"Time has gone awry. The Doctor is lost, without his TARDIS. But he’s not alone. The Space Security Service agents Anya Kingdom and Mark Seven haven’t always been on his side in the past, but now they are here to help him. And he’s going to need them - because the oldest foes of all are waiting to strike. Ready to take down their greatest enemy."
DALEK UNIVERSE - The Dalek Protocol (Fourth Doctor) - p1
DALEK UNIVERSE 1
1.1 Buying Time - p1
1.2 The Wrong Woman - p1
1.3 The House of Kingdom - p1
DALEK UNIVERSE 2
2.1 Cycle of Destruction - p2
2.2 The Trojan Dalek - p2
2.3 The Lost - p
DALEK UNIVERSE 3
3.1 The First Son - p
3.2 The Dalek Defense - p
3.3 The Triumph of Davros - p
Replies
THE DALEK PROTOCOL:
"The Earth mission to Exxilon is nearing completion after many long years. Enough parrinium has been mined to stop the spread of the deadly space plague. But suddenly, the power-draining beacon from the Exxilon city is inexplicably reactivated, stranding the humans. The Doctor, Leela and K9 are stuck too, right on top of the remains of the city – under attack! Somewhere nearby, the android agent Mark Seven is enacting his secret orders while the Doctor’s estranged future companion, Anya Kingdom, is hoping for redemption. And heading inexorably towards them all… the Daleks!"
The Fourth Doctor's "The Dalek Protocol" is to the Tenth Doctor's "Dalek Universe" as Tolkien's The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings. It is also a sequel to the Third Doctor's "Death to the Daleks." Actually, it's a sequel (or a prequel) to a lot of things. Anya Kingdom was introduced in a previous three-part series from Big Finish. "The Dalek Protocols" takes place later on Anya's timeline, but earlier on the Doctor's. Having travelled with the doctor "before" (relatively speaking), she is as aware of the danger of letting the Doctor know of their "previous" relationship as when Charlotte Pollard travelled with the Sixth Doctor for a time after having travelled with the Eighth.
Part one starts with some character-building banter between the Fourth Doctor and Leela. It is rare that Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and John Leeson are reunited in the same Big Finish adventure, and they all seem to enjoy working together again. Tom Baker has said that Doctor Who was the most important role in his life, and now these Big Finish productions are helping stave off his own inevitable "big finish."
Jameson has said that Baker could be a bit of a bully, and that the turning point in their relationship came during the filming of "The Horror of Fang Rock" when she stood up to him after he stepped on one of her lines, and that afterwards, they got along OK.
I have heard those stories but whatever animosity she may have harbored in the past is now well behind them. In the interview portion she said that she was the one who insisted that a photograph be taken of the three of them together to commemorate the occasion.
The "Dalek Protocol" itself is the McGuffin of the series. It ends up being a sub-routine planted in the positronic matrix of the android Mark Seven (who was introduced in one of the hardcover Doctor Who "annuals" I have learned). I'm not sure that The Dalek Protocol, being a sort of transition between Anya Kingdom's previous audio appearances and Dalek Universe, necessarily stands on its own, but I may change my opinion after listening to the latter (and perhaps some of the former, too).
Speaking of Doctor Who annuals, my LCS once bought a collection of eight or ten of them. They weren't cheap but they weren't overpriced, either. I bought the very first one ever, which was mainly a collection of illustrated prose stories rather than comics. I wish now I had bought some of the Second, Third and Fourth Doctor ones. That was several years ago and they sold pretty quickly.
It might be some time yet before I move on to Dalek Universe. I've got a backlog of audios and my habit is to listen to them in "Doctor order."
BUYING TIME: "The far future. Anya Kingdom of the Space Security Service is on a mission investigating an SSS ship crashing on a distant jungle planet. Unknown to her superiors, she’s searching for something very specific... but what she finds is completely unexpected. Her old friend, the Doctor. With a completely different face and no idea what he’s doing there. The Time Lord soon finds himself drawn into a conspiracy involving voracious predators, time travel and a malevolent businessman. History itself is breaking down. If he makes a mistake, it could mean the end of everything."
This is just the first chapter of a nine episode story, so I didn't expect the Daleks to be introduced until the end at the earliest. (As it happens, this episode has a quite different shock ending.) (Verbal clues place this story after Rose and Donna but before Martha.) The majority of this episode is spent introducing and reintroducing the characters, making sure everyone (including the listeners) is up to speed (see above posts). It's mainly action-based, fleeing the invisible (but blind) Visians through a jungle. The Doctor and his allies make their way to the businessman who has made time travel available to the masses only to find that they are expected. The Doctor is shot twice, once in each heart, and is mortally wounded. He regenerates, and Anya says something to the effect of, "I didn't see that coming!"
Is this the planet Mira?
Jeff of Earth-J said:
"Is this the planet Mira?"
It is!
I am impressed.
The Visians are from "The Dalek Master Plan", as I recall.
Jeff of Earth-J said:
Indeed.
The man knows his Who, folks.
THE WRONG WOMAN: "The team’s investigations have taken an unexpected turn - but the signs all still point to Sheldrake. With the clock ticking down to the launch of the time tunnels, the Doctor, Anya and Mark split up... but soon discover how hard it is to fight a foe who can always keep one step ahead of you. But stopping him is only half the battle. The Doctor says that time can be rewritten - and Anya is searching for redemption. Can she put history back on track? Or is the Doctor’s future never going to be the same again?"
"He regenerates, and Anya says something to the effect of, 'I didn't see that coming!'"
I called that wrong. It wasn't Anya who said, "I didn't see that coming"... it was the Doctor. In either case, we know that the Doctor didn't really regenerate into a woman (not this time, anyway), or regenerate at all; the mystery becomes what really did happen? They go with the Doctor-as-woman angle for quite some time. Then, as it turns out, the David Tennent Doctor exists as well, because timey-wimey. Big Finish has done alternate Doctors before; they even regenerated Romana at one point for a series of adventures before they got permission to set stories during the Time War and backtracked. The doctors meets face-to-face and it certainly looks as if he/she has really been bifurcated into two beings.
It is eventually revealed, however, that the female Doctor faked the 10th Doctor's regeneration and took his place. But how did she know how to do that? How did she even know about regeneration? It turns out that the female Doctor is a Time Lord as well: the meddling Monk! He actually did regenerate into female form. (Previously, he had been a priest and his TARDIS had taken the form of the Bible he carried.) But how can that be, with the all the Gallifreyans dead (or at least presumed dead) at this time? But it isn't the Monk who has been displaced in time... it is the Doctor.
He was abducted to this time before the Time War, which shouldn't have been possible because of the war is time-locked. But it wasn't the Monk who abducted him. Who was it then? No villain would have a reason to send him to Mira. the only person who would want to send him to Mira would be he himself, because he knew that's where he ended up and needed to be to save the day: a closed time loop. He then takes the steps which assure his past self is abducted from the future. By the end of this episode, the real villains are revealed: the Daleks.
The Doctor and the Monk play off against each other very well, even though we've never seen this Doctor and this Monk together before. Big Finish has made good use of the Monk over the years. In this episode she reveals that, due to the nature of the life she leads, even she's not sure of which regeneration this is. Lots of funny lines, but this exchange stands out in my mind.
MONK: As the Rolling Stones once said: "Won't Get Fooled Again".
DOCTOR: I think that was the...
MONK: It doesn't matter!
THE HOUSE OF KINGDOM: "The Doctor and his friends are trying to locate a scientist to help them on their quest... but an attack on a space-station alters their plans. Rescued by Anya's grandfather, Merrick, and taken to Neptune, the Doctor and Mark discover her family history. A story of betrayal and loss. Will the Kingdoms be reconciled? Or are they destined to continue the mistakes of the past?"
For a series titled "Dalek Universe" there has been very little of the Daleks in it so far. (They are not in this episode at all.) One might expect people who bought "Dalek Universe 1" to be a bit miffed about that, but I bet there aren't many who bought "1" without buying "2" and "3" as well. And, as I mentioned yesterday, there are still six chapters to go. What this whole first set is is a romp through the worlds of Terry Nation: Visians, Mechanoids, Varga plants, Mark Seven (from the comics)... but not yet Daleks.
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