Jubilee

"The Daleks have gone but the evil that men do will echo on forever."

Writer: Robert Shearman

Format: Audio

Released: January 2003

Series: Main Range 40

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, Evelyn

Synopsis

Hurrah! The deadly Daleks are back! Yes, those loveable tinpot tyrants have another plan to invade our world. Maybe this time because they want to drill to the Earth's core. Or maybe they just feel like it. 

And when those pesky pepperpots are in town, there is one thing you can be sure of. There will be non-stop high octane mayhem in store. And plenty of exterminations!

But never fear. The Doctor is on hand to sort them out. Defender of the Earth, saviour of us all. With his beautiful assistant, Evelyn Smythe, by his side, he will fight once again to uphold the beliefs of the English Empire. All hail the glorious English Empire!

Now that sounds like a jubilee worth celebrating, does it not?

Verdict 

Jubilee was a brilliant audio story and it's no wonder that this story was adapted into the Series 1 TV story Dalek! It really was excellent. Robert Shearman gave us a hugely different slant on a Dalek audio story from what we've had previously in the Main Range with the loose Dalek Empire arc. It's all change here though as we have a temporal paradox, Dalek juice being drunk (it's as disgusting as it sounds) and even a Dalek invasion which may seem strange when thinking about what story this inspired. Although this story was the basis for Dalek, it wasn't as closely resembled as I thought it would be. I'm now particularly looking forward to reading Human Nature to see if that's any closer to being similar to the TV story of the same name. I like the idea of alternate timeline stories and the Doctor actually being the key to what happened in 1903 and what was happening in 2003 was intriguing. He, seemingly unbeknownst to himself, was holding back the Dalek invasion of 100 years previous from merging with 2003. But it was getting tougher and things were getting through. Things like Daleks exterminating. The similarities in relationships between the Dalek and Evelyn here and the Dalek and Rose in the TV adaptation were probably what you could draw on as being the most resemblant between the two stories. Evelyn meeting the Doctor, who had been locked away for 100 years, was an incredibly powerful moment. I thought Evelyn was marvellous in this story and I really do think my thoughts on her as companion are changing because for the second consecutive story I'm going to say it was her best! It was her second meeting with the Daleks and it's fair to say she's had two very unpleasant and eventful meetings! The Apocalypse Element had the Daleks invading Gallifrey and now she was being respected by one! That's quite disturbing. The Dalek being a soldier and craving orders was brilliant. It had failed to destroy Earth but hadn't died trying. It hadn't carried out its orders and now it needed new ones to redeem itself. But there had been 100 years since the last orders. I thought it was quite incredible that the Dalek wanted the Doctor to be its commanding officer! Now that's ironic. The performance of Colin Baker was astounding here and it's no wonder that this story got a mention in the editor's column of the latest DWM in listing some of the Sixth Doctor's best moments in audio. It really was magnificent. The only problem I have with this story is that the Doctor had become legless and was simply exterminated by the Daleks. They finally got their man but nothing was really made of it. Surely after losing his legs, the Doctor would just regenerate? I didn't get that. Why was it suddenly disabled? Miriam was a wonderful character and her reaction to seeing Farrow's head was priceless. She just wasn't shocked at all! And they were to be married! She was just barmy. If you don't believe me - she wanted to marry a Dalek! How ridiculous is that? It's so ridiculous that I love it. When the Daleks were coming through, the in-laws comment was just comedic gold. Sublime. I thought Rochester was a really good character too and his relationship with the Doctor was interesting throughout. His collection of dwarves to go inside Dalek shells was pretty disturbing I must say. I thought it was intriguing that he was President though. Time had certainly gone wrong! The climax was action packed which was great and the destruction of the Daleks was always going to happen, but I liked the way it was done. Overall a superb story with fascinating references to History as a whole. A nice reference to The Marian Conspiracy as well! 

Rating: 9/10