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 | Excellent "What If" Story |
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Back in 2003, Big Finish Productions got an idea for a way to celebrate forty years of Doctor Who. The idea was to do a series of "what if" stories. These stories would be so outside the normal universe of stories that the only way to described would be Doctor Who Unbound. This story is the second story of the Doctor Who Unbound series and its "what if" is "what if the third Doctor hadn't been science advisor to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT)?"
The story opens in 1997, the night before the UK is to hand over Hong Kong to China. A blue police box suddenly appears and a man pops out of it. And he soon realizes he's in the wrong place - or rather the wrong time. His name: the Doctor. Soon he finds an old ally now discredited after years of disasters and alien invasions. His name: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. Their reunion is interrupted by the crashing of a highly advanced Chinese stealth plane. As UNIT attempts to recover the plane and its passenger, the Doctor soon realizes he is facing an old enemy with evil plans of his own.
David Warner plays an alternate third Doctor (replacing the late Jon Pertwee). Warner's Doctor is terrific, even though the Doctor is in a daze for most of the story due to his regeneration. Nicholas Courtney (reprising his role of the Brigadier from the TV series) gets a chance to play a very different version of the Brigadier. This Brigadier is a man who has been let down and feels like he has failed in life, but it only takes a bit of prompting from the Doctor to convince him otherwise. Warner and Courtney have excellent chemistry and it's not surprising that the two have gotten another story together in the new Unbound story Masters Of War.
The story's villain is all too instantly recognizable, scheming and killing here, threatening and cowering there, and generally causing as much damage and disaster as possible. Having said that, I'll let you the listener figure out who the villain is. Needless to say who'll figure it out very quickly (at least I did).
The supporting characters fare very well too, with a highlight being Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood. Brimmicombe-Wood is a fantastic foil for the Brigadier as he, for example, shows no respect to the inhabitants of the Monastery, he is largely insensitive towards the way events have affected civilians, and he really cements the listener's dislike by referring to the Brigadier simply as "Lethbridge". As an interesting note on the actor who plays the Colonel, does the name David Tennant mean anything to you?
The story is terrific, taking many elements from the Pertwee/UNIT era stories. These include a list of UNIT"s failures under the Brigadier (The Auton invasions of Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons were dealt with by the "plastic purges", which caused a shortage; Captain Mike Yates took a UNIT team back into the past with several nuclear warheads to prevent the Silurians from awakening, and half of present-day London suddenly became a crater; the "Probe 7 fiasco" lead to a line of radioactive craters across America; lives were lost whenever UNIT provided security at a peace conference) and the main part of the story centers around a very strong plot element from The Mind of Evil. The ending is interesting and leaves the door open to the sequel story, Masters Of War.
Overall then, Sympathy For The Devil is a very strong story for Big Finish, and a great contribution to the Unbound range. The script sparkles and shows just how much flexibility there is with the format of basing a script around a question. In many ways, the question is more "What if the Doctor was too late?" than "What if the Doctor had never been UNIT's scientific advisor?" but both are covered very well. In short, this is a fine example of Big Finish at work.
| What: | Image of the Fendahl (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Charles Curtis, Culver, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 19 May 2009 |
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| Rating: |   8 |
Even on a limited budget, this and other stories from that era demonstrate what is possible with some imagination. The writing and acting are excellent. Tom Baker and Louise Jameson are in top form.
| What: | Companions and Allies (Miscellaneous factual books) |
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| By: | Charles G. Dietz, San Jose, CA, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 May 2009 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
Excellent Book. Great way to see how the role of companion changed from the early 1960s to today. Only major part of book that is lacking are: Dalek movies companion and allies, Big Finish companion and allies and comics.
Its a great book with an easy to follow plot. I loved Nikki and the Judoon (they should so get together!) The twists were suprising and the ending was pleasing.
All in all great!
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| this was toattly brilliant |
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this was toattly brilliant it was fab very dark and immaganitive whilst capturing the true picture.10/10
this may be a lot better than you think 4.3 what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!give it a chance
it was alright
The Magic Mousetrap has a great plot, setting, cast, excellents twists and role changes, but falls badly after part one. The pace remains steady, dialog is good and well acted but without a raise in temo or real urgency, fear etc it just falls down. Could have been better with the toymaker up and running, taking everyone on. Whilst there was an excellent sense of the unknown it never went anywhere, but should have been great.
Excellent story, with an excellent plot. Well recommended.
| What: | The Stone Rose (BBC New Series Adventures novels) |
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| By: | rebecca, scunthopre |
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| Date: | Wednesday 6 May 2009 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
i like it
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| A great end to a great series |
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The title says it all, this is a must listen.
Dance of the Dead is a classic sci-fi plot and a classic Benny Story, she handles the struggle and twist and turns in a normal special manner. Normally the ice warriors voices are a pain but soften from the normal hissing helped the plot.
Whilst the plot isn't original, I've seen simular in Star Trek, Star Gate and Doctor Who. Mirror effect is a great story, with a real atmosphere and grips you throughout.
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| Gripping story, sudden finish |
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The Belotron incident builds up a strong plot, giving you a sense of time and place. A race to the goal in a hostile world, with a strong cast this a great story. It would have been a 10 but the ending was just a little sudden and too easy.
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| Good but too much screaming |
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Draconian rage starts as an interesting story, creating an image of a great empire, along the lines of ancient rome, together with the politics and mad men. Benny's suffering after a while hurts the ears and weakens the story, it's well acted but just too full on.
Poison Seas failed several times to take advantage of its ingrediants. The voices of the Sea Devils like the ice warriors can struggle to come across on audio, so dialog needs to be strong, which it wasn't. Without giving the plot away the enemy wasn't anything original, further making this a weak story.
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| An Epic crammed into 2 disks |
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To get the full benefit of this story you must have read the book, if not you will often feel lost. Death & the Daleks is a strong story, of occupation, residence and family. It coul have made the plot for a whole series (which may have been better). At times skipping great events and timelines made a great story feel crammed and lost some of the fun, but still a good story.
For many years, this was the best of those synopsis style books. Where this edges in front of those others (despite some small niggly mistakes) is the fun being poked at our favourite show. Not in any way nasty, but more of the laugh-out-loud variety. If it's still available, make this an amusing addition to your (chronologically ordered, of course) Doctor Who library.
This is now one of my most favorite Doctor Who Books of all time! The Wayfarer Crew were all brilliant characters, especially Koral and Cuttin Edge. Dalek X was Amazing! And the plot was great! It was perhaps a little rushed at the end but its forgivable because overall its such a great book. Its inspired me to write a Doctor Who Book!
| What: | Image of the Fendahl (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Jamie Hardwick, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Saturday 25 April 2009 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
When I found out this was the last 'gothic' story, I was looking forward to seeing it. But it disappointed me. The story takes a while to get going and some of the cliffhangers are pointless. The 4th Doctor and Leela work well together, especially in this story, but that can't redeem it for me. This is still one of the best stories in its season, though.
