The faithful crew of a far flung human base must hunt the traitor in their midst in a fun mystery adventure
The latest entry in BBC Audiobooks’ Doctor Who range focuses on the First Doctor’s companion Steven. The former space pilot gets entangled in a far flung base’s race to uncover the Agent of the Daleks within. If they fail, they face total extermination. As with the other stories in this range, Agent of the Daleks is a brisk hour long adventure. Unlike most, however, its central puzzle keeps listeners guessing, or at the very least not completely certain, to the end.
Even our central character isn’t entirely above suspicion. We begin with an injured Steven being brought to the base’s medical bay, where he tries to convince a nurse called Chayla that he’s innocent. But why then does Security Chief Finn claim to have caught him red handed sabotaging the base’s force field? The story then unfolds in a series of flashbacks to events just after the TARDIS’s arrival. Meanwhile, in the here and now, Chayla must decide whether to trust the time traveller or not.
Author Steve Lyons continually adds new twists and moral dilemmas for a deeply satisfying hour of Doctor Who intrigue
Steve Lyons’ plot builds on the Dalek duplicates first introduced in 1965’s The Chase. The Doctor may be dismissive of the accuracy of the fake Doctor android from that story. However, that fun in-joke aside, with Daleks massing to attack this remote moon, and reason to believe there’s at least one duplicated human abroad, paranoia is at an all time high. Agent of the Daleks’ run time may be too short to offer a wide variety of suspects. Within that limitation it plays its hand well, though. There are enough clues to point a finger of accusation at anyone, and even the fact that we only have Steven’s word for many of the events he narrates adds another layer of uncertainty.
The running of Steven’s story of arrival in parallel to his present efforts to escape is deftly done too. Too often stories which play with this kind of structure are simply trying to conceal how simplistic the plot really is. But Lyons uses it to great effect here. What initially appears to be a typical Doctor Who tale of the Doctor whipping together a quick solution to a local problem takes more than one turn for the unexpected. Along the way it provides a very 1960s interpretation of a much more modern plot dilemma. It also makes good use of Steven, remembering that he’s one of the few classic companions willing to have full blown arguments with the Doctor.
If Agents of the Daleks has a problem it’s that the Doctor and Steven’s travelling companion Vicki is rather underused. It’s ironic considering that original Vicki actor Maureen O’Brien is the audiobook’s reader. O’Brien herself gets plenty to work with though, recreating Peter Purves’ often impatient Steven and a First Doctor in a particularly sour mood.
Agent of the Daleks provides a great introduction to the characters and tropes of the era, in a modern, accessible style
Agent of the Daleks is a fun hour of intrigue and Dalek action for fans of the Hartnell era. More than that, though, it provides a nice stylistic midway point between 1960s Who and the modern era. For present day fans of Doctors like David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa, perhaps intimidated by the prospect of diving in to black and white serials, it provides an accessible entry point. It’s modern in its pacing and character. But it creates a good sense of the type of stories and action to be found in the Hartnell’s adventures.
Doctor Who: Agent of the Daleks
On a radioactive moon on the outskirts of the Fourth Sector, the occupants of a besieged power station try desperately to hold the Daleks at bay. To this end they have apprehended a saboteur, spy, and traitor to the human race. His name is Steven Taylor. When the Doctor, Vicki and Steven first landed on the station, they little suspected the chain of events that would lead to Steven’s arrest.Â
Now he must convince a young nurse, Chayla, and the station’s brutal Security Chief, Finn, that his intentions are honourable. But with every second wasted, the Daleks are gaining ground. With the Doctor and Vicki seemingly powerless in the TARDIS, Steven must prove once and for all that he is not an agent of the Daleks. Can anything be done to prevent the Doctor’s old enemies totally exterminating everyone on the station?
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