1001 Nights (2012)

Toms Tardis Award Winner - Best Main Range Cover Design

1001 Nights is the last story from the main range release of 2012. The four single episodes is something that Big Finish have done for the last couple of year with Company of Friends (2009), The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories (2010) and Recorded Time and Other Stories (2011). From the cover (designed by Alex Mallinson), the story has an Arabian nights feel to it and it aso have a different feel to previous stories whereas the stories had all been self-contained with not real link, this has a story and short stories in the middle. Also unlike previous stories there is no specific story title with an author attributed to it. No such thing happens here. The story sees the Doctor and Nyssa trying to find a beacon to stop a threat from arriving. Instead of letting the Doctor and Nyssa find it, the Sultan wants Nyssa to tell him stories. The title comes up quite quickly as we are told that someone had to tell 1001 stories to keep someone alive, so Nyssa has to do the same to get the Doctor out.

The first story sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive where someone is being kept prisoner. He appears to be the only prisoner and there is only one guard. There is a force field protecting the prisoner and at first he seems to be someone quite dangerous but that is short lived when the prisoner says that the jailer is the dangerous one. The prisoner is a Myaxa and is being tortured to confess for something he doesn’t know what he’s done. In a clever twist, the prisoner and the jailer are the same person. The story has a fairly snappy end to it with both the prisoner and jailer being zapped but it doesn’t end glumly. There was a nice ending where the Myaxa (now as one) is left in the force field until its turned off. I quite enjoyed this story, it was short but had a steady and rapid build up to a nice and satisfying conclusion.

The second story is set in Norwood in the 19^th Century where Nyssa is being possessed. It’s basically The Excorist but in the Doctor Who world without any of the gore and horror. It turns out that the thing that is possessing Nyssa is a Crypto Conscious Virus called The interplanterian (not sure of spelling). We didn’t get the power of Christ compels you but we did get the power of Gallifrey compels you’. The word that the Doctor used to get the virus out of Nyssa was Tremas which was a nice link for Nyssa. I thought that when Nyssa and the Doctor left then that would be it but there was a nice twist where it continued  as the interplaneterian has moved to someone else and he is defeated by some special tea. The story itself was rather good and I enjoyed.

The third story sees the Doctor and Nyssa arrive at a coastal town where they go to a pub where they seemed to be obsessed with telling stories. It seems that the locals of the pub are quiet what they seem. We learn there is a planet of tales and a planet of jokes. The mere idea is wonderful. The locals are all after the Doctor’s tales and we think that he had been drugged and they seem to be wanting to download his tales. The story ends with the locals memories got wiped. I liked this one because it was not what I was expecting. I thought that out of the three so far this was the one that I enjoyed the most. There was a nice wide range of characters that were nice to listen to.

The main story has seen the Doctor trapped with the old man and as the story progressed we learn that the Doctor is being used so that they can take the Doctor’s TARDIS. The Sultan (Siddig) turns out to be a Shanakey. He traps the real Sultan in his ship and makes him think he is in a cell. The fourth episode is where the main story takes centre stage where we learn whats really going on and the reason why Nyssa has been telling the stories. I liked the scene where the Sultan smells the air for the first time and he delivers a lovely speech, then there is the moment where he discovers that he has been held captive for a century. I thought it was a shame when he departed from the story and thought it would have been nice if at the end we find out that he was back in his rightful place.

I like it when the story seems to go up a gear in the final part where the Sultan pretends to be the Doctor, makes Nyssa forgets the Doctor and go travelling in the Doctor. I like how Nyssa manages to twig what is going on and then takes the TARDIS back. When Nyssa finds the Doctor we discover that the Doctor has been left for just over 3 years of 1001 nights. The ending of the story is rather good because the Doctor takes the Shanakey somewhere that will look after him and probably use him as a lab rat.

I always like the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa stories as Nyssa is one of my favourite companions and I always think that this partnership works well. Peter Davison doesn’t really get much to do until the final episode but when he does eventually get something to do he does it well. Sarah Sutton puts in a fantastic performance from start to finish. It’s always good when Sarah Sutton is the only companion because it means that she gets to show why the character is so good. The big name of the supporting cast was Alexander Siddig who won the Toms Tardis Award for Best Supporting Guest in 2010 for his role as The Captain in The Wreck of the Titan. Here he plays Sultan who is a very unlikeable character and Siddig plays the role wonderfully. I personally think that this was a better character than the captain but it shows what a good actor the Siddig is. The rest of the characters were all very good and there wasn’t a dud performance in any of them.

I thought that this was a lovely story. After the very tense and dramatic stories that we have had in the latter part of 2012 it was nice that we had a story that was very light in terms of dramatic weight but still felt like it was a proper Doctor Who story and it was the perfect way for the main range to end 2012 with. Out of all the stories with single episodes, this has to be the best because it seemed to work better, the main story along with the short stories all worked well together to make the whole release enjoyable.

 

Return of the Rocket Men (2012)

Return of the Rocket Men is obviously a sequel to the 2011 story The Rocket Men. When I reviewed that story I was slightly disappointed with it and thought that for some reason it didn’t quite gel. Clearly there was enough for Big Finish to commission a sequel except instead of John Dorney, we get Matt Fitton who has written for the main range and this is his first foray into the Companion Chronicle world. Peter Purves replaces William Russell in this story as it is set during the Steven Taylor/Dodo Chaplet era of the show. The story starts off with a weird scene, Steven Taylor is on his own and is attacked by the Rocket Men. It’s quite an harsh moment when Steven’s shin is broken after he’s been beaten up by Van Kleefe. Especially on his birthday, but no sooner as we’re told about that then we go back to the ‘present’ day and just by the mention of Dodo’s name I am irritated. Thankfully that passes quite quickly.

The story is relatively straight forward and it works from start to finish. After the weird opening scene the story felt like a normal companion chronicle. I thought that the second half continued the good work that the first had done. A problem that I felt with The Rocket Men was that by the half way stage I was still wandering what the actual plot was but there wasn’t the same problem in this as it was clear where the story was going. The cliffhanger worked really well. I liked the speech that Steven gave at the end of the first episode, it was quite moving and it was just a shame that it was wasted for a mission to rescue Dodo. The whole thing about Return of the Rocket Men is that it shows what Steven Taylor was like before we met him in The Chase. It was a brave and almost action hero type character which is complimented by the way that Peter Purves delivers his lines. I am starting to regard Peter Purves’ performances on par with William Russell.  Tim Treloar was very good as Van Cleef. Van Cleef is an effective baddie and Treloar is good to listen to when he is narrating his parts of the story.

I quite liked this story, I thought that it was a fitting sequel to The Rocket Men and at 67 minutes long it moves at a pretty quick pace and I may go back and re-listen to it as a result. I thought that Return of the Rocket Men was an enjoyable adventure and in the extras there is the possibility of there being a third story which I would be looking forward to.

The Last Post (2012)

The Last Post is the last story to feature Caroline John as Liz Shaw. I remarked when I was reviewing ‘Binary’ that when this story came around it would have a different feel to it. This is the second story to be written by James Goss who previously wrote ‘The Time Museum’ which I wasn’t a big fan of. This story also sees Liz’s family introduced as the other person playing her mom.  The story is quite similar to ‘The Three Companions’ as the majority of this story takes place in letters and phone calls, this is quite different to how other stories in the series are structured and it was done rather well.

The story sees people who are going to die and they receive a letter that tells them of this. Now I like this idea but what makes it work even better is that it ties in several deaths that we encounter in the stories on TV that feature Liz. That’s quite a clever thing that James Goss has done and it doesn’t feel like its indulgent but just a nice thing to do.  It’s a wonderful way of making this feel like it takes place in the period that its suppose to be. It’s not something that I think has been pulled off in a Liz story. The early part of the story starts off with a mystery as to who or what is sending the letters and also perhaps just as importantly why. This is a mystery that is part of what I liked about this story. When we discovered what was causing this it occurred at just the right time and more importantly it made sense and suited the style of the story.

Despite the Liz Shaw stories not always being as strong as they could be, Caroline John always played the role with such grace and love that you would almost forgive the story not being up to scratch because it enabled us to hear Caroline. The fact that we have a family introduced into this story means that it gives Caroline John a chance to play a different side to Liz as we have never met anyone from her personal life except for a friend in ‘The Blue Tooth’ way back in 2007. The desperation in her voice when she knows her mother has had a letter was one of the many highlights of this story. Rowena Cooper is brilliant as Dame Emily Shaw.  She is a very charismatic person and its nice that she has achieved as much as her daughter and you can see where she gets here intelligence from. The cliffhanger that involves her is one of the best cliffhangers that I have heard for quite sometime, its quite difficult to achieve this in a companion chronicle but Goss has pulled it off.

It was planned that we would have many more adventures with Liz’s mom but sadly this wont happen which is one of those things that we will wonder ‘what if’. It’s quite nice that the last Liz Shaw story was the best. It was nice to listen to and I’m surprised that whilst I was listening to it I wasn’t thinking that it was to be the last one. I was instead thinking what a wonderful companion chronicle it was. I think it’s the best one of the year just beating ‘The Rings of Ikiria’, I don’t think its because of it being Caroline John’s last story but just because it’s a solid story from beginning to end…and also it’s the best Liz Shaw story ever.

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

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

Black and White (2012)

It’s not the most enviable of tasks. Try and follow the fantastic Protect and Survive but it’s a job that falls to Matt Fitton whose previous credits included contributing a story to Recorded Time and Other Stories last year. The story not only picks up from the previous month’s release but it also sees the return of Lysandra Aristedes who appeared in the 2009 release Project: Destiny and Sally who appeared in The House of Blue Fire. I think that unlike Protect and Survive there is a certain amount of pre-listening that is required as there are references to past stories littered throughout the story and no prior knowledge would be a big disadvantage. As there is a certain amount of confusion as to how Lysandra and Sally have found themselves in the TARDIS. It’s nice that the flashbacks were included to help.

The first episode spends a lot of time dealing with the fallout of the last stories cliffhanger and it’s a great opening episode. The second episode resumes with the Doctor talking to his new TARDIS which is acting like a baby. It’s a very strange scene though we learn that it’s after the events of Lurkers at Sunlights Edge so it helps put some continuity into things. This begins the Black and White TARDIS confusion and at times it was confusing at times but thankfully there wasn’t time really to get confused.

They continue with the Hex being annoyed with the Doctor. He’s quick to try and put the record straight where the Doctor is concerned to Sally Morgan. Though they didn’t over do it because there is a sense that he is willing to be rational. However Hex has an uneasy feeling about Death and how it seems to get closer which I thought was nicely played by Olivier. The contrast between the frosty relationship of Ace and Lysandra and the blossoming relationship between Hex and Sally was fun. The Ace/Lysandra was one of the things that I really liked about this story because even when it looked like things had thawed out then it goes back to Ace not fully trusting Lysandra.

The cliffhangers in this story ranged from ok to very good. The first Cliffhanger was quite a nice one because it seemingly comes out of left field and does feel like there is no clear way of how its going to be resolved. The second one was ok because there was a nice set up for the announcement that the Doctor’s Sonic screwdriver was on the wall. But for me the third one was the best one of the story. We have a lovely scene with Hex and Sally where Hex is talking about Death and then they see something and it’s heading towards them. A strong ending.

Sylvester McCoy’s involvement in this story is like Protect and Survive and that is minimal. We get a nice scene at the beginning of part two but it’s part three before we get our first most significant McCoy scene. So it’s up to Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred to carry the story however due to the involvement of Sally and Lysandra, it meant that they didn’t have to carry as much of it. Whereas Protect and Survive had a very small cast, Black and White was very much a traditional story in that there were several cast members. I don’t know whether it was me but it seems that the writing for Hex has stepped up a lot in these two stories. Even though they aren’t technically companions (ducks for cover!), I thought that Amy Pemberton and Maggie O’Neill were very good and I look forward to their Companion Chronicle. I liked their characters because it was good cop/bad cop and it’s hard for me to choose who I found more enjoyable.

Stuart Milligan plays a very camp Garundel. Mulligan previously appeared in the 2006 story The Reaping where he was definelty not a camp person, he also played US President Nixon in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. I found the character to be a tad bit annoying to begin with but as his involvement in the story got bigger and bigger I found myself like Milligan’s performance.

Being the middle story of the series, it’s difficult to fully rate this story. I always thought that it was going to be difficult to beat Protect and Survive so I gave up any hope that we were going to get a better story. It was a wise thing to do as this is another good story in its own right. I wasn’t totally wild about the Beowulf stuff but it was interesting enough to keep me involved in the story. It would have been very easy for this story to be just padding and counting down the minutes before we gets Gods and Monsters but we get an enjoyable if at times flawed story. The final story has a lot an awful lot to live up to and that story has the return of a classic series monster.

Protect and Survive (2012)

Protect and Survive is the first story to feature Ace and Hex since 2010’s Lurkers at Sunlights Edge. Since then there have been references to the colour of the TARDIS. It’s the second script to come from Jonathan Morris after his very enjoyable opening story THE CURSE OF DAVROS. The title is borrowed from the 1970’s and 1980’s Government public information series which was designed to tell UK citizens how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack. The story starts off with Ace and Hex in the TARDIS and no sign of the Doctor, to add to their worries the Cloister Bell. This pretty much indicates that this isn’t going to be a nice happy bunny rabbits story with rainbows.  The story focuses on Ace and Hex and as the TARDIS lands we encounter Maggie and Albert who are a nice couple who are just doing what needs to be done to get themselves. There is a note made that history has been changed and that’s

It’s the end of episode two before the Doctor turns up. It’s quite a bold thing to do on the face of it because it means that the companions have to drive the story and Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred are superb. The fact that there is no sign of Sylvester McCoy doesn’t register until he actually turns up. It’s 55 minutes that its just the four actors and throughout these two episodes I really did get a feeling that this is a very dark story. In fact I don’t think that a Doctor Who story (in my mind) has gone this dark since the Gary Russell era (pre-2007). It was quite a refreshing change of pace. At one point Hex is blinded and its well played by Olivier. These sort of scenes were quite harrowing and that’s quite an achievement for an audio play. If it had been on TV then I suspect it would have been even more shocking.I thought that the moment it really got quite dark was when they all got radiation sickness and they get progressively worse. They were trapped in the basement and had been there for nine days.

The moment when Maggie and Albert admit that they are aware that the same days are playing over and over again was quite a surprise and seemed to mark the moment when the story went from grim and dark mystery to proper sci-fi and the shift in tone was seamless. I didn’t see the whole timeloop thing coming. It was very clever and suited the story just right, then it gets even cleverer with the revelation that its all taking place in a sort of prison where Maggie and Albert are infact Elder Gods who have been put in this situation to be punished by the Doctor. It does seem quite a shocking thing for the Doctor to do but it fits in well with the latter stages of the Seventh Doctor’s era. The story poses some nice emotional scenes because there is one point where Ace and Hex have to decide who is going to stay and who is going to leave

I’ve been quite big on cliffhangers recently and this story has some pretty epic ones. Episode one is a nice once because it’s the build up of waiting for the heat blast to hit. The second one is better because it’s a chilling entrance for the Doctor who is overheard talking about being taught a lesson and I think it leads into a scene where Hex lets his frustrations with the Doctor come out. The final cliffhanger is also good one as we are introduced to Molok. The voice used seemed very familiar to me though I couldn’t think where. The Elder Gods were a very effective villain, their inclusion in the story was well handled.

There has been a thing in the Seventh Doctor stories over the last year or so about the colour of the TARDIS. It was white in ANGEL OF SCUTARI and black in ROBOPHOBIA and in this story its both. I am curious as to where this will end up. Protect and Survive is my favourite story of the year and possibly even for the last couple of years. It’s superbly written and directed,  It’s solid with a tiny cast and like the previous Ace and Hex series, the opening story leads into the next which makes for an epic cliffhanger.

The Rings of Ikiria (2012)

It’s been a few years since we last had a Mike Yates story. In fact it was back in 2009 when we were treated to the enjoyable story ‘The Magicians Oath’. The story is the final one of the sixth season and it’s also the second to be written by Richard Dinnick in the space of a couple of months (not that I’m complaining – it’s just a fact). The story sees Mike encounter Ikiria who seems to have turned everyone into mindless zombies with the Ikiria having not the most honourable of intentions.

The story starts off which quite a sad state of Mike’s affairs. He’s living in quite an empty apartment which is the opposite of how I imagined he would have lived (I’m thinking there would be Jo Grant shrine).  It’s always interesting how Mike Yates is portrayed in these stories because as we all know he turns on the Doctor and so its fun to try and think of Yates as a good person even though due to Richard Franklin’s performance we can imagine that. However despite the grim introduction there isn’t time to wallow in this depressing revelation before the story main story gets going. Now before the theme tune starts we get a bit of the action which appears to indicate that Mike is shot by the Brigadier. This is quite a big thing and it’s the bait that’s on the hook which reeled me through this story. It’s clear that Mike doesn’t get killed because we know the future so the writer distracts us to a certain extent by drawing our attention to the alien threat of this story. The wonderfully named Ikiria. The Ikiria is giving out rings like their sweets which seem to brainwash the person who is wearing it and this soon turns the story into Mike vs. everyone else and that includes UNIT. The Brigadier is one of those people and at the point we get to in the story where the Brig shoots Mike we find out something that I didn’t see coming. The Brig was pretending to be possessed by the Ikiria and had deliberately missed Mike when he shot him. The second half was really entertaining and I was impressed with how it all came together.

Richard Franklin has a wonderful voice which is used to maximum effect in this story. His style of telling the story is very gentle and always seems to have the same warm tone to it. I wish we could have more Mike Yates stories or just more stories with Richard Franklin in it because I genuinely believe one of the reasons I like this story so much is because of Franklin. Felicity Duncan plays Ikiria and I thought that this was an effective character. Ikiria doesn’t go over board and isn’t pushed into the spotlight of the story but does enough to come across as an effective and believable threat which I found to be quite good thing.

Out of the two Dinnick stories we have had I am really hard pressed to say which one I enjoyed the most because they both have good qualities. This had a good story and The Wanderer had William Russell but on reflection I would have to say that I enjoyed this just that little bit more. The story has a feel of being a UNIT story with there been the idea that there are people who can’t be trusted and feeling like being an outsider. I think that the Rings of Ikiria is a nice way to end the sixth season of the companion chronicles, I would also go so far to say that it’s the strongest third Doctor story that we have had for some time.

Rating – 8/10

The Emerald Tiger (2012)

2012 Toms Tardis Award Winner
Best Main Range Story
Best Main Range Writer - Barnaby Edwards
Best Main Range Director - Barnaby Edwards
Best Main Range Music & Sound Design - Howard Carter

It’s hard to believe that this is the third series to feature the trio of Nyssa Tegan and Turlough. This trio has been the best for the last couple of years and in fact won the Best Series award in 2010. After a long time of waiting for Tegan to return in a full series of adventures, it’s nice to say that that wait has been worth it. The third series kicks off with The Emerald Tiger written by award winning writer and director Barnaby Edwards. It’s true to say when you know a story is written by a certain person you sort of know what to expect. This rule applies to Nicholas Briggs, Marc Platt, Alan Barnes and also Barnaby Edwards. Set in India in 1926, the story seems to have a start which owes something to ‘Black Orchid’ (1982) where in that story the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric arrive at a train station and stumble across a cricket match. In this instance, they are there for a cricket match and before we know our LBW from our elbow the story moves onto a train where there is the for mentioned Emerald Tiger.

On the train we meet two people who have completely different stories. Firstly there is Lady Adela Forster (Cherie Lunghi) who has hired the train to go to a cave to blow up an entrance. Then there is Major Cyril Haggard (Neil Stacy) who is running away from the police after commiting a crime. It isn’t long before their seemingly random paths cross and it helps the early stages of this story move along until the second part of the story. It’s quite good set-up for the main part of the story which is done very well.

The final episode was different from what I was expecting. It seemed that we were going to get a reprise from part three but it starts off with Tegan who we haven’t heard from for a while and after a minute or so I thought that this was a great idea that this was going to be Tegan’s episode but after a couple of minutes it went back to being a normal episode which I was slightly disappointed with but the rest of the episode made up for it. Normally, I get annoyed when writers ‘kill’ off one or more of the companions because I think that it’s the stupidest thing to do because we know they make it and the idea that we are supposed to suspend our disbelief is pointless. However when it’s done right then it’s done well and what Barnaby Edwards does is use it help create some tension between the Doctor and Turlough and it also acted as an incentive to try and rescue Nyssa. So in this instant I found the idea of ‘killing off’ a companion a good one but it isn’t one that should be returned to in the near future.

The performances in this are very good indeed. I thought that Cherie Lunghi was very good because she started off as this quite stuck up and unlikeable character but as the plot moves on she becomes someone who has suffered tragedy and we understand why she is as she comes across. I liked how her character exited. It must have been tempting to kill off the character in some sort of self-sacrifice to save her newly discovered son but thankfully they decide to live in the jungle. I also liked Neil Stacey who played Haggard because he was sort of the person we love to hate and he pulled that off very well.

The Emerald Tiger is another good story from Barnaby Edwards. I thought that the story was plotted very well and it knew what it wanted to be and kept its eye on the prize and as a result its possibly one of my favourite stories of 2012 so far. The third series of Nyssa/Tegan/Turlough has kicked off in fine style and I’m looking forward to what the next two stories have in store. Good stuff.

RATING: 8/10

The Wrath of the Iceni (2012)

The latest story featuring the Fourth Doctor and Leela sees the TARDIS land in Britain at the height of the Roman occupancy. This a purely historical story which hasnt been done very often. The best one that Big Finish have done was the 2007 adventure 'Son of the Dragon' and a close second would be the 2005 adventure 'The Council of Nicaea'. It shows that just because there arent any aliens or anything that could be perceived as modern, doesnt mean that it cant be entertaining. It seems obvious that Leela should meet Boudica because they are so similar in that their attitudes to battle are pretty much the same. With a purely historical story you know that there is going to be the inevitable rules of not changing history which the Doctor has with Leela. There has to be a conflict and a reason why the story is set here and that is Boudica finds out that the Doctor knows how she will die and is trying to force the Doctor into confessing. Leela sides with Boudica and its only as the play progresses she realises that she might not be the person she was hoping she would be.

Ella Kenion is the best of the small guest cast as Boudica and she plays the character as a very strong character who tries to come across as the leader of the free but actually comes across as someone who isnt as nice as they think they are. Kenion had previously appeared in the 2011 episode 'Let's Kill Hitler' and she has also appeared in shows such as 'The Green Green Grass' and she is very good in this story. It's not very often that women get to be the lead like this and its commented on in the interviews at the end but its refreshing that this is the case and Kenion does it well. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are both very strong in this and its an interesting direction that the show has taken because we never got to see Leela educated and this series has shown there are many good adventure to be had going down this particular road.

The Doctor's reluctance to get involved and Leela's determination to help out Bodicea causes the most significant split that there has been for quite sometime. Despite Leela siding with Boudica, she doesnt want the Doctor harmed which shows that there is still some feeling from her despite how she disagrees with the Doctor so much. This soon leads Leela to realise that Boudica isnt quite the woman that she thought she was. It's the old adage that you should never meet your hero because you'll only be disappointed. Leela might never have heard of Boudica before this adventure but she soon became someone she could relate to and in some ways admire her.

I really loved this story and found it to be thoroughly compelling from start to finish. I was worried that it was going to get bogged down in something dull but to be fair there is a sound reason for the story being in its setting and a strong plot which makes me wish that this were a slightly bit longer because I thought that there was enough to pad this out to be a four parter. John Dorney has written another solid story and its a return to form after a mixed previous story.

The Fourth Wall (2012)

The second story to feature Flip Jackson sees the return of an majorly underused Doctor Who prop and that is the Time-Space Visualser which appeared in the 1965 adventure ‘The Chase’ and it’s quite fitting that it appears in this story because as the title suggest, this story is about television and the lack of morals that occupy the people involved. The story is centred around a TV show that has a hint of reality TV which is being run by a media boss called Augustus Scullop who is down on his luck and this show called Laser is what he hopes will reverse those fortunes however it uses technology which as is the norm in Doctor Who, goes slightly wrong. Large chunks of this story feel deliberately comedic. The idea that is dramatic music and specific moments and the characters refer to this is not something that is done and there were many more moments which seemed to be clearly intended to be not treated as serious stuff and normally I wouldn’t like this but what the writer has done is find the right balance and manages to make it work.

Colin Baker is back on fine form like he was in the previous story. I must admit he wasn’t well served in 2011 but is doing better here because he is fantastic in pretty much every scene he’s in. I wasn’t totally convinced with his first scene where we are expected to believe that the Doctor is still quite interested in cricket. It’s a small issue but it was the only thing that I could think off about Baker’s performance. Lisa Greenwood continues to impress me as she manages to escape the ‘Chav’ label that this character was obviously destined for and the character of Flip which I didn’t really notice in ‘The Crimes of Thomas Brewster’ has really shone in these two stories. I cant quite make my mind up about whether the moment when Flip is shot was a good idea or a silly one. On the one hand its clear that a Doctor Who companion isnt going to be killed so quickly after joining but as was noted in the interviews at the end as it’s a character created by Big Finish, it’s perfectly plausible that this could happen. The supporting cast is also quite strong with particular worthy mention going to Yasmin Bannermen who previously appeared in the 2008 story ‘The Bride of Peladon). Her character was one of those that is finely balanced between being a bad person and someone who is likeable and by the end of it comes out relatively well.

It’s difficult for me to compare ‘The Curse of Davros’ with ‘The Fourth Wall’ because its slightly one sided as one story has a very well established character and the other doesn’t but what I can say is that this story is highly enjoyable. The combination of the Sixth Doctor and Flip is working well and I look forward to the final story in this series. 2012 continues it’s good start.

The Curse of Davros (2012)

Exactly one year before this release we were treated to ‘The Crimes of Thomas Brewster’ and in particular to one Flip Jackson. To be honest I was so focused on Brewster and Evelyn that I didn’t notice Flip so when I heard that the character would be returning in a series of adventures, my reaction was kind of ‘hmmm’. The first monthly release of 2012 sees the return of Davros who hadn’t been seen in a Big Finish play since 2005’s ‘Terror Firma’ though the character did appear in his own series in 2006 but its been too long since the Daleks’ creator appeared in Doctor Who. The story starts off with the Doctor acting very strangley. To be honest it was clear something wasn’t quite right because everything the Doctor said was un-Doctor like. Jonathan Morris has written a story that has one of the most imaginative uses for the Daleks and Davros ever. The idea that the Doctor and Davros have swapped bodies may not be original in some formats but for Doctor Who it was totally brilliant. The title was also very clever because the curse of Davros is being Davros. Normally Davros would want to kill the Doctor but in this story he wants the Doctor to suffer in his body and know what its like the be in the condition. This is quite ruthless and far more sinister than a straight forward extermination.

The Davros/Dalek thing aside, the story also moves from 2012 England to 1815 Belguim where we are treated to two historical figures. Napoleon Bonapatre who’s other Doctor Who credit was of course in the 1964 adventure ‘The Reign of Terror’. The story sees Bonaparte using Dalek technology to help win the Battle of Waterloo after being shown what will happen. This is the where the majority of the story takes place and despite everything being thrown into the mix, the result is a satisfying balance between wanting Davros and Dalek stuff and the Waterloo stuff. There were some nice scenes between Jared and Flip which did a great job in making Flip look like the companion and doesn’t make Jared look like Rory who is a weak character than has only recently got a backbone. In this story Jared does get some of his own action which makes him look like what he is which is a guy from 2012 thrown into 1815 with Binaparte and Daleks.

It’s always good to have Terry Molloy in a Doctor Who because no matter what role he is playing whether it is Davros or someone else he instantly lifts the scene that he is in. In this he sounds like Davros but has to act like Colin Baker. That’s a big ask but did remind me of the episode of Red Dwarf where Rimmer and Lister swap bodies and it sounds like an easy thing but in reality its quite difficult but credit to both Molloy and Baker for pulling it off. It’s fair to say that Colin Baker’s Doctor didn’t have the strongest year ever in 2011 but this is an absolutely cracking story. Having to play Davros was a big achievement for Baker and its actually quite fun when I was trying to figure out why he was the proper Doctor. Considering I wasn’t bowled over by the idea of a character that I never remembered being a companion, I have to say that I was very impressed with the character of Flip. Lisa Greenwood is sort of an amalgamation of Rose Tyler and Martha Jones because she is young and can be brash like Tyler but seems to be more understanding like Jones. I think that this character does have potential and I was hoping for a minute or so that Jared would join the TARDIS crew because it would be quite a good idea but then remembered that its been done on TV and it highlights some issues I have with that set up.

The Curse of Davros is a very good start to 2012. Jonathan Morris has written another story that doesn’t get bogged down in science fiction complexities but just goes from A to B in the most entertaining manner. At no point did it become boring or slow or anything that required to stop and think. It has a strong plot and also has the Daleks and Davros to help add superb icing to a very nice cake.