The War Doctor Box Set: Volume 4 Review
Gustaff Behr gives his verdict on the War Doctor’s fourth audio boxset.
Earlier this year, the beloved John Hurt, our Doctor of War passed away, leaving behind a tremendous legacy. For me, John Hurt will always be the voice of the Dragon in Merlin, but for this review, he is the War Doctor and this is the final instalment in Big Finish’s War Doctor Adventures.
Pretty Lies
Unfortunately, the series doesn’t get off to a good start as the Doctor and Ollistra crash land on a planet and team up with a time travelling reporter in hopes of getting back to Gallifrey before the Daleks find them because any planet with the Doctor on it might as well be a planet-sized bullseye.
I have several notable problems with this story, the first of which concerns Ollistra. To be frank, she barely does anything in this story except snap at people and complains. Really. That’s her characterization for maybe 2/3s of this story.
Ollistra has been almost a companion-esque character for the War Doctor, but ever since Volume 01, approximately zero attention has been given to telling us more about her and actually making us care what happens to her. By the end of this box set, her characterization can be summed up as ‘Manipulative Time Lord Cardinal that has a love/hate relationship with the Doctor’. After 2 years and 4 box sets, this feels like a waste and her character in Pretty Lies is perhaps the worst it’s ever been.
Secondly, the plot is pretty forgettable. I mean this in the most literal sense. I can remember the plot of nearly every Doctor Who story I’ve ever listened to (except the boring ones) but I can’t recall anything worthwhile happening in Pretty Lies except the mistakes.
One of these mistakes is the War Doctor himself, who is particularly insensitive in this story and keeps spouting lines that are contradictory to his actions. He claims he is the worst thing in the universe, a mass murderer and even threatens to kill someone with his bare hands.
Please Doctor. Do it.
Kill someone.
That is meant to be the modus operandi for your incarnation. The reason every other incarnation hates you. Yet in no box set so far has the Doctor done anything that his other incarnations (past and future) wouldn’t have done also. By the end of Pretty Lies, the only difference between the Doctors and the war incarnation is the lack of numerical in front of his title.
Rating this story: 5/10
The Lady of Obsidian
The box set finally shifts into second gear when the Doctor is reunited with Leela, who everyone thought lost in the first years of the Time War.
The Lady of Obsidian is a substantially stronger instalment which mixes great character dynamics (Leela and War obviously), but also does wonders for Leela, a character that has grown so much over the years protecting Gallifrey with Romana. After so many spin-offs and so many adventures, it seems scarcely possible to find something so creative and interesting to do with Leela without reinventing the character or repeating what has come before. But this box set does just that.
Leela is afflicted with a unique temporal disease which puts her at odds with everyone else. The reunion between the Doctor and Leela really is the driving force behind this story, but much like Volume 02, Casualties of War features a unique temporal villain that feels very much like Big Finish wanted to try and do the ‘Should’ve Been King with his Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres’ without calling them that. While their first scene sounds like nails on a chalkboard, they do quickly prove themselves to be a formidable threat, if maybe a little generic. Their wonderfully timey-wimey- nature, coupled with the chemistry between John Hurt and Louise Jameson make this story only a few degrees from perfection.
Rating this story: 9/10
The Enigma Dimension
As mentioned, one of the fatal flaws of this entire series has been the reluctance to show the Doctor as the monster he constantly claims to be. He doesn’t spill innocent blood in the name of winning the war, he never breaks the promise of ‘never cruel or cowardly’, John Hurt is the “War” Doctor in title only I’m afraid. To be honest the Seventh Doctor has been shown to have far more blood on his hands, willing to go to far darker lengths to win the game. If ever a story needed to address this flaw, it’s The Enigma Dimension.
Much like how Clara hung “recklessly” out of the TARDIS in Face The Raven in order to make sure she is technically “reckless”, if only once, The Enigma Dimension presents us with a situation that feels very much like the Series 2 finale. An object larger than Gallifrey pops into existence with no mass or anything that can be used to prove its existence and starts the Daleks’ final gambit to remove the Time Lords from existence and win the TIme War.
The Enigma Dimension is an epic story with more than enough twists and character dynamic, both emotional and philosophical. Casualties of War is unfortunately the final box set for John Hurt, but what a story to go out on. The dynamic between the Doctor, Leela and Ollistra is half the fun, but it’s the final twenty minutes which pushes the envelope on the “Doctor who broke the promise”. The events of this story could almost be considered a prequel to The Day of the Doctor, pushing the Doctor to a new low in terms of self-hatred and loathing and preparing him for the decision to kill both his own people and the Daleks. It all comes full circle, but only with the benefit of hindsight.
While I would’ve like to see the War Doctor be treated more extremely since the foundation of a “War” Doctor is built on the premise of ‘it’s Doctor Who but without the morals’, I will highly recommend this series if you’re a fan of this incarnation, if only for the latter two stories.
Rating this story: 9.5/10
While this is probably not the end for the War Doctor in Doctor Who media, it is unfortunately for John Hurt, who will surely be missed for as many incarnations as we have to look forward to…and more. It’s hard to go out with a bang, but John Hurt managed it twofold by the impressive The Enigma Dimension, which is the actor’s last bow, excluding the highly praised The Day of the Doctor, which is the character’s in-story swansong.
