Doctor of War: Destiny

Doctor of War #2

Released 27 September 2022

Listened: 2/19/23

This second boxed set, entitled “Destiny,” isn’t quite as confusing as the first, but the bits still don’t make a ton of sense.

Who Am I?

In this story, the Doctor isn’t present at all. Instead, it’s “The Face of Evil,” but with the Master taking the Doctor’s place. Except, y’know, he’s still the Master, so it’s not like things are going to go well for Leela. In fact, the Master is manipulating Xoanon, the Tesh, and the Sevateem for his own ends. Xoanon, like in the main timeline, is insane and has a number of different voices, one of which is the Doctor’s (or the Warrior’s, I guess), but that doesn’t seem to make a ton of difference. Louise Jameson, of course, is wonderful as she always is, but mostly, this is just Leela’s life turning into a horror show, and she has no idea why.

Time Killers

This story takes place a bit further down the timeline, and finds the Master and the Warrior working together, for reasons that aren’t explained. There’s no sign of what happened to the Master’s plan from the previous story. They force their way through some temporal interference to land on Marinus, except they end up in a domed city where all the residents are forced to move at top speed, never stopping, because if they do, they have a portion of their life “deducted” by an entity called Horol, who works for a Bank of Time. The Warrior is actually present in this story, but it seems like all he does is complain and be grumpy. Apparently he wants to take a moment to think, and that can’t happen in this city. The Master ends up doing his own thing, and gets horribly disfigured for his trouble, because apparently that always has to happen, but it’s not clear why. It’s also not clear why this happens on Marinus specifically. Lizzie Hopley starts with a good high concept, but the resolution isn’t very satisfying.

The Key To Key To Time

We’re even further down the timeline now, and the Warrior is actually referred to as “old,” and appears to be acting like it. The Time War has apparently gone on for a very long time, as much as such a thing is possible. The White Guardian shows up and recruits the Warrior to assemble the Key to Time, because apparently that has to happen in any universe. She also gives him a companion, which in this case is Davros…except Davros and the Doctor never met in this timeline, so that’s a bit strange. In fact, everything about the story is a bit strange, as the Warrior and Davros seem to have odd hallucinogenic experiences every time they find a segment. And both Davros and the President of Gallifrey have private lines to the Guardian, so not all is as it seems here. It’s nearly impossible to explain what happens; I’m not sure the Doctor and Davros know what happens. The ending gets more than a little trippy, and there’s even a second ending on top of it. Thing is, even knowing it was an Unbound story, it still doesn't feel like it hangs together. I guess it’s better than the first run of Unbounds, but I’m perfectly fine to have it end here.