Black and White (2012)

It’s not the most enviable of tasks. Try and follow the fantastic Protect and Survive but it’s a job that falls to Matt Fitton whose previous credits included contributing a story to Recorded Time and Other Stories last year. The story not only picks up from the previous month’s release but it also sees the return of Lysandra Aristedes who appeared in the 2009 release Project: Destiny and Sally who appeared in The House of Blue Fire. I think that unlike Protect and Survive there is a certain amount of pre-listening that is required as there are references to past stories littered throughout the story and no prior knowledge would be a big disadvantage. As there is a certain amount of confusion as to how Lysandra and Sally have found themselves in the TARDIS. It’s nice that the flashbacks were included to help.

The first episode spends a lot of time dealing with the fallout of the last stories cliffhanger and it’s a great opening episode. The second episode resumes with the Doctor talking to his new TARDIS which is acting like a baby. It’s a very strange scene though we learn that it’s after the events of Lurkers at Sunlights Edge so it helps put some continuity into things. This begins the Black and White TARDIS confusion and at times it was confusing at times but thankfully there wasn’t time really to get confused.

They continue with the Hex being annoyed with the Doctor. He’s quick to try and put the record straight where the Doctor is concerned to Sally Morgan. Though they didn’t over do it because there is a sense that he is willing to be rational. However Hex has an uneasy feeling about Death and how it seems to get closer which I thought was nicely played by Olivier. The contrast between the frosty relationship of Ace and Lysandra and the blossoming relationship between Hex and Sally was fun. The Ace/Lysandra was one of the things that I really liked about this story because even when it looked like things had thawed out then it goes back to Ace not fully trusting Lysandra.

The cliffhangers in this story ranged from ok to very good. The first Cliffhanger was quite a nice one because it seemingly comes out of left field and does feel like there is no clear way of how its going to be resolved. The second one was ok because there was a nice set up for the announcement that the Doctor’s Sonic screwdriver was on the wall. But for me the third one was the best one of the story. We have a lovely scene with Hex and Sally where Hex is talking about Death and then they see something and it’s heading towards them. A strong ending.

Sylvester McCoy’s involvement in this story is like Protect and Survive and that is minimal. We get a nice scene at the beginning of part two but it’s part three before we get our first most significant McCoy scene. So it’s up to Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred to carry the story however due to the involvement of Sally and Lysandra, it meant that they didn’t have to carry as much of it. Whereas Protect and Survive had a very small cast, Black and White was very much a traditional story in that there were several cast members. I don’t know whether it was me but it seems that the writing for Hex has stepped up a lot in these two stories. Even though they aren’t technically companions (ducks for cover!), I thought that Amy Pemberton and Maggie O’Neill were very good and I look forward to their Companion Chronicle. I liked their characters because it was good cop/bad cop and it’s hard for me to choose who I found more enjoyable.

Stuart Milligan plays a very camp Garundel. Mulligan previously appeared in the 2006 story The Reaping where he was definelty not a camp person, he also played US President Nixon in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. I found the character to be a tad bit annoying to begin with but as his involvement in the story got bigger and bigger I found myself like Milligan’s performance.

Being the middle story of the series, it’s difficult to fully rate this story. I always thought that it was going to be difficult to beat Protect and Survive so I gave up any hope that we were going to get a better story. It was a wise thing to do as this is another good story in its own right. I wasn’t totally wild about the Beowulf stuff but it was interesting enough to keep me involved in the story. It would have been very easy for this story to be just padding and counting down the minutes before we gets Gods and Monsters but we get an enjoyable if at times flawed story. The final story has a lot an awful lot to live up to and that story has the return of a classic series monster.

The Masters of Luxor (2012)

I find myself a little confused with First/Second Doctor Lost Stories. This is due to the fact that as the Doctors themselves are no longer with us it just becomes a special Companion Chronicle. That’s not necessarily a bad thing because whether its William Russell, Carole Ann Ford or Frazer Hines then it becomes a joy and not a chore to listen to. The idea from this story came from Anthony Coburn who wrote the first ever Doctor Who story back in 1963. Sadly he passed away in 1977 so it falls to Nigel Robinson to adapt his story for Big Finish. The story was supposed to form the second story after An Unearthly Child but got replaced with The Daleks. The first thing I liked was the opening episode, I thought that it moved quickly despite nothing happening apart from the setting the scene for the rest of the story. The TARDIS losing power that occurred in the first episode isn’t something that is new to the world of Doctor Who as it’s just a different way of preventing the regulars from leaving as soon as they arrive (which they hadn’t intended on doing in the first place).

It’s quite a while before we encounter any alien life, this is quite unusual but it’s something that I liked because I always enjoy scenes with just the TARDIS crew. The TARDIS crew think that they haven’t been picked on deliberately but decide to wait for their captures to make themselves known. There is a wonderful scene in episode two when they decide whether to press a button to summon their host/captors. It’s a nice scene which shows how they have gelled since they were first thrown together though there was a moment where Barbara is the one that seems to not be wowed by what she sees. Similar to the Keys of Marinus. It’s quite good that they decided to desist from using this as a plot thing because anyone who had seen that story (like myself) would have got bored with it.

Darivatrons are the robots that we first meet. They ask the Doctor if the masters are happy with their meal. It was unusual that the Darivatron don’t consider the TARDIS crew the enemy or intruders. I thought that the idea of the Darivatrons was well realised and they were very well used throughout this story. The Perfect One has been created by the Darivatrons. He was created to destroy the Masters and he is the one that has taken the power from the TARDIS. I liked how he was seemingly given everything except for life and at the end of Part 2 we learnt that he basically wanted one of the TARDIS crew to sacrifice their life for him. He has been taking people’s lives and this is when I found this character to be quite creepy because he wasn’t shouting or being very aggressive yet he still managed to maintain a hold over the regulars.

The performances of both William Russell and Carole Ann Ford were very strong from start to finish. The way that they took over from each other without disrupting the flow of the storytelling was impressive. I have always been a fan of William Russell’s reading from his companion chronicle adventures. As the other cast member, Joseph Kloska provided the rest of the voices well and was very good as The Perfect One. I don’t know why they did get more people involved because the more I think about it the more it feels like a Companion Chronicle has found its way into the Lost Story series.

Quite an abrupt ending I felt. I know that during that era of the show they weren’t known for their clean cut ending but I just felt that this story would have been better suited to a proper ‘off into the sunset’ ending. That’s more a bit of nit picking on my part. It’s always difficult to maintain the flow and feeling over the course of six episodes. I think there were moments in Farewell Great Macedon where my mind did wander however it was more frequent in this story. I don’t think that its Nigel Robinson’s fault because he was doing the best that he could but I think that this story would have benefited from being a four parter because I thought that there were scenes which could have been lost and it wouldn’t have had a negative impact on this story. As it is I thought that it was ok and it started great but went off the boil slightly after episode three.

Rating – 7/10

The Uncertainty Principle (2012)

The Uncertainty Principle is the third story in the Zoe trilogy after Echoes Of Grey (August 2010) and The Memory Cheats (September 2011). I haven’t listened to either of those stories recently so I went into this story with a certain amount of confusion and hoped that it wouldn’t effect my enjoyment of this story. The story starts with Zoe still a prisoner who has information she doesn’t think she has. The company are after secrets but there is a loose link into the second Doctor story.  The story sees the TARDIS crew arrive in 2022 at a funeral of someone we didn’t know about, it’s perfectly possible that there are hundreds and thousands of people that we have never met that have some significance so I wasn’t to put off by this so much.

The story takes a gingerly pace in terms of telling the story. In the first part there weren’t any scenes that I could describe as action packed, it just seemed to be consistent. The problem with that is that after a while something has to happen but my main feeling is that it never really seemed to get going. I must admit that I was more than a little confused. It seemed like there was stuff going on but I couldn’t really get into it. The alien menace in this story looks like a Slender Loris with its big eyes but the potential cuteness was quickly dismissed when they were introduced they have the ability to cause quite a displacement. I thought that they were well used.

I can’t quite make my mind up about the idea of Zoe not being able to remember travelling in the TARDIS. It’s nice that they have remained faithful to the what happened to the character but in a way it does feel like a regular brick wall that the story obviously likes to run into. I liked the scenes between Zoe and Jen as I don’t think that it’s been done between mother and daughter but between two very good actresses. I think the character of Jen is an interesting one as she seems to have conflicted feeling towards Zoe, part of her feels tied to the company but as the story moves on I got the feeling that she is warming to Zoe.

There is room for further stories which is something that I am happy about because I think that there is potential for many more stories before it has to be wound up. Unfortunately I don’t think this is the best story of the trilogy but I thought this of Echoes of Grey when I first heard it and changed my opinion later on so my opinion may change later on but on first listen its slightly below par.

Rating : 6/10

Planet of Giants - DVD Special

Planet of Giants was meant to be four episodes however episodes three and four were merged into one. With the release of the DVD we are treated to what they should have been like according to the script. With the help of some special effects, specially recorded dialogue and some new sound effects we get an idea. The first thing that strikes me about this is how odd it seems at first. When they have reconstructed episodes three and four I was expecting a mix between special effects and the actual footage instead what they have done is chopped some clips from the episodes and have some of the specially recorded dialogue to fit over the words that the actors are saying in some other scenes. It reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons were Milhouse is playing Radioactive Man’s sidekick but does a runner and they try and finish it by putting different scenes together and its blatantly not the same.

The animation was quite well done. It’s impressive for what must have been a quite cheap budget. Some of it worked more than others but I think that it bridged some nice gaps in the story.

So have we learnt anything from these reconstructed episodes? No is the simple answer and it obvious even to a blind spielsnake why this is a totally pointless and unnecessary thing. The ‘third’ episode is basically Forrester and Smithers arguing and Hilda and Bert doing the same. I cant say that its terrible but its not something that I will watch everytime I stick the DVD in the machine.

Rating - 2/10

Oh No It Isnt (1998)

Bernice Summerfield is a series that I have been aware of since I first started listening to Big Finish. It was the series that helped Big Finish land the Doctor Who licence so if it impressed the BBC then it should be worth listening to. The only Bernice stories I have listened to are the Doctor Who stories THE SHADOW OF THE SCOURGE (2000), THE DARK FLAME (2003) AND THE CRIMINAL CODE (2010). The story spends the first 10-11 minutes setting up the basics, such as who Bernice is and the crew that she has with her. The first episode ends with the ship that Bernice is on has been attacked and that is when the story goes really bonkers. I think that I was expecting something like THE DARK FLAME but instead I was slightly put off when what we get is a comedy type thing. The feeling that I got as I started to listen to this is that its one of those series where prior knowledge is required. The character was well established in the Virgin Adventure books which I had never read and even if I wanted to I suspect I would find it difficult to find them.

The Grel are the villains of this story who seem quite an amusing menace who tow the fine line between being threatening and being comedic.  They are described as Data Pirates who take information from peoples brains. They have found themselves in this ‘afterlife’. Only issue was that they didn’t feature as much as I would have liked because they started off as the main threat but once they had moved into the second part of the story they had fallen off the radar somewhat. There is a lovely sense that Bernice doesn’t know how she is going to get out of the ‘afterlife’. She does know the people that are surrounding her but they aren’t as she knows them. It soon transpires that she is in fact Dick Whittington and so they seem to be in the 14^th Century. It then transpires that the story is essentially in panto. There is some fruitful words which continue to make you understand that you aren’t in a Doctor Who story (which in 1998 they didn’t yet).

Nicholas Courtney plays Wolsey who is Bernice’s cat. It’s hard to imagine that this is the same Courtney who played the Brigadier. I think it’s really funny as Courtney plays it exactly the way that its suppose to be. Every time that Courtney talks its extremely entertaining. One of the first lines that Bernice says is “God is an enourmous cat in a hat” isn’t a line you would not expect to hear. “Hold on to me Dick!” is another line that he wouldn’t have said as the Brigadier. Lisa Bowerman is someone that I know more as a director of Doctor Who Big Finish plays than as Bernice Summerfield but I do like the character as there is a lot of humour mixed in with serious drama. The rest of the cast are all very good and vary in terms of campness

Oh No It Isnt is a bold and ambitious start to the Bernice Summerfield series. I did feel like I was losing track of what was going on towards the end but at the end I felt like I had got to grips with this series and how the structure would be. It was always going to be a bold thing to start a series off with a comedy, especially for those who are new to Bernice. On the whole it’s a gamble that paid off but I expect that there will be better stories in the series. Despite it being made 14 years ago, I think it has aged very well.

Rating – 7/10

Protect and Survive (2012)

Protect and Survive is the first story to feature Ace and Hex since 2010’s Lurkers at Sunlights Edge. Since then there have been references to the colour of the TARDIS. It’s the second script to come from Jonathan Morris after his very enjoyable opening story THE CURSE OF DAVROS. The title is borrowed from the 1970’s and 1980’s Government public information series which was designed to tell UK citizens how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack. The story starts off with Ace and Hex in the TARDIS and no sign of the Doctor, to add to their worries the Cloister Bell. This pretty much indicates that this isn’t going to be a nice happy bunny rabbits story with rainbows.  The story focuses on Ace and Hex and as the TARDIS lands we encounter Maggie and Albert who are a nice couple who are just doing what needs to be done to get themselves. There is a note made that history has been changed and that’s

It’s the end of episode two before the Doctor turns up. It’s quite a bold thing to do on the face of it because it means that the companions have to drive the story and Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred are superb. The fact that there is no sign of Sylvester McCoy doesn’t register until he actually turns up. It’s 55 minutes that its just the four actors and throughout these two episodes I really did get a feeling that this is a very dark story. In fact I don’t think that a Doctor Who story (in my mind) has gone this dark since the Gary Russell era (pre-2007). It was quite a refreshing change of pace. At one point Hex is blinded and its well played by Olivier. These sort of scenes were quite harrowing and that’s quite an achievement for an audio play. If it had been on TV then I suspect it would have been even more shocking.I thought that the moment it really got quite dark was when they all got radiation sickness and they get progressively worse. They were trapped in the basement and had been there for nine days.

The moment when Maggie and Albert admit that they are aware that the same days are playing over and over again was quite a surprise and seemed to mark the moment when the story went from grim and dark mystery to proper sci-fi and the shift in tone was seamless. I didn’t see the whole timeloop thing coming. It was very clever and suited the story just right, then it gets even cleverer with the revelation that its all taking place in a sort of prison where Maggie and Albert are infact Elder Gods who have been put in this situation to be punished by the Doctor. It does seem quite a shocking thing for the Doctor to do but it fits in well with the latter stages of the Seventh Doctor’s era. The story poses some nice emotional scenes because there is one point where Ace and Hex have to decide who is going to stay and who is going to leave

I’ve been quite big on cliffhangers recently and this story has some pretty epic ones. Episode one is a nice once because it’s the build up of waiting for the heat blast to hit. The second one is better because it’s a chilling entrance for the Doctor who is overheard talking about being taught a lesson and I think it leads into a scene where Hex lets his frustrations with the Doctor come out. The final cliffhanger is also good one as we are introduced to Molok. The voice used seemed very familiar to me though I couldn’t think where. The Elder Gods were a very effective villain, their inclusion in the story was well handled.

There has been a thing in the Seventh Doctor stories over the last year or so about the colour of the TARDIS. It was white in ANGEL OF SCUTARI and black in ROBOPHOBIA and in this story its both. I am curious as to where this will end up. Protect and Survive is my favourite story of the year and possibly even for the last couple of years. It’s superbly written and directed,  It’s solid with a tiny cast and like the previous Ace and Hex series, the opening story leads into the next which makes for an epic cliffhanger.

The Time Museum (2012)

The Time Museum is the first story from the Seventh Series which is a remarkable achievement and by my reckoning it’s the 61^st Companion Chronicle (including DWM specials and The Three Companions) so all was in place to enjoy the fifth Ian Chesterton story in this range. It’s also the first story from James Goss who has a Doctor Who link in that he worked on the Official Doctor Who website. The story starts off in The Chesterton Experience which seems to be some sort of museum. I like how there is a mystery as to why Ian is there and how he got there. The mystery continues throughout the story with references to the very early days of Doctor Who. We had mentions to AN UNEARTHLY CHILD and THE KEYS OF MARINUS. After a while I was expecting a big threat to come into the story but it didn’t seem to come. Every time there was a scene change I was expecting it to move onto the big baddie but it didn’t come for a long time.

As the story progresses its clear that this is just a checklist of stories from Ian’s time in the TARDIS it goes through the stories in a different order from what they were transmitted. It’s also clear that there isn’t really a big threat despite there being in introduction of a being that feeds on memories which to me seemed somewhat interesting but they were never given a satisfactory crack of the whip. It just seemed (to me anyway) that they were the B-Plot and the A-Plot was the trekking through Ian’s past. I did like the slight nod towards the target novelisation of the Daleks and also the nod to Enlightenment where we hear the Eternals mentioned. Also the Sontarans and Rutans got mentioned and I thought that was clever scheduling as I had just finished listening to THE FIRST SONTARAN which saw the Rutans return against the Sontarans. After a long time of running we get to the nub of the story where we learn that Ian was a lure for the Doctor. Again I would like to have heard more about this but by this point I had sort of lost interest in the story as it was clear what sort of story we were getting.

William Russell is on his usual fantastic form but I found Philip Pope’s performance to be very good. His opening scene remains one of my favourites because it seems like Pendown is about to burst with excitement at meeting Ian. Throughout the story he continues to impress me and worked very well with Russell. The two seemed to get on very well with each other which is always a good sign that they like the story. However after listening to this story I must say that I was a little bit disappointed with this story. It’s not terrible story by any means as there were bits in it that I found quite interesting but it falls short of what I would expect from an Ian Chesterton story. I think that THE TRANSIT OF VENUS is the benchmark for an Ian story.

Rating: 6/10

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (1988)

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is the final story of the 25^th season of Doctor Who when it was being put against the juggernaut that was CORONATION STREET. It was intended that this story was to be the second in transmission but moved. I must say that I have never been a big fan of this story because when you look at other stories from that series it significantly poorer yet on reflection it seems to suit the style of programme that John Nathan Turner and Andrew Cartmel were aiming for. We get a rare TARDIS scene which as writer Stephen Wyatt comments on in the DVD commentary is rather lacking compared the rest of the story and I must admit that I agree. As much as I loved TARDIS scenes I think that this story would have been better served if they had cut it.

The various characters that crop up over the course of this story do vary in terms of what I think of them. I thought that Peggy Mount was great as the Stall lady who pops up throughout the story and just chews the scenery every time. She’s a nice bit of comedy relief in a story that does have its fair share of darkness. Daniel Peacock as Nord was someone who was annoying when I first saw him all those years ago but on reflection I have to say that I though he was quite funny and was well played. Captain Cook is a character that was supposed to be killed off in episode one but the writer kept him in and it was a wise decision because he went from being an interesting eccentric man to being a very horrible person who is willing to push people in front of a bus if it meant he would survive. His final scene was brilliant and was well played by the recently deceased T P McKenna.  Mags was a character who’s impression of mine hasn’t changed. I don’t think that it was terrible but in the early stages she did come across as a bit ordinary. It was only when it was revealed that she was a werewolf that she came into her own and became a good character. Ian Reddington was superb as the Chief Clown. I didn’t know that in 1988, he was voted best villain in Doctor Who Magazine which at first glance was something that I found surprising but when you stop to think it’s rightly deserved.

Cliffhangers in this story vary from very poor to very good. The cliffhanger for Episode 1 was very poor indeed. Asking whether they should go into a tent wasn’t the best way to end an episode. The whole point of a cliffhanger is to give the viewer a reason for coming back in a week and on the basis of the cliffhanger I would be flicking over to see the goings on at the Rovers Return. The second episode cliffhanger was much better as it was literally by a cliff. The third and final cliffhanger was the best one as it’s the point where Mags transforms into a werewolf and there is the possibility of the Doctor being attacked. One aspect that bugs me is that I have heard some people who think that the character of the Whizzkid was trying to send up the Doctor Who fan. I could never see this myself, I just found the character to be fairly standard and served his purpose in a very short time.

The story moves along at quite a good pace, the only episode that I get a bit impatient with it is episode two. I just think that there is a lot of nothing which is frustrating after the first episode was so good. Thankfully it picked up in the final two episodes with the final being the one where we are introduced to the Gods of Ragnorak. The look of them is quite distinctive though the idea that they want to be entertained and kills anyone who don’t do so is quite unusual for a Doctor Who story. Sylvester McCoy managed seemed to be channelling back to his days before he was the Doctor when he was on the Ken Campbell Roadshow. I was half expecting that McCoy was going to stuff ferrets down his trousers.

The thing that is known about this story is that it was filmed in a car park at Elstree Studios where they were filming EASTENDERS and the comedy ALLO ALLO. Due to John Nathan Turner’s determination in making sure that this story didn’t become Shada 2 worked hard to get it filmed. The tent scenes were well filmed and it’s not obvious that they haven’t been filmed in a studio though its clear in the documentaries on the DVD that it wasn’t the easiest of environments to work in. There is a nice claustrophobic feel to the tent scenes which is probably something that wouldn’t have been achieved in a BBC studio. The story continues the lovely trend of massive explosions. The explosions from REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS were huge but the one that comes at the end of Episode 4 was just as impressive. The shot of McCoy walking towards the camera whilst a huge explosion goes off and not even flinching is something that very few people could pull of like Sylvester does and was a great way to end the story.

My opinion of TGSITG hasn’t always been a good one. I have often found it dull and lacking in something however upon rewatching it on DVD I must admit that there certainly are things to like. It suffers largely from being in the same season as REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS AND SILVER NEMESIS but it does show up the direction that the show was heading in and it was showing up what Sylvester McCoy could do with the Doctor and that the horrors of Season 24 were a distant memory. Stephen Wyatt’s second script is his best one and a TGSITG is a nice way to end the season.