Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Jonathon Carley, Ajjaz Awad, Michael Amariah, Nicholas Briggs, Tiegan Byrne, Esmonde Cole, Sophie Khan Levy, Georgia Mackenzie, Deeivya Meir, Lucy Murrell.

The Time War arguably truly begins with a hybrid being fought over, a case study in the relative positions of two great empires, one dedicated by the actions of a mad man to destruction, racial purity, and genocide, the other the relic of a period in time when lords were looked upon as Gods, and when they acted in the same casual, nonchalant manner.

There is a deep rooted feeling that the tremendously written tales from Big Finish involving Jonathon Carley in the role of the young War Doctor, a position of responsibility that frames the immense scale of the role when the listener considers that the actor places his very being into honouring the late, great John Hurt, have been leading to the moment when the woman who was partially turned into a Dalek Berserker  is revealed to playing a greater part in the war than previously recognised.

Case, the unknown element in a war between Time Lords and Daleks is a creation that Big Finish have produced with insight of the tussle between good and evil being at its most poignant and devastating, only she does not quite realise this revelation until it is too late, and as the fifth box set of three divulging episodes takes hold of the imagination of the listener, so  Ajjaz Awad’s performance as the mysterious but engaging Case becomes ever more intriguing.

The three episodes, written by Noga Flaishon, Timothy X Atack, and Phil Mulryne combine to give Case one of the most dramatic story lines in the history of Big Finish, for whilst the likes Of Charley Pollard, Liv Chenka, and to an extent Klein, have left their mark on the various incarnations of the Doctor as unique audio characters, there is a deeper resonance that comes with Case, for she is the one between worlds caught in a war that she never asked to be part of.

Perhaps it comes with the significance of events on Europe’s distant border, or maybe the duality of survival that we have been placed through, whatever the understanding of our soul, we are constantly torn between doing what is right for the benefit of humanity, and that which serves ourselves first and foremost. We are caught between the machine and the individual with ever increasing damnation.

Comrades-In-Arms is powerful, critical, positive in its ire, praiseworthy in its delivery, and as A Mother’s Love, Berserker, and Memnos leads The War Doctor, the lost incarnation of the Time Lord from Gallifrey, to Case’s destiny, so the listener is shown that a choice between two evils is still a choice that needs to be made.

A wonderfully delivered fifth box set in the ongoing saga of The War Doctor’s beginnings.

Ian D. Hall