Big Finish Audio Plays: Fear of the Daleks - Patrick Chapman
Who_Daily Link: < a href="http://persiflage-1.livejournal.com/167642.html">The Companion Chronicles: Fear of the Daleks by Patrick Chapman reviewed by < lj user=persiflage_1>
Zoe Heriot only remembers her first adventure with the Doctor and Jamie, but she is having detailed nightmares and relates one of them to a psychiatric counsellor. Her dream begins with the Doctor telepathically showing her his most recent encounter with the Daleks and the experience frightens Zoe, but the Doctor assures her that the Daleks have met their "final end".
The TARDIS then arrives on the asteroid Livonia where plans are being made for a peace conference between the human-descended Zantha Empire and the Tibari Republic, whose citizens are of piscine descent. However, a renegade Tibari scientist, Atrekar, kidnaps the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie, having identified the Doctor and Zoe as being very intelligent. He decides to use them in his mind projector machine, which uses Dalek technology to create a duplicate of Zoe, which is controlled by her intelligence via quantum entanglement, but is subject to Atrekar's telepathic command. Atrekar is allied with the Daleks and plans to use Zoe to assassinate the Tibari President and thwart the peace negotiations. For their part, the Daleks are planning to use Atrekar's mind projector to conquer the galaxy.
Zoe's quantum duplicate is transported to the Tibari President's spaceship, where she is taken to meet the President, Ram Vendl. Atrekar delays the assassination, hoping for maximum impact, but Vendl befriends Zoe, although she keeps the young girl in detention for security reasons. Meanwhile, in Atrekar's facility, the Daleks have decided to take over and to test Atrekar's mind projector using the Doctor as a test subject. The Doctor's quantum duplicate is transported to the Tibari ship, but Atrekar cannot control him. When Atrekar attempts to activate Zoe as an assassin and get her to kill Vendl, the Doctor stops Zoe. Frustrated, the Daleks use the mind projector on themselves, and Dalek quantum duplicates arrive on the ship instead. However, Atrekar, realising that the Daleks do not plan to keep their agreement with him, uses his telepathy to take over one of the Daleks and turns their own worst fears against them, so that they are destroyed. Jamie then activates a switch which restores the Doctor and Zoe to their own bodies, and the Doctor destroys the mind projector. The peace talks proceed as scheduled with Vendl advocating compromise between the two sides.
After recounting her nightmare, Zoe adds a footnote to her dream diary saying that she thought she heard the Doctor's voice telling her that the Daleks really had met their final end. "But then, he would say that, wouldn't he?" she muses.
I confess I haven't yet caught up with many of the stories featuring Zoe - partly because of the difficulty with so many being lost by the BBC - but I didn't enjoy this story as much as I'd hoped to before I started listening. Even at only just over an hour long, it seemed too long and to drag a bit. Vendl was the only character who really interested me outside the TARDIS trio - and she was barely in it!
Zoe Heriot only remembers her first adventure with the Doctor and Jamie, but she is having detailed nightmares and relates one of them to a psychiatric counsellor. Her dream begins with the Doctor telepathically showing her his most recent encounter with the Daleks and the experience frightens Zoe, but the Doctor assures her that the Daleks have met their "final end".
The TARDIS then arrives on the asteroid Livonia where plans are being made for a peace conference between the human-descended Zantha Empire and the Tibari Republic, whose citizens are of piscine descent. However, a renegade Tibari scientist, Atrekar, kidnaps the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie, having identified the Doctor and Zoe as being very intelligent. He decides to use them in his mind projector machine, which uses Dalek technology to create a duplicate of Zoe, which is controlled by her intelligence via quantum entanglement, but is subject to Atrekar's telepathic command. Atrekar is allied with the Daleks and plans to use Zoe to assassinate the Tibari President and thwart the peace negotiations. For their part, the Daleks are planning to use Atrekar's mind projector to conquer the galaxy.
Zoe's quantum duplicate is transported to the Tibari President's spaceship, where she is taken to meet the President, Ram Vendl. Atrekar delays the assassination, hoping for maximum impact, but Vendl befriends Zoe, although she keeps the young girl in detention for security reasons. Meanwhile, in Atrekar's facility, the Daleks have decided to take over and to test Atrekar's mind projector using the Doctor as a test subject. The Doctor's quantum duplicate is transported to the Tibari ship, but Atrekar cannot control him. When Atrekar attempts to activate Zoe as an assassin and get her to kill Vendl, the Doctor stops Zoe. Frustrated, the Daleks use the mind projector on themselves, and Dalek quantum duplicates arrive on the ship instead. However, Atrekar, realising that the Daleks do not plan to keep their agreement with him, uses his telepathy to take over one of the Daleks and turns their own worst fears against them, so that they are destroyed. Jamie then activates a switch which restores the Doctor and Zoe to their own bodies, and the Doctor destroys the mind projector. The peace talks proceed as scheduled with Vendl advocating compromise between the two sides.
After recounting her nightmare, Zoe adds a footnote to her dream diary saying that she thought she heard the Doctor's voice telling her that the Daleks really had met their final end. "But then, he would say that, wouldn't he?" she muses.
I confess I haven't yet caught up with many of the stories featuring Zoe - partly because of the difficulty with so many being lost by the BBC - but I didn't enjoy this story as much as I'd hoped to before I started listening. Even at only just over an hour long, it seemed too long and to drag a bit. Vendl was the only character who really interested me outside the TARDIS trio - and she was barely in it!