Cass: Previously, Next Time Part 1

"This was an uninhabited planet five minutes ago."

Writer: James Moran

Format: Audio

Released: January 2023

Series: The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 5.03a

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Alex, Cass

Synopsis

The Doctor, Cass and Alex land to find out what's causing temporal anomalies with the TARDIS, and come across an uninhabited planet, a mysterious factory, and a weapon so dangerous, it could destroy the Universe. But things go catastrophically wrong...

Verdict

Previously, Next Time started in sublime fashion with this superb opening half of the story! Two synopsises for the series finale means this gets the double blog treatment from me and it feels fitting given how things ended. It felt like this was almost too big of a cliffhanger to just be the halfway point in a story and to keep listening immediately. This hour or so was brilliant in exploring the broken timelines of the Time War and that's been a fantastic theme running through the Eighth Doctor Adventures set during the conflict. I'm a big fan of things and the Daleks getting involved is marvellous. They almost have to at some point when it comes to the Time War because they are after all who the Time Lords are fighting, and their plan here was incredibly audacious to say the least! I like how Cass knows all about the Daleks now from the TARDIS databanks and I just love the idea of her studying up and doing some revision on what she might come up against. It's certainly good companion material to plan ahead like that. I thought the way she sold the Daleks as well as a chilling threat was marvellous and not that it was needed but really showed just what the Daleks meant. And it wasn't good! The way things started with the Doctor, Alex and Cass basically exploding into existence on this uninhabited planet was intriguing and I'm continuing to enjoy playing around with the format of stories amidst the Time War setting. This range does it better than any other I would argue and it shows no signs of letting up. The planet blinking into actually being inhabited in a completely changed history and timeline was something and Cass explaining to the new locals who had an entire existence that was being questioned did sound ludicrous. The way she was putting her case forward that the planet's entire species didn't exist until she awoke again was almost hilarious in how baffling it sounded. Even she had to admit the story wasn't in her favour. The continued absence of Bliss going noticed by the Doctor was fascinating stuff and amidst numerous temporal anomalies and changing and deleted timelines, is there a version where she accompanied the Doctor, Alex and Cass here? I think that's fun to think about. It would certainly change the dynamic! The Daleks building a retcon bomb sounded impressive and the emphatic music that accompanied the Doctor revealing that name was marvellous in it being accompanied by Cass asking if they were supposed to understand what that meant. The concept behind it through the Battle TARDIS was incredible as they planned to basically hack reality. Putting the universe and time altogether in that way is almost incomprehensible to think about but it would be a place where the Daleks righted every wrong on an unimaginable scale. Would there even be anyone else left? The Doctor questioning what the point of the Daleks would be once the universe was conquered was powerful stuff and I was almost left baffled by a Dalek answering that the universe would then be beautiful. I did not know beauty would be in Dalek vocabulary! The bomb going off as the Doctor tried to implode the retcon was intriguing as it sent him and his companions back a year. No TARDIS and nearly no time before the Daleks rewrote everything and became victors of the universe. Some cliffhanger! Overall, an incredible first half of the story. If the second part is anywhere near as good we're onto a classic.