The Master is helping the Daleks – but not the Master you’re expecting…

No two ways about it, this box set is one for the hardcore Doctor Who fans, and in particular ones who are well versed in the Big Finish continuity and its various ramifications. It starts with the ‘Sam Kisgart’ Master (an alias that thankfully has outlived its usefulness) still stuck in the bubble universe after the alternate third Doctor (David Warner) and Bernice escaped – and he’s rescued by the Daleks. The episode then follows their attempts to deal with the temporal shockwaves that are affecting all realities as a result of the War Master’s activities on Skaro…

There’s some fun to be hard with the constantly shifting realities – we get an epic fantasy version of Gallifrey, and gender-shifting variants of key characters – but by the end it’s wearing more than a little thin. My immediate thought at the end of the episode was that, were this not designed as part of a box set, the events in this could have easily have been condensed into half the time.

Mark Gatiss seems to be having a great deal of fun as the Master, while Sean Carlsen and Pippa Bennett-Warner make each variant of their characters distinct.

Verdict: There’s a lot of heavy lifting left for the final episode – but this establishes Gatiss’ Master well. 7/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order Anti-Genesis from Big Finish