Kate and the team head across the Atlantic to get a nasty piece of alien technology off the black market…

…and, of course, encounter a Dalek. Which comes as no surprise, given the title of the story – but the nature of said former Skarosian is something of a novelty, and makes you wonder at how easily the Fifth Doctor and co. dealt with one of the mutant misfits in Docklands back in the mid-1980s. Matt Fitton upends some of the listener’s expectations with a script that has certain resonances with the first Dalek tale of the new series (apart from the obvious shout-out to that adventure, which rather knocks some theories that it was removed from the timeline by subsequent events). You underestimate a Dalek at your peril!

There’s a fluidity to the performances in this first story of the new box set that has occasionally been missing in previous adventures: the repartee between the characters has occasionally sounded a little stilted, which hasn’t got in the way of the enjoyment of the stories, but has meant they’ve not quite felt natural. That’s vanished here, and the entire UNIT team mesh well together. Karina Fernandez’s Captain Gonsalves is a good human foil, and I’m hoping that we hear more from her mysterious superiors.

Verdict: An enjoyably twisting tale to kick off the new set. 9/10

Paul Simpson