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.

White Ghosts (2014)

The second story in this third series is an Alan Barnes story which in the past has tended to mean that its going to be something that requires the listener to pay close (very close) attention and if you don’t do that then you might lose something. I always think about Brotherhood of the Daleks which is the most baffling story that Big Finish has ever produced.

At the end of the previous story there was a bit of a row between the Doctor and Leela due to her actions and there is still a bit of a frosty atmosphere but the Doctor seems to be less bothered than Lela. The Doctor has forgiven Leela for what she did and it’s nice that they have settled the fallout from that story and the Doctor is happy to place the blame for her behaviour at the Timelords which might be a bit of a cop-out but I think that it was a nice quick way of getting over it and in a satisfactory manner.
 
Virginia Hey is the big name in this. I say big name but I must admit that I don’t know who she is. A little look on Wikipedia sheds some light and shows that she was in Farscape, Mussolini: The Untold Story and also most impressively was in a Bond film (The Living Daylights). I thought that her performance was perfectly fine, its not the greatest performance ever but I thought it was played perfectly for what the story was and Virginia Hey has done well.

Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are really good in this and it feels like the relationship has developed far more in the short time that these two have been together than they ever did when they were on TV. That might have more to do with the fact that they didn’t get on so well when they were on TV and now they are much better with each other. Also Leela has been written for in a better way so that the Doctor treats Leela differently and this has meant that we got what we did in the previous story and this continues here.

Even though the second half is longer than the first I must admit that the whole thing flew by and that was surprising. The first episode moved along at quite a good pace and the story was perfectly fine. I think the fact that that the story has a shorter running time than a monthly range adventure meant that Alan Barnes doesn’t have the time to tell a more complex story which is probably a good thing but that might be slightly unfair as Barnes has written standard stories in the past.

I think that this series is different to the first Leela series and that’s a good thing. The big selling point in the trailer for the first series was to suggest that it was going to feel like Saturday tea-time in 1977 and there were aspects of this story which felt like I had an idea of what this was like some six years before I was even born.

The Sleeping City (2014)

The first companion chronicle story of 2014 sees William Russell return to the range. The story was written by Ian Potter who wrote ‘The Revenants’ and I liked that story so I had high hopes for this story, especially as I enjoyed ‘The Library of Alexandria’. I’ll be honest and thought that Maureen O’Brien was going to appear in the story as Vicki appears on the cover as normally the people involved appear on the cover. I know that’s not always the case but in my brain it makes sense.

The story sees Ian back in his own time being accused of being a traitor and having to tell an adventure that he, Barbara, the Doctor and Vicki had when they visited the city of Hisk. I like how in the early moments there is a nice little bit of nostalgia and that’s a brief moment before the story moves to Hisk.

The story starts off quite well with a nice atmosphere created by what Ian Potter had written and the music and sound effects used to create this world. William Russell’s wonderful delivery also helped to create a feeling quite early on that this was going to be a fun story. The problem however is that despite the best efforts of everyone involved, the plot isn’t the greatest that it could have been.

I do wish that John Bank would have been given more to do as Gerrard. The character had a scepticism and sinister feel to him that would have been better had he been given more than just an interviewer. The scenes where Gerrard and Ian Chesterton were talking together were fun and was the only real time that there was any spark to the story. The rest of the time it just felt like things were moving along at a rather normal pace which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

There are things that I quite liked about this story but unfortunately for some reason it didn’t click as I would have expected. It’s the last time that William Russell will be involved in the Companion Chronicles range before it finishes in June. Since he first appeared in the range in 2009, I have always found William Russell to be fantastic even when the story hasn’t been on par with his performances.

The Brood of Erys (2014)

The middle story of the series is one that struggles to compare to the opening story for whatever reasons. The opening story was a very good adventure which saw the return of Sil so I wasn’t surprised when that had the effect that it did on me. It would be interesting whether this story would have the same effect. There was a interesting opening couple of minutes. There was a moment which I thought wasn’t particularly good for Flip and that’s when she wants to let the Drachee inside the TARDIS. It didn’t seem like a bright thing to do and it just seemed to be an irritating moment and would have been the sort of thing that Peri would have done. Thankfully this was a brief moment and Flip went back to her own self. The opening scene where the Drachee are approaching the TARDIS is a great way of introducing the character. I thought that the Drachee were a wonderfully realised creation and think that they were the minions from Dispicable Me of this story but probably wouldn’t have looked as funny as they do.

Colin Baker puts in a great performance and is able to do this due to the story. Baker can always be relied up to throw himself in the story and he definetly does this. The double act of the Doctor and Flip is a refreshing one and one that Andrew Smith uses brilliantly. Lisa Greenwood also puts in a good performance and apart from the minor blip at the beginning of episode one, Flip continues to be a breathe of fresh air and there are several moments in this story that show why Flip is one of the best companions that Big Finish have. All the supporting cast members did well and the characters that they played were fun.

I love the idea of a living moon. It just seems like a totally wonderful idea and used to utter perfection in this story. The moment that the word avatar was mentioned I’m afraid my mind started to think about the James Cameron movie. Even if it wasn’t intended I’m afraid that that’s what happened.
The final scene where the Doctor tries to justify his decision to leave Susan on Earth in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ was a surprising scene but I thought that it was a lovely little scene. It ends with the Doctor thinking about Peri and I liked this bit because it seemed like the Doctor was thinking about an ex whilst his current partner was standing right in front of him. I thought that Flip reacted quite well as I would probably have reacted differently had it been me there.

I wont pretend to say that I understood everything that went on in this story but what I can say is that I enjoyed this story. I think that the final episode is where things started to get bit out of hand and harder to understand. It might not have had Sil but what it did have was a great story and several great moments. The best thing that I could say about this story is that I would love to see how they would make this work on TV. A middle series story that works on it own merits.