Reluctantly Romana offers herself up for the presidency of Gallifrey once more…

I’ll be intrigued to see how well this episode of Gallifrey holds up in a few years’ time, given its parallels with political events of the last couple of years – the debates between Romana and blunt-speaking officer Valerian will ring very loud bells with anyone who listened into the debates that preceded the 2016 Presidential election in the US, and as soon as those parallels become evident, it’s clear who’s going to be the winner. And it’s not going to be Romana. Or Gallifrey.

The ending of this episode – and this box set – is a deliberate shock; you realise where everything is going in the last few minutes, but the impression I had from the TV series is that the development that occurs is something that happened quite a bit later in the War… but is nonetheless effective for it. Assuming that we are going to get more Gallifrey: Time War sets, I’m looking forward to seeing who they cast (and what a coup it would be if they were able to complete their “War” set with the TV actor in question!). If we aren’t, and Matt Fitton has provided the final piece in the saga, then Lalla Ward and Sean Carlsen go out on a high, with some excellent work from both.

Verdict: The inexorable march towards total conflict is well portrayed. 9/10

Paul Simpson