 | Doctor Who Big Finish- Primevil |
Primevil
Story 26
Written by: Lance Parkin
Released on: November 2001
A loose sequel to the 1980 adventure Keeper of Traken was a long time coming, Author Johnny Byrne had planned to follow up his world of Traken several times, but none of these efforts came to fruition. Introduced in the Fourth Doctor's final series as the first in a series of traps laid by his arch rival the Master, Traken was governed by a select council overseen by a Keeper forever bonded to the source of the planet's power, an immense energy of good. A lush and romantic world of austere beauty and sophistication, Traken begged to be revisited. Perhaps it is only right that a reunion should take place with the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, long before either had set foot on Traken, in a different far more turbulent era of the planet's history.
Nysaa is suffering from some unknown malady, prompting the Doctor to take her back to her home long before it was destroyed by the Master. This of course opens up the possibility of temporal paradox, but the Doctor decides to just remain quiet on the subject. At the mercy of a society that thinks itself the pinnacle of achievement, the council is paranoid of the infection of evil that the Doctor brings with him to their secluded home. Despite the fact that the Doctor insists that good and evil simply does not work this way, he cannot avoid their judgement. Unfortunately, the more resistance he encounters, the more he places Nyssa in jeopardy.
By uncovering the dark secrets of the people of Traken, the Doctor encounters the cult-like figure of Kwundaar (played by Blake's 7 Stephen Greif) who leads a devoted squadron of mercenaries who have followed him for generations, waiting for the moment when his revenge on Traken can be exacted. A horrifying and powerful being claiming to be a god himself, none can look upon Kwundaar without risking madness or worse. But the Source on Traken is enough to keep him at bay, so how can he hope to infiltrate its defenses? Somehow the Doctor is the key to his plot's success.
Primevil is wonderfully written, an intelligent adventure with lush characters, thrilling settings and more. There's a very strange kind of humor thrown in here and there as the Fifth Doctor stretches his witty muscles such as a Batman 1966 gag where the Doctor activates a space craft by saying, 'atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed,' the same mantra spoken by Batman and Robin every time the dynamic duo roared out of the Batcave.
The conclusion seems to imply that Kwundaar has sent out a call to other celestial beings, marking the Doctor as prey. I don't know if this thread was picked up in later stories or if it is a thinly veiled reference to other threats such as Fenric, but it's a terribly interesting idea.
Doctor Who- Primevil can be ordered directly online from Big Finish Productions and from local retailers such as Mike's Comics.
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