Across the Darkened City is an entry to the second volume of the First Doctor's Companion Chronicles box sets, a story that focuses on Steven Taylor voiced by Peter Purves who despite being in his late 70s at the time of recording this, honestly doesn’t sound much any older than when he left the show! It’s kind of a miracle with Big Finish’s cast of old Doctor Who actors and how the vast majority of them still maintain the same voice decades later.

Steven’s story sees him in the midst of an adventure in progress as he’s being held captive by the Daleks after a failed attack by a rebel group. With the Doctor and Vicki elsewhere dealing with the main Dalek invasion, Steven is trapped on a spaceship that crash lands on the planet Shade, a world in perpetual darkness with only himself and a damaged Dalek as the only survivors. The Dalek seems more different than the ones Steven normally encounters as it is prepared to work together with Steven and keep him alive in order to reach a transmat station, but between them and escape lies a city of darkness and a race of monsters far deadlier than the Daleks.

So on the surface this seems to be a story about the potential of the Daleks to become something better than the genocidal monsters they’ve always been, which admittedly isn’t a new concept but at the same time it’s not done often so it doesn’t feel like a played out trope. But as the story progresses and reaches its climax you come to realise it’s not really about a Dalek possibly turning good but more two enemies putting aside their differences to work together in order to survive. The story brilliantly conveys Steven’s conflict in whether or not he can trust this Dalek, how he knows all Daleks are the same and yet he slowly beings to build hope the more they help one another, it even shows how far the Dalek is willing to go to earn Steven’s trust as it exhibits behaviour very uncommon among its kind. Which does build to a climax that you can probably guess and really showcases the evil and tragic nature of the Daleks.

This was a great story and for a bit of extra Doctor Who lore building, stick around for the post credits scene where the nature of this unusual Dalek and its purpose is revealed in a scene that ties in to the Second Doctor story The Evil of the Daleks.

Very interesting story for Steven it starts off more of an epilogue to an other off screen dalek story which is fun and is perfect dalek story to have in the gap between the chase and DMP