This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Dalek Contract

Rather sadly, this is both Mary Tamm's and Romana I's appearances in the extended timeline, and I'm glad it's happened on a good story.

It's a surprisingly good Dalek story, with plenty of great side characters. Cuthbert is even better in this and he's set up as a good future villain. Romana's reaction to the Doctor's "death" is fairly good and so are that last moments of this audio. It's a good ending to a fun series and, in the extended timeline, Season 16 as a whole.

Next Story: Destiny of the Daleks

Series Review: 9/10

For a series that has 4/7 stories written by Nick Briggs it's surprisingly really good, genuinely there was really only one story I didn't like, the rest ranged from passable to brilliant. I think it's helped that Tom Baker and Mary Tamm have excellent chemistry on audio and there were some genuinely interesting concepts throughout the series.

Extended Timeline Season Review: 9.5/10

In the extended timeline, Season 16 goes from The Sinestran Kill to The Final Phase with all of televised Season 16 in the middle.

It's not a season without it's faults, the series of 4DAs at the start, with Ann Kelso were very dull, but after that, the televised season and now Series 2 of the 4DAs it's probably been one of my favourite Tom Baker seasons. The Key to Time was a brilliant story arc.

Romana I is one of my favourite companions of 4 so far, beaten only by Leela, so I'm curious to see how Lalla Ward as Romana II will play out. It is sad that as a season this will probably have no more content, due to the unfortunate death of Mary Tamm, but the little we did get made for a fun little trip through time and space.

REVIEW ALSO POSTED IN THE DALEK CONTRACT

Again, we have a very bog-standard Dalek fare which should've been a lot stronger.

The Fourth Doctor is really heroic in this story, willing to sacrifice himself and board the Dalek ship alone (At least, I think that's what happened, I got a bit muddled and confused as to what was going on in the plot), but there wasn't much Fourth Doctor-ness involved. Considering he seems threatened and scared by the Daleks in Genesis and Energy, I didn't see much of that when he faced off the Daleks, and seemed to shrug them off nonchalantly as just another monster. K-9 gets a bit to do, too, but I can't believe that he is able to take down Daleks with his little laser - but I love his theme so much. Mary Tamm's final story, and she's fantastic, taking the reigns when she believes the Doctor to be dead, fighting off the Daleks no matter how bleak the situation is - I can't stress how magnificent it is that we got another season with this TARDIS team, she's so incredibly underrated. While I still prefer Romana II, it's not a dampener on Tamm's run, however brief it was.
You truly were the noblest Romana of them all. Thank you, Mary Tamm.

The Daleks are done dirty in this story - defeated by the sonic screwdriver, K-9's laser, teaming up with a lesser being, easily thrown off and the most complicated plan ever - I still don't understand why Cuthbert would willingly team up with them - they contribute nothing but a security force, but he's already the most powerful man on Earth, so what's the point? Speaking of Cuthbert, David Warner is standout again, starting off as a generic bad guy but developing into someone a lot more complex and with a lot of different layers, eventually helping to stop the Daleks - But methinks this isn't the last we've heard from him.

Something that makes this season stand out to me is the variety of different locations that we explore - the 20s, the desert, Victorian era, and now a snow world, full of harsh landscapes and blizzards - the fact that Daleks are able to conquer this environment when it's rather difficult for the humans adds another challenge for them to combat.

Basic human force, nothing special, meh, meh, meh.

This is a decent conclusion, but considering the rest of the season, it could've been a lot stronger. You'd think that, being the voice of the Daleks, Nick Briggs would understand how to give them a good story and a nice end to Romana I.

The romana stuff in this story is probs the most interesting part that this story brings to the table like romana finally feels like the doctors friend now instead of buisness associated it’s quite nice