Dissolution

Gallifrey: Time War #4.2

Released: 4 February 2021

Listened: 5/23/21

If the war is kicking back into high gear again, this seems like a good time to...have a breather episode where we find out more about Narvin? OK. During the evacuation at the beginning of the last episode, Narvin and Rayo grabbed a TARDIS and made themselves scarce, but without Leela, much to Rayo’s annoyance, because he doesn’t entirely trust Narvin. They’re attacked by a hunter-class Dalek while fleeing, so Narvin has to go to the one place in the entire universe he knows is safe, the Patrex chapterhouse on a hidden ocean planet. There’s only one person there, an old friend of Narvin’s, who seems to have the ability to get inside his head pretty well. It seems that the Patrex chapter has never had much power, preferring to spend time on art and philosophy, which young Narvin found irritating, so he bailed and joined the CIA. So he’s caught between his old desires to get away and get involved, versus his new instinct to protect Rayo, who really wants to get back to a war he doesn’t comprehend so he can do some fighting, believing Leela would want that. It takes Narvin fighting off a Dalek to impress Rayo, but he eventually starts to trust him. There’s nothing wrong with humanizing Narvin, and finally getting some insight into him, but it seems like a bit of an odd time for it. And Rayo himself seems to have turned up at the end of Volume 3, not done much in particular, and now gets written out. It makes you wonder if Big Finish didn’t have all the plans for Volume 4 in place when they finished Volume 3.