Gallifrey War Room: Allegiance

 

Gallifrey War Room 1: Allegiance

Before we begin to discuss the Time Travel series, I'm going to jump ahead in time ten minutes and go on an unbelievably long tangent. 

It is so unbelievably stupid how long it will take for this series of 16 audio plays to be released. 4 whole years. I understand that this has steadily become the Big Finish business model, the variety in the many spinoffs that Big Finish has at it's disposal, and while most releases do quite well under it - The First Doctor Adventures and Torchwood Soho, for example, benefits greatly from having only one set a year - it is much harder to justify when considering the idea of a complicated arc. At best, you will sucker people along for four years. At worst, people will forget that the series is happening before it's even done. There's a reason that TV shows have "seasons," and it is a fairly good reason. You have to strike when the iron is hot, keep the series in the mind of the public.

This may be a controversial opinion, but I would rather wait four years for the entire series than to awkwardly try and remember what happened last time each year for four years. You'd think I'm speaking hyperbole, but no - I am very, very glad that Torchwood: Among Us took it's goddamn time as a product and eventually arrived as best as it could possibly be. For that matter, it's almost a weekly series, with four stories being released a month for three months. On the other hand, there is War Room.

This business model is forgivable when it applies to standalone releases that don't literally align themselves about remembering what happened last, especially when this is something that Gallifrey is particularly guilty of as a spinoff. This set happens to remind us about The Warpwrights of Phaidon of all things. Perhaps the business model arises from the notion of variety, but I believe it also has to do with the sheer amount of content being released. Maybe there's literally no room to put War Room anywhere else, which does lead into the bigger problem of quantity of media, which I almost dont want to get into. Big Finish is producing too much content for one human to keep up with, and to an extent, that is comforting, that there will always be more stories, but as of late, there are ranges for the first to eighth doctors, war, nine and ten, Dudman Eleven, river song, all the torchwood stuff, UNIT, the Paternoster Gang, War Master, Bernice Summerfield if you're lucky, and all of that is just scratching the surface. Stories are bound to get LOST in this pile of content, and I worry that Gallifrey War Room is already beginning to fade into the mist. 

While War Room is a great set, but it will not be remembered enough when Volume Two is out to have the maximum impact it could have. 

Time travelling back to what should be the start of the review, War Room is the beginning of a new era for Gallifrey. It's bold and new in it's outlook, keeping only really Leela from prior Gallifrey series, with Narvin appearing as a guest star. The new regulars of the series are The General, from Steven Moffat's era, as well as Big Finish's original playthings of Ollistra, Rasmus and Veklin. This is a really different direction for the Gallifrey series, fusing it more directly with Big Finish's War Doctor range. Transplanting these characters does give the series a bit more synergy with the rest of Big Finish's output, even if it means that you will likely have to bend backwards into some of the War Doctor deeplore to understand what's up with those three characters, and newcomers who have only seen the TV show and wanna have some crackfic Leela and The General adventures may indeed be quite lost. War Room is a new start to Gallifrey, as it's a new series, but it's not an easily accessible reboot. Luckily, it gets over these problems by mostly being an absolute banger.

The Last Days of Freme by Lou Morgan

I think I will be pretty much the only person who's favorite episode of the set is The Last Days of Freme, but I really do love this one much more than I should. Starting from the very scene where Time War 4 ended, War Room begins with Scary Rassilon sending Leela off to work in the War Room for Cardinal Ollistra, a sinister woman who War Doctor fans will be familiar with. Ollistra sends Leela, The General and Veklin off to the wartorn world of Freme, where they must destroy the planet before it one day allies itself with the Daleks.

I'm a sucker for a moral dilemma, which is something that to an extent, all four stories of the sets do. The literal idea of the story is basically "Would you kill baby Hitler" but on a planetary scale. The Last Days of Freme is preoccupied chiefly with establishing this new status quo, the dilemma, and with it, the necessary character work and moral soul-searching involved. 

The Last Days of Freme demonstrates the potential of the series in a very clever way, by making the entire narrative itself feel so hostile. Leela is partnered with The General, who has the potential to be a good person, deep down, but is also so dutybound and weary that it's almost long forgotten. Veklin, while perhaps at her more reasonable (She's not randomly shooting people) is still Veklin, and so the entire narrative feels uncomfortable.

 With Leela being literally restricted into doing the entire story, there's a really tense dynamic throughout, and thus it feels even better when Leela does the clever thing at the end. Removing the shock collar device, the physical threat of danger for Leela, I think hurts the following stories a bit by not letting them have the crushing atmosphere of this narrative, but nonetheless this is a very good opener.

The Passenger by David Llewellyn 

The Passenger is a bit obvious, and does make at least bits of the War Room staff look like idiots, but there is a thematic point to it. Suddenly there's a big Dalek ship in orbit, and it's been stolen by a Time Lord who's on his way back to Gallifrey, but it might be a Dalek plan. Oh no! Luckily Ollistra is here to find out that it's not the Daleks and then do no further background checking. 

If you can get past that setup, the eventual meat of the story is in several interrogation scenes where Louise Jameson really really gets to deliver a really compelling performance and straight up act alongside our titular passenger. I like how tightly written these scenes are, of characters with opposing moral values who believe in similar things, and this is where The Passenger as a story truly shines. 

These are strong dramatic scenes, and they work well from any context, not just a sci-fi one. Although The Passenger is less a Time War story and more a thriller sort of story that needs a war in the background to have a plot, if you have writing so strong in these scenes, people aren't going to be as likely to care.

If you like Gallifrey stuff outside this series, as the most similar to previous Gallifrey tales, you will probably end up liking the Passenger. 

Collateral Victim by Alfie Shaw

Okay, don't kill me, but I thought this one was a bit too big for it's britches. It feels like it should be split up a bit more, because as it is, it can feel really quite overwhelming. I usually never suggest this, as most stories this would be a hindrance, but Collateral Victim would do great in the Classic Who format of 30 minute parts. I'm not sure whether it'd be two or three, but it needs a little more space, a little more moments inbetween to make the great stuff that's already there pop, and a little more focus on atmosphere, because while I like *literally every single thing* this story tries to do on paper, it can feel like it's jumping from point to point. It's not got a breakneck pace by any means, it just needs to take it slower than it is and let it's ideas expand nicely into that. 

The story is about Leela, Rasmus and Veklin, who investigate a planet with a strange weapon that could (gasp) change the face of the time war (half of big finish's time war stories use this setup, including the next one.) When they find a barren rock that sucks them in, they find themselves inexplicably in a library. From there, they wade through the past and future of this planet, trying to find the Agent whose distress signal they're tracking.

Collateral Victim is brimming with some of the most high-concept Big Finish Time War stuff that they've done yet, and Faction Paradox fans will likely be in love that the series is even attempting this level of storytelling. I was on board until the third act - which while the rest of it felt a bit short, the third act definitely felt very long. As Leela, Rasmus and Veklin consider the awesome twist and massively cool moral dilemma the story has in store, they try and stop the Time War itself with the help of a spoilery thing. This goes on for quite some time, and it's like November Rain, because everytime you think that "okay, that's it, it's over, they can't stop the time war," they find a reason that, wait, they can, and then they find a reason that, wait, they can't! Where it ultimately goes is great, but it's very overwhelming, and the entire story has been a bit full already. 

I don't want to criticise Collateral Victim too much though, as it's such a wonderful first step. We don't get enough stuff like this when it comes to the Time War (without a doubt the hardest Doctor Who genre to write for, except maybe writing for Michelle Gomez) and so if I am too mean to it, the goblin in my brain tells me they are not likely to do something like this again, and I really desperately hope they do. Time Wars should have weird Time bullshit. It's the law.

The First Days of Phaidon by Sophie Illes

It's a Gallifrey cast reunion, and Narvin is back. It's a great move, but I would have waited until the second set to bring him in, the War Room cast doesn't feel as concrete as it could yet. Nonetheless, First Days has a lot going for it. The concept of the story is that the Daleks want an important time thing, so they've brought the planet Phaidon back from the no-no-cube where they keep all the planets that they delete from time. The synopsis says that Leela has to choose her loyalty between the War Room and Narvin, but this doesn't happen, it's hardly a contest. Leela basically spends an hour covering for Narvin as soon as she realizes he's there. Also there's some Indiana Jones bullshit. 

In other news, there are also Daleks, and happily, they don't suck, even the action scenes, which is something that I often complain about in an audio setting - but these were easy to follow and not too intrusive. In order to give time to Narvin and Leela's character work, Veklin stays behind and while Rasmus is there, I can't remember a single thing he did other than get insulted by Leela for the past events of the set. This allows the story to be fairly tight and focused, and also reveal a bit more about The General, who is proving to be quite interesting, as he's not got a disloyal bone in his body, but also, unlike most Time Lord bastards, is fundamentally sort of okay half the time. 

The First Day of Phaidon is enjoyable and it's good to have Leela and Narvin interact once more - even if they interacted heavily in Gallifrey Time War 4, it still feels like quite some time. I don't have much to say about this one given it's primary focus as an action piece that has lots of character work. Not incredibly advanced in terms of Time War storytelling, I am not actually mad at it like I usually am for stories chickening out about this, because it doesn't suck, and that's the real thing that matters ultimately.

Just be good like this one and I wouldn't be as pissed every time a Time War story was a Dalek shootout. 

Overall, I find Gallifrey War Room to be a start to a series with lots of potential. It's got an excellent supporting cast, Louise Jameson in particular really relishes the extra weight she has in being the series lead. While the volume isn't quite as good as the heights of the Gallifrey Time War series in my opinion, I also seem to be in the minority in that regard as the set has been relatively popular. All the same, I hope earnestly that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle of spinoffs as the 60th festivities kick into high gear.