The Acheron Pulse (2012)

The Acheron Pulse is the middle story of this multi-Doctor series. Now being the middle story of a series is not an enviable position because it has an awkward job to do. It has to tell a good story itself but compliment the previous story and give an good set up for the final story. It’s an almost thankless task and sometimes the writer pulls it off and sometimes they just miss the mark by an inch and in the case of this story it’s the latter. Rick Briggs has written Witch from the Well which I rather liked and so along with my enjoyment of the Burning Prince I had high hopes for this story. It takes place some 30 years after the Fifth Doctor’s adventure.

The story picks up in the middle when the Prince makes a surprising return. I say surprising because at the end of the previous story, he was pushed out of the ship and presumably to his death. Of course this isn’t the case and it leads to a cracking start to the third episode. Unfortunately the problem that I have with this story is that it didn’t grab me in the way that Witch from the Well or The Burning Prince had. The opening episode seems to set the tone and pace of the story which is that nothing really dramatic seems to happen and I notice that the first episode ran at 33 minutes and 28 seconds and that is the shortest episode. I think had five minutes from each episode being cut then it would have made for a snappier story.

Colin Baker is perfectly good but it’s not his best story.  He has some good moments which show why his Doctor is so good in a Big Finish play. Having this Doctor without a companion is just as unusual for number six than five. In fact this is only the third time and the first since I.D back in April 2007.

James Wilby is an effective baddie in The Acheron Pulse as Tenebris. I thought he was a highlight in a story where characters weren’t as strong and they normally would be. The rest of the supporting cast did as good a job as they could and the one thing that you can never accuse a Big Finish play of is having a cast where they don’t give 100%. Jane Slavin (Teesha) and Carol Noakes had some good lines but were overshadowed by Wilby.

The problem that I have with this story is that I tried at least three times to try and get a handle on this story but I just couldn’t and usually if it takes more than three attempts to start from the beginning then I can tell that I’m not going to enjoy this as much as other stories. It’s not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just that compared to Witch from the Well and The Burning Prince I just found it average.

Witch from the Well (2011)

The second story featuring the Eighth Doctor and Mary Shelley is a story that manages to keep the same feeling as ‘The Silver Turk’ despite it being in a different setting. This story was written by Rick Briggs this story (according to Briggs on the extras) was more convoluted in the original version. Briggs had written the episode ‘The Entropy Composition’ in the 2010 anthology release ‘Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories’. My opinion of his story was that it was a bit difficult to understand which was frustrating in a 25 minute episode, now that he has four episodes to tell his tale is going to be far more easy to listen to.

This story starts off quite interesting with the Doctor and Mary going back in time to find out how a witch has ended up in a well. When I realised that the story was going to have a lot of ‘funny’ accents and set in a time where people are backward thinking, my heart sank slightly because I just get tired of them and think that they don’t really offer anything new but what Nick – sorry Rick- has done is to make me forget about that and actually get involved in the story and I found the character to be quite strong and good. I don’t understand why whenever a story goes back in time to that they always have to go to the West Country. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against them but it’s very rare that you hear Welsh characters or other areas of the country.

Both Paul McGann and Julie Cox were very good in this and considering they spend the majority of the story apart from one another, Cox is very strong. Especially when she is in the TARDIS. It’s good how she seems to have adapted to the workings of the TARDIS so quickly. Of the supporting cast, the biggest name belonged to Simon Rouse who plays Master John Kincaid. He quite a big name because of his time on the show ‘The Bill’ but for Doctor Who fans he is famous because of his show stealing performance as Hindle in the 1982 adventure ‘Kinda’. Having just watched that story its quite impressive how the performances are so different yet are so good. Rouse has done a good job with what is a fairly normal role.

The story spends a long time going from the Doctor and Mary Shelley but at no point did I get a feeling that the story was sagging though I must admit that I was starting to get slightly confused whilst in episode four. Just when I thought that the story was going to go off the boil it redeems itself. The moment when the witch turns out to be energy was quite a clever and frankly better way to end the story.

The Witch from the Well isn’t a perfect story but there is more than enough to like from this story and its great to get the chance to see what Rick Briggs could do with more time and hopefully he will get more chances to write stories in the future.

The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories (2010)

For the last few years, there has been a single release that has consisted of four single stories. This year it was the turn of the Fifth Doctor to get this treatment. What is quite special is that one of the writers won a competition set up by Big Finish and was won by the curiously named Rick Briggs. I suppose anyone who submitted a story for the competition and didn’t win might be slightly envious of Rick for this opportunity and are eager to see what he produced that won him this spot.

The Demons of Red Lodge is the first story written by Jason Arnopp and sees the Doctor and Nyssa wake up to find out that they don’t remember where they are and after investigating the surroundings they find that the speara (not sure about spelling) are planning an invasion and are trying to convert the inhabitants and the first stage is to basically knock them out and then the second stage is to take full control of their personalities. The Speara are trying to convert the Doctor and Nyssa but think that their human and when they try to copy the Doctor’s two hearts affect the plans of the Speara.

I really liked this story. It’s a I thought that there was enough threat from Speara and it was great how the Doctor and Nyssa seemed genually scared at the beginning of this story. With a few tweeks this could easily make a hour long or even four part drama. Jason Arnopp has written a good opening story and it’s a good starter for this release.

The second story is the one written by Rick Briggs called The Entropy Composition. It sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive in 1968 in a prog rock musician called Geoff Cooper who wrote a song called White Waves, Soft Haze that was never released. He is accompanied by Erisi and there are clues early on when the animals disappear. Erisi is a Entropy Siren and the music is basically eroding all the music on the archivist planet and is creating chaos. There is a lovely scene where the Doctor and Nyssa are trying to convince Mrs Malloy who they are and Nyssa trying to pretend she’s a swinging 1960’s girl but not understanding what the term groupie means.

I found this a harder story to understand than the previous one. It took a few listens to fully understand it and that shouldn’t really be the case in a 25 minute story. Don’t get me wrong I do think that it’s an interesting story but when you have such a short amount of time to tell a story then it should be far simpler than it was. I did like the characters that Briggs has written. I thought that Mrs Malloy was a lovely character and her exit was quite a shock and Naloom was also very entertaining as the archivist.

The third story was called Doing Time written by William Gallagher and sees the Doctor in a prison on the planet Folly. The opening dialogue was a mirror of the opening scene of the BBC Sitcom ‘Porridge’. The Doctor collects a future echo that tells him a planet is going to explode but arrives a year too early. He is put in prison by a very nasty Governor who has desires of becoming President. The whole story is very entertaining story that sees the Doctor create an interplanetary version of the Cricket Ashes.

It’s a good story with some good characters and in particular Susan Kyd as Governor Chaplin. She was very entertaining throughout and was probably the best guest character of the entire release. Gallagher has written a fun and often amusing story.

The final story of this release is called Special Features written by John Dorney and is a 25th Anniversary DVD commentary to a 1970’s horror film called Doctor Demonic’s Tales of Terror. This is an original way of telling a Doctor Who story. It’s quite a brave attempt because commentaries are improvised and require the viewer to be actually seeing the images as opposed to just listening to the action. There is a lot of talk between the contributors about a curse and the bad luck that befell some of the cast. I thought it was a really good story because this takes place over the course of 20 or so minutes and in one long scene. The story manages to pack a lot in despite the short running time but this is thanks to the writer.

All the cast do a great job and along with Dorney’s writing this is my favourite story of the entire release. John Dorney has been one of the shining stars in 2010 with Solitaire springing to mind and he does another good outing with this story. He’s managed to make this episode seem like it was done like a normal commentary.

So the final regular release of 2010 is a good one. They were all good in their own way and despite the Rick Briggs story, they were all very straightforward and enjoyable. On the subject of Rick Briggs I think that he should be allowed to write a full four part story like Steven Hall did this year with A Death in the Family because I think that he could do a good job. The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories should be listened to by anyone who likes short stories and who likes creepy stories.