When finally escaping the
Divergent Universe, returning to N-Space and regaining a sense you’ve been cut
off from, the last thing you want to do is walk straight into Davros and the
Daleks. This was not the Doctor’s lucky day.
Terror Firma was originally released back in 2005 and
it features Paul McGann as the Doctor, India Fisher as Charley Pollard and
Conrad Westmaas as C’rizz. With the Divergent Universe storyline having come to
an end with the preceding story this is a heavily battered and beaten Doctor
returning to the regular Universe, or N-Space and there is a sense throughout
the piece of things being ever so slightly off.
This is further compounded
by Davros literally unravelling before the Doctors eyes as ‘the Emperor’ takes
a stronger and stronger hold on him.
Set in Folkestone long
after a Dalek Invasion and subsequent conversion into Daleks of vast swathes of
the population of Earth Terror Firma is a story that leaves you
unsettled and ill at ease from the outset. It’s a story of lost memories, lost
senses of self and even lost companions. Joseph Lidster has built a bleak,
scarred world that faces up to its adversities with that peculiarly and
uniquely British stiff upper lip. As the world has succumbed to the
onslaught of Davros and his new Dalek army, so the resistance masquerade (not
that it requires much effort) as dinner-party hosting, alcohol swilling and
vol-au-vent munching middle class norms.
As the Doctor and his friends
get separated and thrust into this world that Davros has spawned in his madness
it’s clear that nothing is as it seems. Everything is askance and nothing and
no-one can be taken at face value.
Lidster has cleverly used
the gap between the TV Movie and Storm Warning, the first Big Finish
McGann story, to create a whole period where the Doctor travelled with Samson
and Gemma Griffin, but why can’t they, or the Doctor remember these adventures?
Why can’t Samson even remember Gemma, while his mother mourns her and drowns
her sorrows at the same time?
The real stars of the
piece however are the Doctor and Davros, as they face one another for (at least
until The Stolen Earth) seemingly the final time. This can be considered a
direct sequel to Remembrance of the Daleks, at least from the perspective of
Davros (and if you discount War of the Daleks) and the Doctors actions
in Remembrance are the direct motivation for Davros in Terror Firma.
With many callbacks to
previous encounters between the two, both onscreen and audio, there is plenty
to relish in the dialogue between the two and both McGann and Terry Molloy give
this one their all, Molloy giving possibly his finest ever performance as he
deftly portrays the conflict of Davros finally succumbing to the Dalek he has
always been. McGann’s Doctor, darker, scarred and suffering following his touch
with Zagreus and self-imposed exile in a Universe without linear time is
exactly the man he needs to be, and he brings a dark edge to his portrayal now
but you always get that sense that he is yearning to be the Doctor of old.
Charley and C’rizz are
both absolutely put through the wringer too her, and as always Fisher and
Westmaas give their all, and further prove why they are such a great TARDIS
team.
Julia Deakin as Harriet
Griffen, mother to the ‘forgotten companions’ Samson and Gemma, gives a frankly
stunning performance as both a bereaved mother and woman who wants to put an
end to the invasion of her planet.
Samson and Gemma played
respectively by Lee Ingleby and Lizzie Hopley have an incredibly difficult
task, having to show us both the before and after of their characters. We get
snippets of their time with the Doctor throughout the story and it makes you
yearn for more. What I wouldn’t give for a series of their adventures. But then
they also must portray the aftermath too, both of them changed almost beyond
recognition and this is something they do with remarkable clarity.
Terror Firma has long been a favourite of mine,
primarily because I am a huge Davros fan being a child of the 80s and one who
was terrified by Terry Molloy’s performance throughout my childhood, but also
because this is the kind of story only Doctor Who can do and get away with,
with its juxtaposition of the everyday, the kitchen sink drama and the utterly
insane and bleak science fiction. Lidster crafts these two with skill and
precision and leaves you feeling physically drained by the end. I’m not the
kind of person to give marks out of ten, but if I were this would be top marks
all round.
Something of a
masterpiece.
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