The Exxilons (2015)

The Exxilons is the first part of the fourth season of Fourth Doctor Adventures and its weird that its already the fourth season. It seems like only five minutes ago that everyone was getting excited over Destination: Nerva. The title refers to the Exxilons who appeared in the 1974 adventure Death to the Daleks and I was intrigued to find out just how they would feature in this story. I think whenever you bring something from the classic era back there is always going to be a high chance that it doesn’t work however whilst Big Finish have a good track record in this department, there is always the possibility for it not to work.

The story hits the ground running as within five minutes we have Trexa (Daisy Dunlop) running into the TARDIS after being chased by a Tarl.  Over The course of the story there is a gradual add on to the back story of the Exxilons. The Tarl do sound a little bit like Ogrons which is somewhat unfortunate considering that I have only just finished listening to the Gareth Roberts audio versions.

I have to give credit to Jacqueline King. She previously appeared on TV as Donna Noble’s mom and she gives a very convincing American accent (convincing by my ears). Her performance in this is rather good and was a fine addition to the cast. Hugh Ross returns to the Big Finish world (previously in Nights Black Agents) and has a voice which does sound like Richard Franklin (a bit!). There is something about Gethal that I like from the very beginning. He has a sort of madness which Ross does brilliantly and it builds itself really well during the story.

Leela is known by Ergu as Warrior and the Doctor is known as everywhere man. Tom Baker seems to be having fun in this episode and it reminded me of the early days of the Baker era where he seemed to be having fun and the humour was well placed. Louise Jameson also manages to be really solid in this story. I even found K9 to be less annoying than he normally is. I am not very kind about K9 normally and that’s unfair on John Leeson but credit to Leeson for what he managed to do with K9 in this story.

The Exxilons isn’t the best series opening story that we have had in this range but there is something to enjoy about it and you can always rely on Nicholas Briggs to write a story that works just as hard to create strong and likeable characters and make sure that they complement the plot. Its not the best opening story (The Auntie Matter is) but its still a good offering.