The Juggernauts

Editor: Peter Labrow · Last update: Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The spaceship on which the Doctor and Mel are travelling is attacked and they are separated. Mel’s escape pod takes her to a colony on Lethe, while the Doctor awakes, bound, captured by an old enemy…the Daleks. But this time, they don’t want his life, they want his help.

The Juggernauts

The Doctor: Colin Baker
Mel: Bonnie Langford
Davros: Terry Molloy
Sonali: Bindya Solanki
Geoff: Klaus White
Kryson: Peter Forbe
Brauer: Paul Grunert
Loewen: Julia Houghton
Daleks/Mechanoids: Nicholas Briggs
Release date: February 2005

The spaceship on which the Doctor and Mel are travelling is attacked and they are separated. Mel’s escape pod takes her to a colony on Lethe, while the Doctor awakes, bound, captured by an old enemy…the Daleks. But this time, they don’t want his life, they want his help.

The Daleks are aware of a growing threat to their existence – and enlist the Doctor to help them, by holding the TARDIS hostage. They transport the Doctor by transmat to the mining colony on Lethe, where Davros is working in disguise as the scientist Vaso. As far as everyone else is concerned, Vaso is  developing a new type of mining robot, The Juggernaut – but these are in fact not the creations of Davros, but the remains of creatures he discovered buried deep beneath Lethe. He believes that these creatures have the power to defeat the Daleks – and he’s not wrong. The Doctor recognises the creatures as Mechanoids – aliens which he encountered in his first incarnation, back in the Dalek story The Chase.

The Daleks are right to be worried – the Mechanoids had originally given the Daleks a sound thrashing, and now Davros is working to ‘improve’ them by augmenting them with human parts.

Mel, meanwhile, is working happily for Davros, unaware that he is anyone other than the likeable Vaso. When the Doctor tells her the truth, she doesn’t believe him – indeed, she finds herself in conflict with him.

With just a few battered Imperial Daleks to protect him, Davros seeks revenge on the Renegade Daleks. Davros plans to propagate the Universe with Mechanoids, as worker robots, where they will be well-placed to form an army capable of defeating the Daleks.

Meanwhile, it seems that the Daleks haven’t been entirely honest with the Doctor, and as the story reaches its climax, we find the Doctor, Mel, Davros, the Mechanoids and two Daleks factions in a conflict which will see few victors.

This 2005 Big Finish story is a real gem and has much to commend it. The writing is tight, intelligent and well-paced – striking the right balance between maintaining the mystery and providing enough information to keep you engaged. The dialogue shines and the plot is well-realised. The more gruesome moments are strong enough to make you catch your breath, without going too far.

The different threads of the plot are gradually exposed, leaving you to wonder just who is orchestrating what behind the scenes. With both Davros and the Renegade Daleks plotting against each other, the Doctor is nicely caught in the middle – on just managing to stay ahead of the game.

Terry Molloy puts in an excellent performance as Davros. Behind him are the thinly-motivated, weakly written later Dalek stories from the television series, and ahead of him are the illogically written audio plays where Davros’ grip on his sanity is lost. But here, a perfect equilibrium is found.  Davros is evil, manipulative and careful – not the cackling pantomime villain. Terry Molloy makes the part his own and breathes a realism and roundness into the character that is often lacking.

Colin Baker is on top form – playing the Doctor with enthusiasm, energy and commitment, and, as is so rarely the case with the sixth Doctor, handling moments of quiet consideration wonderfully. Almost absent are the excesses of the sixth Doctor’s character, replaced with something far closer to the Doctor we all know Baker is capable of being.

Bonnie Langford as Mel, not the best-liked of companions, is given a take on the character which is believably independent and strong – indeed, when the chips are down, far stronger than the Doctor, who had the opportunity to kill Davros several times but always stayed his hand. And while the relationship between the sixth Doctor and Mel is never going to equal that of the third Doctor and Jo, or the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, the rapport between Mel and the Doctor clicks in a way that was almost always missing on television – where taunts about exercise and diet are expected to constitute a relationship.

There’s never any faulting Nick Briggs as the Daleks – giving personality and life to them in a way that the classic television series often failed to do. His Mechanoid voice is a wonderful homage to the creatures we first met in The Chase.

If there’s a weak point to this story, it’s that the Mechanoids don’t get the air time they deserve and seldom extend beyond their ‘service robot’ status – you never really get the feeling that they’ve got what it takes to best the Daleks – but to be fair, they were always something of a disappointment, even to Terry Nation, their creator.

That aside, this is an excellent story and one which is a very enjoyable listen – as you get to the end of each episode, you’ll want to press on to the next.