Warzone/Conversion is a Doctor Who audio double feature from Big Finish Productions. Peter Davison is of course the Fifth Doctor while Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding reprise their roles as Nyssa and Tegan, respectively. George Watkins is still on board as a former slave in Ancient Rome named Marc. These are a pair of two-parters in the 258th release of the monthly range, directed by Scott Handcock.
Chris Chapman is the writer of Warzone which has Silas Carson and Pepter Lunkuse as part of the guest cast. The Doctor and his companions land in the middle of a race with a lot of participants. The Doctor learns that the runners subject themselves to upgrades that seem disturbingly familiar.
This is one of those stories which gets better in the second half. It just seems to serve as a setup for the second story which has a more intense and dramatic purpose. The episode is pretty good, but the real meat is in the second entry.
Guy Adams picks it up with Conversion which sees David Banks and Mark Hardy return as the version of the Cybermen featured during most of the 1980’s when they encountered the Doctor during the fifth, sixth, and seventh incarnations.
One of the more interesting aspects here is that the Doctor finally faces the aftermath of Adric’s death which occurred in the television serial entitled Earthshock. He does finally express some real regret over Adric’s death which was brought about by a confrontation with the Cybermen.
I like this story because it delves into the horror of the conversion process. Marc has been infected with technology that kicks off the cyber conversion process, and the Doctor is desperate to not lose another companions because of his silver adversaries.
Many fans like the Daleks, however I was much more intrigued by the Cybermen, and they were used effectively here.
The cast continues to perform well. I am not necessarily a big fan of Marc yet, but he got a bit more interesting once the story was about rescuing him.
I had a little trouble imagining everything that was occurring in this episode, but I still enjoyed this one. I’m just a sucker for the Cybermen, I guess.
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