Enemy Lines

Gallifrey #8

Released: 2 February 2015

Listened: 5/7/21

Released a year after “Intervention Earth,” this story initially appears to pick up right where the previous cliffhanger left off...except it promptly shifts back into the past, bringing us back to Romana II and Leela. It seems like it was intended as a legitimate extension from Series 7, keeping the same theme music, and the same half-hour structure, although with six parts instead of four. And yet at the same time, the plot seems to be undoing Series 7 so that it never happens. Braxiatel appears from nowhere and rescues Romana III, who orders him back to an earlier point in time to save Romana II from sacrificing her current life to prevent a spaceship explosion. She doesn’t regenerate in this new timeline, but that may not be enough change, so she also steps down as President, setting off another round of Gallifreyan politics as her rival Livia takes office. Ace is here as well, newly trained, and delighting in confusing Time Lords with Earth slang, but also very loyal to Gallifrey and Romana. But she doesn’t get to interact much, as she’s sent off on a mission. Narvin, unfortunately, exits quite early, having fallen back into “possibly can’t be trusted” status, which is odd after the events of Series 4-6. Ace gets sent on a mission, but her part feels unnecessary; you could have substituted any other CIA agent in the same place. But Series 7 established Ace as part of the Gallifrey story, so here she is. The last couple of parts involve lots of paradoxes and more timey-wimey ball than I can comfortably follow, and I’m pretty good with timey-wimey balls. If I’ve got this correct, most of the events of Series 7 and 8 have un-happened, all the dead characters are back alive, and Gallifrey is reasonably safe for now. Romana is no longer President, although not really disgraced either, and Braxiatel is...something vague and paradoxical. That would probably mean a lot more to me if I were more conversant with Brax from the Benny stories, but I’m not, and he’s been absent from most of the Gallifrey stories, so it kind of falls flat. I guess the primary goal here was to maneuver things so that Romana wasn’t President when the Time War broke out, as Big Finish had just started releasing stories set during the Time War, which is where we’re going next. On the whole, Series 8 is a little better than Series 7, but both are unsatisfying.