CONTEMPORANEOUS

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OCTOBER 2007 - JANUARY 2008

Dalek Empire series, Nicholas Briggs has said that he wants to tell stories set not after Dalek Empire, but during it. With the Daleks’ invasion of the Milky Way taking place over many, many years, Briggs saw the scope to examine all its different angles; to tell tales that dwell not necessarily on the war’s shaping events, but on the men and women whose lives were affected by them. Yet every time a Dalek Empire sequel was announced, listeners’ reactions would always be the same: “What happens next?” It was only when Briggs drove Dalek Empire III to its emphatic ending that he was able to dip back into timeline of his original series and begin his first major digression...

However, The Fearless isn’t quite the anthology series that Briggs had envisaged. With Dalek Empire’s very own Short Trips story collection hitting the shelves in late 2006, the Doctor Who crossover Return of the Daleks not far behind it, Big Finish had already been there and done that. Consequently, The Fearless is not a series of discrete snapshots, but an intoxicating blend of the first three series’ sweeping narratives and Briggs’ ripened plan to tell a few good old-fashioned war stories.

For the most part, the events of The Fearless run parallel to those seen in Dalek Empire. Part 1 picks up not long after Invasion of the Daleks, whilst Part 4 effectively runs alongside Death to the Daleks!, their respective dénouements merging right at the death. However, whilst Sarah Mowat is (naturally) on hand to play a major role in Part 3, and one or two other original characters make slightly less dramatic returns, Briggs never gets too bogged down in his own continuity. Indeed, thanks to a medley of well-chosen clips from the original series, a listener new to Dalek Empire could quite easily pick up Part 1 of The Fearless and hit the ground running.

The plot here is far less intricate than those of the first three series, Briggs favouring action over intrigue right the way through. As a result, the finished product has Hollywood blockbuster stamped all over it – in fact, if Briggs were able to cut its running time by just over a quarter and somehow get the Terry Nation estate on side, then The Fearless would have the potential to be one of the greatest space action movies ever made. The fact that such a forceful, visual adventure works at all on audio, let alone so magnificently, says much about Big Finish’s aural abilities.

Above: Alex Mallinson’s appropriately fearless art...

What’s more, the sounds of The Fearless are buoyed by some appropriately fearless art. After the disappointingly cost-effective Dalek Empire III packaging, this series once again embraces the tradition of providing bold, inspiring images to accompany each episode. Alex Mallinson may have only had basic CD inserts to play with, but his rousing, panoramic vistas make one hell of a complement to the story, and are enough to whet listeners’ appetites in of themselves. They’re not comic book though, mind; quite the opposite. Much like the series, they’re cutting edge.

Of course, had The Fearless been some lucrative box office smash, then no doubt we’d have had to bear the performance of someone like Vin Diesel in the title role, rather than the very visceral Noel Clarke. Those who would recoil at the notion of “Mickey the Idiot” playing an über-tough, gun-toting space warrior are making a big mistake – Salus Kade was written for Clarke, both literally and figuratively. Over the course of The Fearless’s four hours, Clarke is called upon to portray fearlessness, affection, grief and – more often than not – unbridled rage. Every emotion that Briggs calls upon Clarke to portray he does with commensurate credibility, each line of dialogue more resonant than his last. At his best, when Kade is raging against the fates, Clarke is more terrifying than even the Daleks.

Clarke’s fellow former Doctor Who companion, Maureen O’Brien, is almost as imposing. General Agnes Landen is an inventive, matriarchal military monster – about as far from the impetuous Vicki as one can get. As manipulative as she is pragmatic, this hard-headed military commander is the catalyst for almost every event that this series depicts. Landen is the architect of the eponymous Fearless - a regiment of human ‘spacers’ led by Kade, who are able to survive inside their space suit-shaped travel machines in space for extended periods, enabling them to engage in hand to sucker combat with the Daleks and, more often than not, come off best. And, much more bitingly, Landen is the architect of Kade. Not Kade the man; Kade the war hero. Kade the “best spacer that ever lived”. Kade the tragic mess.

However, the Daleks themselves aren’t the stars of the show here. In fact, they seem to play a far less significant role than they did in the first three series. We don’t follow any Dalek characters here, or ever really cut to the heart of their numerous stratagems – they’re just there; a ubiquitous menace for the human protagonists to fight, a polycarbide justification for the most outrageous of human sins. Once again it is Briggs’ thoughtful characterisation that manages to say more about the evil of the Daleks than his modulated tones ever could.

Of all the Dalek Empire series, The Fearless is the one with the most heart. It’s an enthralling and affecting two-hand dance between Clarke and O’Brien, set against the backdrop of a galaxy at war. It’s the story of a woman who loses everything that she holds dear and vows to save others from suffering the same fate, even if that means tearing the heart out of a man to forge a weapon. It’s the story of a man who becomes a legend at the cost of everything he loves; everything he lives for. And, though it isn’t a story that’s principally about the Daleks, in the end it doesn’t matter as The Fearless is so very, very good that it could have been about bloody Bannermen and still hit the spot.

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2010

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