When a terrorist group acquires a deadly temporal weapon, President Romana sends Leela and K9 to the planet Gryben to investigate.
When a terrorist group acquires a deadly temporal weapon, President Romana sends Leela and K9 to the planet Gryben to investigate.
GALLIFREY: WEAPON OF CHOICE
March of 2004, a year before Russell T. Davies’ relaunch of Doctor Who was to hit the airwaves, and Big Finish once again found itself dipping into the spinoff well. This time, the target was Gallifrey: home planet of the Doctor and his fellow Time Lords, and final destination of several television companions. It’s obvious from the first play, Alan Barnes’ “Weapon of Choice,” that this series aspires to be a political action thriller in the vein of “State of Play” or “Spooks” or “24,” but it’s also obvious from the first play that BF did not start things off on the right foot.
What annoys me the most about this script is its treatment of Gallifrey itself. The planet — and its Time Lord civilization — has always been treated as having one foot in mythology: either from the outright incomprehensible powers of “The War Games” or Lawrence Miles’ books or to the backstabbing, self-absorbed political environments of “The Deadly Assassin” or “The Trial of a Time Lord” that have black hole converters in the basement and move entire solar systems across galaxies to cover up conspiracies. Even Barnes himself accomplishes this in “Neverland” — I didn’t care for the story, but the idea of Neverland itself adds texture to what we know of the planet. “Weapon of Choice,” though, adds absolutely nothing. There’s no mystery here, no hint of greater powers working under the surface, just endless back-and-forth political banter. Lalla Ward plays Romana exceptionally well, but the way the character is written makes me wonder how on earth she ever got elected President. It’s down to Gary Russell’s direction and David Darlington’s sound design, too: there’s absolutely no sense of scale to the place. This is supposed to be the oldest, mightiest civilization in the universe, and it sounds like a few rooms in a faceless office building. I admit that this is only the first story in three seasons’ worth of material, but as a vehicle to capture the attention, this story fails.
As for the plot itself, well, the fact that the titular weapon is called a “timonic fusion device” — that’s “time-onic” — should tell you all you need to know about the level of imagination on display. All the characters hit familiar beats: Leela is savage-but-wise, both K9s are smarmy, there’s a sub-Robert Holmes con man named Mephistopheles Arkadian (Hugo Myatt), and there’s a fanatic protestor/terrorist (Helen Goldwyn) who demands that time travel be made free to all races. It’s competently presented, if you like this sort of thing but don’t demand any semblance of originality. The pacing drags a bit, but with only one CD to work with, Barnes’ usual rambling is curtailed significantly. Overall, “Weapon of Choice” is disappointing because it seems to lack ambition — but it does achieve a basic level of competence that earns it an average grade.
5/10