The Evil One (2014)

The Evil One is my favourite story from this series so far. That’s destroyed any tension that you might have expected but I enjoyed this story a lot. I thought that it was going to be tough to beat ‘The Crooked Man’ because I thought that it was such a great story but then I hadn’t realised that this story was coming. Nicholas Briggs has a great track record when it comes to him as a writer and he doesn’t disappoint here. He writes the story with a straight forward idea and when I say straight forward I don’t mean it as a fault but more of high praise because it means that the story of Leela’s father can be what drives the early part of this adventure. The story sees the Doctor and Leela land on a luxury space cruiser which is lacking in people. What they encounter when they leave the TARDIS is a very eerie atmosphere that would seem out of place on classic Who.

Louise Jameson takes the ball in this story and runs with it giving a great performance from start to finish. For some reason I quite like Evil Leela and easily steals the show often out performing Tom Baker who isn’t poor in this by any means. In fact on this occasion, Baker plays it brilliantly allowing Jameson to take centre stage. Geoffrey Beevers is always guaranteed to give a superb performance. If you haven’t listened to ‘Mastermind’ then you should do because that is Beevers at his best and he gives another stunning performance though I would have liked to have heard more from him but that’s my only critiscm of the story.

When the Doctor is fighting for his life after he is struck with the janis thorn this leads to a thrilling finale where the Doctor is trying to hide from Evil Leela. The final part of this story is a lovely and heart warming scene which shows how far the Doctor and Leela have come since their TV days and credit should go to Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and Nicholas Briggs.

I am going to reiterate that I love this story. I loved every single second of it and this series is proving to be a cracking one. Everything worked brilliantly and I thought that ‘Night of 1000 Stars’ from the Jago and Litefoot series was going to by my story of the month but I have might have to reconsider on the evidence of this story. Top Quality.

The War To End All Wars (2014)

The War to End All Wars is the final First Doctor story in the Companion Chronicles range and this sees Steven Taylor tell a story after he has been dethroned. The idea of King Steven is a fun one and one that I wish had been explored in previous companion chronicles. Anyway, the story that Steven tells explains how he has ended up in a cell.

What the story does well is not pretend that war is a fun or glamorous. It tells the horrors of warfare in a way that seems but its not done in a particularly morbid way. Just downbeat enough to get the message across. Another thing that I think is done well is the idea that both sides of the war are given the same sort of treatment so no one really has an advantage which on the one hand is a very fair idea but on the other hand means that no one is likely to win.

I thought that Peter Purves performance was very good and he has consistently good in all his stories since he first appeared in ‘Mother Russia’ back in 2007. His Hartnell impression is always one of the delights and it doesn’t disappoint here. Also Alice Haig was good as Sida although I thought that the character could have done with being a bit more animated but that’s perhaps me being slightly cruel.

I cant say that this is my favourite Simon Guerrier adventure as I maintain that Home Truths is his best but I think that this story has some good plus points, most notably Peter Purves who performs in the story really well and it’s a weary Steven that we get in this adventure. The setting was a good one for this story and Simon Robinson did a great job in creating this world for Peter Purves, Alice Haig and Simon Guerrier to do their stuff.

The Wax Princess (2014)

The final story of this series has a curious title. The Wax Princess is a curious title but that’s been a running theme during this series. I like how this is a relatively straight forward story which has Jack the Ripper in it. The idea that Ripper is creating these waxworks to bring back his love is quite a good one though I am not sure whether I like the implication that the Ripper is a waxwork himself is probably going a bit too far. However despite this, I still thought that the plot was very good and thoroughly entertaining.

Jago and Litefoot are acquitted which came as a massive relief because it means that the series can go back to what it does best and it wont have this thing hanging over them. The end of the story sees the Scorchies appear. The Scorchies appeared in what I considered to be one of the best Companion Chronicles of 2013 (it was runner up to Mastermind at the 2013 Toms Tardis Awards) and for those who hadn’t heard that story would soon find out what they are about because we get a lovely song.

Trevor Baxter and Christopher Benjamin have given some superb performances throughout this series and they are complimented well by Lisa Bowerman as Ellie, Conrad Asquith as Sergeant Quick and I also like Adrian Rawlins performance as Inspector Abberline.

I think that The Wax Princess is one of the strongest finale’s to a series for quite some time. The story was exciting from start to finish and I never found myself bored at any point. There were several times during the course of this story that I felt it seemed very much like a story that we would have heard during the first couple of series. Not surprising really because Justin Richards is one of the best writers that Big Finish has and he has written for the series since the very first one. The eighth series comes out in October 2014 so we won’t have very long to way and on the evidence of this series and what is about to come it seems that the future is bright for our very own dynamic duo.

Murder at Moorsey Manor (2014)

After being wowed by the previous story, I had a renewed enthusiasm about the remainder of this series. This penultimate adventure is a whodunit which isn’t something that I was expecting from this adventure. This release is written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris who were behind the Sacrifyers series and it’s perhaps easy to tell. Like the first story, there is more than a subtle sprinkling of Holmes and Watson as Jago and Litefoot arrive at Moorsey Manor where everyone has been summoned by Moriaty and are dressed like Sherlock Holmes. The story starts off in a slightly light hearted story but soon turns very dark and I quite like that because it’s something that this range does quite well and after a while people start to be bumped off.

I like the setting because it has a sort of base under siege vibe to it whilst feeling like a murder mystery adventure. The sort of thing Agatha Christie would have written but it’s the setting of what I am imagining to be a lovely house is what sells this story and credit should go to Howard Carter who has done a great job in this and the other two stories to create the perfect atmosphere for the story to do its job.

The performances were all very good with Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter being at the top of their game.  The supporting cast were all very good and they all good in their respected roles and they all sounded like they had just come out of a Miss Marple or a Poirot story.

Being that it’s the penultimate adventure, it ends on a cliffhanger which means that the final adventure is going to be epic and it was one that I didn’t see coming but it was quick and it did the job perfectly and it’s a great ending to the story. I thought that whilst this adventure wasn’t as good as ‘The Night of 1000 stars’, it was still an enjoyable adventure and this series continues to be a highly enjoyable one.

The Night of 1000 Stars (2014)

After enjoying the previous story, I started to listen to The Night of 1000 Stars. The only thing that I knew about this adventure was that Louise Jameson was returning as Leela and the author was James Goss who is making his debut in this range. This is an unusual adventure because it just features Jago, Litefoot, Leela and Ellie. This story forces this foursome to look at themselves in a way that they would rather not and as the story progresses we learn about a different aspect of their lives which caused them to feel remorse. The use of Remorse as a threat to our favourite characters is a brilliant idea and it’s used very well and is one of the main reasons why I rate this story so highly. It’s a simple idea but it allows us to learn new things about characters that we have known for years and that’s a hard thing to pull off.

It’s a brave thing to do to just do this sort of story as it doesn’t feature any supporting characters, doesn’t feature other locations and doesn’t have any breaks in the story (like things happening the next day or in another part of the country).  The introduction of Leela in the story was a brilliant idea and Louise Jameson continues to show how the character has developed under Big Finish. The performances of Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter were superb as usual but we got something in this story that I wasn’t expecting and that is Jago and Litefoot at each other’s throat. I was thinking that this can’t be right and I wanted it to stop, that was the point that I realised that the story was working and Benjamin and Baxter should be praised for still pulling out superb performance after all these releases. I moaned about the lack of Ellie in the previous story and that was because I think that Lisa Bowerman is just as an important part of the series as Jago and Litefoot are. Here we get a lot of Ellie and it shows how good Lisa Bowerman is as Ellie because Ellie has been through a lot during the previous six series and her loses have been just as great as Jago and Litefoot have had.

There’s a lovely moment when there is a mystery and to which of the four is remorse and it reminded me of the movie ‘Devil’ where they have a lift and one of them is the devil. This is done a lot better because I didn’t see the revelation about Leela coming. I thought at the beginning that it was a surprise that she was back and that it wasn’t given the sort of time that I would have expected but James Goss has done a good thing of distracting us from this point and never allows us to think about it until he’s ready for us to. We are reminded about the current predicament of Jago and Litefoot which I liked because I was worried that they had forgotten about the fact they were suppose to be on the run but it isn’t just a blink and you’ll miss it mention but does get mentioned much more than I was expecting.

I was really impressed with this story and I would go so far to say that this is one of if not the best Jago and Litefoot story that there has ever been and credit should go to everyone involved for still been able to impress me to this degree. If the last two stories in the series are better than this one then I am in for a treat. I think that this story isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s because this isn’t your usual Jago and Litefoot adventure and when people don’t get what they usually want then they will be harsher to it. This wont happen here because I loved this story.

The Monstrous Menagerie (2014)

Escape or Die was the original name given for this episode and you have to give Terry Nation some credit for trying to create some excitement with just a title. When the episode restarts, the Doctor, Rebec, Taron and Codal are flying up and the Daleks take an awful long time to realise that there is only one way that they could have escaped. One of the things that I like about this episode is the slowest chase in TV history with a Dalek rising up to chase the Doctor and his new friends. It’s a great shot of seeing the Dalek coming towards them as I think that it adds to the drama and tries to instil some exciting in the slowest chase on TV. The purpose of the Daleks being on Spiridon is made clear here and its creating a rather nasty virus.

Jo starts the episode trying to find the bombs but only manages to get herself knocked out. It’s the typical course of action for a companion. What’s quite interesting that given the size of the rock, it’s lucky that she survived. Not only did she survive but she woke up relatively quickly. The moment when Jo and the Doctor are reunited is a lovely moment and shows how this dynamic is perhaps as strong as the Second Doctor and Jamie’s relationship. Jo gets a romantic interest in this episode with Latep and it seems (with the benefit of hindsight) that this is the beginning of setting up Jo’s departure from the show. In the scene between the Doctor and Jo there is a minor reference to the previous story, considering that this is one (unofficial) long story, it would have been nice to have a mention of the Master as well as the Ogrons.

When the action moves to the stones that they use to try and stay save and perhaps warm is a nice moment in the story. It’s well set up and the performances and directing help make this scene atmospheric. There’s more of this in the next episode but what we got here was quite good and one of those rare moments in Doctor Who that isn’t over lit by being in a studio. The action is directed well by the legendary David Maloney who is doing his best in this story. If anyone can make action seem interesting in largely jungle sets then it would be Maloney. Terry Nation has been accused in this story of just reheating his ideas from previous stories but to be honest that dosent really bother me because if it was just a colourised version of such stories as ‘The Keys of Marinus’ and ‘The Daleks’ then that would be a problem but the fact that its mixed in with new stuff means that it can be enjoyed.

I found the cliffhanger to be a little better this time but nothing special. Unlike the previous episode I got the feeling that it was actually moving and things were happening. Despite their being more than a few comparisons to previous Terry Nation stories (a greatest hits if you like), I still like this story and think that it’s an enjoyable and interesting adventure.

Scavenger (2014)

The final story of the Sixth Doctor and Flip series takes on a distinctive spacey feel to it. The Doctor and Flip find themselves on the Mandela. The idea that there is a programme that is launched which is an attempt to clear up some of the debris and space junk that is orbiting the earth. What I liked about this is that its something that is a problem today. If you have seen the fantastic film ‘Gravity’ then you will know the problem. The programme is being run by the Indian Space Agency and this was another thing that I liked because it would have been so easy to just have the English space agency.

The familiar name as far as I am concerned was that of Anjli Mohindra who plays Jyoti Cutler in this story and played Rani in ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’. I thought that Jyoti was instantly a good character and I thought that Mohindra played the character exactly as the character should have been played. Another fine performance came from Kate McEwen who plays Jessica Alloway brilliantly. Tariq Bhatti is also worth of a mention as Salim the Mission Controller who was quite interesting with his little secret.

The main performances were very good but I thought that Lisa Greenwood gave the greater performance and this seemed to have come out of nowhere. During the course of the three releases I think that Greenwood has not put a foot wrong and she gives her best performance of the series in this story. The final episode is where Greenwood stole the show as far as I was concerned because it was such a heartfelt performance that its probably fair to say that Flip is one of the strongest companions that Big Finish currently have. Colin Baker’s performance was good and he bounces around the story in his usual manner.

I was a big fan of Gallagher’s previous Sixth Doctor adventure ‘Wirrn Isle’ but I think that this wasn’t as good as that story. I started off really involved in the story but found that the middle part wasn’t as engaging. My attention was then bought back in the fact episode where things really did seem to be reaching for a satisfying conclusion. The end of the story was a complete shock and I think it’s the perfect cliffhanger for the next sixth Doctor series. The main business with Alloway was dealt with but Flip’s future is in doubt. It’s a bit like the cliffhanger with Hex’s future but I think that Flip’s isn’t quite as intense. As good as the cliffhanger was, the problem is that it will clearly be sometime for this to be resolved (October at the earliest which is unlikely even though Big Finish haven’t put any details on the website). Scavenger is a good way to end the series.