142 Empire of the Daleks part one

When we last saw the Daleks in the Doctor Who story Remembrance of the Daleks, they were fighting among themselves and their homeworld Skaro was destroyed. But in the Doctor Who TV-Movie starring Paul McGann, we got a glimpse of the planet Skaro which is apparently intact.

So what the heck happened?

The Empire of the Daleks takes on the ambitious task of explaining it. And then some. The Daleks return to their former strength with a vengeance. The Doctor (Jeffrey Coburn) and his companions discover that the Daleks have somehow reunified their forces. What’s more, they have changed their own past and the Doctor must find out how they succeeded.

Then-associate producer Thomas Himinez, and Dark Dreams scriptwriter and former script editor Joe Medina, worked together on this six-part audio-adventure. Their intention was to create an epic tale in which the Daleks would be dangerous adversaries once again and, at the same time, provide a worthy backdrop for the personal stories of the characters fighting them.

Empire of the Daleks will be the last trip aboard the TARDIS for Mark Triyad (Peter Hinchman). We learn more about his past and the psychological scars left from his military career in the 24th Century. And through the course of his final adventure, Mark gets a chance at new friendship (and possibly romance), only to watch it die before his very eyes…then find it again.

We also get hints about the past of companion Dara Hamilton (Sheri Devine). Dara first appeared in Countdown to Armageddon as a rebellious student at the Cantebury School for Girls. In Empire of the Daleks we find out that Dara had deeply personal reasons for attending Cantebury School, reasons that still haunt her even now.

But the Doctor’s companions aren’t the only ones with curious revelations in Empire. The Daleks destroy lives as well as exterminate them, and the characters that appear in the story to oppose them provide testimony to it. Not only is the survival of the human race threatened by the Daleks, but also its nature. The relentless and brutal struggle reveals the dark aspects of characters we think we can rely on in this story, and the lowest of the low finds a shred of human decency in himself.

And the Doctor himself will do things that no one would do even in a fan-created Doctor Who story like this one. Listen to Empire of the Daleks and find out for yourself.