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Gallifrey is ruined. The great and good of her once-mighty
Capitol gather in disease-ridden shanty towns outside its
walls. Her "friends" in the Temporal Powers anticipate her
total collapse, her people's extinction, and the beginning
of a new galactic order. The Time Lords' new President has
a drastic scheme to restore his world to its former glory,
but can a cure for all Gallifrey's ills really be found in
the hands of entrepreneur, adventurer and self-confessed swine
Mephistopheles Arkadian...?
I won't go into specifics, but I really must mention the ending
to this audio drama. You see, despite being the last instalment
of the third and supposedly final series of Gallifrey,
Panacea ends on a cliffhanger.
It's probable that writer Alan Barnes intended this conclusion
not to be taken too seriously. It's rather like the ending
of the original Italian Job in that respect. This would
certainly fit in with the light-hearted tone of several lines
of dialogue during the preceding narrative, including numerous
instances of K-9 (John Leeson) being overly literal and/or
nit-picking what others say; Romana's (Lalla Ward) line, "I'm
an ex-president, get me out of here"; and practically everything
that is said by Mephistopheles Arkadian (Hugo Myatt making
a welcome return).
Alternatively,
perhaps these events will be picked up in another series,
possibly a Paul McGann Doctor Who audio or even a Bernice
Summerfield adventure (the front cover gives away the
fact that Miles Richardson puts in another appearance as Braxiatel).
Maybe the BBC will permit Big Finish to bring all of these
series together in a saga that will finally tell the whole
story of the
Time War and the roles that the various Temporal
Powers played in it (but I doubt they will).
Certainly there are strong hints that the conflict with the
Daleks is imminent. Braxiatel warns that something bad is
coming, a catastrophe far worse than anything the Time Lords
have previously encountered or even imagined. The Daleks get
a name-check and Arkadian also mentions some metallic clients
of his. Incidentally, Brax's potential solution to Gallifrey's
problems is markedly similar to a plan of the Eighth Doctor's,
revealed in the novel The
Gallifrey Chronicles.
Aside
from all that, and a visit to Romana's ancestral house of
Heartshaven (which, like the Doctor's house in the New
Adventures novel Lungbarrow, has well and truly
gone to seed), this is a surprisingly low-key affair for a
final chapter. But then, how can you top the Time War that
we all know is coming?
As
I indicated earlier, Panacea does not in all fairness
offer what can be described as a satisfying conclusion - it
certainly isn't a resolution. However, it's a good listen
overall, so I wouldn't pan a CD like this.
Richard
McGinlay
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