Jonah

The Time War #2.4

Released: 10 July 2018

Listened: 1/25/22

Here we’ve got another narrative jump from the previous story, although it seems to take place not long after. After being rescued from the Daleks, the Doctor, Bliss, and the Twelve are taken to the ocean planet of Uzmal, where the Daleks are looking for something. The Doctor is put in charge of a submarine with Bliss and the Twelve aboard, while Tamasan has charge of another. Putting the Doctor in charge of a group, especially a military group, is a terrible idea, which quickly shows, but he does manage to win over the crew with some unorthodox thinking. Mostly, though, it’s a submarine thriller, with depth charges and silent running and hull pressure and all that stuff. Timothy X Atack creates some impressive secondary characters, especially Tania Rodrigues as Chief Panath, having to put up with being the Doctor’s second. All of the native Uzmali have Indian accents, which sound very lovely, but there’s no reason given for it. And the Twelve more or less loses her mind, which gives Julia McKenzie a lot of acting to do, managing to be convincingly scary. Once the Daleks actually reach their goal, it’s a bit anticlimactic, because they don’t seem to have much of a plan for what to do next. Good worldbuilding, great character work, but the plot is just kind of fine. As a boxed set, it’s clear that they want the Time War as a setting, but this one isn’t nearly as desperate as the first, nor is the Doctor pushed as far.