Lies

Gallifrey #2.1

Released: April 2005

Listened: 3/29/21

It looks like the first series did well enough to warrant a second, released in 2005, but still made before the new TV series debuted. The cast is a little bigger this time around, including Mary Tamm appearing as Romana I in flashbacks and Matrix projections, and sounding quite wonderful doing so. The “Free Time” terrorists are still active, and (spoiler) Andred still seems to be one of them, having been influenced by Torvald. But the big thing going on here is apparently a prophecy linking Romana to one of the earliest Time Lord Presidents, a woman who called herself Imperiatrix Pandora, and opposed most of Rassilon’s policies. As a result, this episode is mostly a lot of exposition: primarily Romana and Leela finding out about this prophecy and what all the backstory means. There’s also quite a bit of plotting against Romana on the part of Narvin and Darkel, but to be honest it’s kind of farcical. Narvin attempts to manipulate Wynter, the new Castellan, but it’s so obvious that the only reason it succeeds at all is because Wynter is carrying on the bold tradition that Castellans must be as dumb as a post. I’m not sure it’s great having Romana’s backstory manipulated like this, but it does explain some of the odder things about her.