The Monthly Adventures #007 - "The Genocide Machine" by Mike Tucker

I have listened to The Genocide Machine three times in my life. The first was years ago, when I first found out about Big Finish. I got The Sirens of Time for my birthday, listened to it, mildly enjoyed it, before discovering it was free on Apple Music and Spotify. At that point, I decided to listen to the first of the Dalek Empire arc, a little story called The Genocide Machine. I listened to it, didn’t think much of it, and promptly forgot it entirely. The second time I listened to it was about a year and a half ago, when I first really got into Big Finish. Listened to it in the car, didn’t think much of it, enjoyed the Daleks, and promptly forgot about it again. The third time I listened to it was today, and I have no idea how in god’s name I enjoyed any part of it the last two times. At least I know why I kept forgetting about it, this is one of the most tired, pointless executions of a Dalek story I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. Let’s get into it.

On a mission to return overdue library books to the universe’s largest store of information, the Doctor once again finds himself up against the Dalek Empire, as they try to assimilate all knowledge known to man.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

There are a few ways a story can get this low a score for me. 4/10 is about the lowest I can go whilst still getting some enjoyment out of the story, 3/10 I enjoy a few elements but nothing that helps the rest of the plot, 2/10 is reserved for real dumpster fires with maybe one redeeming element and 1/10 are stories that genuinely make me livid. The Genocide Machine offers me next to nothing, it is a vacuous, pointless slog through a tired, rehashed Dalek scenario that has been done time and time again. Its biggest claim to fame is inventing the character of Bev Tarrant, who I understand becomes important in the Bernice Summerfield range, which I have not listened to. I have, however, listened to Dust Breeding, a better story with Bev in it, so despite liking her here (she’s not the greatest character in the world and I kept mixing her and Ace up since the actress sounds pretty similar to Sophie Aldred but she’s fine), I could just find better audios with her in. Seven and Ace are good, I suppose, but really, when aren’t they? Honestly, my favourite thing here is the concept of the Kar-Charratans, a race that has assimilated with the water on the planet and are in the rain and “wet-works”, a liquid data storage complex. It’s certainly an interesting idea and a race living in the water of a planet is a cool idea (an intelligent civilisation, not a parasite like The Flood), trouble is it’s stuck in the world’s most boring Dalek story.

I was bored out of my mind from ten minutes in to the very end, there is literally nothing here of note. One good character that’s in other stories and a good idea smothered by a by the numbers narrative. The Daleks are trying to steal all the knowledge in history, an idea that is neither innovative nor interesting. If you’re writing a Dalek story, you’ve got to do something new with it, there have been too many of them to just do the same old thing and The Genocide Machine is the most basic a Dalek outing could possibly be. Besides Bev we have a supremely annoying librarian getting lugged around with us and a character who… doesn’t speak. In an audio only story. Whose idea was this? I don’t know if I’m just stupid but I genuinely thought Prink (the aforementioned mute member of our cast) was a delusion by another character, since he was rarely spoken to by anybody else but them and never made a sound; this caused me to be very surprised when he gets killed off and we’re meant to feel sad about the death of a character we’ve never heard speak. I understand the joke they were trying to make, constantly calling him “very chatty”, but it’s, one, not funny in the first place and, two, really doesn’t work without a visual aid. As for the setting, it’s also really dull. We never really spend time exploring this supposedly grand library and we spend most of the runtime in a generic jungle setting. It reminded me of the setting of Alien Bodies - which I also found to have quite a dull backdrop - but without the insane alien auction carrying the rest of the narrative, just leading to a bland and forgettable locale.

Sitting through this bore again was hellish and I was counting down the seconds to when it finished. The Daleks are dull as they possibly could be, there are some frankly ridiculous creative choices muddying the proverbial waters and the only positives are not even unique to this release, making it a pointless waste of time that you would do yourself a favour in skipping.

3/10

Pros:

+ Bev was a welcome addition to the cast I’d like to see in better stories

+ Seven and Ace, were, as usual, fantastically written and acted

+ The Kar-Charratans had a wonderfully novel concept behind them

Cons:

- An utterly by the numbers Dalek story that does nothing new with the infamous pepperpots

- Chief Librarian Elgin was an incredibly annoying bit of baggage for our cast

- Makes the infinitely confusing choice to feature a nearly entirely mute character on audio

- Has an incredibly generic and dull setting

- Trudges along with no action or excitement through the first act to and into the climax