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These are strange times for Kaldor City. A long-vanished
prophet speaks again, corruption is rife among the Founding
Families, and even the robots upon which the city depends
could hold secrets that no one dares imagine...
Fans
of the Doctor Who related aspects of this series should
particularly appreciate this instalment. As its title suggests,
it revolves around the "very mad scientist" who attempted
to stir up a robot revolution in the Tom Baker story The
Robots of Death. David Bailie joins his former Storm Mine
colleagues Russell Hunter and David Collings to re-create
the role of Dask, alias Taren Capel. As for how the writer,
Alan Stevens, manages to work in a character who has supposedly
been dead for the last 20 years - well, you'll just have to
listen and find out.
Don't be too concerned that Paullus (David Collings) seems
to contradict events in The Robots of Death, by claiming
that Capel hated robots rather than venerated them. This appears
to be a plot point, and I must presume that it is part of
Stevens' grand plan. But is Paullus really the name of Collings'
character, or is he actually someone else? Intriguing...
By
the conclusion of this intricate narrative, it is difficult
to tell for sure who is working for whom and who is only pretending
to be working for whom. But I get the distinct impression
that we aren't really supposed to know who is in charge by
this point. Even the psychostrategist Carnell (Scott Fredericks)
confesses the view that everybody is being manipulated by
somebody else.
The
CD ends on a grim note that is either a stunning cliffhanger
or could finish off the series for good - right now, I can't
really tell. If Uvanov (Hunter) and Iago (Paul Darrow) survive
to appear in another episode, they will have a tough time
ahead of them, as will the city's entire population.
I
certainly hope that this isn't our last visit to Kaldor
City, because I would miss Iago's cold cunning, Uvanov's
cowardly conniving and Rull's... um... lardy lechery.
Richard
McGinlay
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