Writer: John Dorney, Lisa McMullin, Matt Fitton

 

Director: Helen Goldwyn

 

Featuring: Paul McGann, Rakhee Thakrar, Terry Malloy, Adele Anderson, Isla Blair, and Nicholas Briggs

Big Finish Release (United Kingdom)

Released: September 2020

Running Time: 5 hours

In the fourth volume of the Eighth Doctor’s adventures hovering around the edge of the Time War, he ends up in an alternate universe, deals with multiple versions of Davros, has a total loss of memory of who the Daleks are, before getting caught up in the midst of a Dalek Civil War.  It is, in short, another winner of a boxset from Big Finish, who have been really nailing the time War saga throughout their various sets and series.  Ahead will likely be SPOILERS, but if you are wondering whether this instalment is worth your time if you have enjoyed the Time War series thus far, this is on par if not better than many of the instalments.  

****POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD****

The set begins with Palindrome, Part 1 Davros living peacefully, married to a Thal, and working on his scientific endeavours, such as an interdimensional portal that can maybe let folks travel between other universes. But his happy little world is quickly disrupted when Daleks attack.  He and his wife are killed...but he awakes anyhow, but it is a day earlier than it was. And he gets killed one way or another each day, only to awake another day earlier.  The Doctor and Bliss are there, and they try their best to help this version of Davros, but that is difficult when they are travelling through time in opposite directions.  And when Davros meets, well, Davros (a version who seems far closer to what we all know) he is convinced that it may be the Doctor and Bliss who are in the wrong.  

Palindrome, Part 2 shows what happens when Davros is merged with all the alternate universe variations of himself, as planned out by the Dalek Time Strategist, and he begins moving forward in time again.  The Time Strategist is plotting to restore the Daleks, who were nearly beaten in “our” universe...and his plan is to use this dimensional portal to merge all Daleks from every universe to supply Daleks with an endless supply of Daleks.  Blow up one Dalek and a new one will pop in its place.  Obviously not an ideal situation.  

Beyond all that plot, that is honestly difficult to summarize with its wonky time mechanics, the heart of this episode is Terry Malloy’s latest performance as Davros. He starts off playing a perfectly innocent Davros from another universe, one that never grew up in an endless war, that never grew to despise Thals, one that was never injured and required the use of a travel machine, that never had hate that grew so deep, and certainly never had a need to create Daleks.  This Davros is just a nice guy, married and happily working on his own, more peaceful scientific endeavours.  But after he is merged with Davros from various alternate timelines, he struggles to maintain his peaceful nature.  He wants the Daleks to not hate indiscriminately...but he is slowly losing his own sense of self. His merger leaves him just as disfigured and in need of a chair as the Davros we all know, and while he tries to remember who he was, his hate for Thals starts to shine through.  By the end, he is utterly lost, ordering the death of his own alternate self and wife (again timey-wimey business is about here). Malloy plays it perfectly, from his innocent version, through his struggles losing his sense of self, until he is finally just the evil Davros we have always known.

After such a big epic opening, the set could lose some lustre going forward.  How do you maintain that level?  Luckily while the third story is certainly smaller and scale and intensity, it is still quite good, and leads directly into the big conclusion. In Dreadshade the Doctor and Bliss return to their own universe, but their memories are faulty.  They don’t remember who each other are.  They can remember their names and whether they are human or Time Lord...they have some basics, but there are huge swaths of their memory that are missing.  Unfortunately, this is the case for almost everyone they meet.  

Before the mass memory loss, the Twelve was placed inside a Time Lord weapon vault and is in stasis.  In there with her was a Dreadshade, a creature that can be trained to fear a specific thing and then when it is confronted with enough of that very thing will wipe it all out.  It was trained for Daleks, but when the Daleks were wiped out and forgotten, the Dreadshade forgot what it was afraid of...and the Twelve has trained it to fear Time Lords. While the Doctor and Time Lords slowly figure this out, they are also having the sense that the Time War has finally ended, whatever their enemy is...is finally gone. Then the Doctor and Bliss remember the warning they were coming with.  The Daleks aren’t just coming back.  They are coming back with a vengeance.  

Everything closes up Restoration of the Daleks, as the Time Strategist schemes to use Davros to restore the Daleks and then eliminate him, restoring the Emperor as well.  It basically leads to a sped-up version of Dalek history.  Davros helps create them, some turn on him over his purity, the Emperor is created and the Daleks follow his word, but then Davros convinces some Daleks to follow him instead, it leads into civil war...it isn’t what the Strategist hoped for.  The Doctor and gang are able to destroy the Dimensional Portal and stop the Strategist’s endless Dalek scheme. The Daleks lock up Davros on the order of the Emperor, who believes there is still some use to be had from Davros.  This pleases the maniacal Davros.  

While the Eighth Doctor is not nearly as front and centre during this set, the set does end with a cliffhanger that is very dear to that Doctor...from out of the multiverse came a stasis pod...and within that pod: his great-grandson Alex.  For those struggling to remember in the long past continuity of the Eighth Doctor’s audio run, Alex was Susan’s son introduced during the Lucie Miller days, back in 2009.  He first appeared in a one-off adventure in-between Eighth Doctor seasons, then played a pivotal role in the final season with Lucie Miller, being killed along with many of the Doctor’s friends.  There has been a ton of material both following directly on from those losses, and the Doctor’s Time War stories are meant to be much further on in his history than any of those, but needless to say, this memory being brought back to life should bring up some very personal feelings for the Doctor going forward.  

Time War 4 is great.  Maybe the best entry for the series yet. Terry Malloy is such a key part of this boxset that it might as well have been called Davros: Time War as opposed to Eighth Doctor: Time War.  If I had any complaint, it is an echo from a previous set: Bliss does not feel like a fully realized character.  She just feels like “Generic Companion #342.”  She is well performed but has been given no dimension by the writing, no clear characteristics that make her feel unique.  She is just too blank.  Four sets in?  That is a shame.  Beyond that?  This is a hell of a set.

Writer: Jody Houser

Artist: Roberta Ingranata

Colourist: Enrica Eren Angiolini

46 Pages

Published by Titan Comics - October 2020

Defender of the Daleks concludes here in the second part of the Titan Time Lord Victorious offering. The Doctor continues to work with the Daleks to stop the Hond from escaping and destroying everyone in the universe. Can the Doctor stop the Hond from destroying everything?  Can he work WITH the Daleks?  Even if he wins, can he still lose?  It’s an entertaining story, and without getting too deep into any spoiler territory, I think this is one of writer Jody Houser’s stronger efforts. Much like the Thirteenth/Tenth Doctor team up that launched the seemingly now-dormant Thirteenth Doctor comic that she penned...this story feels far more complete and has better pacing, which was not a strength for the bulk of the Thirteenth Doctor’s “Year One” stories.  

This is, ultimately, a fairly successful close to this segment of the cross-platform storyline that is the “Time Lord Victorious” thing.  So far I have read these two Titan installments and begun listening to the Big Finish offerings...the connections between them seem loose.  I understand that this is a story in which each installment needs to both fit into a larger puzzle AND stand entirely on it’s own...but as this story wrapped up, I didn’t feel like it was so much part of a larger ongoing story, as much as it was just a fairly entertaining one-off.  

But as long as it is a good read, does that really matter much? Who cares if the larger multi-media story isn’t quite coming into view?  If I was only going to read this comic, I would be satisfied as a one-off Tenth Doctor Adventure.  It doesn’t leave you craving more or where it all might go next, but it is solid.  In the end...that is enough. 

Writer: Carrie Thompson

Director: Scott Handcock

Featuring: Paul McGann, Silas Carson, Jack DeVos, Pauline Eyre, Misha Malcolm, Martin McDougall, Melanie Stevens

 

Big Finish Release (United Kingdom)

Released October 2020

Running Time: 1 hour

 

Big Finish enters into the Time Lord Victorious game with He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not, which is a standard Eighth Doctor story involving heading for a vacation, stumbling into some trouble with the first people he meets, and trying to keep everyone safe from a murderous Ood, all while trying to sort out why the planet and time seem to be completely off-kilter.

The basic story of this feels like it has little to do with the overarching Victorious business, but it is more of a set up for things to come, this is mostly in the “planet where the society and art that should be there, is replaced with a wasteland and small population” background, and less to do with the main plot, which involves two young lovers trying to escape an Ood bent on murdering the lover of his employer’s daughter, because the daughter was genetically engineered to dote on the father, and not love anyone else. 

This is, obviously, pretty standard but good ol’ fashioned Doctor Who plotting.  Does it have anything to do with the Time Lord Victorious or the Daleks or any of that other stuff?  Not really.  But it is well-produced (I expect little else from Big Finish these days), with good performances and a decent little adventure for the always entertaining Paul McGann.  

In the end, the Doctor saves the day and attempts to save the Ood if it promises not to kill the girl...but the TARDIS has other plans and begins to take off...the Doctor narrowly gets aboard but the Ood gets sucked into the Vortex...and then the Doctor ends up as a prisoner of the Daleks!  Next adventure I presume! 

The BBC and it’s various Doctor Who licensees have teamed up to create a multi-platform story arc, stories that span books, comics, audios and even an animated mini-series focusing on the Daleks. Beyond the usual spin-off media outlets, they are even doing more immersive entertainment adventures like Escape Rooms and Immersive Theater experiences. Allegedly, much of it is designed so you don’t need it all to enjoy the individual bits (so the comics should stand on their own without needing an audio or an Escape Room for it to all make sense). This is good, because as an American there was little chance of me getting a Dalek Awakes Escape Room anywhere near me. It seems the more immersive stuff is for UK folks only. 

And that is fine. I could see some interest in the theater thing, but I am not terribly interested in an Escape Room. But I do love audios and comics. I wasn’t sure how much I would get into with this multimedia extravaganza. I wanted to listen to audio adventures because if it has the Eighth or Tenth Doctors, I am there. But I happened to see my digital library had a copy of Time Lord Victorious #1 (apparently subtitled “Defender of the Daleks” though I did not see that title anywhere on it), and I decided to give it a whirl. And it is so entertaining I ate it up. 

The Tenth Doctor awakes in his TARDIS with some partial amnesia, confused as to where he has been and what he was up to, and not sure where he is going. When he lands he is surrounded by Daleks who wish to take him to the Emperor of the Daleks. He tried to escape, but no matter where he lands, the Daleks are waiting. He finally decides to see the Emperor. Turns out the Daleks want his help. It seems there is an ancient race, a race of myth, called the Hond. Like the Daleks they want to destroy all life in the universe...they even want to destroy themselves when they wipe out the rest. They intend to take out the Daleks first...and since the Doctor isn’t for all life in the universe being snuffed out he begrudgingly decides to help the Daleks. 

I have found Jody Houser’s work on the Thirteenth Doctor to be a bit hit or miss. She has had interesting set ups but the endings have always felt rushed and unsatisfying to me. But this feels so well put together as a set-up...I just have a feeling it is going to have a solid follow-up. This is my first taste of the multi-platform story, but it has certainly captured my interest! I look forward to sampling a but more. 

Writer: Matt Fitton, John Dorney, Lisa McMullin, & David K Barnes
Director: Ken Bentley

 

Featuring: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Rebecca Root, Tom Price, & Tom Baker

Big Finish Release (United Kingdom)

Released June 2020

Running Time: 5 hours

Since at least 2007, the Eighth Doctor has been pretty much bouncing from one epic storyline to the next.  His adventures with Lucie Miller began his epic journey, where he had four series styled closer in tone and style to the revived version of the series, often ending in big epic finales.  This concluded with a big arc involving the Daleks and the Doctor facing great personal loss.  This led directly into the 4-set series Dark Eyes in which the Doctor yet again battled the Daleks (and eventually the Master) across time and space.  From there was the epics Doom Coalition and Ravenous.  While those have been his regular ongoing adventures, he has also starred in a series of sets set later in his timeline, once again in big epic adventures during the Time War.  Simply put, the Eighth Doctor has been put through the ringer.  He has been bouncing from big giant arc to big giant arc, and now, finally...things have quieted down a bit.  

The TARDIS has crash-landed on Earth in 2020 and has been depleted.  Right now it is just a box.So the Doctor, Liv, and Helen decide to take up shelter in the Doctor’s house on Baker Street...only they have found that it has been turned into a series of flats.  The Doctor being the owner has now become the Landlord.  Liv and Helen have attempted to take up the main duties of maintaining the building and the financial aspects...while the Doctor becomes reclusive and obsessed with fixing up the TARDIS (currently a seemingly impossible task).  Also featured is Tom Baker, who reprises his role as the mysterious Curator (from Day of the Doctor), who offers some mysterious warnings to Liv and Helen.  Lost Property really sets the tone for this new series. It is smaller, quieter, and it is genuinely refreshing.  I have enjoyed the big sets up to now, but you can only keep upping the ante so much before it becomes tiresome. This was definitely a necessary way to go at this point.  

In the second episode, Wild Animals, Liv has taken up a job in a shop in order to help pay the bills why the TARDIS team is stranded on Earth.  Sadly, she and her boss end up shot when a hold up goes awry. While Liv is recovering in hospital, her boss sadly doesn’t make it.  The Doctor then tries to make good on not keeping his friend safe by catching the shooter. But it is something of a wake-up call for the team.  They may not be in the midst of some big alien adventure with tons of explosions and lasers...but danger still lurks.  And the Doctor, who has been losing hope in this environment, hopes that solving the crime will alleviate his boredom.  But he doesn’t solve it.  The police beat him to it.  And he is finally forced to realize that he must start living...not just hiding away, wandering in the park moping.  

The Doctor is finally put into his element in Must-See TV when some sort of Alien tech is attached to several TVs of his tenants that appear to be spying on them.  There is also a mysterious new tenant called Mr. Bird, who is being very helpful with maintenance issues around the place...but also seems to be the cause of their alien spy tech.  Also involved in this episode is Sgt Andy Davison (from Torchwood), who is acting as a sort of liaison between Torchwood and Tania.  Tania is a resident of Baker Street who has begun a relationship with Liv, but also is working for Torchwood for some mysterious purpose. Torchwood seems to have her monitoring the Doctor, but she begins to suspect that who Torchwood is really after is Mr. Bird. 

The set comes to conclusion with Divine Intervention, which features aliens from the future who blame the Doctor for their future plight at the hands of Earth. It is a decent conclusion, which sets up threads for where this new series may lead, and ends with both a glimmer of hope that the TARDIS will return to its former glory someday, but also makes it clear that for now, the gang are stuck where they are.  

Stranded is the beginning of a new chapter for the Eighth Doctor, one that is far from the universe shattering epics he has been so present in for so long.  I definitely welcome this change of pace. Especially as the Eighth Doctor will continue to have his big epic adventures with Time War (which has at least one more installment coming next month).  But either way, it is nice to strip things way back, and focus in on the character stuff. I really enjoyed this.  It has a slower pace and less plot to keep track of...and in general it was just exactly what hte Eighth Doctor needed at this moment to keep from getting stale. 

Writer: Jody Houser
Artist: Roberta Ingranata
Colourist: Enrica Eren Angiolini

32 Pages

Published by Titan Comics - May 2020

The Tenth/Thirteenth Doctor team-up that has launched Year Two of the Thirteenth Doctor Titan run comes to it's big conclusion in part four...and for once Houser ends it on something of a high note instead of a wimper.  The Autons and Weeping Angels stories don't really have any deeper meaning behind them, they don't seem to be working together or anything, but they do tie up things nicely. 

The team is able to escape the Angels trying to break into the TARDIS, and trace the Nestene Consciousness to the tunnels under the Thames.  They then lure the Angels into the tunnels and use the use the Angels power to send the Consciousness back in time, hopefully before plastics are around to feed off of. They then manage to trap the Angels of 1969 and trap them out in space. 

From there they two TARDIS teams part ways, the Tenth Doctor and Martha forced back to 1969 to await their ride per Sally Sparrow's instructions...the newer team deciding to take a break from adventuring and return to Sheffield for a bit, as seeing Martha trapped in the 60s has given them a bit of pause about too much travelling. 

But alas, a new cliffhanger!  Arriving to modern day England doesn't go as planned...as their is a red sky and lightning about.  Is this the work of something new, or will this tie in with the Nestene that was sent back by the Angel? 

I had issues with the first year of the Thirteenth Doctor.  Too many stories fizzled out too quickly.  It seemed like just as things were beginning to get interesting, I'd get some quick fix ending that left me unsatisfied.  Happily that is not the case with the first adventure of Year Two.  The teaming of the Thirteenth and Tenth Doctors was fun, but the story was intriguing and for once had an ending that felt earned and not rushed. Here's hoping this momentum can continue.