There must be something about Dalek stories that stifles creativity. No, that's not quite it. There's something about them that calls upon writers to knock together a Greatest Hits, rather than doing something new and inventive with them as in, to name two exceptions to the rule, "Genesis of the Daleks" or "Jubilee". Perhaps it's because the Daleks themselves are Doctor Who's Greatest Hit. They embody formulae; note how the basic design of the Dalek has very, very rarely changed in all their appearances over different media in forty years, considering what an impractical and frankly ludicrous design it is. The Dalek voice is monotone, the creatures are thoroughly logical and therefore it goes against type for them to be anything other than coldly predictable.

"The Genocide Machine" was Big Finish's first foray (the first of countless, natch) into Dalek territory. Now, it's very difficult to do a bad Dalek story for the reasons already discussed; the Dalek is always reassuringly predictable and so are the capers it finds itself in, whether it be one of only several variations on a plot - namely invading somewhere, trying to steal something to gain power or, at a push, just trying to survive. With this in mind, "Genocide Machine" manages to be a solid and entertaining tale, albeit one that continues the tradition of mining the past and ramming together assorted iconography and ideas to forge a new story. The most obvious crib is the Dalek Duplicate, a concept nicked wholesale from "The Chase" (and maybe "Resurrection of the Daleks" as well). The jungle setting could be seen to be borrowed from "Planet of the Daleks" whilst the general driving plot involving the Daleks trying to capture something provides depressingly predictable motivation. You may think it's harsh to punish the play for this, and yet over half the story is taken up simply with the Daleks plan to capture the Karcherrat Library. It IS the story, in a nutshell.

There are a few new ideas thrown in to lend the water some sparkle. The 'ghosts in the rain' is a lovely notion, and the idea of a giant repository of knowledge hidden behind an invisible barrier on an abandoned planet is a beauty, even if it does provide a very obvious thing for the Daleks to try and steal (and the Kercherratians make it very easy by giving strangers DNA door keys then letting them wander the jungle alone!). The question is, does it matter when assembling such a lot of tried and tested Dalek plot devices, if the end result is this unfettered by complexity and stoically entertaining?

That depends on your point of view. For the new TV series, perhaps not. A good idea is a good idea and hardly anyone watching the show on BBC1 is going to know about plot details from thirty years ago. They may as well re-do "The Celestial Toymaker" with better effects - who would care, aside from us fans? With Big Finish however, the fans are the sustenance of the range, so a lack of originality is at best glaringly obvious and at worst very annoying. "Time and the Daleks", for example, seemed to think we wouldn't notice that the entire setting and plot of "Evil of the Daleks" had been unstitched and sewn into a McGann audio. That isn't just gentle cribbing, it's wholesale theft. As a result the shadow of a fan writer hangs over the whole thing.

As it does in "The Genocide Machine" but in a slightly nicer way. This is pitched more towards 'affectionate' than 'uninspired' and so almost pulls the trick the New Series is founded upon - to change nothing, but to improve everything. To present the story you always THOUGHT you got on TV until you saw the video and realised it was a balsa wood nightmare. The true icons in "Genocide" really work - McCoy and Aldred are great, as is the Daleks ruthless attitude to waiting a thousand years for someone to come and let them into Kercheratt (although as they claim to have a time machine, it's a mystery why they didn't just nip forward and... oh never mind). Only a handful of quirky Big Finish staples let the side down, most obviously the silly Cataloguer Prink concept, which mainly annoys me because Nick Briggs is credited as playing him, and I can just imagine the amusement down the pub at the fact that he never speaks. And the production and music is still all a bit "early" Big Finish, low on atmosphere and high on cheap terror twangs.

Still, the bare bones are in place and combined with some pilfering that is just fresh enough to get away with, a passable tale emerges. It was probably the finest story up to this point, but better was to come.

CD Facts

Part 1 - Tracks 1-7

Part 2 - Tracks 8-12

Part 3 - Tracks 1-5

Part 4 - Tracks 6-11