Big Finish Main Range
The plot moves along nicely in this adventure but it’s very generic for a Davros-Daleks story. The Daleks do their master-strategist thing and predict the Doctor’s every move. Which brings up a point, why can’t they do that every time and just manipulate him to do their dirty work? In most of the audios, they predict his actions up to a certain point but then he somehow deviates from their projections for him and defeats them anyway. That doesn’t really happen in this story. Davros ends up being at odds with the Daleks and he’s dead? But I’m not really convinced of that. He’s never dead. See Davros for a prime example of that! Smashes into a planet in a spaceship but Colin Baker’s Doctor is convinced he’s not dead then. Why is he so easily convinced in this one?
There are little issues. Like why wouldn’t anyone on the space station have the ability or addiction that allows them to “see around” Davros’s trick? And why wouldn’t he have a clue that Mel would include a “back door” in her software? I thought he was a genius! The battered Daleks that serve Davros would be most easily defeated, I would think, if their casings aren’t in that good of shape. I really like how the colonists do manage to escape as that’s not normal but they have the help of Geoff, a brave scientist type. The juggernauts/mechanoids aren’t really all that threatening when it comes right down to it. They don’t have weapons and they are easily destroyed by the Daleks. But they’re supposed to be Dalek killing machines? It’s all a hodgepodge of moments with some working better than others. With the Doctor and Mel being caught in between. Standard fare, as I said. Not terrible, not stupendous. Just good.
Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford
Writer: Scott Alan Woodard
Director: G-Russell
Release: February 2005