The Tomfiles: #16 - Big Finish Review of 2012

Has 2012 been a good year for Big Finish? This is a question I ask myself every year and this year has been a resounding YES. There are many reasons why this is the case, not only did we have Tom Baker finally make his debut for the range but there were plenty of stories that had potential to do well. Not only did we have the Fourth Doctor adventures but Counter Measures debut this year and the Sixth Doctor joined Jago and Litefoot in their series before getting some special adventures in the TARDIS. Now I usually do series but series review but this year I have decided to change things by doing my top ten of the year, these are all the ranges that Big Finish do so lets start right at number ten.

10 – WIRRN ISLE
Reviewed Sunday March 25

Wirrn Isle is the first of two stories from the opening series that feature in the top 10. It was the second story to feature the Wirrn. I liked how it had a classic Doctor Who feel to it and had it been any other year then it would have probably been story of the year contender material however due to the previous two stories in the series then it doesn’t rank as highly. This was William Gallagher’s first full story after contributing a story to Demons of Red Lodge and Other stories in 2010 and it was a nice ‘sequel’ to The Ark in Space where the descendants of the Beacon now live. For me there was one supporting character that really stood out for me and that was Toasty (Tessa Nicholson) that I thought stole the show at times. At number 10 it shows how good the rest of the stories are in this chart.

09 – DESTINATION: NERVA
Reviewed on January 15

This was an important release for Big Finish. Possibly the most important since Big Finish started. Tom Baker finally makes his debut in his own series. I don’t know what the sales were/are for this but I imagine its high. It was clear that Big Finish weren’t going to sit on their laurels because this story the first in the series was written and directed by Nicholas Briggs which is a clear indication of how high expectations were for this series. This opening story was exactly what was needed, it wasn’t too complicated and wasn’t brainless stuff. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson were on fine form and it was comforting to know that things were going to be ok.

08 – THE FIRST SONTARAN
Reviewed on July 31

As I write this the votes are still being counted  so I don’t know whether it will win Best Lost Story but it is certainly my favourite Lost Story because it was a Sontaran story and also a Rutan story. This is the most back story that the Sontarans have ever had and there are some wonderful scenes that help make this a clear winner out of all the Lost Stories. I mentioned in my review that I had high expectations and they were met, this is the strongest Sontaran story that Big Finish have done and it shows that there is still some mileage in the Lost Stories series even though this was a rare feeling.

07 – THE EMERALD TIGER
Reviewed on Thursday April 26

This was the first story of the year that I genuinely thought would be my story of 2012. It was a story that was a historical story (of sorts). One thing that I liked in this story was the casting of Cherie Lunghi. In my review I commented that “I thought that Cherie Lunghi was very good because she started off as this quite stuck up and unlikeable character but as the plot moves on she becomes someone who has suffered tragedy and we understand why she is as she comes across.”. The Tegan/Nyssa/Turlough series have been one of the highlights of recent years and it was nice how it continued this year.

06 – THE CURSE OF DAVROS
Reviewed on Sunday February 5

The Curse of Davros was my story of the month for January and it saw the return of Davros to Big Finish. It also saw the introduction of Flip to the series as a companion. It wasn’t your usual Davros story as it saw the Doctor and Davros swap bodies. I thought it was the most refreshing use of the Davros character since Terror Firma. In my review I described this story as “The Curse of Davros is a very good start to 2012. Jonathan Morris has written another story that doesn’t get bogged down in science fiction complexities but just goes from A to B in the most entertaining manner. At no point did it become boring or slow or anything that required to stop and think. It has a strong plot and also has the Daleks and Davros to help add superb icing to a very nice cake.” On reflection it shouldn’t have been surprising that this was going to be a good year, it should have been a clear indication that the quality was going to be high.

05 – THE WRATH OF THE ICENI
Reviewed on March 19

The Wrath of the Iceni is the best story of this series of Fourth Doctor Adventures and it was my story of the month for March. The whole series was one bit learning curve for Leela and this was the peak of that series. She got to meet her human equivalent. In my review I said “I really loved this story and found it to be thoroughly compelling from start to finish. I was worried that it was going to get bogged down in something dull but to be fair there is a sound reason for the story being in its setting and a strong plot which makes me wish that this were a slightly bit longer because I thought that there was enough to pad this out to be a four parter. John Dorney has written another solid story and its a return to form after a mixed previous story.”

04 – THE BURNING PRINCE
Reviewed on October 11

The Burning Prince was the first in the Multi-Doctor series and it was by far the best story of the trilogy. It was also my story of the month for September and  I was impressed with just how the worked. In my original review I said “The story has a fairly linear plot and there aren’t really any surprises in this but to be honest I don’t mind that because the story is so action packed and the characters are so well written that its almost a relief that the story isn’t complicated.”. I also commented that “Peter Davison gives one of his strongest performances in quite sometime”.  I think that the best kind of stories are ones that come out of left field and you just don’t expect that they will be as good as they are.

JOINT 2ND – UNIT: DOMINION & THE LAST POST
Reviewed October 25 & November 10 respectively

I tried for a long time to try and pick one over the other with these two but I just couldn’t, I couldn’t even separate them for the Story of the Month award. UNIT: Dominion was the first of the special releases which I maintain is the best of the specials. It was a joy from start to finish and it saw the return of Raine and most importantly Klein who last appeared in the 2010 story Architects of History. Alex McQueen is the big name and plays a very important person in this story which was worth every single penny that I paid.

The other story was the last story to feature Caroline John as she died shortly after this was recorded and it was always going to be a difficult story to listen to but instead of feeling sad whilst listening to it I was gripped from start to finish and found it the best Companion Chronicle story of the year. I have felt that the Liz Shaw stories have been a bit hit and miss so it was a relief that this was her best story. It was a lovely way to end Caroline John’s time with Big Finish.

1ST PROTECT AND SURVIVE
Reviewed on August 11

So we have reached what I consider the best story of the year from Big Finish and it was a story that came out of the blue. Protect and Survive was my story of the month for July and Big Finish hasn’t done a really dark story since Nicholas Briggs took charge of Big Finish in 2007. So it was quite good when this story seem to hark back to the early days of Big Finish. I thought that from start to finish it was a wonderful adventure with a very limited number of characters and more importantly superb performances from Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred. At times it was harrowing to listen to and that’s what is so good about this story which takes its name from a 1970’s Government leaflet about what to do in the event of a nuclear bomb going off.  I know that for many The Emerald Tiger is the best story of the year but for me this was better because it was bolder and more dark than Barnaby Edward’s story. Protect and Survive was my favourite Big Finish story of 2012 and my favourite for quite sometime.

It has been a truly superb year for Big Finish. There was a lot that could have gone wrong with the introduction of Tom Baker to the Doctor Who world and the special releases that Big Finish introduced in late 2012 could have also been a disappointment but that didn’t happen. 2013 looks like its going to be another great year because Bonnie Langford is to make her first Big  Finish  appearance since 2007 and Gallifrey returns for its penultimate series so in twelve months time I should have another tough job in trying to pick a top 10.

The Child (2012)

The Child is the final Companion Chronicle of 2012 and it’s a Leela story and its fair to say that we have had a lot of Louise Jameson in 2012 what with the Fourth Doctor adventures and Jago and Litefoot. Now I had some mixed feeling when I was about to listen to this because Leela in the Fourth Doctor adventures and Jago and Litefoot has been a joy to listen to but the Leela in the companion chronicles has been anything but. The last one which was The Time Vampire almost two and a half years ago wasn’t a particularly good story. This story (according to the interview at the end) is the first of three stories which makes sense when you listen.

When the story starts we get a woman talking in a child like voice having a ‘conversation’ with Leela. Leela is telling her a story which starts off quite serious but by the second episode it seems to have taken on a slightly comedic tone which wasn’t a problem just unexpected. I think that despite how strong the first part was I thought that the second was better. There is a mystery as to what is going on with Leela and Emily. Leela’s voice is not her usual voice as it has a ghostly quality to it but it still feels like the old Leela. The story starts off with the Doctor and Leela arriving in a place where there are loads of rooms exactly the same without anyone or anything in it. Nigel Fairs has done a great job in describing this world that the Doctor and Leela find themselves and the wonderful descriptions that are used help create a wonderful world and find a good balance between that story and the Emily story. The idea that Leela has to go on a journey with an old woman, a crow/raven like figure is something that has a nice comedic feel to it which works well in a Fourth Doctor adventure.

There’s not much I can really say about Louise Jameson because I will have written it several times this year and she is just as good as she always is. What I will say is throughout 2012 Louise Jameson has shown us different sides to Leela’s character and she manages to show another side in this story. She’s not the savage she was in Face of Evil but has developed during her time with the Doctor. Anna Hawkes is rather good as she does a convincing child voice and it was clear that the voice was suppose to be irritating because of the way that the character believes that the man of the family is the leader and all but admits that her mother is a servant to her father. They have some great scenes together.

It will be interesting to see where the two remaining stories  will go but on the basis of this story I am looking forward to the future stories. This was a massive improvement on The Time Vampire and I thought that The Child was the perfect way to end the year in the Companion Chronicles and Louise Jameson to end her best year for Big Finish. Nigel Fairs has written a magical story that suits this time of year and it was the best Leela Companion Chronicle that we have had and the future stories have a lot to live up to.

The Snowmen (2012)

It’s amazing how an episode on Christmas Day has become a tradition just like misery on Eastenders or the Queens speech. This is the ninth time that an episode of Doctor Who has aired on Christmas Day. The Feast of Steven was the first way back in 1965, it wouldn’t be until 2005 when David Tennant debuted as the Tenth Doctor that we got another Christmas Day offering. Since then its been a regular thing and The Snowmen doesn’t just mark Matt Smith’s third Christmas Special but it sees Jenna-Louise Coleman make her official debut after he surprising appearance in Asylum of the Daleks in September. The previous story was what I described as perfectly fine though I do think that there were things wrong with it. Here I had high expectations because

a)      we get a new companion

b)      we get a new TARDIS console

c)       we get killer snowmen at 5.15 on Christmas Day

d)      we get Richard E Grant in a Doctor Who story and finally

e)      Gandalf…sorry Sir Ian McKellen voices the snowmen

Now its quite a good thing that McKellen is voicing the Snowmen as he is currently reprising Gandalf in The Hobbit.  Right, in order to review this story I am going to have start from the beginning. This story seems to mark the beginning of the celebrations for Doctor Who’s 50^th Birthday. We get a new a new title sequence which had a nice brief image of Matt Smith’s face which is clearly a nod to the 1980’s title sequences where Doctors 4-7 had their face appear in the title sequence. I really liked it but then there is the small matter of the new TARDIS console room. I thought I liked the previous console room but when I saw this one I thought that it was much improved. It looks like its leaning towards the past of previous console rooms yet still feeling rather modern. It has the vibe of the original console room because it has a good kind of restrictive sense to it. The revelation was something that was held back. Most people would have known before this episode aired that there would be a new console and the wait was at times unbearable. It was one of those things that you just wanted to be done with so that the story could continue.

Speaking of the story it was nothing outstanding but that might come across as a critiscm. It’s not, sometimes in a Christmas Special I don’t want  an outstanding story because the specials are different from the rest. What we get in this story are killer snowmen which managed to come across as quite sinister everytime they were on screen and an ice sculpture of the Governess was another great creation.  To be honest I was more interested in what was going on with the Doctor and Clara to really worry about the strength or weakness of the plot. The plot does have some comedic moments in particular with the Doctor and Punch. It was a moment that makes you chuckle. Another was when the Doctor came in as Sherlock Holmes which is made all the more funny because of Steven Moffat’s involvement in the revived UK version of Sherlock. I suspect in 20 years time this joke may be lost on people but here and now, it works and works rather well. The humour isn’t over bearing but it does raise the spirits after a rather glum episode where the Ponds leave.

Now, if I have one issue to take with the production team it is the constant dumbing down of the Sontarans and Silurians. Ok they are not the greatest creations ever but I do get frustrated when they come across in the manner that we have in this story. Ok so Madam Vastra comes across rather well in the female equviliant of Jago and Litefoot but Strax is reduced to a comedic prop. I cant say that I didn’t find some of the scenes with him in it funny but I want a story where Strax (or any Sontarans for that matter) come and turn on the Doctor. That would be a good episode for the 50^th year.

Richard E Grant was very good in this as Dr Simeon. Throughout he had a look on his face of disdain for everyone which is what the young Simeon pretty much said in the first scene. It’s a shame that he wasn’t in more of the story but its difficult (impossible) to find fault in his performance. Sir Ian McKellen was great as The Great Intelligence. Is this Great Intelligence the same Great Intelligence from The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear? Time will tell but despite only having a vocal contribution to give to the story I thought that he was very good. He has a very strong voice which worked really well in this story.

Clara hasn’t officially joined the Doctor so when the second half of series 33 returns in a few months then we will know whats going on. I have my theories but time will tell if I am right. What I did like what they did at least acknowledge the fact that Clara looked like Oswin from Asylum. It would have been rather frustrating had this not happened. Overall I really liked this Christmas Special, a much improved addition on last year. The 50^th Anniversary celebrations are officially underway and it looks like its going to be rather good.

Night of the Stormcrow (2012)

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a subscriber bonus. In recent years we have had Daleks, Krotons and a return to the Web Planet. There has also been a return of Susan and a multi doctor and companion story. This year as it is the year that Tom Baker made his debut in the range that he would be the one that is used in the freebie. The story sees the Doctor and Leela arrive at an observatory where they are attack by something that can take over the minds of people. I love the remote setting of the story as I think that it cranks up the drama. As it is written by Marc Platt the one thing that you aren’t going to get is a straightforward adventure but sometimes that isn’t a bad thing.

I like how this has only come about because of people messing around with forces they don’t understand. It’s the classic thing in sci-fi where it eventually comes to bite the behind of the person or people that have been doing the messing.  The story starts off rather well with some wonderful scene setting as some rather nice music from Jamie Robertson. However as the story progresses it loses some of that magic. It picks up for the cliffhanger which I rather liked but then just carried on into the second episode. I was kind of hoping that the Stormcrow would be something more than what we got.

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are very good as you would expect if you had listened to the series earlier in the year but I was more interested in the supporting cast because it was the second story of the year for Chase Masterson who plays Peggy Brooks in this but I cant make my mind up about whether I liked Peggy more or Vienna. I think that Vienna probably edges it just because there were things in this story that made Peggy quite interesting. Going back to Tom Baker its fair to say that he has got a hold of the Fourth Doctor in the Big Finish universe as he manages to play it effortlessly here and Louise Jameson really has had a fantastic year which was ended well with a nicely written role in this story.

It’s always hard to knock something that is given to us for free as it’s a bit like biting the hand that feeds you. So its with a heavy heart that I say that I didn’t really like Night of the Stormcrow. It’s not terrible because all the characters that were in the story were well written for it was just the actual story that I struggled with and in the end I just didn’t enjoy it as I had done with previous subscriber specials. There are many reasons to listen to it as it has Tom Baker and Louise Jameson and it’s a Marc Platt story but I just think that The Wrath of the Iceni remains the best Fourth Doctor story of 2012.

1001 Nights (2012)

Toms Tardis Award Winner - Best Main Range Cover Design

1001 Nights is the last story from the main range release of 2012. The four single episodes is something that Big Finish have done for the last couple of year with Company of Friends (2009), The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories (2010) and Recorded Time and Other Stories (2011). From the cover (designed by Alex Mallinson), the story has an Arabian nights feel to it and it aso have a different feel to previous stories whereas the stories had all been self-contained with not real link, this has a story and short stories in the middle. Also unlike previous stories there is no specific story title with an author attributed to it. No such thing happens here. The story sees the Doctor and Nyssa trying to find a beacon to stop a threat from arriving. Instead of letting the Doctor and Nyssa find it, the Sultan wants Nyssa to tell him stories. The title comes up quite quickly as we are told that someone had to tell 1001 stories to keep someone alive, so Nyssa has to do the same to get the Doctor out.

The first story sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive where someone is being kept prisoner. He appears to be the only prisoner and there is only one guard. There is a force field protecting the prisoner and at first he seems to be someone quite dangerous but that is short lived when the prisoner says that the jailer is the dangerous one. The prisoner is a Myaxa and is being tortured to confess for something he doesn’t know what he’s done. In a clever twist, the prisoner and the jailer are the same person. The story has a fairly snappy end to it with both the prisoner and jailer being zapped but it doesn’t end glumly. There was a nice ending where the Myaxa (now as one) is left in the force field until its turned off. I quite enjoyed this story, it was short but had a steady and rapid build up to a nice and satisfying conclusion.

The second story is set in Norwood in the 19^th Century where Nyssa is being possessed. It’s basically The Excorist but in the Doctor Who world without any of the gore and horror. It turns out that the thing that is possessing Nyssa is a Crypto Conscious Virus called The interplanterian (not sure of spelling). We didn’t get the power of Christ compels you but we did get the power of Gallifrey compels you’. The word that the Doctor used to get the virus out of Nyssa was Tremas which was a nice link for Nyssa. I thought that when Nyssa and the Doctor left then that would be it but there was a nice twist where it continued  as the interplaneterian has moved to someone else and he is defeated by some special tea. The story itself was rather good and I enjoyed.

The third story sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive at a coastal town where they go to a pub where they seemed to be obsessed with telling stories. It seems that the locals of the pub are quiet what they seem. We learn there is a planet of tales and a planet of jokes. The mere idea is wonderful. The locals are all after the Doctor’s tales and we think that he had been drugged and they seem to be wanting to download his tales. The story ends with the locals memories got wiped. I liked this one because it was not what I was expecting. I thought that out of the three so far this was the one that I enjoyed the most. There was a nice wide range of characters that were nice to listen to.

The main story has seen the Doctor trapped with the old man and as the story progressed we learn that the Doctor is being used so that they can take the Doctor’s TARDIS. The Sultan (Siddig) turns out to be a Shanakey. He traps the real Sultan in his ship and makes him think he is in a cell. The fourth episode is where the main story takes centre stage where we learn whats really going on and the reason why Nyssa has been telling the stories. I liked the scene where the Sultan smells the air for the first time and he delivers a lovely speech, then there is the moment where he discovers that he has been held captive for a century. I thought it was a shame when he departed from the story and thought it would have been nice if at the end we find out that he was back in his rightful place.

I like it when the story seems to go up a gear in the final part where the Sultan pretends to be the Doctor, makes Nyssa forgets the Doctor and go travelling in the Doctor. I like how Nyssa manages to twig what is going on and then takes the TARDIS back. When Nyssa finds the Doctor we discover that the Doctor has been left for just over 3 years of 1001 nights. The ending of the story is rather good because the Doctor takes the Shanakey somewhere that will look after him and probably use him as a lab rat.

I always like the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa stories as Nyssa is one of my favourite companions and I always think that this partnership works well. Peter Davison doesn’t really get much to do until the final episode but when he does eventually get something to do he does it well. Sarah Sutton puts in a fantastic performance from start to finish. It’s always good when Sarah Sutton is the only companion because it means that she gets to show why the character is so good. The big name of the supporting cast was Alexander Siddig who won the Toms Tardis Award for Best Supporting Guest in 2010 for his role as The Captain in The Wreck of the Titan. Here he plays Sultan who is a very unlikeable character and Siddig plays the role wonderfully. I personally think that this was a better character than the captain but it shows what a good actor the Siddig is. The rest of the characters were all very good and there wasn’t a dud performance in any of them.

I thought that this was a lovely story. After the very tense and dramatic stories that we have had in the latter part of 2012 it was nice that we had a story that was very light in terms of dramatic weight but still felt like it was a proper Doctor Who story and it was the perfect way for the main range to end 2012 with. Out of all the stories with single episodes, this has to be the best because it seemed to work better, the main story along with the short stories all worked well together to make the whole release enjoyable.

 

Threshold (2012)

Counter Measures is the latest spin off release from Big Finish. I must admit that whilst I know that there were people saying that they wished Jago and Litefoot had got their own series, I cant say that I have ever heard people say the same for Group Captain Gilmore, Rachel Jensen and Allison Williams. When this originally came out I decided against it however as I had heard some good things about this I thought that I would take the plunge and give it a go. Besides, if anyone was going to make this work then it was going to be Big Finish. Gilmore, Jensen and Williams were all in the 1988 Seventh Doctor adventure ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. The name Counter Measures is the name of the group that Williams and Gilmore work for and Jensen is working elsewhere.

The first story sees an ex-Nazi scientist Professor Heinrich Schumann (Vernon Dobtcheff) dabbling with teleportation and getting some less than desirable results. The story is a very atmospheric piece that had a mystery to solve and that mystery was just who or what was causing the child voices. It was kept a mystery for just the right amount of time before it was revealed and the story could conclude in an enjoyable manner.

Rachel isn’t with Counter Measures but it doesn’t take long before she’s involved in the organisation and it was quite good that it wasn’t really made an issue of. She was staying with Allison whilst taking a forced holiday and then next thing we know she’s rolling her sleeves up and getting her hands dirty. I like the scene where she was trying to prove what caused the eerie child voices and thought that this was quite fitting for the character.

All the central performances were sound with Pamela Salem standing out for me as the best of the three. Simon Williams does sound different from the Gilmore we saw in 1988 but to be honest its not that different and I still bought that it was Gilmore. I was expecting that Gilmore would have some conflict to do with the military but that may come later. Karen Gledhill sounded just like Allison did in 1988 and I thought that out of the three it was the character of Allison came out best. I think that Hugh Ross deserves a mention as Sir Toby Kinsella. There is something iffy about the character which I suspect will be revealed at a later date but I thought that Ross was delightful as Kinsella. Vernon Dobtcheff was a good piece of casting as the mad professor. I like the professor because he had a horrible past but was trying to do something good and got into trouble. The scenes with Dobtcheff were very interesting.

One thing that people have commented on about Threshold and the series in general is the feel of the story is like a 1960’s ITC adventure. This is apparent from the style of the story and also the music that is used. It’s not like the more modern style that we would get in a Doctor Who story or even in Jago and Litefoot. Certainly the final scene where Rachel Jensen joins Counter Measures did seem to have the sort of feel that you would get in a 1960’s drama.

I must admit that whilst I wasn’t 100% bowled over with Threshold, there were things that I liked about this and have cause to be optimistic about this series. Like I said at the beginning, if anyone was going to make this work then it was going to be Big Finish. I thought that Paul Finch’s script managed to capture the feeling of the period that it was set without feeling like it was dated. He’s managed to flesh out the characters and it’ll be interesting to see what future stories will contain for these characters.

Rating – 7/10

The Shadow Heart (2012)

The Shadow Heart is the final seventh Doctor story of the year and after complaining that there wasn’t much of Sylvester McCoy in the main range, that has more than be sorted out in the bonus releases and this story. As the final story of the multi-Doctor series, there is a certain amount that this story has to achieve. The responsibility falls to Jonathan Morris who has had a cracking year with the what I consider story of the year adventure Protect and Survive and the equally entertaining The Curse of Davros. The thing that I knew about this story was that it would feature a character who would be getting her own series. Vienna Salvatori will be appearing in her own story in 2013 but now she plays someone who is after the Doctor.

Sylvester McCoy has had a really good year. After his relatively light involvement in the main range, he has been great in everything he has been in and it continues in this. As much fun as it is when the Seventh Doctor is with Ace and Hex, he seems to thrive when he is on his own. Two of the three stories that he did in 2011 were brilliant and he is just as good as in those stories. He was superb from start to finish. Chase Masterson plays Vienna and she has some history in the sci-fi genre having played Leeta in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1995-1999). She was exactly what this story needed. She sounded like she should have her own TV show and the way that Masterson plays the role in a way that is never dull, never repetitive and something that the Doctor Who world hasn’t had before. I loved the character of Talbar and Horval. It seems like Morris has taken a leaf from Robert Holmes’ book of having an amusing double act in his story. Eve Karpf (Talbar) and Alex Mallinson (Horval) worked brilliantly well together and at first I thought were better than Vienna. As the story settled down and Vienna took her rightful place.

As the story deals with timey-wimey things it only works because Jonathan Morris has done it and he has form with the 2003 story Flip-Flop which had two cds which could be listened to in either order and managed to make sense. I did at times lose what was going on but it wasn’t long before I found a thread in the story again.  I found the idea of Monkey bats and flying snails to be highly amusing and it could only happen in Doctor Who.

I thought it was a rather good story end for this series. It starts off really well and settles down in the middle before picking up again to give a solid end. But for me what makes this story worth listening to are the characters. That is what you get in a Jonathan Morris story, a good plot but very strong characters. As a series, I would say that it’s the second best series behind the Seventh Doctor series. I thought that The Burning Prince was the best story of the series followed by this one. It was an interesting idea to build a series round three different Doctors and it worked rather well. Whether a Vienna story would, only time would tell but on the basis of this story I think there is potential.

Return of the Rocket Men (2012)

Return of the Rocket Men is obviously a sequel to the 2011 story The Rocket Men. When I reviewed that story I was slightly disappointed with it and thought that for some reason it didn’t quite gel. Clearly there was enough for Big Finish to commission a sequel except instead of John Dorney, we get Matt Fitton who has written for the main range and this is his first foray into the Companion Chronicle world. Peter Purves replaces William Russell in this story as it is set during the Steven Taylor/Dodo Chaplet era of the show. The story starts off with a weird scene, Steven Taylor is on his own and is attacked by the Rocket Men. It’s quite an harsh moment when Steven’s shin is broken after he’s been beaten up by Van Kleefe. Especially on his birthday, but no sooner as we’re told about that then we go back to the ‘present’ day and just by the mention of Dodo’s name I am irritated. Thankfully that passes quite quickly.

The story is relatively straight forward and it works from start to finish. After the weird opening scene the story felt like a normal companion chronicle. I thought that the second half continued the good work that the first had done. A problem that I felt with The Rocket Men was that by the half way stage I was still wandering what the actual plot was but there wasn’t the same problem in this as it was clear where the story was going. The cliffhanger worked really well. I liked the speech that Steven gave at the end of the first episode, it was quite moving and it was just a shame that it was wasted for a mission to rescue Dodo. The whole thing about Return of the Rocket Men is that it shows what Steven Taylor was like before we met him in The Chase. It was a brave and almost action hero type character which is complimented by the way that Peter Purves delivers his lines. I am starting to regard Peter Purves’ performances on par with William Russell.  Tim Treloar was very good as Van Cleef. Van Cleef is an effective baddie and Treloar is good to listen to when he is narrating his parts of the story.

I quite liked this story, I thought that it was a fitting sequel to The Rocket Men and at 67 minutes long it moves at a pretty quick pace and I may go back and re-listen to it as a result. I thought that Return of the Rocket Men was an enjoyable adventure and in the extras there is the possibility of there being a third story which I would be looking forward to.

Dark Eyes (2012)

The Doctor is reborn…well that’s what it seems like. There is a new look to the Eighth Doctor which has remained the same since Paul McGann debuted for Big Finish in January 2001. It was clear that this special release wasn’t going to be a happy laugh a minute affair. Out of the special releases that I was aware of, this was the one that I had some high expectations of. This was partly due to the extraordinary way that the last Eighth Doctor adventure ended and it’s been an awful long time since then and now we get the next chapter. Now over four episodes we get what is an effective conclusion to this part of the eighth Doctor era.

The story takes place after the events of To The Death. Where Lucie Miller and Tamsin Drew were killed by the Daleks as well has his great grandson and the Doctor is a broken man at the very beginning where he is trying to take the TARDIS to the brink before he is stopped. Having a downbeat and suicidal Doctor is not something that we are really use to. But the Doctor is stopped by Straxus who was previously played by Nikolas Grace in Sisters of the Flame and Vengeance of Morbius. Straxus gives the Doctor hope by sending him to the Western Front in World War One. Now I would think its fair to say that there are better places to find hope than in a war zone.  Here he meets Molly O’Sullivan and they spend the story trying to fight Daleks.

The Daleks plan is quite a good one and I love it when there is a massive sense of scale and especially when its different to trying to invade a planet. The point of trying to wipe out timelords seems to lend itself towards the Time-war era of the Doctor which is good because the closer we get to that then the closer I feel like there isn’t such a big hole between the eighth and ninth Doctors. Molly is effectively a weapon that is being used to try and wipe out the Timelords designed by Kotris. Strange things happen throughout. Basically the Doctor blacks out and when he wakes up he is in a different situation that anyone else wouldn’t have been able to get out of and Molly is always with him. Thankfully this is explained in a satisfactory way and not rushed at the end. I think that the big plot point that Kotris is actually Straxus’s future regeneration might bother some people and they might have seen it coming. But I thought that it done better than in Trial of a Timelord.

Paul McGann is very good in this and its clear that he has got some new energy in this story. How much of its down to the fact he gets a new costume is unclear but I must say on that point I think that it’s a rather good outfit. I will miss the TV movie version but its always good to have a change every once and a half decades or so. He is still getting over the recent deaths and yet there are more in this story that he has to come to terms with but McGann’s Doctor does it in a way that is better than the way any other Doctor would do it. That’s the genius of McGann’s Doctor.

Ruth Bradley plays Molly O’Sullivan who is a VAD. Did you know what a VAD was? I didn’t. Apparently it stands for Voluntary Aid Detachment. She is introduced to us in an unusual way as she is writing a letter but we get a clear idea of who she is and what she does. The letter thing is maintained throughout the four episodes. The big mystery with Molly is just how can she recognise the TARDIS and be able to fly it like she’s been doing it forever whilst maintaining that she doesn’t know whats going on. The character’s journey was very interesting and it makes the listener connect with her. I liked how when she had the chance to either stay with the Doctor or leave, she decided on the latter which was the right thing for the character to do. She was feisty and funny in equal measure and it wasn’t going to be easy to replace Sheridan Smith but Ruth Bradley has done a good job.

The biggest name in this story is that of Toby Jones who appeared in the 2010 episode Amy’s Choice. Here he plays Kotris (a.k.a X) who is a Timelord and pops up every so often for a blink and you’ll miss it scene. Whoever decided to ask Toby Jones to play a part in this deserves a massive round of applause because it was a fantastic piece of casting. Everytime that I could hear his voice then I would be totally enjoying the scene. Jones is one of those actors who is brilliant in whatever he is in even if the tv programme or film is poo.

At the end of the day, Dark Eyes is an enjoyable adventure that had a lot to live up to after To The Death and whilst I don’t think it quite pulls it off, there is plenty to like about this adventure. Hopefully it won’t be so long between adventures for the eighth Doctor because this moody and slightly downbeat Doctor is quite fun in a weird kind of way.

The Last Post (2012)

The Last Post is the last story to feature Caroline John as Liz Shaw. I remarked when I was reviewing ‘Binary’ that when this story came around it would have a different feel to it. This is the second story to be written by James Goss who previously wrote ‘The Time Museum’ which I wasn’t a big fan of. This story also sees Liz’s family introduced as the other person playing her mom.  The story is quite similar to ‘The Three Companions’ as the majority of this story takes place in letters and phone calls, this is quite different to how other stories in the series are structured and it was done rather well.

The story sees people who are going to die and they receive a letter that tells them of this. Now I like this idea but what makes it work even better is that it ties in several deaths that we encounter in the stories on TV that feature Liz. That’s quite a clever thing that James Goss has done and it doesn’t feel like its indulgent but just a nice thing to do.  It’s a wonderful way of making this feel like it takes place in the period that its suppose to be. It’s not something that I think has been pulled off in a Liz story. The early part of the story starts off with a mystery as to who or what is sending the letters and also perhaps just as importantly why. This is a mystery that is part of what I liked about this story. When we discovered what was causing this it occurred at just the right time and more importantly it made sense and suited the style of the story.

Despite the Liz Shaw stories not always being as strong as they could be, Caroline John always played the role with such grace and love that you would almost forgive the story not being up to scratch because it enabled us to hear Caroline. The fact that we have a family introduced into this story means that it gives Caroline John a chance to play a different side to Liz as we have never met anyone from her personal life except for a friend in ‘The Blue Tooth’ way back in 2007. The desperation in her voice when she knows her mother has had a letter was one of the many highlights of this story. Rowena Cooper is brilliant as Dame Emily Shaw.  She is a very charismatic person and its nice that she has achieved as much as her daughter and you can see where she gets here intelligence from. The cliffhanger that involves her is one of the best cliffhangers that I have heard for quite sometime, its quite difficult to achieve this in a companion chronicle but Goss has pulled it off.

It was planned that we would have many more adventures with Liz’s mom but sadly this wont happen which is one of those things that we will wonder ‘what if’. It’s quite nice that the last Liz Shaw story was the best. It was nice to listen to and I’m surprised that whilst I was listening to it I wasn’t thinking that it was to be the last one. I was instead thinking what a wonderful companion chronicle it was. I think it’s the best one of the year just beating ‘The Rings of Ikiria’, I don’t think its because of it being Caroline John’s last story but just because it’s a solid story from beginning to end…and also it’s the best Liz Shaw story ever.

The Acheron Pulse (2012)

The Acheron Pulse is the middle story of this multi-Doctor series. Now being the middle story of a series is not an enviable position because it has an awkward job to do. It has to tell a good story itself but compliment the previous story and give an good set up for the final story. It’s an almost thankless task and sometimes the writer pulls it off and sometimes they just miss the mark by an inch and in the case of this story it’s the latter. Rick Briggs has written Witch from the Well which I rather liked and so along with my enjoyment of the Burning Prince I had high hopes for this story. It takes place some 30 years after the Fifth Doctor’s adventure.

The story picks up in the middle when the Prince makes a surprising return. I say surprising because at the end of the previous story, he was pushed out of the ship and presumably to his death. Of course this isn’t the case and it leads to a cracking start to the third episode. Unfortunately the problem that I have with this story is that it didn’t grab me in the way that Witch from the Well or The Burning Prince had. The opening episode seems to set the tone and pace of the story which is that nothing really dramatic seems to happen and I notice that the first episode ran at 33 minutes and 28 seconds and that is the shortest episode. I think had five minutes from each episode being cut then it would have made for a snappier story.

Colin Baker is perfectly good but it’s not his best story.  He has some good moments which show why his Doctor is so good in a Big Finish play. Having this Doctor without a companion is just as unusual for number six than five. In fact this is only the third time and the first since I.D back in April 2007.

James Wilby is an effective baddie in The Acheron Pulse as Tenebris. I thought he was a highlight in a story where characters weren’t as strong and they normally would be. The rest of the supporting cast did as good a job as they could and the one thing that you can never accuse a Big Finish play of is having a cast where they don’t give 100%. Jane Slavin (Teesha) and Carol Noakes had some good lines but were overshadowed by Wilby.

The problem that I have with this story is that I tried at least three times to try and get a handle on this story but I just couldn’t and usually if it takes more than three attempts to start from the beginning then I can tell that I’m not going to enjoy this as much as other stories. It’s not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just that compared to Witch from the Well and The Burning Prince I just found it average.

Voyage to Venus (2012)

Voyage to Venus is the first of two special Jago and Litefoot releases. At the end of the fourth and most recent series, the sixth Doctor invites Jago and Litefoot to join him on an adventure.  The thing about this release was that it was released a month early which to my recollection has never happened before, certainly since I have been a subscriber. Anyway the story takes place on Venus which is being run by women who live in a city above the clouds and pretty soon the Doctor, Jago and Litefoot are involved in a war between the original inhabitants and the women.

After being glad that Love and War was made because it was the start point for the Benny/Ace/Seventh Doctor part of his timeline. I’m glad that Jago and Litefoot have finally got to travel in the TARDIS. It’s been something that I have been looking forward to since I first watched The Talons of Weng-Chiang. But Voyage to Venus and the next adventure can’t be just about that and I’m happy to say that it isn’t. The story is pretty straight forward but amusing from start to finish. The reaction of two Victorian gentlemen finding themselves not only in a spaceship that’s bigger on the inside than the outside but on another planet in another time was what you would expect. I found Jago’s reaction to me very amusing though I thought that Jago being referred to as Jago-maam was somewhat tiresome after a while.  The idea that there is a planet run by women and men referred to as mere tools for reproduction aren’t a new idea but it works rather well in this context. The whole feel of this story was that it was more of a Jago and Litefoot story as opposed to a Doctor Who story. The stories that Jonathan Morris has written over the last couple of years have tended to focus more on being entertaining than opposed to be complicated and getting bogged down in paradoxes and stuff like that. He wrote Protect and Survive which I think is one of the best stories since Enemy of the Daleks and whilst Voyage to Venus isn’t on that level or that dark it’s still a good story with strong characters that you can either like of dislike.

Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter have always been a joy to listen to ever since Jago and Litefoot first appeared back in 2009 the fact that they are thrown into a totally unusual setting was always going to be one of the selling points of this story and they both put in brilliant performances. Benjamin in particular was good form as Jago seemed to be finding it harder to deal with that Litefoot. Colin Baker is effectively the guest star of this release which is a weird way of looking at it. The Doctor wasn’t here just to get Jago and Litefoot from A to B but was also there to be the Doctor and it’s another top performance from Colin Baker and its almost the end of another good year for this Doctor. The supporting performances were all very solid and no one really put a foot wrong which is always good.

Voyage to Venus is a wonderful adventure. It was what I hoped it would be and now we can say that Jago and Litefoot have travelled in the TARDIS.  This is the third of the special releases that I have listened to and they have all delivered in different ways. The next story sees Jago and Litefoot travel to the new world and hopefully it will live up to the standard that this story has set. On a side note, you can buy this on CD for £5 and on download for £1. Yes I there isn’t much that you could buy for £1 that makes you feel like you have got your moneys worth and for £1 there isn’t really much that you could grumble at.

Love and War (2012)

Love and War is the second of the special release Bundle and I have just listened to UNIT: Dominion so Love and War always had a tough job to try and top that. This story was what set up the character way back in 1992 and so in its 20^th year, Big Finish have decided that this is the story they would use to celebrate this milestone. This story was originally a novel by Paul Cornell for the Virgin New Adventures range and I must say that despite knowing of the range, I have never read a single book so whilst some people may be able to spot the differences between the audio and novel versions. I can only go on what is presented in this 2 and a half hour story. Adapted by Jacqueline Rayner, the story sees the Doctor and Ace arrive on the planet Heaven. The story starts off with an eight minute prelude which I thought was quite an odd thing to do but it’s an interesting eight minutes. The reason why the Doctor wants to go to Heaven is quite a boring reason but it’s clear that the Doctor is up to something and it’s not long before the adventure kicks into top gear.

There are many things to like about Love and War. The main thing for me is that it’s the prelude to the two main range adventures ‘The Shadow of the Scourge’ (2000) and ‘The Dark Flame’ (2003). It was always interesting to find out just how Bernice ended up joining the Doctor and it’s a relief that this has finally being done and that’s another thing off my wish list of things I would like to hear in Big Finish. Having being quite late to the Bernice stories having only listened to the first series of Big Finish adventures, I found the Bernice that we got in this story to be pretty much the same one as we heard in ‘Oh No It Isn’t’ (1998), it’s quite impressive from both a literary perspective and an acting perspective that there is a nice continuity over nearly a decade and a half. Something that I don’t think has been looked at (not before series two anyway) is what made Bernice the person we hear in these plays and it’s involves Daleks which is a nice way to make the Doctor sympathise with her in a way that is different from the norm. Lisa Bowerman is very good in this play and despite this being a celebration of the character of Bernice Summerfield, she doesn’t take centre stage and Lisa plays the character in just the right way with the right amount of humour and determination that we have come to expect.

The Love aspect of the story centres around Ace. Now I’m not normally a fan of romance in Doctor Who when it involves the regulars because to me it gets in the way of the action and it normally goes into sickly sweet territory and totally ruins and tension or drama that was going on. Certainly there were moments when it looked like it was going to get a bit sickly sweet but credit to Jacqueline Rayner who has written a very solid script and managed to keep the Ace/Jan romance going just right. Sophie Aldred gets to play the angry Ace in possibly some of the most dramatic scenes that Ace has been in for quite some time. Her anger at the monsters and at the Doctor seemed to be in equal measure. It was hinted at early on that Ace would leave the Doctor but it was obvious that this wasn’t going to be the case and that made the ending even more effective. James Redmond played the love interest and to be honest I think at times the sort of lack of anger/fight in the character did become a problem but after the story had finished I thought that it kind of complimented Ace.

Sylvester McCoy was brilliant in this. His Doctor is renowned for being a manipulative Doctor and there are several scenes which are brilliant and wouldn’t have been as effective had it not being Sylvester McCoy in the role. The Doctor has always played his companions as puppets and in several stories in the last couple of years in the main range this has been addressed but in this story it seemed like the Doctor had to take a long hard look at his actions and McCoy is brilliant at being sombre and deep in thought.

If I had to pick a fault it is that I found the monster threat to be a bit underwhelming. They sounded great and certainly grabbed my attention in their scenes but I would be lying if I said that they an effective menace. Also the cliffhanger was a bit of a disappointment because it went from romance to drama with no real sense of a build-up.  Apart from that Love and War is a very enjoyable release. It’s not up there with UNIT: Dominion but there is plenty to enjoy and at £12.99 for a download and £14.99 for a CD it’s certainly value for money and a story that is going to be like a fine wine, it’ll get better with age.

On a final note, my favourite line was from Bernice when she said “This is the last thing a Donought sees” That did make me chuckle.

Rating - 7.5/10

UNIT: Dominion (2012)

One of the most anticipated releases of 2012 if not for many years. It’s a four hour epic with each episode is around an hour long. This story was written by Nicholas Briggs & Jason Arnopp and it’s the latest story in the UNIT series which originally ran for four stories in 2004 and 2005. Big Finish are doing several ‘special releases’ and this was one of two that I have been looking forward to for months (other being Dark Eyes). After having a series of somewhat Doctor lite stories recently it was delightful knowing that we were going to get significantly more of the Seventh Doctor. The benefit of having each episode an hour long is that it means that the story can have time to grow and we can really get involved in the story. That’s on the basis that the story is interesting and worth listening to and that’s the case with Dominion. This story sees the return of Klein who became a scientific advisor to UNIT at the end of The Architects of History back in 2010. In that story Klein has had certain aspects of her memory wiped. The Doctor is currently travelling with Raine and Ace is on Gallifrey and so we get about a dozen words out of Sophie Aldred which is probably the best thing to do.

One thing that UNIT: Dominion plays on is the authouritive figure that is fame hungry and wanting to take all the limelight when things are important and Colonel Lafayette (Julian Dutton) is the one given the task of playing it here. Dutton plays it brilliantly as every time he speaks you know he doesn’t know what he’s doing as is going to meet a sticky ending and that is exactly what happens when he addresses the Skyheads. It’s sort of what happens to the US president in Sound of Drums (2007). There are several superb creations that in the run up we were given teasers to were absolutely outstanding on audio. The Mindleeches sounded absolutely creepy  and when they first encounter the UNIT soldiers it’s because of Private Phillips that they come across as a truly terrifying monster. The Skyheads were visually well realised and also worked quite well on audio.

Alex McQueen plays ‘The Other Doctor’. Best known for appearing in shows like The Inbetweeners, The Thick of It and Holby City (also he appeared in Paradise 5). His very first seen is something that wouldn’t be out of place in a Little Britain sketch. This style continues throughout. It’s clear that he is up to something and that is what I liked about the character early on. As the story progresses I start to like this other Doctor even though it’s clear he is up to something. As the story moves along it becomes clear that the Other Doctor is in fact The Master. The cliffhangers for parts one and two were relatively good but part three was by far the best because the other Doctor’s true identity was revealed. I don’t know whether other people saw this coming but I certainly didn’t. I was pleasantly surprised and didn’t see it coming at all. McQueen was brilliant from start to finish and whoever it was that decided to ask him to star in this deserves a pat on the back because it was brilliant casting. McQueen played it with the right mix of menace and campness that the character should be played with. Sylvester McCoy is on his usual standard form in this and after missing him so much during the mini-series earlier this year it was good that he is quite involved in the story and doesn’t just turn up in the final quarter. It’s also good to have Beth Chalmers back in the Doctor Who universe as I quite liked the character during the Seventh Doctor batch of Lost Stories. Here she seems to be slightly better written for which would make sense as the Lost Stories wouldn’t have been originally written for Raine. Here Chalmers is given the chance to play the role of companion and thrives. However the big USP of this was the return of Elizabeth Klein who appeared in the 2001 story Colditz before return for a series of stories in 2010. Tracey Childs is a superb actress and one of the things that I liked about her 2010 run was how she managed to fool people in thinking that Klein was a good character before remembering she that was a Nazi. Childs plays the role brilliantly and it’s because of her that the character has become so popular and will hopefully return in future stories.

This story has superb and strong central performances but there are also very strong supporting performances. In no particular order let’s start with Julian Dutton who played Colonel Lafayette. I really liked the character and thought that he was played well. His demise was inevitable and it could be argued it could be predictable but I don’t mind as I thought it was enjoyable. Next is Sam Clemens as Major Wyland Jones. Wyland-Jones is the Colonel’s replacement and within about 20 seconds we are meant to realise that the colonel was actually far easier to get on with than the Major.  Bradley Gardner plays Sergeant Pete Wilson is intended to be the likeable and the character that the listener is supposed to connect with. When he shoots Klein in part four I thought that it only worked because he was so well liked and such a nice person. Had it been someone else then it wouldn’t have worked but Gardner does a good job with it.

There was a moment when it seemed that Klein had been killed and I was shocked because I thought that it was a shame but then it turns out that she is only wounded. I’m glad that they didn’t kill her because it would have ruined the story for me as I think that there is potential for future stories for the character and actually at the end the Doctor gives Klein a space time telegraph which he gave the Brigadier in the 1970’s. This means that future Klein stories are inevitable rather than possible.

The story is a very good one and there was a very real possibility that it was going to drag and run out of steam quite quickly but I honestly can’t say that at any point during the four hours of drama I never once got bored, never once got confused and never once stopped caring about the characters. It’s a credit to Jason Arnopp and Nicholas Briggs to pull this feat off. I had very high expectations of UNIT: Dominion and thought that they were met very quickly. UNIT: Dominion is a currently priced at £30 (£25 for download) and its incredible value for money. At around 238 minutes it works out as around 12.5pence per minute. If you want value for money and want an epic story to go with it then UNIT: Dominion is as good a place to start. Definelty one of the best releases of 2012.

 

Rating - 9/10

Dragons Wrath (2000)

Dragon’s Wrath is the final story in the first benny series. It is also the first story since the Time Ring trilogy. The story starts off with a slightly dodgy opening with some singing, I call it singing but I don’t think it would get through on X-Factor (then again!) but after that we get into the story and it feels  like the Benny stories before the trilogy. It has an interesting set up before the story sees our favourite heroine involved in drama surrounding an artefact known as the Gamelian Dragon. The thing that I like about this story is that it doesn’t waste any time as the plot moves along. The story sees Benny arrive a dig for a statue that as the plot progress isn’t what is seems. Then there is a mock trial and then we find out that it has something to do with the Knights of Jeneve. I understand that the novel of this story has far more going on than what we get in this audio story. The biggest lose is of Irving Braxiatel. I know that this character would go on to be quite important in the story of Bernice Summerfield but it was probably a wise thing to do to end this first series without the Braxiatel character.

Each story has featured someone from the TV series era of Doctor Who and in one story a future companion. In this story we have Richard Franklin who plays the wonderful Romolo Nusek who plays the villain of the story. The character of Nusek is well thought out and Franklin seems to having a ball playing him. He could have been a bit more a bit more sinister but it was an amusing performance. Lisa Bowerman continues to impress as Bernice. After the somewhat grim circumstances the character was in during ‘Just War’ it was nice to see the old Bernice back. Jane Burke is a good performance as Truby Kamadrich though it was the best of what was otherwise a standard group of characters.

I really liked this story as it was a relatively normal story. After what was a fairly dark story it was inevitable that they would go for what was a more light hearted story however they didn’t go overboard and what we got was an enjoyable adventure which was the shortest of the Bernice stories of the series. I think that it’s the perfect end to what has been a promising series. As I am still relatively new to the Bernice Summerfield I must say that I’m not 100% sold on this range but I think that as the stories and series progress then the stories might get stronger.  Overall I would give the series 7/10 as there was plenty to like though I think in hindsight I would have left the trilogy for another series but that’s my only real gripe with the series.

The Burning Prince (2012)

Since Big Finish have been doing series the one thing that has always been the same is that it features one Doctor, the stories might not necessarily be linked but it always has the same Doctor so this series of adventures marks a change. After the rather dark tone of stories that we had with the Seventh Doctor it was nice that we have what in spite of the cover is a rather lighter story. This is also the first time since I think Omega in 2003 that the Fifth Doctor features in a companionless story. The story sees the Doctor land on a ship which is looking for a lost princess and on this ship is a prince who has a bit of a fiery temper. There is the added threat the if the prince doesn’t find the princess then peace will not be possible and war will ensue. The story doesn’t waste anytime in telling the story as it is action packed from start to finish.

The story has a fairly linear plot and there aren’t really any surprises in this but to be honest I don’t mind that because the story is so action packed and the characters are so well written that its almost a relief that the story isn’t complicated. After Gods and Monsters it was nice to be able to follow a story from episode one to four. There wasn’t an episode that really stood out as they were all very strong and also I liked the cliffhangers which weren’t over the top and weren’t lacklustre, they all served a purpose and I liked them.

Peter Davison gives one of his strongest performances in quite sometime. I think it was the fact that he didn’t have Nyssa or Tegan or Turlough with him. Don’t get me wrong I like the chemistry that the Doctor has with those characters but its nice that the Doctor is on his own as it gives Davison the chance to play the Doctor different and it feels like he is revelling in it. The supporting performances are very strong. I liked George Rainsford as Prince Kylo. It didn’t take long for the fiery side of his character to come out and Rainsford did a good job in coming across as a nice guy that has this dark side. However the standout performance for me was from Kirsty Besterman as Princess Aliona. It’s one of the standout performances of the year in my opinion.  

The Burning Prince is a highly enjoyable adventure that would be my favourite story from the main range had Protect and Survive not been released. The story is solid with some perfect performances and a story that never gets boring and never feels like its getting bogged down in things and it was a shame when it ended.

Rating - 9/10

The Rosemariners (2012)

The final story of the third series of Lost Stories concludes with a Second Doctor adventure which was written by Donald Tosh who was the story editor on Doctor Who during the mid-1960’s. This is a Lost Story but it’s sort of a Lost Story/Companion Chronicle because it is told in the style of a companion chronicle but has a longer running time and also has more people in it. The story sees the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arriving at a research station that is about to be closed down. It’s always good to hear Frazer Hines’ impression of the second Doctor because it’s so spot on and always a joy to listen to. The story seems like it’s going to be the fitting end to the series with Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury back together and David Warner thrown into the mix but yet despite the great actors that have been cast ultimately it doesn’t work and what we have is a bit of a mess. It’s mainly due to the script which was adapted for audio by Tosh and it would have helped if someone like Alan Barnes or Jonathan Morris were involved because they could manoeuvre it so that the story moves at a pace that wouldn’t be out of place for the fifth or sixth Doctor.

The performances are relatively good. Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury can always be relied upon to deliver a solid performance and it felt like they are back in 1968/69. One of the few goods things I can say about this story is that the feel of this story (especially the first episode) has a feel of the second Doctor era. It’s always a joy to hear David Warner who has a wonderful voice and he does the best that he could with what is a relatively unremarkable role. Clive Wood is also perfectly fine as Rugosa but again his character is relatively standard and isn’t one of the best written characters that has been put in a Big Finish play. It’s nice that there is a relatively small cast and set of characters because it provides an intimacy that you don’t get very often but thats about the best thing that I can say

It’s not my favourite Lost Story as I just got so lost (forgive the pun) with what was going on that after a while I kind of stopped caring with what was going on and despite having to listen to this story from the beginning at least four times I just couldn’t get into the story. It’s not as bad as The Hollows of Time because that was truly terrible but I can’t say that I could recommend this to anyone. Personally I think that like The Masters of Luxor, this story would have been better in its own special release and not with the series. The way that I judge whether a Lost Story is any good or not is whether I wish it had stayed lost. It happened once or twice in the first series and unfortunately it happened here.
Rating 5/10

Gods and Monsters (2012)

So it comes down to this. The seventh Doctor series comes to a close with Gods and Monsters which sees the return of Fenric who the Doctor had encountered in 1989. Big Finish have a good track record when it comes to bringing back monsters who appeared in Doctor Who once. They did it with the Spiders from Planet of the Spiders, the Zygons in Terror of the Zygons just two that I could mention. This story has a lot to live up to and not just because it’s the final story of the series but because of the links to stories going back as far as 2009. This isn’t a story that you could just dive into because you would need to start really with Toms Tardis Award winner The Magic Mousetrap. With this story having so much to live up to it has taken two people to write this adventure.  As Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox work hard to tie up all the loose ends, the story is a fairly complex one (which I expected). The setting jumps from different location to different location and it all seems to be part of Fenric’s game with the Doctor but it is only quite late on that we discover that the game isn’t Fenric vs. the Doctor but Fenric vs. Weyland. I personally found this a slight disappointment as it kind of goes against what happened in ‘The Curse of Fenric’ but one thing about this story is that there isn’t any time to ponder on these thing as it moves so quickly. The ending of Gods and Monsters came totally out of the blue and what made it even more shocking was Ace’s reaction which used the underlying chemistry between Ace and Hex to excellent effect.

All the performances in this story were solid and they rose to the occasion. This is Sylvester McCoys best story purely because it’s the most that we have heard from him this year. Every scene he was in was fun to listen the dialogue he was given was great. McCoy is at this best when he has someone like Fenric to be against because the Doctor has to really test his nerve and intelligence. Sophie Aldred put in another great performance where I one scene we discover that Ray from Delta and the Bannermen could have been a companion instead of Ace. Aldred was quite involved in The Curse of Fenric so it was always going to be the case that Ace was going to be used in the way she was here. Philip Olivier seemed to be the one that got the short straw as he was treated like the small child that the big brother or sister has been asked to babysit. It was only in part four that he really got to get stuck into the meaty part of the story. Due to the plot, this allows Olivier to give his best performance in quite some time. As the other ‘companions’, Maggie O’Neill and Amy Pemberton give very strong performances. Despite being part of a very crowded TARDIS crew, both managed to show that they weren’t making up the numbers and made the characters seem just as important as Ace and Hex and despite the relatively limited time that they have been part of the Doctor Who world is quite an achievement. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they return.

Gods and Monsters is everything that it should have been and it was a relief because there was a big chance that it could have totally blown it. I still maintain that Protect and Survive is the best story of the series but that doesn’t mean that G&M doesn’t have its own merits. This was the sort of story that you would expect from Alan Barnes but I get the feeling that Mike Maddox might have helped make it more understandable. The final scene with Hex hints that he may return and if that’s the case then it will make the next Seventh Doctor adventure something to look forward to.

Rating - 7/10

The Angels Take Manhattan (2012)

The end here. After over two years, the Ponds have left us. The question that seemed to be in the air was ‘Will the Ponds be killed off?’. It seems impossible now that people can leave the Doctor with a simple goodbye. To my knowledge, only Martha has had a nice exit so I was wondering what sort of exit the Ponds would get. I must admit I was slightly annoyed that River Song was going to be returning as I felt that she had been overused in the previous series. So with that minor niggle I looked forward to this story which saw the return of what I think are the best monsters of the new era of Doctor Who. The Doctor, Amy and Rory appear to be on holiday in New York where the Doctor is reading a book which as we learn is written by his wife (still seems odd to be saying that) and its pretty soon before chaos takes centre stage.

The Angels are just as creepy as they always are. I found the child statues to be more creepy that the fully grown up ones. However what I found most amusing was the Statue of Liberty turning into an angry statue. To be honest it was obvious from the moment that I heard the title because it’s the most famous statue in the world and its in the right part of the world so it would have been silly not to include it. The reason why the Angels seem to have chosen New York was a little bit odd because quite frankly they have chosen any city in the world but the idea that they feed off the energy produced is quite a good one.   

Despite my issues with River Song I thought that Alex Kingston was rather good in this and seemed slightly toned down compared to previous adventures that she has been in. It didn’t distract you from the Ponds’ departure. There was still some amusing flurting between the Doctor and River but it was mild. I did like how its clear that River has been released from prison because she never killed the Doctor as the Doctor has wiped himself pretty much out of people’s memory. It means that everything that happened in the last series can been left there and everything that happens with River from now on is going to be a little less complicated.

Matt Smith was very good and dealt with the various moods that the Doctor had to be in very well.  It’s been a good set of stories for Smith and he dealt with the exit of Amy and Rory very well. In their departing story, both Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan made up for being in the background in previous stories. Yet again Darvill gets given the short straw and is the one that suffering continues with finding out that gets thrown back in time. The scene where he and Amy are going to jump off the roof was possibly the best that he and Karen Gillan have done. Gillan played Amy pretty much the same as she has done since her very first episode and its been one of the reasons why Amy has been so popular.
The way that Amy and Rory were written out of the show was the only way that they could have left. They were never going to leave the Doctor and it wouldn’t have made sense to kill them off so putting them in a situation where the Doctor ‘cant’ meet Amy or Rory again but they get to spend time and die together was the most satisfactory conclusion which might be easily compared to Rose’s exit. The scene where they leave is very unexpected and superbly dramatic. Rory disappearance by the angel was unexpected but Amy’s was different because it was nice how River was pretty much telling Amy to go but the Doctor was trying to talk her out of it which was never going to work.

The Angels of Manhattan was a perfect way to end this part of the series. I would happily argue that this was the best story of the series because it was creepy, action packed and managed to write two very popular characters in a way that did them justice and it was at the end of the episode that it would be interesting to see how Oswin (Jenna Louise Coleman) would compare long term against Amy. Roll on Christmas!!

Project: Nirvana (2012)

Project Nirvana is a stand-alone adventure that shows an adventure that occurred in the Black TARDIS with Lysandra and Sally. It’s not the first time that this has happened as we had a Jamie Companion Chronicle in 2010. It is a story that doesn’t have any direct links to the main range so if you don’t subscribe to the companion chronicle series then you wouldn’t be losing out. It’s a return of the Forge but not to the extent that we have been use to. The story takes place on a train which is operated by The Forge. It starts with Sally and Lysandra jumping from the TARDIS towards the train, this would have been a cool thing to see on TV. It’s not long before there was another Lysandra that gets thrown in, it’s an earlier version of her who as we learn from Morgan has a bit more emotion to her than what we have encountered before. When she is about to shoot Morgan she seems like she is sorry about having to do it. It shows that the relationship between Lysandra and Morgan in the future isn’t the most fun.

I liked the Nimrod mention from the other Lysandra. To me it helped make it more believeable that this was a C4/Forge train. We also find out that the Forge’s view of UNIT isn’t the best. The first part of this story moves along at a fairly fast pace which isn’t like most companion chronicle adventures which likes to take its time in telling the story. The train derailing is when it seemed to get going. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t boring before it happened but it’s where the main action of the play comes from.

The cliffhanger was very strange indeed as Morgan started to laugh as she was staring at the dead body. She knew it was wrong to do so but couldn’t help herself. Not quite sure the purpose of choosing this as the cliffhanger but it’s a minor quibble. It does however lead to something that happens to Morgan who seems to have something wrong with her. The point where its all revealed is done well. The Forge are planning on using Durluth to be cloned and dropped off into war zone so that people would fall under Durluth’s influence. As plans by the forge go, this was pretty tame and there wasn’t the sense of darkness or the grimness that we would normally get in a Project story but it was still a good part of the plot.

Both Maggie O’Neill and Amy Pemberton are very good in this escpecially Pemberton who I think stepped up a gear in this story. O’Neill tends to take the lead because her character is designed that way but it was nice that Amy got to do what she did. It was also nice to have Sylvester McCoy in this story even though it was for the same amount of time that he has been in most stories recently. Performances are what can make this type of story work or not and O’Neill and Pemberton carry this story and do well with what they are given.

It’s difficult to properly assess this story because it doesn’t seem fair to compare it to previous Project stories because it is structured differently. It also doesn’t seem fair to compare it to companion chronicles because it’s heart is really in the main range adventures. That said I do think it’s the best Companion Chronicle adventure of the seventh season so far as the story was more action packed that the previous stories.

Rating – 7/10

The Power of Three (2012)

The Power of Three is a very unusual story. Written by Chris Chibnall this story is about little black boxes that suddenly appear and do nothing. Absolutely nothing for about a year and it’s at this point I start to wonder what on earth is going on. Where is the story? When is it going to begin? It unusually seemed to be taking its time and considering the show is around 42-43 minutes long it’s quite a brave thing to do.  It allows Matt Smith to do a bit of comedy as he gets to paint a fence, mow the lawn and do something with a football. It’s quite amusing and we get the return of Rory’s dad who has been the revelation of this series. It’s a shame that Rory is leaving because I could quite happily watch him in every episode. His best bit is when after four days, the Doctor finds that Brian is still watching the cube and he says “Time flies when you have your thoughts!”. There is a serious side to the story which is where the cubes are coming from but it’s quite a while before we get to find out.

The cubes are coming from Shakri (played by Steven Berkoff) and his plan is to rid humans so that they wouldn’t be able to spread to other worlds. It’s this aspect that I feel could have done with a bit more screen time as it did feel slightly rushed. That said I must credit the make up because it was quite done as effectively as it could have been but that would be my only real critiscm of the story. The story sees the return of UNIT for the first time since Matt Smith became the Doctor and that was nice because it seems odd that there are earth stories where UNIT don’t feature. I like the fact that they put a tie in to Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart by putting in his daughter (who I never knew existed but that doesn’t matter). It feels like the beginnings of a new era of UNIT as this didn’t seem like just a passing thing. I must admit I didn’t see it coming. I knew that Jemma Redgrave’s character worked for UNIT but I never clocked that she would be Lethbridge-Stewart’s daughter. Redgrave was very good as Kate and worked well Matt Smith. She was believable as a sort of scientific advisor type person and hopefully she will appear again.

The cameo hasn’t been a feature too much during the Moffat era but we got not one but two cameos with Professor Brian Cox and Lord Alan Sugar both appearing in their own little bit. I chuckled when Sugar turned up because I can’t quite believe that he agreed to appear. I wasn’t as keen on Brian Cox as I don’t really like him but I suppose at least he was only on screen for a few seconds.

Amy and Rory have sort of been footnotes during the previous two or three episodes so it was nice that they got more involved in the adventure. Here the story is effectively told from their prospective. Both Rory and Amy talk about settling down which seems to be another attempt to lay down their departure path. Rory’s job as a nurse seems logical because he was working in a hospital way back in ‘The Eleventh Hour’ but with Amy it seemed odd that she writes for magazines. When she talks about what she has done she doesn’t mention that she’s done modelling which is what she was doing in ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ but that’s a minor quibble. Both Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan put in their best performances and never seem to be going through the motions which is sort of what they were doing in the previous stories. Matt Smith did well and seemed to be having fun with the more comedic side of the Doctor, he genuinely seems agitated at having to wait like humans do.

So after The Power of Three ended I must admit that it’s the second best story of the mini-series so far with Asylum still holding onto the top spot. It’s also the best Chris Chibnall script that he’s done. It’s a surprise that we have almost reached the end of the first run of this thirty-third series but I am pleased with the run of stories that we have had. Ok so some of them might have been flawed in some ways it hard to argue that they are terrible stories and the complex style of the previous series is fast becoming a distant memory. Good stuff.

Rating - 7/10