The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Gallifrey

"Please do not let me live another yesterday..."

It's the potential for something to go horribly wrong that make peace conferences and diplomatic summits so appealing to fiction writers. Be it a possible terrorist attack or simply conniving delegates working to their own secretive agenda, there are countless methods of subverting and destroying the good intentions behind the meeting. By my reckoning Stephen Cole's Square One, the second release of the Gallifrey series, is at least the fourth Big Finish audio release to revolve around a summit of this nature - and the first few minutes of the play remind the listener it was Cole who scripted the earliest of these, the uneven Doctor Who adventure The Apocalypse Element. There the machinations of the Daleks halted the attempt to hold a summit between the temporal powers and Square One plays very much in the same field as the early episodes of that story, featuring an attempt to hold this conference again successfully.

As shown in Weapon Of Choice, the relationship between the Time Lords and the other temporal powers remains strained despite the progressive policies of Romana's administration and so the idea of them coming together to form an accord agreeing a blueprint for the future for their alliance is a fundamentally sound basis for Square One's plot. Cole cunningly shows that these races have learned from the mistakes of the past through the creation of a seemingly impenetrable artificially-constructed planetoid to stage the event, so there can be no danger from attacks from outside and because of extensive security measures such as the whole place being operated entirely by a group of robot servitors who cannot be reprogrammed in any way, there can be no danger from within either.

Or at least, that's the theory anyway. The fact that Cole has to engineer a way for Leela to attend the conference sees him introduces the idea that the delegates are allowed to nominate entertainers - or in this case salacious dancing girls - for their pleasure. This undermines the central idea that the conference cannot be spied upon from outside as it would be very easy for one of the powers to place an agent amongst these artistes with the mission of finding out whatever information about the other races they can or to provoke the mood of mistrust already rife amongst them. And this is exactly what Romana does by sending Leela in undercover as "an ex-otic dancer" with her K9 unit masquerading as part of the act. Now if Gallifrey was devious enough to think of this, it stands to reason that the other temporal powers will surely do the same. This oversight in the logic of the script means that it comes as no surprise when this inevitability is exposed during the later stages of the drama.

The temporal politics take a more backseat role than in Weapon Of Choice as the focus is on Leela's investigation into potential avenues of skulduggery, but the conference scenes again emphasise the perception of the temporal powers as petty squabblers, unable to finish a single debating session without the various parties lashing out at each others' throats amidst the current climate of suspicion and paranoia. Set against this is the idea that the planetoid is being effected by implausible time slips, which is unknowingly sending the delegates back to the start of the conference (hence the title) and having to repeat the day's events again. This idea of recurring time is not an uncommon or original plot among science fiction stories but Cole ensures that the number of repeating scenes is kept to a minimum, and that they are sufficiently different to develop the plot, and this helps to maintain the focus on the mystery of discovering the identity of the individual manipulating time. While the explanations for why Leela retains her memories of the past events and why certain anomalous objects can still exist take their time in coming and are dealt with in a slightly off-hand manner, they are sufficiently plausible to convince and satisfy.

In his presentation of the various temporal powers present at the summit, Cole draws out the rivalries and histories of the races very well - we learn more about the Monan Host here than in either Weapon Of Choice or The Apocalypse Element and are reminded of how envious the Time Lords were of their powerful time technology which outstrips their own. But the problem here is that by the end the powers still seem factionalised rather than moving as a cooperative alliance and this is down to the choice Cole makes in the presentation of the agenda of the summit.

Throughout the story the importance of the conference is emphasised, and although Cole slips in scenes showing that Romana is acting in a clandestine manner towards an undetermined goal, the final revelation regarding the nature of the summit fatally wounds the drama as it retrospectively robs it of its tension and importance. There are plenty of basic parallels to Bang-Bang-A-Boom! as it is with the story centred around a group of disparate alien races (some of whom have very squeaky voices indeed) convening in an isolated environment for a specific occasion of some importance whose arbitrator figure is played by Jane Goddard, but Cole compounds these similarities by deploying the same misdirection plot twist that featured there albeit in an inverted manner. The revelation at the end of episode three of Clayton Hickman and Gareth Roberts' script added an urgency and tension to the final part as it was revealed that there was far more at stake than a simple song contest, but in Square One Cole's unveiling of the true importance of the trans-temporal summit that we've been listening to has the opposite effect because it shows that the events of the audio have had little importance or consequence after all because the balance of power was never in any real danger from the events that have played out. It forms an anticlimax of the highest order and is something not even the villain of the piece's last minute attempts to eradicate Romana from the timelines can rectify.

Cole's characterisation of Romana is far more credible than in the preceding story, despite being relegated to the sidelines during most of the play, as she seems the assured and knowing leader here able to deal with trouble considerately even if she comes across as rather sanctimonious at times. There is still the awkward necessity to involve her directly with the ending of the story, and it is her arrival upon the planetoid which leads to one of the weakest scenes in the play. This is where Romana discovers a homicidal servitor and she seems extremely feeble in trying to devise a method of outwitting it, with her cunning plan to hide in a cupboard failing, and it is only Leela's timely arrival that incapacitates the threat. It seems that with great power comes the inability to remember her previous inventiveness in getting out of difficult situations which served both her and the Doctor so well during their travels together.

The lack of thought into Leela's advancement is still a troublesome matter, with her lack of proficiency in reading mentioned in passing. Her apparent reluctance to adapt and learn new ways is rather a contrast to her mentor-like relationship with the Doctor and the portrayal she was given in the television series. It's rather paradoxical that Big Finish's approach to Leela roots her so much in the manner she was presented over twenty-five years ago yet with regard to the other star of the Gallifrey series, they are content to place Romana into a position of authority and responsibility, the like of which she never had in the original series, the burden of which fundamentally changes her character by depriving her of the wit and charm that typified Lalla Ward's incarnation. But aside from these continuing concerns, Cole characterises Leela quite well with the situation bringing out her natural instincts for preservation and her inquisitorial nature as she searches for answers. Despite being labelled as a "stupid savage" on more than one occasion, Leela often seems more perceptive and intuitive than her so called intellectual superiors and Louise Jameson brings this out perfectly in an accomplished performance.

With the other recurring characters either absent or present in a very limited capacity only, Square One seems the ideal opportunity to flesh out Coordinator Narvin and shake off the shadow of his notorious predecessor. Unfortunately this potential is rather wasted with Sean Carlsen trying hard but because the script is more interested in Leela's plight, Narvin still comes across as a self-satisfied buffoon rather than the adept leader of a potentially dangerous and secretive organisation like the Celestial Intervention Agency. Jane Goddard begins well as the earnest Hossak, prime mover in the organisation of the conference, but by the end she becomes rather unrestrained which results in over-acting and loosing credibility but it's good to hear Lucy Campbell making her long awaited return to a Big Finish drama, even if her role here as Baano doesn't allow her to be as impressive as she was when playing Monica Lewis in The Land Of The Dead.

In the end, Square One is a straightforward and decent enough action thriller that entertains through its focus on Leela but ultimately fails to satisfy as Cole is less successful in dealing with the advancement of the political situation, as he simply tells the listener about the accord reached rather than showing us how it was devised. Given this and the clumsy ending that retrospectively deflates much of the tension, Square One must only be considered a partial success which could have been significantly improved had Cole himself been sent back to square one to come up with a more rewarding resolution...