Presidential Babe: Romana finds the temporal adjustments of
this Gallifrey quite grotesque just as she did back on their own. Narvin does
point out that they had the ability to do exactly the same thing with the
Oubliette of Eternity but Romana was just as opposed to that. I would always
pay good money to listening to Lalla Ward being all bossy (I think there are
men out there who would pay for that with an entirely different emphasis) and
the alternative version from this reality is a no-nonsense Nazi with a penchant
for ordering exterminations if things don’t go her way.
Noble Savage: ‘A little temp-or-al tinkering…’ This
is the biggest challenge of the set for Louise Jameson who has to portray two
Leela’s on opposite ends of the scale and inject them both with a sense of
believability and integrity. Since it is Jameson in the hot seat she achieves
that with almost casual aplomb. This Leela has had her father surgically
removed from her timeline and is a hateful individual who still exists as
Romana’s right hand woman but in the (very well suited) role of her torturer.
If that isn’t an idea that gets you excited I have to question whether you
actually have blood pumping through your veins. Not only does Jameson get the
opportunity to play an evil version of Leela (which is such a delicious idea I
can’t believe it hasn’t been tried before) but at one point she is to play the
evil version pretending to be the good one! Imagine trying to play the
character you normally play badly? Even blind and trapped on a planet that she
doesn’t understand ‘our’ Leela is still willing to protect her friends at the
potential cost of her own life. Forced to face up to a mirror image of herself,
Leela has to go through what Romana did in Reborn but its far more extreme (and
yet oddly more believable as well). She can see how the savagery could have
been tempered and moulded into something more sophisticated – turning her
brutality into a well placed scalpel rather than a club. There’s a gorgeous
moment when the torturer Leela decides to take away Leela’s experiences but
comes away blind as a result. Our Leela enjoys the irony of her namesakes
theft.
Born Again Brax: I’m so pleased that it was Brax’s creator
that was afforded the chance to allow his creation to meet the Doctor.
Teasingly nobody ever states that the two of them are brothers and instead it
is hinted at several times with playful interruptions. Romana deduces that
since she knew nothing about the title of Lord Burner, as did Narvin then
Braxiatel must be her own personal assassin back home. If this is brought to
light once they return home (if they ever return home) it could have
some interesting consequences. We also learn of Brax’s involvement with the
assassination of the odd President (committing the crime and then covering it
up because he was in charge of the inquiry!). There’s no low that he wont stoop
to if he has a good enough reason. Its
interesting to see how close Romana, Brax, Leela and Narvin have become now
they only have each other to rely on. When Brax is apparently lost at the
climax to Disassembled even Narvin is forced to swallow down a lump in his
throat. How times have changed.
The Other Doctor: ‘I’m respectable now. A Time Lord with
rank and position…’ When K.9 notes that he can detect the Doctor (his
presence rather given away by the striking cover that finally depicts Colin
Baker as an older man) my heart started racing. An alternative Doctor is a
mouth watering prospect. The Doctor is affable, amiable and utterly charming.
He’s got to be evil then. Colin Baker portrays a Doctor who decided to
come home from his wanderings and settle back down on Gallifrey. As such he’s
had both lifestyles and is utterly content. Or so it seems… Disassembled is a
fantastic reminder of the disturbing undercurrents that Colin Baker first
brought to his portrayal of the Doctor but now they are more refined and less
histrionic. Had he played the Doctor as mild mannered and refined as this in
The Twin Dilemma but with the unfortunate complication of enjoying the
suffering of others things could have been very different. He hasn’t used the
title ‘Doctor’ for a long time. He spins a tale that sees him as a
conscientious objector to the ways of the Time Lords forcing him into to
practical exile as he was shunned and ostracised by his peers. The very idea of
a Doctor who argues that the Time Lords should observe and not interfere is
immoral. Once his cover is blown he reverts to form and enjoys taunting his
Leela for her failiure to fool the others and admits that if it was his
doppelganger that was blind he would have put out his own eyes in order to
complete his task. He is totally dedicated to seeing that his President’s
wishes come true. Although he is happy to have settled and to be pulled out of
his revelry to murder the odd political spanner in the works at his President’s
whim, he looks forward to be able to slaughter his way through the multitude of
universes that the Axis will afford him. When he finally bares his fangs
(metaphorically speaking…the vampires are coming in the next story) the Doctor
is really rather scary.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘You’ll burn in Hell for this!’
Standout Performance: Colin Baker and Louise Jameson as a
pair of bad buys…there is no part of that sentence that doesn’t get me
animated. Baker taps in to a quiet menace, charming the woman that he has been
sent out to kill. Jameson on the other hand is completely unrestrained and
salivating at the thought of hacking away at her doppelgangers timeline. Scenes
of the two of them plotting in the shadows are unmissable.
Great Ideas: It occurs to me that Justin Richards never
seems to be short of creative, intelligent ideas (usually derived from real
science) and his notion of the Monoverse really excited me. Vansell’s TIA
technical team have been working on a project to collapse timelines into a
single cohesive universe, one that follows a cohesive history defined and
policed by President Romana. They have certain margins that they like to keep
to ensure Gallifrey has dominance over all realities and if planets and people
dare to shift the balance they can have them removed to keep the percentages in
check. They can’t retrospectively correct their own past, the last time they
tried to they lost nearly a third of the population of the Citadel and nobody
even noticed. The paradox proves to be Braxiatel himself and the Lord Burner
realised this straight away because many years ago he was issued to kill his
brother. He was killed and yet he still lives.
Audio Landscape: Most unlike Big Finish, there were a number
of scenes in this episode where characters are talking in the foreground behind
those we are concentrating on that feel jarringly pasted over the action. It
only draws attention to itself because Big Finish are usually so good at
disguising this sort of thing. Its almost made up for entirely by the sequence
where Leela taunts Narvin from all directions and enjoys spooking him out from
every direction.
Isn’t it Odd: Just as Romana called herself ‘Astra’ in the
first installment, thus she calls Vansell ‘Fred’ in this one. With Russell
directing she just can’t seem to be able to help herself.
Standout Scene: ‘Only two people have ever survived a
Burn Edict…’ Unbelievably, Richards offers an alternative explanation for
why the Doctor and Susan left Gallifrey when they did. I’m not going to telly
you what it is because it’s a surprise worth stumbling across in the course of
the story. The way it is slipped in almost invisibly suggests that both
Richards and Russell were aware of its potentially controversial nature but for
the sheer balls of its inclusion I was left awe struck. A massive round of
applause.
Result: At first I was nonplussed at Justin Richards’
opening gambit because it didn’t seem to be at all different from the Gallifrey
that our regular characters spring from. It did get me excited that
they might be home for a moment. Then I realised that this was the devious
shield, keeping us from the appearance of the alternative versions of Leela and
the Doctor where this tale scores its big win. Dissembled works
better than any of the other stories in this set because it takes the dodgy
central premise and lets the regulars learn something interesting (Romana
discovers the Brax was her Burner and what Richards dares to suggest about the
pre-Unearthly Child Doctor makes the set worth buying alone). Ultimately its
little more than a run-around (the characters always seemed to be on the move)
but with such outstanding performances and the chance to explore the darker
side of some of the best characters in the Doctor Who universe it is
practically unmissable. Richards gives this story a dramatic force that the
others are lacking, generating excitement not only from the contrast of
characters but also the claustrophobic world they have found themselves on. The
only thing that mars this is the muddying of the Bernice/Brax continuity
although I’ve heard that this might be resolved at some point in the future. Oh
and the agonisingly long and nonsensical prelude to the next adventure that
feels like it goes on for the length of a bible. That aside, this is vintage
stuff: 8/10
1 comment:
I just read your review. Bravo. I think you nailed it! I was a little disappointed that this was another doppleganger story, but it came out quite entertaining.
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