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Professor Martez, now inhabiting the body of his assistant,
Asha Gryvern, has summoned the Daleks to the Earth colony
world of Red Rocket Rising so that they can assist with the
production of his own Dalek creations. However, the true Daleks
see Martez's creations as a threat, and they plan to destroy
them in order to maintain the purity of the Dalek bloodline.
With Lucie captured and Martez's Daleks holding the advantage
in terms of sheer weight of numbers, the Doctor has little
choice but to ally himself with his old enemies...
Whenever
I hear one of the characters referring to Red Rocket Rising,
I can't help thinking of those Leslie Nielsen adverts for
Red Rock Cider: "It's not red, and there's no rocks in it".
However, though this CD isn't red, it does have a rocket ship
in it!
Rather like the "special relationship" between Tony Blair
and George W Bush, the colony's acting president, Eileen Klint
(Anita Dobson), finds that her partnership with the Daleks
is a very one-sided affair. The politics of modern warfare
are also alluded to in the Daleks' euphemistic use of the
term "target", which in this case includes several innocent
civilians.
As in Part
1, writer Steve Lyons and the rest of the production
team emulate recent television episodes featuring the Daleks.
Tom Cardwell (Kenneth Cranham) describes how he could see
through victims' bodies as the invaders exterminated them,
while the Daleks themselves reuse the catchphrase "El-e-vate!"
Em-u-late! The revelation that the main Dalek force is busy
fighting an unnamed enemy in another sector invites speculation
(on my part at least) of a connection with the forthcoming
Time War. Could their
unnamed enemy actually be the Time Lords?
Just as he did in Resurrection
of the Daleks, the Doctor (Paul McGann) regrets
not having wiped out his foes when he had the chance in Genesis
of the Daleks. Thus history repeats itself
in more ways than one - intentionally on the author's part,
and not quite so intentionally. Lyons' plot also bears more
than a passing resemblance to his 1996 Missing Adventures
novel Killing Ground, which saw human colonists being
transformed into "Bronze Knights", cybernetic warriors designed
to rival the might of the Cybermen.
This isn't quite as strong a CD as the previous one. For one
thing, the Doctor doesn't seem to do much besides temporarily
allying himself with the Daleks. Even his decision to allow
Lucie (Sheridan Smith) to continue her travels with him is
forced upon him by way of Time Lord intervention. Furthermore,
the interviews that comprise the disc's extra features have
more to do with the next Eighth Doctor release, The Horror
of Glam Rock, than they do with this episode. Worst of
all, the interviews give away (for those of you who didn't
already know) the villains of the final story in this series,
Human Resources.
However,
the CD extras do provide an interesting insight into the casting
process.
Blood of the Daleks - Part 2 might not be entirely
up to the standards of Part 1, but Steve Lyons is incapable
of writing a really bad story, so that's only a relative judgement
on what remains a decidedly full-blooded adventure.
Richard
McGinlay
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