2011 marks the 40th Anniversary of The Claws of Axos so its only fitting that this is when Axos makes its return. The return of the Axons occurs in the middle of the Brewster Series and after a thrilling Crimes opening story there was quite a bit riding on this story. For those who are a bit new to Doctor Who and haven’t watched The Claws of Axos (review for it is here), the Third Doctor encountered the Axons and it ended up with him sticking them in a time-loop. The duty of writing the return of the Axons falls to Mike Maddox who wrote the 2010 adventure Legend of the Cybermen. The thing about when Big Finish bring a classic monster back, even one that only appeared once, is that there has to be something new about them and something that we didn’t get in a previous adventure. We slightly get something like this in this story with the humans approaching the Axons as opposed to vice versa. The humans are all after the energy from Axons. The first set of humans are on board the Spaceship Windermere which has been financed by Campbell Irons (John Banks) but as usual, billionaires are without morals and has booby trapped the ship much to the annoyance of Joanna Slade (Andree Bernard). The second spaceship is the French run Jules Verne. Thankfully they weren’t portrayed as the evil French baddies who were without scruples but they were actually the good guys. I really liked the character of Joanna because it was so typical of a lot of female character in Big Finish plays where they are feisty people yet are slightly vulnerable. Andree Bernard does well with the character and is one of the best supporting actors in this play.
The story sees Bernard Holley return as Axos the role he originally played in 1971. This added a bit of a connection to the previous story. His voice is very distinctive and is at times very creepy. There are also references to The British Rocket Group which was mentioned in Remembrance of the Daleks. Colin Baker is as usual on very good form not just as the Doctor but as the Axon Doctor. I thought that the Axon Doctor was pitched just right. One stand out moment for me was when the Doctor thought that Evelyn was gone forever, there was genuine sadness and that was felt due to the acting of Mr. Baker. Maggie Stables is brilliant in this, she is the defender of Brewster and doesn’t even entertain the idea of the Doctors plan which would result in the death of Brewster. She also forces the Doctor to forgive Thomas and take him back to his own time. I don’t think that Peri or Mel would be able to have this effect. I thought that the moment where Evelyn was space walking was one of the funniest things I have heard for quite sometime. She was child like with a little “weeeeeeee” just to drill that idea home. John Pickard didn’t really have as much of an impact in this story as he did in Crimes. He found himself being helpful to the Axons but apart from that he wasn’t as productive as before. Hopefully this wont be the case in the next story but in this story he was still very good. I think that Pickard is very good as Brewster and the character does have a long future.
The Feast of Axos is a good story with some interesting characters and a nice relatively simple story. I think that this is Maddox’s best offering as I was never really sold on Legend of the Cybermen but with this story I am completely sold. I enjoyed it very much and think that it’s just as good as The Crimes of Thomas Brewster and it means that there is a lot riding on Industrial Evolution.
The story sees Bernard Holley return as Axos the role he originally played in 1971. This added a bit of a connection to the previous story. His voice is very distinctive and is at times very creepy. There are also references to The British Rocket Group which was mentioned in Remembrance of the Daleks. Colin Baker is as usual on very good form not just as the Doctor but as the Axon Doctor. I thought that the Axon Doctor was pitched just right. One stand out moment for me was when the Doctor thought that Evelyn was gone forever, there was genuine sadness and that was felt due to the acting of Mr. Baker. Maggie Stables is brilliant in this, she is the defender of Brewster and doesn’t even entertain the idea of the Doctors plan which would result in the death of Brewster. She also forces the Doctor to forgive Thomas and take him back to his own time. I don’t think that Peri or Mel would be able to have this effect. I thought that the moment where Evelyn was space walking was one of the funniest things I have heard for quite sometime. She was child like with a little “weeeeeeee” just to drill that idea home. John Pickard didn’t really have as much of an impact in this story as he did in Crimes. He found himself being helpful to the Axons but apart from that he wasn’t as productive as before. Hopefully this wont be the case in the next story but in this story he was still very good. I think that Pickard is very good as Brewster and the character does have a long future.
The Feast of Axos is a good story with some interesting characters and a nice relatively simple story. I think that this is Maddox’s best offering as I was never really sold on Legend of the Cybermen but with this story I am completely sold. I enjoyed it very much and think that it’s just as good as The Crimes of Thomas Brewster and it means that there is a lot riding on Industrial Evolution.
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