Madame President: ‘You must see that this act is utterly reprehensible!’ We’ve heard Romana at the edge of sanity before with the ridiculous actions that her people have committed but this is the first time that she has been truly trapped beyond the ability to act, railing as outrageous, genocidal acts are being rained down on worlds. She’s completely impotent and if she shows signs of resistance then good ness knows what fate would befall her. She has to stand back and watch a world that she has a grudging respect for transforms into something morally ugly, fascistic and unrecognisable. That’s a great dramatic standpoint for the character. The Doctor and Romana once had dinner with Albert Einstein…let’s let that sink in for a moment. Romana tries to save some people on Ysalus, when it becomes clear that she cannot save the planet. Is that something else that she picked up from the Doctor when they made excursions into history?
Rassilon: Terrance Hardiman made an instant impression in the first story of this set but has been pretty quiet in the first half, his influence spreading and his presence felt but not experienced. He considers a world where its people have no desire for peace is one that needs putting out of its misery. The fact that that world is of strategic importance to the Daleks barely gets a mention. Perhaps he enjoys playing God just because he can. How far is Rassilon willing to go to stop the Daleks? It’s a pertinent question and I’m pleased that Romana says it out loud.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘It is not a decision that should have been taken at all!’ Am I the only person who comes over all wibbly when Lalla Ward gets bossy?
‘Start at the beginning…’ ‘Said a Lord of Time? How disappointing.’
‘God doesn’t play dice with the universe.’
‘If we are to save anyone, we cannot save everyone!’
‘This is Co-ordinator Romanadvoratrelundar’ ‘Easy for you to say…’
‘Save the flirting until after Armageddon!’ Always good advice.
‘To destroy it at the point of genesis? That is something new and terrible!’
‘The planet will cease to exist 47, 000, 000 years ago.’
‘Where are you going?’ ‘To tell a 100,000 frightened children that they are about to have never been born.’
Great Ideas: The time breach on Ysalus has been breached. A race is planning an invasion of that world to harvest the mineral stream, enough to fuel an invasion of half the temporal vectors. The Daleks need this fuel to oil their war machines. The plan is to use a chronium blast to fire a hole through the core of Ysalus, reducing the planets gravitational field. Will this course of action reduce the number of enemies that Gallifrey faces…or make them more? It’s the ultimate gesture of power; a hostile world combusting and an invading species sent screaming in space. The Time Lords have the power to remove planets from actuality, to delete them from existence. Now forgive me but if there were such things as the Guardians in the universe I think they should be putting an end to that sort of thing. Nobody should have that kind of power. Rassilon wants to remove Ysalus from time and space at the very moment of its origin.
Isn’t it Odd: It’s bizarre because we don’t set foot on Ysalus in the first half of Collateral and yet the situation feels more urgent and emotional than when actually visited in the previous story. I think that’s because of Romana’s increased presence (Lalla Ward can make anything sound suitably apocalyptic) but also because we are up close and personal to the Gallifreyan officials who are making these decisions and can see just how badly the tide is turning morally as they do.
Standout Scene: It’s interesting to learn that the only reason the Daleks are looking for mineral seams on other worlds to fuel their time travel is because the Time Lords torched their oil fields? I swear if you look back far enough and you can see that the Time Lords are the instigators of every devastating act in the universe. It makes that scene in The Ultimate Foe all the more powerful. Ten million years of absolute power, that’s what it takes to be really corrupt. It’s fascinating when Eris points out the primary mission of the Time Lords is the preservation of history, past and future. Those days are long past mate, aside from some honourable exceptions such as yourself. When it transpires that the Daleks were never a threat here but this entire escapade on Ysalus has just been a grand gesture of strength on the part of Rassilon…well it’s clear that he has complete lost control of his senses.
Result: ‘Rassilon is going to destroy a planet at its genesis! Void all the people who were ever born and whoever will be born for the spectacle of it? This isn’t War! This is genocide by superiority complex!’ Where has Lisa McMullin been hiding? She has an excellent grasp of quotable dialogue and she recognises how to suggest the temporal stakes have been raised without resorting to hysterics, which has tripped up many a Gallifrey writer. ‘Where is the line that we will not cross?’ is the premise of this story, one that pleasingly gives Lalla Ward some smashing chances to rail against the Time Lords and drive home the calamity of the situation. I love the scattershot plotting that Gallifrey excels at which shows Romana reacting against her attempts to evacuate Ysalus before she has a chance to set that plan in motion. Everything feels heightened and fraught but it never descends to the angst or hysterics of the more amateurish Big Finish stories. After two relatively cold and clinical pieces its nice that a writer goes for the jugular and the heart with a story that shows people being truly affected by what is happening. Without that personal connection there is a troubling distance between the epic storytelling and audience. Needless to say the veil is drawn away from Rassilon’s schemes and it has become clear that the greatest threat comes from Gallifrey itself and not the Daleks. The Doctor revealed as such in The End of Time, that things had gone too far and that they had gone to extreme lengths to save themselves. Seeing this happen through Romana’s eyes is quite something and few people blaze as brightly when they are pushing against tyranny than Lalla Ward. I was genuinely very impressed with this instalment and I’m sad that it has taken three hours to get to something as vivid as this. Surely the premise of Romana versus Rassilon is enough to whet the appetite of anybody? I can’t see this ending well for her…: 9/10
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