Panacea

Gallifrey #3.5

Released: August 2006

Listened: 4/8/21

The last story in this series has a distinctly different tone. Everybody has a distinctly sarcastic turn, which makes the dialog snappy, but not really fitting with what came before, nor appropriate to the tone of the series. Romana isn’t President anymore, and isn’t in immediate danger, but she’s snapping at absolutely everybody. Braxiatel is back, but nobody really knows whose side he’s on now. And Arkadian is back from Series 1, but everyone is treating him as a very serious threat now, which doesn’t seem to be warranted. The big threat is the Dogma virus, created by Free Time a long time ago, and modified by Pandora. It seems to be running rampant through the population, and the potential cure is even worse. No matter what course of action they take, it looks like Gallifrey is doomed...which is where it ends, on a cliffhanger. That’s fairly disappointing to me in this project, because Series 2 and 3, at least, seem to have gone nowhere in particular. For fans at the time, though, it was far worse, as this story was released in 2006, and there was no continuation until 2011. Whether it’s worth the wait remains to be seen.