Paradox of the Daleks is kicking off a new period for the Eighth Doctor (I hesitate to say “new era” since it has the same two companions he’s had for years now) free of an over-arching storyline with a linked title and frankly it had me with “Paradox” and “written by John Dorney”, as he is not only a great writer in general but has done great time bending stories in the past. Is Paradox of the Daleks chief among them? Well, no, but it’s still really fun! Let’s take a closer look…
The story starts off plainly enough as a pair of “temporal scientists” called Peetom (Joseph Millson) and Jemash (Amy Rockson) successfully create a time tunnel but it ends up connecting to a small group of Daleks. This then leads to The Doctor (Paul McGann), Liv (Nicola Walker) and Helen (Hattie Morahan) discovering a “time helix” in the Vortex, something The Doctor doesn’t even know what is, that connects to the same space station. Upon seeing the Daleks they flee back to the TARDIS but The Doctor goes back to stop them from getting their hands of more time tech followed shortly by his two companions, who obviously didn’t listen to his request to stay in the TARDIS. They’re soon chased off by Daleks as the Doctor is trapped with a Black Dalek who oddly doesn’t recognise him…
So it starts off as a basic run-around in a space station with Daleks but as the title suggests things get more complicated as the story continues. Hard to say without spoiling the paradox in question but leads to a bunch of really fun scenes where Nicholas Briggs gets to expand his usual range of Dalek phrases by quite a bit!
It’s hard to go into too much detail outside of the spoiler section but trust me when I say that despite the “hook” on the cover being Paul McGann facing off with The Daleks, something we’ve seen close to a million times now, the story is worth checking out.
The Continuity:
An interesting cover (and one that matches December’s release) but I can’t help but smirk thinking about the Daleks being on the cover like its a big deal…
Not a lot to say. Liv mentions that it’s been five weeks since they left Baker Street at the end of “Best Year Ever”, the final story in the Stranded box set line. There is also a scene where The Doctor hides in a Dalek casing, something his first self did way back in “The Space Museum”.
Overall Thoughts:
Paradox of the Daleks is good fun, with some great use of time travels and some legitimately funny scenes with the Dalek voice modulator. Given the main hook is rather “done to death” I was pleasantly surprised to be so happy with yet another Eighth Doctor Dalek story!
So the paradox is basically that Liv and Helen are sent into the past in a time capsule and arrive about half an hour before the Daleks do to a confused Peetom and Jemash. They try and explain it before decided to hide when their past selves arrive, eventually hiding within Dalek casings leading to a funny scene where they talk like regular British people, complete with Liv’s sarcasm, through the Nicholas Briggs’ Dalek voice. The Doctor catches wind of this and travels back even further in time to an actually confused Peetom and Jemash, tells them what happened and what’s about to happen, including asking them to pretend to be surprised when Liv and Helen turns up in a few minutes. He hides in the cupboard and then eventually inside the Black Dalek casing, meaning whole scenes we heard in Part 1 between a Black Dalek and his two subordinates were actually The Doctor, Liv and Helen all pretending to be Daleks, with the latter unaware they were talking to The Doctor. It’s something that I’m sure would work great with a second listen.
Eventually The Doctor creates the “Time Helix” by linking a corridor to itself and having a group of Daleks kill their future selves from further down the corridor, thus a looping paradox. He then destroys the space station for good measure, promising to drop Peetom and Jemash off, obviously. It’s a really fun story that uses time travel really well.
Hogan Reviews 