"In many ways the Dalek is the father of us all."

Very clever, witty, self-aware, engaging, and layered. Reads better if you are familiar with the place of Doctor Who in pop culture during the "wilderness years", but Shearman as usual can do no wrong. From what I hear, the post-2005 Big Finish output gradually becomes more generic and less risk-taking, which is a great shame. Those early years sure were something. ( )

Chilling story and excellent performances. The revelation at the end of part 2 was especially good. ( )

Throughout this story there is a strange sense of deja vu (as I saw the Christopher Eccleston episode first). It is very well done and the themes come across more effectively than they do in the TV series.Perhaps this is because an understanding of what the Daleks are all about is necessary to this story and the TV story was an introduction to the iconic monsters for Rose and the new viewers.A very good but very disturbing story. ( )

was of course the basis for the superb Ninth Doctor story Dalek. I was surprised, though, by how different it was. There are similarities - the first confrontation between Doctor and imprisoned Dalek, the relationship between Dalek and companion (done more convincingly on TV), the Dalek's quest for orders (done more convincingly here); but there is a huge difference in setting, the audio play taking place in an alternate 2003 where the world is ruled from London by the villainous Mr and Mrs Martin Jarvis, thanks to the Doctor's intervention a hundred years earlier. And yet this doesn't fall into the category of Doctor-returns-to-the-scene-of-a-previous-adventure stories, because the earlier Sixth Doctor is still there. It's a good one, but the TV version is I think better (not always the case; see Spare Parts). ( )