Starring Tom Baker, Mary Tamm, Dominic Mafham, David Warner, Toby Hadoke, Nicholas Briggs & John Leeson
Written and Directed by Nicholas Briggs
"The raw power of the very fabric of reality itself. And you dare to think you can conquer it?"
Cuthbert's plan for the Proxima System is reaching it's final phase.
The Doctor and Romana have been separated. The Doctor is aiding the Proximan fight-back. Romana and K-9 are prisoners of the Daleks.
And as the countdown to the opening of the Quantum Gateway begins, the Daleks reveal their true intentions.
And so, series 2 of The fourth Doctor adventures ends on a triumphant note, but sadly this story sadly fails to advance it's plot beyond the simple levels that we would expect. Instead of trying to pull some smart reveal or going in an unexpected direction, it just follows fairly predictable lines. It's certainly interesting, don't get me wrong, but sadly it very much follows the obvious path, with some additional interesting path choices.
The Daleks, however, have become even more generic since Dalek Contract. In actual fact, there plan has pretty much been ripped from the first series of Dalek Empire, although it's massively simplified from what it once was. In addition, the quietly restrained menace in Dalek Contract has dissipated, and the Daleks in this story are pretty much just 'attacking aliens'. It's a shame, because in The Dalek Contract, they were built into the mould of the David Whitaker Daleks: cunning and resourceful. However, here Briggs takes them back more towards the generic shouty Daleks that we've all seen before. Certainly, there uses for the Quantum Gateway leaves a lot to be desired. It would have been nice if it wasn't just the predictable 'conquest and destruction'. Boring! However, the plans of the slippery Cuthbert aren't quite as obvious, and it's nice to have some plot threads left hanging at the end of this. Not everything is quite explained, so hopefully those ideas will be picked up in the upcoming series with Lalla Ward (or Louise Jameson, if Big Finish were so inclined). The idea that Cuthbert may not be all he makes out to be, and that he may have founded his own company by travelling back from the future is all the more interesting. It turns the concept of the Conglomerate into something even more interesting: how fair is it if the biggest buisness ever knows exactly how fortunes are won and lost before they happen? Certainly the seeds which have been planted here could come back to bite the increasingly overconfident fourth Doctor, and it would be interesting to tie that into the way Tom plays the part in season 18. I think The Doc's heading for a downfall. Aside from that, it's pretty bog standard action-adventure. Lots of stuff that Big Finish has done better elsewhere.
The characters also start to go in interesting directions, but the resolutions are often unfulfilled. It's certainly nice to see the Proximan rebels start to develop an identity, but that's mostly by cutting them down to just Dominic Mafham's and Jane Slavin's characters. Both do get development, but it's fairly predictable and therefore not very interesting. They both play there characters well, but there's nothing remarkable about them. It's also nice to see Dorrick, brilliantly played by Toby Hadoke, step out from Cuthbert's shadow. Up until now, he's been mainly floating about in the background, so it's nice to see him take some actual action. David Warner is just as fantastic as ever, playing Cuthbert with such gusto that it makes the character even better than he's written on the page. Tom Baker and John Leeson are also brilliant, Tom really showing, more than ever, that he hasn't lost that hard edge that made his Doctor so strong on TV, and John getting some really funny lines to play with. But the greatest star of this story has to be the wonderful Mary Tamm, who, in her final story before her passing, really gives it all she's got. It was really touching to hear the beginning and end of part 2. This whole story was built as the beginning of a new era, but sadly it ended up becoming the end of an era. But Final Phase works as both: it's optimistic and sad at the same time. And that's always the best way to leave something like that.
However, The Final Phase will remain rather bog-standard, as both it and Dalek Contract aren't particularly advancing. In a way that's not bad, as it's nice to do a good slice of classic Who, but, considering the toys that were available to Briggs, it would have been nice if he could pushed the boat a little further with this story.
(And when K-9 informed the characters that 5000 Daleks were about to attack the space platform, I laughed. If this was on TV, there would have only been four of them. It was like Day Of The Daleks all over again!)
TARDIS Rating - 6/10
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