The Lost

Dalek Universe #2.3

Released: 14 July 2021

Listened: 12/8/22

The Doctor isn’t in a good place right now. Mark’s been killed by a Dalek, and even though the Doctor didn’t know him that long, he’s still pretty tired of this stuff. Plus, he and Anya are in a rapidly disintegrating ship with a malfunctioning time drive, which drops them in an empty bubble universe. Even better, it’s one of those bubble universes built as a prison for a Being From Before Time, who did a Bad Thing. The being naturally wants to get out, which it can only do in the consciousness of a mortal, and being immaterial, the only thing it can do is mentally torment the Doctor and Anya until one of them agrees. The Doctor’s got plenty of torment-fodder, but he’s been through this sort of thing before, and he’s not biting. For Anya, though, the Lost can reveal what happened to Brett Vyon and Sara Kingdom, and what the Doctor had to do with that. Rob Valentine seems to be trying to paint an equivalence between the Doctor’s lie of omission about the Kingdoms and Anya’s deception around Ann Kelso, but I don’t think I buy it. Anya didn’t really have much choice about Ann’s fate. I’m not overly fond of an “it never happened” resolution, and neither is the Doctor, really, but at least the consequences stick, and the Doctor and Anya are forced to tell some truth. On the whole, the point of this second boxed set seems to be making the Doctor very sad, but also confronting him with the results of his actions. We’re six episodes in, though, and there’s still a notable absence of Daleks.