The Victorious Days
Time Lord Victorious Part 3
Doctor: Fourth Doctor, Eighth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, Thirteenth Doctor
Time Lord Victorious‘ ambitious conclusion is a melancholic mix of stories.
The Review
Time Lord Victorious has a bad reputation among the fandom, for being confusing and hard to access. I think a lot of this is due to covid screwing up release schedules, but it is true that there were some bits of the stories taking place in games, escape rooms, immersive performances that people just aren’t going to get to see. If you’ve followed the story, you know that those were all superfluous to the main plot, and I commend the ambition. The Victorious Days begins with The Hollow Planet, a rather fun take home game from Escape Hunt. I first played it with three people, doing it by myself I was too stupid to get some of it but honestly it’s a pretty good take-home game with good interaction and an unseen Thirteenth Doctor.
Next up was a bonus audio supposedly serving as an Escape Room prequel, Genetics of the Daleks. A really great Fourth Doctor story which was a late add to the story. Serving as an escape room prequel, it’s really a great start/ending (depending on your point of view) to the saga. In many ways it’s a classic Tom Baker story, getting into a scrape, not being trusted, and saving the day but being the only one to make it out alive. The ominous declaration from the Dalek that he will become the Time Lord Victorious is pretty great, as is the Doctor’s flippant dismissal. Really, it’s a good way to spend an hour. This leads into the escape room itself, A Dalek Awakens, which wasn’t mind-blowing but it was a lot of fun, three people seemed the perfect amount. It was fun to hear Jodie Whittaker’s voice again, she was so good at hosting these games and things. The room was well-paced, and a lot of fun. I got to sonic screwdriver a Dalek! Again, if you didn’t know, this room has nothing to do with Time Lord Victorious but it was fun to give me an excuse to go the escape room.
Sadly, unless a miracle happens, I never got to experience Time Fracture. Beset by a once in a century pandemic and then flooded not once but twice, it was cursed from the start. The best we have now is the lovingly created show companion, giving a sense of the passion that went into this production. Again, it’s basically not related to Time Lord Victorious so no worries there, but it sure looked beautiful. There even were the Torchwood offices! Really hope this maybe gets turned into a Big Finish audio in ten years or something. We then got Canaries a lead in to the wonderful anthology by Dave Reudden. Still, I can’t help but love this story. It’s told so beautifully, and you find yourself caring about Anke, the old woman running her impossible store. The idea of her getting out of order phone calls from different Doctors and always recognizing them is fun.
Lastly, the second half of Echoes of Extinction. I always liked this audio because it provides a suitably melancholy conclusion to the whole arc. Hearing David Tennant back on peak form is a ton of fun, and the crew of raiders is all played by stalwarts like Mina Anwar, and Arthur Darvill and his wife Ines de Clerq. (I will say, de Clerq gets less convincing as the profit hungry Captain Fry when her plan goes to dust). After everything, the Tenth Doctor manages to do better and it loops back around to him regretting everything the Eighth Doctor is going to go through. The psychic monster from part one agrees to imprisonment to finally feel peace, and we can only hope the Doctor gets that too. That’s The Victorious Days, essentially a postscript long after all of the shouting from the meat of the story is over.
Really, The Victorious Days was a super-ambitious bit of real life immersive theater that just wasn’t able to come together due to the pandemic. Despite all that, the stories are so good and compliment the overall narrative well.
8.1/10 I did ding it points for not being able to experience all of it, but sometimes that’s okay.
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 