Voyage to Venus (2012)

Voyage to Venus is the first of two special Jago and Litefoot releases. At the end of the fourth and most recent series, the sixth Doctor invites Jago and Litefoot to join him on an adventure.  The thing about this release was that it was released a month early which to my recollection has never happened before, certainly since I have been a subscriber. Anyway the story takes place on Venus which is being run by women who live in a city above the clouds and pretty soon the Doctor, Jago and Litefoot are involved in a war between the original inhabitants and the women.

After being glad that Love and War was made because it was the start point for the Benny/Ace/Seventh Doctor part of his timeline. I’m glad that Jago and Litefoot have finally got to travel in the TARDIS. It’s been something that I have been looking forward to since I first watched The Talons of Weng-Chiang. But Voyage to Venus and the next adventure can’t be just about that and I’m happy to say that it isn’t. The story is pretty straight forward but amusing from start to finish. The reaction of two Victorian gentlemen finding themselves not only in a spaceship that’s bigger on the inside than the outside but on another planet in another time was what you would expect. I found Jago’s reaction to me very amusing though I thought that Jago being referred to as Jago-maam was somewhat tiresome after a while.  The idea that there is a planet run by women and men referred to as mere tools for reproduction aren’t a new idea but it works rather well in this context. The whole feel of this story was that it was more of a Jago and Litefoot story as opposed to a Doctor Who story. The stories that Jonathan Morris has written over the last couple of years have tended to focus more on being entertaining than opposed to be complicated and getting bogged down in paradoxes and stuff like that. He wrote Protect and Survive which I think is one of the best stories since Enemy of the Daleks and whilst Voyage to Venus isn’t on that level or that dark it’s still a good story with strong characters that you can either like of dislike.

Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter have always been a joy to listen to ever since Jago and Litefoot first appeared back in 2009 the fact that they are thrown into a totally unusual setting was always going to be one of the selling points of this story and they both put in brilliant performances. Benjamin in particular was good form as Jago seemed to be finding it harder to deal with that Litefoot. Colin Baker is effectively the guest star of this release which is a weird way of looking at it. The Doctor wasn’t here just to get Jago and Litefoot from A to B but was also there to be the Doctor and it’s another top performance from Colin Baker and its almost the end of another good year for this Doctor. The supporting performances were all very solid and no one really put a foot wrong which is always good.

Voyage to Venus is a wonderful adventure. It was what I hoped it would be and now we can say that Jago and Litefoot have travelled in the TARDIS.  This is the third of the special releases that I have listened to and they have all delivered in different ways. The next story sees Jago and Litefoot travel to the new world and hopefully it will live up to the standard that this story has set. On a side note, you can buy this on CD for £5 and on download for £1. Yes I there isn’t much that you could buy for £1 that makes you feel like you have got your moneys worth and for £1 there isn’t really much that you could grumble at.

Love and War (2012)

Love and War is the second of the special release Bundle and I have just listened to UNIT: Dominion so Love and War always had a tough job to try and top that. This story was what set up the character way back in 1992 and so in its 20^th year, Big Finish have decided that this is the story they would use to celebrate this milestone. This story was originally a novel by Paul Cornell for the Virgin New Adventures range and I must say that despite knowing of the range, I have never read a single book so whilst some people may be able to spot the differences between the audio and novel versions. I can only go on what is presented in this 2 and a half hour story. Adapted by Jacqueline Rayner, the story sees the Doctor and Ace arrive on the planet Heaven. The story starts off with an eight minute prelude which I thought was quite an odd thing to do but it’s an interesting eight minutes. The reason why the Doctor wants to go to Heaven is quite a boring reason but it’s clear that the Doctor is up to something and it’s not long before the adventure kicks into top gear.

There are many things to like about Love and War. The main thing for me is that it’s the prelude to the two main range adventures ‘The Shadow of the Scourge’ (2000) and ‘The Dark Flame’ (2003). It was always interesting to find out just how Bernice ended up joining the Doctor and it’s a relief that this has finally being done and that’s another thing off my wish list of things I would like to hear in Big Finish. Having being quite late to the Bernice stories having only listened to the first series of Big Finish adventures, I found the Bernice that we got in this story to be pretty much the same one as we heard in ‘Oh No It Isn’t’ (1998), it’s quite impressive from both a literary perspective and an acting perspective that there is a nice continuity over nearly a decade and a half. Something that I don’t think has been looked at (not before series two anyway) is what made Bernice the person we hear in these plays and it’s involves Daleks which is a nice way to make the Doctor sympathise with her in a way that is different from the norm. Lisa Bowerman is very good in this play and despite this being a celebration of the character of Bernice Summerfield, she doesn’t take centre stage and Lisa plays the character in just the right way with the right amount of humour and determination that we have come to expect.

The Love aspect of the story centres around Ace. Now I’m not normally a fan of romance in Doctor Who when it involves the regulars because to me it gets in the way of the action and it normally goes into sickly sweet territory and totally ruins and tension or drama that was going on. Certainly there were moments when it looked like it was going to get a bit sickly sweet but credit to Jacqueline Rayner who has written a very solid script and managed to keep the Ace/Jan romance going just right. Sophie Aldred gets to play the angry Ace in possibly some of the most dramatic scenes that Ace has been in for quite some time. Her anger at the monsters and at the Doctor seemed to be in equal measure. It was hinted at early on that Ace would leave the Doctor but it was obvious that this wasn’t going to be the case and that made the ending even more effective. James Redmond played the love interest and to be honest I think at times the sort of lack of anger/fight in the character did become a problem but after the story had finished I thought that it kind of complimented Ace.

Sylvester McCoy was brilliant in this. His Doctor is renowned for being a manipulative Doctor and there are several scenes which are brilliant and wouldn’t have been as effective had it not being Sylvester McCoy in the role. The Doctor has always played his companions as puppets and in several stories in the last couple of years in the main range this has been addressed but in this story it seemed like the Doctor had to take a long hard look at his actions and McCoy is brilliant at being sombre and deep in thought.

If I had to pick a fault it is that I found the monster threat to be a bit underwhelming. They sounded great and certainly grabbed my attention in their scenes but I would be lying if I said that they an effective menace. Also the cliffhanger was a bit of a disappointment because it went from romance to drama with no real sense of a build-up.  Apart from that Love and War is a very enjoyable release. It’s not up there with UNIT: Dominion but there is plenty to enjoy and at £12.99 for a download and £14.99 for a CD it’s certainly value for money and a story that is going to be like a fine wine, it’ll get better with age.

On a final note, my favourite line was from Bernice when she said “This is the last thing a Donought sees” That did make me chuckle.

Rating - 7.5/10

UNIT: Dominion (2012)

One of the most anticipated releases of 2012 if not for many years. It’s a four hour epic with each episode is around an hour long. This story was written by Nicholas Briggs & Jason Arnopp and it’s the latest story in the UNIT series which originally ran for four stories in 2004 and 2005. Big Finish are doing several ‘special releases’ and this was one of two that I have been looking forward to for months (other being Dark Eyes). After having a series of somewhat Doctor lite stories recently it was delightful knowing that we were going to get significantly more of the Seventh Doctor. The benefit of having each episode an hour long is that it means that the story can have time to grow and we can really get involved in the story. That’s on the basis that the story is interesting and worth listening to and that’s the case with Dominion. This story sees the return of Klein who became a scientific advisor to UNIT at the end of The Architects of History back in 2010. In that story Klein has had certain aspects of her memory wiped. The Doctor is currently travelling with Raine and Ace is on Gallifrey and so we get about a dozen words out of Sophie Aldred which is probably the best thing to do.

One thing that UNIT: Dominion plays on is the authouritive figure that is fame hungry and wanting to take all the limelight when things are important and Colonel Lafayette (Julian Dutton) is the one given the task of playing it here. Dutton plays it brilliantly as every time he speaks you know he doesn’t know what he’s doing as is going to meet a sticky ending and that is exactly what happens when he addresses the Skyheads. It’s sort of what happens to the US president in Sound of Drums (2007). There are several superb creations that in the run up we were given teasers to were absolutely outstanding on audio. The Mindleeches sounded absolutely creepy  and when they first encounter the UNIT soldiers it’s because of Private Phillips that they come across as a truly terrifying monster. The Skyheads were visually well realised and also worked quite well on audio.

Alex McQueen plays ‘The Other Doctor’. Best known for appearing in shows like The Inbetweeners, The Thick of It and Holby City (also he appeared in Paradise 5). His very first seen is something that wouldn’t be out of place in a Little Britain sketch. This style continues throughout. It’s clear that he is up to something and that is what I liked about the character early on. As the story progresses I start to like this other Doctor even though it’s clear he is up to something. As the story moves along it becomes clear that the Other Doctor is in fact The Master. The cliffhangers for parts one and two were relatively good but part three was by far the best because the other Doctor’s true identity was revealed. I don’t know whether other people saw this coming but I certainly didn’t. I was pleasantly surprised and didn’t see it coming at all. McQueen was brilliant from start to finish and whoever it was that decided to ask him to star in this deserves a pat on the back because it was brilliant casting. McQueen played it with the right mix of menace and campness that the character should be played with. Sylvester McCoy is on his usual standard form in this and after missing him so much during the mini-series earlier this year it was good that he is quite involved in the story and doesn’t just turn up in the final quarter. It’s also good to have Beth Chalmers back in the Doctor Who universe as I quite liked the character during the Seventh Doctor batch of Lost Stories. Here she seems to be slightly better written for which would make sense as the Lost Stories wouldn’t have been originally written for Raine. Here Chalmers is given the chance to play the role of companion and thrives. However the big USP of this was the return of Elizabeth Klein who appeared in the 2001 story Colditz before return for a series of stories in 2010. Tracey Childs is a superb actress and one of the things that I liked about her 2010 run was how she managed to fool people in thinking that Klein was a good character before remembering she that was a Nazi. Childs plays the role brilliantly and it’s because of her that the character has become so popular and will hopefully return in future stories.

This story has superb and strong central performances but there are also very strong supporting performances. In no particular order let’s start with Julian Dutton who played Colonel Lafayette. I really liked the character and thought that he was played well. His demise was inevitable and it could be argued it could be predictable but I don’t mind as I thought it was enjoyable. Next is Sam Clemens as Major Wyland Jones. Wyland-Jones is the Colonel’s replacement and within about 20 seconds we are meant to realise that the colonel was actually far easier to get on with than the Major.  Bradley Gardner plays Sergeant Pete Wilson is intended to be the likeable and the character that the listener is supposed to connect with. When he shoots Klein in part four I thought that it only worked because he was so well liked and such a nice person. Had it been someone else then it wouldn’t have worked but Gardner does a good job with it.

There was a moment when it seemed that Klein had been killed and I was shocked because I thought that it was a shame but then it turns out that she is only wounded. I’m glad that they didn’t kill her because it would have ruined the story for me as I think that there is potential for future stories for the character and actually at the end the Doctor gives Klein a space time telegraph which he gave the Brigadier in the 1970’s. This means that future Klein stories are inevitable rather than possible.

The story is a very good one and there was a very real possibility that it was going to drag and run out of steam quite quickly but I honestly can’t say that at any point during the four hours of drama I never once got bored, never once got confused and never once stopped caring about the characters. It’s a credit to Jason Arnopp and Nicholas Briggs to pull this feat off. I had very high expectations of UNIT: Dominion and thought that they were met very quickly. UNIT: Dominion is a currently priced at £30 (£25 for download) and its incredible value for money. At around 238 minutes it works out as around 12.5pence per minute. If you want value for money and want an epic story to go with it then UNIT: Dominion is as good a place to start. Definelty one of the best releases of 2012.

 

Rating - 9/10

Dragons Wrath (2000)

Dragon’s Wrath is the final story in the first benny series. It is also the first story since the Time Ring trilogy. The story starts off with a slightly dodgy opening with some singing, I call it singing but I don’t think it would get through on X-Factor (then again!) but after that we get into the story and it feels  like the Benny stories before the trilogy. It has an interesting set up before the story sees our favourite heroine involved in drama surrounding an artefact known as the Gamelian Dragon. The thing that I like about this story is that it doesn’t waste any time as the plot moves along. The story sees Benny arrive a dig for a statue that as the plot progress isn’t what is seems. Then there is a mock trial and then we find out that it has something to do with the Knights of Jeneve. I understand that the novel of this story has far more going on than what we get in this audio story. The biggest lose is of Irving Braxiatel. I know that this character would go on to be quite important in the story of Bernice Summerfield but it was probably a wise thing to do to end this first series without the Braxiatel character.

Each story has featured someone from the TV series era of Doctor Who and in one story a future companion. In this story we have Richard Franklin who plays the wonderful Romolo Nusek who plays the villain of the story. The character of Nusek is well thought out and Franklin seems to having a ball playing him. He could have been a bit more a bit more sinister but it was an amusing performance. Lisa Bowerman continues to impress as Bernice. After the somewhat grim circumstances the character was in during ‘Just War’ it was nice to see the old Bernice back. Jane Burke is a good performance as Truby Kamadrich though it was the best of what was otherwise a standard group of characters.

I really liked this story as it was a relatively normal story. After what was a fairly dark story it was inevitable that they would go for what was a more light hearted story however they didn’t go overboard and what we got was an enjoyable adventure which was the shortest of the Bernice stories of the series. I think that it’s the perfect end to what has been a promising series. As I am still relatively new to the Bernice Summerfield I must say that I’m not 100% sold on this range but I think that as the stories and series progress then the stories might get stronger.  Overall I would give the series 7/10 as there was plenty to like though I think in hindsight I would have left the trilogy for another series but that’s my only real gripe with the series.

The Burning Prince (2012)

Since Big Finish have been doing series the one thing that has always been the same is that it features one Doctor, the stories might not necessarily be linked but it always has the same Doctor so this series of adventures marks a change. After the rather dark tone of stories that we had with the Seventh Doctor it was nice that we have what in spite of the cover is a rather lighter story. This is also the first time since I think Omega in 2003 that the Fifth Doctor features in a companionless story. The story sees the Doctor land on a ship which is looking for a lost princess and on this ship is a prince who has a bit of a fiery temper. There is the added threat the if the prince doesn’t find the princess then peace will not be possible and war will ensue. The story doesn’t waste anytime in telling the story as it is action packed from start to finish.

The story has a fairly linear plot and there aren’t really any surprises in this but to be honest I don’t mind that because the story is so action packed and the characters are so well written that its almost a relief that the story isn’t complicated. After Gods and Monsters it was nice to be able to follow a story from episode one to four. There wasn’t an episode that really stood out as they were all very strong and also I liked the cliffhangers which weren’t over the top and weren’t lacklustre, they all served a purpose and I liked them.

Peter Davison gives one of his strongest performances in quite sometime. I think it was the fact that he didn’t have Nyssa or Tegan or Turlough with him. Don’t get me wrong I like the chemistry that the Doctor has with those characters but its nice that the Doctor is on his own as it gives Davison the chance to play the Doctor different and it feels like he is revelling in it. The supporting performances are very strong. I liked George Rainsford as Prince Kylo. It didn’t take long for the fiery side of his character to come out and Rainsford did a good job in coming across as a nice guy that has this dark side. However the standout performance for me was from Kirsty Besterman as Princess Aliona. It’s one of the standout performances of the year in my opinion.  

The Burning Prince is a highly enjoyable adventure that would be my favourite story from the main range had Protect and Survive not been released. The story is solid with some perfect performances and a story that never gets boring and never feels like its getting bogged down in things and it was a shame when it ended.

Rating - 9/10

The Rosemariners (2012)

The final story of the third series of Lost Stories concludes with a Second Doctor adventure which was written by Donald Tosh who was the story editor on Doctor Who during the mid-1960’s. This is a Lost Story but it’s sort of a Lost Story/Companion Chronicle because it is told in the style of a companion chronicle but has a longer running time and also has more people in it. The story sees the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arriving at a research station that is about to be closed down. It’s always good to hear Frazer Hines’ impression of the second Doctor because it’s so spot on and always a joy to listen to. The story seems like it’s going to be the fitting end to the series with Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury back together and David Warner thrown into the mix but yet despite the great actors that have been cast ultimately it doesn’t work and what we have is a bit of a mess. It’s mainly due to the script which was adapted for audio by Tosh and it would have helped if someone like Alan Barnes or Jonathan Morris were involved because they could manoeuvre it so that the story moves at a pace that wouldn’t be out of place for the fifth or sixth Doctor.

The performances are relatively good. Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury can always be relied upon to deliver a solid performance and it felt like they are back in 1968/69. One of the few goods things I can say about this story is that the feel of this story (especially the first episode) has a feel of the second Doctor era. It’s always a joy to hear David Warner who has a wonderful voice and he does the best that he could with what is a relatively unremarkable role. Clive Wood is also perfectly fine as Rugosa but again his character is relatively standard and isn’t one of the best written characters that has been put in a Big Finish play. It’s nice that there is a relatively small cast and set of characters because it provides an intimacy that you don’t get very often but thats about the best thing that I can say

It’s not my favourite Lost Story as I just got so lost (forgive the pun) with what was going on that after a while I kind of stopped caring with what was going on and despite having to listen to this story from the beginning at least four times I just couldn’t get into the story. It’s not as bad as The Hollows of Time because that was truly terrible but I can’t say that I could recommend this to anyone. Personally I think that like The Masters of Luxor, this story would have been better in its own special release and not with the series. The way that I judge whether a Lost Story is any good or not is whether I wish it had stayed lost. It happened once or twice in the first series and unfortunately it happened here.
Rating 5/10

Gods and Monsters (2012)

So it comes down to this. The seventh Doctor series comes to a close with Gods and Monsters which sees the return of Fenric who the Doctor had encountered in 1989. Big Finish have a good track record when it comes to bringing back monsters who appeared in Doctor Who once. They did it with the Spiders from Planet of the Spiders, the Zygons in Terror of the Zygons just two that I could mention. This story has a lot to live up to and not just because it’s the final story of the series but because of the links to stories going back as far as 2009. This isn’t a story that you could just dive into because you would need to start really with Toms Tardis Award winner The Magic Mousetrap. With this story having so much to live up to it has taken two people to write this adventure.  As Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox work hard to tie up all the loose ends, the story is a fairly complex one (which I expected). The setting jumps from different location to different location and it all seems to be part of Fenric’s game with the Doctor but it is only quite late on that we discover that the game isn’t Fenric vs. the Doctor but Fenric vs. Weyland. I personally found this a slight disappointment as it kind of goes against what happened in ‘The Curse of Fenric’ but one thing about this story is that there isn’t any time to ponder on these thing as it moves so quickly. The ending of Gods and Monsters came totally out of the blue and what made it even more shocking was Ace’s reaction which used the underlying chemistry between Ace and Hex to excellent effect.

All the performances in this story were solid and they rose to the occasion. This is Sylvester McCoys best story purely because it’s the most that we have heard from him this year. Every scene he was in was fun to listen the dialogue he was given was great. McCoy is at this best when he has someone like Fenric to be against because the Doctor has to really test his nerve and intelligence. Sophie Aldred put in another great performance where I one scene we discover that Ray from Delta and the Bannermen could have been a companion instead of Ace. Aldred was quite involved in The Curse of Fenric so it was always going to be the case that Ace was going to be used in the way she was here. Philip Olivier seemed to be the one that got the short straw as he was treated like the small child that the big brother or sister has been asked to babysit. It was only in part four that he really got to get stuck into the meaty part of the story. Due to the plot, this allows Olivier to give his best performance in quite some time. As the other ‘companions’, Maggie O’Neill and Amy Pemberton give very strong performances. Despite being part of a very crowded TARDIS crew, both managed to show that they weren’t making up the numbers and made the characters seem just as important as Ace and Hex and despite the relatively limited time that they have been part of the Doctor Who world is quite an achievement. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they return.

Gods and Monsters is everything that it should have been and it was a relief because there was a big chance that it could have totally blown it. I still maintain that Protect and Survive is the best story of the series but that doesn’t mean that G&M doesn’t have its own merits. This was the sort of story that you would expect from Alan Barnes but I get the feeling that Mike Maddox might have helped make it more understandable. The final scene with Hex hints that he may return and if that’s the case then it will make the next Seventh Doctor adventure something to look forward to.

Rating - 7/10