July 11, 2011

Disassembled (2011)

2011 TOMS TARDIS AWARD WINNER
  • Best Gallifrey Story
The second instalment of this series is my favourite so far. I have to take issue with the new theme tune. Whilst it’s quite a nice one I much prefer the one that had been used in the previous three series. Written by Justin Richards who is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers, this story sees the regulars arrive in another portal except it’s far more brutal than normal Gallifrey. The Timelords in this version are far more involved than we had previous known them to be and there is a Temporal Intervention Agency. Timelords are basically eradicating people out of time to make things better for themselves. The process that this is done is quite a dark and grim one. We encounter a General Leela who is even more aggressive than normal Leela ever was. I had a slight concern that when the two Leela’s inevitably meet that I would have difficultly in telling the two apart but Louise Jameson does a great job in creating two different tones but keeping them appropriate to the character.

The story moves along and is interesting and then comes in Mr Colin Baker. Now I am a big fan of Colin’s and think that his Doctor is one of the best in the Big Finish range but in this story he plays a different version of his incarnation who is called The Lord Burner who as it turns out is the Presidential Assassin. It’s at this stage that the story really becomes a strong contender for Best Gallifrey story ever. The story is trying to rid of a paradox which as anyone who watched Last of the Timelords in 2007 knows that this is a bad thing. The portal plot point plays an important part in dramatic terms and I was worrying that this portal stuff was just a convenient plot tool that was going to become silly however due to the fact that its weakening then it seems like they (the writers/producers etc) knew what they were doing with it. Yet again Braxiatel is used to save the day and I think that he is one of my underrated characters because he is superbly played by Miles Richardson.

There is a nice little cameo from Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield. This is perhaps done to explain Braxiatel’s arrival in her reality. It was a nice little scene that came at the end of a story that I really had enjoyed and so I had nothing but good will towards it and whether they appear in future stories or not I think that it’s a nice scene that works very well.

The regulars are all on good form with Lalla Ward continuing to show why she’s the better Romana. I think that Louise Jameson wins out of these two because of her portrayal of the ‘bad’ Leela. I also thought that Sean Carlsen put in another great performance as Narvin. You can never quite trust him and his unstable friendship with Leela is a highlight. Colin Baker as I have mentioned is just fantastic in this and whereas it could have been a normal performance like he would in the main range, to appear in a series where he isn’t the star of the story and not try to steal the show is credit to him.

Before I finish, I thought the biggest and best thing about this story is something that literally had shocked me and I was driving on the M6 at the time which isn’t perhaps the best time to be listening to this story. It was the revelation that the Doctor was to be killed and this is why he fled Gallifrey with Susan. Though this isn’t specifically named it’s pretty hard to argue otherwise. When all is said and done this is a brilliant story and this series is shaping up to be the best out of the four so far. It’s clear that the complex stories that were regular in the previous series would be replaced with far more understandable adventures but of course with two more adventures in this series it could all change but at this moment in time (and space) all I have to say is – Marvellous.

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