The Brood of Erys (2014)

The middle story of the series is one that struggles to compare to the opening story for whatever reasons. The opening story was a very good adventure which saw the return of Sil so I wasn’t surprised when that had the effect that it did on me. It would be interesting whether this story would have the same effect. There was a interesting opening couple of minutes. There was a moment which I thought wasn’t particularly good for Flip and that’s when she wants to let the Drachee inside the TARDIS. It didn’t seem like a bright thing to do and it just seemed to be an irritating moment and would have been the sort of thing that Peri would have done. Thankfully this was a brief moment and Flip went back to her own self. The opening scene where the Drachee are approaching the TARDIS is a great way of introducing the character. I thought that the Drachee were a wonderfully realised creation and think that they were the minions from Dispicable Me of this story but probably wouldn’t have looked as funny as they do.

Colin Baker puts in a great performance and is able to do this due to the story. Baker can always be relied up to throw himself in the story and he definetly does this. The double act of the Doctor and Flip is a refreshing one and one that Andrew Smith uses brilliantly. Lisa Greenwood also puts in a good performance and apart from the minor blip at the beginning of episode one, Flip continues to be a breathe of fresh air and there are several moments in this story that show why Flip is one of the best companions that Big Finish have. All the supporting cast members did well and the characters that they played were fun.

I love the idea of a living moon. It just seems like a totally wonderful idea and used to utter perfection in this story. The moment that the word avatar was mentioned I’m afraid my mind started to think about the James Cameron movie. Even if it wasn’t intended I’m afraid that that’s what happened.
The final scene where the Doctor tries to justify his decision to leave Susan on Earth in ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ was a surprising scene but I thought that it was a lovely little scene. It ends with the Doctor thinking about Peri and I liked this bit because it seemed like the Doctor was thinking about an ex whilst his current partner was standing right in front of him. I thought that Flip reacted quite well as I would probably have reacted differently had it been me there.

I wont pretend to say that I understood everything that went on in this story but what I can say is that I enjoyed this story. I think that the final episode is where things started to get bit out of hand and harder to understand. It might not have had Sil but what it did have was a great story and several great moments. The best thing that I could say about this story is that I would love to see how they would make this work on TV. A middle series story that works on it own merits.

Vengeance of the Stones (2013)

The third part of this series moves to the Jon Pertwee era and a story told by Richard Franklin. My interest peaked when I heard Franklin was going to be in this story after enjoying ‘The Rings of Ikiria’ last year. The story starts off with an RAF plane vanishing which causes UNIT to become involved and Mike Yates who at the beginning of the story is a local military officer.  The story sees the revelation that the aliens are actually researchers and have been here for years and have used the stones as a S.O.S which unfortunately for them won’t help them. The idea of using stones in the story might remind you of the Stones of Blood but thankfully they aren’t actually as dangerous as that but they are intriguing. There are moments which comfort you into believing that this is a third Doctor story such as the Doctor willing to take a plane and fly it along the path that the original plane took was a nice touch.

At just under seventy minutes long its 10 minutes longer than Shadow of Death and yet the pacing is steady (and better than Shadow of Death) but it doesn’t feel like it gets rushed. The ending is done well and doesn’t feel like its rushed or convoluted. The story arc briefly rears its head quite late into the story buts it’s a nice reminder and also breather from the main story. It’s not really clear what the overall story arc actually is but it was a nice moment in the story and I thought that Franklin’s impression of Matt Smith was very funny indeed. Richard Franklin gives another wonderful performance and it’s due entirely to his deliverance. He has a smooth way of performing and it’s very similar in style to William Russell. The Mike we get here is an early Mike but still a heroic one and he gets his reward at the end which was very satisfying.

I really enjoyed this adventure as it did three things in one story. It told an entertaining story, continued the story arc and also helped tell a bit more about Mike Yates back story. Not quite sure whether it tops Hunters of Earth but what I am sure about is that it’s a highly enjoyable and manages to envoke the era that it is meant to be from and that’s always a good thing. I am really enjoying these stories as I feel that they manage to celebrate each era in Doctor Who’s 50^th year.

The First Sontaran (2012)

The First Sontaran is the third and final Sixth Doctor story in this current series of Lost Stories. We have had the return of the Melkur, the return of Victoria Waterfield and in this story we get the return of the Sontaran’s and also the return of the Rutans. The Sontarans last appeared in HEROES OF SONTAR in 2010 and the Rutans in CASTLE OF FEAR in 2009. This is the first encounter between the Rutans and Sontarans ever. It’s an encounter that I have personally be looking forward to for years and was hoping that it would take away the disappointment of the Daleks/Cybermen battle in DOOMSDAY in 2006. According to the interviews at the end of the story this was replaced with THE TWO DOCTORS. The story starts off with an interesting scene which a very dark scene which then moves into a nice little scene with the Doctor and Peri on the moon. I liked it because it captured the tentative relationship between the Doctor and Peri. We got an unexpected reference to THE CHASE and more specifically the Mary Celeste section of that story. I always love it when there are references that just turn up out of the blue.

Despite knowing that the Sontarans are going to appear its near the end of the episode before we meet our first Sontaran. It’s a nice way to end the first episode, it’s the end of second episode before we get our first Rutan so the story takes its time and is able to do this because of right sort of characters and a story that is very interesting. I wasn’t as wild about the episode three cliffhanger as I thought that it didn’t have the killer punch that I thought it should have had, it wasn’t terrible but the weakest out of the three. I thought there was a nice bit of humour in the story, my favourite line was when they were describing the Doctor’s outfit and we get the line “like every headache I’ve ever had”. It’s the best way that anyone has ever described the Doctor’s unique outfit.

The First Sontaran is effectively the Genesis of the Daleks/Spare Parts for the Sontarans and gives us something else we haven’t had before and that’s a bit of back story to the Sontarans. The Kafeech are the original in habitants of Sontar and it was Meredith Roth who created the Sontarans before they turned on him and forced him to flee to Earth. Not only is it a nice bit of backstory but it’s a nice lead into this story. It makes the Sontarans look a bit more than just a bunch of war hungry people. Another thing that helps give them weight is when its revealed there is a hatchery that has 600,000 Sontarans which is a wonderful idea of that many Sontarans which you just know that they wouldn’t have had that many on TV in 1985. 6 maybe but not 600,000.

Only issue I have with this story is that they did the whole ‘companion is killed’ thing. I just don’t buy it and don’t know why they persist in doing it. It happened in THE EMERALD TIGER and I just think that it detracts from the story and we have about 10-15 minutes of the Doctor thinking he has lost someone he cares about. Thankfully it’s pretty brief and Peri’s return is actually quite surprising but I still wish that they wouldn’t do it. Apart from that I really liked The First Sontaran. I had high expectations and they were met. Out of the two Sontaran stories that we have had this is definelty the stronger of the two. I felt that whilst HEROES OF SONTAR was a enjoyable story it was in many respects a light hearted story whereas this was a more traditional Sontaran story.

Highly enjoyable.

Full Circle (1980)

Full Circle is the third story of Tom Baker’s final season but more importantly it’s the first story of the E-Space trilogy. Three adventures taking place in E-Space which have negative co-ordinates but visually the only difference is that it’s slightly green. After the horrors of Meglos and the disappointing feeling I got watching The Leisure Hive, this is the first story of the 1980/81 series that felt like proper Doctor Who. Written by Andrew Smith (The Invasion of E-Space), this story sees the Doctor and Romana arrive on Alzarius where there is a Starliner that is going back to Terradon however things aren’t always that simple (when are they ever!) and the colonists are being bothered by Marshmen. I liked the idea that people are replacing parts of the Starliner that are perfectly fine and they could have taken off centuries ago but the deciders don’t know how to pilot the Starliner. The best part is that the Starliner hasn’t been of Terradon for 40 generations but more like 40,000 generations. Essentially the Marshmen and the colonists are the same.

The problem with this story is Adric. I really can’t stand him and he has to go in my top two worst companions (tied with Dodo). In the first episode he faints in the TARDIS and his actions lead to the death of a decider. Matthew Waterhouse wasn’t quite right for the role and I think that had another actor being cast then we would think quite differently of Adric. There is a scene where he twists Keara’s arm and is suppose to act aggressive but just fails. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward put in fine performances and there isn’t a much of Baker’s comedy in this despite a disparaging line about the Marshmen when Baker say “I usually get on so well with Children”. Apart from that he’s on good form.

Despite being Deciders, they aren’t very good at deciding. They put a lot of faith in the manuals, thinking that they are helping them but in fact they are hindering them. The line that the Starliner had been there for 40,000 generations helps makes the fact that no one knows how to pilot the Starliner believable. Alan Rowe and George Baker are two very good actors and are very good in this. The great thing about the deciders which these two show is that despite being in a position of relative power, they don’t abuse it like you would expect in any other story. Alan Rowe previously appeared in Horror of Fang Rock as well as The Time Warrior and has a fantastic on-screen presence. The Outlers are quite good even with the inclusion of Adric. I thought that despite them being fairly rubbish in trying to steal some melons they were still entertaining and were suitable opposite the deciders.

Full Circle is a good start to the E-Space Trilogy. I think that as a stand alone story it’s got some interesting characters and the Marshmen are very well realised. Peter Grimwade does a good job directing and is by far a better director than writer. All the location work is minimal but is still very good. As part of the trilogy it’s better than Warriors Gate but not as good as State of Decay (only just).

The Invasion of E-Space (2010)

The latest Companion Chronicle sees us return to E-Space which was featured in three stories during Tom Baker’s last season as the Doctor. One of those stories, Full Circle was written by Andrew Smith who was possibly the first fan to write for the series. 30 years later, Smith was asked by Big Finish to write another Doctor Who story in the E-Space universe. With Big Finish plundering the lesser known aspects of Doctor Who history, it was only a matter of time before they used the E-Space.

This was the third Romana story after The Beautiful People (2007) and The Pyralis Effect (2009) and this was the one that I felt nailed the character down the best. There was a sense of the pompousness that the character had on TV. The story is quite simple which is a relief because after the opening few minutes I did wonder whether we were going to get a very bizarre adventure. There was the talk about CVE (CHARGED Vacuum Emboitment) and a nice reference to the Zero Room which only got one mention in Castrovalva (1982). The story is set a few months after Full Circle and gives the listener a rough guide as to how much time has passed during the E-Space Trilogy. The story sees the Doctor, Romana and Adric (no mention of K9) arrive on a planet just when there is an invasion on the planet. The Farrian are after a rare mineral/thing that can only be found in E-Space. It’s your basic, straight forward story of an invasion and the Doctor and Romana doing their best to stop them. For a brief moment after the Farrian were mentioned, I thought I missed an adventure because the way that Ward was talking about them I thought maybe I should have known they were in a previous adventure. The story was very well balanced. There was a fair amount of sci-fi terms but that was mixed with normal dialogue. “Adric had been shot!”. There was a small cheer from me in my car when I heard that. Sadly it was only in his leg and at the rate that Alzarians heal he was back to his whiny best before long. Even though Matthew Waterhouse wasn’t playing the role I found the character irritating.

Lalla Ward’s performance in this story is very good. I think that out of the three she has done, this has to be the best. The dialogue was spot on for her and she delivered it well. It was interesting that she doesn’t seem to remember how many of these she has done. It’s probably not something she keeps a note of but for someone like me I knew exactly how many she had done. I was particularly impressed with Suanne Braun who played Marni Tellis. The character went on a very big adventure being stuck with the Doctor in the TARDIS. Braun gave the character a rough edge but still made her likeable. Even though they didn’t meet until the very last moment, their stories mixed well together and held the same sort of tone and interest.

The Invasion of E-Space is another fine Companion Chronicle release. It had everything that I would want from a Big Finish play. It was good to go back to the E-Space because I thought that it had more potential that was seen on TV. I think it was a gamble asking Smith to write a story because he hadn’t written a four part adventure since 1980 but credit to him, he did a solid job. After a mixed series it’s nice that The Invasion of E-Space shows a return to form. Good writing, Good acting and good directing helped make this the second best release from this series so far. Good Stuff