Luna Romana (2014)

Luna Romana is the final part of a special trilogy to celebrate the 50^th Anniversary of Doctor Who. It’s also the first story of 2014 and what Luna Romana needs to do is to end the trilogy on a satisfying note so there is no pressure on Matt FItton.

This story features two Romana’s. The only problem is that this story was due to feature Mary Tamm however due to her sad passing away this meant that some quick thinking had to be undertook by the Big Finish team. Do they abandon their ideas or do they do what they have been doing with the Doctors for the last seven years and just get someone to pretend to be the character. Cleverly they chose the latter and I have to say that this was a great idea because they chose wisely about who they would get to play the first Romana. Julie Landau has a difficult job to do and try to be Mary Tamm which was always going to be a tall order and at first I just didn’t think it was going to work and the rest of the story was just going to be awful to listen to but after a while I forgot about this and got use to Landau being Romana and I thought that she could have been a good Romana on TV.

Terry Molloy has been really good in these stories and in fact I think he saved the best until last because the version of Stoyn that we here is very unhinged and became a great interest in the story. As the story progressed I thought that Terry Molloy should be given more non-Davros roles to play because he is a really underrated actor. Lalla Ward is always fun to listen to and she does a great job and has some great lines.

The main problem with this story is that it’s way too long. It’s 120 minutes which is double the length of a normal Companion Chronicle story. This means that there is an awful lot of time to fill. The first episode just didn’t grab me really and I couldn’t understand what purpose it had to the story. After that though the story did pick up and that’s when I felt like I was enjoying the story. I still think that the running time undermined all the good work that Matt Fitton had done.

I think that the way that Stoyn meets his end is rather sad. I cant help but feel sad for the character because of the way that he has been treated in the trilogy. The Doctor has been quite unpleasant to Stoyn and if it were the Master then it wouldn’t have been problem but because Stoyn isn’t the Master it just leaves a slight sour taste in the mouth.

Luna Romana isn’t my favourite story of this trilogy but I still think that there is a lot of like about this story and that is primarily the cast who all work well together and whilst the plot is good its slightly ruined by excessive running time. I want to end on a positive note and I will by saying that the brief clip of Mary Tamm at the beginning of the story was a nice touch and I thought that even though she wasn’t actually involved in the story

 

The King of Sontar (2014)

It’s hard to believe that we are on our third series of Fourth Doctor Adventures. When there was a time when we thought that Tom Baker would never appear in a Big Finish adventure, we have got more adventures coming and to kick off the third series of adventures we welcome back the Sontarans. The last time we had a Sontaran story it was in ‘Starlight Robbery’ which is to be fair not the most serious story that they have ever been in so one thing that I like about this story is that it uses the Sontarans really well.

The idea of Leela encountering a Sontaran is always a good one and its not the first time that this has happened but as I started to listen to this I knew that this was going to be better than that first encounter. It’s easy to imagine a Sontaran version of Leela due to the way that Leela is

Strang is a unique Sontaran and doesn’t need armour and doesn’t get affected when he is struck on the back of the probic vent. Due to a glitch during cloning, instead of several Sontarans being born its good to think that he has several Sontarans in him. The main plot point about this story is Strang’s plan to spread his clones across the galaxy. It’s a relatively straight forward plot but its done in a very creative way and what the story has is a nice dose of morals which play a significant part in the adventure.

When the Fourth Doctor started travelling with Leela, it was with the intention of educating Leela. It seems sometimes that Leela needs to go back to the classroom and it leads to one of the best scenes that I have heard from Big Finish for quite sometime. I like how the Doctor goes with the very real possibility of sending Leela back home. Even though I know that this wouldn’t happen its still an emotional scene and both Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are brilliant in this scene. The Doctor does his ‘not angry but disappointed’ thing. This scene makes a very good story even better. John Dorney has written a solid story and it’s a solid start to the third series. I think that out of the three series openers, this is by far the best story and it shows that the rest of this season is going to be very good.

As far as the performances go, they are all strong. Dan Starkey has become synonymous as a Sontaran in the six years since he first played one on TV. David Collings played Poul in ‘The Robots of Death’ and I thought that as Rosato was a nice character played really well. The character of Rosato was a conflicted character that had some good moments. John Banks, David Seddon and Jenny Funnell all put in good performances as well but unfortunately for them they are somewhat overshadowed by Starkey, Collings and the regulars.

I listened to this after ‘Antidote to Oblivion’ and I thought that that story was going to be tough to beat but ‘The King of Sontar’ has managed to achieve that and I think that there is much more mileage in the Sontarans and with if we get more stories like this then the Sontarans could be more popular than the Daleks in the Big Finish universe. Maybe.

I have to try and find a fault with this story and……erm…..I’ll get back to you on that.

Antidote to Oblivion (2014)

The first story from the main range of 2014 is one that I was looking forward to for several reasons. The first is that it is written by Phillip Martin who wrote the 1985 adventure ‘Vengeance on Varos’ and also has also written a couple of stories for Big Finish over the years. Another reason was that it sees the return of Nabil Shaban who plays Sil. The third reason is that it sees the return of the partnership of the Doctor and Flip Jackson. Flip last appeared in Wirrn Isle back in March 2012 and I was worried that we wouldn’t hear from Flip again. I think that the character of Flip is a strong one and Lisa Greenwood has been a sound piece of casting. Anyway, the story sees the Doctor and Flip leave their holiday (isn’t it terrible when that happens!!) and arrive on Earth where Britain is pretty much bankrupt. I can see that there are parallels to whats going on in the real world. It’s the sort of thing that Barry Letts would have done and whilst I was aware that this was what Philip Martin was doing, I didn’t mind it and thought that it was well done.

I like the idea that they have contaminated the water so that the residents don’t see how depressing things are. The moment when they do see whats going on, it’s comes at just the right time and helps speed things along. The wrap up of the story is rather good and done well. I was glad that Sil got away and thought that the sneeze at the very end was quite amusing and whilst it might indicate that he’s got the black death it also suggest that he will return. There was a moment when towards the end the Doctor seemed to have to go on a quest to destroy the Black Death and no sooner was this raised than it ceased to be a problem and I was glad because I would have felt that this was a plot extension too far but it ended at just the right time and in the right way.

I like how they have created some links to the part of ‘The Trial of a Timelord’ that featured Crozier. Here we get his daughter who for quite obvious reason has some resentment towards the Doctor although like most characters in dramas, has a change of heart when she hears the truth. I thought that it was a great performance from Dawn Murphy and she was more than a match at times for Nabil Shaban. I could literally hear Shaban all day and not get bored. One of the things that I enjoyed about this story was that we got a lot of Sil. I think that Sil is a great character and that little laugh that he does is just as good as Frazer Hines’ impression of Patrick Troughton. I hope we get more adventures from Shaban because it would be a great source of entertainment.

I really enjoyed every aspect of this story. It’s a great combination with a great plot and it’s a strong start to the year. I thought that the main performances were solid and also the supporting characters were just as strong. I would be surprised if it weren’t in my top 5 stories in the main range. A strong start to the year and also the series of the Sixth Doctor and Flip.