Celestial Intervention

Gallifrey: Time War #1.1

Released: 22 February 2018

Listened: 5/12/21

This boxed set jumps forward a couple more years of production time to 2018, by which time Big Finish had embraced the idea of the Time War, with boxed sets for the Eighth Doctor, the War Doctor, and the War Master, so it was kind of inevitable that they’d touch on the story of Gallifrey during this period. But this first story makes clear it’s a direct connection to the previous series. Livia is still President, Romana is head of the CIA, with Narvin as her deputy, and Leela is...around. She seems to be a CIA agent now that she’s no longer the President’s friend, but she’s not happy about some of her assignments. The CIA seems to be fully public now, and on equal footing with the High Council and the new War Council when it comes to defense matters. The other “temporal powers” are still around, at least for a few minutes before they all get wiped out by Daleks, and dump some refugees on Gallifrey’s doorstep. General Trave of the War Council uses the refugee crisis to get a promise that the CIA will stay out of their secret weapons program, which is good Gallifrey-style politics. Most of the time Romana seems to be on the back foot, which leaves Lalla Ward playing exasperated the whole time, which got tedious back in Series 2. Narvin doesn’t seem too sharp for the experienced operative he usually is, sending Leela into a high-stakes situation without proper precautions. The real point of this story, though, is to get Gallifrey to formally declare war on the Daleks, which feels like a momentous enough occasion, so that’s well done, and I’m impressed that they didn’t drag that out further. The refugee subplot is a little uncomfortable in 2018, but that was probably intentional. I was expecting a big change in tone, to match the other Time War sets, but this one really just inserts the war into the existing Gallifrey structure, which is an impressive trick, even if it’s not exactly to my taste.