The Conquest of Far

Third Doctor Adventures #3.1

Released: 17 August 2017

Listened: 6/27/21

We’re starting to get close to the end of Jo’s tenure, so Big Finish slips in a Dalek story that takes place immediately after “Planet of the Daleks,” yet isn’t connected to it. This one takes place during the one of the Dalek Wars that Big Finish has often portrayed, with large cinematic space battles that probably wouldn’t work on TV, not to mention the Doctor slamming a Dalek saucer into a planetary atmosphere at hyperspeed, which I’m sure Jon Pertwee would have loved to film. The Doctor and Jo are separated almost immediately in this story, which did happen sometimes. That leaves Jo free to deal with an emotional story of the resistance and unwilling collaborators, which can be heart-rending, although you can kind of see the twist coming. The Doctor, instead, gets the usual array of imprisonment, escape, rescue, and gaining the trust of authority figures. Fortunately, he has a human on his side who becomes more capable as the story goes on. And his reputation precedes him (or the reputation of his later selves, or whatever). This one is big and sprawling, not really what Terry Nation would have done, although perhaps if he’d had an unlimited budget, who knows?