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