The Conquest of Far

"If you don't trust me, why did you bother saving me?"

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

Format: Audio

Released: August 2017

Series: Third Doctor Adventures 3.01

Featuring: Third Doctor, Jo

Synopsis

Earth Alliance, the future... Fleet commanders receive their orders from the President of Earth. Operation Far is 'go'. As soon as the planets are suitably aligned, the attack will go ahead.

The Doctor and Jo arrive on the planet Far. The Doctor wants to attend the grand opening of one of the human race's greatest achievements. A huge Hyper Gateway built to make travel around Earth's great empire more convenient, bringing relief to many starving outer colonies.

But they land in the wrong time period, long after the Gateway has been in service, and the Daleks have conquered Far! It's the middle of a war and a deadly game is underway. When everyone has an agenda, betrayal can happen at any time, from any side. The endgame is approaching and maybe this time no one will survive.

Verdict

The Conquest of Far was an excellent audio to kick off the third volume of the Third Doctor Adventures! This was definitely my favourite release in the series thus far and was a welcomed addition of quality to the range made even better by the fact that the bulk of my purchase of the boxset was from a reward voucher at work. There's nothing quite like a freebie! This was a good choice in hindsight and getting an extra encounter with the Daleks for the Third Doctor was brilliant, especially because we got to hear Tim Treloar's take on the third incarnation against the greatest foes for the first time. He has definitely grown on me in the role since it was recast back at the start of the range and whilst I thought there were a couple of instances where too much was done to emulate the mannerisms of Jon Pertwee, he was excellent and definitely helped provide a feeling of authenticity to the story which I think is important. With another Dalek story for this Doctor, I wasn't expecting it to follow on right where a previous one left off! The continuation from Planet of the Daleks was magnificent with the Doctor and Jo literally having just left there only to be encountering the Daleks once again, albeit at a different point in their history. These Daleks were noticeably more advanced with Jo's gasped reaction to their hover abilities a real treat. This also definitely had a feeling of space-opera and that's quite unique for the Third Doctor given much of his era was contained to Earth so it's great to explore other settings for this incarnation. I thought some of the guest characters were very strong with Jickster and Naltrox the obvious standouts. It was good to have the Doctor and Jo split up early on and the proximity to the gateway and their arrival much later in time than anticipated was a good fumble. They were expecting a gatekeeper and instead they got Daleks. The Doctor having to escape through the gateway without any hyperspace coordinates was some good action and excitement and I should also mention that I thought the cliffhangers were very strong. The one at the end of part two revealing the secret weapon of the Daleks was fantastic as we learned that they had a transmitter that was able to convert entire armies en mass into Robomen. I'm a sucker for the Robomen alongside the Daleks and having different levels of them was a really intriguing development here. There were Robomen that were advanced and didn't even know that they had been converted which was really good. I liked the setting of Far very much and I found the origin of its name hilarious and lacking imagination for those who named it on Earth! Very fun. The Dalek Wars are always intriguing to explore and this was no different, and I was impressed with how much the threat of the Daleks was used rather than their actual presence for a lot of the adventure. The scene where the Daleks were interrogating Jo and her truthful (or not!) responses was terrific and I liked how she had the confidence to try and pull one over on them. The ending was actually relatively simple and open-ended which was refreshing and Elaquon's role as the initial slave who designed the transmitter was excellent. She was a great character. I thought it was a big surprise that Del didn't survive after all was well but that showed that death follows the Daleks. The Doctor' gloating to the Daleks at the end as they recognised another face to add to their databanks of the Doctor was fun, although I was slightly surprised he was okay with leaving Daleks alive out in the universe. Still, this was a fantastic listen! 

Rating: 9/10