Gallifrey Time War Volume Three

 

Gallifrey Time War Volume Three

Yeah, it's the weakest volume so far, but even Gallifrey at it's weakest can annihilate other boxset series. Gallifrey Time War Three is a strange boxset, not really ever taking place on Gallifrey, and without the previously established recurring characters the series has previously relied upon. For that matter, you could almost confuse these episodes with Doctor Who stories. On one hand, it does prove a point. That there's only one Doctor, and Romana and Narvin are a little out of their depth in their attempts to help people throughout the Time War. On the other hand, it can be not necessarily as original. Setting Romana and Narvin as ostensibly a Doctor/Companion duo actually at times can remove a good deal of nuance out of their complicated relationship. I don't have as many nice things to say about Volume Three as I did Volumes One and Two, but what really excites me about it is this range's continued propensity to reinvent itself... even when it isn't strictly necessary.

Hostiles by David Llewellyn 

Hostiles is the most normal Doctor Who-esque story of the set, with Romana and Narvin exploring an abandoned damaged timeship being covered in Time Anomalies, while being hunted by an insane AI. It's arguably not original in concept, but it turns out better than that in execution. There isn't as much of the quote unquote "DRAMA" that I like about the series in this installment, and indeed, it's fairly straightforward. What makes Hostiles entertaining is the atmosphere and cool Time stuff. That doesn't sound very convincing, I know, but it's true! It's got a nice side character in the form of Trellick, a character which the story successfully fooled me with. She's a very good balance to Romana and Narvin, and I would have liked to see more of her. Hostiles is a little too simple to discuss in further detail, though. It's not very ambitious, and while it's believable it's a Time War story, it could also have been a Doctor Who story in it's own right, which can be slightly frustrating. A decent enough opening that entertains but doesn't offer much more. Still, for a series that can be so heavy and gorgeously complex, it is a little fun to have a taste of the familiar, even if it's lesser written: 7/10

Nevernor by Lou Morgan

Nevernor feels to me like it should be the most poorly written of the set, and perhaps it is, but it's also one of my favorites. It can be very expository, and there is perhaps far too much technobabble as it goes on, something that I do not enjoy.  The title of the story refers to a Kobiashi Maru-esque test that Gallifreyan Agents take, which the introduction of which was really heavyhanded. It felt like Narvin paused the story to explain it to the audience. However, Nevernor also spends around 3/4ths of it's time being an atmospheric little shit, and drenches the audience in some gorgeous little horror tropes, and the variety of this was something that I really, really liked. There's some great imagery here, of this farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, inhabited by some very strange people and an old woman no one can see. It's gothic and really fun and eerie in it's simplicity. There's just some very fun spooky stuff here that I really liked. Audio horror is a format that just works, and filling in the imagery that the story provides you with is quite rewarding. The idea of Romana and Narvin both hearing different noises that the other cannot hear, one of them hearing lovely noises and the other hearing the sounds of Hell is just. So brilliant. There's all sorts of little fun things like that. The story loses a bit of it's horror tinge near the end, as Doctor Who tales usually do, but I found myself really liking it a lot throughout. Part of my brain recognizes that this is in all likelihood weaker than Hostiles or Mother Tongue, but it's also much more up my street. 8/10 

Mother Tongue by Helen Goldwyn

Mother Tongue is Everything Everywhere All At Once but less good. To be fair, that can refer to a lot of things, but Mother Tongue specifically is about Leela being transported to an alternative life she could have led elsewhere in the Multiverse, and it reiterates a lot of Everything Everywhere's ideas with less flair and brilliance. To be fair, almost everything compared to my favorite film of all time will fall flat, but I kept wishing for Mother Tongue to go further. Leela is an excellent lead who really benefits from an episode all about her, and it's a nice story, but I just kept wishing that if you're going to play with jumping through time and the multiverse, that you go all out with it and deliver something really unconventional. Mother Tongue can regrettably border on the boring. Leela's relationship to her newfound son, Sholan, anchors the piece in a really sad and elegant way that befits Leela's character quite well. Ultimately however, this was not my favorite piece - for what it's trying to do, I feel like I should have been so much more gutted by the conclusion: 7/10 

Unity by David Llewellyn 

You can never anticipate Gallifrey. Just when you start to think it's on a downward spiral, it delivers the best episode of the series yet, without much competition. Unity is focused almost entirely on the delicious character drama that I love about the series, and while it doesn't have politics, it's far closer to the ordinary Gallifrey we know from the previous sets. Unity is constructed around the Romana and Leela relationship, the fraught nature of that and Leela's character development that's occurred over the course of The Devil You Know and Mother Tongue. It's really amazing to see the sheer contradiction between the characters. Romana and Leela have a relationship based around respect, yes, but Leela has always been a complicated and fascinating character who invited conflict, even in Classic Who. It's interesting to see that relationship almost torn apart by circumstance, while Romana is trying her best to micromanage. Gallifrey's interpretation of Romana continues to interest me because it is so different from the Romana that we know from Classic Doctor Who, while still recognizably Romana. Her manipulative side we see here is fascinating, because in the Time War, we can for the first time see this character at her most desperate. She's recruited The Master, she's tried to kill Rassilon, and the impacts of her choices have consequences. Part of why Unity's ending is like being hit by a freight train is because we know the consequences of what Romana is doing will indeed hurt her in the long run - and that's before we even consider the Daleks. I adore how sparingly the Daleks have been used in this series, and Unity is exactly the right time to bring them back in force. Their presence has meaning, especially when they aren't constantly reducing the series to big silly action. Unity is absolutely perfect, providing you can ignore the weird not-American accent of a side character, and I've consumed so many Peri audios I absolutely can. This is an amazing series at it's best, firing on all cylinders. 10/10