Review by Jacob Licklider

When this ninth series of The War Master was announced, it was also announced as the first of three final sets to be produced under Scott Handcock, all made as he was preparing to transfer to Doctor Who on television as script editor, though as is tradition with the range it is still a while before that final set is released (it is currently slated for a June 2024 release).  Solitary Confinement is the first of these three sets and while there isn’t an intent to make a trilogy of series, the listener can’t help but notice that the final two sets have titles of Rogue Encounters and Future Phantoms, while Solitary Confinement seems like the odd one out.  As a set there are moments where it feels like a greatest hits of the style of stories The War Master as a range does, building up to a final twist which in and of itself has similarities to some of the other final twists of the range (Hearts of Darkness in particular comes to mind especially).  For the purposes of this review, I only listened to the set through once to analyse it on initial impressions, but I have a feeling that the recontextualisation, something that becomes quite obvious in hindsight, might explain some of the issues I found myself having with the set, mainly with how derivative it is.  There is a general theme of the Master being imprisoned in an intergalactic insane asylum which is such an evocative image, yet for much of the set it is sadly used as a framing device for the middle two stories with the opening and closing episodes being the main thrust of the asylum stories, for better and for worse.  Because of these issues, I have decided to forgo the usual individual episode scores as all four have highs and lows with things that work and don’t work for me not necessarily being the same for you as a listener.

For better is the opening, James Goss’s contribution to the box set with The Walls of Absence, which is an episode that is clearly playing on the several The War Master episodes that have proposed the Master as a very nice old man who is no danger until the very end of the story where the knife is twisted.  This is an episode whose plot being a simple one actually works in its favour as the real premise of the episode is reuniting Derek Jacobi with Sian Phillips (playing Mendrix  here) who is treating the Master throughout the episode.  Phillips and Jacobi of course excel and play off each other wonderfully throughout the episode which is what’s really carrying the script, a script written to allow this.  It’s kind of a shame that Phillips was only available for this first episode, as the main person the Master interacts with after this episode is Bartholom played by Lois Chibimba.  Chibimba’s great and has plenty of chemistry with Jacobi, but due to their shared history as performers, Jacobi and Phillips just sparkle instantly.  Goss does have some very nice ideas, The Walls of Absence does propose some interesting ideas about identity and how retrograde amnesia can destroy that identity as well as adding some very nice layers of cosmic horror as this set is “concurrent” with the Time War in general.

The Kicker, which closes the set, on the other hand, sadly doesn’t pick up what Goss had laid down, perhaps due to its nature as an episode written and proposed separate from the rest of the set and retrofitted because Trevor Baxendale had the idea independently to put the War Master in a hospital.  It’s also important to note for consumers that Baxendale as an author has consistently shown sympathy for the anti-transgender Gender Critical movement through statements on Twitter, although much of this support has been through liking and retweeting transphobic material and opinions rather than actively expressing them himself creating deniability.  While I will be separating the art from the artist in this portion of the review, it is still a consideration for you the potential listener to know.  The Kicker for its author’s issues, is full of really interesting ideas that could have filled a box set on their own.  The conceit is that this is the big twist in the poker game that is the set and the Master’s plans, these plans mainly being an exit strategy when the asylum is under attack by a Temporal Inquisition.  I adore the idea of the Temporal Inquisition, Daleks contracting out them to do their dirty work, bud Baxendale really doesn’t explore them in any major way outside of the single representative of an organisation that should fit in the cosmic horror James Goss set up in the opening story.  The episode is building to the final twist about what actually is happening in Solitary Confinement concerning the Master, but Baxendale’s script suffers in pulling off this twist and leaving things on almost a cliffhanger that feels as if it will never truly be resolved.  The set plays out as if it’s meant to be standalone and the cliffhanger doesn’t really setup ideas for a future story, perhaps it was meant to be just an ambiguous ending that wasn’t put together as well as it could to be an ending meaning that there really isn’t a kicker in the end.

The middle two episodes have the worry of becoming filler in between the two “plot” focused episodes and the episode that becomes the closest to that is Tim Foley’s contribution to the set, The Long Despair.  It’s the episode that has a tone outside of what the rest of the set is doing and until the very end of the set itself feels as if it was just added in because Foley had the script, but thematically on reflection it does feel perfect for the follow up to The Walls of Absence.  The Long Despair is essentially a fairy tale of sorts, in places feeling in the moment as if it would have fit better in Escape from Reality with its mythic quality and the general tribute to Moby Dick.  It’s a quest along the sea to a beacon in the far off distance and Foley makes that distance feel real, there is a real melancholy and depression to much of the episode, even from the perspective of the Master, Foley’s delving into who the Master, and in particular this incarnation of the Master, actually is.  There’s always the ruthlessness of the character but also a character who never forgets a slight nor accepting the one that gets away.  It’s a unique aspect to Jacobi’s portrayal that makes the helpless and charming old man act work in the other episodes.  It’s just suffering from the distant glaze of the episode not fitting in. 

This is not an issue with the standout episode of the set, The Life and Loves of Mr. Alexander Bennett by Alfie Shaw.  This is the episode I am going to be the most brief about, only to mention that it is one of the very best individual episodes of the range stands out from the rest of the set.  It’s an episode that deals with the dangers of an over-reliance on technology without putting in the proper safeguards for those bad actors.  Shaw’s script is beautifully brought to life with Derek Jacobi essentially in the background while Jacob Dudman gets the chance to show off his chops outside of interpreting characters originally portrayed by other actors and he is wonderful.  There’s also a great guest turn from Kae Alexander.  Brilliant from start to finish The Life and Lovs of Mr. Alexander Bennett is also not a story for the faint of heart, portraying some very difficult themes to grapple with but it does so excellently.

Overall, The War Master: Solitary Confinement while perhaps a bit reliant on tropes that have become staples of the range, still shows why The War Master is such a great range to begin with and hardly misses.  Only held back by needing some better integration in the overall story of the set, the individual episodes each have something, some having more than others, while Scott Handcock’s vision for the range always shining through to make this a wonderful release.  8/10.

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Review: The War Master – Escape From Reality

Review: The War Master: Self-Defence

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