interesting decision, and actually a fairly successful one, that marks James Goss’s “Renaissance.” They’re finally back on the original Gallifrey, which is now devastated by the Dogma virus and haunted by monstrous survivors, both of which are basically written out and solved between scenes. This allows the story to get on with its own devices, but it’s pretty unrewarding to anyone looking for an actual resolution to the cliffhanger from all the way back in the third series. It’s also full of unnecessary, distracting continuity references that I think are supposed to be subtle hints toward the conclusion but actually come off as gigantic warning sirens. But the central idea is fantastic: a future incarnation of Romana flees the Time War into Gallifrey’s history in an attempt to change the future and make Gallifrey more prepared to confront the battles ahead. She even brings the entire Citadel back with her. And the new Romana is fantastic – Goss keeps the character recognizably the same person but completely changes Romana’s characteristic iciness, leading to a more emotional figure that will happily give hugs. Juliet Landau is equally fantastic casting, too. I’m not enamored with the ending, though – after a quiet, slow-burning story like this, having all the characters standing around screaming descriptions to each other is rather deflating and robs the scene of most of its tension. But in spite of all that, you can’t get more exciting than that cliffhanger! Overall, much more flawed than “Extermination,” but still worth a listen. I’m curious to see how this ends, which is something I didn’t expect to say coming into this set.
6/10