The Perfect Prisoners written by John Dorney and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it About: The Doctor, Ann and K9 are hot on the trail of the Syndicate, and straight into trouble. After contending with killer robots and dangerous aliens, the clues lead straight to a machine that can literally make your dreams come true. A device that in the wrong hands could lead to misery for billions. But who’s the real villain here? And what exactly is their master plan?

Teeth and Curls: You know the stakes are high when the fourth Doctor calls in the authorities, since this Doctor always likes to go it alone. It was his predecessor who liked the back up of the forces. He likes to think of himself as a freelance trouble-shooter, whatever that means. They have barely started looking into the Syndicate and between them they have saved multiple planets whilst the SS have been twiddling their thumbs. I love the fact that there is a trail of murder in their wake and the Doctor has no clue that it is Ann who is doing most of the killing. I was waiting in anticipation to see how he would react to the news. There are many records of the Doctor opposing oppression wherever he finds it. It’s always better to threaten the Doctor’s companions rather than the Doctor himself, they only have one life to lose. Except this time his assistant is a lot deadlier than she appears. The Doctor genuinely believes that things can always be resolved peacefully and that there is no justification for murder. Which means the second he realises that Anya has taken lives that she is no longer welcome in his life. It’s really sad when the Doctor calls K.9 his best friend, realising that he can no longer include Ann in that list. The Doctor is never more dangerous (especially the fourth Doctor) when all the odds seem to be against and so the apparently suicidal act at the end of part three is brilliantly predictable in its unpredictableness.

Bobby on the Beat: This might not make me very popular but I think that Ann as a psychopathic Time Agent who will literally ring an alien’s neck with her bare hands is far more enjoyable to listen to than the sweet, grumpy PC Ann Kelso who has been travelling with the Doctor. There’s nothing particularly subtle about her characterisation in either but the exposed sleeper agent at least behaves in an unpredictable manner. Since this season has been a huge love letter to The Daleks’ Masterplan it feels quite appropriate that a relation of Sara Kingdom’s should make an appearance too. No wonder the Doctor has struggled to control the TARDIS lately, Ann has been practicing and wrestling control from him. Trenix was in witness protection because he had given evidence against the Syndicate’s associates, the Sinestran’s and he had been hidden in Earth’s past to try and keep him safe. He was traced so Anya was sent in, given a false personality and memories of her were implanted in police officers so they would accept Ann Kelso as one of their own. I love the fact that I was having a moan about how insubstantial Ann’s character was earlier in the season…when that vacancy of information was a plot point waiting to be sprung! Anya proves to be far more dangerous than Sara Kingdom ever was, ruthlessly destroying the Celation cloud when the Doctor is busy trying to be diplomatic. Anya attacks K.9 in the TARDUS and there is no coming back from that in my eyes. ‘I think you need to get a new dog!’ indeed!

Standout Performance: Astonishing how much more engaging Jane Slavin is as Anya than she ever was as Ann. As soon as she drops the northern accent and starts murdering people she suddenly becomes somebody who is really fun to be around. I’m not sure what that says about me. Tom Baker’s performance when he confronts Ann about who she really is quite took my breath away. This is how good he can be when he is given powerful material. At one point I wondered why Hannah Bartholomew had wandered into the story. Hunt’s voice is so distinctive.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Of course something’s the matter! You don’t think I would cry out in pain if everything was fine, do you?’
‘The perfect prisoner is the one who doesn’t even realise he’s in a prison cell.’

Great Ideas: Zephon was never a true member of the Syndicate, he was just a despot with delusions of grandeur. The Sinestrans were all murdered in custody, a mass killing by the Syndicate. If you’re going to raise the stakes substantially in a season then this is the way to do it: by taking everything that the Doctor and Ann have encountered so far this year and brush it aside as insignificant compared to the horrors to come. Zephon’s files led the Doctor and Ann to Robaras, an automated factory world where another Syndicate member was trying to poison the local solar system. Technix have computer augmented brains that make them more logical than people. Their minds run at a rate that cannot be comprehended. As a result they see patterns that ordinary human beings do not. The Dream Machine is a device for retouching reality. Sometimes reality isn’t good enough. Reality itself doesn’t change, it is how people perceive it to be that alters. I think a machine like this would be in huge demand if it were real. Imagine all the things about people’s lives they could change their perception of? Mind you if everybody was walking around seeing a very different version of reality it would get awfully confusing. They are expecting near universal uptake when this thing hits the shelves. In the wrong hands these devices could be quite the tool for despotism. The Celation nebula is a sentient cloud of gas that moves through the outer spirals of the milky way that can manifest itself into a human form. Zaal has had the Dream Machines implanted into people as chips and has been playing a long game. He’s used them to make sure the Syndicate have forgotten that the system is already under his control and then used Anya to wipe them all out so he would be the only one left with the knowledge. Those Technix, they do like to think big and fast. He would be in control of everybody with nobody to stop him. Some of the deaths of the Syndicate members are very imaginative. Malpha shattering seems a particularly painful way to go.

Audio Landscape: I loved hearing all the different voices for the delegates in the Syndicate. Particularly Celation. It astonishes me that after all this time that there are still new modulations to be found, and it feels like a lot of care has been given to this bunch.

Isn’t it Odd: The story opens with ten minutes of energetic action and for a moment I wondered if I had put on the second part of this story first (it wouldn’t be the first time). I’m not averse to being kept in the dark for a little while whilst action rumbles on at the beginning of a story as long as the writer puts everything into context at some point. Fortunately, around the 10-minute mark there is a catch up between the Doctor and Ann where all is explained. ‘The Doctor will be in the clutches of the Syndicate!’ is possibly the most predictable cliff-hanger we have ever had. It’s what this season has been leading up to and it hasn’t exactly been secretive about it. As soon as the Syndicate start arguing amongst themselves and bumping each other off I figured they might take of the Doctor’s work for him.

Standout Scene: One of the most insidious examples of slavery that Doctor Who has ever featured comes in the scene where Ann discovers malnourished factory workers hooked up to the Dream Machine and believing they are being well paid and treated extremely well. To exploit people is one thing, to make them believe they are living in luxury whilst doing so is unbelievable tyranny.

Result: There’s a truly great scene at the end of the first half of this story where the Doctor is finally exposed to the truth about Ann and realises that he is completely out of his depth. It’s such an unusual moment in the 4DAs (he’s usually so unflappable) and I had absolutely no idea where the story was going to go next. What a lovely feeling. And how nice for a season in this range to genuinely understand how to structure a finale and pay off so much of the season that has just played out. The first half of this story is all set up as you would imagine, but with lots of interest with the various exotic members of the Syndicate and the ever-confident Ann coming out of her shell to the Doctor’s suspicions. Not a great deal actually happens but it’s builds up the suspense and introduces a number of fascinating ideas that come to fruition in the second half. Thank the Lord that Nick Briggs admits that they have been pushing the nostalgia element in the 4DAs and now it is time to push away from that and do something a little more original. Whilst this season has been as mired in continuity as ever, it has certainly played about with those elements in a fresh way and just how tightly plotted the series has been as a whole is a brand-new approach. The second part flies off in a completely new direction with the Doctor having to join forces with his enemies to defeat his companion! That’s novel. I never believed that John Dorney would take things quite as far as he does with Anya and she truly is a formidable force to be reckoned with. It was an incredibly brave creative call by building this entire season around a character who doesn’t exist but it has paid off in spades. And Dorney is also right that the first half of The Daleks’ Masterplan seems to promise big things are going to happen with the Technix before they are ceremoniously dumped in the second half by Dennis Spooner so it’s nice to see them reach their full potential here. That’s the perfect kind of continuity, taking something that was neglected in the series and giving it more substance. The story ends with a clever piece of sleight of hand by the Doctor and there’s still plenty of work to be done after the last scene, and I liked the emotional sting of the Doctor turning his back on his new ‘companion.’ It would be wrong for Anya to travel in the TARDIS after this and so it leaves this run of stories as a unique narrative, and one that is worth returning to. Unbelievably, this season has just gotten better and better. The first series of 4DAs that I would wholeheartedly suggest you listen to: 9/10