Looks like I’ll need to relisten to Enemy Lines as well then - especially as I can’t actually remember if I’ve listened to it or not!
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I listened to IE ages ago and thought it ended very abruptly. I never was able to get Enemy Lines right away[1] and thus have still never finished that mini-arc.
the gamble that is ILL ↩︎
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Yay! Other people are reviewing some Omega stories. Here’s one from @Bongo50:
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@Owen - I’ve just read your review of K9 and the Time Trap and it is utter genius!
(Go and give it a like people (and get all those miserable reviews of The Reality War off the top spots…)
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I wasn’t actually aware of this thread when I wrote the review. This review is part of me going through some Cutaway Comics material (a lot of it is good and well worth reading), and I actually ordered this comic, along with Paradise Towers and Lytton (of which my issues 1, 2 and 4 are signed by Eric Saward, and issue 1 is also signed by someone else that I can’t identify), all with random cover variants (which worked out very well with Lytton!), before Wish World! I’d like to give the audio adapation a listen soon as well.
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As I say upthread, I recommend the audio adaptation but it is literally an audio version of the comic strip. There aren’t any embellishments or even changes due to it being on audio. Brian Blessed is brilliant though.
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These are cool but consider this instead: what if he was a giant skeleton baby monster
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I like how in Intervention Earth, Omega’s cult are called the Adherents of Ohm - a nice little callback to one of the earlier Three Doctors drafts.
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Gallifrey: Intervention Earth
I’m a little surprised it took as long as it did for the Gallifrey range to dip its toes into the rage of Omega. But I suppose there isn’t much else you can do with the character that doesn’t involve him trying to return to our universe by whatever means necessary.
And yes, Intervention Earth is another example of that. And for good measure, the Hand of Omega is involved.
I’m not actually sure I understood the plan and why it was Earth that was being used to release Omega, or why it was so far back in history. There’s also a weird bootstrap paradox where Omega possesses another Time Lord who is the one who orchestrates the plan to release Omega. My brain hurts.
And he succeeds but this is sort of left hanging. I don’t know where Omega is at the end of the story aside from in a loop where he’s off to release himself.
Regardless, this was a fun story and it was a delight to hear Stephen Thorne back as Omega. It’s a bit frustrating that Omega takes over another Time Lord and so is voiced by Daniel Brocklebank for the final part. I’d rather we kept Stephen Thorne voicing the part all the way through.
I liked the little callback to an earlier draft of The Three Doctors, I believe, where Omega was called Ohm with that being the name of Omega’s cult in this. I also liked the reference to Hedin and expanding his desire to bring Omega back into an entire cult following. It does make sense that the Time Lords would have a group involved in resurrecting a legendary figure like Omega - it definitely seems like something they would do. In fact, I think I’d have liked a bit more of the Adherents of Ohm.
What I also hadn’t really realised is that this ends on a cliffhanger. Omega is free and Romana, Narvin and Ace are trapped in a dead TARDIS. It continues into Enemy Lines but it seems that the Omega storyline sort of disappears. As I’ve said elswhere, I thought I’d listened to Enemy Lines but having done the first episode, I’m now not sure I did and certainly I don’t remember how Intervention Earth’s plot is resolved.
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Yeah when I listened to this for the first time a month or two ago, this genuinely caught me off guard! I thought it was awesome it ended this way but I really wasn’t expecting it
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I can vividly imagine seeing this as a child and excitedly telling everyone I could, fully convinced, that Omega would be coming back, and then having to explain A) who Omega is, B) why they should care about him and C) what Doctor Who is outright.
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Is it like an audiobook that narrates what happens in the comic, or more like an audio play?
Oh it’s an audio play, full cast and everything, but there’s a lot of narration for the visual bits.
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Thank you so much! Greatly appreciated.
I really need to buy it, just to hear Blessed Omega 
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He is really good.
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The good news is I wrote a really really long IE/EL explainer slightly further up if you’re still confused after EL 
I do agree with all the you say though. IE is not my favourite of episodes which is why it is SO funny that THIS is the one that went canon <333
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I’m an IE defender other than what it does to Ace 
She deserved way better
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IE is so complicated to me on the ‘do I like it’ scale. Because Ace and Narvin are a brilliant duo, but you’re right, it feels like a waste of Ace and Omega because her end isn’t great and he’s barely in it. I also kind of think Narvin is a bit out of character in it, I think he’s almost too bumbling.
But then there’s Romana iii and you can extrapolate the fallout she and Narvin have had over Leela, and there’s some fun side characters, and I kind of like the way the end is kind of depressing because the whole IE/EL thing - as I’ve said to death at this point - is about fighting the inevitable and losing, but also doing everything for the people you care about even if it’s hopeless
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Star Death
Back in the day, DWM loved a comic strip. There was also a seeming fascination with showing the early days of the TIme Lords - something the TV show has never really been that interested in.
Although this story is marked on TARDIS Guide as featuring Omega, it doesn’t really. He is merely referred to as being in the first ship to pass through the Black Hole. Due to the machinations of a time traveller from time and place unknown, Omega’s ship is destroyed. Rassilon appears and manages to save all the other ships but not Omega’s.
The strip focuses on two other Time Lords as they explain to the reader what we are witnessing. They discuss, for example, how even with the ability to travel in time which is going to be the result of this endeavour, they don’t have directional control.
It turns out that Rassilon takes the directional unit from the rogue time traveller (who he kills) so it seems Rassilon used the technology of some other race to actually build working TARDISes. It sort of undermines Rassilon’s greatness but in other ways fits with the less savoury figure we’ve seen throughout the show.
The story is by Alan Moore and the artwork by Steve Dillon so it feels very much of this DWM era. I know for a fact I’d actually have liked to see Omega in the strip - another example of him being kept in the shadows of a story - but it was a good read nonetheless.
And that’s 75% of Omega’s stories complete.
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