Destroyer

The Warbringer is unhappy with you but he isn’t on high. He’s right here. He is me!

The War Doctor

Synopsis

Trapped on a world that worships war, the War Doctor finds himself fulfilling an ancient prophecy – could he be the Warbringer of legend?

His new ally Case is testing her abilities, too. And both will be called on to fight when the Daleks come…

Review

We’re back in the depths of the Time War in this week’s review, and the truth of the planet of Tharius has come to light. The Time Lords’ foe

I’m here to prevent you from making the biggest mistake of your lives.

Tamasan

Andrew Smith has a tricky job here, writing a story that falls into the middle of this boxset, but wraps up a lot of the elements introduced in this story and Consequences, which left me wondering where the third and final story in the Warbringer box set would lead. Smith wrote the most intriguing story in the first young War Doctor set (The Shadow Squad) and manages to write a story with a ticking clock and some action, despite quite a slow start. The planet of Tharius is at risk of a falling ship which will split the planet like an egg, but this is delayed by the War Doctor installing a time bubble, which gives the planet a brief reprieve. The time on this feels quite long, but when the Daleks show up, more urgency is injected into proceedings as the story leads to the War Doctor making the decision to destroy the Artron generator, powering the time bubble, which leads to the planet’s destruction. Louise Jameson’s direction helps this story along, keeping the slower bits of the story moving and ensuring that the more frenetic moments feel coherent.

Despite the Daleks being the Time Lords’ main antagonists in the Time War, The War Doctor Begins sets so far sees the Daleks take a backseat and used relatively sparingly. I like the idea of them keeping an observation squad on Tharius and ensuring that anyone who discovers them under the city has their memory wiped, which felt both in keeping for the Daleks and something that we have not seen them do a million times before. They kill the Princeps when they believe that he is going to ally himself with their enemy, the War Doctor, and therefore the Time Lords, but they don’t want their involvement to be known. The Daleks are brutal in their treatment of Veklin, Case and Faren, but especially of Case as they unveil her mysterious past, which is of course, related to the Daleks. Ajjaz Awad is really good in the scenes where this is revealed, as well as the scenes in which she breaks her programming to save the Doctor at the end of the story.

Ultimately, the Time Lord higher-ups do not wish to save the population of Tharius, as there is a timeline in which the Daleks use the population to create an army of Dalek cyborgs like Case, which in turn, leads to the tide of the war turning against Gallifrey. Veklin and later, Commodore Tamasan are responsible for ensuring that this timeline is prevented, blocking the Doctor from saving even a section of the population. Veklin knocks the Doctor out to force him to go along with the Time Lords’ preferred course of action, and Tamasan even takes him off world and places him under armed guard, but the War Doctor will not take potential genocide lying down and manages to escape. Tamasan bemoans the Doctor’s naivety, and commends his decision to ultimately ensure that Tharius is destroyed at the end of the story, seeing steps being taken to the warrior incarnation of the Doctor that she may have been expecting following the events of The Night of the Doctor. Ultimately, the War Doctor needs to be dragged down to the level of his Time Lord superiors who just want to do what must be done, rather than being the Doctor and trying to seek alternative remedies. Adele Anderson and Beth Chalmers are really good at butting heads with the War Doctor, and extended time with them doesn’t exactly make the audience fond of them, but helps understand why the course of action they are.

Jonathon Carley continues to shine as the War Doctor and he puts in another strong performance in this story. The War Doctor continues to hold hope and vestiges of optimism from his previous incarnations, and retains a sense of humour, telling Faren that he knows how being taken prisoner works and his escape from Tamasan’s flagship is quite clever and fun. The Doctor is ultimately forced into taking on the identity of the Warbringer to be taken seriously by the war-loving citizens of the doomed planet of Tharius, despite his reluctance. Whilst his initial aims of simply leading the inhabitants of the planet off-world in order to save them might feel like something that the Eighth Doctor would have tried to do, the story ultimately takes him to the point where he sees no other choice but to destroy the generator. He cannot bring himself to watch the ultimate destruction of the planet, perhaps due to the fact that he is starting to lose sight of his former selves.

Verdict: Destroyer gets off to a slow start but becomes an intriguing and captivating conclusion to the events set up in Consequences, but leaves me puzzled as to where else the story can go. 8/10

Cast: Jonathon Carley (The War Doctor), Ajjaz Awad (Case/Auto Case), Adele Anderson (Commodore Tamasan), Beth Chalmers (Commander Veklin), Nigel Fairs (Faren/Trooper), John Banks (Belus/Deadweights) & Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks).

Writer: Andrew Smith

Director: Louise Jameson

Producer: David Richardson

Music: Howard Carter

Release Date: 8 December 2021

Cast Notes

• Nigel Fairs has appeared in a number of Big Finish stories, including The Shadow of the Scourge, Nekromantia and The Flying Dutchman.He has also directed and written for Big Finish.

Best Quote

I don’t believe that I’ve ever known you to be so ridiculously naive!

I’ll take naive over homicidal anyday, Commodore.

Tamasan and the War Doctor

Previous War Doctor review: Consequences.

For more War Doctor reviews, click here.