From Out of the Rain (2008)

This story is from Peter J Hammond who had penned Small Worlds from Series 1 and I have to say that I think that this story is better. The setting was absolutely spot on, the rain and the night both helped create an imaginative and visual episode.

The main baddie was very eerie and very good. It was nice to see another part of Jack’s past even though the storyline with Ianto and Jack is starting to get a bit dull and repetitive.

I like the idea that the Night Travellers are seeking revenge for Cinema killing the freak show. Another aspect that I liked was that the ghosts of the victims are some sort of trophy, I thought that it was a well used idea. The whole story had a touch of elegance which is something that you don’t get very often in drama, the the way the shots were done and some of the locations were lovely to look at.

Unusally the episode seem Tosh light which may be explained in future episodes but to be honest I didn’t notice until about 35 minutes in. John Barrowman was as usual on good form along with Eve Myles and Gareth David Lloyd but Burn Gorman seemed to be the happiest and most relaxed throughout the entire episode. Julian Bleach (a name we will get to know quite well I think) was the best of the guest cast as the Ghost??, he was scary but not OTT.

An Enjoyable episode.

Brave New Town (2008)

2008 TOMS TARDIS AWARD WINNER

• Best Eighth Doctor Adventure

This was a bizarre story from Jonathan Clements who had previous written the 2007 story Immortal Beloved. The story is set in what it made to look like a traditional English village with inhabitants who are living the same day over and over again. Its soon obvious that al is not what it seems. It turns out that The Doctor and Lucie have infact materialised in Uzbekistan. It Is then revealed that the inhabitants are infact Autons who aren’t the sort of Autons we all know but Autons who seem to want to be more like humans. By the end of the adventure the Autons are treated like Asylum Seekers.

This story isn’t as good as Dead London and Max Warp because it seems to lack any tension or actual drama. Whereas Clements previous attempt had a bit of drama in it this one seemed to not have any pace to it. There just wasn’t any tension which was a shame because a story which features the Autons for the first time ever should have had been a bigger and better story. The actors in this story were as good as they could be considering the quality of the script. Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith were Its was revealed in the Extras section at the end of the story that Jonathan Clements isn’t a Doctor Who fan which is why it feels a bit distant.

This story isn’t a good as the previous stories from the series and is a let down from the good Immortal Beloved.

Cuddlesome (2008)

This special release for Doctor Who Magazine sees The Fifth Doctor battling cuddly teddy bears. Now normally this would be a big cause for concern but as I was listening to it the concern quickly disappeared. The idea that there were teddy bears that could kill reminded me of the 1971 Jon Pertwee adventure ‘Terror of the Autons’.

The plot was quick and constant, the revelation of what the cuddlesome’s reason for all the evilness was different but plausible. It set the story up and concluded in a satisfactory way and by the end of it I felt that I enjoyed the story. Peter Davison was great as the Doctor and his Doctor was on top form. Roberta Taylor who is more famous for starring in the ITV drama The Bill and had appeared in the 2000 play The Holy Terror was the best guest star in this play as the temporary companion Angela Wisher. Timothy West who had appeared in the BBC7/Eighth Doctor play Phobos (2007) was not far behind as the creator of the Cuddlesomes. David Troughton, son of the Second Doctor Patrick, was also good as The Tinghus.

Enjoyable Stuff

A Day in the Death (2008)

Joseph Lidster is a man known to many in the Doctor Who fandom. He has written many Big Finish audios such as The Rapture, The Reaping and Terror Firma so I was looking forward to his episode before the storyline with Owen was even aired. This episode marks the third and final appearance of Martha in this series. It also marks the third episode of the Owen’s Dead storyline and it isn’t as good as the previous two episodes. The idea of telling a story in flashback might seem perfectly normal with shows like Lost using it frequently but for a British drama and a Sci-Fi one like Torchwood it is quite rare. Throughout the episode you get the impression that Owen is going to kill himself with some women that he has just met but by the end and after seeing everything in the episode you realise that he is actually trying to save her.

The first part of the episode was just Owen trying to get used to being dead was enjoyable as it didn’t get to dull or repetitive. The funniest moment was when he was watching To Buy or Not To Buy on the TV and his reaction was the same as everybody who hates daytime telly. The only thing that I thought was boring was the Tosh/Owen thing. Its obvious that they are going to get together so why bother having them not so. The star of the episode was Richard ‘The Good Life’ Briers who played a dying recluse who’s brief appearance was the turning point for Owen and was quite powerful.

Whilst this episode isn’t as strong as the previous two it was still an entertaining 50 minutes of drama. Richard Briers was a good guest star with a subtle yet powerful performance and Freema Agyemen was also very good as Martha. It’s a shame that she left now because I think with a few more episodes she could have become even better. But the performance of the episode was Burn Gorman who was absolutely brilliant. His acceptance of being dead was well played and shows a new side to the role.

A good episode that continues to maintain the great quality of the series

Dead Man Walking (2008)

This story follows on directly from Reset and the shock of Owen dieing after been shot by Jim Robinson. What follows is the finest 50 minutes that has been produced by Torchwood. There was so much going on that I lost track of the time and was really shocked when the episode ended.

There were so many scenes that worked very well like when Jack goes into the abandoned church where all the weevils are sleeping. The moment that Jack bought the box back to the Hub I instantly remembered the episode from Series 1 where Ianto says to Jack that Gloves come in pairs. Bringing back Owen seemed like an obvious thing but it was well done because it was interesting to see how Owen would react to being dead, the scene when Owen gets chatted up in the nightclub but Owen couldn’t go through with it was funny.

Martha was better in this story as she seemed to fit in with the Torchwood group for the first time. The moment where the glove attacks her and she ages quite a lot was a truly surprising moment but the make up didn’t really work like it did with the Doctor in Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords. The special effects in this story are some of the best that I have seen in either Doctor Who or Torchwood ever. The skeletons/death effects were so realistic and the moment where the death figure walks towards the kid in the corridor was a truly terrifying moment. I thought the scene of the entire episode was where Owen fights the Death figure was so good effects wise and was so well filmed I was just waiting for something to go wrong and look dodgy but there wasn’t and I think it will take a long time for this effect to be beaten.

This was Owen’s episode and it just as well that this story occurred in the second series because if it had happened in series one then I don’t think that I would have liked it as much but the Owen that is in this episode was truly fantastic and the moments where his eyes turned black was a shocking sight and helped move the tension up.

This episode was the best one that has been aired in this series so far

The Condemned (2008)

2008 TOMS TARDIS AWARD WINNER

• Best Writer (Eddie Robson)
• Best Music & Sound Design (David Darlington)

Back in December 2008 we said goodbye to Charley. After 7 years it seemed that Charlotte Louise Pollard had taken her last adventure with the Doctor. Despite wanting to leave at the end of Absolution there seemed to be a hope of staying with the Doctor. What we got was the biggest twist in Doctor Who Big Finish history. This story was written by Eddie Robson who wrote Memory Lane back in 2006 and also 4 of the 8 episodes of the Doctor Who & Lucie series. This story is a first for Doctor Who, not just in audio but in TV as well. A companion who has spent time with one Doctor is now travelling with another. I know that it has happened with Romana appearing with the sixth Doctor in The Apocalypse Element but this is the first time that a companion has appeared with a previous Doctor. The main question I had for this story was ‘How could the Eighth Doctor not recognise Charley if she met the Sixth Doctor?’, anything else seemed irrelevant. One thing that I never comment on is the cliffhangers. The first was a big let down and just felt like they were going to end it in a place where they didn’t intend to. The second and third ones were better. The idea that Sam was actually Ackley House was quite a good idea as you thought it was strange that he didn’t interact with anything in this story.

Colin Baker put in another good performance and his Doctor seems to work well with Charley. Mr Baker is the best Doctor in this audio range as every story seems to play to his strengths. In this story the Doctor starts guessing straight away that there is something wrong with this visitor to his home and no sooner has he got one mystery to deal with he has a dead body to deal with. Then he as DI Menzies who I will come to later. But no matter who he works with be it Maggie Stables, Nicola Bryant or Bonnie Langford, he shows he can work with anyone. India Fisher is also very good in this story and shows that there is still more to see from this character. The Charley that appears in this story seems so different from the Charley that travelled with the 8th Doctor from 2001-2007. I liked the bit where she is trying to pretend to the Doctor that she’s never seen the TARDIS before was quite entertaining. She is a hopeless liar but I have a hunch that she wants to be caught out. The supporting cast was also on good form in this story helping support the Doctor and Charley. The star was Anna Hope, who has appeared in two Doctor Who stories (New Earth in 2006 and Gridlock in 2007). Her character was well written and Anna got the most out of the character that help the interaction between DI Patricia Menzies and the Doctor all that more entertaining. The character of Menzies was written as your typical stereotypical Northerner. She clearly doesn’t take any rubbish from her colleagues or from the public but she is forced to deal with the people and events that occur. William Ash who appeared in the 2007 story 42 was very good in this story and was a good casting decision. His contribution to this story was well very important. It takes a while to really work out what his role in the story is but pretty soon it’s a shocking revelation that I would never have guessed. Sara De Freitas was also another good actor in this story as Maxine, she was the sort of character who had fallen into trouble and the evil elements were manipulating that fact and forcing her to keep Charley hostage for quite sometime. She started off a little bit weak but picked up brilliantly by episode 4.

Stephen Aintree & Steve Hansell provided 8 voices between them and so as a result they deserve some credit. Lennox Greaves has performed in several stories for Big Finish and can always be relied upon to perform well. The main plot of the story which was not the mystery of Charley but in fact what was going on in Ackley House. It took a long time to get going but once it did get going it was non stop and I though it worked really well. The moment when Charley discovered Sam was the flats was one of the eeriest scenes I have known. I was hoping in this story that there would an answer to why the 8th Doctor doesn’t remember Charley when she met the 6th Doctor but that might get explained in future stories but the only point that was raised was the fact that the Doctor kept calling Charley Charlotte all but once. The line that the Doctor doesn’t recall doing that means he is either lying or has a brief bout of memory loss. The potential for this story is the strongest one for quite some time and the one with the most potential and we will have to wait and see whether the mystery is answered. The combination of the 6th Doctor and Charley worked very well and bodes well for future stories featuring this combination and hopefully it wont be long before there is a sixth Doctor/Charley/Evelyn story because I think that would be as good in quality as this story. The thing about stories like these is that people’s desire to know what is going on and hopefully Big Finish will manipulate this for as long as they can.

Eddie Robson has written another superb play. The revelation that Sam was in fact the flats was truly shocking and totally out of the blue. All the characters were really strong and no one was weak. This dark story is a superb start to the Sixth Doctor/Charley mystery. Nicholas Briggs does another great job as Director. He always manages to direct a great story and give it that much more energy that it normally needs but it just adds to this story.

Overall a fantastic story.

Reset (2008)

The sixth story of the series sees the return of Martha Jones, who was last seen in Last of the Timelords waving goodbye to the Doctor. Now she is a proper doctor who is working for UNIT. First of all I think its nice that Russell T Davies is still using UNIT as a professional group. The story itself wasn’t what you would call a great one, the whole purpose of the story seems to be to introduce Martha and show what she has been doing since she left Doctor Who. The idea that Jim Robinson is running a clinic was amusing enough but the idea that they have created something that could revolutionise health was quite a good idea that never really got time to develop properly.

All the main characters seem to have to take a back seat with the return of Martha. Jack seemed to be having a fun with Martha and Owen was trying to get Martha interested in him with the expected result it was looking like an episode from Series 1 but unlike a series one story, this one had good monsters and once all the action got into the pharm it picked up. The shock at the end where Owen got shot was the biggest. Alan Dale was very good in this story and despite his contract that says he has to appear in every TV drama on the planet (this guy gets round faster than Superman) he was quite enjoyable. Freema Agyeman was very good as well in this story, her character has developed well since she left Who and it was nice to see her taking control and not needing the Doctor’s help (though she did apparently get the job with UNIT because the Doctor put a good word in). I think she will go even further character wise before she returns to Doctor Who.

Whilst this story wasn’t as good as the previous adventure Adam it was really all about Martha and the next episode Dead Man Walking looks like it will be worth watching.