Agents of Chaos: The Shadow Vortex

"The human race would make excellent Daleks!"

Writer: David Llewelyn 

Format: Audio

Released: 6th October 2016

Series: War Doctor Adventures 3.01

Featuring: War Doctor

Synopsis 

Cardinal Ollistra exploits the War Doctor's affection for Earth to send him to East Berlin, 1961, on the trail of a Dalek agent. Laura Zannis has breached the planet's quantum shield on a very special mission for the Dalek Time Strategist.

Caught between the MI6 and the KGB, the War Doctor must first escape the Stasi before he can hope to stop Laura. Cold War scientists are about to make a breakthrough - the Daleks want control of the 'Shadow Vortex', and Agent Zannis can provide it.

Verdict 

The Shadow Vortex was an oust standing audio adventure and a sublime start to the third War Doctor boxset Agents of Chaos. This is probably the quickest that I've purchased a release from Big Finish but the stories featuring the War Doctor are something that I anticipate greatly and the price was right and delivery was quick so here I am ten days after it was released blogging. And boy was it a good one! I think it's just about my favourite one yet from the range and it seems that as the range goes on, the story quality gets better and better. It was wonderful to hear John Hurt reprise the role once again and I thought his performance was superb! I loved how the story started right into the action and included just a few flashback moments to see how events had led up to the current situation. It was quite refreshing to have story on Earth for the War Doctor and the setting of Berlin in 1961 was excellent. I really liked how the Doctor was annoyed that even humanity couldn't escape the Time War but he was quite surprised that the quantum shield had been breached. The Time Lords taking precautions on certain planets was good and the Doctor's reaction to finding out that it was Earth that had been breached was very good. Laura Zannis was a brilliant villain and she was played delightfully by the wonderful Neve McIntosh who we know better as Madame Vastra. It was terrific to hear her in a different role and I liked how her voice managed not to be wholly reminiscent of the Silurian we've come to know so well. The fact that she was human but a Dalek agent was interesting and it was quite horrific what she was willing to do! She wanted to change Earth's entire history and have the Daleks arrive in 1961 and wipe out the human race. Laura even knew that it would prevent her own existence but she had accounted for that with the paradox stabilisers. The Doctor having to give the speech about fixed points and things that can be changed yet again was great but his reaction to having to explain it once more was brilliant. Kruger was an excellent character and I really liked his relationship with the Doctor. His reaction to stepping inside the TARDIS was terrific but the Doctor had no time to stop and explain things. He had a job to do. The Daleks knowing about the difference in the latest regeneration of the Doctor was fantastic and I loved their efforts to try and remove him from the timeline. What more could a Dalek want? I thought the Dalek Time Strategist was superb and the authority and almost humanity in the voice was really good. You just knew that this Dalek was in charge of the current mission. Professor Crane was another good character and I liked how she ended up helping the Doctor to stop the plans of Laura. Leith was good but he was tricked too easily by the Dalek agent. Kavarin proposing an alliance between the Germans and the Daleks was great but that quickly ended in extermination which was very good because it immediately reminded us of just how ruthless the Daleks can be. The Doctor managed to stop the Daleks fully utilising the Shadow Vortex and evading the quantum shield with barely any time to spare (how else would it be?) was excellent and I just loved how he broke the laws of his own people to fix things. He used the TARDIS and went back to the moment Laura opened the Shadow Vortex and actually had her occupy the same place twice at once. Well, that couldn't happen and it was a bit reminiscent of what we saw with the Master's TARDIS in Time-Flight. Laura was sent spiralling and the timelines quickly reverted to normality meaning that the Daleks never got through to Earth and now they'd lost their agent. I really enjoyed how the Doctor justified his actions to the Daleks simply by stating "this is war". Considering he wanted no part of the war's events, the Doctor is doing a lot of work to help one side. The lead in to the next story of the boxset with Ollistra being kidnapped was very good and overall, this audio was simply amazing!

Rating: 10/10