Doctor Who: Dark Gallifrey Master! Part 2 from Big Finish Review

At the end of Dark Gallifrey Master Part 1, the Master, posing as the Vector, asked student Gamara if, choosing one person to destroy to save the future of the Time Lords, would she do it? I’m not sure how I feel about that line, as it sounds like the “do I have the right?” speech in Genesis of the Daleks.

However, the Master isn’t a man with a conscience and so the idea that the experiment will prevent suffering feels unlikely. Part 2 is when the Master really tightens his grip on the students on a fateful field trip who have crashed on Dark Gallifrey.

The framing device of having the Mind Shield as an investigator played by the writer Liz Hopley, questioning Gamara played so confidentially by Claire Huckle as the last student still alive from the ill-fated field trip, really allows a microscopic analysis of the manipulation the Master has implemented.

The 12-step phases introduced in Part 1 continue as this episode covers Integrity, Acceptance, Humility and Willingness. The story moves back and forth between the distant past of the field trip, the present of Gamara with the Mind Shield and the recent past as Gamara visited her fellow ex-students. As it happens, there was a cover-up amongst the students holding secrets after they returned from the fateful trip.

The older Gamara is well-versed, a politician spouting all the logical justification to the Mind Shield she can muster for the monstrous decision to destroy a fellow student. Claire Huckle really strikes a good balance between the older, more seasoned Gamara and the younger, more emotionally led student she was.

It’s a clever juxtaposition of mature reflection but Gamara still doesn’t really see how manipulated they all were. I do wonder if the Master was using some kind of hypnosis because, although he is a hologram, Gamara mentions how his eyes weren’t normal and how they all came to rely on him.  

Stranded on a barren planet, the students confront the devastating reality of their situation, including the Master’s dangerous plans and the mysterious entities in the psychic forest.In the present, Gamara and the Mind Shield try to understand the entity which had been hunting them all

The mythical Mother Quiver

There is a really interesting moment between Gamara and the Master as he identifies that she watches and listens as part of her love of stories. He tempts her with the thought of being able to go home if he gets what he wants. I found the story of Mother Quiver, the Master uses as a war-mongering cannibal Time Lady, as the first known sufferer of regenerative dissonance, disturbing, but it is the reason for the experiment, apparently to force a regeneration in an innocent pre-regenerative to cure the condition. 

It’s clear the Master had done his research about each student. The students have complex emotional relationships with each other, creating alliances that fall apart at a moment’s notice. He uses their weaknesses or desires to corrupt them, making them question each other. It’s divide and conquer.

Olzel unwillingly becomes the designated victim in the group. Olzel is easily frightened, and the penny doesn’t drop for all of them until quite late that the students are in a psychic forest which the vector withholds. Olzel is a telepath and was wounded with an injury. Olzel would easily be the most affected of the group with bad dreams. The fire of forest wood burning all day in the hut she sleeps in would naturally overwhelm her.

The only character to try to bring sanity to the situation is Gamara’s friend Soolindra, who is really Gamara’s secret love interest. Soolindra seems to be the only person who will challenge the Master. questioning his motives and seeing his manipulation. She questions the validity of the experiment using students to solve a complex issue, such as regenerative dissidence and is disgusted by the attempts of the others to destroy Olzel’s mental health.

The writer Liz Hopley really drills down into how people become complicit to consider the worst things in their desperation to escape an unbearable situation. A strong survival mentality, Tabreen, one of the blunter female students, is assigned to look after the injured female Olzel. Tabreen and the boys, Torliss and his brood cousin Borin, come to see Olzel as weak, insignificant, affecting the rest of the group.

When Torliss and Borin discuss her as a mentally unstable outsider, that is an uncomfortable listen. It’s outrageous, bizarre and cruel as the three plot to affect Olzel’s mental health with two mock deaths.

This second part of the story felt very strong because it’s not an easy listen, seeing a young group of, let’s be fair, somewhat entitled high-achieving students thrust into such a dire situation with such a deeply manipulative character as the Master. Eric Roberts continues to excel as the Master. He was recorded in Los Angeles away from the rest of the cast, and I understand how there is a distance in his relationship with the students, maybe because of that.

Eric Roberts keeps his Master so enigmatic, and I’m very intrigued by all the misdirection mentions from the Master of the Doctor as a shadowy silver arrow archer who shoots and tries to kill people. I am very excited to see how this story concludes.

This release is 71 minutes. You can buy 4.2. Dark Gallifrey: Master! Part 2 – Dark Gallifrey – Big Finish  from £8.99 download and slightly more with the CD included