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 | It mangles history, but it's good fun |
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| What: | The Gunfighters (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Brian Ridder, Littleton, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: |   4 |
This story, one of the final serials of William Hartnell's run as the First Doctor is a fun little story for anyone just getting into Doctor Who. It completely mangles the actual historical gunfight at the OK Corrall, and the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" gets on your nerves fairly quick, but the acting, particularly of Hartnell as The Doctor and his two companions, Steven (Peter Purves) and Dodo (Jackie Lane), as well as the guest stars more than make up for it. Not one of the best of the Hartnell years, not by a long shot, but still a funny and witty story as it counts down Peter Purves' departure from the series in the next story, "The Savages".
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| Enough With Rolling R's Already |
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| What: | Red (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Just how long can Sylvester McCoy roll an R? Writers at Big Finish seem determined to test that question, and so far Red comes up victorious. I think I had the rolled R thing figured in The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, so please, Sylv, if you are reading this, give 'em a rest.
OK, now on to the story. Red is one of the stronger dramas for 2006. It is certainly one of the goriest. I am reminded a bit of early Clive Barker in the depiction of uncontrollable urges to kill in horrible ways. There is clever play with colors: Red (rage), White Noise (logic), and Blue (depression). I felt this did not quite go far enough. Instead of unifying these three, we get diverted into the Red seeking out the Doctor and some nonsense about time. Oh, the Doctor is a time traveller, see, so everything he does has to involve time. Not when this makes the writer bypass a golden opportunity to work some clever plotting in which Red, White, and Blue (America? England? France?) form a folie a troix. So, high marks for atmosphere and a well-worked alternate society. Demerits for missing the obvious.
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| Blah Sequel To A Boring Story |
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| What: | Thicker Than Water (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
OK. It is nice to have Evelyn married off in the end, and in particular it is nice that the relationship was allowed time to develop in the way that relationships should. It is nice that every now and again in Doctor Who, someone has a happy ending.
Now. Thicker Than Water, sequel to Arrangements For War, is better than its predecessor, but that does not make it good. It is more consistent and tightly plotted. That said, there is too much soap opera domestic drama stuff between Evelyn and her new family. Also, it was pretty easy to spot the bad guy; just aim for the one that everyone says could not possibly be the bad guy. Give Colin Baker a chance to play moral outrage loudly, and, I suppose, you have what passes for a plot. There is just not much original for one to think about.
| What: | The Harvest (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
The Harvest is mostly a way to introduce a new companion. Part One, especially, is more a Hex story than a Doctor story. Generally speaking, I am not a fan of Doctor Who as science fiction Mission Impossible. Having the Doctor and Ace infiltrate this society and that institution just does not work well for me in most cases. I forgive it here because the story itself justifies such a move to some degree. The story manages to hide just who are the baddies, what Dr. Farrow is up to, and what the actual plans are for quite some time. Also, the story has a realistic conception of politics and how xenotechnology might be used by a desperate world power.
| What: | Flip-Flop (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Jonathan Morris has pulled off a very difficult feat in creating a convincingly circular story. Whichever Part Three one chooses (white disc part one or black disc part one), one starts listening for all the cues about the effects from the Doctor and Mel on the other disc. The concept is marvellous. On the other hand, the human colonists just do not grab my interest; they are weak, wimpy, selfish, and annoying. I understand Morris's attmept to satirize political correctness, but it is not a wholly convincing satire. There are some realism glitches, too. The two pairs of Stewart and Reed would not look so identical that no one can tell them apart. Having grown up in different circumstances and taken on different social roles (soldiers in one, rebels in another) they would be wearing different clothes, have different hair styles, probably even have differing manners and deportments.
| What: | Bang-Bang-a-Boom! (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This story is mainly a satire on Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space 9, and some good satire it is. Both programs are far too self-important and need a good belittling. A couple of the jokes are old hat, such as the "he's dead" cue portentous music bit. However, there are some very funny parts as well, especially involving Patricia Quinn's madly over the top Angvia. One perplexing question: why have a program about a song contest and not have Bonnie Langford sing? The Doctor's spoons just do not make an adequate substitute. Also, the second ending after the false ending (sorry to spoil a little surprise) runs on too long. Not as brilliantly sustained as The One Doctor, but a good example of how Doctor Who can be used humorously.
| What: | The Rapture (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
There is so much pop psychology drivel in The Rapture that it is just hard to listen to. We get several speeches about what kids seek in Ibiza (the previous reviewer did mention how talky this show is), a drugged out depressive, an insane artist, some nonsense about co-dependency so that the story can justify a fourth, otherwise pointless, episode. All of it comes straight out of Psychology For Dummies. The confrontation between Liam and Ace seems designed mainly as an excuse to have Sophie Aldred go on another spree of "acting" in the form of petulant over-reaction. This is not her fault, just the fault of the way Ace is constantly being miswritten. A surprise is Tony Blackburn, who handles his role very well. It is not all that easy to play oneself in a drama. He is especially good in the montage segment when Caitriona is freaking out.
| What: | Colditz (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Colditz would have fit well in the McCoy run on TV. His part is particularly well written, with him reasoning out the reality of the situation, then working out what his own plan was, rather than what it will be (sort of like Battlefield, but handeld better). Like the McCoy TV run, at least part of the writer's intent is to have the situation teach Ace some sort of lesson. Ace, however, is one of the problems - reacting without thinking just a little too often. The big problem is Kurtz, a melodrama baddy if there ever was one. (Kurtz and Klein, short and small, hmmm). A peculiar bit is constant reference to a Kommandant who never actually appears in the story, complete with shootout in his office. The story is not brilliant, but it is entertaining.
| What: | Dust Breeding (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
I am afraid I cannot agree with the rather high assessment other reviewers here have attached to "Dust Breeding." One reviewer noted a serious lapse that should not go overlooked. The "warp core" idea just makes no sense. Another problem not noted is that three bad guys, Warp Core, Krill, and Master, is just a bit too much in the way of evil. It is like watching those dreadful Batman movies in which our hero has to fight multiple baddies all competing for the spotlight. Then, we have to bring back a character from a previous story with little probable reason for it. We also get a convenient load of dead Daleks buried in the sand just waiting to be blown up. There is just too much stuff, and the whole thing goes kerblooey. On the positive, Geoffrey Beevers is superb as the Master, truly frightening, though I still miss Roger Delgado's dry wit in the role.
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| An Entertaining Historical |
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| What: | The Fires of Vulcan (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
The Doctor visits Pompei. Though it might seem a bit of a throwaway idea, it is actually handled quite well. There are a few "adult" elements snuck in, which goes in line with treating the Romans more historically accurately than in "The Romans." A real bonus is good writing for Mel and strong performance by Bonnie Langford. On the downside, we have a rather stock villain priestess and an overacted gladiator. Still, the good outweighs the bad.
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| Antoher Strong Dalek Story |
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| What: | The Genocide Machine (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
The Daleks come across as much more menacing in audio than in video. Mike Tucker has written a taught story in the Saward Dalek story mould. The Daleks have a cunning plan, and execute it to near perfection. The secondary elements are well thought out, too. The library protected by a time projection, the living water, and the wetworks computer are interesting ideas tied together quite well. The relationship between Elgin and Prink is a bit twee for my tastes, though. Perhaps Tucker felt a need to lighten what is otherwise a heavy story.
| What: | The Fearmonger (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 2 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Jonathan Blum always does two things with a Doctor Who story, start in medias res and have the Doctor out on a crusade to save humanity. The Doctor as deliberate meddler rather than accidental meddler has always been a problem for me. The Doctor is not a comic book superhero, but Blum really, really wants him to be one. Starting in the middle of things and then racing forward so that there is little to no explanation of how and why the Doctor got involved in all this in the first place is another serious weakness. Finally, there is too much heavy-handed, pseudophilosophic dialogue.
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| Ripped from the Headlines |
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| What: | Live 34 (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Friday 1 December 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
Moderate spoilers ahead.
Live 34 is not the usual Doctor Who fare. Produced as a series of radio news broadcasts from start to finish, there is no main theme music or closing credits theme, no incidental music and no ordinary dialogue. The entire story takes place within the newscasts. The story is a well-deserved slam on the government of the United States and perhaps also that of the UK, though I'm not familiar enough with events over there to know for sure. The sad situation as it currently exists in the U.S. is taken to the nth degree here in Live 34, "34" being a region on an earth colony planet at some unstated point in the future. The Doctor, Ace and Hex have somehow become quite involved with the situation there, the Doctor and Ace having become rather important, extraordinary figures. They are involved in a power struggle with the covertly oppressive government of 34, which is continually distorting and recasting their actions through public statements to the press and official news releases. The truth begins to leak out, and we begin to see that as in the sad reality of today, in Live 34, problems are dealt with by covering up the truth and clinging to power by whatever means possible. As the solutions to the problems repeatedly fail, those in power are driven to ever more extreme actions as they try to hold onto their power and control.
Though Live 34 is a dramatic criticism of modern Western government, the fact is that the Doctor gets very little airtime, though his final actions are very satisfying (YES!!). This is an interesting production, and I wanted to give it at least a 6, but just really couldn't find any solid reasons to do so.
Entertaining, but not one of the greats, and not really Doctor Who.
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| Well written and very Welsh |
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A book which sets the scene almost perfectly - definitely get the feeling of the Welsh village it's set in as well as the local countryside. The only English feel at all in the book is the language it's actually written in.
The writer managed to build up a feeling of a Quest but kind of let the book down towards the end.
I personally think this is the best out of the Cat's Cradle series, which really cannot be classed as a series because there was no major plot item that occurred in the 3 books - unlike the Timewyrm series.
Definitely buy this one though!
| What: | Thicker Than Water (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Wednesday 29 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
(LOL reading Phil Ince's review!)
Thicker Than Water is a sequel to the earlier Big Finish title, Arrangements for War. In this story we are once again back on Világ, three years after the events of Arrangements for War. What follows is a fairly straightforward suspense drama - a whodunnit fairly similar in some respects to 1986's Terror of the Vervoids. As such, it's a low-key story that moves along and comes to a satisfactory conclusion (rather more satisfactory than Terror of the Vervoids, I must say). Where it falls short is in that it seems that the writer or script editor was attempting to mix in some Ninth Doctor and Rose-style domestic drama, which works in the new t.v. series, but doesn't work here with the Sixth Doctor.
I have mixed feelings about this production. In addition to what's been stated above, I feel that this story worked better than Arrangements for War, because it's not very ambitious and the writer knew it. Yet, Arrangements for War, for all of its shortcomings, had a more finely crafted soundscape. There's no standout sound design here. Even Gabriel Woolf was far more interesting there. Here in Thicker than Water, his performance is just dull for some reason (perhaps it's the script).
Anyway, one thing Thicker than Water does is it gives us some nice closure for the character of Evelyn, which I must admit I found interesting and satisfying. Overall, a mildly entertaining story that doesn't take itself too seriously and plays a bit like a weekly prime-time drama.
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| I Don't Think It Matters Which Doctor... |
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Bought this book. Lost it. *Had* to buy another copy (Thanks, Ebay!)
I'll try not to spoil too much...
A thoroughly enjoyable book. Elements of the Doctor's past, present, future and... sideways blended together to create a distillation of... Doctorness. Part of me wants to see some more stories of the 'n'th (or is it?) Doctor played out along similar lines, but another part remembers the second two Matrix films, and how they spoiled the nature of the first.
This book neatly takes elements from the old series (Most of the background), the EDA (Nice links to Seeing I, another favourite), and even the Doctor Who Magazine (Heh... TARDISes use 'Vworp' drive...), but doesn't let continuity restrict the excellent story.
'Continuity' is of course a relative term where time travel may be involved. The deliberate obfuscation of the temporal placement of the book is well performed and I think it adds a nice level of mystique to the Doctor's life story.
Old enemies, new threats, love, laughter and tears. This has got it all. Read it.
| What: | Unregenerate! (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Sunday 26 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Okay. As is often the case, my view of this production is a bit different from the views of the other two reviewers here.
I admit that I had my doubts as I was listening to the early parts of this story, but Unregenerate! came together by the end, and actually surprised me. There were several clues that I noticed while listening, but I failed to figure out just what was going on. I like that. I enjoy a story that keeps me guessing - one that I just follow along with and discover as the truth is gradually revealed, and that does this rather cleverly as well.
Sylvester McCoy is fantastic here in the Doctor's dementia, even if for three of the four episodes he is very unlike the Doctor we knew. One reviewer said that this script was originally intended for Colin Baker. I'm a sixth Doctor fan, and I say that this would've been dreadful if Colin Baker had done it. As for Mel, she is written fairly well here. As for the cabbie, for most of the duration of the story I didn't really get how he was able to fit into everything, but at the end I realized that he just adds a rather whimsical quality to the story, not unlike the rest of what we saw in the McCoy era of the t.v. series.
The story itself, once we're finally told what's really going on, is also brilliant, and the sound design was quite good. Overall, Unregenerate! is a suspenseful story that may surprise you by the end, and is just about as good a story as you can get when the Doctor is essentially missing for three quarters of it. Well done.
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| A story best forgotten... |
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| What: | Terror Firma (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Saturday 25 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 2 |
You can't be serious.
This story was bad. Really bad.
It's not that the plot itself was really that bad. The ideas and the script here were no worse than what was in The Creed of the Kromon or The Twilight Kingdom. The problem is that because this featured a return of Davros after the events of Remembrance of the Daleks, in which the Doctor essentially destroyed the Daleks' home planet Skaro, this should have been so much better than it was. And really it was awful. The premise deserved far better.
The other reviews here sum it up pretty well. (Spoilers ahead.) I kept waiting for some further development in the plot that would tell us that, no, it wasn't actually true that these two no-name, characterless people once traveled with the 8th Doctor before he met Charley, and no, Davros never took over the Doctor's TARDIS and erased the Doctor's memory of those early travels. I kept waiting to be told that, no, we were just fooling - that was just a deception. But that development never came. And to add insult to injury, now C'rizz is being turned into a real psycho - far worse and more stomach-churning than Turlough, a comparison raised by another reviewer.
With Terror Firma, The Big Finish 8th Doctor storyline is wending its way toward a marked similarity to the worst of the 8th Doctor BBC book series. Yuck.
| What: | The Movie (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Whites, Southend, UK |
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| Date: | Friday 24 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 1 |
I scored this 1 out of 10 for 2 reasons. 1)McCoy is in it so it can't be all bad(how dare they have him shot)and 2)you can't score 0.
although it must be said that Macgann would of made a decent enough Doc if the americans hadn't made this show(sorry USA, but it's true).
Best Doctor for me. Seasons 25 & especially 26 are in a league of their own.
