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Big Finish's DALEK EMPIRE series starts off promisingly with an enjoyable, if rather traditional story. In fact, many of the elements in THE GENOCIDE MACHINE will be familiar to anyone who's watched any of the sixties and seventies Dalek stories, particularly those written by Terry Nation. The setting for the story is the planet Kar-Charrat, which houses a library temporally hidden by the Time Lords, which is of interest to the Doctor and Ace, and a mysterious ziggurat, which has attracted the interest of a group of mercenaries. Naturally, this being a Dalek story there's a jungle there as well. However, unlike every televised story from 1974 to 1988, there's no sign of Davros, which is no bad thing as he's tended to take centre stage every time, reducing his creation to the role of heavies. The Wetworks facility within the library is supposed to contain all the knowledge in the Universe in a liquid form, but only appears to be staffed by two people - the almost silent Cataloguer Prink and Chief Librarian Elgin (excellently portrayed by BUTTERFLIES' Bruce Montague). The other major characters are mercenaries Bev Tarrant (Louise Faulkner) and her partner Rappell (Daniel Gabrielle). Of course, it's "those nasty little pepper pots" (to quote Elgin) who take centre stage. Nicholas Briggs and Alistair Lock do a fine job on the vocalisation front, especially the Emperor Dalek (from THE EVIL OF THE DALEKS). It's not terribly original, but then WHO often isn't, especially when it comes to Dalek stories, and the usual elements of a Terry Nation Dalek story - mercenaries, a jungle, a duplicate - are all present and correct here. Unlike on TV, there's no need to cringe as the Daleks wobble unconvincingly across a wasteground or when obvious fakes are blown up, because as usual, the sound effects are well realised. I'm no fan of either the Seventh Doctor or Ace, or indeed the actors who played them, but even I have no complaints here - although McCoy seems to be overdoing the Scots accent on occasions for no real reason. A good start to the DALEK EMPIRE arc, and Big Finish really do seem to be finding their feet these days. BACK TO THE TOP |
DALEK EMPIRE - PART ONE Starring SYLVESTER McCOY |
