The Final Phase (2013)

The final story of the series is the final story from Mary Tamm who died shortly after this story was recorded. It was the story I was putting off listening to because I knew of this fact. It had been a while since I heard 'The Dalek Contract' and I was wondering whether I should listen to that again. On this occasion I decided against it and just ploughed back into this story. It's a decision that I would soon regret. This is mainly because I sort of lost track of what was going on and it was only the performances that really kept me interested.

One thing I like about this story is David Warner. As Cuthbert he is a wonderful character and its a great performance from him and the great thing about Warner is that no matter what role you give him, he will always deliver. Toby Hadoke's performance is also quite good and there is a wonderful sense of vulnerability. Tom Baker is on his usual lively self with particularly strong moments. Also Mary Tamm is on great form and even when you take out the fact that this is her last story, you are still left with a Romana performance which is way better than what we got on TV. Her only encounter with the Daleks has gone well.

Despite the story being largely grim, there are some funny moments in a very serous story. The bit where Tom Baker doing a Dalek impression is great and seems very much in keeping with the Fourth Doctor. Another funny moment is when K9 has stealth mode and Romana asks why he hasn't used it before and K9 responds that no-one has ever asked him.

The cliffhanger was relatively ok. I say ok because it does that thing that seems to happen quite a lot in these stories and that's one of the regulars appears to be dead and we clearly know that this isn't the case. It was a while before Tom Baker made a return and I had forgotten about him because the action was moving along at such a pace that when he did return it was a moment where I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about him.

I thought the final scene was good even though obviously in an ideal world we would have had a nice tidy end scene but obviously heindsight is a wonderful thing. What we have got is a nice scene which seemed to solidify the Doctor's relationship with Romana as they both seemed to realise they don't mind each other without actually realising it. As much as I want to say that I enjoyed this I must say that there was small sense of disappointment. It's not a terrible story by any stretch of the imagination but I think that when you compare it to other Dalek stories then the best that you can say is that its perfectly fine.