The Doctor: Sylvester McCoy
Ace: Sophie Aldred
Rappel / phantom voices: Daniel Gabriel
Bev Tarrant: Louise Falkner
Chief Librarian Elgin: Bruce Montague
Cataloguer Prink / Dalek voices: Nicholas Briggs
Dalek voices: Alistair Lock
Writer: Mike Tucker
Director: Nicholas Briggs
Music: Nicholas Briggs
This story takes place between Survival (the last story of the classic television series) and after the Big Finish audio adventure The Fearmonger.
A survey team, led by Bev Tarrant, land on the uninhibited planet Kar-Charrat, to find the valuable relic the Ziggurat. What they actually find is far more unexpected – that there are Daleks on the planet, Daleks which quickly kill most of the survey team, including Bev’s partner, Rappel.
Meanwhile, Ace discovers that the Doctor has some long-overdue library books in the TARDIS’ library – so he decides to take them back to where they came from: the library on Kar-Charrat. The library is designed to contain all the books and knowledge in the Universe, and is protected from sight by a temporal shield supplied by the Time Lords, which shows the ruins of the library thousands of years in the future.
The library has been developing a new wetworks facility to store the knowledge of the Universe – vast tanks of water capable of storing and retrieving huge amounts of data. This technology was beyond even that of the Time Lords, whose Matrix is the closest equivalent. Not surprisingly, the Doctor finds from chief librarian Elgin that the the knowledge in the wetworks facility has stimulated the interest of several alien species.
Bored with the library, Ace leaves to go back to the TARDIS, having been given a DNA tag so that she can gain re-entry to the hidden library.
The Daleks want the knowledge in the wetworks facility – and have been plotting long and hard to get at it. Using Time Corridor technology, they have placed bases on all of the planets and moons in the sector (the Ziggurat is, in fact, an ancient Dalek hibernation unit), lying in wait for just the right opportunity: in this case, Ace, with her DNA tag. They create a duplicate of Ace, which is able to gain entry to the wetworks facility, using the DNA tag.
Missing Ace, the Doctor goes in search of her – and finds both her and Bev. He takes them back to the library and then goes to examine the Ziggurat, without realising that the Ace he has left behind is the Dalek duplicate. Finding a Dalek duplication machine in the Ziggurat, the Doctor realises that Ace is a duplicate and rushes back to the library with Elgin.
Before they can reach the library, a Dalek battle cruiser arrives – the duplicate Ace has lowered the temporal shield to allow them access to the library. The Doctor makes for the TARDIS, to send an emergency message to the Time Lords, but is forced to surrender to the Dalek Supreme and a squad of Daleks. The Daleks wish to download the contents of the wetworks facility into a specially prepared Dalek, but the Dalek would not be able to handle the level of data throughput – the Daleks want to first process the signal through the Doctor’s brain, which is – just – capable of handling in the data, in theory at least. They download the knowledge of the wetworks into the Dalek, but the process apparently kills the Doctor.
The real ace and Bev realise that noises that they have heard in the rain are actually some kind of living creature, alive in the water – they have brought the body of Rappel alive to use it to communicate with them.
The Dalek test subject has been driven mad by the sheer amount of knowledge, and escapes the library, blasting everything in sight. It kills the possessed Rappel, but the creature in the rain, themselves made of water, penetrate the Dalek’s casing and drown it.
The Doctor finds his mind ‘alive’ inside the wetworks facility and is able to communicate with it. The reason the wetworks facility is so successful is that it is comprised of the water-creatures, themselves trapped into a slavery of living death. They plea for the Doctor’s help, and, when he agrees, they download his consciousness back into his body, which is then revived.
The Doctor is reunited with Ace, Elgin and Bev, when he turns on Elgin for creating the amoral wetworks facility and instructs Ace to destroy the library roof with Nitro 9 to set the creatures free into the rain.
Ace pretends to be her own duplicate to gain entry to the library, where a new Dalek test subject is trying to stop the Dalek Supreme from destroying the wetworks facility. Ace places the Nitro 9 and is defended by the Dalek test subject, which attacks the Dalek Supreme – the Dalek Supreme withdraws, leaving a special weapons Dalek to fight the test subject. Ace blows the Nitro 9 and the creatures in the water drown all of the Daleks on the planet and then escape back into the rain, rivers and streams.
The Dalek Emperor, learning of the failure of the Dalek Supreme, orders it to self-destruct. Elgin, though sad at losing his life’s work, realises the errors of his ways. The Doctor wonders if the knowledge of the Universe could have shaped the Daleks as a force for good, having seen the Dalek test subject defending the wetworks as an important form of life.
Sometimes, all of the right ingredients come together in a Doctor Who story to deliver something that is truly magical. This is one of those times.
A lot of the credit must go to writer Mike Tucker, who proves that he is more than just a special effects man (he built the new series Daleks) by delivering a script that is punchy, well-paced, intelligent and gripping.
There are few dull moments, and those there may be some questionable concepts (all the books in the Universe? Really?) there’s little to stop this from being an exciting and interesting story.
Sylvester McCoy delivers a top-notch performance as the Doctor, with some scenes showing a anger and rage that’s so believable you can almost touch it – foreshadowing the rage shown by the ninth and tenth Doctors upon discovering injustice. It shows how, with the right material, the seventh Doctor could have been the one to raise the bar.
Sophie Aldred, as ever, puts in a great performance, though the Ace playing duplicate Ace scenes were slightly over the top, so even the Daleks would have spotted the subterfuge. To be fair, when you only have audio to convey meaning, an actor is forced into going that bit further, whereas on screen a knowing glint in the eye would have been enough to give the game away.
Nick Briggs (again) puts in a splendid performance as the Daleks, showing yet again why he is in my opinion the best Dalek voice of all time (with all due respect to the classic great Dalek voice actors).
With lots of twists and turns, enough mystery to keep you interested but not so much that you are left wondering what’s going on, this is a great Doctor Who story – and one where you will want to listen to the next episode immediacy after finishing the previous one.
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