The Apocalypse Element

Main Range #11

Released: 7 August 2000

Listened: 6/8/20

This story is part of the “Dalek Empire” set of Main Range stories (not to be confused with the “Dalek Empire” series itself), but the point is, it’s an event, so it’s big, and it’s loud, and it has Daleks. I think the intent of these stories was to restore the Daleks to “big threat” status, because they’d been somewhat diminished at the end of the classic series. The other big draw for this story was the return of Lalla Ward as Romana, in her role as President of Gallifrey, although when the story starts she’s been missing for 20 years. The Daleks are certainly violent and extreme in this story, and are targeting Gallifrey specifically, so this could certainly be considered a precursor to the Time War (Russell T Davies said as much). However, as a story, it’s rather over the top. Romana seems to be rather high-strung, but she’s just spent 20 years in captivity. Colin Baker seems to be going for maximum volume to convey the scope of the threat, but given the amount of technobabble involved, it comes off sounding somewhat silly. Evelyn is particularly odd, seeming quite flippant most of the time, except when she’s in panic mode. It doesn’t seem like she’s been a companion long enough to have a completely casual attitude toward futuristic tech and Dalek threats. There’s also an attempt to explain one of the sillier aspects of the TV Movie, which really didn’t need to happen. It was probably a very big event on its initial release, and Big Finish may have wanted to make a splash early, but with the benefit of distance, it seems rather overwrought.

-- The “Dalek Empire” series of stories takes place here, according to Craig Brawley’s chronology, but I’m sticking to the Doctor’s timeline for the time being. --