Buying Time

Dalek Universe #1.1

Released: 14 April 2021

Listened: 11/30/22

Hang on kids; this is where things get confusing. Most Big Finish stories don’t rely too heavily on continuity, especially the modern-series ones. Dalek Universe is a big exception. You’ll need to know who Anya Kingdom is (last seen by the Fourth Doctor in the “Syndicate” stories). You’ll also need to know Mark Seven (last seen in the “Dalek Protocol” prequel), and it helps to know how both of those tie in to “The Daleks’ Master Plan,” which is a First Doctor story from 1966, and it’s a lost story, so nobody’s actually seen it in its entirety in decades. But, all that aside, the story chugs along at a good pace, appropriate for a new-series story. It starts in the middle, with Anya and a Space Security Service team searching a wreck for survivors, except that Anya’s really looking for Mark, and finds the Doctor, who has no idea how he got there. There’s some sharp character work going on here too, with the Doctor still being angry at Anya over the Ann Kelso identity – except he never told her about his relationship with Sara Kingdom or Bret Vyon, so he’s at least compartmentalizing, if not being downright hypocritical. On top of which, Mark and Anya apparently had some disagreement since we saw them last. In Terry Nation style, the plot has no problem hopping between planets, where we get several more characters, including Mark Gatiss, mostly unrecognizable as an unscrupulous CEO who’s about to introduce time technology way ahead of schedule. It’s also a John Dorney story, and therefore has one hell of a cliffhanger. This is good stuff, all the way around.