The Apocalypse Element (Sixth, 2000)

The Seventh Doctor had his adventure with them last time. Now it's time for the Sixth Doctor to face up against the Daleks in an audio drama. And he has....Romana II with him? That's weird but she's a great companion so I'm curious to see how it works!

"When the planet Archetryx is threatened by a Dalek assault squad, the Doctor and Evelyn become embroiled in an ever-deepening mystery. What has become of President Romana, missing for twenty years? What lurks in the vast gravity wells of Archetryx? What is the secret of the ancient element the Daleks are synthesising - and how does Gallifrey feature in the plans?

The Doctor finds that if his oldest enemies cannot conquer the universe they will watch it go up in flames..."


You can buy this at BigFinish.com

What did you think? How was Romana II? Wait, she's president? Did I miss something? Should I actually listen to this before thinking of posing questions?

This is one that was way too ambitious and was really close to pulling it off. This is a war episode, filled with action and excitement. If only it wasn't an audio drama. The first 30 minutes is really rough because there are too many new characters and ideas that can't easily be visualized. Then once it's better understood where everyone is positioned, it plays a lot better.

There is still way too much sci-fi bullshit with all of the technology that I didn't care about. The most compelling thing was having the Sixth Doctor trying to rescue Romana II. Both of them give very great performances, especially Romana II's opening monologue. I wish Evelyn was better used in the first half because she's a great character. She just got lost in the shuffle.

Once the stakes are created, the ending is rather exciting because the Daleks are a major threat to....everything. It plays like a version of The Invasion of Time that makes a little bit more sense.

So this was a bit of a disappoint after how much I liked the last one, but still worth listening to. Before listening to this one, I heard the story that introduced Evelyn and that was really fun even though the lack of sci-fi (and traditional conflict) was a bit odd. Character and pacing wise, though, The Marion Conspiracy is fantastic. Evelyn is a perfect foil for The Sixth Doctor.

This was...a little crazy. I was honestly really struggling to figure out what was happening, especially in the beginning. I felt like there were too many characters to start and things just weren't coming together. I agree with Austin too, there was too much sci-fi bullshit. Just get to the point!

It was a little better by the end, but I liked the Genocide Machine much better. The Daleks plan in this is pretty crazy though, like...let's invade Gallifrey! I mean, holy shit. That's pretty intense. What always gets me about the Daleks is that they are perfectly content to burn with the rest of the Universe as long as they're the ones that started the fire. And they created their own galaxy! That's sort of crazy-awesome, but I wish that it could have been done a little bit better.

This was a little too busy for me, but hopefully I like the rest of the audio-dramas a bit more.

Really confusing for an audio drama. Too many characters and places. I like the story concept and it would have made an awesome serial. Daleks invading Galifrey! And power levels over 9000. This was my first time with the sixth doctor so I can't really say how I like him until I watch one of his serials. Same with Romana. It didn't have the emotional impact on me that I feel it was supposed to. A lot of self exploding Daleks. Evelyn seemed fun.