The Tomfiles: #5 - Big Finish Review of 2008

Big Finish really shone in 2008 for me. The first thing I have to say is that the stories have ranged from ok to fantastic. The first release of 2008 was The Bride of Peladon which was written by Barnaby Edwards. Edwards has directed many BF audios since July 1999 and it was nice to see him finally pen a Doctor Who story. In my review in Blog 44 dated January 27th 2008, I said; "The Bride of Peladon is a well written story with good characters and a good pace to it" The use of a familiar monster from Doctor Who's past was always a dangerous thing because if you don’t rise up to peoples expectations then its just going to be a terrible four part adventure. Also it saw the departure of Erimem (Caroline Morris). She had been in Doctor Who since 2001 and her partnership with Peri had been one of the highlights of the Fifth Doctor stories. Following on from C'Rizz departure and Charley's (supposed) departure it seemed that the Doctor was leaking companions. That wasn’t the case when February came around because it was The Condemned which saw the Sixth Doctor without Evelyn and more importantly with Charley Pollard who has spent seven years travelling with the 8th Doctor. After listening to the story I rated it 8/10. I thought that the explanation of why the Eighth Doctor doesn’t remember his time with Charley during his sixth incarnation would have been explained but it wasn’t yet.

March's release was The Dark Husband which featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace & Hex. This story was the weakest story that has been produced in 2008. It moved too slowly and as I commented on in Blog 55 dated March 30 2008 "Knowing what kind of person David Quantick is, I was expecting a slightly different kind of story and that is what we got but the only thing that let this story down was there just wasn’t any pace to it" April saw the introduction of Thomas Brewster. This was a three-part story arc starting off with The Haunting of Thomas Brewster. The only thing that I didn’t like about this story was the music, it just went on for too long and after a while it just got annoying. The surprise at the end that Brewster had stolen the TARDIS was an unexpected one. May's release was Assassin in the Limelight which saw the return of Evelyn Smythe who hadn’t been heard from since September 2007 in 100. It was a bit of a disappointment really as it was just a bit lacklustre. It was the final story in a trilogy following Medicinal Purposes in 2004 and Pier Pressure in 2006. It was nice to hear Evelyn back and also even better to hear Leslie Philips come back.

Moving on to June's release which was The Death Collectors. This was a three part story followed by a single part story. The three part was really good it had all the characters and a good plot what let it down was the single part story. It is the only time that I haven’t listened to a story all the way through, that was because it was just bizarre and uninspiring. July's release was the second part of the Thomas Brewster story-arc. The Boy That Time Forgot didnt feature Brewster until the end of Part 4 but his actions at the end of the previous story. This story does have a twist to replace the absence of Brewster. Adric. He travelled with the Doctor between 1980 and 1982 and was killed off in the story Earthshock, or so we thought. This story deals with the idea that Adric did survive and became lord and master of some weird earth. The Adric in this story was Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers. His inclusion instead of Matthew Waterhouse seemed to annoy a lot of fans but to me it was a masterstroke piece of casting. Was just behind The Condemned in my favourite story of the year. August saw the second story to feature the Sixth Doctor and Charley in The Doomwood Curse. Whilst it was an enjoyable piece it wasn’t as good as The Condemned. Both Colin Baker and India Fisher excelled in this story. The use of a character like Dick Turpin could have made this release a doomed one but actually it wasn’t and turned out to be quite a good follow up to The Condemned.

The first release of September saw the release of Kingdom of Silver which saw the return of the Cybermen to the main series. This story wasn’t the greatest one to feature the Cybermen but I thought that it was entertaining. Also with this release was Keepsake which was a single part story. Now I am not a fan of these single episodes, I just don’t think that they work because you cant tell a story in 25 minutes. I have to admit that I was wrong in this case, it was actually quite good. It had nothing really to do with Doctor Who even though it featured the 7th Doctor. October saw the conclusion to the Thomas Brewster story arc in Time Reef. It was sad to see the exit of Brewster as I think he was a good addition and his conflicts with the Doctor were entertaining. Time Reef (which was a three-part story) wasn’t as good as The Boy That Time Forgot but it would have been impossible to beat. A Perfect World was really good as it was just the right exit for the character who lost his mother and didn’t have anyone really. Two good single part stories in a row, things are looking good except....

November saw the 45th Anniversary of Doctor Who and Big Finish chose to celebrate this milestone with four single stories. Like 100 back in September 2007 the story Forty-Five had links to the number 45. I wasn’t really looking forward because in the past single part stories have tended to be poor. However I was wrong with this as all four stories were fantastic. The final release of the year was The Raincloud Man which featured the 6th Doctor and Charley in their third release of the year and whilst I enjoyed it I found that it wasn’t the best of the three. The main problem was that there was a bit too much humour in it for my likening. The return of DI Menzies was very good and I wish that she would become a companion but maybe she will return in the future. One of the best things that Big Finish have done is to use a story arc in their stories. Similar to what the TV series has done, you have had the Thomas Brewster story arc which worked brilliantly and was finished in similar style. There was also the Charley Pollard storyline which is still continuing. The thing that links both stories is that they have been told in a intriguing way.

THE STAGEPLAYS
This year saw the arrival of three audio adventures based on stage plays. The first was The Ultimate Adventure which starred Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker when it appeared on the stage but was just played by Baker for this audio. It was strange to have songs in between action scenes but it did actually work. I'm not sure about the alliance between the Daleks and Cybermen. I think with their confrontation in 2006 this attempt seemed a bit weak. The Second was Seven Keys to Doomsday which was quite good in the way that they used the same actor who played the role on stage. Trevor Martin was really good as the Doctor, it had a William Hartnell feel to it and by that I mean it had that feel that it took several days. The third and final release was Curse of the Daleks and was perhaps the most curious release of this season. The story was a Doctor-less release and despite the fact that it took me a few attempts to get somewhere with this story, once I did get into it I actually found it quite interesting. It was eerie and it was the best story of the series. I had heard about these stories in various Doctor Who forms but never knew much about it. These three releases were brilliant and well worth the money.

THE COMPANION CHRONICLES
The companion chronicles entered a new form this year. January saw the final story the second series. The Catalyst was a Leela story and was a bit dull. July saw the third series begin. What was different about it was that there were 12 releases with one coming out each month. So far the stories have been really good and hopefully this new format will work. 2008 has been the best year for Big Finish. The quality of stories have always been high and even with weaker stories like The Dark Husband the releases have been enjoyable and worth the money.

Home Truths (2008)

Home Truths is a unusual story that begs some questions. The first question that comes to mind about this story is why would someone who only appeared in nine episodes be classed as a companion? Then that question becomes irrelevant as the most interesting story of the series. The story has quite a different approach to previous companion stories. This sees a young scientist called Robert who goes into a house and talks to Sara Kingdom. What occurs is at times terrifying and at times mind-boggling.

The story sees The Doctor, Steven & Sara arrive in a house. The inhabitants are dead and things only work when you wish them. As the story moves on its shown that the two dead bodies actually killed themselves because they thought it. The noises were very spooky and when the woman’s body was discovered her eyes were open and when the body was revisited the eyes were closed. When that happened I really wanted to know what happened. It was nice that it was Sara who wished for that to happen. The main theme about this story seems to be forgiveness. Sara visits the fact that she shot her brother in the Daleks Masterplan. She revaluates her actions and you get the feeling that if she could revisit the moment where she shot her brother then she wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

The character of Robert was well played by Niall Macgregor. At times he seemed cold and destined to finish his job. The job seemed to be whether to kill Sara Kingdom or let an old woman just live out her last few days in the house. This was a tough decision that Macgregor played But it is Jean Marsh who steals the show. I think that the character of Kingdom was a really good character for TV. I think that she would have worked well in stories past the Daleks Master Plan and it was a shame that she would killed when she was. Her voice works well on audio and it seemed like Marsh had played Kingdom last year not 43 years ago. She did old Sara and she did frightened Sara which was really enjoyable to listen to. But the best compliment that could be given to Marsh is that she helped create the atmosphere. Yes the music and sound effects did a bit of the job but Marsh was able to sell the whole thing and create an impression in my mind of this house that has some dark secrets.

Simon Guerrier has written for Big Finish before with the 2006 story The Settling which I personally enjoyed and I think that the new style that was on show here really work and Guerrier did a good job. It could have gone badly wrong but I was enthralled throughout. The chemistry between Sara and Robert was a sort of bitter enemies trying to be friends thing which I thought worked really well. Lisa Bowerman also did well in this story. Her previous story Here There Be Monsters was quite slow and I wasn’t keen on it however she certainly deserves praise for keeping this story entertaining and the pace constant. It may have took a while to get started but once it did it didn’t stop.

The open ended finish was totally out of left field because all other companion chronicles have a beginning middle and an end. Hopefully they will revisit the character of Sara Kingdom either in this series or future series. This is the best Companion Chronicles story of the series and possibly the best of the 13 that have been released. Superb.

The Juggernauts (2005)

The Juggernauts sees a three familiar classic Doctor Who elements return. This story is the first to feature the 6th Doctor and Mel since the One Doctor back in December 2001. Mel has not been the most well loved companion in Doctor Who history partly because she was just annoying. Since she made her debut for Big Finish the character of Mel has undergone something of a renaissance. Her good form continues in this story. This story has been written by Scott Alan Woodard who makes his first contribution to the range. Another return to the series is that of Davros. Genius creator of the Daleks, no character created in the Doctor Who has the magical madness that this one armed blind madman has. Davros has a habit of infiltrating his way into societies. The Juggernauts sees the 6th Doctor and Mel separated during to an incident on board a medical spaceship and after Mel gets into an escape pod she loses complete contact with the Doctor and tries to begin a new life on a colony on the planet Lethe. Soon she joins a team lead by Dr Vaso and when the Doctor lands and finds Mel he is shocked to discover that Dr Vaso is in fact Davros.

Another thing about this story that I liked was it was the first adventure since Remembrance of the Daleks back in 1988 that Davros and the Daleks featured in the same story. Also what Scott Alan Woodard had to do was as well as have the Doctor, Mel, Davros and the Daleks was to find a use for the Mechanoids who have only appeared once in Doctor Who history and that was back in 1965 in the William Hartnell story The Chase. They are massive things that don’t really have much of a purpose apart from getting in the way but in this story they served a purpose in terms of plot and emotionally. To be honest, apart from pleasing long time fans I don’t really see why they would be included. That said I did find them strangely useful.

What I like about this story is that the characters are so well written and there is such a good pace to it. The idea that Davros is using the inhabitants as Mechanoids was a stroke of genius and was a nice emotional plot twist that helped elevate Davros’ evil plans to a whole new level. Also the fact that Mel has basically started a new life on this planet and has adapted to the environment that she has found herself in shows a new side to the character that was never shown on TV.

Acting wise this story was very good. Colin Baker was also on top form and his relationship with Mel is not as childish or light hearted as it does in this story. It was interesting where the Doctor tried to convince Mel that the person she thought was Dr Vaso was in fact the evil genius who created the Daleks. He has a relationship with Mel that just never came out during their short time on TV. Bonnie Langford who despite all the critiscm that she has received for the role has come back to Doctor Who and played the Mel that should have appeared on TV. This is her best story to date because she actually spent most of the story doing what her character was originally meant to be good at, being a smart-aleck with computers.

Of the guest stars it is Terry Molloy who is the best. His version of Davros is absolutely fantastic and it worked on TV and also works on audio. When he was Dr Vaso it was also good because it shows that Molloy isn’t just good at playing evil genius’ but can play nice characters. His version of Davros wipes out David Gooderson who played it in Destiny of the Daleks back in 1979. Other roles in this story worked really well and helped create a good atmosphere that made it seem like it was a really nice place to live or at least be based at. Also there should be some credit to Nicholas Briggs who did the voices for the Daleks and for the Mechanoids. Other people of worth include Bindya Solanki who perhaps is most well known for appearing in the BBC soap Eastenders. Here she plays Sonali who is a nice likeable character. Klaus White plays Geoff who is another character who is well written, he forms a… feeling for Mel. Peter Forbes plays Kryson. Forbes has starred in Big Finish plays before. He played Dan Curver in the third series of Dalek Empire back in 2004. I quite liked the character Kryson. Other characters include Paul Grunert who played Brauer and Julia Houghton who played Loewen. Bother characters contributed well and were well written and well acted characters.

If there is a problem with this story is that Mel does very good in the first half of this story and carries it very well. What then happens is once the Doctor arrives and once Mel realises who Dr Vaso really is then her usefulness kind of falls away at the waist side. Aside from that it is a superb first story from Scott Alan Woodard. He has written a story that never gets boring at any point and that is not something that happens very often. Gary Russell also should be applauded for creating an atmosphere that varies from a spaceship to a colony without even dipping in quality.

Overall this was a really good story. The Mechanoids were a weird choice due to the fact of their solitary appearance 40 years ago but it surprised me that it worked and with the Daleks and Davros it served up to be one of the best stories of 2005. It shows that 1) Colin Baker is a superb Doctor, 2) Bonnie Langford’s renaissance as Mel continues and 3) There is a use for the Mechanoids after all.

Curse of the Daleks (2008)

The Curse of the Daleks is the third and final Stage play and boy is it a strange one. For one it doesn’t feature the Doctor which is totally out of the norm considering even in the Companion Chronicles the Doctor features in the story in one way or another. The story was written by David Whittaker and Terry Nation. Both had written a Dalek story during the 1960’s. David Whittaker was Script Editor on the series during the shows first series from 1963 to 1964. He also wrote The Edge of Destruction (1964), The Rescue (1965), The Crusade (1965), The Power of the Daleks (1966) and also The Evil of the Daleks (1967). Terry Nation obviously created them and contributed to the story to begin with. The original stageplay began its life back in December 1965. This was Nations’ first attempt to try and use them outside of Doctor Who with a hope of them cracking America and to see whether they could cope without the Doctor to try and lose their massive battles to. This story takes a long time to get warmed up. A bit too long for me as I think that a story has about 10 minutes to really get going before becoming a story that I am not going to enjoy as much. The beginning scene with Ladiver & Sline in the spaceship and the members of the crew seem to take a long time. Another reason why it took a long time to get going was because of the narration. It was strange at first because I am use to him talking in his normal voice and I find that when he does his serious voice it’s nice but it doesn’t really seem like its him. It was the narration and the use of the narration that helped move along the story.

Overall I did like this story because when it did get going it was very entertaining and all the characters were well written. Another thing I liked about it is that it seemed to follow shortly after the 1963 adventure The Daleks. The characters were believable and likeable. Top award has to go to Michael Pread who plays Ladiver, Pread has a nice voice for radio and it just made his character more likeable. The character itself was one that your not meant to like but there is just something about the way the Pread acts and the way that the character was written that just make the role a unforgettable one. His partner in crime had a bit of Kenneth Williams about him. I am talking Harry Sline played by Derek Carlyle. He also sounds like a kind of Dickensian character who can be seen robbing the main character of their livelihood. Having said that I did like him as a stand alone character but he worked best when he was with Ladiver. There was a sort of chalk and cheese relationship between them. Captain Redway was another really good character played really well by Patric Kearns with Beth Chalmers (a Big Finish regular) putting in a cold as ice style performance as Marion Clements. Other characters in this story include James George as Bob Slater, Glynn Sweet as Dexion and Denise Hoey who plays Ljayna. I thought that all the performances though varied in terms of relevance were all played superbly.

I do have a slight bug bear with this story and that is the narration by Nicholas Briggs. Now I am a big Briggs fan and applaud him for all his work for Doctor Who over the years however I do get put off when he does this serious and stern voice which isn’t really him. Its just hard to take a man serious when you know he does Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon etc. As a director he really nailed it in this story. Whilst it may have taken quite a long time for it to get going once it did it never stopped. Right up until the end there was drama and intrigue and if there were a sofa in my mind then I would be right behind there scared to peek over.

Overall this play was the best of series. Each story was really different yet really good. I thought that the fact that the Doctor isn’t in this would be a major flaw but I actually think that the way the story was written the use of the Doctor might have made the story weak. Along with the sound effects and the way that the story was told its hard to find a major fault with it and that is what I like about this story. This shows that being a Doctor Who story it doesn’t necersarily have to have the Doctor in it. It would be really good if the Daleks had their own series…oh wait!

Forty-Five (2008)

To celebrate the 45th Anniversary of Doctor Who, Big Finish decided that they were going to do four single part stories that have the same theme. When they did this for the 100th release the theme was 100. Well to celebrate the 45th Anniversary the theme was 45. In the past I have not liked single part stories. To me they just don’t work because I don't think that you could write a good strong story in 25 minutes. Whenever they have done stories like The Death Collectors or Exotron it isn’t the three part stories that let the release down but the single part. 100 was also a mild disappointment for me, some stories were good but then there were some that were poor. When they announced that they were going to do the same thing for Forty-Five my heart sank because I thought that they were going to make the same mistakes again. However this story is the exception and has started to change my mind about whether single part stories work. One other point to mote is that all the writers on this story are making their debut for Big Finish.

The first part was False Gods and written by Mark Morris. Set in 1902 it is an entertaining story that only really comes into its own in the last few minutes. Its quite strange that with the new series saying there are no Timelords yet in the Big Finish universe they are all over the cosmos. Morris wrote a story that created good characters that when the episode finished you felt you knew them well. The setting was quite a good one and I write this because normally historical settings are something that I am not a fan of but I put that to one side and just tried to figure out where the 45 theme would be placed. The moment that Ace got transported back in time was a shock and I then wondered how they were going to resolve this within the 25 minute format however they did and by the end of the first part I thought that the story was very good. Of the guest stars in this episode the best was Lucy Adams who played Jane Templeton who we thought was just a normal archaeologist but then turned out to be a Timelord. That was the second shock of the story and her death. Another shock that I felt came when the Doctor got really angry and vented that anger (rightly so) at Hex. Its something that I don’t recall witnessing in any Doctor Who form. The other guests of this story also did very well. Benedict Cumberbatch (really that’s his name, I’ve check on Wikipedia) was enjoyable as Howard Carter with Paul Lincoln putting in a good performance as Robert Charles. Another good performance came from Jon Glover as Creodont. As a story it was very good which packed such a lot in 25 minutes and managed to make it all seem sense. As an episode I would give it 3/5.

The second story was in fact my favourite, Order of Simplicity was written by Nick Scovell. This story was good because it used the Doctors necessity to be able to solve a problem or puzzle. Which is a character trait that follows all Doctors. I liked the idea that there is a virus that makes you stupid because most viruses that occur in Sci-Fi tend to work to kill you. Jon Glover put in another good performance as Dr Verryman who played the baddie role very well. Lucy Adams also gave another good performance as Mrs Crisp. There was something sinister about her performance which I really liked. Benedict Cumber batch and Paul Lincoln put in equally good and enjoyable performances as they are credited as Thing 1 & 2. Something that did strike me was the idea that there was a room of stupid people and then the moment came when they fought back. Nick Scovell has written a good story that is a lot darker but just as enjoyable as False Gods and what I liked about this story is the Doctor is put in a position where his intelligence is diminishing by the minute and that is a scary thought. The rating I would give for this episode would be 3/5.

The third story was Casualties of War written by Mark Michalowski which is the only story that I felt was the weakest of the four. It wasn't a bad story by any means but it was just OK. The idea that the story has loose links to the 1989 story The Curse of Fenric was a nice surprise as it added a more human side to the story. However I think that the looking back at Ace’s past has been done in the Fenric story and so to spend any more time on it is a waste really and even if they did put a new spin on Ace’s childhood then I think its something that can best be left untold. That said there were still some good characters and equally very good actors. Beth Chalmers was perhaps the best of the guest stars because of the fact that she played two good characters in the form of May & Audrey. Audrey was the best because that was the one that has the most emotional link to Ace being that she is Ace’s mother. Overall it was an ok story that doesn’t really leave a mark on me. The rating I would give for this story is 3/5.

The final story of the release was The Word Lord and was my second favourite story which with the quality of the stories is quite a strong statement. The story felt like it could have been a four parter easily but somehow managed to make it fit inside 25 minutes. One I things I like about this particular episode is that it has the greatest name for a baddie. Nobody No-one is the sort of nemesis that the Doctor should be facing more often and one that the TV Doctor could face. When I pictured what Nobody No-one would look like I imagine Skagra from Shada (the 1979 abandoned adventure). I don’t really know why but I suspect that might have something to do with Paul Reynolds who plays Nobody. The episode felt longer than 25 minutes which shows how much they managed to fit in such as short time. The frequent 45 references went un-noticed by me and when they were bought back in a list of when the number was mentioned was quite freaky. The setting also helps create the tension. Setting it in an Antarctic Base isn’t anything original but it helps add to the feeling of the story. Linda Marlowe performed well as Commander Claire Spencer as she was very authoritative throughout this story as was Andrew Dickens as Captain James Hurst. A very good story that keeps you enthralled throughout. In a way you feel that its wasted in just a single episode. The rating I would give this story is 4/5.

The release as a whole was a very good one and was a fitting tribute to Doctor Who. It seems that they have finally got the hang of telling short stories. Like the previous 7th Doctor story Kingdom of Silver's story Keepsake the short episode format was well written and entertaining. I really look forward to seeing whether Big Finish can keep up this good form. Sylvester McCoy was very good in this release and really shone for me in The Word Lord & Order of Simplicity. Sophie Aldred continues to play the loyal sidekick well but really stood out for me in Casualties of War with Philip Olivier sort of putting in a performance that we come to expect from him. Ken Bentley directed all episodes with a firm discipline and didn’t allow for the action to slow up and thus cause a rush at the end and ruining it. Ken Bentley is a real treasure for Doctor Who