Doctor Who: Dalek Universe 1 – Review

Big Finish has been really using the Daleks recently. Love it or hate it, those metal meanies make money and you always know things are going to be bad when you hear their grating voices. Big Finish has also been playing a long game with Anya Kingdom, the once former audio companion to the Fourth Doctor who turned out to be the sister of Hartnell companion, Sara Kingdom. Entering Dalek Universe, how does the opening series of the set handle the metal monsters, Anya and the Tenth Doctor?

The series opens with John Dorney’s Buying Time. Very quickly he gets the story underway with the Doctor having been pulled out of time and finding himself on a spaceship where Mark Seven and Anya Kingdom, both last heard in The Dalek Protocol, are hunting for something in the crashed ship. But without his TARDIS and surrounded by invisible monsters, the Doctor has no choice in going with them.

I haven’t heard a lot of the eighth series of the Fourth Doctor series, but Dorney catches you up just enough to know what happened but enough to make you want to hear the whole story. And I was also pleased that her betrayal didn’t entirely run this story, instead, Dorney keeps the Doctor and Anya together for the entirety making them trust each other because of the events happening around them.

They begin to investigate the time machinations of a businessman called George Sheldrake and from here on, Dorney doesn’t let up, the whole episode builds to its brilliant conclusion which forms a cliff-hanger for the next episode, The Wrong Woman.

The second episode, The Wrong Woman sees a ‘new incarnation of the Doctor arrive on the scene but it’s made very clear that all is not what it seems. While Anya and Mark have to quickly get used to the concept of regeneration, they are quickly abandoned as Dorney reveals this ‘new’ Doctor is in fact a new incarnation of the Meddling Monk. Gemma Whelan does a great job here, both as a new version of the Doctor and the new Meddling Monk. What’s fun is that all the clues are there, much like the Missy reveal, and it’ll be fun on a re-listen to hear those clues back again knowing what happens.

Whelan also has great chemistry with David Tennant, who is desperate for another Time Lord to survive the Time War. Apparently set just before the War with the Daleks, Dorney has great fun in giving the Tenth Doctor some emotional scenes and just when you think he’s done it, Dorney rips the carpet out from under everyone.

Mark Gatiss is also on hand as Sheldrake, a role that feels like his audio-Master incarnation. I did wonder if that was who Sheldrake was going to be, but it turns into a red herring. However, Gatiss wins you over as the evil business tycoon who is determined to make time travel possible for everyone and make loads of money in the process. His downfall is a joy to listen too and you realise just how little there is to recommend of Sheldrake as he ends a snivelling wreck who is about to be sued for everything. He reminded me of Luke Rattigan in The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky in his un-likability and it was fun to hear the Doctor, Anya and Mark tearing his life down.

Listened too together, Buying Time and The Wrong Woman is an excellent opening two-parter, which effortlessly evokes the feel of both the modern and classic eras of the show. And for a series called Dalek Universe, there is only a small cameo from the titular villains. So for those who are concerned that the Daleks are getting a little overused by Big Finish at the moment then have no fear in getting this set. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Buying Time and The Wrong Woman are two of the best audios I’ve heard in quite a while.

Andrew Smith brings the debut series to a close with The House of Kingdom, which sees The Doctor, Anya and Mark all travelling together to find a way to get the Tenth Doctor back to his own time. Smith has made quite the name for himself with Big Finish dealing with character’s different legacies and here is no different, as he delves into the lives of the Kingdoms and the deaths of Sara Kingdom and Brett Vyon in The Daleks Masterplan.

It also features the return of the Mechanoids, creatures first seen in The Chase and used sparingly over the years at Big Finish. And you’d think they’d be the big villains but instead, Smith rightly decides to keep things personal between Anya and her Grandfather Merrick Kingdom who is trying to find a way to stop the Dalek Wars. Throughout the course of the episode, its fun to hear the Doctor discover how the deaths of Sara and Brett destroyed the Kingdom family and for all his treating Anya like she is a bad guy, does get called up on his actions in The Daleks Masterplan when he decides to hide the role he played in both Sara and Brett’s deaths.

Its a moment that will hopefully set up a conflict down the line between the Doctor and Anya with them both being called out on their actions in the past but the focus isn’t just kept on Anya and Merrick, as Mark Seven gets some exploration with how people around him treat him. Over the course of this series, Mark becomes a great character, a clever and sassy android that, while does remain a secondary character, gets some great moments and will come to the centre in the upcoming sets. There is some surprising depth in the handling of how other people treat Mark Seven, but given how this is a Smith script, those themes are always going to be explored.

In the end, though, it’s Merrick’s actions that bring about the final end to the house of Kingdom and while it’s not a happy ending per se it’s a nice way to round the series out. The Dalek threat is still looming, those metal monsters are out there somewhere but this time, Big Finish have done the right thing in keeping them in the background, allowing the main cast to have some fun before it will all come tumbling down for the characters.

David Tennant is brilliant here and it’s fun to hear him getting to interact with the classic era of the show. And it was nice to hear him interacting with new companions and characters. Tennant clearly loves working on audio and is on fire here. Jane Slavin is also excellent as Anya Kingdom and really excels at showing how her character is trying to turn herself around from the life she had led and make herself into something new. You get the feeling by the end of this set, the Doctor is beginning to realise that too so hopefully the next volumes build on that. Joe Simms as Mark Seven is excellent also and he’s a character you really come to love by the time the set is over.

Hopefully, Mark will get plenty more stories to tell but I get the feeling he might not get a happy ending!

If you were concerned about the overuse of Daleks in Big Finish, you needn’t worry here. With the exception of a cameo appearance, the writers instead focus on the main characters and do some extensive world-building. But the threat of the Daleks feels just on the horizon. This is a great way to kick of the series and I can’t wait to hear more!