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Reviews for The Third Doctor Adventures: Volume Four

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Superb, the best set yet!

By:Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom
Date:Saturday 14 April 2018
Rating:   10

The Rise of the New Humans was my first taste of hearing how brilliant Rufus Hound is as the Meddling Monk. I was always of the notion that whilst new actors may be good, they wouldn't capture Peter Butterworth's comical aspect of the character that made him such a success in the role. But I am right to admit that indeed Rufus does deliver. His Monk is incredibly enjoyable as the Monk. He brings to his incarnation a brilliant sense of fun and brilliance that is a fine tribute to Peter. He is superb and I cant wait to hear more from him as the Monk!

Tim Treloar again is superbly impressive as the Third Doctor. Here I think he has done his finest Jon impersonating yet, really one does feel like he could be the dashing third Doctor back with us again! And hes terrifically aided by the stalwart brilliant Katy Manning as Jo. Perhaps maybe an only small sadness is that none of these brilliant Big Finish sets will be able to have the Brigadier or the Roger Delgado Master in them. Its a great shame but the story of the Rise of the New Humans at least mentions them both and that's an awesome respectful note to such great and well loved characters. And The Rise of the New Humans is very fast paced actually, and has some great action and with the Monk, some great great humour indeed.

But it is the Tyrants of Logic that I have to confess is the one story I was really looking forward to hearing! Marc Platt previously brilliantly penned the cyber epics The Silver Turk and Spare Parts, and both are rightfully acclaimed by many, and me also! And yet again for the first time we are treated to a complete third Doctor story with the Mondasians! Even just the cover art of this story is ruddy amazing! And the story itself is even better! It is a brilliant, emotional and very very enjoyable story indeed. I love the fact that it has the return of the head gunned cybermen, loved that idea back in the 70s and love it still now. I love also how Marc really as always makes you truly feel for the characters in his plays. He really gives them an incredible depth of character that not many modern writers can attest to achieving. And he also uses the Cybermen well. And we have a new Cyber Leveller to add to the pantheon of cyber menaces the Doctor has had to square off against!

But the best thing I love about this story is its truly huge ending. It all culminates in frankly one of the best Doctor Who climaxes ever. And its great to see how much Jo Grant's character is used way more intensely than she ever could have been in the classic series. This is perhaps Jo's finest moment as the companion of the Third Doctor. Tim does Jon proud, really impressing as the Third Doctor and giving us fans what we've wanted for a long long time. Id like to think Jon would be proud of Tim's efforts. The Cybermen have long been my favourite villain. And Marc does splendidly at taking us to the heart of all that makes the beasts so monstrous. The Tyrants of Logic is yet another superb Big Finish resounding success indeed. These Third Doctor sets just get better and better with every release. But The Tyrants of Logic will be immensely hard to surpass in my opinion. A classy box set that is heartily recommended indeed!



Best Third Doctor BF Set Yet

By:Matthew Kresal, Owens Cross Roads, United States
Date:Saturday 20 October 2018
Rating:   9

It's been two years now since the first of The Third Doctor Adventures arrived from Big Finish. In that time, the range has gone from strength to strength across three previous sets, recreating early 1970s Doctor Who on audio with Tim Trealor stepping into Jon Pertwee's role. While the range has played it safe to an extent up until now (most notably with the Dalek story in Volume 3), this fourth entry promised to explore new territory by taking this Doctor up against two foes he'd never encountered on TV.

The first is the Meddling Monk who features in the set's opening story The Rise Of The New Humans. Written by Guy Adams, the story sees the Doctor and Jo Grant (played by the ever-delightful Katy Manning) investigating a private hospital connected to two strange deaths brought to UNIT's attention. There they discover enough strangeness to consider the involvement of a certain Time Lord, only to meet another one entirely. Adams uses the first episode to have fun with the cliche of the era's big Time Lord baddie before delving into the story proper which races from plot twist to plot twist, ever increasing the stakes as the consequences of the Monk's meddling spiral out of control. It's also a genuinely fun story with the wonderful chemistry between not just the Doctor and Jo but between the story's two Time Lords, the latter drawing out laughs but ones that never overwhelm the actual plot. It's a Third Doctor story that is at once familiar but refreshingly seemingly new.

Perhaps more enticing for fans is the second story of the set. The Third Doctor somehow never faced the show's second longest running villains the Cybermen on TV, something Big Finish has rectified with The Tyrants Of Logic. Written by Marc Platt (whose other Big Finish credits include the Cybermen classic Spare Parts for Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor), it's a story quite different from anything done with this Doctor on TV or audio to date. Set on a mining planet ravaged by the Cyber-War decades earlier, the Doctor and Jo find themselves among a genuine cast of characters including a literal one-man band and a man hunting down remaining Cyber tech. It's the latter that brings the silver creatures to the planet in search of something that could bring about a new war. Platt takes the idea behind the base under siege format and combines it both with the inherent horror of the Cybermen and with a genre take on the familiar 1970s trope of Nazi relics and potential resurrection. Even more surprising is that he finds something new to do with this Doctor in the process, making this story not only the highlight of the set but perhaps of the entire range to date.

It helps the casting is solid as well. Tim Trealor continues to give excelling performances as the Third Doctor, with this set feeling as if their seeing what he can do more in the role, especially in the Cybermen tale. That same story also gives Katy Manning a chance to shine as well with a beautifully delivered little monologue. While Manning never quite recreates the sound of her 1970s self, there can be no denying the genuine chemistry between the pair that conjures up Pertwee and Manning onscreen more than four decades ago. When you add the likes of Rufus Hound as the Monk or Nicholas Briggs' Cybermen, it makes the entire experience even better.

Big Finish is known for their almost cinematic audio production values and this set is no exception. Jamie Robertson, who has proven himself to be one of Big Finish's most talented composers, has once more created a score that truly evocative of the era on TV. The inclusion of a suite of music from each story will appeal greatly to fans of Doctor Who music. Meanwhile, the sound design nicely brings the varying locations of the stories to life ranging from the English countryside to a ruined mining town under siege by the Cybermen in the future. All of which makes this a solid example of the company's work in these fields.

This fourth volume is another triumph for both the range and Big Finish. From bringing this Doctor with two foes he never encountered on TV to fine stories and solid production values, it shows off Big Finish at their best. Indeed, it might well be the best release in the range to date and a go-to place for fans of this Doctor's era looking to experience Big Finish for the first time.



Still Dedicated to Doctor 3 Style

By:David Layton, Los Angeles, United States
Date:Monday 27 January 2020
Rating:   8

The fourth of the Third Doctor Adventures box set takes a slightly new turn for this series in that it features two stories that fans would have liked to have seen but did not get the chance. It still follows the format of delivering stories that would easily have fit in the Pertwee era. It also follows the pattern in these new adventures of having one Earth-based and one space-based story. We start with the Earth-based story, "The Rise of the New Humans." It has The Doc and Jo investigating some strange occurrences with unusual deaths, and takes them to a private hospital in the country where experiments on creating superhumans are underway. We meet an old enemy, but not the one we are expecting. "The Tyrants of Logic" takes place on the dying planet of Burnt Salt (which presumably would have been filmed in a quarry), where the Cybermen, having lost their war with the Earth empire, have hatched a desperate plan to renew their numbers. As with the earlier Third Doctor Adventures, what makes this work is Tim Treloar's uncanny impersonation of Jon Pertwee and the great rapport he has with Katy Manning. I like the pacing of these stories, there is time for some character development and genuine dialogue, which is too often lost in the more frantically paced Big Finish productions for other Doctors and the new Who series.



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