Tomstardis Awards - 2nd Update

We’ve reached the half way point of the awards and there has been a new range added to the awards with the Diary of River Song being included as it was released on Christmas Day.

Doctor – Paul McGann
Companion – Nicola Walker

Main Range
Story – The Secret History
Writer – Matt Fitton (Equilibrium)
Director – Barnaby Edwards (The Secret Histroy) & Ken Bentley (Last of the Cybermen)
Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Secret History)
Music & Sound Designer – Steve Foxon (Criss-Cross)
Series –Sixth & Constance

Short Trips
Story – The King of the Dead
Writer – Mark B Oliver (Dark Convoy)
Performer – Peter Purves (Flywheel Revolution)

Avengers
Story – The Yellow Needle

Novel Adaptions
Story - Damaged Goods
Writer – Jonathan Morris (Damaged Goods)
Director – Ken Bentley (Damaged Goods)
Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Romance of Crime)
Music Designer – Howard Carter (Damaged Goods)

Fourth Doctor
Story – Requiem for the Rocket Men
Writer – John Dorney (Requiem for the Rocket Men)
Director – Nicholas Briggs (Requiem for the Rocket Men)
Cover Designer – TBC (The Cloisters of Terror)
Music & Sound Designer – Jamie Robertson (Requiem for the Rocket Men)

Dark Eyes
Story – A Life in the Day
Writer – John Dorney (A Life in the Day)

Jago and Litefoot
Story – Jago and Litefoot and Strax
Writer – Justin Richards (Jago and Litefoot and Strax)

Survivors
Story – Leaving
Writer – Matt Fitton (Leaving)

New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield
Story – The Pyramid of Sutekh
Writer – Guy Adams (The Pyramid of Sutekh)

Counter Measures Story
Story – Clean Sweep
Writer – Matt Fitton (Clean Sweep)

Third Doctor Adventures
Story – Prisoners of the Lake
Writer – Justin Richards (Prisoners of the Lake) & Andy Lane (The Havoc of Empires)

Torchwood
Story – Fall to Earth
Writer – James Goss (Fall to Earth)

The Early Adventures
Story – The Black Hole
Writer – Simon Guerrier (The Black Hole)
Director – Lisa Bowerman (The Yes Men & The Black Hole)
Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Forsaken)
Music & Sound Designer – Toby Hrycek-Robinson (The Yes Men & The Forsaken)

Doom Coalition
Story – The Red Lady
Writer – John Dorney (The Red Lady)

UNIT
Story – Vanguard
Writer – Matt FItton (Armageddon)

COMPANION CHRONICLES
Story – The Locked Room
Writer – Simon Guerrier (The Locked Room)

THE WAR DOCTOR
Story – The Innocent

THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG
Story – The Rulers of the Universe
Writer – No votes yet

Thankyou for those that voted. There will be another update over the new year period. Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and enjoyed the DW Christmas Special.

 

Tomstardis Awards Update

Well its been a week with three weeks to go and there has been a fantastic response so far. Here is a ‘quick’ update on who is leading the way in their respective categories.

Doctor – Paul McGann
Companion – Miranda Raison

Main Range
Story – The Secret History
Writer – Matt Fitton (Equilibrium)
Director – Ken Bentley (Last of the Cybermen)
Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Secret History)
Music & Sound Designer – Steve Foxon (Criss-Cross)
Series – Locum/Sixth

Short Trips
Story – Flywheel Revolution
Writer – Mark B Oliver (Dark Convoy)
Performer – Peter Purves (Flywheel Revolution)

Avengers
Story – The Yellow Needle

Novel Adaptions
Story - Damaged Goods
Writer – Jonathan Morris (Damaged Goods)
Director – Ken Bentley (Damaged Goods)
Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Romance of Crime)
Music Designer – Howard Carter (Damaged Goods)

Fourth Doctor
Story – Requiem for the Rocket Men
Writer – John Dorney (Requiem for the Rocket Men)
Director – Nicholas Briggs (Requiem for the Rocket Men)
Cover Designer – TBC (The Cloisters of Terror)
Music & Sound Designer – Jamie Robertson (Both Return to Telos & Requiem for the Rocket Men)

Dark Eyes
Story – A Life in the Day
Writer – John Dorney (A Life in the Day)

Jago and Litefoot
Story – Jago and Litefoot and Strax
Writer – Justin Richards (Jago and Litefoot and Strax)

Survivors
Story – Leaving
Writer – Matt Fitton (Leaving)

New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield
Story – The Pyramid of Sutekh
Writer – Guy Adams (The Pyramid of Sutekh)

Counter Measures Story
Story – The Keep/Clean Sweep
Writer – Matt Fitton (Clean Sweep)

Third Doctor Adventures
Story – Prisoners of the Lake
Writer – Justin Richards (Prisoners of the Lake)

Torchwood
Story – Fall to Earth
Writer – James Goss (Fall to Earth)

The Early Adventures
Story – The Black Hole
Writer – Simon Guerrier (Both The Yes Men & The Black Hole)
Director – Lisa Bowerman (The Yes Men & The Black Hole)
Cover Designer – Tom Webster (The Forsaken)
Music & Sound Designer – Toby Hrycek-Robinson (The Yes Men & The Forsaken)

Doom Coalition
Story – The Red Lady
Writer – John Dorney (The Red Lady)

UNIT
Story – Bridgehead/Vanguard/Armageddon
Writer – Matt FItton (Armageddon)

COMPANION CHRONICLES
Story – The Locked Room
Writer – Ian Potter (The Unwining World)

THE WAR DOCTOR
Story – The Innocent

There will be another update at some point over the Christmas Weekend.

The 2015 Tomstardis Awards - Preview

The Tomstardis Awards are now in their ninth year and they are bigger than ever with new categories such as Torchwood and War Doctor categories alongside long running categories such as Favourite Doctor and Favourite Companion.

Favourite Doctor
This category has been won by three of the five nominated Doctors since 2007. Colin Baker has won four times with wins in 2007, 2008, 2009 and most recently in 2014. Paul McGann won back to back in 2010 and 2011 and Peter Davison also won it in back to back years with wins in 2012 and 2013.

Favourite Companion
Only two companions have won this award more than once with Sarah Sutton winning in 2007 and 2012 and Sheridan Smith won it in 2009 and 2011. Frazer Hines is the only male to have won the award when he got the honour in 2010. Other winners include India Fisher (2008), Mary Tamm (2013) and Louise Jameson (2014).

THE MAIN RANGE

Favourite Main Range Story
Four of the winners have been Fifth Doctor stories with Son of the Dragon (2007), The Haunting of Thomas Brewster (2008), The Emerald Tiger (2012) and 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men (2013). The winner has been a Sixth Doctor story twice with The Silver Turk (2010) and Masters of Earth (2014). The Seventh Doctor won a story award once with The Magic Mousetrap (2009) and The Eighth Doctor was successful in 2011 with The Silver Turk.

Favourite Main Range Writer
Barnaby Edwards and Eddie Robson are the most successful winners in this category with two wins each. Edwards won it in 2010 with The Wreck of the Titan and in 2012 with The Emerald Tiger. Eddie Robson won it in 2008 with The Condemned and in 2013 with 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men. Other winners include Steve Lyons won it in 2007 with Son of the Dragon, Nicholas Briggs won it in 2009 with Blue Forgotten Planet, Marc Platt won it in 2011 with The Silver Turk and Mark Wright and Cavan Scott won it last year with Masters of Earth.

Favourite Main Range Director
This award has only been won by two people. Barnaby Edwards won it seven years in a row and Nicholas Briggs was the second person winning it last year for Masters of Earth.

Favourite Main Range Cover Designer
Alex Mallinson is the big winner with three wins. He won it in 2008 for Brotherhood of the Daleks, 2011 for The Silver Turk and in 2012 for 1001 Nights. Barry Piggott won it in 2007 for 100, Ian Robertson won it in 2009 for Patient Zero, Simon Holub won it in 2010 for The Wreck of the Titan, Anthony Lamb won it in 2013 for Fanfare for the Common Men and Tom Webster won it last year for Signs and Wonders.

Favourite Main Range Music & Sound Designer
Howard Carter has been the big winner with four wins. He won it in back to back years with 2009 and 2010 wins for Patient Zero and The Wreck of the Titan respectively. He won it again in back to back years with wins in 2012 and 2013 for The Emerald Tiger and Fanfare for the Common Men respectively. Jamie Robertson won it twice in 2011 for The Silver Turk and last year for Signs and Wonders.

Other winners include ERS who won it in 2007 for Son of the Dragon and David Darlington who won it in 2008 for The Condemned.

Favourite Series
The Fifth Doctor has won two series since the category was created in 2009. The wins came in 2010 and 2012. The Seventh Doctor won it in 2009, the Eighth Doctor won it in 2011 with the Sixth Doctor finally winning a series award in 2014. The 1963 trilogy of stories won it in 2013.

THE COMPANION CHRONICLES

Favourite Companion Chronicles Writer
This category was created quite late in the history of the awards in 2012. James Goss, Jonathan Morris and Matt Fitton have all won it with The Last Post, Mastermind and Luna Romana.

Favourite Companion Chronicles Director
Lisa Bowerman has won two awards with a win in 2012 for The Last Post and in 2014 for Luna Romana. Louise Jameson won it in 2013 for Ghost in the Machine and bearing in mind she is nominated for the Favourite Director award in the main range, she could become the first person to win in these two ranges.

Favourite Companion Chronicles Cover Designer
Damien May has won this category twice with wins in 2013 and 2014 and Alex Mallinson won it in the first year back in 2012.

Favourite Companion Chronicles Music & Sound Designer
Richard Fox & Lauren Yason have won this category twice with wins in 2013 and 2014 with Howard Carter won it in 2012.

BIG WINNERS

9 – Barnaby Edwards
7 – Alex Mallinson & Howard Carter
5 – Ken Bentley
4 – James Goss, John Dorney, Jonathan Morris & Nicholas Briggs
3 – Jamie Robertson, Lisa Bowerman & Matt Fitton
2 – Anthony Lamb, Damien May, Eddie Robson, Ian Potter, Richard Fox & Lauren Yason and Tom Webster

Hell Bent

This series has been highly impressive and when a series has been this good, then it needs a finale that matches this. After the previous episode and knowing that we were going to have an episode on Gallifrey properly. Like the previous episode, this episode has an extended running time. Under the RTD era I would worry because it would mean that the final 15-20 minutes would be sentimental drivel but under Steven Moffat, that wouldn’t be the case. This is the 40^th episode that Steven Moffat has either written or co-written by him and that ties him with David Whittaker and tied fourth most credited wrtier in Doctor Who history. Only Robert Holmes (64), Terry Nation (56) and Malcolm Hulke (47) have written more episodes.

The episode starts off with the Doctor arriving in the café that featured in The Impossible Astronaut back in 2011 and the only person that is there is Clara. I knew that she wasn’t dead because the character is held in too high a regard by Steven Moffat. The way that this episode starts is typical Moffat. The previous episode ends with a fast paced and high energy and so he deliberately starts the episode in quite a slow manner. The Doctor is telling a story and how Gallifrey has moved to the end of time. This does seem to be quite a shift considering all the effort that went into hiding it in The Day of the Doctor. When the Doctor arrives on Gallifrey he is given the traditional greeting that the Doctor usually gets when he visits Gallifrey.

Sadly Rassilon isn’t played by Timothy Dalton. Whether he wasn’t asked or refused to play the role again is unclear. On this occasion Donald Sumpter is in the lead role and I thought that he did a very good job. He got the out of control vibe of the character just right. I thought that once he had been shown up by the Doctor and the firing squad guards then his usefulness ceased. The General was a character from Day of the Doctor and I thought that Ken Bones was a good bit of casting but what came as a surprise was that he regenerated and this is another example of new thinking where he regenerates into a woman.

The whole episode (yet again) seemed to be centred around Clara and this is where I think that the episode starts to crumble. The Doctor manages to extract Clara between her last heartbeat and her death and is determined to try and get around the fact that Clara’s death is a fixed point. I think that it was a mistake bringing Clara back and that ultimately it was a bit of a wasted return to Gallifrey. However the biggest mistake was in the matter of bring Ashildr back. I could see the logic bringing her back in Face the Raven but me in this episode was very little logic behind having her back because I don’t think that she bought anything to the story and also it seemed like they bought her back to stick her in the TARDIS with Clara so there could be the tiniest possibility of a spin-off series which is only likely to happen in the world of Big Finish.

The whole thing about the Doctor forgetting Clara is borrowed from the Big Finish storyline where the Sixth Doctor forgets that he travelled with Charley. I suspect that a majority of those watching this episode wont know that but for someone who has been listening to Big Finish for about a decade now it felt like a nice little nod from Steven Moffat.

Whilst I enjoyed this episode and thought that the running time was very good, it didn’t feel like a finale. It didn’t feel like it had achieved anything really and in that regard, I thought that it was a bit of a disappointment. I think bringing Clara and Ashildr back didn’t achieve anything and the final shot of the TARDIS and the diner flying off in the distance isn’t the best way to end the episode. My worries continue with the NEXT TIME trailer and the reminder that River bleedin Song is making a unwelcomed return to the show.

Back to happier matters and this series has been much stronger than the previous one. Capaldi seemed more confident than in the previous series although the flaws with the series are centred around the obsession with Clara. Hopefully now she is part of Doctor Who history and whoever is chosen to replace her will not be saddled with Clara comparisons. The 35^th series of Doctor Who has suffered from being dumped between Strictly Come Dancing and Casualty and as a result the ratings have suffered but reviews have generally be positive. My hopes for the next series is that this trend continue although in a slightly earlier timeslot.

The Forsaken

The Forsaken is the second opportunity for us to enjoy Elliot Chapman as Ben Jackson. In the previous story Ben didn’t feature much and that was something that was frustrating there but in this story Chapman is more much involved. The story sees the TARDIS crew land on an island just off the coast of Singapore in 1942 but there is a creepy figure lurking around striking fear into people. In fact the more fear that someone is showing the better for the creature.

The creature of the story is one that consumes fear and can change shape to look like anybody and this leads to some slightly predictable moments of whether people are the real thing or this creature impersonating them. I liked how the creature has decided to steal the gimmick of the grim reaper and that is why he dresses the way he does. The way that it was defeated at the end was quite good. It basically fed of itself which has to be a first in Doctor Who.

Due to the fact that they have cast someone as Ben, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a story that would feature Ben in the more central role. One of the soldiers in the store is actually his dad. I thought that Elliot Chapman does a good job. I did a terrible thing of reading an opinion of this story about how Frazer Hines didn’t seem to be on usual form because he was doing more in the story. I don’t buy that argument because I thought that Hines does his usual impeccable job of sounding like Patrick Troughton. Anneke Wills is also on good form but there was a moment where she was talked into staying with the Doctor where I thought that this was a bit of a throwback to 60’s Who where the woman would stay behind because she’s a woman. I know that this story was suppose to take place during that period but it is still possible to update it a bit.

Whilst I liked this story, I thought that The Yes Men was slightly better. It was very close but this is still an entertaining story. Justin Richards is a very good writer and written a story that has a great plot and is very atmospheric which is vital in an audio adventure. The second series of The Early Adventures is shaping up to be better than the first and I am hearing good things about the next story in this series so things are looking good for the range.

Heaven Sent

The penultimate episode of this highly enjoyable series is a unique one. It’s unique because Peter Capaldi is the only person in the episode. I’m not really counting Jenna Coleman’s cameo appearance because then it takes away the shine of my previous statement. To have just the Doctor and no one else is rather brave thing to do and would require a good plot to keep everyones attention for the extended 55 minute running time. With this episode, Steven Moffat becomes the fourth highest credited writer in Doctor Who.

Peter Capaldi has put in some great performances since he became the Doctor and even when the episodes haven’t been the greatest, I have thought that Capaldi’s performances in the episodes were what saved them. Watching Heaven Sent, its clear that he has been drastically under rated. He gets to show us what he can do when he doesn’t have anyone to act against.

The Doctor spends the episode in a castle where there is the slowest creature following the Doctor. It manages to catch up with the Doctor and the only way that the Doctor can escape it is by telling it a truth. There are moments where the Doctor ‘escapes’ into the TARDIS and I thought that these brief scenes were good because it broke up the pace in the castle and just gave a different feel to the episode. This is where we see the back of Clara who is writing on a blackboard and this is the closest that the Doctor comes to interacting with someone.

The Doctor has to find room 12 and this is where the episode really feels like it heading towards something and there is some made up diamond type thing between the Doctor and what at first I thought was the TARDIS and he punches his way through and it takes two billion years to punch his way through which is a crazy thing but the repetitive shots of his time in the castle getting quicker and quicker helps to build up to the ultimate moment where he breaks through and where he ends up in the place that I think most people knew would make an appearance at some point.

The creature that is chasing the Doctor turns out to be the Hybrid which has been mentioned throughout this series and the Hybrid kills the Doctor leading to the rather horrific point that the skulls at the bottom of the sea all belong to the Doctor and are the times when the Hybrid has killed the Doctor.

When the Doctor makes it back to Gallifrey this was a very important moment because after 10 years of thinking that Gallifrey was never going to be visited again that we have a series finale that will be set on it and not in a retrospective way as has been the case before. This will be the first time since Arc of Infinity that a story takes place on Gallifrey and I am really excited that we have got round the big roadblock that Russell T Davies set up a decade ago. Some people are calling this a classic. I don’t think that it is but it is certainly the best story of the series and in years to come this may come close to that classic tag but I think that if the final episode has potential to be the best story of the series but time will tell.

Criss-Cross

Criss-Cross is the first official story for Miranda Raison as Constance Clarke. I say official because this was supposed to be the first story for her but then Big Finish decided to release The Last Adventure early and so we got to hear what the character would be like earlier than expected and it was difficult to know what to make of the companion based on just one out of context story. This was going to be the story that would decide whether the character would work or not. After the rather dramatic way that Flip’s last story was and the passing of Maggie Stables, it was perhaps time for Sixie to have a new companion and Constance Clarke is a strong minded woman from the 1940’s which is quite a clever choice from Big Finish because we’ve never had a companion from that period.

Lets dispel any suspense by saying that I like the character of Constance. She is strong minded as I said but what I think works is that Miranda Raison plays the role perfectly and is likeable despite butting heads with the Doctor at first. I think that her sudden decision to join the Doctor could have been handled slightly better but on the whole I think that the combination of the Doctor and Constance is going to work very well. Colin Baker rarely puts a foot wrong in Doctor Who stories anymore. In fact I cant remember the last time he blundered and he seems to have new life having teamed up with Raison. The two appears in 2010’s The Wreck of the Titan together but this time they are working together and Baker is enjoying himself with the story and now that he has a new companion that has brains but also is lacking in some aspects of life due her time period.

As far as the story is concerned, I liked it very much. I have to confess that I haven’t always been the biggest fan of Matt Fitton’s writing. It’s not that he is a terrible writer – far from it – but there was just something that didn’t quite work all the time. I have enjoyed stories such as Afterlife (2013), Survivors: Revelation (2014) and his Early Adventures An Ordinary Life (2014) is his best work. I think that he has written a story with a great setting and a threat that is easy to understand and its easy to understand why it’s doing what it is doing. I don’t think that this is quite as good as An Ordinary Life but it is a highly enjoyable story and its got to be in my top three of the year.  

Criss-Cross is a good start to the series and I have to say that I am loking forward to the remaining two stories in the series. The steady improvement of the main range continues and I think that this is one of those stories that will grow on me and I could easily see this story doing well in this years Tomstardis Awards. Time will tell.

Face The Raven

This was hinted at being the final episode for Jenna Coleman as Clara Oswald and despite it being public knowledge that Coleman was leaving, there is just some nagging doubt that this might not be the case in tonight’s episodes. Lets just assume that this is the final episode for Clara then it was clear that things weren’t going to end well because at the beginning of the episode the Doctor and Clara are laughing and having fun. That’s always a bad sign when its not the norm.

The episode sees the return of Rigsy who was the slightly irritating character from last years Flatline episode and more importantly the return of Maisie Williams who we saw in the less than exciting Girl Who Died/Woman Who Lived two parter. If there is one aspect of the story that I don’t think worked that well it’s the return of Rigsy. Quite why the decision was made to bring him back is beyond me because he didn’t really bring anything to the story. It’s not the fault of Joivan Wade but more the person who had the idea of bringing him back. The return of Ashildr was more successful as it felt that there was a purpose to it and I thought that there was a nice underlying menace to Williams’ performance because she was running the little village that the story was set in and yet had someone above her to serve.

I thought that the death scene for Clara was very good. Whilst it was an insanely stupid thing to do with an almost 0% chance of success, it was the perfect opportunity for Clara to sacrifice herself for the sake of the Doctor and Rigsy. Clara has been in the background for most of this series and it seemed like she was being saved until this episode. I think that the character of Clara has been a good one overall although I do hope whoever replaces her isn’t saddle with the mystery backstory that she was. Hopefully Moffat will just let a companion be a companion. The final scene between Clara and the Doctor was one of the strongest emotional scenes for quite sometime. Some people have compared it to Donna’s final scene in Journeys End but I think this was better. You could actually see Capaldi’s face show warmth in this scene and bearing in mind how he wasn’t a hugger in Deep Breath, its funny how close they ended up.

The big mystery is where the Doctor is going to end up and also who Ashildr is working for. I think we all know where the Doctor is going to end up but Im not going to say anything until it happens cause I don’t want to end up with egg all over my face. If it is where I think it then it will end a story arc that has been 10 years in the making.

Sarah Dollard’s first script for the show is very good and she should be praised for writing a tense and dark story that ratches up the tension and I thought that the whole episode worked well and when she needed to do the emotional scenes she did them rather well. I look forward to more stories from her in the future. Justin Molotnikov’s second episode is just as good as the first. The fact that they film on real streets in a real London bought a freshness that the series had been missing. I think he captured the mood rather well and is another of this series’ successes.

Face The Raven is a highly enjoyable story with some highly enjoyable performances. It might not be setting the world alight due to ratings but it shows that even 10 years after it returned, it can still entertain and show that it has just as much imagination as it did in 2005. Just days before the shows 52^nd anniversary, the show is in just as good health as it was in 1963. Now onto the final two episodes.

Jago and Litefoot and Strax

Even though Jago and Litefoot and Strax wasn’t the first release featuring new series characters to be released by Big Finish, it was the first that I listened to. I thought that after just finishing the tenth series, I would strike while the iron is hot. The idea of Strax appearing with Jago and Litefoot is an obvious one because of the period that Strax along with Vastra and Jenny are in on the TV. It’s also an idea that has endless possibilities. These are two worlds being thrust together and it could only go well.  The thing about this story is that I think it should be treated very much like Voyage to the New World and Voyage to Venus from 2012. They are canon as far as I am concerned but they are like the Christmas specials on TV, they are canon but not really part of the timeline for the characters.

The plot for this story isn’t terribly complicated and that is what I like about Justin Richards’ writing because it means that characters and their situations are allowed to be the centre of attention. This means there are several good scenes between the trio and from time to time with Ellie and Quick. The way that Strax is integrated into the story is very clever as due to a bump on the head he thinks that Jago and Litefoot are Vastra and Jenny. It’s as close to them being in the story as we are likely to get at the moment but I got the feeling that these two worlds are taking place at the same time. One part I found amusing was the reaction of Jago and Litefoot when they realise that Jenny and Vastra were married which is something that wasn’t acceptable back then.

The performances from Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter were as they always are and that is enjoyable. Lisa Bowerman’s double duty as director and Ellie are a credit to the story and I thought that Ellie was very good in this story and I like how she pushed herself in going along with the new trio. I would have liked more of Quick because he didn’t seem to be in the story as much as he normally would be but that is probably the only thing I would change. Caroline Seymour also appears in this story and as I am a fan of the Survivors range, instantly recognised her voice and thought that it was good for Seymour to have something different to do other than Abby looking for her son.

It was commented on in the interviews at the end of the story where I think its Trevor Baxter who said that bringing in Strax bought a freshness to things. I don’t think he meant that after 10 series, the range has started to get a bit repetitive but I think that including someone like Strax means that for a short period you can have a bit of fun with the dynamic. I really enjoyed this story and felt that the mixing of new and old Who has worked well and I look forward to listening to UNIT: Extinction but hopefully this story will be popular enough that the rest of the Paternoster Gang wont be too far away. I hope that future stories with Strax will allow for more Jago and Litefoot type plots because the dynamic of Jago and Litefoot and Strax could cope with it.

Sleep No More

Sleep No More is the first single part episode of the series. The NEXT TIME trailer at the end of the previous episode gave the impression that it was a dark story and after having several episodes where this was the case, I wondered whether this was the right thing to do.

The most noticeable thing about the episode is that there wasn’t a theme tune. There was a caption that had the words DOCTOR WHO on it but that was about it. The information about the writer and director and producer was put on at the end. This was the first time that no theme tune played at the beginning of an episode. Yet in the history of the show I suspect that this information will get overlooked.

The whole set up of the episode is that the Doctor and Clara find themselves on a spaceship above Neptune where they (and others) are being hunted by strange looking creatures. That is as standard a Doctor Who story as you need but being a Mark Gatiss script, its going to be a bit more interesting than that. I worked out that that the monsters were made of sand just before it was revealed but I thought that the whole episode was more about what we saw on screen as opposed to the context of the plot. To be honest I don’t think that it was one of the strongest stories for Gatiss in terms of plot. I liked the found footage take on the episode as it feels very much of its time. I wonder if people will appreciate this in 10 or 20 years time. I thought that this episode was well directed by newbie Justin Molotnikov. It was very dark, very claustrophobic and also moved along at a good pace. I think having got use to two parters and the pace that those stories bring, it was nice to have a story that moved a bit quicker.

The idea that someone has created a machine that condense a month sleep into a few minutes is something that is pure SF. The beauty of the idea is that everyone but the person who ‘creates it’ knows that its going to fail. In this case we are talking about Rassmussen who is played superbly by Reece Shearsmith. The best bit from Shearsmith comes at the end when he is talking to the camera and says that we as viewers have been duped into watching and he rubs his eye and it starts to crumble.

The performances from Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman were ok. They weren’t as strong as in previous episodes. I think that the style of the episode meant that there wasn’t the possibility for anyone one person to stand out. Quite unusual for a Doctor Who story.

I think that this story is designed to be followed by sequels. If not then the ending doesn’t quite work but when watching it I found myself being impressed with it.  It’s not the greatest episode of the series but I think that it tried to do something different and that should always be praised. The next episode looks like quite an interesting and the ending for Clara is coming.

Jago and Litefoot: Series 10

It’s amazing that we are now on series ten of Jago and Litefoot. It was only five years ago that there was the pilot in the Companion Chronicles and the setup of two series a year would have hurt other series yet this style seems to have suited this range. The ninth series was somewhat of a disappointment if I am being honest. I think that it might require a second listen but my immediate impression was that Jago and Litefoot on a cruise was a missed opportunity. Including The Mahogany Murderers and the two Voyage stories that Jago and Litefoot had with the Sixth Doctor in 2012, there have been 39 adventures with our favourite dynamic duo. Part of me was hoping that this series would show that the previous series was a blip which does seem the case because on the whole the first eight series have all been very good.

The opening story of this series is The Case of the Missing Gasogene and first off there is the question of what a Gasogene actually is. I thought that it was something that has been made up but thanks to the wonder of Wikipedia it confirms that it was a late Victorian device for producing Carbonated water. The story introduces Carruthers Summerton played superbly by Toby Hadoke. Summerton is following Jago and Litefoot around while they investigate the death of some rich guy’s manservant. It was a good opening story and comforted me to know that the series was back on track. With this being the 39^th story for these two, both Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin are allowed to have fun with their characters as they have differing opinions as to how to proceed with Summerton volleying between the two camps. What Simon Barnard & Paul Morris have managed to do is to write a story that feels like it has some new ideas yet slot it perfectly well into a traditional setting like Jago and Litefoot. Had I not known that the character of Summerton would be back in the series then I would have said that his use was rather disappointing because there was clearly something more to him. Thankfully there is going to be more and so there is the potential for a new story arc involving this character. There was something that reminded me of the character Huxley from the companion chronicle stories Ringpullworld (2009) and Find and Replace (2010).

The second part is The Year of the Bat which sees Jago and Litefoot send letters to themselves in an attempt to change certain things in their pasts. Now there is argument that could be made that changing the events of your history is a dangerous thing but that sort of thought should be left to the main Doctor Who range. As long as you don’t give this too much thought then the story is another highly enjoyable story. The performances from Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter are great as usual but credit should go to Blake Ritson and Alex Lowe who play Young Litefoot and Young Jago respectively. They give an idea of what a companion chronicle with these two would be like if they weren’t with us.

The third story was the weakest in my opinion. The Mourning After has a cracking pre-title scene where Litefoot and Ellie are at the funeral of Jago but the twist is that Jago has been buried alive and when the theme tune ends he is released from his torture but is rather distressed to be in the year 2000. I am a little disappointed because I felt that there was some potential to have this linked with the previous story because of the history that they messed around with in that story it could quite easily have been an easy story to write. It wasn’t a terrible story by any means because it was written by James Goss who is a writer that I like because he can tell good stories. The fact that David Warner made a return was one of the things that I liked because David Warner is never rubbish and I liked how there was a mystery as to whether his character could be trusted. It’s clear that he isn’t being as honest as he could be. There are zombies in this story which is being linked to Betterman but beyond that there doesn’t seem to be much to take from this story.

The final story of the series is arguably the best because it feels like a greatest hits album. The Museum of Curiosities sees the true intentions of Carrthurs Summerton. I like how he has set up a museum with all the bits and pieces associated with previous adventures and various villains that they have encountered. It’s a story that builds up to a great conclusion and its towards the end that Betterman’s true colours are shown and that he has been manipulated. I thought that this episode did a great job of ending the character of Summerton. It seemed like Toby Hadoke was having the time of his life playing this role. As various references to previous stories kept popping up it was fun trying to remember which story it was referring to and what happened in that particular story. It was another sound story and it had a great cliffhanger which saw the appearance of the Master which totally had me shocked and made me wish that Series 11 was released tomorrow.

Overall this series has been a return to form. This series felt like classic Jago and Litefoot and the stories have all felt like new ideas and what is a relief is that even after ten series it doesn’t feel like the series is running out of ideas and coming across as stale. Another success for Big Finish.

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived

Between Series 6 (32) and 8 (34) there were just three two parters and for series 9 (35) we have now had three two parters so it seems that with the series length reduced to an even number, Moffat has clued on that people want two parters and the previous two parters have been highly enjoyable and had lots of actions. The first part was written by Steven Moffat and Jamie Matthieson. Quite why it took two people to write this script alludes me. The set up for this episode is that the Doctor and Clara arrive on Earth in Viking times and the village they arrive just in time for an attack from the Mire. Things move along and then Ashildr dies and is bought back to live but the thing about the first episode is that it feels an awful lot like padding. It’s the sort of padding which would be seen during the classic era. At the end I just thought that a lot happened but nothing substantial happened.

The second episode is where all the interesting stuff starts to happen. Despite some nice performances, the story was ruined by Rory the lion popping up later in the episode as the main threat and someone that Me is working with.

This story was heavily billed because it featured Maisie Williams who is apparently well known because of her role in Game of Thrones. She is definetly better when she plays Me than Ashidr. Not quite convinced that Me is a good name for a character even though the explanation given was quite clever.

This story and the second episode in particular is very much a character piece because over the course of the two episodes not much happens. You could easily edit these two episodes into one. I think that the second episode tries to explore the idea that immortality is a curse is something that was explored (briefly) in The Five Doctors and also mentioned in School Reunion (2006). I think that its generally perceived that immortality isn’t the great thing that it could be.

One aspect of the second episode that I found good was that I didn’t miss Clara. It was about 15 minutes into the episode before I noticed she hadn’t appeared yet. I think that this shows how good Peter Capaldi was and how good Maisie Williams was. During their scenes together they were both on very good form.

One thing that still makes me chuckle is all the speculation about who Maisie Williams’ character was. Many thought it was Susan or maybe Jenny and it turns out that she was just a normal girl/woman and there wasn’t anything extra terrestrial about her is something that must have annoyed loads of people on Gallifrey Base. It was a relief that there was nothing special about her although for a while I did think that maybe she was Jenny but that didn’t last very long.

I did like the bit where the Doctor finally realises why he chose this face. It was a question he asked back in his first story and its because of the events from Fires of Pompeii when the Tenth Doctor leaves and then has a change of heart and goes back to save Capaldi’s character in that story. It’s not such a barmy idea because Romana second incarnation is based on Princess Astra so with this logic it means that Peter Davison’s Doctor based his sixth incarnation on Commander Maxil from Arc of Infinity.

This two parter is the weakest so far of the season and maybe even of Capaldi’s tenure on the show. There are bits that are quite good but as a two parter it isn’t very exciting.  I think that its because it moves too slowly and after four episodes. It took three people to write these two episodes and to be honest that’s too many. I think that Catherine Treganna had the stronger episode. It would be wrong for me not to acknowledge the directing because Ed Bazalgette did a very good job as he utilises the lovely locations that the story was being filmed in and the house that is used in the second part looked fantastic and the lighting was just perfect. It’s amusing to think that Bazalgette went from lead guitarist of The Vapors who had a hit with Turning Japanese and then ended up directing Doctor Who.

The NEXT TIME trailer shows that the Zygons return to Doctor Who. Typical, you wait nearly forty years for a Zygon story and then we get two in two years.

Terror of the Sontarans (2015)

Terror of the Sontrarans is the final story of the series and this story has dual writing credits from John Dorney and Dan Starkey who is more use to playing a Sontaran opposite Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s Doctors. I remember reading the DWM magazine and reading that bother writers had a different perspective on the Sontaran character which does show because there are moments where they are the stern serious race that we know them to be and then at other times there are moments which make them seem a bit humorous.

As the title suggests, the Sontarans are the ones that are being terrorised and when the Sontarans are being terrorised then you know that the threat must be great. In reality I don’t think that was explored as well as it could have been. The idea of a Sontaran being other than stoic and brave is an interesting one but its never explored in any great detail and that is a little bit disappointing.

The thing about this story is that I just didn’t think it quite worked. I listened to it and thought that I had missed something and so I took the decision to listen to it again and I liked it but I can’t say that it was the best story of the year. I think that if it had just been the Sontarans then this story would have had a different effect on me but at the end of the day it was what it was and it’s a rather disappointing end to the Mel series. Its been good having Mel back and it confirms how good the character could have been had she been given the chance to be less screamy on TV.

The central performances were quite good. Throughout the three stories both Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford have performed well and its refreshing to see Sylvester McCoy in a series of adventures with someone other Sophie Aldred. Bonnie Langford hasn’t been a hindrance and her characters abilities have been utilised and hopefully we will hear more from her in the coming years. Some of the supporting characters were interesting enough. Dan Starkey was good as Field Major Kayste, Skegg and Stodd he delivers a solid performance as a Sontaran. I quite liked Andree Bernard’s performance as Tethenka (amongst other things). She was a passive character at first and it seemed obvious that she was going to change at some point during the story. That’s not to say that it wasn’t well done but if I can spot this sort of thing out then it shows how obvious it was.

Before the Flood

The previous episode was a nice base under siege story and when the NEXT TIME trailer aired I was a) surprised that it was a two parter and b) disappointed that the story didn’t seem to be entirely under water. That said there were things in this story that might get me past the disappointment. The cliffhanger from the previous episode was rather good because it saw the Doctor appear in the sea with black eyes. The episode starts with a nice monologue with the Doctor running around the TARDIS console (a rarely used set this series) and he talks about the Bootstrap Paradox and Beethoven. The Doctor playing the guitar is something that is becoming the Doctor’s new Sonic Screwdriver. The pre-title scene says that the Doctor discovers that Beethoven never existed so he published the works of the composer himself thus becoming Beethoven.

The story features another example of a nod to a previous story and in this episode it was the Tivolian race who previous appeared in ‘The God Complex’ (written by Toby Whithouse) back in 2011. In that story the Tivolian was played by David Walliams but this time the representative from this race is Prentis played by Paul Kaye. I quite liked the character of Prentis although I thought that the ghost version was better.

The action is split between the base in 2119 in Scotland and an army base in the 1980’s. As much as I liked what happened in the army base I thought that the posters designed to make it look like it too place in the USSR. They may as well have had someone talking in a dodgy Russian accent as well. The one advantage of having this outside is that at least there was some light instead of the low light of the undersea base.

There is some interesting stuff about the Fisher King, firstly the name is a bit of an issue. Everytime I heard the name Fisher King, I just thought of the toymaker Fisher Price. Aside from the name I thought that the design was very good. I think that the design is one of the best that the show has come up with for quite some time. When it first appears in the episode we didn’t see it and I thought that this was to hide the fact that it wasn’t very good but that wasn’t the case and its highlight comes when it is about the be hit by the water from the burst dam. The big scene between the Fisher King and the Doctor is a very good one and the highlight of the whole two episodes. I liked the bit where the King describes the Timelords and “cowardly, vain curators who suddenly remembered they had teeth and became the most war-like race in the galaxy”.

The only problem with this story is that the narrative races along at such a pace that it kind of ties itself in knots and when it comes to wrap things up the story goes down a timey wimey route and I just started questioning what was going on. In a way I don’t really mind because the whole two parter has been put together very well with some very good performances especially from Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman. Even the supporting cast are well written and I think that the decision to have a deaf actress not just in the story but quite active in the story is something that seems to have been overlooked by the wider press. It’s weird to think that we are already a third of the way through the series and the ratings continue to be lower than usual and the late start time isn’t helping. The sooner that the show returns to earlier in the year when Strictly Come Dancing isn’t on the better because SCD is hurting Doctor Who.

The Warehouse

The Warehouse is the middle story of this series and after being impressed with We Are The Daleks, I had high hopes for this story. This story has been penned by Mike Tucker who is writing his first story for Big Finish since 2003’s The Draconian Rage for the Benny range and its been 14 years since he wrote a story for the main range when he wrote the superb Dust Breeding back in 2001. The set up is that the Doctor and Mel arrive in the for mentioned Warehouse which at first seems to be a parody of the sort of Warehouses used by Amazon or other big companies with stocktakes being done repeatedly. There is a line in this story which hit home with me when the Doctor says “What about the shops on the high street?, they’ll become something of a novelty” For someone like me who works in retail this is a slice of reality in Doctor Who.

For the second story running, Mel’s computer abilities are used in a story. I recently re-listened to The Juggernauts which is 10 years old and that is another example of Mel being used much better than she was ever used during her time on TV. Bonnie Langford seems to be happy playing Mel which isn’t something that could have been said in the late 1980’s but with the quality of writing that Big Finish has come up with in recent years it means that she can show what the character can do. Sylvester McCoy is also having fun with the story and now that he hasn’t got to deal with dark matters like he did when he was co-starrting with Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred.

At the end of the day the thing about this story is that it is neither terrible nor great. I don’t think that this story is Tucker’s best because I think Dust Breeding gets that honour. The main cast were fun to listen to and I think that the supporting cast all did their best. However despite the great performances and the good central idea I cant say that I understood this story. It started off well enough and I thought the idea of the warehouse being some sort of source of food/help to people on the planet below was quite good but I just couldn’t get into despite the very good performances. It’s still the case that the middle story in a trilogy series is the weakest but compared to the middle story of the previous trilogy (Equilibrium), this is a slightly better story. I am still impressed with how good Mel has been used in this series and look forward to the Sontarans returning.

Under The Lake

Under The Lake is a story with a lot to write about. The first being the transmission time which was 8.25pm and this was to allow Strictly Come Dancing to air for two hours, bearing in mind that they are competing with The X-Factor which wasn’t on last night due to England playing Australia in the Rugby World Cup, the BBC could easily have moved this forward by an hour and thus allow people to enjoy this story. It’s also the latest (to my knowledge) that a Doctor Who has ever been transmitted although the way the BBC keeps throwing this show around the schedule I could easy see it put on after Casualty or even Match of the Day. As I don’t care about Peter Andre or Jeremy Vine or some guy from McBusted prancing around the dancefloor, I managed to keep myself entertained (thanks to Netflix) and when 8.25pm arrived, I was able to enjoy a story that from the ttrailer was going to be something that I enjoyed. I always enjoy base under siege stories and anyone who followed my marathon blog will know this and whilst I know it wasn’t going to be as good as base under siege stories such as The Moonbase or Horror of Fang Rock or The Tomb of the Cybermen, it has the potential to be the best story for quite a while. I’m going to cut any tension out of the story by saying that this is the best story of the series and the best story of Peter Capaldi’s era.

This story has been written by Toby Whithouse who has clearly been told to crank it up to 11 and certainly has done that which bearing in mind he wrote the very creepy God Complex back in 2011 perhaps isn’t a difficult request. The set up of the story is that the Doctor and Clara arrive on an underground base where the crew are holed up in a Faraday Cage type room because there are ghosts that are trying to kill them so that they can use their bodies to strengthen a signal. The thing is that the story works so well in making things as creepy and scary as possible that I found myself not really concerned with why things are happening. There is a scary ghost with the weirdest face and no eyes running around after people who can pick up weapons and walk through walls but just cant do both at the same time.

As with any base under siege stories there has to be a group of people on it that are a mix of annoying and not so annoying. What is quite impressive is that one of the cast member is actually deaf and I thought that the sign language part would be dropped quickly but it wasn’t and so credit goes to Whithouse. The effects used to create the ghosts is superb and there is one shot where a ghosts face is inches away from someones face and it was quite an incredible shot. The cliffhanger shot of the Doctor in the sea with his eyes removed is one of the most impressive last shots in recent years and so everyone involved in creating the effects for this episode should be very proud with what they have achieved.

The central performances have been quite good. Peter Capaldi is on fine form in this story but yet again I don’t think that Jenna Coleman was as good. She was better than the previous two episodes but I just don’t think that the character is as noticeable as she has been. I don’t know if that’s because the plots aren’t centered around her but something has changed since the new series started and whilst I approve of the fact that Clara isn’t at the centre of the story, something needs to be done for the character to fill the gap.

It’s never possible to fully judge a story until the second episode but the thing is that I wasn’t expecting this to be a two parter. I know that some people might say that it was obvious but it wasn’t to me and so when the next time caption appeared I was genuinely shocked. This story achieved a lot whilst just being about running down corridors. Judging by the NEXT TIME trailer for next weeks episode, things aren’t going to have the same base under siege vibe. Anyway one thing is for sure and that this series is shaping up to be a very strong one because its now three strong stories in a row and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the quality dipping any time soon.

The Witch's Familiar (2015)

After being very impressed with the opening episode, there was an awful lot riding on this week’s episode. There was a number of new things done in the previous episode that were new and more would appear in this episode but the pre-title scene features just Clara and Missy where we get a scene which basically explains how Clara and Missy managed to get out of the Dalek chamber despite being shot by the Daleks. This allows Missy to be quite humorous whilst telling a story about the Doctor. By the time the music played and Clara and Missy were walking into the distance with Clara wanting the stick I couldn’t help but find myself thinking that this is a potential spin off for Big Finish.

If there is one thing that this episode that will forever stick in my memory it is the part where the Doctor scoops Davros out of his chair and appears in the main chamber sitting in the chair. The sight of the Doctor in that rather distinctive chair is one that may never leave me. The effect used to show that Davros is half the man he used to be is rather good and this is another reason why Steven Moffat deserves more credit that he gets. Other things that are used in this episode include a nostalgia nod to the very first Dalek story. Clara get to sit inside a Dalek and this mirrors what Ian Chesterton did. The difference is that Moffat uses this opportunity to do something different because when Clara tries to say something nice it gets changed by the Dalek and words like Exterminate get shouted. This leads to a nice little scene at the end of the episode where the Clara Dalek is approaching the Doctor and she is trying to convince him that she’s not a proper Dalek whilst Missy is trying to convince otherwise is the last bit of drama in the episode and it’s a nice three hander.

The thing about this episode is that it is definitely Julian Bleach’s episode as he pretty much stole the show. There was always the possibility of Davros not dying but it’s the truth and when the Doctor realises that Davros is being honest it leads to a wonderful bit where Davros opens his real eyes for the first time. A dying Davros along with the sun rising on Skaro is another great moment in the episode. Davros’ return has been a huge success and hopefully it wont be another eight years before the character returns.

There is the whole part in the sewer that is a mix of new and old because they went through tunnels in the first Dalek story and in this episode we get Clara and Missy finding a different way of getting into the Dalek city but the fine mind of Steven Moffat means that the walls of the tunnels in this story are in fact old Daleks that have been reduced to brown goo. I know that this aspect of the story didn’t go down too well especially when it lead to the Daleks being defeated. I admit visually it was a bit gross but in terms of narrative, it works really well and the idea of gooey Daleks being rather angry and in pain is quite clever.

There are aspects of this episode that don’t work quite well and the first being Missy. She was really quite menacing in Deep Water and Death in Heaven but in these two episodes she has lost a lot of the menace. There were glimmers of the old Missy/Master but on the whole it seems that Missy has been reduced to the companion status that was given to Clara. The only good moment was when she was convincing the Doctor about the Dalek with Clara in. That is about as much as I can fault the episode because when I watched the omnibus and it was mixed into one I thought that everything worked really well and it could easily have been a movie. The writing was clever, the directing was superb from Hettie MacDonald and the performances were really strong. The visual effects were all top notch and recreating Skaro in the way that it was seen on screen was stunning and just makes me wish they could have been used in the stories set on Skaro in the past.

This two parter (only the second one for Peter Capaldi) is really enjoyable and shows that the series is going from strength to strength. Watching the next time trailer I think that this could be a potential new classic because it’s the base under water siege type story and I always love them.

We Are The Daleks (2015)

We Are The Daleks sees the Seventh Doctor reunite with Mel. This is the first time that the two have encountered each other since Red back in 2006 or release number 85 so it’s odd that its release number 201 before we get another story and to celebrate this story the Daleks have been bought back. It’s often argued that Daleks are overused by Big Finish but the last Dalek story was Daleks Among Us back in 2013. It was also the first time that Mel had faced the Daleks since The Juggernauts back in February 2005. There is one good thing about the difference between Mel stories and Ace/Hex stories and that there isn’t the impending sense of doom in the Mel stories and there is a sense of freedom with the Mel stories which after the sort of stories that the seventh Doctor has had in the last few years in the main range I felt as I was listening that this story wasn’t bogged down and could just carry on being a Dalek story.

As the cover shows, a skyscraper in the design of a Dalek has been built in the centre of London which is something I think everyone would want to see. The Mel that we get in the main range is a million times better than the Mel that we get in the TV series. Mel acts like someone who is computer literate and the story allows her to show these skills. She has shown them more in this story than she ever did on TV. Like the Sixth Doctor, Mel has undergone a revival thanks to Big Finish and from start to finish she is on fine form. I would dare to say that she is actually better in this story than the Doctor.

Being a story set in the late 1980’s, this story has a thinly veiled swipe at the attitudes of the time and namely capitalism and Thatcherism. The attitude of both of these seem to manifest in the character of Celia Dunthorpe played very well by Mary Conlon. The way that she takes over from Alex Zenos is very cold. If there was a problem with characters in this story then it would be with Alex Zenos because it was very obvious that the character wasn’t going to last very long in the story and he was dispensed with in a rather lacklustre manner. That is the only thing that I could say was wrong with the story because whilst there is a political theme running through the story, at its heart is a very good and at times very traditional Dalek story. The return of the Dalek Emperor is welcomed and I imagine him more like the Emperor seen in 2005’s The Parting of the Ways and not the 1967 story Evil of the Daleks. I don’t know if you are like me and would love to hear Dalek say weird or naughty words and phrases and this story allows us one moment of this. Hearing a Dalek say “Do You Want a Volovant?” is one of the funniest lines in the entire story.

As much as I enjoyed this story, I don’t think its better than the last Dalek story in the main range (Masters of Earth) but it’s one of the best Dalek stories in the last few years. The story itself is enjoyable and the resurgence of Mel is another reason why I will be happy to re-listen to this story in the future. Hopefully the rest of the stories in the series will be as fun to listen to as this one.

The Magicians Apprentice

Doctor Who is back and to be honest, it’s the most exciting start to a series since The Impossible Astronaut. In fact this is only the second time in new Who that the show has started off with a two parter which is surprisingly a rare thing. The opening scene is one that had been used in the trailer so whilst it wasn’t as impressive as it had been in the trailer, this opening scene is memorable for one simple reason and that is the name of the little boy was Davros. I don’t mind admitting that there were a few goose bumps when this happened. The idea that the Doctor then leaves Davros and effectively creates the Davros is a great one.

The early part of this story had quite a lot of surprising cameos. There are too many to mention but ones that stood out were the Ood, The Judoon, the Hath from The Doctor’s Daughter and that red eyed woman from the Shadow Proclamation. As nice as it was to have more references from the RTD era in the show its not really clear why she was bought back in. The strange gliding figure that was after the Doctor was an impressive creation by Steven Moffat and there was a sense when it was revealed that he was a snake seemed to me to try and banish the memories of the awful snake used in Kinda for those who haven’t bought the DVD of that story with the new CGI effect.

It’s great having Davros back in Doctor Who because there was always something slightly underused about Davros in The Stolen Earth/Journeys End in 2008. Julian Bleach was great as Davros in that story and I am so glad that they managed to get him back in this story. The Davros that we see in this story is not very well and has called the Doctor to him but with the Doctor hiding its not an easy thing. Another big thing is the return of Skaro. There have been several mentions on twitter than they knew that it was Skaro but I didn’t see it coming. The room with all the Daleks was again something used in the trailer but there was one moment when the first Dalek style appeared outside which was a wonderful moment.

I cant believe that I have got this far in the review without mentioning Missy. Missy had been such an integral part of the final two episodes of the previous series that it seemed obvious that she would return but just not quite so soon. What I like about her being bought back is that she seems to have been bought back in as a sort of ally to Clara. There is a bit where Missy points to a couple walking a dog and she says that Clara is the dog is a wonderful way of describing the relationship between the three. There has always been something more about the relationship between the Doctor and Missy/Master than a simple good vs bad style. I like when the Doctor says that Davros is his greatest enemy and it annoys Missy. Michelle Gomez does seem to have reigned it back such a little bit but it’s enough.

There was as much Peter Capaldi as I would have liked but once he eventually appeared in the story properly it was full on bonkers. There has never been a moment that comes close the Doctor entering a room on a tank playing the guitar playing I think the Doctor Who theme. There is no explanation given as to why the Doctor is here but in a way it doesn’t matter because it was mad. Now that it has been confirmed that Jenna Coleman is leaving at the end of the series there seems to be little purpose in pretending that Clara has been killed. At the end of the episode its suggested that she has been exterminated by the Daleks which is clearly not the case.

The cliffhanger is rather good and is the sort of cliffhanger that I would have expected towards the end of the series but to get it in the first episode is something of a surprise. It sees the Doctor go back to Young Davros and is about to exterminate him. Like most things in this episode I didn’t see it coming and thought it was a great way to end what has been one of the best series openers. I do hope that someone in the next episode would be able to explain the purpose of the title of this episode because that is the only aspect of the entire thing that doesn’t quite sit right with me. Despite this, the writing from Steven Moffat is on fine form here. Those that hate his time on the show are now shown to be stupid because the whole episode was action packed and the idea of using Davros’ life as a potential story arc is something that no one else would have thought of.

The Havoc of Empires (2015)

After being very impressed with Prisoner of the Lake, I pressed play on my generic MP3 device with higher expectations than before. Having got use to the fact that not every word that Tim Treloar says is going to sound as close to the way that Jon Pertwee spoke others words might do.

This story was written by Andy Lane who is another safe pair of hands and wrote the pilot for the Jago and Litefoot series and like Justin Richards is someone who can be trusted to write a story that feels like the era it’s supposed to be. The set up for the story is that the Doctor is taking Jo and Mike Yates to see a cricket match but obviously with this being a Doctor Who story it wasn’t going to happen like that and that is when the story gets going. There is a wedding going on between rival races and a whodunit. There are moments in this story which reminded me of Frontier in Space which is another example of how efforts have been made to invoke Jon Pertwee stories. I suppose if your relatively new to Doctor Who and haven’t seen many or any Pertwee this wouldn’t be a big thing but for people like me it was a nice bit of nostalgia.

What tickles me is how Mike Yates seems to have become a companion in the proper sense of the word. To the best of my knowledge Mike has never even set foot inside the TARDIS so to have an alien adventure seems like a bigger deal than the story gave it credit for. I quite like how Mike deals with what he is thrown into. By the end of this story I found myself hoping that there will be more stories involving Jo and Mike because one of the successes of this boxset has been the relationship between Jo and Mike which never went anywhere on TV. Like the previous story, Tim Treloar was very impressive in this story. The gamble has paid off for Big Finish because I could listen to this story and just enjoy the story instead of being so impressed with Treloar’s performance.

Due to the fact that Prisoners of the Lake is such a good story, I thought that this one wasn’t as good. That’s not that its bad or anywhere near that but I think that there was something about the previous story that got me more. I hope that sales of this lead to a lot more adventures. I know that its called Volume One but if sales were very disappointing then its unlikely that more would follow however I cant see that happening. There is a great deal to like as a boxset and different things in each story. The performances from Katy Manning and Richard Franklin are highly enjoyable but its worth the £25 for CD or the £20 for download purely for listening to Tim Treloar doing his performance of Jon Pertwee. The idea of recasting the lead role is always going to be controversial and some people may not listen because of this but quite frankly they aren’t being silly because everyone knows that Treloar isn’t really the Doctor but he helps plug the hole in a story that requires him to be in the story without having the Doctor either missing or Katy Manning pretending to be Jon Pertwee. A wonderful boxset.

The Conspiracy (2015)

When it was announced that Big Finish were bringing back Torchwood there was a great sense of surprise. I think that many thought that the show was pretty much dead and buried after the disastrous Miracle Day series that aired about four years ago. This isn’t the first time that there have been radio plays for the show as there was a BBC Radio 4 play called Lost Souls back in 2008 and there were a few more the following year and then some more in 2011. Torchwood is a show that still has potential but I think that Big Finish is the place for it to shine. With the sort of writers at BF’s disposal it was only a matter of time before the high quality starts to shine.

The setup of the story sees Captain Jack investigate a former journalist called Wilson who seems to have become some sort of evangelical talking about aliens. It seems like he is part of the Committee but he soon he admits to Captain Jack that its all a lie. The twist is something that was quite good because I found myself so involved in the story that when it was revealed it was clear that it was building up to something which came a lot quicker than I was expecting.

The story ends with Jack on the run and on the hunt for the Committee. I like the idea of the Committee because it’s a good concept and it makes this feel like it is Torchwood or part of the TV series. With Jack being the only character from the show in the story its quite good how they manage to get around the fact that Eve Myles and Gareth-David Lloyd aren’t in it by having them on the end of a phone call (well Gwen anyway).

The performances are very good. John Barrowman has been playing Captain Jack for a decade and sounds more convincing than ever. When he hasn’t got to deal with the innuendo’s which blighted his character in Torchwood on TV, he is able to play the character remarkably straight faced. This is Barrowman’s first encounter with Big Finish is rather strong and what is quite interesting is that he was in America when he recorded his lines. That is not something that comes across when listening to. Sarah Ovens plays Kate and it’s a rather good character and she plays it well. Oven’s last and first encounter with Big Finish was as The Cell in last years ‘The Highest Science’. I’ll be honest I can’t remember much about that story. It’s quite good how she starts off as the rather downtrodden and loving daughter and then becomes the villain of the piece. This implies that there will be more from Ovens and that’s a good thing cause her performance was enjoyable to listen to and I want more of the character. John Sessions is one of those actors that I had the feeling had been in more Big Finish plays than he actually had. His previous appearance have been in 100 (2007) and Castle of Fear. As George Wilson he plays the role which doesn’t seem to dissimilar to Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network where he has a job and then just goes way off track. The difference is that Sessions plays the role a bit more seriously than the character of Beale. His death at the end seems inevitable so when it happens its not too much of a shock and its done rather well. Last but by no means least is Dan Bottomley who plays Sam and at the start of it he comes across as a bit of a pain in the backside but with his final scene I actually felt sorry for him and thought that he was actually a nicer guy than I had given him credit for. On one hand its was necessary for the plot but on the other hand I think that with there being such a low number on speaking characters it means that loses are more noticeable and I thought that his loss in the end was a bit of a waste.

If there was one thing that I didn’t like about this story then it’s the bad language. There is a bit at the beginning where Wilson is swearing but the swear words are bleeped and that I could deal with because bleeping swear words is funnier and actually more effective than the actual word so when minor swear words are used then it felt like a brief return to the first series where it seemed like the show was trying to be more adult than Doctor Who. That is the only aspect of this story that I didn’t like but if that’s the worst thing that I could find then that gives a good indication as to how much I liked this story.

The Conspiracy is a great start to the new series. David Llewellyn’s script gets things started nice and seems to have managed to iron out all the niggles that seemed to bother me about certain aspects of the show. If only he would write for the main range that would be great because he is a very good writer. Scott Handcock directs this story with a pace that helps the hour long running time fly. This is the sort of Torchwood that I want to listen to and I am looking forward to more and with a second series already announced I suspect that by bank account is going to take another battering sometime soon.

Prisoners of the Lake (2015)

The Third Doctor Adventures is a boxset which on the face of it has one main selling feature. Tim Treloar would be playing the Doctor. Not just pretending to be him but actually be him. We all know that Frazer Hines can do a great Patrick Troughton impression but we all know that its just an impression and Treloar’s task isn’t just to be the lead in this boxset but also make the listener believe that this is the third Doctor. The idea of recasting the Doctors is something that is somewhat of a controversial finish but if you want the likes of Katy Manning or Frazer Hines or William Russell having full cast adventures then Big Finish need to take the bull by the horns and look for someone that people can accept as being a version of that Doctor. No one is ever going to replace William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton or Jon Pertwee but if you can get the right person then I think that goes someway to please everyone.

Before I get to the meat of this review which is the story itself, let’s talk about Treloar in particular and I have to applaud him for his performance. When I first heard him talk as the narrator I thought that this wasn’t a good impression but then I realised he was just narrating and when he starts as the Doctor then I realised how good he was. It wasn’t that he sounds like Jon Pertwee but the way that he spoke and the delivery of the lines made it seem like it was the Third Doctor. From that point on I was totally sold on this release and could stop worrying about Treloar and just enjoy the story. Katy Manning was really good as Jo and when Jo and the Doctor were talking I could believe that it was as good as on TV and that is also another reason why Treloar was good. Richard Franklin was also good as Yates but he was sort of pushed to the side as the story and Treloar took centre stage.

The thing about this story which was written by Justin Richards is that it felt very familiar. At several points I thought that this story owed a debt to Doctor Who and the Silurians because this story involves the Doctor encountering a new race and the possibility of it being blown up which would annoy the Doctor. There is a bit where the Doctor is going underwater in a diving bell which is similar to The Sea Devils and then then there is a stone spaceship which is similar to The Daemons. It’s like Justin Richards is writing a greatest hits of the Pertwee era which isn’t a bad thing and whilst I listened to this story and thought of which stories were being referenced I just found myself completely immersed in the story. I like how it has a base under siege

It was well told and Justin Richards is one of my favourite writers largely because of his work on the Jago and Litefoot series and he doesn’t disappoint with this story that had an awful lot riding on it. You couldn’t do a story that really tested the audience in terms of intelligence so I think that they chose wisely with this story because it allows the listener to get use to Treloar as the lead. Nicholas Briggs also deserves some credit because he is a reliable director and knows how to keep things moving along at just the right pace and he works his magic in this story.

This story is pretty much a nuts and bolts story because it does everything that you would expect from a traditional Doctor Who story and allows the listener to enjoy listening to what is going on. Anyone who is a fan of the Pertwee era should give this a listen because its really a good story with a good plot, great performances and more importantly, it feels like a story from that period of time and that is something that the Companion Chronicles or The Lost Stories could never achieve no matter who the writer was. I go into the second story with a lot more optimism than I had when I started this story and that’s because I didn’t know what to expect from this series and now I do. Well done to everyone involve.

 

The Last Adventure: The Brink of Death (2015)

To quote a previous Doctor, it’s the end but the moment has been prepared for. Just moments before I pressed play on my generic MP3 player, there was a fear that this story would disappoint me and not live up to what I would expected but I can end all the tension by saying that this story doesn’t disappoint. This might be a weird sentence but it’s difficult to know what to make of Michael Grade now. On the one hand, he is an arsehole of biblical proportions who has about as much of idea about running TV as I do about how to perform brain surgery. On the other hand had he not taken the decision he did about Doctor Who then Colin Baker wouldn’t have refused to do the regeneration scene and 28 years later wouldn’t be getting the story that he deserves.

It is also the shortest of the four stories. I have since discovered since listening to the last story that Big Finish actually uploaded a proper version of the audiobook where there are five separated tracks (including the Behind the Scenes).

The Brink of Death is chronologically speaking the final Sixth Doctor story. Thankfully not literally the final story. The pre-title scene is a good one because the story picks up at the end of an adventure but ends with Mel being made to think that the Valeyard is the Doctor. The Doctor is effectively dead before his time thanks to the Valeyard. I quite like how this story does manages to be an suitable sequel for the character because it was very much left in the end after the Trial season had ended.

I think that there is a possibility that Liz White could make a return as Genesta. She is quite a likeable character and seems to bond well with Colin Baker. In the absence of Mel, the Doctor manages to get through the story well enough. I cant see how it would work but there are enough clever bods at Big Finish to work this out. I would imagine that it could come out in 2016 or 2017. Keep your eyes out for it.

The final ten minutes are the most interesting of the entire story. It’s like the story has been keeping things going until it gets to the stage where they can do the regeneration. If I had one critiscm of this story is that the final meeting between the Doctor and the Valeyard is perhaps a bit of a disappointment but that is because it has to do what it does in the face of the expectations that have been created by fans like myself. To be honest, I don’t mind that this encounter doesn’t quite hit the mark because this story and the whole boxset has been a delight that the occasional miss isn’t that bad.

The final three minutes are basically set right before the events of Time and the Rani. The explanation behind what causes the Doctor to collapse is given in this story and it’s the focus beams of radiation from Lakertya. It’s a shame that Mel misses the nice little speech that the Doctor gives before Sylvester McCoy makes his cameo. It’s a rather downbeat way to end but I cant imagine that it was going to be a barrel of laughs. I think that most people would be buying this boxset because of the final few minutes because they want to see how the handover would be done. It was similar to how I felt about the third episode of Star Wars and seeing how Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader but this story was far more rewarding.

There is one gaping hole in this entire release and that hole is Maggie Stables shaped. It’s a given that if she were still here she would have featured in it. Evelyn was the first companion newly created companion by Big Finish and the character of Evelyn is partly behind the renovation of the Sixth Doctor. It’s nice that she gets a mention in one scene towards the end. Bonnie Langford is ok in this story but I don’t think that she is as involved in the story as perhaps she could have been. Out of all the companions that the Doctor has had in this boxset, I think that Constance comes out of it better, followed by Flip, followed by Jago and Litefoot and then Mel is in last place. All of them have been a good part of the boxset and despite not being the best, its not hard to argue that the Mel in this story is much much less annoying that the Mel on TV during this period of the show.

The Brink of Death has one job to do and it does it rather well. I think that despite it being the shortest, it does manage to make it seem more epic than the other stories. Colin Baker might have been reluctant to do this series at first but he grabs the bull by the horns and has a wonderful time and gives a great performance in the four very different stories and with very different companions. The Last Adventure is vital listening to anyone who is a fan of the Sixth Doctor and one of the strongest boxsets that Big Finish have produced in recent years.