Doctor Who: We Are the Daleks

It's common, although not universal, for Big Finish's “contemporary” Doctor Who stories to be set around the time that the TV series would have been showing episodes with relevant Doctor and companion, rather in our actual present day. Normally, this makes little difference, but, in this case, Morris is plugging the '80s atmosphere for all its worth in a plot involving Thatcherite Daleks trying to conquer the Earth with the aid of a (presumably) 16-bit video game.

The result is, of course, strongly political, which may not be to everyone's taste - although it's not really any more so than, say, The Happiness Patrol. One of the main villains is obviously based on Thatcher herself, and the storyline involves both greedy stockbrokers and picketers fighting with riot police, among other things. There's also plenty of action in the story, much of it mediated through the video game, using a plot device vaguely reminiscent of that of The Last Starfighter, if rather darker. And there are even sly nods at the modern series (mainly series 5, for some reason), as well as a number of more direct connections to the classic one.

All of this should make a story that's rather better than I found it to be. The problem is that the plot isn't really as good as the set-up, with a few leaps of logic here and there that caught me by surprise (they were presumably intended as “fridge logic” at best). And there's an entire subplot that just gets forgotten about half-way through and is never referenced again. The overall concept, and a number of rather good lines, compensate for this, and it's a good use of Mel, who is supposed to be a computer programmer, but I just didn't enjoy it enough to give out 4 stars.