The Enemy of My Enemy

Time Lord Victorious #2

Released: 11 November 2020

Listened: 1/11/22

The Eighth Doctor continues through this crossover without actually knowing he’s in it. He’s pitched up (without Brian) on a Dalek ship holding a Dalek time squad with an unusual collection of Daleks with distinct personalities: the Commander, the Scientist, the Executioner, and the very curious Strategist, who has an old, beat-up casing, and an agenda of his own. The Daleks are very interested in whatever’s been causing temporal distortions lately, and they want the Doctor’s help. We seem to be pre-Time War at this point, for the Daleks to consider recruiting the Doctor at all. For his part, the Doctor seems distinctly flippant with the Daleks, teasing them and playing them off one another without any fear of extermination, as though they don’t impress him at all. The Daleks are headed for the planet Wrax, where the natives have a device that can devolve an entire species, anywhere in the universe, if they have a DNA sample. Which is kind of bonkers, but that’s because it comes from the Kotturuh, a race that the Doctor believes is extinct…but also alive, which means they’ve got something to do with the time anomalies. This Doctor seems incongruously optimistic – although he’s getting close to the Time War, he’s still not willing to contemplate genocide of the Daleks, even though he felt differently after Lucie’s death, and when he was with Molly. He’s still able to make speeches about the sanctity of life and such. Maybe his time with Liv and Helen restored his optimism; I don’t know. The story ends with the Doctor and the Daleks heading off into the Dark Times, which is where the rest of the crossover takes place.