Earth Aid (2011)

After listening to Robophobia which if I’m honest I found disappointing. I was hoping that Earth Aid would restore my faith in the Seventh Doctor adventure. This story comes from the minds of Ben Aaronovitch (Remembrance of the Daleks) and Andrew Cartmel. The opening scene was mentioned on the Survival DVD where they discuss that there is a ship and Ace is the captain. This is about as much that seems to have been developed before this story got made for Big Finish. The story sees the return of the Metratraxi who actually are in their best story. The story is about some aid that needs to be delivered. There is the small matter of the Metratraxi who aren’t in it just in for the sake of it but we learn more about them. Their story is that they have been created by this planet and there is another alien race that are always hungry and are eating most of the 9 million tonnes that is on the ship. It’s a fairly interesting story that managed to make the time go very quickly.

The Doctor isn’t as good in this as he was in Robophobia. But that’s not to say that Sylvester McCoy is rubbish, far from it. There are several moments when he is very good but I don’t think there is an air of mystery about his motives as there was in the previous story. This is definitely an Ace story as she is the one who is captain and she is the one who has to do a lot of the stuff. It’s always good when Ace is placed in the role of the action hero and Sophie Aldred does well when she’s required to do this. I think that it was believable how she started off not knowing what the heck she was doing before progressing to having plans. It was also good how the crew found her terminology strange. There were several Star Trek references which seemed quite fitting considering the space opera theme.

I thought that the moment when they stage a coup de tat was a nice moment because it felt like the logical conclusion to this thread of the plot and that is ultimately what I like most about Earth Aid. There were a few plots running through this story and they were built up at a steady pace and never felt rushed or mishandled. I was quite surprised when Raine appeared as I hadn’t paid much attention to the cover and didn’t reach the cast list of the Big Finish page so it was one of those rare moments where I was genuinely shocked. I’m glad that she’s back in as I think the Beth Chalmers is a good actress and the character of Raine is a nice alternative to Ace. There was one bit of plot that didn’t seem to get resolved and that is the impression that there is more to the death of Raine’s father than meets the eye. I don’t know what the plans are for the character but hopefully this will be explained because it has potential to be a big thing.

Earth Aid is a nice story to end this series of Lost Stories. It wasn’t the best but it was certainly a lot of fun to listen to and it hopefully Ben Aaronvitch will right another story for Big Finish in the not too distant future. For a story that seemed to have been born from a simple opening scene it was impressive that they got what they

Animal (2011)

After being disappointed by Crime of the Century I was really hoping that Animal would be a return to form. The lost stories in this portion of the second series are more lost ideas than lost stories that’s splitting hairs. First of all, Animal is a rubbish title. I can’t quite understand why they went for such a bland title. It doesn’t instantly trip off the tongue. This story sees Brigadier Winifred Bambera return to Doctor Who after appearing in Battlefield in 1989. It’s the second story in succession to be written by former Script Editor Andrew Cartmel. I wasn’t aware of this until the interviews section between Episodes 2 and 3 (downside of having the downloads instead of the CD). I was glad that they bought back Bambera because I thought that the character wasn’t given a fair crack in Battlefield as she had to share the title with the late great Nicholas Courtney. This time she gets to shine and also the character has been made more likeable and easier to get on with. Whenever I think of Angela Bruce I instantly think of her role in one of the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Specials. It was odd to hear her laughing and getting on with the Doctor at first but that didn’t last long and I soon accepted this and I have to say that I hope that she returns. With the passing of Nicholas Courtney it would be nice if we had more UNIT stories and Bambera is the next best thing that we will ever get.

Beth Chalmers continues to impress as Raine, she isnt the focus of the story so she falls into the traditional companion role and its business as usual for Ace. Chalmers decides to stay behind at the end of the story after learning her father has died. Bearing in mind that she last saw him in 1989/90 and he would presumably be in his late 60’s/early 70’s it should really be no surprise. However its well handled by Chalmers. Sophie Aldred is on usual fine form and is really seems to be enjoying every scene that she’s in. Especially when she’s pretending to be a Herbivore and getting confused as to who is the Herbivore out of her and Raine and seeing the food she ordered being sent away. Sylvester McCoy is enjoying himself also as he does his usual rolling of his R’s and being generally fab.

Of the supporting cast I found Anthony Lewis to be very interesting as Scobie. He starts off as someone who seems nice but it quickie turns into something not so nice which is kind of obvious but it was done in a good way and played well by Lewis. All the other supporting cast are very strong and the characters have been well written by Cartmel.

There was a link from the previous story but the events of Crime of the Century are never referred to and its basically a standalone story but that’s not a bad thing. The story sees Ace and Raine enrolled into Margrave University in 2001 and they soon they become involved in the events. The alien threat are the Numlocks which I genuinally believe was given that name when Cartmel was looking at his keyboard and saw the world Numlock. I would be amazed if I were wrong. The Numlock start off by appearing to be a liberator but turns out to just want humans that have iron in them to eat. There is a feeling in the latter half of the story that it owes something from Seeds of Death especially with the plant life going pyshoctic.

Animal is a massive improvement on Crime of the Century. The story does have a bit of a weird ending but I think that it’s something that will be resolved in future stories. I think that Animal is a nice little story that manages to have an message about different things without feeling like its forcing them down your throat. Enjoyable.

Crime of the Century (2011)

I have to admit that this stint of the Lost Stories is stretching that term just a little bit. All that seems to have been planned before this story was released was the introduction of the new companion. On the Survival DVD it was mentioned how they invisiged that Raine would be introduced and it was how this story started. Written by former Script Editor Andrew Cartmel, this story directly follows on from Thin Ice with Ricky Groves returning as Markus Creevy. There does seem to be a morale message running through the early part of this story where Markus is talking about the recession of the late 1980’s which mirrors the one that we were in back in 2008. It’s a nice little message about how the rich get richer and don’t lose anything whilst everyone else get poorer and lose everything and how the recession of the late 1980’s in Markus’ mind was ‘The Crime of the Century’. I thought this was a clever was of linking the title to the story.

The story is set some twenty years after Thin Ice. When the story begins we are introduced to Raine who is breaking into a safe which contains the Doctor. We soon learn that the Doctor has hired Raine to steal these things which belong to her dad. Markus Raine has fallen on hard times and the relationship between the two was strained at best. I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed Markus Creevy until he wasn’t in it. Ricky Groves is very good despite not being in it for large portions of the story.

The frosty relationship between Markus and Raine. Raine blames Markus for the affairs that he had and how her mother was treated, what was good was how this didn’t really last for long. I did like the icy relationship between Ace and Raine. The two are similar but different in many ways and their first meeting reminded me of the first meeting between Rose and Sarah Jane in School Reunion. However by the end of the story they seem to be getting on better.

I think the Beth Chalmers is brilliant as Raine. I think that she has got the character spot on and its quite an upper class role but its not too upper class as to be annoying. I also thought that Sophie Aldred does quite well on her own without the Doctor. It’s still quite strange not having Hex around in one of these stories but I think that Aldred is about to be more like she use to be without playing the big sister role in the main range. I thought that this story was the rare example of Sylvester McCoy giving a below par performance. I think however this is more to do with the writing than with McCoy himself.

Years ago I found American accents to be totally unbelievable and I am starting to feel the same for Russian accents. In the 2005 story Singularity, they got proper Russian actors to play the Russian roles. When listening to this story I just found the accents a tad annoying and the more I was listening to this story the more that the accents got to me. According to the director Ken Bentley the actors were chosen to play the Russian soldiers because he knew they could do a Russian accent and granted they can but for reason it still bothers me to an extent that it gets in the way of my enjoyment.

The biggest issue that I have with this release and that is at several points during the story I struggled to understand what exactly was going on. At the end of the second episode I was trying to work out when the story was going to kick in. It is essentially Ace, The Doctor and Raine travel to a country that I have never heard of before to get in a vault to capture this sort of Faberge egg. When they get into this illusive vault they have in the meantime had to deal with some insectoid alien called the Metatraxi who are a nobel if slightly odd creation. When they get into the vault there is a robot guard inside and for some reason the place where it was made seems to be of some interest. Its not normal for the Doctor to be bothered by where a machine was created but on this odd occasion he does.

The Metatraxi might not have been anything special but I did like the comedy that came with their voice box. Initially I found it tiresome but then something changed in my mind and I found it to be thoroughly entertaining. The idea that their voice box switches from serious to some sort of American surfer seems like a totally random idea but it’s a bit of fun and at least it makes sense.

Overall, I have to say that I found this a largely disappointing release. There is something that I do like about this story so its not the worst Lost Story that there has ever been but neither is it the best. I am looking forward to the next story ‘Animal’ which this story did a good job in setting up.

Winter for the Adept (2000)

The second Big Finish story to feature the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa is an improvement on the previous story. This story was written by Andrew Cartmel who was the Script Editor on Doctor Who during the Sylvester McCoy era on the show. I was hoping that Cartmel would do what happened during his time as Script Editor and that is tell a good story with interesting aliens and a Doctor that wasn’t what he appeared to be which for the Fifth Doctor was going to be tricky.

What I did like about this story as well as in Land of the Dead is that the story is set in a isolated place. I really really like this type of story because it means that everyone is trapped and there is no escape (until the end of Part Four). This story has a lot of spooky stuff going on. This story is the first to feature India Fisher who would come back as a full-tme companion Charley Pollard. In this story she played Peri who was a cheeky character that I actually quite liked. Its amazing how similar Peril sounds like Charley. I also thought the character of Miss Tremayne was quite an interesting one and well played by Sally Faulkner. Peter Davison was very good in this story giving a nice strong performance as well as Sarah Sutton who is one of my favourite companions so its always a delight when she stars in a story.

Normally poltergeist themed stories are ones that I dislike because I don’t really believe in all that type of thing however the setting was what made the story. At the end of the day this story is much better than Land of the Dead. The characters were all well written and also gives the Fifth Doctor his best outing so far on audio and it shows why I think that the Fifth Doctor/Nyssa combination is so good.

A very good story.