Dalek Empire episodes are sold separately, but I've already made the decision to listen in order, so a manual override brings me to:
Dalek Empire: The Human Factor
Starring: Sarah Mowat as Susan Mendes, Gareth Thomas as Kalendorf, Mark McDonnell as Alby, and John Wadmore as Gordon
Format: 1 full-cast CD (or download) with no internal episode breaks
Silly? No.
Standalone? No.
Recommended? Yes, after Invasion of the Daleks.
My reaction to this story contains spoilers for it.
Before listening
I'm pretty sure I've heard The Human Factor once. I infer this because I'm pretty sure I remember Kalendorf being more important than he was as of the end of Invasion of the Daleks, I'm pretty sure I remember Susan making more speeches than she did in Invasion of the Daleks, and I think those memories are from direct listening rather than reading about it.With that said, I only have a vague idea of what happens in this story. Possibly Alby spends more time as a viewpoint character than he was previously, but I'm not even sure about that. I think I am in a relatively good place mentally for listening to a darker Big Finish audio so I am looking forward to getting this one out of the way and I think there's a good chance I'll enjoy it.
After listening
I'm pretty sure now that I hadn't heard this one all the way through. It's positioned unusually for a second episode: about a year has passed since the bulk of the first episode. A montage near the end of that episode alluded to what's been happening with protagonist Susan Mendes over that time: the Daleks are using her powers of persuasion to instill hope for a better future in their slaves, having her give speeches on different conquered planets. They are doing this so that the slaves won't be desperate enough to rebel and will instead keep working. Secretly, Susan and Kalendorf are also coordinating a sleeper resistance of sorts, using Kalendorf's telepathic abilities to communicate without the Daleks knowing. As yet, there's no indication that the Daleks are aware of this, but they are enough moves ahead of everyone else in other gambits that I think they might be.The Daleks are very interested in Susan's psychology; the titular "human factor" seems to refer more to this than to the DNA plot device of that name from the TV series, although of course it is a deliberate double meaning. From what's been heard so far, they aren't considering Kalendorf's psychology much at all. Reading between the lines a little, I think the authorial intent here is that Susan uncomfortably reminds them of the Doctor and his Susan, although this isn't quite spelled out unambiguously.
The biggest moment in this story is a decision Susan makes and its aftermath. She has the Daleks kill a group of rebels rather than recapture them and put them back to work. She does this because the rebels know about her and Kalendorf's secret and she fears they would talk about it under torture. It is an excellent plot point, very dark but very well depicted.
Meanwhile, two other protagonists, Alby and Gordon, sneak around in space for a while getting shot at. This side of the story is not nearly as well told and it has some scenes where the listener seems to be expected to follow things just by the sound effects. I probably zoned out and missed some details.
The Susan/Kalendorf side of the story was so well done that I can forgive the relatively filler-like nature of the Alby/Gordon side. The story ends in an interesting place: Earth has succeeded at pushing the Daleks off a planet, but now the Daleks are about to counterattack and are positioned to retake it. It's unclear whether this one planet has any strategic significance, but Alby and Gordon are on it and it seems like their part in the story is going to get meatier.
Dalek Empire is good so far; I can easily recommend The Human Factor and I'm now actively looking forward to the next time my Randomoid Selectortron takes me to this region of narrative space-time.
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