Time of the Daleks
“Think of your worst nightmare. Think of the most repellent, disgusting thing you can imagine. Think of pure evil made malignant flesh.”
“And that’s what it’s like?”
“No… it’s a thousand times worse.”
Story 32
Written by Justin Richards
Released May 2002
The final part of the inter-linking audio adventures tied to the Dalek Empire (consisting of The Genocide Machine, the Apocalypse Element and The Mutant Phase), Time of the Daleks reveals the devastating intention behind the various components of the Dalek’s temporal extinction device. Opening with a rather ominous sequence in which their experiment goes wrong, a Dalek fleet faces death and quotes Shakespeare in the same moment. THAT is the proper way to begin one of the weirdest Dalek stories I have read/seen/heard yet.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers that his companion Charley has no knowledge of Shakespeare, but can easily roll off the names of his contemporaries such as Johnson and Marlowe. He recalls that upon their visit to Earth’s past, Orson Welles also had no memory of Shakespeare despite the fact that he had made films based on the bard’s work. Something is seriously wrong and the Doctor is determined to get to the root of the problem. He finds that there is a trail of temporal distortion running from Shakespeare’s period to the far future.
Traveling to one of the Earth Empire’s dictatorial periods, the Doctor and Charley pass themselves off as expected specialists and meet General Mariah Learman, a woman who refuses to relinquish control over her people and freely quotes Shakespeare, seemingly passing the prose off as her own thoughts. Her experiments in time have born strange fruit, yet she refuses to acknowledge that they have anything to do with the anomaly that the Doctor has tracked to her doorstep. Using a complex array of mirrors and clocks, Learman’s chief scientist Professor Osric admits that it would never work without the assistance of their benefactors, the Daleks.
Realizing that his most hated foes are scheming something so dangerous that it threatens the stability of time itself, the Doctor surprisingly puts on a winsome grin and strikes against their anxious cries of death with chirpy witticisms. It is one of the Eighth Doctor’s finest hours and also confirms for me where the Big Finish production team were taking this era. The mixture of comedy and violence so popular during the middle period of Tom Baker’s time is revived through a modern lens with the dapper and charming eighth face of the time traveling champion and it works so well that (like many others) I am crestfallen that we never got to see it on screen.
Time of the Daleks borrows from and pays homage to classic Doctor Who stories, reproducing key moments from Evil of the Daleks (such as Osric eluding to a mysterious benefactor and the Dalek entering the room to the Doctor’s dismay), Dalek Invasion of Earth and Day of the Daleks but it never really seems forced. This is more of a celebration through story than a contrived trip down memory lane.
Despite the Doctor’s insistence that the Daleks are evil, neither Learman nor Osric listen (referencing a similar moment in Power of the Daleks), as the Daleks claim to be scholars. The Daleks and Osric are working together to solve the crisis over the loss of Shakespeare, something that the Doctor finds hard to believe. Nicholas Briggs’ delivery of the line ‘The Daleks venerate Shakespeare’ is both hilarious and kind of chilling, furthering the absurdity of this adventure.
When the Doctor proves too troublesome to remain free, he is placed in a prison cell. Using his brilliant mind, the Doctor is able to deduce how the mirrors work as a method of time travel and reproduces the technique with some ‘odds and ends’ he nicked from the lab. Thus begins a weird chase through various periods of time and space through mirrors that connect like a spider’s web through the fabric of the temporal vortex (possibly an allusion to The Chase).
Time of the Daleks is not generally regarded well by fans and I can see why. It’s almost flippant sense of humor, overly complicated plot (time begins to splinter and heal, producing alternate versions of the truth) and the Doctor himself is at his maddest (Smith take note) as he seems to actually enjoy himself despite the gravity of the situation. He even refuses to take the Temporal Extinction Device seriously as its acronym is TED. However, I really like this one. Whereas the other three installments of this loosely connected plot are very serious and grim, this one is a horse of a different color yet the Daleks retain a certain dignity and do not fall victim to the absurdity (as they no doubt would should BBC Wales attempt something similar).
I was also impressed by the way in which Time of the Daleks touched upon previous stories (such as Invaders from Mars and Seasons of Fear) and also continues the thread of the time paradoxes that seem to be following the Doctor since he saved Charley from the doomed R-101. I have touched on this in my other reviews of the Eighth Doctor adventures, but it is astounding how well Big Finish has woven together this story without jeopardizing the integrity of each tale along the way (Moffat… you’re on notice.)
On a final note, I will never tire of listening to the Daleks on these Big Finish audios. When I first approached this series I thought that just listening to Daleks screech for an hour and a half would be impossible, but vocal master Briggs makes it gripping drama. The Daleks in these stories are also at their most cunning and devilish, a quality that had not been seen since at least the Troughton era. The Daleks in these stories affirm the threat and power that the dreaded pepper pots once had. It’s disheartening as the monsters return to the screen lately has been more groan inducing than exciting. But these stories bring back the experience when viewers were excited to see the Doctor’s most feared enemy return once more. This is aided by the superb and haunting music score and of course the script.
The Eighth Doctor may have only appeared on screen once, but his continued run in these audios is head and shoulders above much of the new program (though I have been told that after Neverland the quality drops considerably… which is why I am reviewing his stories so slowly). If you are unfamiliar with this era, I highly recommend checking it out.
Doctor Who – Time of the Daleks is available from local retailers and can be ordered directly from Big Finish.
Also recommended:
Dr. Who: The Eighth Doctor Collection, Vol. 1
Doctor Who - The Glorious Dead
Blood of the Daleks, Part 1
Doctor Who - Earth and Beyond (three stories read by Paul McGann)
