Afterlife (2013)

Afterlife returns us to the Seventh Doctor moments after 'Gods and Monsters'. It's been 15 months since that story and they have done this before. Back in the June 2009 story 'The Angel of Scutari', Hex's life was in the balance again and it wasn’t until September 2010 (another 15 months) before we got to see what happened to Hex. The dynamic between the Doctor and Ace has changed significantly. It seems odd that the month after they were getting on in The Assassination Games they are now not speaking to each other. At the end of their last story Hex died and this was always going to be an interesting story. 

 

It's similar to how Charley felt after C'Rizz had died at the end of Absolution. Ace blames the Doctor for Hex's death. I don’t know if I like the fact that the Doctor and Ace aren’t getting on but its rather well done as Sophie Aldred goes for it. The first episode sees us go back to some of the adventures that occurred between stories featuring these three. They are designed to show us how much Hex has helped in the adventures that he has been in. The nice thing about this letter that Ace found is that its read by Olivier and there is a rather sad feel to it and its hit me just how much a part of the team that Hex has become since he debuted in 2004. The end of the first episode really sums up the sadness of the story when the Doctor sounds genuinely broken over the death of Hex.  

 

The second episode sees the story change direction when the Doctor visits Hex’s Gran at the request of Ace. This is where the Doctor has to actually face the consequences of the actions that he takes or feels that he has to take. Whilst the Doctor is visiting Hex’s Gran, Ace finds her own adventure to have when she witnesses Lily Finnegan who is in the middle of a turf war in Liverpool. It’s like the PG version of Shameless. At first it seems like it’s a completely random storyline which has not relation to either Hex or the Doctor. As the story progresses it becomes clear that this plot strand has more to do with the main plot that at first glance. 

The moment when Lily sets fire to the thugs was a quite surprising moment. But that’s not the only time something surprising happens in this story. Another surprising moment when Mr. Thomas is revealed to be the other person that Lily is having the turf war with. Mr. Thomas is voiced by Philip Olivier and is completely different to Hex. I like how Ace’s grief makes her wish that it was the real Hex  and at first it seems that this is a case of someone having a twin but one of the things that I like about this story is how just when you think that you know which direction the story is going in, it changes and I like the idea that Hex has earned the opportunity to spend a year on earth but doesn’t have any of his memories.  

 

The true identity of Lily Finnegan was something that I didn’t see coming and totally transformed my opinion of the character although it does make the whole human combustion thing obvious (after it was pointed out you'll understand). The moment that we learn how and why Hex has come back to earth is the moment where I feel that some new energy was put into the story and it felt like the story had got a new lease of life.  

The Doctor is a huge punching bag from the very beginning and its rather off-putting to see the Doctor in this position. He gets to be back to his best at the end when Lily is begging for mercy and he gets to show us a bit of the Doctor that we got in McCoy's final series on TV. 

 

It’s good to have Amy Pemberton back as Sally Morgan. I loved the little jingle that sounded when she first appeared. It’s a this point that things seem to be changing for the Doctor and the kicking has been stopped. Its good how by the time she appears in the story she’s been on Earth for sometime and is working for the police trying to figure out about Mr. Thomas. The fact that she leaves the story to spend more time with Hilda. It might not be the most exciting way for a character to have departed from a show but its nice when someone leaves in a nice lovely way. 

 

I didn’t expect the story to end the way that it did. I expected the story to end with either Hex being killed off for good or back to his old self and the trio going off into the universe. The fact that there seemed to be left in the air is somewhat unnerving but at least we know that we are going to get more stories with Hex and that cant be a bad thing. Afterlife is the perfect way to end what has been a superb year from Big Finish. The story took my expectations and juggled with them and still managed to give me something else and not disappoint me. The performances were all really good and the writing and direction were just as good. Enjoyable. 

 

The Time of the Doctor (2013)

Well as the continuity announcer said during the credits for Call the Midwife, it’s the Regeneration Game. That’s about as funny as this episode would get I suspect. It’s the final episode for Matt Smith as the Doctor and introduces Peter Capaldi as the Doctor (not getting stuck in number cycle issue). This is the 800^th episode of Doctor Who and so that’s another reason to celebrate.

The opening scene where the Doctor lands on the Dalek ship and it goes from darkness around him to all their eyestalk lights appearing is a great opening scene and it immediately goes to the Cybermen and what is most curious of all is that the Doctor has a Cyberman’s head with him and I would have liked an explanation as to why and how he got it. Moffat uses a rather unusual (but festively obvious) way of getting Clara back into the TARDIS. This being a Christmas episode, Clara is trying to cook Christmas dinner and boards the TARDIS with the cold turkey.

It’s like this episode is a greatest hits for the Eleventh Doctor. The first to appear are the Silence. From the moment that the Silence appear its clear they have been to the tailor and it’s a better look for them than the white shirt and black tie they had before. Next up are the Weeping Angels who are now able to fight their way through the snow, they are always good. Next up we have the crack in the wall from his first series and this perhaps has the most significant part of the story. Then of course we have the old school references. I did love the reference to ‘The Five Doctors’. We have the Monoid puppet. These are done in a way that they will make sense to fans like myself yet wont confuse the newer viewer. Finally I have to say that wooden Cybermen are a brilliant idea and they look really creepy.

We get the speech about how many regenerations the Doctor has had though I’m still not convinced.

The eye stalks coming out of peoples head that first appeared in ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ return here in another greatest hits nod. Silence with eye stalks are a weird but good look. For the second time in a row there is a very impressive battle sequence and its well shot and looks like a fair amount of money and effort went into it.

As the Doctor was getting older I got a feeling like this was trying to get the newer fan use to the idea of the Doctor being older. As Capaldi is a fair bit older its probably wise thing. I think that at times Smith looked like William Hartnell which I found amusing. I don’t quite get why the crack appeared in the sky and it started the Doctor regeneration. That said I thought that it was a great scene and I liked how the Doctor used the regeneration power to destroy the Dalek spaceship.

The final scene between the Doctor and Clara is really nice and I thought for a moment that when the Doctor appears that it would be Capaldi’s Doctor with a hologram face but thankfully that didn’t happen and Smith got a fine goodbye speech which wasn’t as soppy as Tennant’s final scene. I didn’t expect Amy to return but that was a nice touch.

Capaldi’s opening scene was just as barmy as Smith’s opening scene. I just like the idea that the Doctor doesn’t like the colour of his kidneys. I don’t think anyone and I mean anyone can judge what sort of Doctor Capaldi will be based on this short scene but what I can say is that it will be different to Matt Smith’s performance.

Matt Smith’s performance is very good from start to finish. I’ve always rated Smith as a good Doctor and he shows it again here. For those who disliked him should hopefully have eat their words during this episode. Jenna Coleman’s performance was spot on. She was involved in the story but didn’t try and steal the limelight from Matt Smith. Again she’s been strong in every episode she has been in.

I like the fact that despite their being a giant plot, what we got was a fitting end to the Smith era. I think that it was the perfect way to end. It didn’t feel like it was building itself up to something that it couldn’t live up but knew what it had to do and did it well. Roll on episode 801 but we will probably have to wait until August or September.

The Trial of the Valeyard (2013)

This year’s subscriber special got me hooked just on the title. It’s the return of the Valeyard who appeared in the 23^rd series ‘The Trial of a Timelord’. The subscribers release is a chance for Big Finish to do something different. In recent years we have had the return of the Zarbi and Krotons but perhaps the most interesting ones have been the Four Doctor and Five Doctors. This story reunites Colin Baker with Michael Jayston and Lynda Bellingham. It’s been 27 years since that first story and many will agree that it wasn’t the strongest story that it could have been so it was nice that these three got a second chance because if anyone was going to make it work then it would be Big Finish. It starts off with the Doctor landing and slowly realising where he was and gets a bit ahead of himself when he first meets the Inquisitor again, he thinks that he is on trial before realising that he isn’t on trial but furthermore that the Valeyard was the one on trial and he was being asked to defend him.

We get to learn a bit more about the Valeyard. It’s something that I suppose everyone has thought about at one time or another. We learn that he was born but his mother and father’s identity aren’t clear. There is a bit here about the number of regenerations and how they are supposed to be limited to 13. Basically the reason it was 12 regenerations was because after the symbiotic nuclei becomes unstable and it’s good that there is a scientific reason as to why. Morally the Valeyard deduces that it was limited to 13 lives so that no timelord would become immortal. It feels fitting that there is discussion about the extension of regeneration just a few weeks after ‘Day of the Doctor’ where the number of lives that the Doctor was discussed (and still is). What also good about this is that the Inquisitor casts doubt and by the end of the piece its clear as to why she’s doing this. I love how the Doctor is accused at one point of creating the Valeyard and it’s at this moment that it seems like the Doctor is back on trial. Its quite a good reason if I’m honest but only because it shows how corrupt and desperate the Timelords are. However there is a sting because if someone had opened the box that the Timelords wanted then it would have killed them all.

There was a question as to why the Valeyard was put on trial in the first place and it was simply because he wouldn’t give the Timelords a box which lets them regenerate more than they should. There did seem to be quite a lot of dodging the main purpose of the trial in the early stages of this story but after a while that went and we got to the meat of the story.

When the Doctor keeps mentioning Ravolox there is that high pitch sound and it’s a nice reminder of the last time that they met. Everytime the Doctor mentions it the comments get wiped and its fun that the Doctor is clearly doing it on purpose and is having fun seeing the Inquisitor get more ratty. I don’t know if any Whovians would get this joke if they hadn’t seen Trial of a Timelord but to be honest if they haven’t done their homework then its their own fault.

I’ll listen to anything with Michael Jayston in. Everytime he appears on TV I think that everyone in that show should worry cause the Valeyard is evil. I first saw him in ‘Only Fools and Horses’ where he plays Del Boy’s Father-in-law and would appear in the ITV soap ‘Emmerdale’. Jayston is brilliant in this and quite frankly he could read a receipt and make it sound fantastic. Lynda Bellingham is most famous recently for appearing on the ITV show ‘Loose Women’ and its good that she gets to do something constructive by reprising the role of the Inquisitor. There seems to be a slight difference between the 2013 Inquisitor and the 1986 Inquisitor and that difference is that the 2013 version seems somewhat less pompous that in 1986. Don’t get me wrong there is still a bit of pomposity to the character but it seems more suited to the story now.

I really enjoyed it and thought that they did something different and more importantly something interesting with the Valeyard and the Valeyard. I often wonder when Big Finish do these freebie whether I would pay for it if I had to and the simple answer is yes. This is a wonderful adventure which utilises the few good things about Trial of a Timelord and quite frankly Big Finish should use Michael Jayston more in future audios, perhaps even his own spin off????

The Beginning (2013)

The Beginning is another Companion Chronicle story that goes back to the early days of the First Doctor’s timeline. The last time we went this early into the Doctor history was in the 2010 adventure ‘Quinnis’ which was also written by Marc Platt and I quite liked it. The Beginning is the first in a trilogy of adventures to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary and if any series does trilogies well then it’s the Companion Chronicle series. When they initially released the cover, the TARDIS was different and once the Name of the Doctor aired and showed the TARDIS that the First Doctor would walk into the cover changed to the one that we have now. I liked how there was a line about taking a different one which matches what we saw at the beginning of Name of the Doctor where Clara tells the Doctor to take a different one.

The early moments of the story are really quite fun as Carole Ann Ford does a great job in creating the panic and excitement of the moment. There is a tremendous sense of fear for Susan of what’s going on and it’ll be matched by Ian and Barbara in a few stories time. There is a lovely bit about what caused them to ‘steal’ the TARDIS in the first place. I like how the Doctor objects to the term stolen. There is a sadness when the Doctor doesn’t feel like he’s welcome on Gallifrey.

In Quinnis, Marc Platt put some meat on a line that was used in ‘Inside the Spaceship’ and it felt like he’d ticked all the relevant boxes to make it work and he’s done the same here. That might sound like a critiscm but it’s a compliment as that is what made Quinnis work and that’s what makes this story work. Even to go to the trouble of not calling the TARDIS the TARDIS but merely the time machine. Small details like that didn’t go unnoticed by me and I suspect by a great number of people listening to this.

After the initial opening quarter we get to the main part of the story with Terry Molloy entering the story who seems to have been on board the TARDIS when the Doctor takes off.  It’s always weird to hear Terry Molloy in a non-Davros role. It’s the same every time I watch ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ but it shows that he can do more than a mad scientist who shouts a lot. As Quadrigger Stoyn (name of the year), Molloy plays someone who is worried about pretty much everything and it matches the sort of person that doesn’t venture outside of the capital that we encounter whenever the show goes to Gallifrey. If I’m being honest sometimes I’m not a wild fan of Carole Ann Ford’s readings. I don’t think sometimes that she’s one of the better readers of the range and her last Companion Chronicle (The Alchemists) was a rather tiresome release though I think that I remember saying that some people may have gotten more from it than me.

The main part of the story does feel like normal companion chronicle territory but after the wonderful opening fifteen minutes I must say that I didn’t have a problem with this as it was done so well that it could easily have worked on its own without the special vibe that goes with it. The plot does a great deal to explain why the Doctor would have an obsession with Earth.

I was surprised with how the Doctor leaves Stoyn behind. It seems a bit un-Doctor like and even when you take into account the grumpiness that William Hartnell’s Doctor in the early days it’s does seem a bit harsh of him. Knowing that we are going to hear from Molloy’s Stoyn in the next release does rob us of the ability to let his abandonment to fester in our imaginations.

Carole Ann Ford’s last line in this is “We had no idea how long it would last!” and that seems to be a nice way to end the release and it’s probably a comment that Carole Ann Ford and William Russell themselves would say repeatedly. I really like this release. I think that it does a good job of telling a good story that kicks off a trilogy rather well and it has all the fun stuff at the beginning which would have long term fans giggling with excitement. The trilogy has a lot to live up to and whilst I wasn’t really that fussed about the trilogy to begin with, after listening to this I am really looking forward to the next two releases.

Lords of the Red Planet (2013)

The third story in this final series of Lost Story adventures sees us encounter the Ice Warriors. This story was originally written by Brian Hayles who created the Ice Warriors and it has been adapted by John Dorney. It’s the first time since the Sontarans that a classic monster has returned in the lost series.  This story seems to suggest that the story takes place before the Ice Warriors become the force that the Doctor would know them for. This was suppose to take the place that ‘The Seeds of Death’ would eventually take. There was a bit of me that was worried that the length would have me just wishing that the end would come and I would be disappointed with it just like I was witch the Dark Planet. At 180 minutes, the running time did seem excessively long but I thought that with the Ice Warriors, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury, the running time wouldn’t be an issue.  

The cast list is very interesting as it features Charlie Hayes (Wendy Padbury’s daughter) and also Michael Troughton (Patrick Troughtons’ son). Michael Troughton is most familiar to me as the child-like Piers Fletcher-Dervish from the early 1990’s sitcom ‘The New Statesman’.  Charlie Hayes has appeared in several Big Finish plays over the years with a few appearances against her mother.  For a second Doctor lost story, there is a surprisingly high number of cast.

The first episode is about how experiments are going on and how there is something not quite right going on. It’s quite interesting how it isn’t until episode two that the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie actually meet anyone and that’s only because they fell through a hole. As the story moves along it soon turns into a potential invasion story and the path of the Ice Warriors starts to marry up with what we know about the Ice Warriors but still tries to tell a story in its own right which it does rather well. There are some moments which sound quite tough on audio and had it made it to TV then it would have been interesting to see how it would have worked out. Mary Whitehouse would have had a field day. There is a moment when Jamie is seemingly tortured quite is quite a harsh moment but its quite brief and I think that in the context of the scene and the Princess it works quite well.

Quendrill is revealed to be the Davros of the Ice Warriors. Davros but without the chair or the OTT rhetoric. The scene where the word Lord gets used is quite a good moment and its well acted by Michael Troughton and Nicholas Briggs. I think that Charlie Hayes does well as Veltreena as a thoroughly unlikeable yet utterly engaging character. Zaadur is another good villain and she is one of those rare characters in Doctor Who in being a female villain that is strong minded. She is quite similar to Veltreena and I suppose that this was intentional but I think that Abigail Thaw is the better of the two. Michael Troughton is also very good with a rather interesting role.

I thought that it was a good story but unfortunately the running time is the thing that lets it down. I just don’t think that it was a six part story. Possibly they could have stretched it to five but four episodes is the perfect length of a story for a reason and that is perhaps my main complaint. Apart from that I thought that the performances were all really good and its always good to hear Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines because they always give good value for money.

 

1963: The Assissination Games (2013)

The Assassination Games is the final part of the 1963 series and perhaps the most anticipated by some people because it sees the Seventh Doctor and Ace reunited with Group Captain Gilmore, Rachel Jensen and Allison Williams who they previously encountered in the 1988 story ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. Since that story of course, Counter Measures has arrived and we’ve had two series of their adventures and I’ve listened to the first of those stories but I’m not really fully versed in the Counter Measures world. To be honest though I don’t think you really need to know to much before pressing play for episode one. The events of this story seems to have happened because of a book that the Doctor and Ace read a book in 2013.One of the early scenes seems to try and mirror the scandal that surrounded the War Secretary John Profumo back in 1963.

There is a murder during a press conference within the first five minutes which seems to have come out of nowhere and no sooner after he is caught than he jumps in front of a train and its quite the early start to the adventure. The character is only given a name of David Ritchie (played by Alisdair Simpson). It’s a short but effective character that shows that the characters are all good. The first time that Gilmore meets the Doctor again is done just before David Ritchie jumps in front of the train is done is a rather odd but slightly intriguing manner. Though its not until the end of episode one before his identity is revealed and the build up was quite good even though everyone would have known who Sir Toby Kinsella was referring to.

The Doctor is pretending to be John Rutherford MP who has been in this position for six months and has tried to remain undercover. It seems like this is a good position for him and the inevitable line comes during the second episode which is a famous quote from the BBC series ‘House of Cards’ when he says “You might very well think that, I couldn’t possibly comment”. If I wasn’t as involved in the story as I was then I would really have taken against it but I just thought that it was a nice bit of humour in this story.

Like early seventh Doctor stories for Big Finish, it seems that the Doctor and Ace have integrated themselves into the surrounding. Ace is a maid which is quite interesting because its how we first met her in ‘Dragonfire’ and It’s about forty minutes before Sophie Aldred gets to be Ace as opposed to Dorothy the maid. It was a welcome relief when she gets to be herself as it sees odd to see Ace in the maid role. The Doctor gets to share scenes with Gilmore and Ace gets to share scenes with Rachel so its Allison that seems to draw the short straw. The scenes between Gilmore and the Doctor are very amusing and that’s due to Sylvester McCoy and Simon Williams. Whilst the first cliffhanger might have been ok the second one was much better as it was effectively a start of the build up to a war and the final cliffhanger was really good as it was the Doctor about to come to the rescue and it was at this point where it really got into its stride.

There is an assassination in the first episode and in the second the Deputy Prime Minister’s office is blown up and is killed. This is when it becomes clear that the wrong sort of people are getting into positions of power and it feels like the political situation in ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’. That was just a brief moment in this story that I thought that but I thought it was an interesting comparison. There are some great lines in this story which is where John Dorney should get some great credit. He’s done a sound job in bringing the Counter Measures group and the Doctor back together whilst making this story feel like part of the 1963 series of adventures.

The Light are the secret rulers of the universe according to the Doctor. When it becomes clear that their plan is to restore the empire to its former glory, I realised that I really liked this story. I don’t know what it was that made me feel like this but I think that I’ve enjoyed it up until this point that it was the perfect explanation to the reasoning about what was going on. It seems at the end of the story that this wont be the last time that we will have heard from the light and I am quite glad because I get the feeling that there are some more good stories to be had and this could be the beginning of a new story arc for the Seventh Doctor.

In terms of performances, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred are on fine form and though its weird to not have Hex it’s a partnership that always produces a good story and they have both been working together for so long that its become second nature to them and due to the script they are given some good things to do. In terms of the Counter Measures group, both Simon Williams and Pamela Salem are really good and work well with Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy but I cant help but feel that Karen Gledhill didn’t have quite the involvement in the story and it feels like the character of Allison was just one too many. That is perhaps my only critiscm with the story.

There was a concern before listening to this that this would let the side down. That after two enjoyable stories, that this one would disappoint by not being as good and also the return of the Counter Measures group with the Doctor and Ace could have gone badly but I’m relieved to say that this wasn’t the case. I thought that it had a slow (ish) build up and then after it had introduced all the different characters and the setting of the story, it went up several gears and the final episode was fun from start to finish.  

Day of the Doctor (2013)

So it finally arrived. After months and years of waiting, I got to see a celebration of my favourite TV show. I knew very little about it and I deliberately avoided any magazines and websites that had rumours and pictures. This was a special celebration and it would be broadcast in over 90 countries and in cinemas and that was where I was watching it. The atmosphere in the cinema was fantastic. There was a wide range of ages and some people were wearing fez’s and there were even one or two people dressed as Matt Smith and Tom Baker. We sat down an hour before it aired and it was fun to see the cinema slowly fill up. I must admit that I was slightly worried that I would be disappointed with this. Partly due to the fact that it’s a special celebration, part because An Adventure is Time and Space was so wonderful and also partly because Night of the Doctor was amazing. The story sees David Tennant returns to the show for the first time since he regenerated into Matt Smith on New Year’s Day 2010. John Hurt joins the show as the War Doctor and after the minisode we are left in no doubt that he is the 9^th Doctor. So that makes Eccleston the 10^th, Tennant the 11^th, Smith the 12^th and Capaldi the 13^th.  

Day of the Doctor was going to address the Time War in a way that it hadn’t done until this episode. Instead of just talking about it we actually got to saw it and we learn that John Hurt’s Doctor is the one who pressed the button and killed the Timelords and Daleks to end the War. This is what Matt Smith’s Doctor meant in ‘The Doctors Wife’ when he said that he’d “killed all of them”. We got more Gallifrey than we could shake a stick at and it looked it became apparent that Doctor Who fans were going to get pretty much everything they have wanted since the show returned in 2005.

The return of Tennant’s Doctor meant that we were going to get more comedy than we’ve ever had in a Steven Moffat produced story. I thought that Tennant was on fine form and some of his best bits came when he was acting opposite Joanna Page’s Elizabeth and against the rabbit. In a story that had quite a lot of dark tones it was good to have some light relief. He had a lot of fun scenes with Matt Smith’s Doctor who worked well with everyone else but still managed to come across as the incumbent Doctor. John Hurt was a supremely brilliant piece of casting and must have been the voice of the older fan when he mocked Smith and Tennant’s Doctor for waving of hands whilst talking and their silly catchphrases. But when he needed to he could be the brilliant actor that we all know he can be and has that gravelly voice which just adds to his greatness. I’m quite glad that Eccleston didn’t want to do this story because he wouldn’t have been as good as Hurt.

As the companion, Jenna Coleman is very good and does well from start to finish. She holds her own several times during this story and I liked how she was the one who showed that the cell door was unlocked and that three Timelords hadn’t tried the lock. It’s easy to see why Clara is such a good companion and whilst the argument continues as to whether she’s the best of the new era, one thing is for sure and that is when you are one of the good things about a celebratory special with other incarnations of the Doctors then you know that she has to be in the top 2.

This story marks the return of the Zygons who have appeared in a couple of Big Finish plays in recent years but this marks their first TV appearance since their debut in the 1975 Tom Baker story ‘Terror of the Zygons’. Not quite sure why they chose to bring this particular monster back but it was a good choice and they did well with it. The look of them was good and the advance in prosthetics since 1975 was good enough that it looked quite creepy and the moment when the copy of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart changed was quite graphic and I was surprised that this was given a PG by the BBFC. Hopefully it won’t be 38 years before the Zygons return because they are a good monster.

One of the main worries that I had was that this was going to be one of those complicated stories that has more questions than answers which is something that Steven Moffat seems so fond of. However that wasn’t the case as what we got was something that resolved the cliffhanger from Name of the Doctor and celebrated this epic milestone in satisfactory. I think that Moffat has had way too much flak from fans over the last couple of years which I think was largely un-necessary.

The moment when Tom Baker appeared was one of those moments that got a reaction from the crowd. There were cheers and there was a good reason for it. There was the Eighth Doctor minisode and there is a special featuring Doctors 5-7. He may be nearly 80 years old but he was able to match Matt Smith in the acting stakes and there were a few instances where it was like the Doctor from 1974 was back on screen. He’s credited as The Curator but it’s basically he’s the Doctor and he’s making up for the mistake he made when he wouldn’t appear in ‘The Five Doctors’. Hopefully in 30 years’ time Christopher Eccleston will have the same change of heart and appear. Another surprise which got a reaction from the crowd was the brief appearance of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. All we got was his hand pulling a lever and him looking at us like he was Malcolm Tucker in the TARDIS.

There were things that didn’t work in this story. Firstly the 3D was awful. I’ve not seen a 3D film since I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and decided after that I would no longer waste money on this stupid technology. However I broke that rule for Doctor Who and whilst wearing the glasses didn’t bother me as much as it use to in other films, I could easily have enjoyed this just as much in standard old fashioned 2D. Secondly was the use of Billie Piper. Her return was hyped up just as much as that of David Tennant’s and despite whether you think she’s a positive influence or not on the series, you would have expected her involvement to be a lot more than it was here. She is the one that makes John Hurt’s Doctor think twice about pressing the red button. To be honest this could have been done by someone else and whilst I don’t dislike Billie Piper’s Rose as much as some people I know, I think that she could have been better used.

Day of the Doctor was everything that I would have wanted from the 50^th Anniversary special. I thought that seeing it in the cinema was a wise choice because sitting in a room with probably 2,000 Doctor Who fans who all applauded what they had seen and that was worth the £12 on its own. As for the story I was so happy that it didn’t disappoint me. I didn’t know what I initially thought but I knew I wasn’t disappointed. Apart from Billie Piper, everyone was well used and raised to the moment. It was the perfect way to celebrate the Doctor’s birthday and effectively performed a reboot at the very end and started the ball rolling with the incoming 12^th/13^th Doctor.

An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)

With the main course due in a couple of days it was time to have the starter. I was really looking forward to this drama which looked at William Hartnell's time on Doctor Who. Like most dramas of this type it starts at the end and goes to a flashback to tell a story. In the end we get a Cyberman and the bloke dressed up as him quips "tell him to hurry up I've got a planet to invade". The story isn't here to give up a world that puts people in a bad light. This was a love letter by Mark Gatiss who did the sketches for Doctor Who night back in 1999. One particular sketch was not very nice to the actors but this is completely different and its done with a nice balance of humour and drama. As the story unfolds we get things that we as fans know such as Hartnell fluffed his lines, Lime Grove Studio was tiny and the sprinklers went off when it got too hot. As Hartnell's health deteriorates it was a moment when Hartnell asks for a reduced workload and Newman basically fires him. I genuinely though that it was Hartnell's choice to leave but this clearly wasn't the case. The moment when Matt Smith appears in the TARDIS was a totally unexpected moment and it was this moment that I felt this was Mark Gatiss' goodnight kiss to the show. It was quick, simple but hugely fantastic and it was for me the icing on the cake as far as this story was concerned.

The performances were really good. No one really sounded like the people they were suppose to play but that didn't matter as the performances were so good that at no point did I think that Brian Cox was playing Sydney Newman but that it was Sydney Newman. David Bradley should be congratulated for giving a superb performance as William Hartnell. It was nice how as Hartnell got more ill Bradley's performance reflected this and it meant that it became more heartbreaking and the final part saw me fighting with myself in an attempt to not cry. I managed it but only just. Jessica Raine's performance as Verity Lambert was just as important as Bradley's. She had to juggle many balls as the first female BBC producer. I thought that her performance was heartfelt and the final scene between Verity and William was made emotional by their chemistry that they had from the very beginning.

You will need to watch this several times to spot all the cameos. As I write this I had spotted William Russell as a BBC security guard, Carole Ann Ford as a house mum with her hair in curls, Anneke Wills and Jan Marsh at Verity's leaving bash.I hadn't spotted Mark Eden (Marco Polo in Marco Polo) and if there are more then I look forward to spotting them. As I mentioned earlier this isn't a story that is going to be a warts and all story and the closest it comes to be serious is with Waris Hussein and there are a couple of uncomfortable moments where its clear that his skin is a problem but these are fleeting moments and put in there to at least address the issue that racism was around in 1963.

I had high expectations going into this and there were met and exceeded. This was a lovely and emotional story that showed me why I love Doctor Who and why in two days time, the show will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. Well written, well performed and well directed. Day of the Doctor has a lot to live up to and who would have thought that would be possible even in their wildest dreams.

The Time Machine (2013)

So this is where it ends. After 10 releases we get to see the 11^th Doctor’s story in the range and we almost didn’t see it. AudioGo went into administration just before Big Finish would normally have released it so we are getting this story somewhat later than usual. The story is performed by Jenna Coleman and it takes place six days from now or November 23^rd 2013 and sees the Doctor encounter Professor Chivers (played by Michael Cochrane) who is trying to assemble a time machine.

It’s quite nice that they have got Michael Cochrane into to this release as he has been in several Big Finish releases and also appeared in Ghostlight and can always be relied upon to give a sound performance. I thought that he was quite good in this story and even though he came close to being a clichéd villain who was obsessed with time travel, he managed to reign it in. Jenna Colman also performed well but I did feel at times like she was just going through the motions at time.

It’s great how all the pop up from the eleventh Doctor has been explained. It’s nice that it was the explanation that was given and it didn’t feel like it was plucked out of nowhere but something that had been sort of early on.

I don’t think that this story was quite what I was expecting for a final story. I suppose that over the eleven months that this series has been running, I was expecting a massive pay off but perhaps my expectations were too high. It’s a perfectly fine story that is performed well and the story works well along with the rest of the series and Matt Fitton has done a tricky job of tying up the loose ends as well as tell his story which isn’t a good job. It’s a fraction over an hour but the pacing uses it well.

This series has been a success. Despite the troubles that AudioGo are currently it doesn’t detract from the good work that everyone associated with the series has achieved. It’s a fine tribute to the show that they have managed to tell eleven stories with a story arc running through them whilst making each story work on its own and feel like the period that its suppose to represent.

The Tomfiles: #22 - Re-evaluating a Story: 100

Whilst waiting for the Big Finish to release the November releases. I thought that I would do something different. I would go back and listen to all the releases that I haven’t been particularly kind to over the years. See whether time has changed my opinion of a particular release or whether its still the same as before. The first story that I am going to look back at is the 100^th main range release called (oddly enough) 100. Released back in September 2007, this was Big Finish’s way of celebrating its milestone. It was the released during a year of transition as Gary Russell stepped to one side and Nicholas Briggs took charge of the range and we were treated the single episode stories but this was the first one where each of the four episodes were a stand-alone story.

When I first reviewed it back in October 2007, I said that the four stories were “disappointing” and rather foolishly said that you can’t tell a good story in 25 minutes and that you need at least 60 minutes to make a story work. Oh how truly stupid I have been. This is the review that saw me get an e-mail supposedly from Robert Shearman outlining his point of view. It was worth being this wrong just for that.

The first story was 100BC written by Jacqueline Rayner and in my 2007 review I commented how when Evelyn feigned an ailment is the first time that I disliked the character of Evelyn. I now think that it’s a shame that Evelyn and the Doctor are at odds because the dynamic of the group is so good and it’s not nice to see them fall out. After  a while Evelyn’s attitude does get a bit tiresome and I found myself rooting for the Doctor to get his point across and prove Evelyn wrong. It’s a good opening story. The second story features Mozart and I described this as a poorer story than 100BC and that’s wrong. I think that actually its marginally better because they are both good stories but it’s because this is bonkers but in a good way. I still think that Mozart’s attempted suicide is quite surprising considering that Big Finish rarely goes into this territory. The story has the sort of things that you would expect from a Shearman story and that’s the charm of it. I also can’t believe that I never made mention of the Soprano’s inspired ending to the episode where it cuts off mid-sentence. The third story was written by Joseph Lidster and my main gripe with it seemed to be that it spent too long building up the story and then rushed the end. My opinion of the episode is that it was different to the previous two episodes. In the 2007 review I seemed to have blacked out and missed the ending because the end of the episode came out of nowhere but its clear to even a blind spiel-snake that this episode has an ending and also a good one. Evil Evelyn was quite fun to listen to but I think that whilst it didn’t have same sort of feel as the previous two stories it felt more emotional and that’s not a bad thing as Lidster’s two releases from the year before (The Reaping and The Gathering) had a nice mix of emotion and science fiction. Another enjoyable release.  The final episode was my favourite part in my 2007 review and in 2013 it is still my favourite release. The tense created that the Doctor only has 100 days left is one of the things that I like, another thing is that the Doctor gets to go back and spy on himself.  By the end of the episode I thought that I was 100% correct in my opinion and it’s the only instance of the four stories that nothing changed.

Since we have had several releases like this such as The Company of Friends, Forty-Five and most recently Recorded Time and Other Stories, one thing has showed that it is possible to tell a story in 25 minutes and I was wrong and would like to apologise to Jacqueline Rayner, Robert Shearman, Joseph Lidster and Paul Cornell for being as harsh as I was to it. I think that compared to the other single four part stories that BF have produced its not the best but its still a lot of fun and an enjoyable release and was the template for future releases of this type.

Next Time: Flip Flop

1963: The Space Race (2013)

After enjoying the opening story to the 50^th Anniversary celebrations, I had high hopes for this middle story as it was a) a sixth doctor adventure b) it was written by Jonathan Morris and c) it was a Sixth Doctor and Peri story and they are a rarity in the main range. The last one was back in 2011 and in fact this is only sixth main range story since 1999. It starts off quite well as we get the initial set up and then when the Doctor and Peri first appear it feels like we are back on familiar territory. I like how there is a nice reference to ‘Marco Polo’ within the first five minutes.

The opening episode focuses on the landing of a capsule where Marinka has had somewhat of a memory fade. When they try and get into the capsule it does feel like the moment in ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ where they get into the capsule and find that there’s nothing inside, well the nice twist is that the Dog that the Russians sent into space (Laika) is in there instead. The plot get more bizarre when it turns out that Laika has Marinka’s voice. When I say bizarre, I mean that in a good way.

One of the things that I like about this release is how it never seems to stop for a breather. From the moment that the release starts it progresses at a nice pace. No sooner has the drama stopped to get Marinka down than the Doctor ends up going to the Moon. If you try and pin down where this is going to be heading then chances are you would be wrong and I was wrong and that its going to go somewhere different. Once I realised that the story seemed to be a dog with a human mind recruiting other dogs I couldn’t help chuckling to myself. Is this the new Reservoir Dogs?  All the humour that was generated with this thought disappeared once the story moved to the surface of the moon as the tone seemed to shift quite substantially.

The second half of the story seems to be about animals getting revenge on humans for experimenting on them and sending them into space. A sort of anti-Doctor Dolittle story was quite an amusing idea. The moment where the true spy is revealed (about an hour in) was one that I didn’t see coming. Not sure whether its cause I am stupid or just really smart by Morris but either way it worked out well.

The cliffhanger for episode three was another moment that I didn’t see coming and it ties in with the assignation of US President John F Kennedy on November 23^rd 1963. It’s at this point that I decided that I enjoyed this story. The other cliffhangers were all quite good and its good that they all work because it means that the flow of the story continues even with the interruption of the intro and outro there doesn’t feel like things slow down or stumble around.

I thought that Colin Baker was on fine form (as usual) and my favourite moment came when he was trying to defend humanity and basically say that whilst humanity has its bad side, it also have a wonderful side and humans can be good. Effectively the moral message was ‘Don’t tar everyone with the same brush!’. Nicola Bryant was also very good and I would go so far as to say that its one of her best performances for quite sometime. She is productive to the story and is used in a good and interesting way.

I thought that this was a very sound release. It wasn’t what I was expecting and I certainly wasn’t expecting a moral story with humans in animals and it could have been easy for Big Finish to do a standard story about the space race and what they and Jonathan Morris have given us is something completely different. I still think that Fanfare for the Common Men is more fun but certainly this story is enjoyable from start to finish and in the celebrations to the 50^th anniversary, The Space Race doesn’t let the side down

 

The Queen of Time (2013)

The second story of the final series sees a second Doctor Lost story. Like the previous release (which I didn’t like too much), this story was from Brian Hayles and it was adapted by Catherine Harvey who has written for the main range so I thought that this would hopefully make up for the disappointment of the last story. It certainly started off promising with a rather run opening TARDIS scene which saw Zoe and Jamie playing a game. There was a nice bit of music which was unexpected but much appreciated. It’s clear from the first fifteen minutes that this would have lost something had it been made for TV. The narration and the music that  was created by Toby Hrycek-Robinson, gives the impression that it wouldn’t have worked as well on TV because the set that I have in my imagination is far grander than what could have been achieved in 1968/69.

As the story develops I keep thinking about The Celestial Toymaker and how I just cant shake off that feeling. It shouldn’t be that surprising really considering that Hayles wrote The Celestial Toymaker. It’s clearly something that Hayles does well and I appreciate that story more because of this fact. There are scenes in this that could have instantly come out of that story and one of them is the scene where Jamie and Zoe are in the hour glass as it filled with sand as the Doctor and Hecuba eat. The story progresses quite nicely and it doesn’t seem to overstay its welcome. Whereas in The Dark Planet I felt that it could have been severely reduced in length, I felt that this story had a good pace to it and it felt like had been structured in the right way so that it didn’t feel like it had a rushed ending or was being padded.

Caroline Faber is very good as Hecuba. Faber has most recently been in Merlin as Hunith but has a very impressive track record. Hecuba is instantly unlikeable and I can believe that she’s a top villain just by that laugh that she uses. Hecuba interaction with the Doctor is quite a well realised one and it reminds me of the First Doctor and the Celestial Toymaker. I thought that Jamie was quite different in this story as he started off as a love struck teenager. That didn’t last for long but it was fun while it lasted. I thought that Frazer Hines was on his usual fine form and is always worth the money based purely on his impression of Patrick Troughton. He can always be relied upon to deliver a good performance and he does so here. Wendy Padbury’s first appearance for what seems like an age is a good one. She was just as good as Frazer Hines and reminds us why Zoe is such a good character and why Wendy Padbury is very good.

The first cliffhanger was rather good and I think that would have looked quite good on TV.  The opening episode was quite a good one as it was very much of the period and introduced a good villain whilst utilising Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury well. The cliffhanger ended with Faber’s voice and that’s not a bad thing. The second cliffhanger was the same sort of thing and ended with Faber talking but I thought that the ending worked quite well. The third cliffhanger was probably my favourite as it had a companion in peril with Hecuba laughing.

The first episode moved quite quickly whilst the second seemed to slow down slightly. It picks up again in the third and fourth episodes but it doesn’t seem to have the punch that the opening episode did. It never got boring and I enjoyed this release far more than The Dark Planet. I think that Brian Hayles’ original idea was quite a good one and served as a perfectly good sequel to The Celestial Toymaker. Catherine Harvey has done a good job in making this story work not only for audio but for a 21^st Century audience.  An enjoyable release.

The Light at the End (2013)

This has to be the most anticipated stories that Big Finish have ever produced and this is their tribute to the show’s 50^th anniversary. It’s so anticipated that Big Finish released it a month early and it’s the first time ever that the five surviving classic Doctors are in the same story. It’s not the first multi-Doctor story of course as we had the less than successful ‘Zagreus’ back in 2003 and we had recently the Four Doctors a couple of years ago which was much better. This has a lot of expectations and they were raised further for me when all the reaction on twitter was positive. Would the following near two hour spectacular live up to those expectations? Nicholas Briggs has taken on the responsibility and is a very brave man indeed. The very beginning was quite intriguing as it seemed to be the sort of thing that would have come from the TV series. The theme tune was fantastic and I hope that they use it for more stories cause its brilliant. It seems like a scene that doesn’t have much in the way of drama but it’s obvious that it’s got some relevance to the story. The decision to bring the Master back for this special was a superb choice and the get Geoffrey Beevers to play the Master again was even better. Having being a fan of ‘Mastermind’, I was really happy with the choice.

The first Doctor we get is Paul McGann’s Doctor and what was brilliant about it was that India Fisher returns as Charley and this is their first scene since the 2007 story ‘The Girl Who Never Was’ and it seemed like we had gone back in time. Despite the long time since they were together, I was surprised at how it was just a couple of weeks. Just the way that McGann says “Run for it Charley” had me feeling like I was listening to Storm Warning again. The scene where all the familiar voices was one of those rare moments where I was giggling like a 5 year old. This opening 15 minutes alone was worth the money. The next great moment comes when Charley meets the Fourth Doctor and Leela and eight minutes later the fourth and eighth meet. It was a great moment. We don’t get an introductory scene with the Fourth Doctor and Leela which was noticeable at the time and I suppose it would have been nice to have a scene between them before Charley gate-crashes the TARDIS. Sixey and Peri haven’t had many adventures together recently out of the Lost Stories series and so this felt more like the main range and that was what helped feel like we were going back in time. Forty minutes into the story and the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa enter the story. It’s not been long since I listened to and enjoyed ‘Fanfare for the Common Men’. Not quite sure whether the events in this story take place before or after Fanfare but in a way that’s irrelevant.  A few minutes later and Sylvester McCoy becomes the last Doctor to arrive in the story with Ace. Even after 80 minutes we still get surprises when Straxus returns. Straxus has previous appeared in several Eighth Doctor adventures and most recently in the Dark Eyes series as played by Toby Jones. I think that the character is quite an interesting one.

In ‘Zagreus’, they stuck Jon Pertwee into the story with inaudible dialogue and they have learnt from their mistakes by getting the companions who have done the voices in the Companion Chronicles to do their impressions once again and it works much better. If only the companion chronicles were around in 2003. A massive round of applause should go to Jamie Robertson who has given this story the sort of music that would make Murray Gold look over his shoulder. Robertson has a fantastic track record with all his stories and he has stepped up his game for this story.

Tom Baker was on fine form. When he found out the name of The Vess he simply replied “Nobody’s perfect”. Tom Baker’s humour is often knocked as being over the top but was perfectly pitched here.  When the eighth Doctor says that the TARDIS console room design was one that he inherited, Baker quips “Who from? Jules Verne?”. I like how Paul McGann and Tom Baker become a nice double act. The Doctor’s best companion is himself. What a weird thought! The Sixth and Seventh Doctors become a double act briefly and I thought the interaction with Peri and Ace was fun to listen to. I thought Ace’s Joseph gag aimed at the sixth Doctor was funny even if it might not be original. Sylvester McCoy has had a good run of stories over the last two or three years and he continues that good run here. Colin Baker’s Doctor has undergone a renaissance since his first Big Finish story back in 1999 and this is the perfect way to show this. Peter Davison has been consistently good over the years even if his stories haven’t quite been as good. Davison shows what a great actor he is here by keeping at the same level as the other four Doctors and none of the leading actors let the side down.

Louise Jameson can’t put a foot wrong in my opinion. After just listening to her in the final Gallifrey series, even Stephen Fry would struggle to find words to describe how great she is. Sarah Sutton, Nicola Bryant and Sophie Aldred were all really good and were given enough to do which makes a change from the 1983 anniversary special. Even though they didn’t have massive parts to play I thought that it was nice how Frazer Hines, Anneke Wills, Jean Marsh, Wendy Padbury, Peter Purves (and others that I probably missed) got to be involved in an imaginative way. Geoffrey Beevers has the perfect voice for the Master and is my favourite actor to play the role after Roger Delgado. Every scene that Beevers was in was superbly played and very creepy. Beevers can make his voice sound quite terrifying at times.

The scene where all the Doctors are talking to each other (with companion chronicle impressions) is a superb moment and the final 20 minutes were just as good as the previous 97. The final big scene was a great way to end the story and the Master was defeated in a creative way. When the Doctor’s forget what they have just been through I was really sad because it would have been great if they could remember what they have all been through but it was inevitable that they would have to forget. They all go off into the sunset and off on their own adventures that we will hopefully get to listen to in the future.

After 15 minutes I decided that this was story of the year and it never gave me any reason after that to dispute this. Everyone involved in this story should be thoroughly proud of themselves. It’s not very often that I say this but the TV series will have to do a lot to beat this. At just under two hours it was possible that it would either become to complicated or just go off the rails somehow but I’m pleased and relieved to say that this didn’t happen. Nicholas Briggs can be relied upon to deliver a solid story and he has managed to write a strong story that utilises everyone. Everyone was on fine form and this is how multi-Doctor stories should be done in the future. This is the perfect 50^th anniversary present.

Death's Deal (2013)

We are now at the penultimate part of this series. Whereas in the previous Doctor story we got someone who wasn’t a companion or even anything close but the voice of the Daleks, here we get Catherine Tate who played Donna Noble during the 2008 series. I’m glad they went with Donna because I think that she was the most fun despite her less than successful encounter in the 2006 Christmas Special. Over 13 episodes in 2008 she blossomed into a wonderful character and played brilliantly by Tate. I love the Tennant theme so was glad to hear it. This story has been written by Darren Jones who apart from writing a couple of 11^th Doctor original novels, he has hasn’t written for Big Finish. This is always a good thing as it allows a bit of freshness to come through as I didn’t know what to expect.

I love how Darren Jones has managed to get the character of Donna perfectly right. “Put a sock in it Pocahantas” was an early favourite. Describing the Doctor as “a lanky streak of madness” is typical Noble and it immediately gave me the impression that we were in the Tenth Doctor era. As for the story itself, the Doctor and Donna arrive on the deadliest planet and it isn’t just a gimmick. It is actually a deadly planet and there is nothing good about it. When Tate talks about shipwrecked I cant help but think of ‘The Doctors Wife’ where there is shot of all the crashed ships and its an image that helps create a nice world here.  Another thing that helped create the atmosphere is the music and credit should go to Jamie Robertson who has worked wonders (like he always does) in creating a truly horrible planet.

The question as to how the 11^th Doctor was going to feature in the story was something that I was interested in finding out as it’s always been different in the previous encounters. It was done well but I was also impressed with Tate’s impression of Matt Smith. Duncan Wiseby is a regular visitor to the Big Finish world and can always be relied upon to give us a good performance and he does that here as Krux and Erskine.

I thought that the story was a lot better than the previous story (though that’s not much of a compliment). It wasn’t just Catherine Tate which made it a great release but the actually story itself was very good and got my attention from the very beginning and kept it for the duration.  If I had to make spot a flaw with it and that would be that it could have done with being 10 minute shorter but I hope that Darren Jones is given the opportunity to write for the main range as I think that with a full cast audio he could write a really strong release. Fingers Crossed.

Ascension (2013)

So this is the end. A spin-off that started in 2004 ends nine years later with Ascension. Would we be given a satisfying end during the next 67 minutes. I knew one thing that some people weren’t going to like this story and some were going to thing that it’s the perfect ending. The story continues with Romana not in fact regenerating but finding herself back on another Gallifrey. It was obvious that it wasn’t going to be like when the Tenth Doctor ‘regenerated’ back in series four but there was going to be some sort of explanation and it was done well. Despite having a relatively short amount of time (they gave three hours to a First Doctor Lost Story), they managed to fit an awful lot into it.

I liked how they tried to tie things up with ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. It was an unexpected link and it felt like they were going to do something like tie it up with known Doctor Who events. There were things that worked that I did manage to understand. I like how it was the Daleks that created the Dogma virus all that time ago.

It seems that the final story was going to be going back to the early days of the spin-off when I struggled to understand what was going on. It sounded like what was happening was all very important and dramatic but I couldn’t tell you what was happening. I think that this is probably a good sign because it means that the show is ending in the same manner than it all those years ago. I thought that the central performances were very good and the one that has been consistent and that is how wonderful Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson have been over the last twenty-three episodes. Despite being a fan of War and Jameson, I cant deny that I felt somewhat underwhelmed by things. I thought that they would try and throw everything at the wall and some things stick and some don’t but because it was so difficult to understand I was only able to enjoy some of it and as a result I think that for some this finale would be what they wanted but for me I just felt that it wasn’t the epic finale that it should have been.

Renaissance (2013)

The penultimate adventure in this series starts off with quite the serious monologue. Then we move to Romana having a wonderful discussion/argument with herself where at least twice she does a quite spot on K9 impression. There is an initial mystery as to who the strange woman is and I must admit that I didn’t see the answer coming. A second Romana is the sort of thing that would be normal for this series. There is a nice speech that Romana III gives Romana II after she has a go about intercepting a transmit is very similar to a speech that was given to Tom Baker’s Doctor in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. The new Romana offers the current Romana the chance of rebuilding Gallifrey centuries earlier than it should have been. It does mean that Romana 2 has to enter into an alliance with a future incarnation which is breaking the laws of time which is what the Doctor Who world likes to do.

Whereas in the previous story the threat came from the Daleks, in this story the threat seems to come from a future version of her. Initially I thought that whilst there was a sense of mistrust of her motives and even by the end I wanst 100% trusting of her.  I thought that she was really good as Romana 3 and the evil streak that comes with her character is fun to watch and made the final part of the story more fun than it would have been.

There is another instance where a familiar speech is used here and it’s the Master speech that he gives in ‘Logopolis’. In fact there are at least two that are either word for word or similar which I thought it was a nice touch. I like the mistrust between Leela and Romana 3. When Romana 3 suggests that they go for a walk then I am thinking ‘Don’t’. Leela notices things that others don’t and you would have thought that by now people would have trusted from the very beginning but still they wait until the very end before Romana 2 starts to listen to what she’s saying. It’s a little bit annoying that even now they do this but that’s the way things are.

The fact that Romana 2 wants to get rid of Romana 3 discretely is something that seems quite like the sort of thing that would go on in Gallifrey. I think the reason she would want to do this is because she suspects the Romana 3 would do the same to her. There is an awful lot of talking and for a large part of this there isn’t much in the way of action. In fact at times it doesn’t seem like much in the way of action. The best scene is where the Ambassador is leaving and both Romana’s are allowing him to fly to his death much to the dismay of Leela. I know that Romana 2 is against it but she doesn’t try to hard to stop them. It’s at this point that I feel that the story really gets going which comes with just 25 minutes to go. She was put on trial and the punishment was executed quite quickly and it seems Narvin is working for Romana 3. Considering how Romana 2 was going to do this to 3, its hard to drum up any sympathy towards 2.

Then there is the question as to who the mystery figure was. There were many possible theories that were running through my head such as the watcher or a female version of the Valeyard. It was annoying that it never really got answered in this story because it would have been a nice way to end the story. I thought that once this story got going then it really became a very good story. It’s got a great cliffhanger which sets up the final story perfectly. I thought that despite the slow start, the characters were all really good an in particular  who I get the sense that we will see the best of her in the next story. Even Sean Carlsen as Narvin was on good form which I don’t normally comment on. The main thing about this release is that it does feel like its just a holding pattern until the final part. There is a lot to like about this but I think that it will be overshadowed by the came before it and what will come next.

On a side note I think that the idea of Leela and Romana 2 going on their own travels leaves the possibility of a female Jago and Litefoot.