MR 56: The Axis of Insanity

What an apt title. I feel like I'm going insane listening to this. This is another vibes based story. But this one is more like Zagreus than Scherzo. A mix of disjointed ideas that don't really come together to make a coherent whole.

I generally dislike stories like this as well since there's rarely anything to really think about. Just random stuff thrown at you for an hour and a half. I'm definitely reminded of The Ultimate Foe, or the Star Trek Voyager episode The Thaw, about a simulated clown that kills people in the simulation. It's similar here too with a court jester villain.

We land on "the axis" which is apparently where aborted timelines that the Time Lords deem "mistakes" go to rot. Like a giant prison for entire timelines. Which is a pretty wild concept.

Only there's been a couple escapes from those timelines into the axis. As was inevitable. Mythological creatures and a crazed clown.

Personally I think the story squanders its own concept. You could have done anything with the idea of aborted timelines. This could have been a really good examination of the Doctor’s mistakes and how he buries them or something. Like his accidental genocide in Omega. But you went with throwing random set pieces at us and a clown villain. Alright then. Cool.

Theres a lot of running around being chased by the clown and evil mythological dragons, but I couldn't be bothered. It wasn't very interesting to be honest.

The closest it got to interesting was when the Doctor started talking about why the time lords did this. And how it's pretty monstrous. There are whole timelines here in the axis. That must mean there are entire universes full of billions of people who aren't technically "real." The scale is ridiculous. I guess they don't know that they're not in the primary timeline. It doesn't really matter to them.

I'm surprised that the timelines don't just cease to exist. Or the Time Lords don't just destroy them. It's also kind of hilarious that we're presented with an audio where the Fifth Doctor is being overly differential to the actions of the Time Lords when we've just gone through Neverland and Zagreus where the Time Lords are not trustworthy at all.

Unfortunately this story doesn't really do anything with Peri and Erimem either. They're a fun TARDIS team and their potential is usually squandered. Like the story itself. Erimem is sidelined for half the story while Peri is just kind of here. She does figure out how to fly the TARDIS though. So that's cool I guess.