In the guise of the first Romana, the Pandora entity seeks to control Gallifrey through mind control and manipulation.
1 Comment
Styre
on May 9, 2016 at 1:23 AM
GALLIFREY: FRACTURES
Finally — ten episodes and over two seasons into the Gallifrey series and we’ve been given an actual glimpse of impressive Time Lord technology. Admittedly, we don’t see much, but Stephen Cole’s “Fractures” uses lyrical names similar to those used by Russell T Davies — the Maelstrom Cloisters, the Anomaly Vaults, etc. Furthermore, the assassin Aesino (Lisa Bowerman) is a fantastic idea — an individual with near-infinite clones taken from one second in her personal future. The story also focuses further on character beats: Leela is blinded, and suffers a crisis of confidence as a result; Romana loses her identity and needs a friend to bring her back; Darkel, as usual, plays both sides; K9 serves Pandora but tries to break free, etc. Cole’s script wisely stays away from political machinations — this is somewhat natural, due to Pandora’s rise to power, but through focusing on the characters, “Fractures” is thus far the most accessible of the Gallifrey stories. The Gary Russell/David Darlington partnership of director and sound designer continues from the second season, and “Fractures” has the same confidence of all Big Finish productions of the latter Russell era. Unfortunately, I’m still not finding myself gripped, and so I’m reducing these reviews to one paragraph unless and until I have more to say.
GALLIFREY: FRACTURES
Finally — ten episodes and over two seasons into the Gallifrey series and we’ve been given an actual glimpse of impressive Time Lord technology. Admittedly, we don’t see much, but Stephen Cole’s “Fractures” uses lyrical names similar to those used by Russell T Davies — the Maelstrom Cloisters, the Anomaly Vaults, etc. Furthermore, the assassin Aesino (Lisa Bowerman) is a fantastic idea — an individual with near-infinite clones taken from one second in her personal future. The story also focuses further on character beats: Leela is blinded, and suffers a crisis of confidence as a result; Romana loses her identity and needs a friend to bring her back; Darkel, as usual, plays both sides; K9 serves Pandora but tries to break free, etc. Cole’s script wisely stays away from political machinations — this is somewhat natural, due to Pandora’s rise to power, but through focusing on the characters, “Fractures” is thus far the most accessible of the Gallifrey stories. The Gary Russell/David Darlington partnership of director and sound designer continues from the second season, and “Fractures” has the same confidence of all Big Finish productions of the latter Russell era. Unfortunately, I’m still not finding myself gripped, and so I’m reducing these reviews to one paragraph unless and until I have more to say.
7/10