Sins of the Father written by Guy Adams and directed by Scott Handcock

What’s it about: On the mining colony Callous, Elliot King struggles to meet the demands of its governor, Teremon. The odds are stacked against him, and his options are running low. The world that once promised dreams now offers only despair. A wild Ood stalks the forests, carrying an antiquated phone. The caller promises much – he claims he can change the world – but he always speaks a devastating truth. He is the Master and the Ood will obey him... but to what end?

War Master: He laughs his head off whilst he is being tortured, screaming as though the electric volts are tickling him. Teremon tries to suggest that the Master will be responsible when the peacekeeping forces arrive and people start to die and rebuts her with an argument that I have long held to be true. If you make a decision, own it, don’t try and foist the blame onto others. When she suggests she has his life in her hands he asks her to prove it and kill him. It’s an interrogation where he is in complete control. When confronted with a cattle prod he considers his torturer has a seriously limited repertoire. He had a timer hidden away in his upper left molar that was designed to dissolve once it went off. There’s something horribly sinister about the Master waiting to put his Endgame in place by enjoying torture as a form of entertainment. He’s an intricate planner, rather than reactive. He’s been getting ahead of the game. Cassie’s father was a strong man that he knew would oppose him and so he had to dispose of him. Being the Master of course he had a plan B. He never planned to get captured by Teremon but if he did then he put a second scheme in place to get the Swenyo out of the way. How he plays with Teremon before killing her reminds me of how Missy would behave, but without the irritating smugness. There’s a War going on out there and some colleagues of the Master are building a lot of battleships and they need a great quantity of Swenyo. There are some things in the universe that even the Master won’t condone. He will wipe out entire civilisations but protect a rare and beautiful flower with the threat of death.

Standout Performance: It takes the Master over four hours before he even utters a threat and yet he’s a menacing figure throughout. That’s the power of Derek Jacobi in the role. Some people have decried that it was a failure on the part of the producer to keep the Master in the shadows so much in this box set but I think it was a stroke of genius. Jacobi has been given a chance to play nice, which is just as chilling and a quirky hallucination and it is only in the last twenty minutes of this tale that he emerges as the Master that we know and love. It means he’s able to give a strong, multi-faceted performance that utilises one of the finest actors we have in this country to his full potential.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Send your boys in. At least they have a decent right hook.’
‘A father doesn’t want to need their child. It should be the other way around.’
‘The answer to the question you never asked, the question you should have asked…my answer would have been no.’

Great Ideas: It is a fact that when people are given a path to a fortune, that they tend to get greedy and want more. Cassie isn’t immune, neither is Teremon. The Governor is willing to use lethal force to find the Swenyo, whether she believes Cassie knows where it is or not. She calls in a peacekeeping force to quell any civil unrest and take over (did nobody learn anything from Farscape?). Teremon is one of those fabulous super bitches that turns up in Doctor Who and its related spinoffery occasionally who is completely irredeemable and gets off on her own sense of importance. Another human constant is how we choose a side and when that goes pear shaped we duck our heads under water and pretend that the bad stuff isn’t happening. Cassie calls out the people of Callous for choosing greed and to stand up to Teremon, and then for hoping that everything we be okay when the peacekeeping forces arrive. She shames them into helping her to hide and I’m pleased that somebody has the nerve to stand out in the crowd and act. I wondered why the Ood wouldn’t fight for Cassie…and that is because they are waiting to obey the Master. It was the Master that told Teremon that Martine had all the Swenyo in the first place. The thing about weapons is that it is not enough to have them. You have to make sure that the opposing side doesn’t. Otherwise it is all just a lot of shooting and dying. The Master has poisoned the well of Swenyo so the Daleks cannot utilise it whilst he hops off with the entire supply.

Audio Landscape: The Ood have been an audio triumph in this story, in performance and general execution. In the first story they were a chilling ghostly presence in the wilderness delivering the phone calls. In the third they proved an amusing counterpoint to Martine’s madness. And here they make for a terrifying chorus of death as they turn on the colonists. The mileage that Doctor Who and it’s related stories have gotten from these creatures has been extraordinary.

Standout Scene: Cassie’s breakdown when she realises that her new home and opportunity on Callous has turned out to be anything but. I’m not usually a fan of screaming on audio but since we have followed the lives of Cassie and Martine for four hours I felt the hysteria was justified. She’s broken, and Maeve Bluebell Wells portrays Cassie’s despair brilliantly. She cannot comprehend why her brain conjured up her dead father rather than Martine, but that is because in her head Martine isn’t really dead.

Result: ‘He is the Master and we will obey him…’ Ultimately this is a very bleak piece of work, but what do you expect from a Master story where he wins the day? I’m not sure why I expected some kind of happy resolution for any of these characters when they have been spelt out as pawns of one of the Master’s plans from the start. Let’s just say that things don’t end well for anybody and so if you’re a defeatist this might be perfect listening for you. It’s a hugely satisfying ending to a consistently strong box set. It’s rare for Big Finish to release a four-story set where the material across the entire four hours is as excellent as this. No part of Master of Callous was flawless but as a piece of work it hangs together remarkably well. The Master emerges and reveals his dastardly plan and it is one of the few times where you can really see the blistering intelligence that lies beneath the malevolent exterior. Jacobi excels as you would imagine and after having to wait for him to play purely evil for over four hours it is simply delicious when it comes. Some things are worth waiting for and are even sweeter when you do. And scarier. Nothing about this set was obvious, which is a rarity for Big Finish Time War material. The third instalment is such a jarring interlude that the structure is unique, whilst still managing to tell a cohesive story. The lack of fanwankery is very refreshing (the Ood and the Master are both in there but they are used sparingly and originally) and it avoids the Big Finish shopping list approach that is seeping in to a lot of their work (ALL the Masters meet River, River meets UNIT, ALL of the eighth Doctors companions come together, etc). It’s dark and probing, allowing us to get close to these people before pulling the rug out beneath them and leaving them exposed, raw and desperate. A big two thumbs up from me: 8/10