The Sphere (2010)

With the second series of Graceless having just been released, I thought that I would start from the beginning to see whether its any good. Amy (or Abbey as she is oddly known as) and Zara who had appeared in 2009's series of Key 2 Time adventures. It's always great when Big Finish have created something that go on to form they own spin-off series. They have done loads of spin-offs over the years that have come from established history but this is their own created characters. The opening story is set sometime after the events of 'The Chaos Pool' and we find our main characters on something called The Sphere which is some sort of seedy place that revels in gambling. It's like Las Vegas in space. Abbey and Zara are trying to get away from the sphere but dont have the funds to do so. Zara is trying to cheat the system but as the story progresses, she falls pregnant and Abbey is the one that has to go against her morals to try and help her sister.

I have to be honest and say that I have issues with any Big Finish productions that have adult content despite it clearly stating this on the page advertising this. It's just that I dont think that they need to lower themselves to this sort of thing. Dont get me wrong, I'm no prude but I just think that it could be better without it. The 'adult' content was thankfully quite brief and the end result was someone getting pregnant which will probably have consequences in future stories. I found the whole story to be somewhat lacking in a killer punch. I think that any first story should arguably be the best because it is quick and action packed whereas this was the exact opposite. It was very slow and methodical and yet whilst the narrowtive was there and was all well and good, I could have done with there been some sort of superior threat. The setting is quite a good one because the idea of some sort of entertainment planet/spaceship does offer some great areas of conflict between good and evil. The idea that the sphere grows every week is quite a clever one and the fact then it pretty much pulls you into the way of life there is something that doesnt get used very often in sci-fi.

I thought the casting was very good indead. Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington were very good in the Key 2 Time series and continued that in this story. I thought that Janson was perhaps the stronger of the two due to the content of the story. She went from being a nice good person who didnt like anything that Zara was doing at the beginning of the episode to be willing to do anything to help her sister, especially after she became pregnant. Laura Doddington is still good despite her character not having as a developed journey as Abbey's. I thought that Colin Spaull was possibly the best of the supporting cast as Uncle Lindsay. He has an instantly recognisable voice and puts it to good use however I thought that his threat to Abbey and Zara wasnt as strong as it could have been despite Spaull's hard work. I thought. As the man who got Zara pregnant, I thought that Marek was relativley well written for but I just found Fraser James' performance to be too much like a cockeny gangster and found it to be not as strong as others.

The Sphere has it's moments but ultimatley isnt quite the opening episode it should be. Hopefully over the course of the series, it will be an upward tone in quality.

The Selachian Gambit (2012)

The Selachian Gambit is quite like the previous release in that it features two companions in the same story. However unlike the previous story, this was not billed as a special story. Just a regular companion chronicle. This is the second story to feature the Selachians in the Big Finish world however for many they have appeared over many years. Their previous outing was in 2010 in the seventh Doctor adventure 'The Architects of History'. I quite liked them in that story however once I heard that were coming back I wasnt expecting this story to be as good because its the law of diminisioning returns and by that I mean that they lose their sparkle after every visit. Steve Lyons who won a Toms Tardis Award in 2007 for Son of the Dragon was given the job of using his own creation in this story which is set in a bank with the Selachians trying to get into a vault. The story has a pretty simple premise and its that simple premise that is what I quite like about this adventure.

Setting a story in a single location is always a good thing in my book because it reduces the chance for things to get a bit complicated. What I did quite like about this story was how the vault seemed like the TARDIS. This was explained in a story which the name of escapes me but essentially the exterior of the TARDIS/Vault might be in one place but the interior is elsewhere. I thought the actual story itself was very interesting and suited the Companion Chronicle format very well.

Frazer Hines' impression has become one of the highlights because it is so good. Not necersarily the tone of it but the mannerisms such as the coughs and the way that he delivers his lines. In the same way that Peter Purves' impression of the first Doctor is an enjoyable one, Hines does an impression of the Doctor which helps you get past the obviousness that its someone else doing Patrick Troughton's Doctor. I wasnt totally convinced with his impression of Ben. It must be quite a task for a Scot to do an impression of a Cockney and its the only time during the whole story that it falls apart slightly. Anneke Wills on the other hand does a very good Ben impression partly because she is more cockney than Hines. I thought that her impression was slightly more comical cockney than anything else but it was still the better of the two. As for their combined performance in telling the story I must admit that they are two very good readers as they make sure that even when very little was happening they kept the pace and the tempo of the story the same.

The Selachian Gambit was another enjoyable release from the Companion Chronicles. I think that out of the two stories this year to feature two companions, I would say that this was arguably the better of the two purely because the story was the right length and the plot was stronger though I still maintain that if they had cut the running time of The Achronauts then it would have been a better release but I have no doubt that the Selachians return to Big Finish however I hope it will be in the main range. A nice story.

The Fourth Wall (2012)

The second story to feature Flip Jackson sees the return of an majorly underused Doctor Who prop and that is the Time-Space Visualser which appeared in the 1965 adventure ‘The Chase’ and it’s quite fitting that it appears in this story because as the title suggest, this story is about television and the lack of morals that occupy the people involved. The story is centred around a TV show that has a hint of reality TV which is being run by a media boss called Augustus Scullop who is down on his luck and this show called Laser is what he hopes will reverse those fortunes however it uses technology which as is the norm in Doctor Who, goes slightly wrong. Large chunks of this story feel deliberately comedic. The idea that is dramatic music and specific moments and the characters refer to this is not something that is done and there were many more moments which seemed to be clearly intended to be not treated as serious stuff and normally I wouldn’t like this but what the writer has done is find the right balance and manages to make it work.

Colin Baker is back on fine form like he was in the previous story. I must admit he wasn’t well served in 2011 but is doing better here because he is fantastic in pretty much every scene he’s in. I wasn’t totally convinced with his first scene where we are expected to believe that the Doctor is still quite interested in cricket. It’s a small issue but it was the only thing that I could think off about Baker’s performance. Lisa Greenwood continues to impress me as she manages to escape the ‘Chav’ label that this character was obviously destined for and the character of Flip which I didn’t really notice in ‘The Crimes of Thomas Brewster’ has really shone in these two stories. I cant quite make my mind up about whether the moment when Flip is shot was a good idea or a silly one. On the one hand its clear that a Doctor Who companion isnt going to be killed so quickly after joining but as was noted in the interviews at the end as it’s a character created by Big Finish, it’s perfectly plausible that this could happen. The supporting cast is also quite strong with particular worthy mention going to Yasmin Bannermen who previously appeared in the 2008 story ‘The Bride of Peladon). Her character was one of those that is finely balanced between being a bad person and someone who is likeable and by the end of it comes out relatively well.

It’s difficult for me to compare ‘The Curse of Davros’ with ‘The Fourth Wall’ because its slightly one sided as one story has a very well established character and the other doesn’t but what I can say is that this story is highly enjoyable. The combination of the Sixth Doctor and Flip is working well and I look forward to the final story in this series. 2012 continues it’s good start.

The Valley of Death (2012)

The Valley of Death is the second of the Lost Stories from the Fourth Doctor Box Set, this story came from the idea of Philip Hinchcliffe who was producer of Doctor Who from 1974 to 1977 and oversaw some of the greatest Doctor Who stories of the classic era. This story has a certain similarity to ‘The Seeds of Doom’ in that it spends a part of the story in an restricted environment before moving to more surburbian surroundings. In this story the Doctor and Leela join an expedition led by the grandson of some explorer from over 100 years before. However once they get to the jungle things start going slightly wrong. We actually get to meet the grandfather that Perkins the younger had been talking about. What we have is a fun idea that for the grandfather only a few weeks had passed but to the Doctor and the crew it had by over a century. This was due to a time bubble that was a convenient but effectively used and became quite important over the course of these adventures. That is one of the good things about this story is that there is nothing that seems pointless. It’s a straight forward adventure which doesn’t rely on complexities to tell a story which is what I like about the Hinchcliffe era of the show.

The story is far more enjoyable than ‘Foe from the Future’ because it only has four episodes as opposed to Foe’s six. The story has a stronger for half because I found that whilst the story was in the jungle it felt quite good yet when it moved into London and the business with clones of humans in order that UNIT wouldn’t fight for fear of killing the Doctor and others it seemed to stumble a bit. The story is still quite enjoyable because of Tom Baker who’s infectious personality appears in abundance throughout this story. Louise Jameson has impressed me in the stories that I have heard this year. In the companion chronicles that she has done there has always been something missing in her performances and its clear that it was someone of Baker’s stature because Jameson’s performances have been great. The supporting performances were also very good David Killick plays the role of Cornelius Perkins very well. It’s clear he is a very stupid character who has more money than sense though he thinks he has honourable intentions. Killick makes you believe this. Another good character was Valerie Carlton as played by Jane Slavein (who appeared in the 1993 radio play ‘Paradise of Death’). As the only other female character she started off as an unlikeable journalist but by the end had shown herself to be a strong and very likeable character.

It’s not a perfect story because as I mentioned earlier it does start to lose some momentum in the early stages of the second half but you sort of go with it as Tom Baker is wonderful as the Doctor and is complimented by Louise Jameson. As with all the Lost Stories that Big Finish produce I find myself asking if we have missed anything by this story not being on TV and to be honest for the first time my answer is yes and no. There are things that would have looked great on TV but there’s a feeling that they just wouldn’t have been able to pull it off like Big Finish have done.

The Tom Baker section of Big Finish goes from strength to strength and this something to be enjoyed.

The Anachronauts (2012)

The Companion Chronicles celebrates it’s 5th Birthday with a extended adventure. Unlike most adventures in this range, we get two companions for the price of one. Peter Purves is reunited with Jean Marsh for the first time (apart from December 2011’s The Five Companions) since 1966’s Dalek Master Plan epic. This is another story to come from the mind of Simon Guerrier who has written Kingdom’s three previous adventures and also the Oliver Harper trilogy of adventures featuring Steven. According to the interviews at the end of the story that this was a replacement story when the original writer intended for this slot moved to write for the Fourth Doctor Lost Stories series and also that Guerrier lost his story on his computer and had to do it again. I have to admit that the story did have a feel that it was a rushed job as it didn’t seem to have the same sort of feel that other Guerrier stories have.

The story starts off in quite an exciting manner with the TARDIS apparently about to crash land and then moments later the TARDIS crew appear in some sort of beach/forest. The first two episodes of this story are really quite interesting and then the story moves again to a different setting, to Berlin in 1939. It was during this part of the story that I felt the weaknesses of it were on show. There was a lot of wondering whether Sara and Steven should tell their captures about the future or not and the moralities of doing such a thing. I quite liked that because one of the things that we know in this series is that you cant change the course of history and its something that the first Doctor was well known for. The story then picks up again towards the end when it resolved about the time travelling pioneer like people that I had totally forgotten about until they turned up again. The Anachronauts seems like two different stories that have been wedged together, thanks to Guerrier he manages to make it work (just about).

The performances in this were as usual very strong. Peter Purves does a enjoyable Hartnell impression contrary to what he believes. Ok so its not similar to how Hartnell sounded but I still think it’s a solid attempt and its been consistent in all the stories that Purves has done. As Steven Taylor he carried the story whilst he was narrating the story. Jean Marsh also delivers a great performance and continues to show what a great actress she is. Together they make the story easy to listen to even when there were moments when the story seemed to be dragging. I think that not having another artist in the story was a wise move because it would have ruined the chemistry between the two actors.

I am a really big fan of Simon Guerrier’s work as Home Truths is my favourite companion chronicle but I cant say that this was his finest. It’s not terrible and there were many things to like but it could have done with either a bit more time or cut the length of the episode because I think that it went off maybe one episode too long.

The Curse of Davros (2012)

Exactly one year before this release we were treated to ‘The Crimes of Thomas Brewster’ and in particular to one Flip Jackson. To be honest I was so focused on Brewster and Evelyn that I didn’t notice Flip so when I heard that the character would be returning in a series of adventures, my reaction was kind of ‘hmmm’. The first monthly release of 2012 sees the return of Davros who hadn’t been seen in a Big Finish play since 2005’s ‘Terror Firma’ though the character did appear in his own series in 2006 but its been too long since the Daleks’ creator appeared in Doctor Who. The story starts off with the Doctor acting very strangley. To be honest it was clear something wasn’t quite right because everything the Doctor said was un-Doctor like. Jonathan Morris has written a story that has one of the most imaginative uses for the Daleks and Davros ever. The idea that the Doctor and Davros have swapped bodies may not be original in some formats but for Doctor Who it was totally brilliant. The title was also very clever because the curse of Davros is being Davros. Normally Davros would want to kill the Doctor but in this story he wants the Doctor to suffer in his body and know what its like the be in the condition. This is quite ruthless and far more sinister than a straight forward extermination.

The Davros/Dalek thing aside, the story also moves from 2012 England to 1815 Belguim where we are treated to two historical figures. Napoleon Bonapatre who’s other Doctor Who credit was of course in the 1964 adventure ‘The Reign of Terror’. The story sees Bonaparte using Dalek technology to help win the Battle of Waterloo after being shown what will happen. This is the where the majority of the story takes place and despite everything being thrown into the mix, the result is a satisfying balance between wanting Davros and Dalek stuff and the Waterloo stuff. There were some nice scenes between Jared and Flip which did a great job in making Flip look like the companion and doesn’t make Jared look like Rory who is a weak character than has only recently got a backbone. In this story Jared does get some of his own action which makes him look like what he is which is a guy from 2012 thrown into 1815 with Binaparte and Daleks.

It’s always good to have Terry Molloy in a Doctor Who because no matter what role he is playing whether it is Davros or someone else he instantly lifts the scene that he is in. In this he sounds like Davros but has to act like Colin Baker. That’s a big ask but did remind me of the episode of Red Dwarf where Rimmer and Lister swap bodies and it sounds like an easy thing but in reality its quite difficult but credit to both Molloy and Baker for pulling it off. It’s fair to say that Colin Baker’s Doctor didn’t have the strongest year ever in 2011 but this is an absolutely cracking story. Having to play Davros was a big achievement for Baker and its actually quite fun when I was trying to figure out why he was the proper Doctor. Considering I wasn’t bowled over by the idea of a character that I never remembered being a companion, I have to say that I was very impressed with the character of Flip. Lisa Greenwood is sort of an amalgamation of Rose Tyler and Martha Jones because she is young and can be brash like Tyler but seems to be more understanding like Jones. I think that this character does have potential and I was hoping for a minute or so that Jared would join the TARDIS crew because it would be quite a good idea but then remembered that its been done on TV and it highlights some issues I have with that set up.

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.

The Foe from the Future (2012)

The Foe from the Future is the first lost story to feature the fourth Doctor. It was suppose to fill the slot before being replaced by ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’. The story was from Robert Banks Stewart who had a reasonably good track record with two stories during the Fourth Doctor/Sarah Jane Smith era. This story marks the first time that Big Finish have done a six part story since 2005’s ‘The Game’. Since doing my Doctor Who marathon I have distinctinly gone off six part stories partly because after the two third point the story starts to drag. The story has a big epic feel an that is down to the idea that it has something to do with totally changing time and the timelines which seems very much something you would get from a new TV series. The adventure does take a while to get going but at no point was I bored. I may have been a little confused once or twice but the performances were so good that by the time it did find its feet that I had bought into the story.

Tom Baker is very good in this story and there were several moments when if I closed my eyes I could see the 1977 Doctor saying those lines. Baker cant be accused of not putting in the effort as he never puts a foot wrong. Louise Jameson is also very good and the chemistry between the two is one of the best things about it. The best thing that Leela did was flying through the void thing using the Doctor’s scarf. It’s quite hard to imagine how they would achieve this with a 1977 budget. Actually I can, it would probably be worse than the rat in ‘The Talons of Weng Chiang’. My favourite character was Charlotte ‘from the village’ as played by Louise Brealey. From the very first moment that I heard the character I thought that there was a sweetness to. If Big Finish want to create a new companion for future stories then they could do worse than Charlotte from the village. For me the big name from this release was Paul Freeman who appeared in the first Indiana Jones and also the third series of the BBC drama ‘House of Cards’. His role as the baddie was well done and it actually seem to come naturally to Freeman.

As much as I love ‘Destination Nerva’ this felt more like a Fourth Doctor adventure. Despite it being six episodes long it still had that vibe that it came from 1977 which when you consider the year we are in is quite an achievement. Normally in a six part adventure you could tell when that happens as it is happening but in The Foe from the Future its very difficult and credit must go to John Dorney for managing this. Foe from the Future is an enjoyable adventure.