Square One

Gallifrey #1.2

Released: April 2004

Listened: 3/27/21

This one is kind of a creepy episode, and not in a good way. It may have been better when it was released, but it sure hasn’t aged well. There’s a temporal summit going on, but the terrorists from last episode are still a worry, so Romana sends Leela to the conference in the guise of an exotic dancer (iew!) to ferret them out. To make matters worse, there’s a delegate who’s a walking harassment suit, and it turns out he murders women too. Another Time Lord negotiator is introduced, but she’s just as bad as Narvin, if not worse. There’s some timey-wimey taking place around the conference, which is a bit odd, as you’d think a bunch of temporal powers would be able to notice and stop such a thing. On top of which, there’s some language that really doesn’t belong in a Doctor Who story, but I guess Big Finish was trying to be a bit edgy at the time. I think we’re supposed to get the sense that Leela and Romana are starting to work better together, but the way Romana takes advantage of and belittles Leela in this one, I’m not really seeing it.