‘The raw power of the very fabric of reality itself. And you dare to think you can conquer it?’
Cuthbert’s plan for the Proxima System is reaching its final phase.
The Doctor and Romana have been separated. The Doctor is aiding the Proximan fight-back. Romana and K9 are prisoners of the Daleks.
And as the countdown to the opening of the Quantum Gateway begins, the Daleks reveal their true intentions.
THE FINAL PHASE
And so, the second season of Fourth Doctor Adventures comes to a close with “The Final Phase,” the second of a two-part story written and directed by Nicholas Briggs. While it wraps up the season in (unfortunately) suitable fashion, it’s also the final appearance for the late Mary Tamm, something that casts a bittersweet pall over the proceedings. Ultimately, though, it’s just another unimpressive story in two series full of them.
Can someone please do something interesting with the Daleks again? Even “To the Death” was this same sort of story, featuring a large gang of Daleks with a ludicrous scheme up against the Doctor and a plucky band of rebels. Briggs tries so hard at the conclusion to make something out of the constant battles between the Doctor and his oldest enemies, pitting Tom Baker against the Dalek Supreme in a discussion of Dalek philosophy – but no matter what the Doctor says, no matter what position he argues, the Dalek merely defaults to its goal of conquest. “There are no gods” is an interesting line that’s immediately discarded, but otherwise it’s just boring apart from Baker’s performance. It doesn’t help that Rob Shearman did almost this exact scene a decade ago in “Jubilee” and in a much, much better way. Is it unfair to compare the two? Not at all – if you’re going to run the Doctor Who range and write your own Dalek story as the climax to a long-awaited series of Tom Baker stories, you ought to at least employ some sort of ambition. But no, instead we get lots of explosions and laser blasts and gunshots and Dalek noises and screams, all of which combine to give the story the depth of a dry pond.
It doesn’t help that Cuthbert is reduced to idiocy, either. This guy is the CEO of the most powerful corporation in human civilization, something that apparently has its tentacles extending into every aspect of human life. He’s powerful in ways that make the Earth President look weak. So when he signs a contract with the Daleks to be his enforcers, it should look convincing: he should be wielding enough power that it should at least be conceivable that the Daleks would be afraid of challenging him head-on. Then, when the inevitable betrayal came, his shock and disbelief would be understandable. Instead, it seems that they just sat down one day and signed a contract, and when the Daleks betray him he basically waves a piece of paper at them like a sad old man. OF COURSE they were lying! How on earth can he fall for that? How does the most powerful man in creation know literally nothing about the Daleks?
Oh, but the bad writing doesn’t stop there. We also have Chidak (Dominic Mafham) and Halka (Jane Slavin), two of the least inspiring, least interesting characters ever to grace our ears. They were competing politicians before the fall, and now they’re rebel leaders, and they hate each other, but really there’s a subtle undercurrent that they actually like each other! Didn’t Terry Nation die 16 years ago? Really, that reminds me what this story is: it’s “Planet of the Daleks.” Sure, there are Daleks, and the central performances are trying so hard to be compelling, but absolutely everything about the story is conspiring to be as dull as possible. Tom Baker gives a commanding performance, especially at the conclusion, and Mary Tamm gives Romana some remarkable leadership and ingenuity, and John Leeson gets that cute line about stealth mode, but what else is there? Even David Warner isn’t interesting, and that’s a crime all its own.
The production is solid. Briggs always directs his own material well, and the sound design from Alistair Lock is convincing if persistently loud and intrusive. The score captures the ‘70s feel, which I suppose we’re still expected to see as a positive after 13 releases. But in the end, “The Final Phase” is a failure. For all the talk about how Big Finish has never been stronger, they do seem to be pumping out a lot of tired old nonsense, don’t they?
Stay away.
3/10