The Time War between Daleks and Time Lords rages across the history of the cosmos. Nowhere is safe. Worlds are ravaged by battles beyond their understanding, but certain other races hunger to fight in the ultimate conflict. When Earth comes under threat, the War Doctor is drawn into Ollistra’s schemes once again. But the wily Time Lord Cardinal has not foreseen every move. The Dalek Time Strategist has its own game-pieces in play, and when volatile forces with their own agenda join the fray, no-one can predict how the war might turn…
3.1 The Shadow Vortex by David Llewellyn
Cardinal Ollistra exploits the War Doctor’s affection for Earth to send him to East Berlin, 1961, on the trail of a Dalek agent. Lara Zannis has breached the planet’s quantum shield on a very special mission for the Dalek Time Strategist. Caught between MI6 and the KGB, the War Doctor must first escape the Stasi before he can hope to stop Lara. Cold War scientists are about to make a breakthrough – the Daleks want control of the ‘Shadow Vortex’, and Agent Zannis can provide it.
3.2 The Eternity Cage by Andrew Smith
Sontarans are the ultimate warriors – so they believe – and the Time War the ultimate conflict. Denied that glory by Skaro and Gallifrey alike, General Fesk of the Eighth Sontaran Battle Fleet employs a dangerous strategy to draw both sides to the planet Rovidia and prove his forces worthy. Meanwhile, the War Doctor leads a rescue mission, aided by Rovidian street-urchin Kalan. Neither Daleks nor Time Lords expect the Sontarans to be so fearsome a foe, until they uncover the secret of the Eternity Cage.
3.3 Eye of Harmony by Ken Bentley
In the aftermath of events on Rovidia, the Dalek Time Strategist is presented with a unique opportunity to strike a lethal blow to the heart of Gallifrey. A devastating power is set to be unleashed, and with agents in place ready to do the bidding of the Dalek Time Strategist, the future of the Time War could turn in an instant. Trapped inside a critically-damaged Battle-TARDIS, hopelessly adrift in the Time Vortex, the War Doctor and his allies have a final desperate fight on their hands…
THE WAR DOCTOR: THE SHADOW VORTEX
I was encouraged when the second War Doctor set concluded with “The Neverwhen,” a story that finally embraced the potential of telling stories in this unexplored era of Doctor Who history. I was therefore hopeful for the third set, Agents of Chaos, to see where things would go. But the first story in the set, David Llewellyn’s “The Shadow Vortex,” disappointed me again.
This story brings the Time War to Earth. We learn that certain planets, including Earth, are protected from the War by Time Lord “quantum shields,” and then the shield is immediately taken down to render that plot point largely irrelevant. But it allows us to journey to East Berlin in 1961, where the Doctor is pursuing a Dalek agent in an attempt to avert disaster. While there, he befriends a Stasi officer (Timothy Speyer), and they team up to prevent the Dalek agent from destroying the planet. It’s incredibly straightforward; there isn’t a surprising or interesting moment in the entire running time.
You might find it odd that the Doctor would run around with a Stasi officer, but don’t worry, he’s a good guy, deep down. Still, there’s potential here for conflict: would their values conflict? Could the Doctor really trust him? Would their relationship reveal crucial ways in which the War Doctor differs from his predecessors? Unfortunately, the answer to all of those questions is “no.” And what about the Earth angle? Surely the story focuses heavily on the implications of drawing Earth into the Time War, and how that planet’s important history cannot risk changing? With the proximity to recent historical events, obviously the story draws parallels between the Cold War and the Time War, right? How about the Daleks themselves? The obvious opportunity to compare and contrast them to the East German secret police must have been taken, right? Again: none of those ideas are explored at all.
The plot isn’t anything to write home about. Everything concludes with a showdown on a rooftop, with the titular Shadow Vortex opening a path for the Daleks to invade Earth. There doesn’t appear to be any way for the Doctor to win, as he has no way to drive millions of Daleks off the planet once they’ve arrived. But there’s one way to win – go back in time a few minutes and change history so the Shadow Vortex doesn’t open! Of course, the rules of Doctor Who specifically prohibit doing that, because if the Doctor can change his own history then every single story can be solved with the TARDIS. But when confronted with these rules, the Doctor just hand-waves them away, saying there are no rules in the Time War. Fine – so why doesn’t he do this in every story?
There’s not much to say about “The Shadow Vortex.” It’s a straightforward Doctor Who action story with a historical setting. The acting is largely good, though Speyer’s German accent verges on comedic, and the production is fine. John Hurt is great, though he’s wasted on stories like this. We’re only getting 12 of these, can we at least try to do something new with them?
Mediocre.
5/10
THE WAR DOCTOR: THE ETERNITY CAGE
You can tell when Big Finish is in need of ideas: when they start rolling out “x meets y” stories. K-9 meets the Daleks! Leela meets the Cybermen! Well, we’re at the eighth War Doctor story, Andrew Smith’s “The Eternity Cage,” and we’re already here: the War Doctor meets the Sontarans! That it also isn’t very good is almost beside the point.
First of all, didn’t Andrew Smith already write this story? Wasn’t “The Sontaran Ordeal” a story about the Time War and how the Sontarans are desperate to get involved? Wasn’t it also about an unrelated planet and how it suffers collateral damage from the War? Because that’s exactly what we get here, with the difference being that “The Sontaran Ordeal” was intelligently written and “The Eternity Cage” is little more than a generic action epic. In this story, we learn absolutely nothing of value about the Sontarans. Yes, they’re warlike. Yes, they want to join the greatest war of all time. So they steal some Time Lord technology and use it to blackmail the Time Lords and the Daleks into allowing them into the war. Not a bad idea – at least until Smith completely undercuts it by revealing that the Sontarans never understood how to use the Time Lord technology in the first place. It’s a little disconcerting to have every character dismiss the Sontarans out of hand and then turn out to be right; shouldn’t they accomplish something on their own if you want this to be perceived as anything other than a distraction? But no, I guess they’re just stupid; so much for the intriguing culture on display in “The Sontaran Ordeal.”
This story also introduces the Dalek Time Strategist, a character that is apparently different from the Dalek Time Controller but in ways I have yet to notice. It’s voiced by Nick Briggs, and for possibly the first time ever he gets a Dalek voice wrong. This doesn’t sound like a Dalek; it sounds like Briggs whispering into a voice filter. Talk about a breach of the suspension of disbelief! Fortunately, his other Dalek voices are excellent as usual, but this was a bad route to take. As for the Time Strategist itself, there’s not much to say. It claims to see the future and has apparently been engineering events from behind the scenes. Can we not just stipulate at this point that there are smart Daleks and spare ourselves this litany of wheezing, growling Dalek geniuses working behind the scenes? In this story, the Sontarans capture the Time Strategist, it yells a lot about exterminating everything, and it eventually escapes. Perhaps it was part of the master plan? Who knows? There’s a brief conversation between Ollistra and the Time Strategist where she tries to level with the Dalek and converse with it as an equal… and it lasts for about 20 seconds before the Dalek starts ranting and raving again. If you’re not going to do anything interesting, why bother?
The whole plot with the Eternity Cage is dragged out beyond the bounds of reason. There’s a Time Lord trapped in it, being used as a power source by the Sontarans – but he’s actually running things himself and the Sontarans don’t know! See how easy that was to explain? The story didn’t, because it spelled out this Time Lord’s story in excruciating detail, at one point even having the Doctor narrate his memories over sounds of him grunting in pain.
Speaking of the Doctor, the War Doctor is unconvincing at best in this story. It’s not John Hurt’s fault, but at this point he’s just playing another cuddly, friendly incarnation of the Doctor. There’s a moment in which the War Doctor holds off on delivering the winning blow because he wants to give the Sontarans a chance to do the right thing. The Doctor didn’t do this “must give them a chance” thing in the classic series, but he started doing it in the new series. Why? What changed in his life to make him insist upon something like that? Oh, right, it was the giant Time War he fought in that he ended by not giving anyone a chance but just blowing both sides up. So why is the War Doctor, the one who’s supposed to be accruing blood on his hands, acting just like his future post-trauma incarnations? This is a dreadful misunderstanding of the character on Smith’s part, and a major reason why the story doesn’t work.
Even the production isn’t great. The direction and sound design are confusing in places, and some of the performances boggle the mind. I love Jacqueline Pearce, but she sounds like she has no idea what she’s saying. Josh Bolt’s turn as Kalan can be charitably described as wooden, and the less said about Honeysuckle Weeks’ dreadful performance as Heleyna, the better. And they’re all back in the finale! Hooray! This is a low point for the series. I hope it’s the lowest.
Not good at all.
3/10
THE WAR DOCTOR: EYE OF HARMONY
I keep coming back to this question: what is the point of these War Doctor stories? Is Big Finish actually making any sort of effort to tell new, unique stories set in a previously unexplored (and, in fact, forbidden) part of Doctor Who history, or are they just pumping out a bunch of generic action epics, sticking John Hurt on the cover, and hoping the sales roll in? I hope it’s the former, but I only see evidence of the latter, and the conclusion of the third set, “Eye of Harmony” by Ken Bentley, does nothing to change my mind.
The problem can be summed up via plot summary: the Daleks have a scheme to win the Time War by blowing up the Eye of Harmony using dark matter bombs. Evidently, this will disrupt all of Time Lord history and remove them from the Daleks’ path to universal domination. Fine, but won’t that erase the Time War itself? Wasn’t the Doctor’s interference in Dalek history ironically crucial to their evolution? That’s the problem with throwing concepts like this around in generic action stories: the script necessarily avoids engaging with anything interesting in lieu of presenting things exploding. Worse, though, is the second half of their plan. How will they access the Eye of Harmony, you ask? That’s where Heleyna (Honeysuckle Weeks, absolutely terrible) comes in: she’s a disillusioned Time Lord whose grandfather died opposing Gallifreyan entry into the Time War. So if the Daleks succeed, the Time War will be averted, and her grandfather will still be alive! I’m a mere human, and it took me less than half a second to see multiple obvious flaws in that thinking. I understand she’s dealing with emotional trauma, but isn’t she also a member of the most ancient and powerful race in the entire universe? Maybe she’s just a really, really stupid Time Lord? So you’ve got a boring, obvious plan that turns around a character being utterly idiotic. Why should I care about this?
There’s nothing interesting here. The Doctor, ostensibly the focal point of these stories, is kept away from the main action for far too much of the story. The Daleks’ plan is nonsensical. The story suggests infighting among the Time Lords over the Time War but doesn’t show us any examples of that apart from the aforementioned awful Heleyna plot. The Doctor is flying around in a “battle TARDIS” that doesn’t seem to do anything that his normal TARDIS doesn’t. We spend much of the story with Ollistra and observe her in a great deal of distress – and learn almost nothing about her in the process. She’s a determined military leader who’s willing to put her personal qualms aside in favor of what she sees as the greater good, and this leads to conflict with the Doctor from time to time. That’s not an interesting character, that’s a pile of clichés. Speaking of Ollistra, what’s going on with the end of the story? “Oh, Doctor, you’re all hearts?” So now they get along well enough to trade quips like that?
I don’t want to keep talking about this story. Much like “The Eternity Cage,” it’s boring, the characters are flat, and the acting isn’t even good. The production values throughout the set are generally okay, but there aren’t any memorable instances of sound design or memorable parts of the score. I don’t know if RTD was right that it’s impossible to dramatize the Time War, but this is not how you do it. The fourth War Doctor set should be the last one. There’s no point to doing more.
Snore.
4/10