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.