The 2014 Toms Tardis Awards - Update

Ok so the awards have been open for just over a week and there have been just under 500 votes cast in that short time. I will be trying to do an update on how the awards are going so here is the first one. I don’t know if you agree with me but there are some interesting results so far.

Also, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Favourite Doctor – Peter Davison
Favourite Companion – Louise Jameson (Leela)

Favourite Main Range Story – Breaking Bubbles & Other Stories
Favourite Main Range Writer – Several writers
Favourite Main Range Director – Several directors
Favourite Main Range Cover Designer – Tom Webster (Signs & Wonders) & Tom Webster (Revenge of the Swarm)
Favourite Main Range Music & Sound Designer – Wilfredo Acosta (Breaking Bubbles & Other Stories)
Favourite Series – Six (The Widows Assassin/Masters of Earth/The Rani Elite)

Favourite Companion (Companion Chronicles) – William Russell (Ian Chesterton)
Favourite Companion Chronicles Story – Luna Romana & The Sleeping City
Favourite Companion Chronicles Writer – John Dorney (Second Chances) & Simon Guerrier (The War To End All Wars)
Favourite Companion Chronicles Director – Lisa Bowerman (Luna Romana)
Favourite Companion Chronicles Music & Sound Designer – Richard Fox & Lauren Yason (Luna Romana & Second Chances)
Favourite Companion Chronicles Cover Designer – Damien May (Luna Romana)

Favourite Jago and Litefoot Story – The Night of 1000 Stars
Favourite Jago and Litefoot Writer – James Goss (Encore of the Scorchies)

Favourite Early Adventures Story – Domain of the Voord
Favourite Early Adventures Writer – Andrew Smith (Domain of the Voord)
Favourite Early Adventures Director – Ken Bentley (Domain of the Voord)
Favourite Early Adventures Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Doctor’s Tale)

Favourite Philip Hinchcliffe Story – The Ghosts of Gralstead

Favourite Fifth Doctor Story – Psychodrome & Iterations of I
Favourite Fifth Doctor Writer – Jonathan Morris (Psychodrome) & John Dorney (Iterations of I)

Favourite Counter Measures Story – Changing of the Guard
Favourite Counter Measures Writer – Matt Fitton (Changing of the Guard)

Favourite New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield Story – Lights of Skaro
Favourite New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield Writer – Nev Fountain (The Revolution)

Favourite Charlotte Pollard Story – The Viyran Solution

Favourite Dark Eyes Story – Masterplan
Favourite Dark Eyes Story – Matt Fitton (Masterplan)

Favourite Fourth Doctor Story – The Crooked Man
Favourite Fourth Doctor Writer – John Dorney (The Crooked Man)
Favourite Fourth Doctor Director – Nicholas Briggs (The Crooked Man)
Favourite Fourth Doctor Music & Sound Designer – Jamie Robertson (The Evil One) & Jamie Robertson (The Crooked Man)
Favourite Fourth Doctor Cover Designer – Anthony Lamb (The Evil One)

Favourite The Avengers Story – Hot Snow

Favourite Survivors Story – Revelation
Favourite Survivors Writer – Matt Fitton (Revelation)

Dark Water

This is the episode where we find out who Missy is and the revelation that she was the Master is a fantastic moment.

Michelle Gomez is the perfect choice for the role and she pitches it just right in terms of madness and genius.

The Cybermen were perhaps the only thing that didn’t quite fit because all the focus was elsewhere.

Thought it was brave with Danny and the warzone stuff. Was quite tough compared to previous Doctor Who moments.

The Skeletons were the best design since the weaping angels and they were very creepy. Even though I knew they were Cybermen I didn’t see the revelation coming. Moffat deserves a lot of praise for this episode.

Possibly one of the best episodes of the series and I am looking forward to the series finale which is an hour long.

What's Wrong (and right) with Doctor Who

When it was announced that Capaldi was playing the Doctor at the ripe old age of 55 people were going crazy because they thought that the role should be played by someone that was in their 20’s or 30’s. Someone with crazy hair, and someone with a lot of energy. Basically someone like David Tennant or Matt Smith. I loved it when people went all crazy saying that they weren’t going to watch the show because the Doctor was an old guy. Good, if you’re the sort of person who watches a show based on someones aged then bugger off. Doctor Who has survived without you and will survive without you again.

This is the problem when something becomes mega popular, it attracts the sort of fickle riff-raff that can sink a show. These are the sort of fans that will go onto forums and start bitching about an episode saying but not attacking Capaldi directly but instead Steven Moffatt.

Considering the show is about a 2000 year old Timelord that travels through time and space, its amusing that people get het up about a 55 year old playing the Doctor.

I think that Steven Moffat has been a positive influence on Doctor Who. The problem that I have had with the Russell T Davies era of the show is that visually it didn’t really feel like Doctor Who. It didn’t have the seriousness that I wanted and whilst watching the Moffat era, I have felt like this is the Doctor Who that the show should have been producing from the very beginning.

Occasionally though, Steven Moffat has gone off road a bit and there have been a few mistakes that he has made that whilst not terrible are slightly frustrating. Here are somethings that has driven me mad since Moffat took over the show in 2010.

1)      Too Much Clara
If there has been one recurring theme in the first five episodes of the series is that Clara has featured too much in the story with the Doctor taking on a supporting role. Sometimes I think that too much of something isn’t always a good think and they would be good to row back on the Clara stuff.

2)      Story Arcs

Ok so this is a fault that RTD should take responsibility and it’s something that occurs in pretty much every TV drama but I wish Doctor Who would just go back to have weekly stories that didn’t have a story arc to it. I am currently watching an episode of Doctor Who a day and at the moment I am watching the Key to Time story and if you watched just one story from this series then there are things that don’t make sense and you have to watch the entire series to make sense of it. People who don’t watch Doctor Who should be able to watch an episode and not need to know much about whats going on.

3)      Too complicated

Again this is a critiscm that could be laid at RTD’s door but I think sometimes Moffat stories are too complex. With the RTD era, I found the whole Bad Wolf story to be a bit of a mystery (nine years on I still don’t get it). With Moffat it seems like he enjoys winding people up with a story that makes them think. If I want to have to think about what I see on screen then I will watch QI. I want to watch Doctor Who to see a bloke in a Police Box going to alien worlds and fighting the bad guys.

4)      Companions having a destiny

When a companion joined the show, they didn’t have a destiny or a mystery that the Doctor needed to solve. They were just a girl or guy and was in the search of an adventure. Nowadays the companion’s future seems to be entwined with the Doctor’s and this means that the stories are going to be built around them. Sarah Jane didn’t become one of the most popular companions because she had a destiny or a back story that the Doctor would be intrigued with, she was just a normal woman and that’s why the show was fun during the classic era.

To show that I am not one of the Moffat haters, I am going to come up with reasons why Moffat is better than RTD as Head Writer.

1)      More grown up tone

The show did have a bright and shiny feel to the RTD era even though it got less bright and shiny towards the end of the Tennant era but when Steven Moffat took over, the one thing that I immediately noticed was that it seemed more grown up and I liked this very much. For the first time since the show returned in 2005, I was able to enjoy the show and it felt more serious like other dramas on TV.

2)      Weeping Angels

Ok so this was introduced during the RTD era but it was Steven Moffat’s story and he bought them back in style during Matt Smith’s first series. One of the best things of the new era has been the creation of the Weeping Angels and on a side note, some of the aliens created during the Moffat era have been better than farting aliens that squeeze themselves into human skins.

3)      50^th Anniversary and dealing with the lack of Christopher Eccleston

Like most fans (even just of the new series stuff), we were hoping that Christopher Eccleston would return to play the role he played for just 13 episodes in 2005. Sadly Eccleston’s refusal to do this simple task meant that Steven Moffat had to think on his feet and came up with an alternative that I think actually works better than if Eccelston had returned. John Hurt is a superior actor to Eccleston and whilst Eccleston is a solid actor, he doesn’t have the back catalogue that Hurt does and whilst the introduction of the War Doctor does complicate things in the number of Doctor it doesn’t change that the 50^th Anniversary special didn’t fall apart without Eccleston’s involvement.

4)      No silly romance between the Doctor and the companion

Right now I know that Matt Smith’s Doctor married River Song (not technically a companion) but he never had a romance like the one that Rose had with Eccelston and Tennant’s Doctors. Amy might have had feelings for the Doctor and vice versa but they didn’t become overbearing like Rose’s. Clara might also have feelings but they are sort of hidden in the background. Moffat realised that people were watching Doctor Who for the drama first and not for the romance. He also realised that it helped the show but that it needed to play second fiddle to the main stuff.

The think about this show is that there are going to be people who want to just enjoy the show for what it is. There are also people who just love to knock the show and these people are what is wrong with the show. There is nothing wrong with saying you don’t like an episode or a series or even that you don’t like the state the show is in. But sadly these people are drowned out by those that probably haven’t seen much of the classic series and yet think that the new series is better.

Series 34 so far

We are five episodes in with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor and a lot of people have already voiced their approval or disapproval of the latest chapter in Doctor Who and so I thought that I would offer my thoughts. If you like a 100% Steven Moffat bashing then you probably wont want to read on because this wont happen, however if you want a more balanced opinion then read on.

The first episode was shown in cinemas as well as on BBC1. When the 50^th anniversary special was shown at the cinema I went along with friends and it was a fantastic experience because the screening was full of Doctor Who fans (some of whom had dressed up) and the story was great and the reaction from the audience was equally great. I could see why it was shown in a cinema and didn’t mind paying for the privilege. Fast forward ten months and I cant see the point. Yes the arrival of a new Doctor is a big deal but I refuse to pay £12 to see Capaldi’s debut.

On the subject of the story it was twenty minutes too long and is not going to be in the top 3 stories of the series because opening stories aren’t known for quality story telling. It’s all about trying to get the audience and fans to accept the new Doctor. The next story is perhaps going to be the best story of the series (or in the top 3 anyway). It’s fair to say that the Daleks’ star has fallen since the show returned in 2005. Whereas a Dalek story use to be a source of great excitement, now it doesn’t quite have the same attraction. What ‘Into the Dalek’ did was show what a great Doctor Peter Capaldi will be but also that something interest can be done with the Daleks.

Robot of Sherlock is a story that I thought I wasn’t going to like when I first saw it because it looked like it was going to be a comedy and if there is one thing that Doctor Who doesn’t do well it is a comedy and whilst I don’t think it’s the greatest story so far, it was better than I thought it was going to be. It allowed Capaldi to do a bit of comedy which if you’ve seen him in ‘The Thick of It’ is always a fun thing to witness. Sadly, the good form wasn’t going to last when we got to Listen. I was bored when I watched Listen and thought that it was just 45 minutes of interesting scene followed by interesting scene without the key thing that every story should have and that is a purpose. I watched it a couple of days later on BBC3 and whilst I liked it slightly more the second time, I was still left with a bit of disappointment because there is something that works in the episode but it gets lost. The main critiscm that seemed to be following it on twitter and from a friend is that there was too much Clara and I think that is what has been the problem with the series (more in next week’s blog).

The trailer for Time Heist which followed Listen was more entertaining than the previous 45 minutes and the full episode was a massive improvement on episode four. It felt like the show was having fun again whilst having a bit of a mystery for the viewer to try and sort out. As I write this (on a Wednesday), the next episode is the Caretaker and seems to be focusing more on Clara and the other guy. Only time will tell how the rest of the series will run but at the moment I would give the show 7/10. The good stuff includes Peter Capaldi and the Dalek episode but the bad stuff was Listen and too much Clara.

The mystery surrounding Missy is something that is intriguing me and I hope that the payoff for this isn’t going to disappoint me in the way that previous story arcs have disspointed me. I think that the decision to pit it against the ratings juggernaut that is ITV’s The X-Factor and putting it on at 8.30 is a mistake because it means that ratings are going to be lower and those that hate Steven Moffat are going to use this as a stick to beat him with. I don’t care about that because all I care about is what I see on my TV screen and have in my DVD collection.

Peter Capaldi is a brilliant Doctor and despite some reservations, Jenna Coleman is really good as Clara and all the stories (apart from Listen) have been good in different ways and those that have supposedly stopped watching the show because the Doctor is an old guy are missing some great stories and the fandom is better without. Hope your enjoying watching Dads Army on BBC2 or your David Tennant/Matt Smith DVD’s or whatever your watching when you not watching Doctor Who.

Time Heist (2014)

After being somewhat disappointed with last week’s episode. I was somewhat hoping that this episode would return back to something resembling good form. Certainly the trailer seemed to indicate this and the start of the episode seemed to start off like most episodes this series. The Doctor takes Clara away in the TARDIS and off onto their next adventure but within moments, the normality is disrupted when the Doctor and Clara are in a new room with two complete strangers. The two people that the Doctor and Clara meet are Psi and Saibra who are a augmented human and a shape shifter. There is a recording which in a nutshell sets up the story saying that they have had their memories wiped and it was all of their volition.  

 

I think I like the idea that Clara isn’t always with the Doctor in the TARDIS. I like the idea that she has a life away from the Doctor and the Doctor keeps popping in like a relative. The phone ringing is still a rare thing. I think the last time it rang was in the 2005 story ‘The Empty Child’. The whole theme of the episode (as the title suggests) is that it’s a heist adventure. The episode takes place in a bank which given the current attitude towards the banking community is perhaps the sort of area that deserves to have people of ill repute running it.  

 

The first thing that strikes me about this episode is that there is less of Clara hogging centre stage and the Doctor actually being the lead character. It’s fair to say that Jenna Coleman’s performances in recent weeks have been overshadowing Capaldi’s at a time when he should be striding away with the role. Here Capaldi shows us how good he is and there were moments of Malcolm Tucker in a few lines. Despite my growing frustration at the character of Clara, I think that Jenna Coleman’s performance was very good. I thought that it was good how Clara didn’t go gooey eyed over Psi and even their goodbye hug wasn’t a soppy send off.  

The main name that appears in this episode is Keeley Hawes who plays Ms Delphox. As much as I wanted to like her character I thought that Hawes’ performance was very similar to that of Ms Foster as played by Sarah Lancashire in the 2008 story ‘Partners in Crime’. I think that this Hawes’s character was slightly better because compared to ‘Partners in Crime’, the plot in this one was stronger. 

 

I thought that Psi and Saibra were two very good characters and Jonathan Bailey & Pippa Bennett-Warner did a good job of keeping up with Capaldi and Coleman. Normally I would have found the character of Psi to be irritating and I would instantly hate the actor playing the part but on this occasion I found the performance and the actor to be quite good. I thought that Bennett-Warner gave an understate yet engaging performance and I wanted these two characters to be alright at the end of the episode and thankfully they did.  

If I have an issue with the episode then I think that it runs away with itself in the final few minutes when its revealed that the person calling the TARDIS phone at the very beginning of the episode was Madame Karabraxos as an old woman. On a side note, I thought that the make-up was very good. Certainly better than some of the make up used to make people older that we have seen in previous episodes. The idea that she is ringing the Doctor in her dyeing days was something that clearly had Steven Moffat’s fingerprints all over it because it seemed overly complex. 

 

I’ve managed to get this far without referring to the monster which looked very good and is one of the strongest monster designs for quite sometime. The idea that it’s being forced against its will to do something isn’t terribly original but its used quite well here and the moment when its revealed that the Teller is the last of its kind was quite nice and about as soppy as it got. 

 

I definitely thought that ‘Time Heist’ was miles better than the previous episode because at least it felt like a normal Doctor Who episode. I still think that ‘Into the Dalek’ is the best episode of the series but at least this episode shows that ‘Listen’ was just a blip. Nearly halfway through the series and its been a pretty good run of episode with only one really letting it down. 

July 2014 Ratings

The Tomfiles: #23 - Dalek Empire - A Retro Review

In the first of a series of new Tomfiles, I look back at one of Big Finish’s earliest success stories and whether it stands up to the high quality that Big Finish have become known for since it started making Doctor Who stories fifteen years ago. This first part looks back at the first series. Dalek Empire was the first thing that I listened to that was made in the Big Finish world. I remember buying it at a Memorabilia Fair in 2003 not knowing much about Dalek Empire or Big Finish. I also bought this along with a few Eighth Doctor main range releases. Dalek Empire is one of the first big successes that Big Finish had. There was the Bernice Summerfield series that Big Finish launched first but this was the first series that they had created.

The Dalek Empire series started back in June 2001 and having listened to it recently, the first thing that struck me was just how well it stood up to todays standard of Big Finish storytelling. The only thing that is missing from these releases is the noise that is made when the Daleks move. It’s important (but not vital) to have heard two main range releases in the form of ‘The Genocide Machine’ and ‘The Apocalypse Element’ (both from 2000).

The first instalment of this opening series was called ‘Invasion of the Daleks’ and the plot was exactly that. The Daleks invade Vega 6. The thing that is littered during this series is the narration done by Joyce Gibbs.

There are three main characters introduced in this series and they are Kalendorf (played by Gareth Thomas), Alby Brook (played by Mark McDonnell) and Susan Mendes (played by Sarah Mowat). It’s Susan that becomes quite integral to the whole thing because she soon becomes defiant in the face of the Daleks and the Daleks use her to try and improve moral and productivity levels of the slaves. She becomes known as the Angel of Mercy. I think that the relationship between Kalendorf and Susan Mendes is one that works from the very moment that they have a scene together. Thomas does a great job of making Kalendorf sound ordinary at first and then to be a Knight and can communicate telepathically.

This opening story attempts to tell everyone that listens what to expect and its pretty clear by the end of the first part that its going to be a story on an epic scale. We know who the important characters are and it’s a solidly written opening story and one that wouldn’t be out of place in todays Big Finish output.

The thing that I noticed about the second part ‘The Human Factor’ is that it feels like the foot has been taken off the accelerator a little bit. That’s not to say that it’s a poor story or even a substandard adventure but there is a definite change compared to the opening story. Susan Mendes’ involvement becomes more important and clearer and this causes a nice bit of tension between the two. This part is the first one that has what I would class as a proper cliffhanger. Alby is shot at by unknown forces and it seems like his involvement is not going to go on for much longer. This part is also another one that has relations to the main range and that is the Garazone System which featured in ‘Sword of Orion’ but there is a time difference between the two stories. Whereas it might be necersary to have listened to The Mutant Phase and The Apocalypse Element, I don’t think that is the case for ‘Sword of Orion’.

By the time you finish the third part ‘Death to the Daleks’, there is no denying the epic scale of this story. The characters feel like they are old friends with Alby Brooks coming across like the slightly rebellious and likeable brother who despite letting his heart rule his head, doesn’t seem to be as annoying as if he were in some Hollywood romantic comedy. At this stage of the adventure the story needs some fresh blood in it and that happens in the form of Mirana (played by Teresa Galagher). She is someone who seems to be a running sore for Brooks and seems like the perfect person to be alongside Brooks. The release builds to those famous words being uttered by the Angel of Mercy and before this happens there is a lovely scene between Mendes and Kalendorf which shows how close they have become even though they do take swipes at each other from time to time. Her death is the ultimate shock in the story and shows that even one of the central characters isn’t immune from the axe. The penultimate story in a series or serial has to do a job of making the final instalment to be an unmissable finale.

It’s interesting when the final part ‘Project Infinity’ starts because it would be interesting to see how the loss of one of the key characters would affect the story. One thing is made clear is the purpose of the narration that we had been hearing since the very beginning and its down to the Angel of Mercy having formed a link with her.

Alby has gone a little bit crazy at the death of Susan Mendes and seems to do some crazy things to try and prove that she’s alive. What’s quite clever is that Briggs slightly distracts us with the possibility that there is something else going on. The twist that Mirana is actually working for the Daleks is something that I didn’t see coming (or remember).

The ending of this final part is not what most people at the time would have been expecting. The Daleks are basically going to have a war with each other. In the ‘Big Finish Companion Volume 1’ its explained that Nicholas Briggs knew that there was going to be a Dalek Empire 2 and that’s clear from the ending that this is the case and it’s the best ending to a Dalek Empire release up until this point. What I like about the story at this point is that there is still plenty of room in this adventure and with the addition of new Daleks there is even more that can explored.

This series has been fantastic to listen to. Aside from the lack of sound effect on the Daleks, this series is just as strong as ‘Counter Measures’, ‘Jago and Litefoot’ or even ‘Graceless’. Despite it being made thirteen years ago it sounds just as good as it did back in 2001. I look forward to listening to the second series and the second of these new Tomfiles I am going to see whether the second series suffers from the Big Finish version of the difficult second album.

June 2014 Ratings

The Lamentation Cypher (2014)

If there is one thing that has been constant in the Big Finish forums is the desire to have a Charlotte Pollard series and so their cries have been heard and here we have a boxset of adventures featuring Charley who appeared alongside the eighth Doctor from 2001 to 2007 and then with the Sixth Doctor in a series of superb stories from 2007 to 2009. Charley is a fantastic character and was the second companion created by Big Finish and is arguably their most successful companion. After 13 years she is still as popular as she was when we first heard her on board the R101 and I was worried that these stories weren’t going to live up to expectations that have been growing since word was first mentioned about a possible series. I was slightly worried because I didn’t know what format the series would take as the last time we heard from Charley she was working with the Viyrans.

It’s hard not to make comparisons between Charley and Bernice Summerfield. Ok they have different social backgrounds and jobs but there is something there and this story even starts off with Charley writing in her diary which is something that Bernice did in her early stories (only listened to the first series). Then the narration continues in the story which is something that I think works in this story. One of things that I do like about this story is the relationship between Charley and the Viyrans.

Things seem to start off rather weird when after speaking to Robert Buchan (played by James Joyce) starts saying random words in his speech and I can’t help but think of an episode of House where a guy suffers a bang on the head and then starts to speak gibberish. This is a relatively short but very dramatic moment which seems like it’s going to take up the entire story but appears to be over in less than ten minutes. There are more strange things that happen which then lead to Charley trying to escape.

They try to do something different with the Viyrans. The title ‘Lamentation Cypher’ doesn’t get mentioned until the half hour mark and its dropped into a scene which is where the story starts to take shape. I think that the Viyrans are a great creation and so its great that they feature so prominently in the spin-off series. There is a Viyran that doesn’t speak like the rest of them (voice effect). This seems to create a bit of tension and drama between the Viyrans. There was a nice mystery as to what the Lamentation Cypher was and its not what I was expecting. Another thing I wasn’t expecting was that the Viyrans can effectively stage a coup when the leader becomes unstable. By the end of the story it seems that the course of the series is quite clear. Whether this is going to change in future stories remains to be seen but it was definitely an exciting ending.

Michael Maloney seems to be the Nicholas Briggs of this series as seems to have voiced all the Viyrans and there are several scenes where several Viyrans talking to each other in the same way as when several Daleks talk to each other. Speaking of Mr Briggs, there is a fun cameo from him which sounds like he was playing a train spotter. He does get a more substantial role playing Robert’s dad and sounds like a cheeky cockney that wouldn’t be out of place in Eastenders.

Considering that apart from a brief appearance in ‘Light at the End’ back at the tail end of 2013, it’s been five years since she played Charley last, India Fisher hasn’t missed a step as Charley. If you didn’t know better you would have said that it was less than a year since she appeared in ‘Blue Forgotten Planet’. She has some good scenes with Maloney’s Viyrans and this is something that is going to play well during the course of the series. James Joyce is a character that seemed perfectly fine in the first half of the story but once he had been cured he then seemed to become a more interesting character and that might be because he had some scenes with Nicholas Briggs’ Bert Buchan.

I would be lying if I said that I was bowled over by the release because I just wasn’t. The reason is because I still haven’t got use to what the series is about. What I can see is potential and think that this is going to be a spin-off that is going to be another success story for Big Finish and I look forward to listening to the rest of the series.

Last of the Colophon (2014)

I knew that this was going to be a story that wasn’t going to be as good as ‘The Evil One’. That’s purely because I thought that it would be the best story of the series and if this did manage to beat that then it would have to be a cracker. This story was written by Jonathan Morris who won several Tomstardis Awards in 2013.The story sees the Doctor and Leela arrive on the planet Colophos which on first inspection seems to be. The story is playing with the idea of the Invisible Man and seems like the sort of story that would have featured during the Philip Hinchcliffe era. The involvement of Morax is one that develops over the story when Morax is covered in bandages and at the right point the truth is revealed.

Gareth Thomas returns to the Doctor Who world as Morax and Thomas is brilliant in every single story he appears in and this is no different. Jane Goddard also returns as Nurse Torvik and she is also one fine form. The other supporting characters were all standard but I didn’t find them as interesting as Morax or Torvik. As far as the central performances are concerned, I thought that Louise Jameson was on her usual fine form but after the peak of the previous story, here she seems to return to her usual self which isn’t a bad thing. Tom Baker seems to just stroll through this and there did seem a moment when one of Tom Baker’s famous suggestions seems to have made it in when he’s talking about a signal to show someone its him and how its repeated seems to be his idea. I may be wrong but that is what it seems like to me.

The main problem with this story is that as much as I wanted to love this story, it just didn’t quite connect with me. It’s not a terrible story by any means but compared to other Morris scripts, its not one of his best. I think that this is a story that other people will like because the setting and what it deals with isn’t something that I am wild about and those tend to be the ones that people rave about. I suppose only time will tell but I think that ‘The Evil One’ remains the best story of the series.

Moonflesh (2014)

Moonflesh is the first time that we have had the combination of the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa in a series since the Stockbridge trilogy of stories at the end of 2009 (even though of course they appeared in Fanfare for the Common Men). Since then we have had plenty of Nyssa/Tegan/Turlough adventures so its nice that they have decided to freshen it up by doing something different with the Fifth Doctor. I have always been a huge fan of Nyssa and she is one of only two people to win the Best Companion award at the Tomstardis Awards (winning it in 2007 and 2012). As the current holder of the Best Doctor category, Peter Davison has had a good run of stories in recent years and the run continues in this story.

What does strike me about the early stages of this story is that it seems like its going be a base under siege type story and the story does a good job of building the tension up nice and slowly and by the halfway stage I thought that this would have worked very well during the Davison era on TV.

From start to finish, I couldn’t help think that Francesca Hunt was doing an impression of Sandi Toskvig. I thought that the characters in this story were very good because Hunt did very well as Hannah Bartholomew and I thought that the character was a very strong one and it could easily have been Leela in this story. I also quite liked Phoebe Whitlock played by Rosanna Miles and thought that whilst she might not have been quite a strong as Hannah, she was still an interesting character and I wasn’t bored when she was in the scene. Phoebe really stepped up as a character when became ‘possesed’ and it was almost like an initiation into the story before she becomes accepted as a solid character.

The most famous name in this story is that of Hugh Fraser who played Hasting in the David Suchet series of Poirot stories. Here he plays Edwin Tremayne and he’s a perfectly fine character in this. Tim Bentinck is the face on the cover that I recognise from his handful of appearances in the great BBC comedy ‘The Thick of It’. Also according to Wikipedia (the fountain of truth and knowledge), he is actually Timothy Charles Robert Noel Bentinck, 12^th Earl of Portland, 8^th Count Bentinck. As Nathaniel Whitlock, Bentinck does come across as someone with more money than brains. For me the most interesting person in this entire story was Silver Crow (played brilliantly by John Banks). He just pips Hannah to most interesting character in the story. Silver Crow is a Sioux Indian and is very likeable and I couldn’t help but think of Latoni in ‘Black Orchid’ but Silver Crow is more talkative.

Mark Morris has written a great group of character who are never boring and never become annoying and that’s a rare thing in a story. I cant deny that I found his ghost dance slightly amusing but credit should go to John Banks for making it seem perfectly natural and not a comedy routine. In fact Morris does enough in the early stages of the story to stop it from becoming a comedy. The direction of the story was well handled by Ken Bentley and whilst I didn’t always understand what was going on I will say that it was an enjoyable adventure from the beginning and I look forward to the next two stories in this series.

The Evil One (2014)

The Evil One is my favourite story from this series so far. That’s destroyed any tension that you might have expected but I enjoyed this story a lot. I thought that it was going to be tough to beat ‘The Crooked Man’ because I thought that it was such a great story but then I hadn’t realised that this story was coming. Nicholas Briggs has a great track record when it comes to him as a writer and he doesn’t disappoint here. He writes the story with a straight forward idea and when I say straight forward I don’t mean it as a fault but more of high praise because it means that the story of Leela’s father can be what drives the early part of this adventure. The story sees the Doctor and Leela land on a luxury space cruiser which is lacking in people. What they encounter when they leave the TARDIS is a very eerie atmosphere that would seem out of place on classic Who.

Louise Jameson takes the ball in this story and runs with it giving a great performance from start to finish. For some reason I quite like Evil Leela and easily steals the show often out performing Tom Baker who isn’t poor in this by any means. In fact on this occasion, Baker plays it brilliantly allowing Jameson to take centre stage. Geoffrey Beevers is always guaranteed to give a superb performance. If you haven’t listened to ‘Mastermind’ then you should do because that is Beevers at his best and he gives another stunning performance though I would have liked to have heard more from him but that’s my only critiscm of the story.

When the Doctor is fighting for his life after he is struck with the janis thorn this leads to a thrilling finale where the Doctor is trying to hide from Evil Leela. The final part of this story is a lovely and heart warming scene which shows how far the Doctor and Leela have come since their TV days and credit should go to Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and Nicholas Briggs.

I am going to reiterate that I love this story. I loved every single second of it and this series is proving to be a cracking one. Everything worked brilliantly and I thought that ‘Night of 1000 Stars’ from the Jago and Litefoot series was going to by my story of the month but I have might have to reconsider on the evidence of this story. Top Quality.

The War To End All Wars (2014)

The War to End All Wars is the final First Doctor story in the Companion Chronicles range and this sees Steven Taylor tell a story after he has been dethroned. The idea of King Steven is a fun one and one that I wish had been explored in previous companion chronicles. Anyway, the story that Steven tells explains how he has ended up in a cell.

What the story does well is not pretend that war is a fun or glamorous. It tells the horrors of warfare in a way that seems but its not done in a particularly morbid way. Just downbeat enough to get the message across. Another thing that I think is done well is the idea that both sides of the war are given the same sort of treatment so no one really has an advantage which on the one hand is a very fair idea but on the other hand means that no one is likely to win.

I thought that Peter Purves performance was very good and he has consistently good in all his stories since he first appeared in ‘Mother Russia’ back in 2007. His Hartnell impression is always one of the delights and it doesn’t disappoint here. Also Alice Haig was good as Sida although I thought that the character could have done with being a bit more animated but that’s perhaps me being slightly cruel.

I cant say that this is my favourite Simon Guerrier adventure as I maintain that Home Truths is his best but I think that this story has some good plus points, most notably Peter Purves who performs in the story really well and it’s a weary Steven that we get in this adventure. The setting was a good one for this story and Simon Robinson did a great job in creating this world for Peter Purves, Alice Haig and Simon Guerrier to do their stuff.

The Wax Princess (2014)

The final story of this series has a curious title. The Wax Princess is a curious title but that’s been a running theme during this series. I like how this is a relatively straight forward story which has Jack the Ripper in it. The idea that Ripper is creating these waxworks to bring back his love is quite a good one though I am not sure whether I like the implication that the Ripper is a waxwork himself is probably going a bit too far. However despite this, I still thought that the plot was very good and thoroughly entertaining.

Jago and Litefoot are acquitted which came as a massive relief because it means that the series can go back to what it does best and it wont have this thing hanging over them. The end of the story sees the Scorchies appear. The Scorchies appeared in what I considered to be one of the best Companion Chronicles of 2013 (it was runner up to Mastermind at the 2013 Toms Tardis Awards) and for those who hadn’t heard that story would soon find out what they are about because we get a lovely song.

Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin have given some superb performances throughout this series and they are complimented well by Lisa Bowerman as Ellie, Conrad Asquith as Sergeant Quick and I also like Adrian Rawlins performance as Inspector Abberline.

I think that The Wax Princess is one of the strongest finale’s to a series for quite some time. The story was exciting from start to finish and I never found myself bored at any point. There were several times during the course of this story that I felt it seemed very much like a story that we would have heard during the first couple of series. Not surprising really because Justin Richards is one of the best writers that Big Finish has and he has written for the series since the very first one. The eighth series comes out in October 2014 so we won’t have very long to way and on the evidence of this series and what is about to come it seems that the future is bright for our very own dynamic duo.

Murder at Moorsey Manor (2014)

After being wowed by the previous story, I had a renewed enthusiasm about the remainder of this series. This penultimate adventure is a whodunit which isn’t something that I was expecting from this adventure. This release is written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris who were behind the Sacrifyers series and it’s perhaps easy to tell. Like the first story, there is more than a subtle sprinkling of Holmes and Watson as Jago and Litefoot arrive at Moorsey Manor where everyone has been summoned by Moriaty and are dressed like Sherlock Holmes. The story starts off in a slightly light hearted story but soon turns very dark and I quite like that because it’s something that this range does quite well and after a while people start to be bumped off.

I like the setting because it has a sort of base under siege vibe to it whilst feeling like a murder mystery adventure. The sort of thing Agatha Christie would have written but it’s the setting of what I am imagining to be a lovely house is what sells this story and credit should go to Howard Carter who has done a great job in this and the other two stories to create the perfect atmosphere for the story to do its job.

The performances were all very good with Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter being at the top of their game.  The supporting cast were all very good and they all good in their respected roles and they all sounded like they had just come out of a Miss Marple or a Poirot story.

Being that it’s the penultimate adventure, it ends on a cliffhanger which means that the final adventure is going to be epic and it was one that I didn’t see coming but it was quick and it did the job perfectly and it’s a great ending to the story. I thought that whilst this adventure wasn’t as good as ‘The Night of 1000 stars’, it was still an enjoyable adventure and this series continues to be a highly enjoyable one.

The Night of 1000 Stars (2014)

After enjoying the previous story, I started to listen to The Night of 1000 Stars. The only thing that I knew about this adventure was that Louise Jameson was returning as Leela and the author was James Goss who is making his debut in this range. This is an unusual adventure because it just features Jago, Litefoot, Leela and Ellie. This story forces this foursome to look at themselves in a way that they would rather not and as the story progresses we learn about a different aspect of their lives which caused them to feel remorse. The use of Remorse as a threat to our favourite characters is a brilliant idea and it’s used very well and is one of the main reasons why I rate this story so highly. It’s a simple idea but it allows us to learn new things about characters that we have known for years and that’s a hard thing to pull off.

It’s a brave thing to do to just do this sort of story as it doesn’t feature any supporting characters, doesn’t feature other locations and doesn’t have any breaks in the story (like things happening the next day or in another part of the country).  The introduction of Leela in the story was a brilliant idea and Louise Jameson continues to show how the character has developed under Big Finish. The performances of Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter were superb as usual but we got something in this story that I wasn’t expecting and that is Jago and Litefoot at each other’s throat. I was thinking that this can’t be right and I wanted it to stop, that was the point that I realised that the story was working and Benjamin and Baxter should be praised for still pulling out superb performance after all these releases. I moaned about the lack of Ellie in the previous story and that was because I think that Lisa Bowerman is just as an important part of the series as Jago and Litefoot are. Here we get a lot of Ellie and it shows how good Lisa Bowerman is as Ellie because Ellie has been through a lot during the previous six series and her loses have been just as great as Jago and Litefoot have had.

There’s a lovely moment when there is a mystery and to which of the four is remorse and it reminded me of the movie ‘Devil’ where they have a lift and one of them is the devil. This is done a lot better because I didn’t see the revelation about Leela coming. I thought at the beginning that it was a surprise that she was back and that it wasn’t given the sort of time that I would have expected but James Goss has done a good thing of distracting us from this point and never allows us to think about it until he’s ready for us to. We are reminded about the current predicament of Jago and Litefoot which I liked because I was worried that they had forgotten about the fact they were suppose to be on the run but it isn’t just a blink and you’ll miss it mention but does get mentioned much more than I was expecting.

I was really impressed with this story and I would go so far to say that this is one of if not the best Jago and Litefoot story that there has ever been and credit should go to everyone involved for still been able to impress me to this degree. If the last two stories in the series are better than this one then I am in for a treat. I think that this story isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s because this isn’t your usual Jago and Litefoot adventure and when people don’t get what they usually want then they will be harsher to it. This wont happen here because I loved this story.

The Monstrous Menagerie (2014)

Escape or Die was the original name given for this episode and you have to give Terry Nation some credit for trying to create some excitement with just a title. When the episode restarts, the Doctor, Rebec, Taron and Codal are flying up and the Daleks take an awful long time to realise that there is only one way that they could have escaped. One of the things that I like about this episode is the slowest chase in TV history with a Dalek rising up to chase the Doctor and his new friends. It’s a great shot of seeing the Dalek coming towards them as I think that it adds to the drama and tries to instil some exciting in the slowest chase on TV. The purpose of the Daleks being on Spiridon is made clear here and its creating a rather nasty virus.

Jo starts the episode trying to find the bombs but only manages to get herself knocked out. It’s the typical course of action for a companion. What’s quite interesting that given the size of the rock, it’s lucky that she survived. Not only did she survive but she woke up relatively quickly. The moment when Jo and the Doctor are reunited is a lovely moment and shows how this dynamic is perhaps as strong as the Second Doctor and Jamie’s relationship. Jo gets a romantic interest in this episode with Latep and it seems (with the benefit of hindsight) that this is the beginning of setting up Jo’s departure from the show. In the scene between the Doctor and Jo there is a minor reference to the previous story, considering that this is one (unofficial) long story, it would have been nice to have a mention of the Master as well as the Ogrons.

When the action moves to the stones that they use to try and stay save and perhaps warm is a nice moment in the story. It’s well set up and the performances and directing help make this scene atmospheric. There’s more of this in the next episode but what we got here was quite good and one of those rare moments in Doctor Who that isn’t over lit by being in a studio. The action is directed well by the legendary David Maloney who is doing his best in this story. If anyone can make action seem interesting in largely jungle sets then it would be Maloney. Terry Nation has been accused in this story of just reheating his ideas from previous stories but to be honest that dosent really bother me because if it was just a colourised version of such stories as ‘The Keys of Marinus’ and ‘The Daleks’ then that would be a problem but the fact that its mixed in with new stuff means that it can be enjoyed.

I found the cliffhanger to be a little better this time but nothing special. Unlike the previous episode I got the feeling that it was actually moving and things were happening. Despite their being more than a few comparisons to previous Terry Nation stories (a greatest hits if you like), I still like this story and think that it’s an enjoyable and interesting adventure.

Scavenger (2014)

The final story of the Sixth Doctor and Flip series takes on a distinctive spacey feel to it. The Doctor and Flip find themselves on the Mandela. The idea that there is a programme that is launched which is an attempt to clear up some of the debris and space junk that is orbiting the earth. What I liked about this is that its something that is a problem today. If you have seen the fantastic film ‘Gravity’ then you will know the problem. The programme is being run by the Indian Space Agency and this was another thing that I liked because it would have been so easy to just have the English space agency.

The familiar name as far as I am concerned was that of Anjli Mohindra who plays Jyoti Cutler in this story and played Rani in ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’. I thought that Jyoti was instantly a good character and I thought that Mohindra played the character exactly as the character should have been played. Another fine performance came from Kate McEwen who plays Jessica Alloway brilliantly. Tariq Bhatti is also worth of a mention as Salim the Mission Controller who was quite interesting with his little secret.

The main performances were very good but I thought that Lisa Greenwood gave the greater performance and this seemed to have come out of nowhere. During the course of the three releases I think that Greenwood has not put a foot wrong and she gives her best performance of the series in this story. The final episode is where Greenwood stole the show as far as I was concerned because it was such a heartfelt performance that its probably fair to say that Flip is one of the strongest companions that Big Finish currently have. Colin Baker’s performance was good and he bounces around the story in his usual manner.

I was a big fan of Gallagher’s previous Sixth Doctor adventure ‘Wirrn Isle’ but I think that this wasn’t as good as that story. I started off really involved in the story but found that the middle part wasn’t as engaging. My attention was then bought back in the fact episode where things really did seem to be reaching for a satisfying conclusion. The end of the story was a complete shock and I think it’s the perfect cliffhanger for the next sixth Doctor series. The main business with Alloway was dealt with but Flip’s future is in doubt. It’s a bit like the cliffhanger with Hex’s future but I think that Flip’s isn’t quite as intense. As good as the cliffhanger was, the problem is that it will clearly be sometime for this to be resolved (October at the earliest which is unlikely even though Big Finish haven’t put any details on the website). Scavenger is a good way to end the series.

The Crooked Man (2014)

As this third series progresses, The Crooked Man is one of those stories that quickly seemed to gain a very good reputation. The reaction on twitter was very positive and normally I find myself not quite disagreeing with that feeling but not agreeing 100% with it. I have recently subscribed to the fact that your surroundings help your enjoyment and I started listening to this whilst I was in Aberystwyth waiting for my train.  The first few minutes were very atmospheric and the one thing that I will say straight away is that I really enjoyed this release and part of that is down to the music and sound design. The idea of setting a story on the coast is a good one and that’s just one of many things that I like about this story.

This story has a grim feel to it and it’s not just down to the deaths that occur including one where someone is killed by having pages from a book rammed down his throat. The performance of Neil Stuke who plays the titled Crooked Man helps make this one of the most memorable baddies in recent audio plays.

Tom Baker adds some much needed light relief to what is a dark story. Tom Baker can always be relied upon to insert some funny stuff when its needed and seems to be on exceptionally fine form in this story. I also think that Louise Jameson puts in another solid performance and the two of them work so well together I wish that this is what we   would have got during their TV time. I thought that the supporting cast were also really good. I liked Sarah Smart (Laura Corbett) & Robin Pearce (Simon Corbett). The rest of the cast all work really well to create an

This is my favourite Fourth Doctor story of this series so far and the other stories will have to try really hard to beat this. The Crooked Man is a spooky and atmospheric tale with great performances and also a story that isn’t too complicated and ends at just the right time and doesn’t out stay its welcome or feel like it’s padded to oblivion. This story is classic John Dorney, he wrote the brilliant ‘The Wrath of the Iceni’ and this is just as good and this current series of Fourth Doctor continues its good run of form and long may it continue.

Starborn (2014)

With the number of Companion Chronicles starting to run low, I am hoping that there will be one last big successful release which signs off this range in style. I had hopes with this story as it was written by Jacqueline Rayner who wrote ‘The Transit of Venus’ which is one of my favourite companion chronicle stories. The synopsis of this story is another thing that made me look forward to it. Vicki is told that if she leaves in the TARDIS she will die. That’s an attention grabbing line if ever there was one.

Jacqueline King had a difficult job when she played Donna’ mom on TV and I think that this might have clouded my opinion of what she was going to be like in this story but I have to say that she was really really good. At first she comes across as a complete fraud but that was part of the charm of the character. Maureen O’Brien was also on fine form and has been consistently good in all of her performances, even when she appeared in the very first one ‘Frostfire’. I like the way that Vicki doesn’t quite believe Violet and is quite sceptical of her.

The idea that there are two Vicki’s is something that in any normal scenario would sound good on paper but would fall flat in reality, however for some reason this works very well in this story. Maureen O’Brien does a good job in making both voices sound different let similar (I suspect some post production may have taken place but most of the credit should go to O’Brien).

This isn’t as good as ‘The Transit of Venus’ but there are things that I liked about Starborn. I can’t say that I understood everything but I still think that it’s a good story and compared to the previous First Doctor release, it’s an enjoyable release with two very good performances from O’Brien and King. The music and sound design from Matthew Cochrane and Howard Carter along with Lisa Bowerman’s direction ensure that the final Vicki story in this range is one that doesn’t sit on its laurels and goes out with a  bang.

Dark Eyes 2 (2014)

Dark Eyes 2 is the sequel to the award winning special that was released in 2012.It’s been a while since the first Dark Eyes release and I decided to not listen to that again before embarking on this release. I don’t think that it made any difference really because I knew who Liv Chenka was and also knew who Molly was an her relationship with the Doctor so any other bits of information would either be repeated in this series or not really be relevant. The last time that we heard from the eighth Doctor it was in the excellent ‘Night of the Doctor’ which did the great job of listing all of the Big Finish companions on TV (or the BBC website at least) for the first time. Nicholas Briggs wrote the entire first series of Dark Eyes but this time he has allowed others to write for him and this means that we get different types of stories.

When you look at the cast list of this release it seems like they have plucked all the good things from the special releases they did in 2012, its essentially a greatest hits for the Doctor but apart from Molly, the hits are from the McCoy era. Firstly is the return of Liv Chenka.Liv Chenka previously appeared in ‘Robophobia’ back in 2011.Nicola Walker is a big name actress and from the very beginning until the end was brilliant and its surprising that when I was listening to ‘Robophobia’, I couldn’t have imagined that she would be the character that she would turn out to be in this series.
At the start, Chenka is working for the Daleks. Working might be too strong a word but in the eyes of other people of Nixyce VII, she is and is seen as a traitor (hence the title). The thing that strikes me about Chenka’s role is that its very similar (every so slightly) to that of Susan Mendes in the ‘Dalek Empire’ series. It’s not a mirror opposite but I only came to that conclusion after she’s a tiny bit defiant to a Dalek. Despite a brief line at the very beginning its 10 minutes before the Doctor appears again. Pretty soon he has been turned into a roboman which even though its implied on the cover, I didn’t think would happen. It’s 30 minutes before the Doctor and Liv are reunited and its not a normal welcome as it was the seventh Doctor. It’s always good to see how a different Doctor interacts with a past character/companion and it works just as good as the sixth Doctor and Charley.
Despite only having of an hour and six minutes running time (the longest of the four), the first part of this story moves along at quite a quick pace. I never felt like the story was waiting for something big to happen and that was the result with the rest of the release as the whole thing moved at either a good casual pace or breakneck speed. A no time during the entire four hours and thirteen minutes did I find myself bored or disinterested. I might have been confused but it doesn’t take much to confuse these days.

It’s quite interesting that they don’t bring Molly back until the second episode. The White Room has an interesting opening two or three minutes. What starts off as interesting soon turns to puzzlement about ten minutes later when I am a little confused as to what is going on but that confusing state doesn’t last for long as there are more references to the white room. There’s something that doesn’t quite sit right with me about the character of Molly and I thought that Liv worked better with the Doctor than Molly. Though in the third part they do work quite well together.

The next familiar thing to pop up are the Viyrans who appeared between 2008-2009 largely in the Sixth Doctor and Charley stories. I have always liked the Viyrans and was delighted that they were bought back and genuinely didn’t know that they were going to be in this.

I felt like as the story progressed the tension and drama was really being cranked up to 11 and the end of the ‘episode’ is the best ending that we had until this point as Alex McQueen makes a brilliant return. He was easily one of the best things about UNIT: Dominion and it was one of the main reasons why I pre-ordered Dark Eyes 2. The final episode is where the Master and the Doctor finally get to meet and their first scene is one of the highlights of the entire story. I must admit that being a bit thick, I didn’t realise that it was McQueen at first until the very last moment of Time’s Horizons. Alex McQueen is chewing up the furniture and if I did have a critiscm of this series it would be that he didn’t feature more in it. When you’ve got a great piece of casting such as McQueen playing the Master in the way that he does, I would want more of him.

Paul McGann is simply superb from start to finish. He really has found a new lease of life since he left the main range and went off on his own. Since the Lucie Miller/To The Death epic end to series four of the Eighth Doctor adventures, McGann’s Doctor has taken on a new slant and very much like Eccleston’s Doctor. McGann hasn’t won the Best Doctor category at the Toms Tardis Awards since 2011 but I suspect that he could (and perhaps should win it this year).

The final scene between the Doctor, Liv and Molly is a nice lovely scene and felt like the best way that these three should depart. It would have ruined the whole thing if it had just been a quick goodbye but they gave some time to it and it then led into the Doctor’s final scene where he interacts briefly with a soldier before leaving almost immediately. The appearance of Frank Skinner is a total surprise (shows I didn’t pay too much attention to the cast list on the Big Finish website). At first I thought it was him and then doubted myself but its unmistakably him and its just a nice surprise to end the release.

I think that this is a stronger series than the first and that’s due to the fact that we have had different writers but also the fact that we know there will be a Dark Eyes 3 (out in November 2014) and a Dark Eyes 4 which means that we will be getting more Eighth Doctor adventures pretty soon. I have liked how varied the entire series has been and how they took a gamble structuring the series like they did but I have to say that it’s a gamble that paid off big time and easily my favourite release of 2014 so far.