The Word Lord

"You literally can't get away with murder here."

Writer: Steven Hall
Format: Audio
Released: November 2008
Series: Main Range 115d

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Ace, Hex

Synopsis

In a top secret military bunker deep beneath the Antarctic ice a mysterious death threatens peace negotiations and could spell disaster for the inhabitants of Earth. Can the Doctor cross the t's and dot the i's? Or will his efforts get lost in translation?

Verdict

The Word Lord was a fantastic conclusion to the Forty Five audio anthology celebrating Doctor Who's 45th anniversary! This set has certainly finished on a high point and was definitely a great collection as a whole. I was probably a little disappointed that there weren't any familiar elements making a return unexpectedly as part of the milestone celebrations as that seems to take away from the fact that it was an anniversary release. It sadly didn't really feel special, but don't let that take away from this outstanding adventure! This was a superb story and whilst the element of the '45' seemed a bit forced in parts and was probably my only main complaint. Having a setting of 2045 is absolutely fine, but the likelihood of a system wipe occurring every 45 hours just didn't seem logical and didn't really fit any kind of pattern. I thought it would have been fun to further explore the Second Cold War setting, but time was against us here and that was probably why more wasn't made of that. I'd love for a future story to occur in this time period where the prospect of nuclear war was on the horizon. That could be a very tense tale! This one followed the first two stories in the collection slightly in seeming a bit rushed and you could particularly tell that with some of the actors and how quick they were speaking. That was a slight shame. Thankfully, the story itself was terrific and my enjoyment was all down to the concept behind the Word Lord. It was almost like the personification of elements seen in The Mind Robber and I loved the mysterious ending where it appeared that he did escape and will surely return for a full story in the future. The concept is just too good! I really loved the idea of a linguistic entity and the power that the Word Lord had in being able to take advantage of words becoming reality. His name being Nobody-No One obviously benefitted things in a unique and subtly clever way. It even enabled him access to the TARDIS which surprised Ace in a big way! Hex didn't have a massive amount to do in this particular audio, but when the story was barely half an hour that isn't so much of an issue. I was a little surprised to find that the Word Lord was after a bounty on the Doctor's head given the power he would be able to utilise by having words at his disposal, but I do think it could be a lot of fun to play around with different beings coming for the price that was on offer for the Doctor. The Word Lord wanting to see the look and lights on the stalk of the Dalek Supreme when he brought it the Dalek was very amusing. The Cybermen also had a price, but that didn't quite seem as good as the Daleks. The ending was very good and of particular interest as it was just brilliant to get the TARDIS translation circuit to be a prominent element of a story and the resolution. Hex was able to just switch it off with the Doctor's instructions and that set the Word Lord into disarray as his power was lost in translation after coming from 45 billion universes to the side and found solace in an instruction manual. However, he escaped with the power of words from an unbeknownst sayer. Overall, a fine audio adventure to finish the anthology!

Rating: 9/10