Dreadshade

The Time War #4.3

Released: 16 September 2020

Listened: 2/2/22

The Doctor and Bliss bounce back to the “prime” timeline, where the Time War is still over, but now nobody can remember that the Daleks existed, which is awkward, given that the Time Lords are trying to wind down a war against an enemy they can’t remember. Worse, the Doctor and Bliss also seem to have lost part of their memories, and can’t remember each other. And worse still, the Twelve is awake and about, with her memories intact, and she’s got control of a Dreadshade, a rather strange sentient weapon. It’s terrified of just about everything, but the more afraid it gets, the more dangerous it is. But it’s not mythical or anything; it just starts throwing out energy bolts once it gets to a certain level of terror. It was trained to fear Daleks most of all, but since it can’t remember the Daleks now, the Twelve gets it to lash out at the Time Lords. Unfortunately, the Twelve isn’t as cleverly written as in her last appearance. Most of the time, her other personas are suppressed, and she’s mostly vicious and scheming, instead of the nice little old lady act she did before. It’s still funny to hear Julia McKenzie doing evil, but it’s kind of one-note. Bliss spends most of the story being confused, but steadily becoming more dismayed by the Time Lords’ conduct during the war, the more she learns. The Doctor’s moral high-handedness seems a bit overdone here, since the war is over, and nobody can recall the enemy, but he’s still leaning into it. Casting-wise, Ken Bones appears as the General, although he doesn’t do anything specific that couldn’t be done by another Time Lord character, unfortunately. Rasmus is here too, having regenerated from Damian Lynch into Chris Jarman. He’s not much different, though; he just sounds older. While it’s interesting to see how the Time Lords would have acted in the aftermath of a Time War that they won, this story doesn’t really do a whole lot.