Review by Jacob Licklider
Big Finish Productions’ third installment of their 60th anniversary celebratory series, Once and Future, has been released and puts degenerating Doctor into his Seventh incarnation, played by Sylvester McCoy for A Genius for War. A Genius for War is interesting because the TARDIS is intercepted so the Doctor can go on a mission for the Time Lords led by the General and Veklin, played by Ken Bones and Beth Chalmers respectively, as Davros, played by Terry Molloy, has an offer for the Time Lords. The TARDIS being taken by the Time Lords means that this is an episode that feels more like a side step for the series, and as such Jonathan Morris is allowed to tell a complete Time War story in one hour, however, there is some oddities with the characterisation of the Doctor. Past Lives characterised the Fourth Doctor as not the Fourth Doctor due to the Doctor being a future Doctor in the body of the Fourth Doctor, but The Artist at the End of Time altered the characterisation so the Fifth Doctor acted as the Fifth Doctor. Jonathan Morris doesn’t quite take either approach, A Genius for War blending the portrayal to play to McCoy’s strengths but also feel as if it was rewritten for a different Doctor. This is certainly a possibility as Morris could easily have pitched this as a War Doctor story, the War Doctor on Big Finish is at least similar in the types of stories he has to the Seventh Doctor, so the rewrites while extensive wouldn’t have been as complicated as say rewriting the story for the Fifth Doctor or Eighth Doctor for instance. Morris’ script makes the Doctor take charge of the mission to find Davros and then blends several past and future stories into a single hour.
The clearest influence on the script is The Evil of the Daleks, Davros wishing to create Dalek/Time Lord hybrids explicitly from a Time Lord factor which is a great idea for the story, Morris even lampshades it as a potential answer for the prophecy of the hybrid in the revived series feeling as if Hell Bent also let Morris down as it did large portions of the fan audience. Terry Molloy as Davros is honestly the highlight of the episode, always having the best chemistry and scenes with Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor that makes the exposition which goes further in depth than it perhaps needed to in places on the ideas behind A Genius for War. McCoy in general also just works so well in the setting of a Time War, the Seventh Doctor being the most ruthless of all the Doctors and a Doctor who perhaps could have ended the Time War before it can end. He takes command from the General and Veklin, both having them running around in circles in places despite being disoriented from degeneration. Ken Bones as the General gets a chance to generally show the ruthlessness of the Time Lords as well, Morris’ script harkening back to the way the Time Lords were written in The War Games to be unknowable techno gods, though here they are at war. This adds layers of danger to the episode on both sides, as Davros is obviously not actually trying to deal with the Time Lords. There is quite a bit of time devoted to Time Lord machinations between the General and Veklin which is also an excellent idea. Helen Goldwyn is in the director’s chair for this one and her style of direction sets this release apart from the other two releases thus far, enhanced by Howard Carter’s sound design and score harkening back to many of his Time War scores which assists in the setting. Really what’s holding this back is that it always feels like a bit of a sidestep not pushing forward a larger story, though it’s a sidestep I am very happy to be taking.
Overall, A Genius for War may be another installment of Once and Future that occurs without giving the audience even the slightest hint as to what’s going on (unless the Time War plot will be tying into the explanation for the degeneration without it being made clear to the audience in this play in particular), it’s an excellent way to spend an hour led by strong performances from McCoy, Molloy, Bones, and Chambers, giving the Seventh Doctor yet another chance to prove that if his Doctor was the one in the Time War, the Time Lords would have almost immediately won. 7/10.
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Review: Doctor Who Once and Future – The Artist At The End Of Time
Review: Doctor Who Once and Future – Past Lives
Check out the rest of our Big Finish reviews!
