Oh my! It's Omega!

[JayPea]

Seconding pretty much everything you’ve said here

If omega became his own legend, then why is he this mad god monster, he was never that, he saw himself as a being above all others, a genius temporal architect, the first of the time lords, etc. Plus like, a big thing with him in the classic series is that he doesn’t have a body, so why is his mad god design literally just a body??

Plus what is this Underverse stuff? Why the retcon that he’s there not the anti-matter universe?

It’s aslo such a shame after Sutekh, regardless of your thoughts in that story (I thought it was alright), Sutekh’s redesign is a high point, the presence he has, just the vibe, it’s so good, and then Omega is…

This

He’s not even shot in a way that makes him really feel all that imposing, he’s just kinda there

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I saw someone on the discord suggest that it’d’ve worked a lot better if he were meant to be Morbius instead of Omega, and I can’t help but agree

[BSCTDrayden]

What annoys me even more is I rewatched The Three Doctors on the train that day in prep, and got reminded how amazing a character Omega is… Only for that.

I rolled my eyes so hard I rolled my head at the reveal and that’s not a joke or hyperbole.

[JayPea]

@JayPea

I saw someone on the discord suggest that it’d’ve worked a lot better if he were meant to be Morbius instead of Omega, and I can’t help but agree

Actually, better(?) idea, keep the anti-matter universe, and have this form be because the Master’s Time Lord genocide affected Omega as well, but he willed himself to stay alive/real, that way the decaying body makes sense, unlike The Rani who did a biological sidestep or whatever, or The Doctor who’s not a Gallifreyan, Omega is still biologically a time lord (or at least sees himself as one), he’s using his will to create a body for himself, but that body is in a constant state of decay because of what the master did

[BSCTDrayden]

Wait this slaps, why didn’t RTD do this

[monkeyshaver]

It should have just been some weird monster from the underverse, the Rani got it wrong & she teams up with Doccy Who to defeat it.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath before they close the seal Omega escapes to be potential future threat.

[SweetAIBelle]

@JayPea

He’s not even shot in a way that makes him really feel all that imposing, he’s just kinda there

I think part of the trouble here is that he’s the same exact color as the bone palace behind him, making it so he doesn’t really stand out. If, say, the background had looked like flesh instead of bone, to keep the theme, he would’ve stood out more.

[SweetAIBelle]

Of course, I still kinda wish we’d gone the route of…

[Koquillion]

Just a quick cut to Peter Davison poking his head around the massive door and looking shifty.

[deltaandthebannermen]

Omega: Vengeance

I became a fan during the Wilderness Years. This was a time when various fans kept the flame of Doctor Who alive through various spin offs, usually on audio or video. Because the rights to actual Doctor Who were off-limits (at least until Big Finish got their hands on them) these enterprising creators would approach the estates of various writers to license monsters and characters that they owned the copyright to rather than the BBC - the Sontarans, the Zygons, the Rani and the Autons among others. What were these monsters getting up to when the Doctor wasn’t around?

Cutaway Comics range of spin-off comics feel like a nostalgic throwback to those days. Set in the worlds of Doctor Who created by writers like Stephen Wyatt and Bob Baker, they explore places like Paradise Towers and characters like Omega and Sutekh.

Omega: Vengance is a sort of prequel to The Three Doctors detailing a previous attempt by Omega to escape his prison on the other side of a black hole. It’s a lovely run of four comics which manages to include elements of The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity whilst also bringing in Underworld (another Bob Baker and Dave Martin story) and little hints of the original Three Doctors script, Deathworld.

Omega has made contact with a native of Minyos, telepathically communicating with him. It echoes Omega using Hedin in Arc of Infinity. Omega’s servant, Oxirgi, is attempting to overthrow the royal family of Minyos, allow Omega to mind control the Minyans and create enough power for him to escape the anti-matter universe.

Battling against Oxirgi is the last Minyan princess Malika. She teams up with a reprogrammed battle android and a old hermit with impressive mental powers. Taking its lead from Underworld, Malika has the ability of cellular renewal, bestowed on her by the Minyan gods. They are never named, but the gods are obviously supposed to be the Time Lords and their design echoes that seen in the old DWM comic strips of the 80s (which is unsurprising as the art for this comic is by the legendary John Ridgeway).

The old hermit, Kyril enters into a mind wrestling match with Oxirgi like we see in The Three Doctors but this is probably more akin to the battle between Merlin and Madam Mim in Disney’s The Sword in the Stone with each of them taking on increasingly weird forms in an attempt to defeat the other. It’s a great comic strip sequence.

Eventually, Malika defeats Oxirgi and proceeds to travel through the black hole to confront Omega (on a giant space bug!).

This part of the story has some echoes of Deathworld. That story was very focussed on the three Doctors fighting various mythical creatures like Medusa, Cyclops and Death itself. Here, Omega takes on various forms including a minotaur, a hydra and an angel. He is also seen to create an entire civilisation through the power of his mind but, emphasising his god-like status, his creations end up rebelling against him and, to escape his vengeance, head back into Malika’s universe aboard the space bug.

I really enjoyed this comic even if, ultimately the story doesn’t really go very far and Omega himself is very much a background character until the final issue of the four. The art is lovely (and another factor in the nostalgia of this comic, evoking, as it does, Ridgeway’s artwork for things like Voyager and The World Shapers).

Oxirgi was a fun villain and Malika an interesting hero. I would have liked a bit more exploration of the Minyan society and probably a bit more Omega himself, but overall it is a worthy addition to Omega’s story. The part towards the end where Omega starts to create a Gel Guard is a lovely tie in to The Three Doctors.

The audio version is, slightly disappointingly, a word for word lift from comic strip to audio. With the comic being a hugely visual thing, it does mean there is quite a lot of descriptive narration which can be a little clunky, but the spirit of the piece is wonderful and everyone is clearly putting their all into it. The actors playing Oxirgi, Malika and Kyril are all great but at the centre of it all is, of course, the inimitable Brian Blessed as Omega.

He is marvellous and actually helps to bring Omega to the forefront of the whole story by making his appearances in Oxirgi’s mind at the beginning more striking than they were in comic strip form.

The sound design and music is excellent and there is a lovely touch at the end in the scene where the Gel Guard is forming where they have included the sound effect the Gel Guards make in The Three Doctors.

A short interview with Blessed at the end reveals how enthusiastic he was to take part in the project and how well he understands the character of Omega. And that really comes across in his characterisation.

I’ve really enjoyed these works from Cutaway Comics and it has definitely spurred me on to read more of their work and I would highly recommend them to people.

[deltaandthebannermen]

K9 and the Time Trap

The four short children’s books about K9 written by Dave Martin are one of those things which very few people know about and if they do, don’t spend a lot of time thinking about.

It is a little bit wonderful that K9 has had so many different spin-offs dedicated to him and its clear both Bob Baker and Dave Martin were more than happy to exploit their little tin mutt as much as possible. What with K9 and Company, the K9 annual, these books, the Australian children’s TV show and the aborted K9 vs Omega film, there is plenty to suggest they believed, with all their heart, that K9 was capable of carrying his own series.

I’m not sure they’ve ever been proved right.

K9 and the Time Trap sees K9 come up against Bob Baker and Dave Martin’s other iconic creation. No, not Drax. Not the Mandrels. Not even Axos. Omega, of course!

K9 working for the Rigelians, heads off in his little spaceship K-Nel to investigate the disappearance of numerous ships. He discovers it is the work of Omega who is taking them to create his own battle fleet which he plans to use to attack Gallifrey.

It has to be said that Martin doesn’t really seem to remember (or care) much about what was established about Omega in The Three Doctors. This book was published three years before Arc of Infinity and the year before K9 and Company so is the first reappearance of both its stars.

Here Omega exists within a crimson bubble and clearly can’t create things with his mind anymore, relying on kidnapping various spaceships to create his battle fleet. He can easily cross from his bubble to the rest of space and very nearly succeeds in getting his fleet to Gallifrey were it not for K9’s intervention.

K9 also seems to have close contact with the Time Lords but his loyalty is to the Rigelians who give him a new spaceship (he blows up the original to defeat Omega) with go-faster racing stripes!

Omega’s depiction here is far less impressive than in either of his classic TV appearances (but is infinitely superior to ‘skull monster Omega’ from The Reality War. He does at least retain the helmet and cloak look even if the colour scheme is a little, brash, shall we say.

Weirdly, Omega apparently knows all about K9 because of him belonging to the Doctor suggesting Omega has been keeping tabs on the Doctor since the events of The Three Doctors.

To be honest, Omega here is simply ‘Time Lord out for revenge’ with none of the nuance of either Thorne or Collier’s versions. Reference is made to him being an engineer, creating time travel and being banished but it reads a bit like a wiki entry rather than proper motivation.

Also, in the original book he is called Omegon, not Omega (although in the audiobook version read by John Leeson, he is referred to as Omega).

All told this is a simple, linear children’s book that is far more about painting K9 as a hero in his own right with Omega a camp villain who’s not dissimilar to those seen in cartoons of this era such as Venger in Dungeons and Dragons or Zoltar in Battle of the Planets.

It’s not enjoyable for what it is and, actually, is a much better concept for a K9 spin-off than sticking him in rural England or surrounding him with a bunch of kids in ‘London’. Space, spaceships, robots and aliens just feels more like the sort of thing that works for a supercomputer robotic dog.

[deltaandthebannermen]

Seeing the illustration of Omega in K9 and the Time Trap prompted me to look for some other depictions of Omega:

[JustAsPlanned]

So what is it that you Omega fans call yourselves? Megheads? Omegons? #Omegang?

I admittedly prefer his depiction in The Three Doctors (shout-out Stephen Thorne) to Arc of Infinity so I was deffo expecting something more along those lines to his depiction in Reality War… Yeah, I don’t hate it at all (I think his bitter lonely madness warping him into this giant decayed husk is a neat bit of character design) but I can see why a lot of diehards hate it. Hell, they could have at least given him more to do - imagine him actually crawling out the hole in the bone palace and smashing up London with anti matter rays, Kaiju style.

That said, I saw a pretty interesting post on Twitter that theorised that the Omega we saw from TRW wasn’t the genuine article and was more of a thought form from the Underverse that had taken his name. Which makes sense… Considering I’m fairly sure the Anti Matter universe and Underverse are separate in form and function? With the latter sounding more like the Land of Fiction than anything else. Leaves a door open for someone to retcon it at least if they decide to have him as the big bad of a less crowded finale.

Is there much context needed for Intervention: Earth? I’ve heard a lot of people hyping it up and it sounds a lot like what the S2 finale was trying to do but less cluttered

[deltaandthebannermen]

I’ll let you know re: Intervention Earth. I have listened to it before but remember nothing and also haven’t relistened to any Gallifrey except 1-3.

[sircarolyn]

@JustAsPlanned

Is there much context needed for Intervention: Earth?

No, you could jump right in. I would say it’s not really anything like Reality War at all, but is a better use of Omega. I would also say you should listen to Enemy Lines afterwards so it makes complete sense, they very much are a pair of stories

[monkeyshaver]

I remember trying Intervention Earth, another one of those releases BF claim to be a jumping on point. From memory it wasn’t.

[Jae]

The thing about Intervention Earth is that it’s very much a ‘context won’t save you’ type of story. Yes, it’ll be confusing without context, but frankly it’s just as, if not more, confusing with the background of Gallifrey. So you might as well jump right in

[monkeyshaver]

I’m allergic to Gallifrey lol

[sircarolyn]

The thing about Intervention Earth is, if you just listen to it, you’ll be like huh?? You NEED Enemy Lines afterwards because it gives it the whole and entire context of why any of IE is happening after. They are the same story and treating them as if you can have one without the other doesn’t work so well.

It’s not the jumping on point I’d suggest for a new Gallifrey listener. I think it probably can be listened to without knowing who Narvin is, but I think it’s richer for the context. It’s not the best ever story, but it does make sense really, it’s just asking you to trust it and keep going into Enemy Lines. I have a few issues with it, like Narvin’s characterisation is a bit wack and Omega might as well not be in it and it’s too long and a bit dull and okkk maybe it is kind of confusing but it isn’t completely makes no sense because the whole point of it is, it’s a what if? what if the worst happened? it’s like a dream, a nightmare. It’s the inevitable that Enemy Lines is trying to fight against.

[ProfessorSummerfield]

intervention earth didn’t make much sense to me, even after enemy lines, but maybe on a relisten (and knowing who omega is), I’ll be less confused

[sircarolyn]

I mean I know I’m sounding like IE/EL worlds biggest defender rn, and if I’m blatantly honest with you, I was confused too on my first listen. But it does make sense, I promise, and here’s how:

IE/EL EXPLAINED! spoilers obviously

It’s three timelines in one, really, masquerading as one linear story. You have to let go of it being linear. The actual way it works is like this:

Romana goes to the Moros with the intent of regenerating so she can stop it from exploding Gallifrey or whatever it’s planning to do. She’s sneaking about and Leela has followed her, and then Romana teleports Leela away to Legion so she can enact her plan. From here, the timeline splits.

Intervention Earth is the ‘what if’ timeline where Romana successfully regenerates into Romana iii and never, ever goes back to find Leela. She sends Narvin on his little mission because Ace has been kidnapped by Omega’s #1 fan. And there’s a loop in here because Rex is actually Taurus, and Taurus is the one who effectively gets Narvin sent to Earth so his insane ‘bring Omega back’ plot can work.

And then Omega gets free to go and wreak havoc or whatever it is he does, and Narvin, Romana, and Ace are trapped in the dead TARDIS. And Brax rescues Romana, and Ace and Narvin are executed.

BUT Brax rescuing Romana iii means they hatch a plan for him to go back to the Moros and rescue Romana ii - which means the Moros explodes. So none of IE ever happens. This is the second iteration of this timeline, the one where Romana and Brax save Leela, and everything in EL happens basically. The Watchmaker is there because she’s mad that Brax saving Romana means the plan to save her never happened - ie, a paradox. And she kills Narvin again

In this timeline, Reldath and Plutus are trying to hatch their little go to war and get power scheme, they’re the ones behind blowing up the Moros and everything else.

Brax and Romana meanwhile are trying to sort out the paradox thing so make a plan to close the paradoxes and stop the Watchmaker destroying everything. Romana then travels to the universe where she regenerated, and left Leela on Legion - but here we meet older, Legion Leela.

Leela and Romana have a bit of a reunion, whatever, then the Watchmaker shows up and basically offers them an ultimatum where they have to choose the Time War universe where Romana doesn’t regenerate, or the Omega universe where she does.

This next bit, I grant you, is a bit of a stretch. Legion Leela decides that if she goes back to the Moros and gets blown up with it, the paradox will be over and there will only be one universe again. They show up on the Moros and realise they both have to explode with the ship, with the TARDIS on board so the timelines can converge, and the TARDIS being there means that any damage the Moros should have done is negated because it gets sucked off into the vortex or something.

Which means none of EL or IE ever happens.

Brax picks up Romana and Leela, as in EL, but in the time it takes them to get from Legion to Gallifrey, other universe Romana and Leela have blown themselves up and fixed the problem. This is now the True Timeline, the one where the Moros vanishes, Romana steps down, Reldath and Plutus are stopped, and the Adherents of Ohm never gain traction.

The tradeoff for stopping all this, though, is the Time War. Which is the whole point. Yes, ‘‘none of it happened’’ but the point is, it’s a gloomy what if. What if they all died? What if they sacrificed themselves trying to save each other?

And that’s what happens in IE/EL

The coda at the end with the Watchmaker approaching Brax is basically a bone for Benny fans and a way to remember the way he’s always crossing his own timeline for the Collection. It has little bearing on the actual story, it’s just saying ‘what if Brax made sense lol’ and shrugging

Anyway, with all that, give me my Ace and Narvin post EL pre TW CIA adventures boxset NOWWWWW