The Blue Tooth (2007)

The Blue Tooth sees Liz Shaw tell us of an adventure with the Third Doctor that we don’t yet know. This is a story that I was looking forward to because it was Liz Shaw and I thought that her time in the show was far too short. She only ‘travelled’ with the Doctor for one series in 1970. Also she never met either the Daleks or Cybermen so in this story she gets to cross one of them off her list. There is also the matter of the fact that the Doctor never met the Cybermen on TV. This story isn’t the first to have Caroline John in it. She previously appeared in the 2001 adventure Dust Breeding as Madame Salvadori. In that she wasn’t recognisable as Liz Shaw but knowing that she was in the story all I could think of when I heard her speak was that it was the Doctors companion acting not Madam Salvadori.

The story doesn’t insult the listener by pretending that this is Liz Shaw circa 1970 but sometime afterwards. She sounds older and we get to hear of a different side of her than we knew on TV. The story is quite focused on Liz’s friend Jean who has disappeared and this leads for The Doctor and the Brigadier. Its interesting when Liz Shaw states that she didn’t like Jean to begin with when they met at Cambridge in the 1960’s as she found her irritating.

There are some lovely moments in this story such as The Brigadier and the Doctor clashing over the electricity bill that the Brigadier has had which is very high due to the Doctor’s experiments with the TARDIS. The Doctor storms off as he is getting frustrated with the Brigadier’s military mind not understanding what the Doctor is trying to do.

It could be argued that this story is her final adventure before she leaves UNIT and the 1971 series begins with Jo Grant replacing Liz Shaw as the companion. This is given some proof with Liz Shaw stating at the beginning when she first decided to leave UNIT. It was always a matter of time before she left as she was dragged in by the Brigadier in Spearhead From Space.

Caroline John puts in a good performance as Liz Shaw. Even though she is older she still retains some of the elements of Liz Shaw that we have all seen on DVD and VHS. We only got 4 stories of her and so its nice that she gets one more as I thought that the character of Liz Shaw was a strong one because she didn’t scream and was actually on the Doctor’s level in terms of intellegance. Nicholas Briggs makes his second appearance in these stories as the voice of the Cybermen. Briggs again puts in a good performance and makes the Cybermen sound truly menacing.

Nigel Fairs has written a very good story. This is perhaps the strongest one so far and uses the Cybermen much better than Patrick Chapman used the Daleks in Fear of the Daleks. Mark J Thompson directs his best story so far in this series. He keeps the pace going at a nice steady pace and doesn’t rush the ending. He keeps the feeling eerie and uses the most common phobia of dentists and uses that to its full potential.

The Blue Tooth is the best one in the series and hopefully with one more release to listen to I might be saying the second best story of the series. However I feel that there is nothing that can upstage this story as with Caroline John putting in a superb performance and the Cybermen anything better seems unlikely.

Fear of the Daleks (2007)

Fear of the Daleks is the second story from the first series of Companion Chronicles sees an iconic enemy inserted into the story. The Daleks are talked about by Zoe Heriot who had travelled with the Second Doctor between 1968 and 1969. This story was written by Patrick Chapman who as far as I am aware is making his first contribution to the series. There are two questions that are raised instantly about this story. The first being How can Zoe remember an adventure with the Daleks when (on tv at least) she never encountered them? Secondly, The Timelords wiped her mind of all adventures she had after The Wheel in Space so how could she remember any adventures she had with the Doctor and Jamie? Thankfully both these questions are answered.

Zoe remembers leaving Jamie and the Doctor in The Wheel in Space. However in her dreams she remembers stowing away on the TARDIS and the Doctor trying to tell how of the dangers they encounter similar to the sequence of events at the end of that story. The story is set on Lavonia which is a city built inside a protective dome on an asteroid. I think that this is quite a good setting as most people don’t think of people living on such a unknown thing as an asteroid. Zoe is fascinated with the different alien life forms presumably because she hasn’t encountered any in her time on the wheel. The use of the Daleks in this story isn’t the best. There just wasn’t any sense of any menace and ultimately I think that the Daleks are wasted. Cliffhangers are something that I think will get better as this series continues. The cliffhanger in this story was quite good considering. The Daleks circle the Doctor and prepare to exterminate him. Even though there is only about 45 seconds before the action is resumed there is a brief sense that you try and figure out what is going to happen to the Doctor. The ending was quite well done with the Zoe hearing the Doctor’s voice and telling her that the Daleks really have met their end. Zoe stops having the nightmare but has the feeling that the Doctor may be wrong about the Daleks.

Wendy Padbury puts in good performance as Zoe. I always like this character because she wasn’t like a normal female companion and by that I mean wasn’t screaming every 3 minutes and getting into danger. She was smart and also wasn’t annoying. The combination of her, Jamie and the Second Doctor was perhaps the second best of the 1960’s. Nicholas Briggs does another good job as the voice of the Daleks but then again that’s not exactly revelation of the year is it? It’s good that there is at least a minimum of threat from the Daleks and Briggs is able to bring a real sense of

The main problem with this story is that at the end of the release I had a feeling that nothing really happened and that the plot just casually went along filling up the 60 minutes or so. Sure there were some entertaining moments such as the cliffhanger but I don’t think that it was perhaps as good as it could have been. That said it was structured a bit better than Frostfire and its worth a listen as it has the Daleks in it.

Stealers from Saiph (2009)

The Stealers from Saiph is the final stories from this extended series and like The Mahogany Murderers before this story has something that is a first in this range. This is the first story to just feature one actor throughout this story. Mary Tamm returns to the role of Romana after playing her during the Key to Time series in 1978 and 1979. She returned in the Gallifrey series but as she puts it in the CD Extras segment it’s the first time she’s played the original Romana for 30 years. I liked Mary Tamm’s version of Romana because there was something stylish and likeable about her despite the way she thought she was better than the Doctor and perhaps people that they encountered. This story also is the first story from Nigel Robinson. Robinson previously wrote for the Target Novelisation’s, writing up The Sensorites (1987), The Time Meddler (1988), The Underwater Menace (1988) & The Edge of Destruction (1988).

The setting is quite a good one because it wasn’t one that had been done before. It also something that suited the first Romana’s character. The story sees a Parasite that has crash landed on Earth and is using the inhabitants to get their ship back up to full strength and use the Mediterranean. The plot does have a slight comparison to The Time Warrior where Linx uses scientists to help repair the damage to his ship. Having said that I did quite like the story and thought that there was something about it that I quite enjoyed. There was the impression that all this takes place over a wide area which is something that gives it a sense of scale and a greater sense of the danger that faces the people of that area.

My only complaint about this story was that it did take quite a long time for story to get going but once it did I found myself enjoying it. Mary Tamm did a good job doing the different accents and did well distinguishing her character from the Doctor’s. It would also have been nice if they did a special voice for the parasite to try and make it sound more dangerous and menacing. What we got was just Mary Tamm talking in a slightly sinister voice but ultimately they did nothing to make it sound alien.

Nigel Robinson has written what was in reality quite a simple story. It was a brave attempt to rely on just one person to do other voices as with another actor the main star has someone to act against and I think it was a test to Tamm’s acting to see whether she could pull it off. As it were she does but it still would have been nicer to have another voice to go along with. Lisa Bowerman did a good job as director, she didn’t rush the story along and allowed it to simmer and once it got up to speed she kept it at the race pace and it never felt rushed. It got to the stage where I kept thinking “Oh theres more”. A lot gets done in this release.

Overall this is an enjoyable story. Its not one of the best from this series but considering some of the gems that there have been like Home Truths, The Mahogany Murderers & The Transit of Venus, I don’t think that The Stealers from Saiph is a bad release. Certainly one that should be listened to just to hear Mary Tamm. Hopefully she will do another one quite soon because I would like to hear more from the first Romana.

The Beautiful People (2007)

The Beautiful People is the final story of what has been a very interesting series. This story sees the second incarnation of Romana played by Lalla Ward. Ward appeared in the show in The Armageddon Factor at the end of the 1978/79 series playing Princess Astra. She would play Romana proper in Destiny of the Daleks and would stay until Warriors Gaet in Tom Baker’s final season in 1980. I liked the second incarnation of Romana because unlike Mary Tamm’s version, this Romana wasn’t snobbish and didn’t think that she was smarter and better than the Doctor and everyone else. Of course she knew she was smart but Ward’s Romana didn’t ram it down anyone’s throat.

The thing that strikes me about this story is that it seems to be have devised by the thin brigade who laugh at anyone who is fat and mocks them for their unwillingness to do any exercise. Its not quite as serious as the previous stories in the series and shows that it isn’t taking itself too seriously. From the opening line where the Doctor is disgruntled at the lack of Doughnuts around we know that this is a story that would be ideal for the 4th Doctor. The Cliffhanger is a good one in this story. The music and Karna help create a little bit of action and the cliffhanger is quite good considering how difficult they can be in these sorts of stories.

Lalla Ward is very good in this story. She doesn’t sound that much older than when she was in the show but she still sounds like Romana and that is what is most important about these Companion Chronicles. Whilst Ward may not do a good job in impersonating Tom Baker she does do a good job doing a voice for the character of Sebella Bing. Just that voice alone creates an atmosphere of a sort of Health Spa. Ward tells the story in a entertaining way and always puts in a pleasing performance throughout. The only other star of this story was Marcia Ashton who plays Karna. She has some really good speeches and makes the character worthy of being in the story. I think that it’s a good thing that Karna was so unlikeable because that gave Ward the chance to play Romana as someone who had an enemy to battle against.

Jonathan Morris has written a good story and a fitting end to the series. There is a good base for a story along with some interesting characters. He has managed to set the stall of this story out quite quickly. He doesn’t make the listener try and wonder what type of story that we are going to get. Mark J Thompson has done another good job with this story. It was going to be difficult to do a story that was as good as The Blue Tooth but to be fair to him over the last four releases he has had to deal with different types of stories and has managed to deal with them some success.

Overall this is an enjoyable release which isn’t the best of the series but is still an enjoyable one that has a good cast and an interesting story setting. Well worth a listen.

The Great Space Elevator (2008)

The Great Space Elevator is the second offering from the third series of Companion Chronicles, this newly extended series from four to twelve. The previous Second Doctor stories have been a mixed bag. Fear of the Daleks from the first series and featured Zoe was a mess with not much to take from it. Whereas Helicon Prime from the second series was my favourite story of that series. This story sees Victoria return to the series, she was played by Debroah Watling from 1967 to 1968. She was a very interesting character in that she was from a time in history when time travel wasn’t as known about as it is today and so taking someone from a primitive time and thrusting them into a more modern age. It’s happened in Big Finish who with Erimem but Victoria was 40 years before.

The story sees the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria land in Sumatra. They are captured by guards and find themselves an elevator up to the space station above them. When they get there they find themselves confronted by an alien force wanting to create chaos on Earth.

As a story its very enjoyable because it feels like a Second Doctor adventure. For most fans they will have enjoyed (or not) the Second Doctor stories on audio due to the fact that the majority of his stories have been wiped, so this story just blends in well with them. My main issue with this story is the alien itself. It just doesn’t have a menacing threat that we come to expect, you would think that an alien force would not go through all the palaver of using the space station when it clearly has the power to just wiped humanity off the face of the Earth.

Considering it’s been so long since she played the role its amazing to see how easily Watling took to bringing back the character. The actress and the character have obviously aged and that shows because the character was certainly not as annoying with her screaming and irritating as she was on TV. Helen Goldwyn is the only other actor in this story as Tara Kerley. She is a very good character and contributes a nice sense of what is going on. Goldwyn has been in other Big Finish stories but this is her first in the Companion Chronicles range. The character of Kerley had the feeling of being this brutish nasty woman but then slowly mellows and by the end of the story she becomes a nicer character.

Cliffhangers are a difficult thing to try and get right, it is important the companion pitches it just right because no matter what the writer does if there is a poor delivery then the cliffhanger is just flat and meaningless. The cliffhanger in this story wasn’t brilliant but wasn’t poor either. It involved Victoria (obviously) who got pushed into a corridor and then the lights went out and moments later there is a crackling noise and Victoria feels her skin starting to tingle and it was in the room with her. Again not bad but not brilliant. The music and sound effects are also worthy of a mention. David Darlington has done very well in creating a scenario that at times feels eerie.

This is a minor issue because what we are left with is a story that makes us for the average previous story Here There Be Monsters. The Great Space Elevator shows what is needed to make a very good story. I have nothing further to say about this story other than it finally feels like this series has got started.

Exotron (2007)

Exotron is the first story for the fifth Doctor to get the three plus one treatment. Following on from I.D this story is much more enjoyable and seems to fit this format better. This story has been written by Paul Sutton who has a good track record, his previous works include Thicker Than Water and Arrangement for War. This story is essentially about a colony with some big robots and totally out of left field, a love story. This is also the first Fifth Doctor and Peri story (without Erimem) since Red Dawn. It makes a change to not have Erimem in the story but that’s not to say I want it to be a permanent thing. The single best thing that stood out for me was the revelation as to where all the exotrons have come from. We soon learn that they are actually humans that are keeping their lives going but not as was intended. I found this a totally bizarre plot point but somehow it doesn’t seem silly.

Peter Davison is very good in this story. In fact I would go so far to say that its his best story for quite sometime. He seems to enjoy himself as he winds up Taylor. He also has a natural friendship with Nicola Bryant which shines through. To be honest it would probably be better for Davison’s Doctor that he does have more stories with Peri on her own because it would freshen things up and we would get a different performance from Davison. Nicola Bryant is also very good as Peri. She sounds exactly the same as she did back on TV. She does seem to have lost a bit of her whiney nature but it is still essentially Peri.

John Duttine is just one of the big names in this story, having appeared in the Day of the Triffids he plays Hector in this story. He is very good in this because he plays the typical leader but ultimately has a weak side and Duttine revels in the role. Isla Blair plays his ex-wife Paula who starts off disliking her former husband for perfectly rational reason slowly starts to fall for him again and this was quite a sweet thing. Blair plays the role really well and was a joy to listen to. Nick Brimble plays Shreeni. Brimble has recently been in Emmerdale but perhaps is best known for appearing in the House of Cards series. Shreeni like all the other characters is a well written and nice character. Other people worthy of mention include Richard Earl as Corporal Mozz and Claire Wyatt as Weiss.

The single part story sees three people from the Gallifreyan Celestial Intervention Agency plotting the death of the Doctor. They reminisce on the circumstances of their encounter with the Doctor and each version is different to the other. It was more of a comedy than in Exotron which was nice. It was strange to see a different side to Peri and the Doctor. As the listener we know that what the Doctor is being accused of isn’t true so we are able to enjoy it for what it is.

Steven Wickham, who has appeared in several Big Finish plays in the past is playing the CIA officer called Harom with Douglas Hodge as Edge and Nicola Lloyd as Kettoo. Also there is Barry McCarthy as Palgrave and Clare Calbraith who appears as Trooper.

Paul Sutton has written a really nice sold play. I had my doubts following Urgent Calls but this has restored my faith (almost). I do think that this is his best work to date but obviously there may be other people who disagree with that. Barnaby Edwards has done a good job with this story and been able to work on the problems that showed up in I.D. Edwards hasn’t directed a story since Doctor Who and the Pirates back in 2003. The gap didn’t really show as he managed to keep the pace going and the interest at top level throughout.

As a release I think that both stories are really really good. Exotron has a nice plot with some well written characters and it goes along at a nice pace which is helped with the three part format. Urban Myths is a superb story which manages to work within the restrictions of 25 minutes. I didn’t like Urgent Calls and still think that 25 minutes isn’t long enough to tell a really good story but Urban Myths I think will be the exception rather than the rule.

Valhalla (2007)

Valhalla is a story which sees the Seventh Doctor on his own. Companionless stories are more interesting because we know that the majority of this story will be led by McCoy. There hasn’t been any since the series of Davros, Master & Omega adventures back in 2003. We also know that with this story being written by Marc Platt will not be a simple straight forward story. Platt has a very good track record for writing a story that could never be classed as bland. In the past, Platt has written Spare Parts which many fans regard as the best story that Big Finish ever and also he wrote Loups Garoux, and also the first story in the Companion Chronicles series. He also wrote Ghostlight which is really weird story that even 15 years after I first say it I still don’t understand it. Anyway that’s all irrelevant as I sat down to listen to this story.

There were some things that I liked about this story. The dark tone of this story was quite a breath of fresh air, there was a dark tone to it throughout and at times there were moments of tension. The story sees a slightly different Doctor to the one that we have grown to know. There is a sense that he is heading towards the end of his time and there are several moments where he feels like he is trying to save himself and not just the people around him. I quite liked the idea that the Doctor wants to open a hotel. It just doesn’t seem him somehow.

Sylvester McCoy puts in a very good performance in this story. He seems content with his loneliness and is considering settling down. This gives McCoy a chance to play a different side to his Doctor that he has now been playing for 20 years. I particularly enjoyed the scenes that he did in the job centre. Michelle Gomez is the one off companion in this story. She plays Jevan and to be honest she doesn’t really shine in the role for me. I know that there isn’t much point in establishing a character in a companion like role but for me without Ace or Hex it was important to have someone that you could feel would stay with the Doctor if asked. There were some moments where she has to do some serious acting and then moments where she has lighter scenes. She performed these scenes well. Susannah York plays the Termite Queen. She seems to go for it and that was what made the role seem well played. She was believable in being this larger than life leader. As a menace she was just right and considering the atmosphere and the setting of this story it was a performance that was spot on. There were a lot of other characters that were in this story played by many different actors. Too many to mention but they all played their part. Perhaps that is a problem that I have, if there were just four or five (apart from the Doctor) then things would have been better but there were 16 characters which is just too many.

This isn’t Marc Platt’s finest script. Characters are there and so is the setting but somehow it just doesn’t gel for me. I have to be honest and say that he isn’t one of my favourite writers but I do admire him for his attempt at doing something different. John Ainsworth unfortunately didn’t quite get it right on this occasion. I think he’s a good director but what let this story down was that it didn’t gel and some of that would fall into the director’s chair. The setting was well created the music were something that I have high praise for. Simon Robinson (Music) and Steve Foxon (Sound Design) did a great job. After I finished listening to this story I felt a little disappointed. There wasn’t really anything that stood out for me and it all felt a bit flat and just not worth the time. It wasn’t that it was bad but just normal. With this being the first companionless story for the Seventh Doctor since Master back in 2003, this really should have been better.