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cecesloth's review against another edition
5.0
After the abomination that is Mission to Magnus, I had to jump forward in my listen-through of the Lost Stories to remind myself that this series can actually be worth it.
The underuse of Barbara Clegg is one of Classic Who's biggest crimes. This could very well have been the series' best Dalek stories, doing the new series story Dalek long before Robert Shearman ever thought of the idea, but Eric Saward passed on it for two of his own scripts.
The thing is though, there's nothing in Resurrection or Revelation that isn't done better here, except perhaps for the latter's Holmesian double acts. The action and high body counts are meaningful, there's actual thematic intent behind the bleak tone, the characters are more memorable, the Dalek more threatening and most importantly, the setting feels like a real place. Subtle, almost throwaway lines of dialogue construct the city better than anything that happens on Necros, on par with Clegg's earlier effort Enlightenment and other 5th Doctor stories, Kinda and Snakedance. This may be in part due to John Dorney's adaptation, another writer who is the creme de la creme in Doctor Who.
I think the best part, however, is just how many ways this can be read. The rise of Nazism, the ease in which religious fanaticism can take over, fascism pervading British public schools and institutions, the mental conditioning of those who are just doing what they're told, these are all legitimate, overlapping readings that can be made here, and this story deserves to have the same amount of commentary as something like 1984 or Animal Farm.
It's a crime that this was never made for TV, but I'm glad it exists here and now. Most of the Lost Stories deserve to stay lost so I'm glad there's at least one story to buck the trend. Onto Farewell Great Macedon next!
Disclaimer: All of my reviews are typed too quickly and I very rarely have time to go back and edit them. Therefore, my prose comes off as a lot less sophisticated and flowing than I like, but oh well!
Quick edit: to say how good the music is. Really authentic and effectively utilised!
The underuse of Barbara Clegg is one of Classic Who's biggest crimes. This could very well have been the series' best Dalek stories, doing the new series story Dalek long before Robert Shearman ever thought of the idea, but Eric Saward passed on it for two of his own scripts.
The thing is though, there's nothing in Resurrection or Revelation that isn't done better here, except perhaps for the latter's Holmesian double acts. The action and high body counts are meaningful, there's actual thematic intent behind the bleak tone, the characters are more memorable, the Dalek more threatening and most importantly, the setting feels like a real place. Subtle, almost throwaway lines of dialogue construct the city better than anything that happens on Necros, on par with Clegg's earlier effort Enlightenment and other 5th Doctor stories, Kinda and Snakedance. This may be in part due to John Dorney's adaptation, another writer who is the creme de la creme in Doctor Who.
I think the best part, however, is just how many ways this can be read. The rise of Nazism, the ease in which religious fanaticism can take over, fascism pervading British public schools and institutions, the mental conditioning of those who are just doing what they're told, these are all legitimate, overlapping readings that can be made here, and this story deserves to have the same amount of commentary as something like 1984 or Animal Farm.
It's a crime that this was never made for TV, but I'm glad it exists here and now. Most of the Lost Stories deserve to stay lost so I'm glad there's at least one story to buck the trend. Onto Farewell Great Macedon next!
Disclaimer: All of my reviews are typed too quickly and I very rarely have time to go back and edit them. Therefore, my prose comes off as a lot less sophisticated and flowing than I like, but oh well!
Quick edit: to say how good the music is. Really authentic and effectively utilised!
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