All Hands on Deck

"Gallifrey needs you to fight the Daleks."

Writer: Eddie Robson

Format: Audio

Released: October 2017

Series: Short Trips 7.10

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Susan

Synopsis

Everyone Susan Campbell cared about has gone. Most of them died in the second Dalek invasion, and her grandfather never visits. She's living in what used to be Coal Hill School, helping Earth rebuild again. 

Then, one night, she's called away to help with an emergency. A piece of appropriated Dalek technology is malfunctioning, and everyone's afraid of what it might do...

This is just the first in a sequence of predicaments facing Susan – and the connection between them will shape the rest of her life.

Verdict

All Hands on Deck was an excellent Short Trips adventure! I find it quite incredible that a story as important and monumental as this one was for Susan took place in this range, as you don't really associate big moments with the series despite it being a very consistent testing ground for a number of adventures. I love The Dalek Invasion of Earth so any continuation from that story is marvellous in my eyes. I really enjoyed After the Daleks which was released earlier this year set post-Dalek invasion and of course then there's An Earthly Child and the incredible final of the fourth series of Eighth Doctor Adventures. They all tie in nicely here with Susan alone and actually now moved into flats at what used to be Coal Hill School which was a really fun occurrence. For her needing a new place, that was a prime location. Her mentioning of an oak tree that was planted in memory Ian and Barbara was a lovely touch as well and more than fitting. The Daleks having their presence still felt through the form of salvaged technology was great and a timely reminder of how long the Daleks were in control of the planet. The synthesiser was seemingly making something bad with dormant data and Susan had tampered to get it into action which was very good. The hatch being the perfect shape for a Dalek provided some suspense, and I was laughing on the train that the yellow fluid emerging was no chemical weapon but was actually custard! Some light humour. Susan believing she was being tested or distracted was terrific and it was so much fun to have her deal with an asteroid and launch missiles even though nothing was actually coming. Except the spiders came then and their description was fantastic with them being black and orange, fast, and part organic and part mechanical. It was quite the image! Susan comments about her names and neither actually being hers was marvellous and a reminder that Susan was only a name she took on Earth which fascinated me. What's she really called? I would love to know! Susan questioning the purpose of the spiders who just scuttled everywhere was fun and that led for a wonderful arrival of the Doctor! Susan was less than happy and pushed the Doctor to trace the signal back with the sonic to find who was in control of the spiders, and it was the Doctor! He had been hiding a Tesseract containing a message from Gallifrey that urgently required Susan's attention, but the Doctor didn't want her to open it as all became clear. Susan was seeing a vision of the biggest threat to Gallifrey being the Daleks and the beginning of the Time War. The Doctor had denied the request to go himself which shocked Susan who felt like a coward if she didn't go, so she tricked the Doctor into thinking she'd travel with hi again only to go and fight the Daleks for her people! She'd seen the damage the Daleks had done and I loved how it was linked back to her departure from Gallifrey and how they hadn't heard of them when she and the Doctor departed! That was excellent. Bringing everything full circle with Susan now making the decision to leave Earth unlike her predicament when initially departing the TARDIS was magnificent. Hearing her enter a TARDIS that came to pick her up felt like a final goodbye, but now I guess I'll have to get purchasing Susan's War! Overall, a brilliant listen!

Rating: 9/10