Gallifrey review: Enemy Lines resets the series in a big way

Gallifrey’s eighth series had to achieve a lot. Not only did it have to continue from a major cliffhanger. It also had to give the series a major reset, too. Fortunately, Enemy Lines handles both of these very well…

When the eighth series of Gallifrey was announced, it came as a bit of a surprise that, instead of featuring Juliet Landau’s incarnation of Romana, the series would see the return of Lalla Ward as her earlier incarnation, and Louise Jameson as Leela. Sophie Aldred would return from the previous series, and of course, Seán Carlsen would be back as Narvin. (Because Gallifrey without Narvin is basically unthinkable.)

It seemed surprising that, after the huge cliffhanger at the end of Intervention Earth, we were suddenly getting a prequel. For a while, I wondered if I was going to put Enemy Lines before Intervention Earth on my CD shelf, for chronological purposes.

And then I listened to Enemy Lines. And realized that I didn’t need to worry about how to sort the series after all. Because, despite being technically set much earlier than Intervention Earth, it’s also a direct sequel to it.

More than that: despite establishing a new era rather effectively in the previous series, Enemy Lines very quickly establishes itself as a major reset. Not of everything since Gallifrey‘s beginning, thankfully. But it effectively undoes everything that had been set up in Intervention Earth – including Landau’s Romana.

Enemy Lines had the tricky job of continuing directly from the previous series of Gallifrey while also providing the spin-off with a major reset. How well does it handle such a task?

(Image credit: Gallifrey/Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

A reset that works?

Resets are tricky. Most of the time, they can be awful to use in storytelling. Major actions and consequences are undone, and a story can be left with little impact. In short, they can often feel like a cop out.

But somehow, writer David Llewellyn managed to handle this exactly right. With this story, he was able to not only make a reset work, but feel incredibly satisfying. Perhaps because a core theme of Enemy Lines is consequences. Something that many resets try hard to avoid.

The reset is caused by the return of one of our favorite characters: Irving Braxiatel. After hanging out with Bernice Summerfield in her own series for a couple of years, Braxiatel finally returned at the end of Intervention Earth. And he arrived at just the right time, as our heroes were trapped in a dying TARDIS, with no hope of getting back home. So they were in pretty desperate circumstances.

Consequences

Usually, when a story continues from a huge cliffhanger, it establishes at some point that things are not as bad as they seem. So it’s refreshing that when Enemy Lines begins, things are rapidly revealed to be way worse than we first thought. In fact, they’re so bad, that Romana and Brax decide there’s only one thing they can do: reset the timeline completely, starting from just before Lalla Ward’s incarnation regenerated.

What makes this story so brilliant is that the reset isn’t made to be an easy one. Not only is Romana fully aware of and even respects her other self for effectively erasing her own lifetime. But it also gradually becomes clear that neither her nor her friends are able to escape the consequences of her actions. Especially when the Watchmaker appears…

Making such a major reset work is one of the things I respect most about Enemy Lines. While I highly doubt this reset was intended to resolve Intervention Earth when the earlier story was originally written, Llewellyn still makes it feel like a natural resolution to the previous story. And that’s quite impressive.

An intricate story

On top of all of that is the huge story we get with Enemy Lines. At three hours long, it’s the longest single story we’ve had for Gallifrey, especially by a single writer. It could’ve become very easy for this story to drag, like many of Doctor Who‘s six-part stories.

However, Llewellyn avoids that and gives us a huge amount of plot. Along with exploring the consequences of the major reset, there are political schemes, terrorist attacks, mysterious murders and of course, tricky time travel. That’s a lot to include in one story, even when it’s three hours long.

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But Enemy Lines is very well-paced. We’re introduced to many key characters, and the plot keeps unfolding at just the right amount. Best of all, while Llewellyn sets up many mysteries early on, he doesn’t save all the answers for the last half hour. The entire second half is focused on resolving all the key storylines, bit by bit. So that, by the time we get to the final episode, we get some great character exploration with Romana and Leela.

A satisfying serial

I’m really glad I’ve been re-listening to Gallifrey from the beginning. While I enjoyed Enemy Lines greatly from the first listen, I must admit, I have overlooked it at times. Especially since Time War came out last year.

But really thinking about it, Enemy Lines is a huge success on so many levels. It continues directly from Intervention Earth and provides it with the most satisfying reset ever. It also works great as a jumping-on point, too. (After all, how many time travel stories begin with someone going back in time to prevent a terrible future?) And of course, it tells an excellent story in its own right.

Up to the point it was originally released, Enemy Lines had arguably been the best series in Gallifrey since series two and three. It brought the politics of the original planet back in a big way, while also telling a great original story. It also ensured that all the pieces were in place for the later released Gallifrey: Time War series, too. Overall, Enemy Lines is a fantastic story, and despite its length, it’s a very easy listen, every time.

Next. Torchwood: How Sergeant Andy grew to become one of the spin-off’s best characters. dark

Have you listened to Enemy Lines? Is it one of your favorites in the series? How well do you think it handled such a major reset? Let us know in the comments below.

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