Perhaps the moral of this story is that you should never meet your heroes. Or maybe your heroes should never take your corporeal form?

This story provides a great example of a world that would be difficult to show on TV but which works well on audio - it’s hard to imagine how they would have visually represented The Doctor’s conversations with Omega.

Most of the awkward comedy of this story lands well. The fact that The Doctor you've been following through the first three parts of the story is not the real Doctor is quite a monumental twist! But the complex plot is quite hard to figure out without rewinding back some key scenes. To the point that towards the end a character essentially turns to camera and explains what's going on.

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! 

"Omega: A Tale of Time Lords and Betrayal”

The Fifth Doctor encounters the legendary Omega once more in this audio drama, the first in a trilogy of villain-centric stories. Set against the backdrop of a peculiar historical tour, the narrative explores how fictional reenactments blur into reality as Omega manipulates events to facilitate his return. His earlier, ambitious scientist self takes centre stage, offering fresh insights into his tragic fall from grace.

The plot’s strength lies in its character dynamics. The relationship between Omega and the Doctor is richly layered, with parallels drawn between their shared Time Lord heritage and contrasting moral choices. This nuanced exploration of the Doctor’s darker tendencies is rare for pre-Time War incarnations, making it a standout element.

Professor Ertikus, a delightful addition to the cast, provides both comic relief and intellectual sparring for the Doctor. His enthusiasm for uncovering Omega’s truth mirrors the eagerness of my favourite, Chronotis from Shada, and adds a touch of whimsy to the story. His untimely demise at Omega’s hands in Part 3 is a poignant moment, further raising the stakes.

Ian Collier reprises his role as Omega from Arc of Infinity, delivering a performance brimming with menace and pathos. While he doesn’t match Stephen Thorne’s operatic intensity, Collier’s portrayal brings a quieter, more introspective menace to the character, making his desperation and manipulation deeply compelling.

The story shines brightest in its final act, where a clever twist reveals Omega’s use of the Doctor’s biological imprint to frame him for murders. This revelation reframes the entire narrative, injecting tension and urgency as the real Doctor only steps into the spotlight in Part 4. However, the climactic stretch, though impactful, feels overly drawn out at 40 minutes.

Omega’s supposed marriage to Sentia offers a darkly humorous subplot, though its absurdity recalls the twisted dynamic of the Master and Lucy Saxon in The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. The closing moments, featuring an agent of the Celestial Preservation Agency, add a surreal but intriguing coda, hinting at the Doctor’s enduring legacy among the Time Lords.

📝Verdict: 7.69/10

Big Finish celebrates 40 years of Doctor Who with a tale of twisted history, dark reflections, and a renegade Time Lord's desperate bid for freedom.

Omega is a slow-burn exploration of the titular villain’s psyche, balanced by strong character interactions and a late-game twist that revitalises the plot. While the pacing sags in parts, its introspective tone and compelling performances make it a worthy addition to Big Finish’s celebratory releases. 

Random Observations:

• It's weird how the Doctor claims he is pushing 900 years of age here, which would mean he’s barely aged between his fifth and his ninth incarnations.

I feel like the odd ones out here, because some of the criticism I hear are some of the strongest points for me. It’s definitely much more flawed as a Story than the other two that follow, but, and this is a big “but”, as BF goes for that time period, I think they nailed it (for the most part).
Especially the first Half of the Story is incredible. Ending with such a good Cliffhanger Ending, easily one of my favorites. The second half loses some of its focus and at times can be frustrating, still the good outweigh the bad for me.

A Highlight here is easily Ian Collier, who returns from Arc of Infinity and while there is a point to make that every time Omega returned, they didn’t nail him as they did the first time. For me while weaker, it’s still an improvement over Arc and gives Collier more quiet Moment, which he works much better than the more shouty approach we are used to Omega. Some Exploration of Omega was done rather well, I thought, even if at times it fell into the trap of the Timelord feeling too much like human society. They are at some of their best, when we get the more alien aspects to them.

Davison gives here a stellar Performance, the other Voices do a solid job and nobody fells too out of place.

As far as a first Who Script goes (Fountain apparently wrote a Benny Short Story before, but this is its own thing entirely), I think it’s marvelous, despite being consumed by some of its ambition.

This was a very interesting but uneven audio.  There's parts I really like about Omega.  It feels like Davison and Collier don't get a ton of time together here but when they do it's memorable and often quite interesting.  For plot-relevant reasons there's a clear comparison drawn between the Doctor and Omega.  I feel like that aspect was done quite well.  I also like the angle of Omega's history being viewed through a historical tour.  That made for a fun setting and a very unique (but welcome) take on Time Lord society.

There's also a really cool scene that stuck with me for some reason.  A medical droid witnesses his patient being strangled.  Practically panicking, it tries to stop the altercation verbally before suspending its "Hippocratic protocols" and knocking the assailant down.  It's just some nice, clean writing that adds some colour to the world and some character to what would otherwise be a very neutral figure in the story.  Little touches like that, I think, inform the better side of Omega as an audio.  As a villain, he also gains quite a few dimensions.  His feelings around a supposed genocide he committed are very interesting, getting outright violent and angry when his girlfriend brushes aside the severity of his crimes.  Yes, it is weird Omega has a girlfriend here.  Let's get into that a bit.

Because Omega is kind of a slog.  Aside from some memorable aspects, details, and scenes in the audio, the actual, overall experience is pretty middling.  Omega has this relationship with a character named Sentia and it didn't really work for me.  I really struggled to take her character seriously and just wasn't having fun with her.  All I get from Sentia is that she's in love with Omega and acts increasingly unstable about it.  It makes for a terrible villain and a flat, undeveloped character.  Omega's also got this whole possession thing going on too, there's a murder mystery plot, and it's doing all those other things mentioned above.  The story often feels bloated and unfocused, with too many lacklustre characters and ideas getting in the way of the solid potential otherwise here.  A lot of scenes worked for meIt does hold together overall though.  There's enough sense of structure I was entertained most of the time.  It just feels like Omega could have been a lot more.

That genocide bit felt undeveloped, for example.  It turns out this was actually one of the Doctor's memories that slipped into Omega's mind.  Fine, but we learn about this last minute near the end, so all that stuff just feels like it blunts the whole point of that side of the story up until now.  Then Sentia warps herself and Omega back to the Anti-matter universe.  The status quo is returned, and I am left feeling thoroughly underwhelmed.

The Monthly Adventures #047 - “Omega" by Nev Fountain

The Villains Trilogy is a notable moment in the history of The Monthly Adventures, being the first of a formula that would eventually dominate the range, being a series of three tangentially linked stories released consecutively. Eventually, trilogies would be the main format of the Main Range, with short arcs or even just sub-themes running rampant throughout the series’ schedule. However, it begins here, as a short celebration of Who’s biggest antagonists for the show’s 40th anniversary: Davros, creator of the Daleks, the Master, nemesis of the Doctor and… Omega. A founding father of Gallifrey and the main antagonist in a story only viewable through rose-tinted glasses and whatever the hell Arc of Infinity was meant to be. I guess there’s no singular figure to associate with the Cybermen (plus we’ve only just had Spare Parts) so I suppose he was the next best thing but I still wouldn’t consider him one of Doctor Who’s most iconic villains. But, I suppose one should not judge a story by its cover, only by its text.

Called to “the Sector of Forgotten Souls”, the Doctor finds himself aboard a tour shuttle belonging to Jolly Chronolidays, the tour company that treats history like a soap opera. But as they enter the last known location of a legendary Time Lord, troubling realities begin to arise.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I suppose any story’s greatest strength is its writer, so who on Earth did Big Finish choose to write an Omega story of all things. Our author for today is Nev Fountain, a recurring writer for the audios who seems to be held in pretty high esteem, penning fan favourite stories such as The Kingmaker or Peri and the Piscon Paradox. This is apparently his first foray into the audios, so how does he fair? Well, in my opinion, he fairs incredibly well. The personality this script holds is immaculate. It’s not in your face quirkiness like Bang-Bang-a-Boom! but is instead made up of subtly humorous landscapes built off  quips and big personalities, such as a hypocritical Time Lord historian who keeps advertising his book to the Doctor, or two old ladies who won’t stop criticising how unrealistic real history looks compared to the fabricated stuff. It’s a heightened reality that is only a little more outlandish than the real world, and it makes for a plot and identity that is incredibly easy to digest. Not only that, but we have a brilliant cast heading our story, with Ian Collier returning as Omega from Arc of Infinity along with his booming vocals and Conrad Westmaas making an appearance a few audios before his debut as C’rizz. They make for an excellent group of characters, all of who are interesting or fun or sympathetic or wholly insane; Fountain clearly has a strength when it comes to writing personality and dialogue. As for the story, it is the weakest link for me (which seems to be a recurring theme in these reviews) but I’d say the first half was really good. It took the form of a bizarre murder mystery with no murder, where the Doctor tries to solve the mysteries behind little oddities scattered throughout the story until somebody eventually does die and the whole thing comes to a stunning reveal. There have been a number of twists in Big Finish so far, they do seem to be a favourite of the range. Even in the very first entry, we had one of the main characters revealed as the story’s villain, and yet this might be the best one so far - it truly blew me away when I first heard it. Turns out, up until the halfway point, the “Doctor” we had been following had been the Omega from the end of Arc of Infinity, who used the Doctor’s bioprint to escape the antimatter universe. He then had a mental breakdown, and took on the Doctor’s personality, meaning this entire time, all the murders and sabotage and strange events were being committed by who we thought was our philanthropic hero. It’s a brilliant moment that is set up absolutely perfectly, every unanswered question slotting into place. It’s one of those reveals that was under your nose the whole time, especially since only the Doctor actually saw Omega (with the exception of the mad Sentia, who is on Omega’s side) so it’s perfectly possible for him to have just been switching voices. It was the highlight of the story for me and probably the thing that will stick with me longest now I’ve finished it.

However, following the big reveal, things begin to falter. I think the main problem is that Omega wanted to do too many things at once. It wants to be a fun murder mystery, but also a meditative exploration of Omega’s character, but also a dissection of insanity and the psyche, but also a high-octane countdown to disaster, but also a love story whilst having multiple Time Lords knocking about and people being psychically prompted to recreate moments from Omega’s fated voyage and historical reenactments going too far. It moves from one story, to another story, to the next, never stopping and never resting with too many ideas for its own good. And by the end, there’s so much going on, so many characters switching personalities and deceptions colliding that the whole thing gets ridiculously convoluted and you just end up going “wait, when did that happen?” over and over again. Like the day is saved because the Doctor prompts the mad Sentia to switch personalities so that she releases the hostages she’s taken, which I don’t think was set up and, if it was, it was incredibly brief. And the other thing I take issue with is Omega himself. Being the title character, you know we’re going to have to see a lot of him and the main story will have to surround his experiences, but I just don’t particularly gel with it. It grounds him heavily in reality and makes him feel far more human than he should be. Take The Three Doctors for instance, there, he is almost a legend, even when we see him, this monolith of a person, driven insane by his time in an antiverse, a mad god with no reigns. He is imposing as he is threatening, his ambiguous past helping in establishing him as a living myth. Here, he’s just another Time Lord, and went to school like any other. Not only that, but it explains that the name “omega” is a nickname stemming from a really bad grade he got once (for some reason, Gallifreyan grading systems rely on the Greek alphabet). So basically a human equivalent would be getting called “F-” - I think this is dumb and somewhat turns him into a joke, even if Fountain thought he was being clever. Making him so tangible and so life-like removes his mystique and turns him into a somewhat underwhelming antagonist, I think it misses what made him such an imposing character. I think this is where Fountain’s sensibilities as a writer actually trip him up, because giving everybody a lively personality isn’t actually a net positive and sometimes it can diminish the impact of a villain. I feel like this is the Doctor Who equivalent of Disney forcing an antagonist to be morally grey against the script's will - it just doesn’t work.

Omega was an interesting if unfulfilling time. I have heard it’s the worst of the Villains Trilogy and if it’s only up from here on out, then I’m sold. It honestly has a lot of potential and if it just bit off enough for it to chew and focused a little, I think we’d have an all time classic here. Both aided and failed by its idiosyncrasies, Fountain’s writing style seems suited to a quainter story than this, and I think things might’ve been a little different with a better premise or another writer.

7/10

Pros:

+ Written with distinct style and humour that made the whole thing incredibly fun

+ Great vocal performances lending themselves to a good cast

+ First half was an interesting mystery with good pacing

+ The third act reveal was absolutely brilliant

Cons:

- Tries to be too many things at once

- Story gets too clever for its own good and becomes convoluted

- Omega is not as imposing and interesting as he could be