Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Tracy Wiles, Brian McCardie, Sean Biggerstaff, Hugh Ross, Damian Lynch, Nicholas Briggs.
It can be a staggering thought at times, that even after over 50 years of storytelling, filmed adventures and audio escapades, that there is still moments in which to find a large, near timeless thrill in a new tale set in the world of Doctor Who. Masters of Earth is one of those audio dramas so beloved of its makers Big Finish, that it allows the listener to sit back, relax, to a point and remember why they might have fallen in love with Doctor Who in the beginning.
When that tale involves going back in time and slipping neatly between the sheets of one of the great stories of the Doctor’s first incarnation, the enlightening and absorbing The Dalek Invasion of Earth, then it becomes even easier to understand the broad appeal and quality of the original programme. So much scope, so much capacity in which to paint a canvas that is so full of endless possibilities, it can be only be for the good of the entire Doctor Who canon.
The Sixth Doctor and Peri find themselves embroiled in events of the Doctor’s past that just one slip could cause the strands of time to wither and die like a flowering bud pruned by an over enthusiastic, but ultimately dreadful gardener. Throw the Daleks into the highly volatile mix and a group of survivors prepared to make certain sacrifices to their basic humanity in order to finally beat the planet’s metal cased oppressors, then the resulting script by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott is one in which to praise fully.
Where this particular story fits in the very highest places of the Doctor Who audio series is in its sheer quality, its huge rampaging chase scene which again alludes to a previous television story and in the imagined stillness of the Scottish air being poisoned by the terror of the Daleks, being seen by the citizens of Earth in their very first visitation and testing the fragile nature of Humanity’s courage in the face of overwhelming evil.
The original way in The Daleks were seen, the science Fiction embodiment of the Nazis, was not only enough to make viewers of Doctor Who remember why the Second World War had to be fought, to save Europe and beyond from the evil blackness that had struck at the heart of decency, but to urge them to never forget why tyranny of all shapes, creeds and political colours, must always be tackled head on. Masters of Earth plays with that question and asks just how far one would be willing to go in achieving that aim and what would it do to your basic compassion and humanity in the process?
The more modern viewer of the parent programme might look at The Daleks as being old hat, perhaps nothing more terrifying than watching the History Channel, and yet hopefully deep within us all lays the dormant but very real fear of oppression, fear and what it could do to our souls if we fight back on unequal terms.
As Masters of Earth points out, when the conquered fight back and vanquish their enemy, what’s to stop them becoming the oppressor?
With Colin Baker at the helm of a story, the listener is always afforded the idea that the luxury of a deeply intriguing story is at close hand, in Masters of Earth that spirit of adventure transcends over 50 years of the most original television programme on offer.
Masters of Earth is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall