Dark Eyes - 4.3 - Master of the Daleks

This is probably the single most accomplished Who Audio adventure drama, that I have listened too, in a very very long time, it just about ticks every single box, for action, and for down right blow you mind action adventure. So suited is McGann to this almost cinematic quality of the production, then, it stands head and shoulders above almost all of the stories gone before from the Dark Eyes box sets. We catch up with the Doctor, who has raced off in his TARDIS to a further point in time but on the same time line, crashing, and smashing into future Moscow, Russia, Earth. He is not well however he is suffering from Time Lag, and is taken in by the Daleks who control everything, they take the confused Dr to a nearby medical facility, where there just so happens to be a Irish nurse assisting, has the Doctor found Molly at last.

We are now faced with a world under the control of the Daleks. Except theses Daleks are being mass produced with the genic material from anything that the Daleks and there architect The Master can lay there grubby little stalk on, and that includes Sontarons! The whole world as been turned into one big replication factory for the Daleks. The big question is how can the Doctor change the future or put back the world on to it's right path, were does Molly fit into all of this, as she surely does. Oh boy, oh boy!, this is just so good it is not worth me doing a real in depth review. I will focus on one thing, McGann effortless and without equal, MacQueen so, so, bizarrely excellent and left of center for the part of the Master it is scarcely good. Nicola Walker is just spot on, in fact, as companion goes, she is up there with Maggie Stables and Lalla Ward, and the lovely Louise Jameson. This is setting things up for a wonderful finale.

This story has to be one of John Dorney's best writing feats. It's not his very best story, but this was one of those stories which sounds awesome on paper but in hands of the lesser writer could have become a busy mess with the Master, the Dalek Time Controller, and Sontarans all in the same story. However, with Dorney writing, this story lives up to its potential and then some.

Alex Macqueen was brilliant as usual as the Master. His performance was, in some ways, better than in the previous box set where the character had to be sustained over all four parts. The interactions between him and the Dalek Time Controller are priceless and he's superb with Liv Chenka.

Liv continues to be great in this set, dispensing sarcasm to megalomaniacs is a gift and it is wonderful to hear her give it to both the Master and the Dalek Time Controller.

The story is wonderfully written with great twists. One way Dorney manages to make all these elements together is by keeping the Doctor off to the side as he suffers the after effects of his escape in the last episode with a little bit of amnesia, which is played well by McGann. However, the Doctor does return in force in the last ten minutes and ends on a great cliffhanger to set up the finale. Overall, this was the best single story in the whole Dark Eyes series.

Where can I start with this one? The hilarious amnesiac Eight who thinks that a Dalek is his companion and tells it 'Brave heart, Dalek!' (and ends up coming off remarkably like Marwood from Withnail and I)? The utterly wonderful Macqueen!Master, whose every line is pure gold (he asks the Dalek Time Controller if he's made him 'grumpy grumpy'!)? The ingenious and sassy Liv, who successfully turns the table on the Master, of all people? The wonderful landscape of the Dalek-dominated future with subservient Sontarans? This entire episode's wonderful through and through.