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The Daleks are slowly but surely conquering our galaxy,
and it seems that nothing and no one will be able to stop
them. However, Commander Agnes Landen has an idea. On the
outer planet Talis Minor, Salus Kade is struggling to keep
his isolated colony alive. The last thing he needs is a war
to fight. Nevertheless, a war is what he gets - when the Daleks
arrive...
Apart
from the Seventh Doctor crossover special, Return
of the Daleks, it’s been three years since
the last Dalek Empire release. Rather surprisingly,
however, The Fearless does not pick up where Dalek
Empire III left off, despite the ending to
that series having proven to be rather inconclusive, leaving
the fates of several of its characters hanging in the air.
Instead, like Return of the Daleks, this new set of
four episodes takes us back to the time of the first series,
when Susan Mendes was the so-called “Angel of Mercy”.
We hear briefly from Suz (Sarah Mowat), but this is purely
for the purpose of setting up the context (and doesn’t
really merit her billing on the front cover). This new series
concerns an entirely different set of characters.
The
Fearless stars two actors from opposite ends of Doctor
Who history. Noel Clarke plays Salus Kade, a decidedly
more heroic character than his more familiar Mickey Smith,
albeit a reluctant one. He is lured into heroism by his circumstances,
rather like John McClane in the Die Hard movies or
Casey Ryback in Under Siege. Former First Doctor companion
Maureen O’Brien is also cast against type, playing the
sly military commander Agnes Landen.
Writer/director
Nicholas Briggs’s plot involves the development of battle
suits to help human warriors stand up to the might of the
Daleks, raising the possibility that this technology may dehumanise
the wearers (the Fearless of the title) as much as the Daleks
themselves have been corrupted from their Kaled forebears.
Similar ground was covered in two Steve Lyons stories: the
audio drama Blood
of the Daleks, in which a human scientist used
Dalek technology to turn human beings into Dalek-like creatures,
and the earlier Missing Adventures novel Killing
Ground, which saw human colonists willingly transforming
themselves into “Bronze Knights”, cybernetic warriors
designed to take on the Cybermen.
In
other respects, though, Dalek Empire 4 shows all the
signs of becoming another exciting “movie in sound”
featuring the pernicious pepper-pots.
Richard
McGinlay
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