The Apocalypse Element (Doctor Who) [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio CD)

~ Stephen Cole (Author)

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Big Finish Productions Ltd (August 2000)
• ISBN-10: 1903654017
• ISBN-13: 978-1903654019
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,165,629 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Over acted under plotted, April 29, 2008

By	Peter Ingemi (Worcester County, Massachusetts United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Of the dozen or so Big Finish audio adventures I have purchased this is the only one that has really been a letdown.

The basic plot involves negotiation between time traveling races. As always The Doctor shows up at an inopertune time discovering not only that his former companion Romana has been elected president but has been missing for 20 years. This leads to the discovery of the Dalek plot and a series of confrontations that lead to a rather mediocre finale.

As a vechile for re-introducing Romana it is a poor one, Lalla Ward does pretty good with poor materal she is given. Colin Baker suffers from bouts of overacting during the performance which reflects both on him and Director Nick Briggs who is usually in much better form.

Briggs performance as one of the two Dalek voices is far better, he and Alistar Lock play them well but like Ward have bad materal to work with. The Evelyn Smythe character is just boring. Maggie Stables doesn't do a bad job with it but you just don't care about her. I'll have to find another adventure with her to see if with a better story we I might like her more so maybe I should withhold judgement.

If you are a Dalek or a Romana fanatic or which to collect the entire series then you will want this, otherwise if you are a Colin Baker fan I'd stick with the new adventures with India Fisher instead.

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a mess, July 29, 2009

By	Sharilyn (Somewhere in Time and Space) - See all my reviews

The Doctor and Evelyn arrive on the planet Archetryx during a summit of time powers. As the Daleks invade the conference, President Romana, who has been missing for twenty years, reappears with a strange crystal that could spell the end of the entire universe.

The basic ingredients of this story--Daleks, Gallifrey and the return of Romana--sound like a no-fail recipe a great adventure. Sadly, the whole thing comes off as a bit half-baked.

There is just too much going on. In addition to infiltrating the time summit, the Daleks are stealing planets and mining a mysterious element. Their invasion of Gallifrey, which should have been a huge event deserving of its own story, is limited to just two episodes. The re-introduction of Romana, also worthy of a separate release, feels sort of tacked on to this already overcrowded audio.

I was particularly annoyed that the story never really told how Romana got back from E-space and became president of the Time Lords. I assume it happened in one of the many novels published in the 1990s, but not all fans read them and a few words of explanation would have been in order.

There are quite a few things I like about this story though. I'm partial to Time Lord politics and there's a great scene where the Doctor encounters a bunch of Dalek mutants in zero gravity. There are a lot of good ideas here, but in the end the Apocalypse Element fails to deliver on its overly ambitious promises.

2.5 stars.