What's it about: The Daleks are conquering our galaxy. Nothing can stop them. But Commander Agnes Landen has an idea. On the outer planet Talis Minor, Salus Kade is struggling to keep his colony alive. The last thing he needs is a war to fight.
Agnes Landen: Agnes Landen strikes me as somebody with a
firm vision and that nothing will stop her from achieving that. Whilst the
Fearless can be compared to the Daleks, if you squint Agnes can be compared to
Davros. The creator of the machine that enslaves the prisoner inside, a woman
with a dream to cause mass destruction from inside a metal shell. She might be
warmly spoken but I think that just makes her all the more insidious. The way
she spots Kade out of all of his people as the right man for the suit, how she
dismisses the rest of his people and sets her sights on him is extremely
calculated. She is willing to flatter and faun to him, to call him a hero, if
it will get him inside the suit. She lost children to the Daleks, something
that she brushes off but I'm sure adds to her hatred of the creatures.
Salus Kade: His grandparents starved to death, his dad died
in orbit...with no help whatsoever from the Earth Empire. They have clung onto
to survival and the idea of abandoning his roots and fighting for humanity
disgusts him. He feels like he has let his people down and an anger boils in
him sometimes, he'll do anything to knock the bad guys down and cause some
serious hurt to expunge his own. A precarious position for a soldier to be in.
It's very possible that the Daleks would never have found Kade's world if the
Earth Alliance hadn't shown up and started waving the flag and looking for
recruits. With Kade you need to find out what he wants and channel him in the
right direction. Having a family complicates things for him, I wonder how long
it will be before they become a luxury that he is no longer allowed to indulge
in. He comes back because he has something to live for.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'We need more soldiers to fight the
Dalek War. It's too much of a luxury to ask politely.'
Standout Performance: The performance by Noel Clarke
astonished me because of its raw intensity and his ability to switch from that
to such warmth. Clearly I have underestimated him as an actor, or perhaps his
appearances as Mickey Smith did not allow for him to stretch himself the way
they should have. There were many gorgeous moments for Mickey throughout his
run as we got to cheer for the underdog who found his voice and eventually
became much more than the physical and emotional coward he was in Rose...but
this material proves that Clarke had a lot more to give than perhaps Davies was
prepared to push him. Briggs does and it is all to his credit because he drives
an extraordinary performance out of them. Perhaps this was Clarke's chance to
prove to dissenters that he is much more than just Mickey the Idiot. Maureen
O'Brien excels too but that is less of a shock, she's always committed on
audio. She's playing the warm Auntie at this point but I think she's yet to
show her teeth.
Great Ideas: The Daleks advanced and all Earth defences
crumbled, star system after star system fell. The Earth Empire is becoming part
of the Dalek Empire. Outmanoeuvred by their tactics and outgunned by their
fleets. The situation, as it often is in the Dalek Empire series, is bleak. The
difference between this Dalek conquest of humanity and previous stabs is that
they have taken a psychological approach rather than a just having at humanity
with an iron fist. Give them enough hope to think that they might make it
through this, allow for small pockets of resistance, give the people a
mouthpiece to express their desires. These are all subtle, sneaky ways of
preventing any actual rebellion. To fight back the human race needs a massive
advantage. They have to be fought on their own terms, fire with fire. The
Daleks are locked away in battle armour and the natural response is for
humanity to do the same. The battle armour that has been invented means that
the human race is only one step away from becoming Daleks themselves.
Frightened, paranoid, terrifyingly armed and emotional and locked away inside a
shell that both protects them from their enemy and prevents them from reaching
out to the world. Terrifying. The quest is on to find those exceptional
people at the peak of physical and mental fitness that can fill these suits and
take the battle to the enemy. A regiment of Spacers to inspire and lead the
battle for victory: The Fearless. There comes a point where the Daleks and the
Fearless are interchangeable, if you haven't ever seen a Dalek there is a good
chance that when you see these hulking death machines stomping across the
surface of your world that it could be the Daleks. First the Earth Alliance
will ask you to join their cause and if you resist they change their tactics
and take you instead. Surely that is a form of enslavement, the Fearless
behaving just like the Daleks.
Audio Landscape: Huddled crowd, whispered voices, a cheer of
joy, Daleks chanting in unison, marching, a rolling, crashing sea, a biting
wind on a planets surface, the Fearless suits stomping across a room, alarms,
ships ascending, mass exterminations, firing weapons.
Musical Cues: Remember when Big Finish wasn't a vast engine
of ranges but driven by the simplicity of the main range and a few scant spin
offs. That is what the original series of Dalek Empire was born into. The
Fearless comes along years later and has a whole wealth of tasty ranges to
compete with but one thing that doesn't change at all is Nick Briggs' distinctive
music for the series. Melodramatic, exciting and memorable, the same stings are
in place that links this to the previous years and the energy of the piece is
lifted exponentially by the score. There really isn't music quite like it
anywhere else.
1 comment:
hi Joe,
I know you are not a big fan of the Moffat era (neithr am I), I'm curious, who would you like to have as the next producer of Doctor Who? We had tons of characterization over plot in the Davies era and tons of plot over characterization with Moff
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