A Dalek craft is revealed to have a Time Lord aboard…

My suspicions about the reworking of the focus of this series are heightened by David Llewellyn’s script for this second story, once more taking us into the dirty side of the Time War, and reminding us that for all their pretensions at moral superiority, there’s not a lot of difference between Time Lords, humans and Daleks. Which might be a little unfair on Skaro’s finest at times…

The set’s subtitle Allegiance is appropriate to all areas of this particular episode. Leela’s role in this story is interesting, and I’m reserving judgement on how she fits into the situation until we learn a bit more. She has her own agenda, but does as she’s bid here – and there’s some clever use of her talents when it comes to working out just what is going on. Llewellyn plays fair with the listener: it’s one of those stories where if something feels off kilter, there’s probably a very good reason.

The internecine bickering does occasionally feel like we’re building up to a repeat of the classic line from Dr Strangelove about not fighting in here because it’s the war room (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeqVGP-GPM) and there are multiple agendas at work here too. The necessary recasting of Ollistra has provided an interesting thread – will she, like Voyager’s EMH, find ways of existing where she currently can’t?

Verdict: A dark and complicated tale. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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