Kaldor City? Best Avoided

Recent events have cast the blog administrator's mind back, back to the world of Kaldor City, a world of robots, of silly hats, and yet another major domo insisting Blake's 7 and Doctor Who happen in the same universe (first Terry Nation, then Tom Baker, then Gareth Roberts and now Chris Boucher). Despite Alan Moore and Fiona Stevens, I mean Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, and their banging on that all the publicity that was in the books and annuals and TV guides that the Terran Federation did NOT arise out of some atomic war they failed to explain why is Blake always going on about "pre-Atomic age" and the "new calendar" and numerous other problems.

Since Blake's 7 occurs in the far, far future where alien life is so scarce as to be unknown, and the Federation rose out a massive conflict that devastated the Earth and humanity, I feel confident that historically the series occurs at some point after The Parting of the Ways, as the survivors of Earth and the distant, isolated colonies try and rebuild a new human empire thanks to brutal attack by Daleks. Come on, you KNOW it's what Terry Nation would have wanted.

And one of those human colonies the Ninth Doctor blindly hoped would NOT be fried by a delta wave is the home of Kaldor City, which got its own spin off audios. Now, I will be blunt: these audios aren't bad. The acting is first rate, the sound effects and music unquestionably brilliant, the plot twists clever, and the dialogue engaging. The trouble is, it's a deliberately obtuse, over-clever, arrogant, unlikeable and smug. An audio series that ends with the apparent annihilation of the universe should envoke a better reaction from the listener beyond, "Ah, I hated them all anyway..."

Where did it all begin?

CORPSE MARKER by Chris Boucher

Oh, I was looking forward to this. A Chris Boucher book! A sequel to Robots of Death! An official Blake's 7 crossover! The Fourth Doctor and Leela! The wooden control room! YAY!

I got it for my birthday, my fifteenth I think, and... oh, well, I admit it. I was disappointed. Boucher's prose was not much improved from Last Man Running, giving the impression of hastily novelizing a TV script. He'd also begun his nifty trick of holding simultaneously two dialogues per scene, as the characters say one thing and think another, cutting back between the threads confuses a chap like me. Certainly, this aspect reinforces what I always thought to be a myth: the fact that Hinchcliffe, Holmes and others thought Robots of Death was a pretty crap story, and tried to improve it with costumes and architecture. There's hardly any description of what anyone or anything looks like bar, oddly enough, the Doctor and Leela - and I think I'm forgiven that assuming buyers of the book would twig what the TARDIS crew look like since they're on the freaking cover!

Only one person gets a decent physical description, and that's the guy following Poul around saying he's going to kill the twitching freak. And this description is told to us again and again and again. Not even the robots get a decent description (mind you, they are on the cover... and what a stupid image to pick)! Toos is a bit fatter since we saw her last, Poul is pale and the Tarenists smell. Also, huge chunks of the plot are told from one viewpoint - like the Doctor discoverring a massacre at the hands of robots is all told as he experiences it, we don't read it happening, or anything like that. When Poul turns up in his flyer, there's no explanation how he got there bar the Doctor rationalizing it. Irritatingly, the story is stuck in huge clumps - pages and pages of solo Doctor, then pages and pages of solo Leela, a page or two of some psycho robot babbling to itself, then more of Leela solo.

Corpse Marker starts out with Carnell summarizing the events of Robots of Death and announcing that the Doctor and Leela were just group hallucinations caused by stress, and also taking the piss out of the plot - after four episodes establishing robots can turn evil with a laserson probe, Carnell announces it is impossible, especially in a turbulent Storm Mine. It's almost like Boucher's suddenly decided that bits of his story were crap and having the veracity of it called into question before any readers can complain. And he seems a bit pissed off that the setting of Robots has become known as a Sandminer, and constantly has people correct the Doctor when he calls it that. IT IS A STORM MINE, NOT A SANDMINER, YOU BASTARD!!

The TARDIS arrives inside a huge factory growing cyborg clones and, hearing a riot, Leela goes to get on with her Death on Wheels stick as she slices and dices and performs acts of violence unthinkable on television today. I'm not surprised Tom Baker didn't like the character, as she casually snaps people's arms and slices people's wrists open... in LMR, there was reason for the brutality, and again in Match of the Day. But it just seems Leela's in a bitch of a mood, and hell, this is Kaldor City - the only nice people are robots! After brutally slaughtering the Company Goons, she joins the terrorists and flees.

The cyborg clones are activated... and immediately meet the Doctor and imprint on him, giving us the amusing sight of an army of Brady Bunch stunt doubles offering people jelly babies. This is even more amusing as it turns out these are the replacement for Voc Robots, and Kaldor City's big investment has now turned into a bunch of Tom Baker groupies. The Doctor is soon captured by Uvanov, who is not pleased to see the Doctor again. Or even particularly interested in him. In fact, their prior meeting is only cursory discussed, giving the impression it was added at the last minute. It could easily have been the Doctor offering his services to a completely new character for all the difference it makes - I know that Uvanov is meant to be paranoid, but the idea that the Doctor is a Company agent sent to undermine his authority is a bit of stretch.

In return for Uvanov locating Leela, the Doctor agrees to help find out who is trying to screw up Uvanov's political career. Oddly enough, despite apparently being set only a week or so after Robots of Death, from the TARDIS crew's POV, they barely remember any of it, to the point when Leela is confronted by Poul she doesn't recognize him at all, and never actually confirms she knew him in the first place. Boucher, mate, do some frigging research BEYOND everyone's psychological profiles from now on. The characters THINK the way they should, and often DO what they should, but rarely REACT to each other the way they should.

Leela meanwhile has discovered a bunch of incredibly dull, uninteresting and stupid terrorists worship Taren Capel, having somehow got the impression our face-painting, helium snorting, cyber fetishist is actually the ultimate luddite, trying to bring down humanity's dependancy on robots. They even think the bastard is still alive, and Leela is left baffled by these contradictions. Before deciding she doesn't really care and breaking more people's arms cause she is so damn pissed off.

One of the big themes in the story is the identity of Taren Capel, plus the complex situation of Taren Capel simply being the name used for strategic purposes. As such, it's no surprise that Toos - one of only three people on the planet capable of knowing for sure Taren Capel is dead - is being hunted down by one of the cyborg assassins... which is then immediately mugged and destroyed cause it looks like a person. That's ONE killer robot so far, and it is shithouse! Hell, the Vocs managed to kill people when half their skulls were crushed in or fried by EMPs! New technology. Shithouse.

My interest is vaguely nudged as the flyers from Blake make an appearance, and the Doctor and his chauffer, Con the Grocer, start investigating and come up with absolutely fuck all. They then find some kind of secret lab where everyone has been killed and corpse marked, and then another Cyborg tries to throw the Doctor out a window. So Con throws it out the window. Shithouse new cyborgs. Having been in no real danger, the Doctor and Con the Grocer return to the flyer and find Poul has hidden in the back.

Apparently, Poul has suffered complete personality disintigration thanks to his robophobia (hell, I assumed he was dead, since he, Toos and Uvanov were last seen sprawled lifeless on the floor), which basically means he is not a bit like the character in Robots of Death. Apart from having psychotic fits if he sees a corpse marker, he might as well be a completely new character. Once again, the Doctor does not recognize a guy he spent a while with just a few days ago, but unfortunately, Poul remembers the Doctor and is now convinced he is Taren Capel and goes apeshit.

The flyer crashes and Con the Grocer is unceremoniously killed off between paragraphs. The flyer has crashed in the sewerpits, the slums of Kaldor City where all the non-founding families, prostitutes, criminals and Tarenists are. Thus, the Doctor and Poul arrive mere spitting distance from Leela, who is doing her own bit of community policing - serious, she has already killed more people than any of the Cyborg assassins. At this point, Toos turns up (and niether she nor the Doctor nor Leela even as much as say hello), and we discover a Very Interesting Thing Indeed:

The sewerpits were built as a trap for malfunctioning robots, and invisible forcefields prevent them from leaving! Ergo, Kaldor City has encountered robots of death before, and prepared for it. But, what with their society being so damn retarded, has completely forgot about this. However, the circumstances of the original robot revolution, or why it was forgotten is never mentioned again.

Ever.

Sigh.

Things get even more confused as Poul tells everyone that the Doctor is Taren Capel, and this info causes the Big Bad to send an army of Cyborgs to kill everyone in the sewerpits! This means the Big Bad has sent its ENTIRE ROBOT ARMY to the ONE PLACE that will trap said ENTIRE ROBOT ARMY forever! Thus, we await the massacre that traps the Cyborgs in the sewerpits... only to discover that, the Big Bad is not only so retarded as to send its ENTIRE ROBOT ARMY into eternal prisonment, it has done this to find the ONE PERSON all the Cyborgs have imprinted on, and thus has ABSOLUTE CONTROL over.

This is the kind of villain that even Ben Chatham isn't impressed by, ladies and gentlemen.

I know that the whole justification is that the masterplans run in Kaldor City didn't expect the Doctor to turn up and ruin everything, but come on! The Doctor completely screws over the masterplan by offering a stranger a jelly baby, and even if he hadn't, he would still have completely screwed over the masterplan, simply by being in the sewerpits being mistaken for Taren Capel!

The Doctor tells the Cyborgs to stop being psychotic killing machines and tell him who the big bag is - and they say it's Taren Capel, a bit pissed off that someone else calling themselves Taren Capel is also in this story. The Cyborgs tell the Doctor the location of "Taren Capel's" secret evil base, and the Doctor goes there and finds SASV1 - a SuperVoc based on D84, meant to be a really clever, Orac-style computer god. Unfortunately, it is not Y2K compliant and thus gone completely stark raving mad.

Having somehow decided it is Taren Capel, Looneybot is using its powers to... uh... actually it doesn't HAVE an evil masterplan at all. It just wants to be in charge and pretty much everything is a coincidence. The Doctor laughs his head off at what a pathetic fucknuckle SASV1 is, and then blows his head off.

Well, since all that is solved, the Doctor and Leela head back to the TARDIS without saying goodbye or getting anything in the way of closure. There they find Carnell! Yes, the same Carnell from Weapon, who fled the Federation, found this dump and has been psychostrategerizing everything ever since. But, again, Carnell's fatal flaw has been to not assume a completely random nutjob will turn up in the middle of his carefully planned operation and completely fuck it up! DAMN! DOUBLE DAMN!

Carnell decides to tell the Doctor all about his plan in the hope that the Time Lord will finally beg him to shut up and offer him a trip in the TARDIS to escape the planet, the Federation, and no doubt those fearing his Aryan goodlooks. It turns out that Uvanov (remember him?) was NOT paranoid, and there WAS a conspiracy against him, in the form of the Company comissioning Carnell to remove the commoner upstart from power.

Now, Carnell's evil plan was this:
1) Drive Poul insane
2) Murder Toos and Uvanov
3) Blame Poul for murders
4) Set up inquiry into murders
5) "Discover" truth about what happened on the Sandminer - OK, OK "Storm Mine Four"!!
6) Undermine public faith in robots
7) Introduce new, non-strangling Cyborgs
8) Reinforce the stablity of the founding families ruling everything.

Carnell is thus responsible for about thirty pages worth of the book since all the rest was down to the Doctor unknowingly fighting the most stupid and insane machine since WOTAN. At the end of Carnell's wikipedia entry, the Doctor abruptly marvels, "In a way, that makes YOU Taren Capel!"

...

...yeah. Course it does. Definitely.

The Doctor and Leela tell Carnell to fuck off while they leave for a planet less full of backstabbing arseholes, and Carnell, now with his founding family employers after him, decides to offer his services to Uvanov and thus help change the society of Kaldor City forever.

There is just one question unanswered - who the hell cares?

OCCAM'S RAZOR by Alan Stevens and Jim Smith

The day Doomsday was screened, I was at a Doctor Who convention a block away from my new job. I was caught in a conflict of emotions: I was happy I had a job, but sad my swinging freedom bachelor lifestyle was over, I hated the tension and oppressive atmosphere of my work environment, but was terrified of losing it. I was, at the end of the day unhappy, and thus bought the whole Kaldor City line to take my mind off things - after all, I could afford it now. Like my $90 copy of Mindwarp by Phillip Martin. A lot, yes, but I could afford it. So, as I returned home I struggled with my uncooperate discman to play my new discs.

Months have passed since Corpse Marker, an Kaston Iago (Paul Darrow) has arrived in Kaldor City for work and pleasure. Now, a quick digression.

Is Kaston Iago Kerr Avon? This is not simply because Paul Darrow portrays him (other B7 actors are involved, but no one is saying Poul is Deva, or Cotton Travis or even Borg). Well, the evidence for: Kaston Iago is a fugitive from the Federation, has a Scorpio clipgun, a computer expert, claims to have murdered the "Butcher of Zircaster" (Travis), and in terms of time, Corpse Marker was set in Season 4 of B7. Also, the writers (including Chris Boucher) wrote for a PGP Avon, and only copyright prevents them from naming him outright. The evidence againt: Paul Darrow himself insists Iago and Avon are two separate characters, Iago is a sexual predator and is a complete psychopath who delights in murder, plus Iago's destiny doesn't match Avon's in The Logic of Empire, nor does Iago have access to Orac. In fact, on paper, the only the Avon described in Liberation as "suffering a severe personality disorder" who murders everyone before they can betray him, could possibly be linked with Iago (more Magic Bullet elitism there).

My conclusion is, oddly enough, that Kaston Iago IS Kerr Avon. But not the one we saw on Gauda Prime. In the BBC/Terry Nation sanctioned audio plays (which have an equal claim to canoncity if not quality), Avon is unintentionally cloned in the middle of Season 4 by a malfunctioning teleport, and Avon-2 is left trapped on a planet which implodes in a dimensional explosion thingamagig. I therefore suggest Avon-2 somehow escaped, with his Scorpio clipgun and, now a complete looney, went to ground in Kaldor City since not only were the Federation looking for him, Avon-1 was still on the loose and he had twice as much chance of being recognized.

I still refer to Iago as Iago on the grounds that Avon was sympathetic and didn't kill people for fun.

Where was I? Oh yes. Toos has vanished, Uvanov (Russell Hunter as per Robots of Death) is now Topmaster Chairholder of the Company, Carnell (Scott Fredericks as per Weapon) is on his payroll, as are two thugs from security Rull (Trevor Cooper - Takis from Revelation of the Daleks) and Cotton (Brian Chroucher). They are, at the moment, troubled by the fact other members of the company board are being assassinated by someone who is delivering the corpses via reprogrammed robots.

Carnell, who seems to have on perpetual loop some ambient music from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (specifically the bit after the universe ends and the book tries to define life, money and sex), proves unhelpful. He refuses to dwell on the matter without further evidence (ideally a murder, but if there isn't another murder, then Uvanov doesn't have a problem anyway) but concludes that it is the work of a professional computer expert at loose in the city.

Cotton and Rull quickly link this excuse for a profile to Iago and raid his hotel, but Iago is too clever and escapes and finds Uvanov in his bedroom. Iago insists he's just on the planet for holiday, and proves it by NOT blowing Uvanov's head off right away. Uvanov, one of those 'keep your enemies close' immediately offers Iago a job to find out who the real killer is. Iago agrees and quickly earns his keep as security advisor by giving an endless list of things to do to Justina (Patricia Merrik), Uvanov's personal assistant from one of the Founding Families (who employs out being a petty bastard who likes humiliating aristos).

After complaining about a painting in Justina's room of a red pentagram (yes, this is important), Iago decides to fuck Justina. I apologize for the crudity, but anything else might imply some kind of emotional involvement.

Iago and Uvanov decide to examine the members of the board to find out any info that might suggest why the particular members were killed, and who might be next - as well as checking to see if any of the remaining members might be the murderer. This, of course, pisses off Uvanov's rival Landerchild (Peter Miles).

Carnell concludes that someone is murdering the boardmembers so that their replacements will be anti-Uvanov and pro-them, and killing members from both sides so as not to draw suspicion. The murderer has been provoked because of Uvanov's attempts to open up Kaldor City to the rest of the universe - including the Federation - which will change the balance of power. The finger points at a woman called Devlin after the board member she hates is poisoned at a gala dinner.

Uvanov decides she is guilty and sends in Rull and Cotton to arrest her and plant evidence if necessary, but when they get there... Devlin has been assassinated by Iago.

Carnell and Iago have a quiet chat. Iago reveals he arrived in the city and started murdering boardmembers so Uvanov would hire him as a bodyguard to save him from the non-existent threat. Carnell came up with the rest of the "conspiracy", forcing Iago to kill Devlin before anyone else twigged. Thus, both Carnell and Iago have made a shitload of cash out of Uvanov as payment for their services, AND prevented the Federation from getting involved in Kaldor City. What's more, niether can betray the other to Uvanov lest Uvanov find out the whole story, so it's a stalemate.

Well, Occam's Razor proved moderately interesting, if reducing the titular robots to cameos and focussing on the politics amongst utter bastards of all things, and adding shoot-outs - which, on audio, don't really work. "A dark, aggressive tale of ultraviolence and political intrigue" yes, but not much, you know, entertainment and the fact the story has innocents shot dead doesn't really endear it to me. Unlike Blake's 7, there's no one to point out if this is in any way bad...

DEATH'S HEAD by Chris Boucher

Back to the head honcho for the second installment. The title refers to a skull which is brought before Uvanov by a bloke called Hume, a friend of Justina. Hume claims that the skull belongs to Taren Capel, and when he takes it out of his case, Hume drops dead: the skull is poisonous, and Hume expected to be immune to it. Someone is trying to assassinate Uvanov and he believes that Justina was in on it, and, by association, so is Iago. Thus, the investigation will be carried out by Cotton.

Cotton delegates all the work to his second in command, Elska Blayes (Tracy Russell, Elise from The Logic of Empire), who discovers that the skull belongs to a guy called Sheen (Nicholas "I Am Canon" Briggs), a personal friend of Uvanov last seen working at a research station in the Blind Heart desert. It turns out that Rull killed Sheen, believing him to be a rebel hiding weapons at the station thanks to a tip off from Landerchild - but Sheen was innocent. Yet there were hidden weapons at the station.

Annoyed, Rull heads to complain to Landerchild about the false info. But Landerchild isn't interested and his friend Strecker (Peter Tuddenham) is so insulted he fires the nearest waiter, condemning him to a life of poverty in the sewerpits. Feeling guilty for the poor guy, Rull takes out his emotions by murdering Strecker. Charming man, isn't he?

Blayes meanwhile tries to discover who collected Sheen's skull and thus is out to kill Uvanov. She heads off to Sheen's former workplace and meets Rull, who is trying to remove the evidence he shot one of Uvanov's friends. However, by the time they arrive, all the weapons have been removed, and it turns out Uvanov has no idea who Sheen is...

So. Someone has manipulated Rull into killing Sheen, allowing Sheen's skull to be used as an assassination attempt, at the same time ensuring that the truth will be hidden by Rull and keep everyone in the dark. But why? And by whom?

Well, Carnell's been sitting in his office, idly wishing some ancient alien godlike force beyond comprehension might turn up with unfathomable motives because it would make a change. It also turns out that seemingly every single individual in Kaldor City is paying him to help them...

Justina and Carnell hid the weapons on the station with the idea that Iago and Justina could discover this, so Rull would look incompetent and they would get more power.

Landerchild and Carnell passed on the tip to Rull, the former believing it would get Uvanov assassinated via the poison skull.

Uvanov told Carnell to engineer the poison skull assination thing so as to keep everyone except him confused and unsettled, so he still has the edge over Iago, Justina, Landerchild and Rull. He doesn't trust Blayes either.

Thus, Carnell has managed to give everyone what they asked for, but no one what they wanted, and only he is aware of how he's staged managed it all.

Until Iago turns up and says he worked all this out on his own, so up yours.

...

My head hurts.



HIDDEN PURSUADERS by Jim Smith and Fiona Moore

When Iago takes a day off from being Uvanov's bodyguard and hired assassin, Rull is busy working out why a GST thing called "the Larson Project" is stealing 5% of his pay check - is this to fuel more Far Side cartoons?! Ergo, Cotton is put in charge of security... and immediately blows up Uvanov's garden and discovers that Justina and Iago were stupid enough to schedule their sex sessions in the daily itinerary.

Iago's day off is the typical trip - murder his chauffer, plants a bomb and tells Uvanov he has taken out some guy called Leighton who is in league with the terrorist group the Hands of Capel, and Uvanov is their main target. The Hand of Capel is the militant wing of the Church of Taren Capel, which has had a sudden influx of new members since Iago murdered a bunch of main characters from Corpse Marker off screen as per Uvanov's instructions. One of the members is actually that waiter Rull got fired. If this is in any way important or relevant, let me know.

The church of complete and utter retards is now being lead by Paulus (David Collings) who is actually Poul (David Collings), who has infiltrated the church as part of the Company's attempt to control both sides of the conflict, Terra Nostra style. What's more, he's accompanied by Blayes who has unwittingly been manipulated by Carnell into joining Paullus in stage managing this truly moronic cult of personality based on a guy who hated everyone with a personality.

Despite what we saw in Robots of Death, it appears this planet doesn't have a breathable atmosphere and Kaldor City has oxygenators to provide air for the city. Yet somehow most Kaldorians believe they evolved on the planet, even when the ruling class are the Founding Families of the original colonists! Christ, some people are just too stupid to deserve living, don't you think? Come to think of it, how the hell did Iago get into the city without being front page news - there are no other cities for people to come from, which means he must be an alien, which...

Oh never mind. If I complained to the authors they'd insult me for not analyzing the texts deeply enough (ie, agreeing with them) and expecting answers on a plate.

Paullus works out the next terrorist attack - ripping off Total Recall and depriving oxygen from a quarter of the city, causing panic and confusion and stuff. Exactly what then is supposed to happen is not explained, but the Tarenists are such idiots I doubt that occured to them either. Blayes and two stooges break into the plant, but wouldn't you know it, they pick the ONE time there's a security drill and the place is full of guards!

Blayes and her pals end up trapped in a control room with several technicians hostage and, worse, Rull's finally decided to get back to work, so there is someone vaguely competent in charge of security! Woe is Blayes!

Carnell points out that they hoodwinked Blayes into joining the terrorists because they knew how she would act and be manipulated: she's an unwitting double agent, and if she gets killed in this seige, they'll have to start all over again. Uvanov tells Carnell to get off his arse and work out a way to save her

Carnell then gets Landerchild to get Iago to be the hostage negotiator. Well, what could go wrong with that? Sending in a crazed psychopath into a delicate hostage situation? Nothing! No sooner is Iago through the door than he says to Blayes, "Hey babe, how's it going being a double agent for Uvanov and using the Church of Taren Capel as a private army working for the Man?"

Immediately, Blayes' stooges turn on her and Iago kills them. In the moment that proves - to me anyway - that Iago is not Avon, he gleefully murders the hostages so Blayes can escape without being identified.

It gets worse, as Uvanov declares "War of Tarenism".

Who the fuck dared assume that would be amusing?

Uvanov thus gives himself new powers and authorities since they're at war, and tells the "victims" of the ex-hostages the names of the Tarenist's families to cause mob justice and stuff like that, causing even more chaos, allowing Uvanov to give himself more emergency powers, and at this point even Carnell is saying "Jesus Christ, get a grip you bastard!"

However, there is one tiny unresolved detail. Blayes and Poul are controlling the Church of Taren Capel, but they are actually working for Landerchild! You know, he's BAD! Not a bit like Uvanov and Carnell and Iago, who we're supposed to be rooting for - and since Carnell is secretly controlling Blayes anyway, there's no real importance to this at all.

I did not enjoy this "a gripping tale of corruption and media manipulation" and do not intend to relisten.

TAREN CAPEL by Alan Stevens

What did I expect when I got Kaldor City? Well, some goddamned robots killing people was on the list somewhere. They've been completely sidelined in this series for a bunch of characters strutting around murdering people and telling each other they were actually being controlled by a smug git in an office chilling out to lift muzak and wishing for something interesting to happen.

He's not the only one, since apparently the ancinet Kaldor City artist Wallbank was so bored he predicted the end of the world in a trilogy of paintings - a red pentagram, a skull and finally a painting of a strange snakelike creature. This trilogy of paintings was "the Fendahl Tryptich".

So when Uvanov gets the third and final Wallbank for his new office in Company Central, in "a sinister tale of awakening evil", I begin to suspect that the whole "robots of death strangling people" idea has been pretty much abandoned in favor of a completely different Chris Boucher story. And it's not the one with Xoanon.

Rull is still pissed off about the Larson Project, which is apparently under the control of Landerchild. "Apparently" because Uvanov has set up the Larson Project as a trust fund for the Church of Taren Capel, blaming it on Landerchild so he can then be executed for treason, before Uvanov destroys the Church and Blayes with it. You know, Uvanov was once someone vaguely likeable. Now he's a complete arsehole and it's only the limitations of audio stopping him from doing anything but TELLING us how evil he is. Yet, this bugs me more than say, Sherrif Vasey of Nottingham, perhaps because Uvanov is always acting so freaking defensive rather than wallowing in what pure evil he is, the spineless goon.

Uvanov is more pissed off to find Iago has found Taren Capel's webcam video diaries from Robots of Death as he decides to murder people in order of dramatic irony, you know, just in case you thought ANYTHING spontaneous, imaginative or even vaguely like "free will" might appear in this series...

Why is Iago so fascinated in the diaries? Probably for the same reason Carnell is fascinated in them - and has downloaded the info into a robot called V31 and started playing chess with him. Uvanov is terrified that Iago will twig that he and Carnell are using the Church for their own ends, but Iago is more interested in Taren Capel himself. Carnell decides to read out an article from the Kaldor City website where one, squeaked and barely understandable squawk from Taren Capel "indisputably" proves he was actually robophobic. Disgusted by the author bigging up his own clever analysis, Iago storms out, vowing to murder the smug bastard to further his own career, and also because it'd be real fun.

Iago decides to contact Blayes and tells her that Uvanov's scheme to discredit Landerchild with the Larson Project is about to begin. Blayes in turn reveals that she and the other cultists are going to raid the building to get Capel's "last will and testament" (the video diary) so Iago better leg it. Iago does a deal - Blayes will spare Uvanov, and he gives her the location of the video diary. It's next to Taren Capel's skull, the real skull.

A skull, huh? I wonder if that's anyway ominous. After all, it's not as if an impressionable young woman is suffering headaches and nightmares and acting strangely... Oh yes, there is. Justina who, proving herself to have a deteriorating mental state, tells Carnell she has fallen in love with Iago and wonders if he loves her back. A clue: no.

Rull tells Cotton to ransack Landerchild's house and arrest him, but barely have they cuffed him then the main informant is found dead with a lemon up his arse in auto-erotic-asphyxiation gone horribly wrong. Thus, they will have to release Landerchild - gosh, WHAT a coincidence!

Just then, Blayes and her pals storm the building, snatch the skull and the diary, then flee, blowing up everything to cover their tracks, but all the important speaking parts get out alive. Rull is injured and taken to hospital, but Landerchild decides to hold back on blaming Uvanov's incompetence for the attack. It could be some cunning plan of Carnell - it all depends on how Uvanov treats Carnell from now on.

Carnell meanwhile is far more interested in playing chess with V31, but V31 - also highly dismissive of "free will" - wants the game to proceed in a very specific manner. Carnell notes that the pieces and the moves are reflecting what's happening, and thanks to V31's move, Carnell already knows about the attack on Company Central before it happens. Somehow, everything has been predicted and V31 is revealing the prediction through the chess game.

Uvanov rushes in, horrified at the attack which he did not plan, hurls abuse at Carnell and runs out again. But Carnell realizes from the chess game that Iago intends to kill him to get more power from Uvanov, and so the only course of action is to flee Kaldor City before the "game is completed".

Uvanov bumps into Iago, who starts Operation: Get Rid of Carnell. He explains that Taren Capel's diaries hide a trigger phrase which will turn every robot in Kaldor City into a homidical killing machine - this was why the Tarenists wanted the video diary, but Iago's ensured they got a blank disc instead. But since Landerchild was nearly killed in the fight, the Tarenists weren't under his control. If they are being manipulated by anyone, it's Carnell - ergo, Carnell has turned on Uvanov.

Uvanov orders Iago to kill Carnell...

...but Carnell's buggered off, fleeing the planet in Iago's spaceship. He leaves an insulting video message, explaining that Kaldor City and everything in it is being manipulated by an outside force. The chess game has given Carnell enough info to learn what will happen and how to stop it. Thus, he has left before Iago can kill him, proving that the manipulator can be foiled. In order to defeat it, Kaldor City and everything in it must be destroyed, so Carnell replays the trigger phrase in Taren Capel's voice.

The robots of Kaldor City go mad and prepare to slaughter every single human being.


CHECKMATE by Alan Stevens

This "apocalyptic tale of subterfuge and revelation" begins with Uvanov and Iago deciding that Carnell was talking crap about some prehistoric manipulator controlling them all, allowing them to focus their attentions on completely defeating the robots of death.

Which they do in about three minutes.

Hoo, as they say, ray.

It's painfully simple. Iago simply gets his copy of Taren Capel's diary, opens a sound editor and soon manages to get the dead to croak "Stop the killings!", which allows Iago to use it to return all the Kaldor City robots to normal, and the only real problem is that newreader Daniel Packard (Nicholas Courtney) was being strangled by one of the tinfoil bastards live in front of millions. And when Iago tries to get Packard to tell the populace that the robots never went mad, and the murders were done by Tarenists in outfits, Kaldor City gets a "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!" from the Brigadier, who tells them that it's the government they can't trust, not a bunch of religious nutters worshipping a dead man.

Iago's subtle damage limitation is to brand Packard a Tarenist and lock him in a lunatic asylum, then brutally murder the executive producer, simultaneously convincing the replacement to be more pro-Uvanov in future news stories. I wonder how he did that. What's more, Iago has the newscrew reveal that Blayes was behind the "psycho robots" and lots of other terrorist acts - he's sold out his comrade and effectively left her in the position of Osama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist on the planet.

Despite having saved civilization, Uvanov is still wetting himself over the fact Landerchild is going to call a vote of no confidence thanks to the hostage crisis, terrorist siege and robot revolution that have occured over the day. Can our Scottish sociopath overcome his passive aggression to save his career?

Do I care?

A clue: no.

After having armies of killer robots dismissed, being worried about a board meeting feels incredibly petty... which is why the plot focusses more on that awakening evil we were promised.

Blayes is horrified at the fact she's been betrayed, but Paulus/Poul is fascinated with the video diary of Taren Capel... despite the fact all he's got is some blank discs that play static. But, he tells his gullible followers, he can hear the voice of Taren Capel whisper to him in the static - and Blayes suspects he actually means it. It seems that Poul's been undercover so long that he believes his own bullshit, and soon starts telling people that Taren Capel really was an anti-robot protestor, who believed that humanity was corrupt, and so went off into the desert to die and be reborn as a spiritual being. The robot revolution thing was just passing the time, presumably. Poul waves around the skull they found in the vault, insisting that this skull is definitely Taren Capel's and not just some skull found in the desert, oh no sir. That pentagram pattern is PURE COINCIDENCE!

When Paulus starts telling everyone that he can use the skull to transform themselves into spiritual beings the same way Taren Capel managed, Blayes walks out, shaking her head to find her own salvation. Paulus announces they need to hold the Ritual of Twelve, which will feature a special guest appearance by the One Who Kills who happens to be in the area tonight. The voice in the static assures us that he is not referring to, say, the biggest terrorist ever Elska Blayes, but rather...

Justina!

Sorry, you were supposed to be impressed.

Anyway, the voice in the static tells Poul to place his hand on the skull and draws on Poul's own mental energy. Though to some layman it looks like Poul is simply recreating a cliffhanger from part two of Image of the Fendahl but that's outright impossible because then the skull was trying to mutate the Doctor and not simply drawing out energy, oh no, Terrance Dicks is a lying piece of shit, yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir...

At Uvanov's place, Justina dazed tries to leave the compound stark naked, but the security guards politely put her to bed and start raiding Uvanov's wine reserves. Then there is a familiar hissing, gobbling noise and then Fendahleen appear and slaughter everyone who isn't Justina (conveniently forgetting that paralysis trick cause it's a tad visual), allowing her to wander off into the sewerpits. However, despite being attacked by muggers, rapists and murderers, the Fendahleen don't turn up cause, er, Justina can protect herself. She just didn't bother to the first time. As Poul points out. Yep, it's another one of those "pick flaws in your own plot before the audience can" moments. How I love those.

At the board, Landerchild calls that Uvanov be thrown out and reveals Carnell left him a parcel full of info revealing that Uvanov is the corrupt paranoid shithead as has already been established, and manipulated the whole of Kaldor City to boost his own career.

Meanwhile, in hospital, Rull mulls over the situation and realizes that Cotton is working for Landerchild and always has been. Cotton tries to kill Rull, but Rull already has a gun and shoots Cotton dead. And then he empties his gun into the corpse because he's a really forgiving guy.

At the board, Uvanov calls that Landerchild be thrown out and reveals Carnell left him a parcel full of info revealing that Landerchild is the corrupt paranoid shithead as has already been established, and manipulated the whole of Kaldor City to boost his own career.

Meanwhile, Iago returns to his flat to find that Blayes is waiting for him, demanding an explanation for Iago selling her out. Iago reveals that since Blayes was so successful a terrorist who murdered millions of people, Iago's started to feel kind of inadequate. He hates people better at mindless slaughter than he is, and wants to become the Top Psychopath of Kaldor City - and he and Blayes pull out their guns and shoot each other.

At the board, Uvanov gleefully tells the board they have to make up their own minds who is guilty and who has had false evidence brought against them - Landerchild? Uvanov? Or, as Uvanov suggests, Carnell was really the bastard behind it all. But as the board is about to decide, all hell breaks loose.

Justina turns up for the Ritual of Twelve and Poul watches on in horror as the Tarenists turn into Fendahleen and Justina glows and becomes the Fendahl Core. As the rest of the Church of Taren Capel are wiped out, the Fendahl reveals that, as promised, it is a spiritual being that will change the world forever, and if Poul doesn't like the technical details, well, caveat emptor.

With no curly haired scarf-weilding anarchist to save the day, the Fendahl completely manifests in an unstoppable godlike entity - though whether it will now simply eat everyone or swallow them up in a gestalt is unclear (that pesky supernova the Doctor chucked the skull into it means it doesn't have to follow the rules as laid down), but know ye this.

Kaldor City and everyone in it are supremely fucked.

In the final, brain twisting sequence, the mortally wounded Iago staggers into the rain when the Fendahl appears before him. The Fendahl offers the dying Iago a chance of survival, since it is a gestalt including Justina and Justina was in love with Iago and wants him to live. Thus, the Fendahl offers to rewind time to the point he first met Justina, and there Iago can either leave the planet and survive, or stay in Kaldor City with Justina and try to save her and change the past. The Fendahl insists it cannot know the future, and that Iago will have free will.

Iago accepts and instantly finds himself in Justina's room, completely healed in the first conversation he had with her, when he noted that painting of a pentagram on the wall. But Iago has a cunning plan: he tears up the painting, pulls out his Scorpio handgun and shoots Justina dead! Thus, he has changed history and prevented the Fendahl from manifesting, and beaten it!

At that point a familiar figure strides into the room - the Fendahl, wearing the form of Carnell who cheerfully reveals that Iago's plan has failed. Nyder vaguely tells us that this scene isn't Iago rewriting history, being merely playing out a kind of fantasy the Fendahl created to test him. Killing Justina and proving to her what an irrideemable fuckwit he is, Iago has managed to piss off the Thing That Eats Death, and it consumes him.

Cue the sad, nihilistic "what is the point?" music from Logic of Empire.


THE PRISONER by Alan Stevens

I've stuck this epilogue scene here, simply because that's what the guy who sold me the CDs said, and I trust his opinion over the authors, who kept changing their mind over whether this occurs before or after Storm Mine. It was on the Paul Darrow Speaks CD, which contains numerous monologues - Darrow playing a doomed medieval king addressing his subjects, Avon musing on his feelings about Servalan, and a Steven Moffat-style piece about a contemporary man whose life becomes hell.

The Prisoner is a two hander between Iago and Landerchild, set after Storm Mine for the former and after Checkmate for the latter. Landerchild arrives at a cell where Iago has been taken prisoner after loitering in Landerchild's estate. Landerchild wants to know what the hell Iago was doing there, but Iago takes an aggressive philosophical approach and keeps asking Landerchild what he thinks. Was Iago trying to assassinate Landerchild? Turn Uvanov in? Was he just out for a walk?

The conversation becomes even more surreal as Iago demands Landerchild prove the conversation is happening, and Landerchild realizes he has no evidence that will satisfy Iago that any of this is real. Is it some kind of recording? Are they merely an echo of the real Landerchild and Iago? What will happen to them?

"Occam's Razor," Iago concludes.

"Checkmate," Landerchild gasps.

Then they both disappear.

Apparently, the Fendahl is "digesting" the consciousnessnes of its victims and that was the last traces of Iago and Landerchild before they were completely consumed.

No, I don't quite understand it either.

STORM MINE by Daniel O'Mahony

Advertised as "a mindbending tale of discovery and transformation", Storm Mine is better described as "a completely baffling double entendre with very little to say". It's actually the Kaldor City play I enjoy the most, but scratch through the surface and there's not much underneath.

This story is very much a blur of different realities, so I'll limit myself to the facts.

After being shot dead by Iago as the Fendahl manifested, Blayes wakes up aboard a Storm Mine in the desert, eighteen months later. The Commander and the Chief Mover explain they found her in the desert by chance. They also reveal eighteen months previously, the rest of the crew were killed when the robots went mad before suddenly going normal again. Later, the Mine returned to Kaldor City to discover it was placed in strict quarantine, with the Dockmaster telling them that they were not allowed back in until the emergency was over - until then, they must all pull together.

Left alone for a long time, the Commander and the Chief Mover have gone a bit peculiar and now believe that the world has ended, leaving them with nothing to do but drive the mine in figures of eight in the desert. Blayes, not revealing her name lest they discover she is THE Elska Blayes Ultimate Terrorist of Kaldor City, is given a robot called V32 (Geoffrey de Poligny, or D84) to look after her as they decide what to do now.

Blayes however is not alone. She can hear the voice of Iago in her head, as if he somehow in the room with her, and together they ponder the situation. How the hell did Blayes survive being shot dead? Why is her body free of scars or injury? Why are the X-rays of her skull showing her brain is different? How did she leave the city? What caused the quarantine? What has happened to her for the last eighteen months?

V32 reveals he is the go between for the rest of the surviving crew and the Chief Fixer, who is a recluse. He also reveals he has a recurring nightmare of being tied to a gigantic tree made of millions of humans struggling to escape. Iago insists that Blayes should kill the surviving crew before they find out who she is, since if they ever do return to Kaldor City, she's dead meat. He demonstrates via a chess board that all the pieces - Carnell, Uvanov, Landerchild - have been removed, leaving Blayes with the freedom of the board, but unless she changes her behavior, she is trapped on the board, going in circles. Iago needs Blayes as she is his "last chance", but does not explain what for.

Blayes becomes more disconcerted as she gets a replay of the final communique with civilization, which is as told to her except the final words are "we're all in this together", not "we must all pull together". She is convinced that the Chief Mover lied to her, and he reveals he is a Company Security agent, and recognized her as the famous terrorist right away - but since the world has ended, there's no point handing her over. Blayes tells Iago to kill the Chief Mover and, despite being a voice in her head, somehow manages to shoot the guy with a Scorpio handgun.

Blayes then decides to follow Iago's advice to "kill everyone she meets and achieve enlightenment"... but 'everyone' includes Iago, who protests as his voice turns to static and finally vanishes. Blayes heads to confront the Chief Fixer, and discovers that it is Justina the Fendahl Core. Justina reveals that V32 is actually one of the robots that went mad - the trigger phrases have changed his brain and Justina has brought Blayes here to give the robot something to react to, triggering his development. V32 is becoming a new form of life, and whatever he does now is his own concern.

Blayes runs out and finds the Commander sitting outside the Mine. The Commander is unsurprised at the death of the Chief Mover, and explains that the world hasn't just ended but begun again. In his opinion, evolution isn't just some biological adapting. Humanity colonized this desert planet, mined it and used the minerals to create robots, a form of life better suited to live there, and the robots in turn will cause further evolution.

Blayes returns inside the Mine and finds that V32 has taken over, shutting down all the other robots and piloting the Mine back towards Kaldor City to face whatever is happening there...

Unsurprisingly, this story baffled and bewildered the hell out of the audience. Most of them took it on the chin and waited patiently for the next story to make sense of. But there was no other story. The series came to an end and is incredibly unlikely ever to continue.

About the only thing CERTAIN about the story is what the Fendahl is doing. Having reached the end of the line with humanity, it has decided to create a new species to feed off and this experiment of winding up Blayes and getting her to play chess with V32 is all down to that. A more conceptual manner than affecting the DNA of passing chimps, but basically the same thing.

Exactly what happened Blayes and why she's linked to Iago is never made clear, or even if this is happening in "reality" or inside the Fendahl's head. Iago certainly seems to realize he's part of the Fendahl, and that it has somehow changed Blayes, and it's not too far a stretch to assume that he wants Blayes to somehow frustrate the Fendahl's plans. Of course, it all depends on whether or not Iago has any free will, or even if it's the real Iago, since his behavior is quite different to previous plays. As to what happens when Blayes "banishes" him, who can tell. It's ultimately left blank what happened to everyone in Kaldor City, but the hints are it was very nasty, assuming V32's dream is in any way reflective of what happened.

Basically, Storm Mine shows the Fendahl putting its next meal in the oven via an incredibly baffling and surreal encounter. No wonder Magic Bullet refuse to explain the plot - they know how pathetic it will be when you tear away the confusion.

So, what is the point of it all? Apart from showing off how clever and cynical the writers are, I'm honestly not sure. Kaldor City starts off as a cross between Blake's 7 and House of Cards and ends up a pale Life on Mars wannabe. Everyone is a bastard and then the Fendahl eats you. There's no karma, no real development - when Cotton reveals he is working for Landerchild, does he try to justify it? No, he tries to murder Rull, his best friend, who kills Cotton first. Why should we care about such people bar their tendency to say the occasionally witty remark usually stolen from Vila ("Morbidly obese isn't what I am, it's who I am!")? Hell, even the ending is cancelled out by Doctor Who and Blake's 7, both of which show a universe SANS Fendahl munching its way through it. Hell, the fucking thing has never been mentioned since - it's almost like they realized it was the only monster they could use free of charge without thinking.

So, seven stories you need to read their website thoroughly, and suffer their "implications" without question, and not even a decent ending. I can't remember another series with such outright contempt for the audience - the only difference is, they don't assume you're stupid and talk down to you, they assume you're stupid and don't talk to you at all.

Like The Mark of Kane or Logic of Empire, there's no plot, no resolution, just one long "proving a point". Kaldor City exists to PROVE their theories that Taren Capel was robophobic, that the Fendahl wasn't destroyed, and that Avon is a complete fucking foam-at-the-mouth nutter. Once that is done, nothing matters. The populace of Kaldor City aren't just wiped out, they're wiped out by something completely out of the blue that they never could have fought. Their destruction, therefore, means NOTHING. In Romero films at least, the only reasons the Zombies can win is if the Humans fight amongst their selves. No wonder the Doctor and Leela quit without saying goodbye twice. This civilization wasn't worth saving and wasn't worth exploring either. Apart from the fancy names they give those in charge, there's nothing we didn't learn on TV, except more swearing and sex.

It's not as bad as Torchwood, but it's just as misguided.

Don't waste your cash.