The second half of the Sullivan and Cross: AWOL box sees the “has met the Daleks” box ticked for Naomi as the classic deadly pepper pots once again cross paths with The Doctor. There is a bit more of an interesting twist but really it’s a rather flat two-parter, making for something of a rather flat boxset overall. Let’s take a look!
The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), Harry (Christopher Naylor) and Naomi (Eleanor Crooks) arrive at “Shockstock”, a 1969 Halloween festival in Chester. There they get faked out by some costumed people but soon find a young lad called Cavan (Cameron Percival) whose sister Gilly (Carley Day) had found some very legitimate human bones in the forest. The Doctor does a modern Who classic and waves his sonic screwdriver around to find the answer and discovers that the area has seen an abnormal amount of death over the thousands of years so heads back to the TARDIS with Naomi to investigate, accidentally leaving Harry behind. Turns out there is a crack in spacetime and not only does Harry see it in the present day but The Doctor and Naomi see it in 79AD, complete with Dalek appearing in person.
The Doctor figures out that the Daleks have somehow become stuck “in between universes” and each time they try to breakthrough they punch another hole in the same place but a different time, killing someone or several people each time. It’s a fun premise but it just results in The Doctor and Naomi popping into different time periods briefly and then a pretty plain final showdown (see below!). Add in Eleanor Crooks still just not getting the audio acting thing and as I put in the opening paragraph you get a very plain and flat story.
The Continuity:
Another look at the “far better than either story deserves” cover!
Not really anything. The Daleks might well be from the Time War but that’s about it. Well, The Doctor sees a Yeti costumed person and of course mentioned the robotic Yeti from Second Doctor stories “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Web of Fear”.
Overall Thoughts:
“Scream of the Daleks” is frankly a waste of a good “of the Daleks” title because it’s extremely plain and just doesn’t really get going It has some fun ideas in setting and time hopping but it just doesn’t do anything exciting with it. The fact that for the most part it’s the Doctor and Naomi, and the latter being quite poor on the characterisation front doesn’t help either. Not bad, just … “middling”.
Basically Harry manages to evacuate the forest of festival goers by pretending the Beatles were playing just down the road and The Doctor arrives, lures the Daleks back into the rift and then closes it for good, trapping them forever. That was that! Well, apart from The Doctor’s return to Earth landing him eight hours too early so he watches his prior self and companions solve the issue while wearing a Yeti costume, the Yeti costumed person having been mentioned earlier in the story so… sort of fun if you listen to it again, I guess?
Hogan Reviews 