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 | Reviews for The Memory Bank |
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There are 2 reviews so far. To add a review of your own for this item, visit the voting page.
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| A very very enjoyable selection of tales |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 April 2019 |
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| Rating: |  10 |
What I like about these selection of half hour stories for Big Finish is they seem very in the vein of Tales of the Unexpected. In that they are totally random and different and yet all display equally brilliant sections of what it is that makes Doctor Who so great. Peter Davison and Mark Strickson are a brilliant pairing, and I for one wish Mark didn't have such an eclectic schedule so that he could do a few more audios!
This selection are all very very good indeed. These are on a par with Forty Five and Circular Time. They all have markedly different tones, but are all amazingly quick and easy to follow and superbly written. They are tension packed snippets that somehow don't even particularly suffer in the characterisation department. These characters in these tales are surprisingly very well rounded, and none feel superfluous to the story.
The Memory Bank is perhaps maybe the least gripping of the lot, but it is still a very strong story indeed. Its great to see a little of Turlough's past crop up again even if its this time not a huge snippet. But the story never bores and is suitably cool.
The Storyteller is yet another little Paul Magrs marvel. He always paints the best characters ever in his stories. They are always so larger than life and some of the dialogue is very whimsical and amusing indeed. This joins all his wonderful successes for Big Finish.
Repeat Offender seems like its over in a flash. It is a strikingly strong little episode and the performance of Peter Davison in this story is particularly brilliant. There is some strong tension in this story. Its actually its a bit of a shame its so short, this could have been expanded so easily. But as a snippet its really very impressive.
The final story is very very fine indeed. Its a very very small cast, but its extremely thought provoking and intelligent. The sound scape is as usual of the epic Big Finish sound design and production. And I really enjoy Helen Goldwyn's direction. I am so glad to see more female directors emerging for Big Finish recently. This selection gets a full recommendation from me. Big Finish always deliver in the entertainment department. And The Memory Bank and Other Stories is certainly no exception at all!
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 15 December 2025 |
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| Rating: |  7 |
This set is an anthology of four individual short episodes featuring Doctor 5 and Turlough. The thread tying them together is the theme of memory. In the first story, they arrive in a society where if a person is not remembered, then that person disappears. The next story is The Last Fairytale, taking place in a late medieval setting where everyone is awaiting The Storyteller, but no one knows exactly who that is. What they do know is that all the kinds of people cast as villains are sick and tired of it and want to capture The Storyteller to force him to make them the goodies. The third of the stories is Repeat Offender. This is the playing with time story involving a locked room mystery. The last, and weakest of the stories, is The Becoming, about the rituals of a people who rely upon race memory to continue their existence, and whose evolution has created rites of passage that create metamorphosis. Because these are short, the stories have small casts, one or two guest actors only, and lean very heavily on dialogue rather than action. All have the problem that the concept is too big for the container, which leads to some rushing through details and endings, and quite a bit of exposition.
