Gallifrey kills…
The President of the High Council wants Romana dead. The Temporal Intervention Agency has been dispatched to hunt her down. Its mission: to eliminate her from the timelines for ever. It would be as though she had never existed…
Only an old friend can offer Romana any hope of survival. An acquaintance she and Leela once shared. One they haven’t seen in years.
But time is running out. Death is fast approaching. And this time, not everyone can survive… with or without the Doctor.
GALLIFREY: DISASSEMBLED
It seems obvious that this series is going to amount to little more than our heroes wandering around various Gallifreys, though at this point their motive for doing so isn’t completely clear. Fortunately, “Disassembled,” written by Justin Richards, manages to present an alternate universe that actually tells us useful information about the “real” characters while also presenting entertaining alternate versions. Romana is conceptually aware of the idea of the Burner, the President’s personal assassin, but the revelation that Braxiatel has held and presumably still holds that position adds some interesting shade to his character, especially in light of how the alternate universe Doctor executes his duties. Of course, at the end they apparently write Brax out of the series, but I won’t be surprised if he turns up again. The final scene with Benny doesn’t really mean anything to me as I haven’t heard any of those audios, but apparently it’s a giant continuity headache. Colin Baker is fantastic in this: he starts out playing a Doctor who opposes the local culture of interference, but as we learn his true nature, Baker introduces more subtleties to his performance that indicate something is definitely not right. Louise Jameson also impresses: she plays two versions of Leela, often in the same scene, and only slight variances in her speech make them into two wildly different characters. I’d eventually like something more meaningful from this series, but this was surprisingly satisfying.
Recommended.
8/10