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| What: | City of Death (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Matthew B, Cardiff |
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| Date: | Monday 13 November 2006 |
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| Rating: |   8 |
"City of Death" is fluid, very watchable, and hugely enjoyable provided that you like "this sort of thing". "What sort of thing?" you may well be asking. For those of you that are indeed putting this very question to your computer screen, I shall try and answer it for you.
Well first of all, "City of Death" is funny. So if you don't like humour in your Doctor Who, I suggest you hurtle away towards something a bit less frivolous. Try "The Space Museum". But don't blame me if your brain turns to sludge and dribbles out of your ear.
Secondly, "City of Death" has a Pleasingly Rubbery Monster. Now, this may not seem especially signficant, after all, Pleasingly Rubbery Monsters are the mainstay of Doctor Who. The thing is, usually they're rather silly. But here, in "City of Death", the P.R.M becomes rather sinister because it exists within such a contrasting environment. One doesn't expect to see a P.R.M in a John Travolta suit. Living in a chateau in Paris. With a wife. It's the juxtaposition of the potentially silly with the recognisably normal that stops you laughing at the thing. Very clever. Or you may just laugh at the P.R.M anyway. Go ahead, it won't matter. You'll still like "City of Death".
Thirdly, "City of Death" has Big Ideas and Witty Banter. These things often turn up in Doctor Who, but usually not together. Thanks to Douglas Adams, we get both at once here. I'm not going to list all the great lines. It's been done before, and I don't want to spoil it for those who've yet to hear them.
Much is made of the Paris location work. It does look nice, I'll agree, but all it really does is give the whole thing a bit of space to let the story breathe.
If you watch "City of Death" and end up loving "this sort of thing" it'll be because of Tom and Lalla. Because of the great cast and characters. Because of the dialogue. These things are special, and are all at their very best here.
DVD EXTRAS
Marvellous doco about the story, and about the wider story of Douglas Adams' work on Doctor Who. Loads of Easter Eggs, some of which are rather marvellous, some of which are a bit dull. Two rather pointless bits of effects footage. Some nice studio footage to peer at (squint everyone, its a bit blurry). What we're missing is a commentary and/or features with Tom and Lalla. "City of Death" is so much about them that their absence here really cripples this disc.
There are certain things about The Ark in Space that are done very, very well; The Nerva Beacon sets (Roger Murray-Leach's design work is the major reason why this story is considered a classic), Baker and Marter, some good dialogue, and a general air of newness brought about by incoming producer Phillip Hinchcliffe. What is interesting is that these positive elements almost completely obscure several dreadful ones. The story has promise but the dialogue is very patchy, swinging wildly from the good (Tom's "humanity" speech, most of Harry's lines) to the painful (virtually all the other cast, but especially Noah). The Wirrn are just as dreadful as Alpha Centauri or any number of other heavily-ridiculed monsters, and yet are somehow let off the hook by fans - why these and not any other? The supporting cast are very stilted (except perhaps Libri), and even Sladen is below par here.
It is the invigorating presence of a new Doctor and those aforementioned sets that make this story stick in the mind; take these elements away and you have a story that would have fitted in well with the more tired sections of Season Eleven. Promising, but far from successful.
DVD EXTRAS
The commentary by Baker, Sladen and Hinchcliffe is reasonably enjoyable, but not worth getting the disc for. The archive interview material is rather fun, shot during the "Revenge of the Cybermen" location work and showing a marvellously spaced out Baker. The new CGI effects are beautifully done but not far reaching enough, though I can see how it would have been difficult to recreate the shots of the Wirrn scampering over the surface of the shuttle. The unused title sequence is not as exciting as it sounds, but the Roger Murray-Leach interview is lively and interesting.
THE IMPOSSIBLE PLANET
There is an intelligence to this script that is missing from the vast majority of new series Doctor Who. This is partly because the two-parter format allows for finer strokes, but mainly because of Matt Jones’ writing, which, like Steven Moffat’s in the previous season, really shows up RTD’s shortcomings. There are so many great things; the sets, the cast, Toby’s possession, Gabriel Woolf’s voice work, the black hole, Scooti’s death, the slow build up, the palpable sense of enormity and fear. Tennant is irritating only once in the entire episode (another bloody “Aren’t humans wonderful” scene again. Dreadful), and Piper is as reliable as ever. The whole shebang builds to a great end of episode moment, and then...
THE SATAN PIT
...falls flat. The elegant simplicity of the first episode gives way to half-baked explanations and action sequences nicked from Aliens. Given that the whole story is based around the reveal of the “Beast”, the rationalisation of its nature and origins are vague at best and embarrassingly feeble at worst. The episode is still enjoyable on its own level but fails to capitalise on the strengths of Part One. Very disappointing.
LOVE AND MONSTERS
A nice little episode, easy to digest (mwahahaha)as it keeps itself limited. It's also rather a relief not to have to put up with Tennant's irritating performance, at least for the first two thirds of the episode. Criticism has been levelled at Peter Kay's Northern accented Abzorbaloff, something I expected to annoy me, but which actually seems...sinister rather than amusing. And it's far less annoying than Tennant's hideous Mockney. Love and Monsters is more watchable than at least five other episodes this season. Give it a go.
| What: | Timelash (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Matthew B, Cardiff |
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| Date: | Monday 6 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Timelash is generally loathed, and although it is hardly deserving of HUGE amounts of affection, it is by no means the worst Doctor Who story. There are some nice ideas (the Timelash itself, the use of H.G Wells, the Borad design) and it is watchable in a way that huge chunks of the Troughton era are not. Oddly, given the poor material, Pennant Roberts manages to turn in one of his better directing efforts. Sadly, this is faint praise. The story is very slight and what little there is makes no sense, the dialogue is generally either lifeless or just plain bad, and most of the performances are weak. Also, one simply doesn’t give a stuff about any of the characters, even the regulars – Colin Baker’s performance feels like someone doing an impression of The Doctor and is very unlikeable, and Peri is sidelined throughout, tied up and left screaming at a Morlox. Things brighten up once the Borad appears, making one wish he’d been revealed a little earlier and had played a greater part, so sinister is the character. Timelash is, in the final analysis, not very good.
An exercise in sustained insanity, The Twin Dilemma is utterly awful from start to finish. There is nothing that redeems it – the location work seems nice until Colin Baker comes on screen and starts overacting. The effects seem good but then Womulus and Wemus appear and spoil it all. The music is horrible (unusual for Malcolm Clarke) and the costumes are even gaudier than those seen in Shada. Painful to watch, The Twin Dilemma isn't even amusingly bad. Hideous.
| What: | Underworld (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Matthew B, Cardiff |
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| Date: | Monday 6 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
Season Fifteen is the very first time that it is possible to detect boredom in Tom Baker’s performance, and it’s easy to see why. Quite apart from the lack of strong directorial control (apart from Paddy Russell) or effective supporting casts, the scripts in this season are of a much poorer quality than any since Season Eleven, with a couple of notable exceptions. Underworld is a good example of this generalised lack of quality. The story is potentially interesting, but the dialogue is lifeless. The design and effects are good but the direction is patchy. The characters have potential but are all so under-acted that they become totally unmemorable. Only one actor seems to understand the need for a cranked up performance and that is Alan Lake. The general feeling is that no-one can be bothered, and this shows in Baker’s performance too. The cliffhangers are particularly dull, too. On the plus side, the effects (including all the CSO) are very well done, and the few sets on display are magnificent. Part One is actually rather good, believe it or not. Underworld isn’t bad as such, it’s just disappointing.
| What: | The Reaping (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 1 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Joseph Lidster has tried to do something that Jonathan Morris did so well with Flip-Flop: write a circular story where each part feeds into the other. The Reaping is a companion to The Gathering, with Peter Davison. Each relies on the other to complete full story of Kathy Chambers and what she tries to do with cyber technology. Of the two stories, The Reaping is far superior to The Gathering. Whereas The Gathering is 85 minutes of whine and moan about how the Doctor makes everyone's life miserable, The Reaping affirms the Doctor's heroic status. Peri gives an admirable speech about why she travels with the Doctor and what makes him a superior character. Because such moments are highly unusual in the Big Finish CDs and Virgin/BBC novels, that perspective alone makes The Reaping worth getting. As far as the story goes, it is standard Cyberman fair, and the time-travel twist does not really change that fact. That is alright, as far as it goes. The one big problem in the script is that while creeping around trying to be quiet, while running away from cyber-possessed policemen, while confronting a half-cyberized corpse in a graveyard, people still apparently have time discuss their personal differences. There are continual disconnections between the scenes and the dialogue. If Lidster had wanted to write a family drama, he could have chosen a different sort of story, one that would make such dialogue realistically in context.
| What: | The Nowhere Place (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 1 November 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
This is one of those stories that is all setup and no payout. A mysterious bell, a door to nowhere, people compelled to jump over the edge like Disney-fied lemmings all make the first two parts genuinely spooky and compelling. Alas, like The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, the answer to the mystery is a let down, a kind of easy out that gives us very little of the why. Additionally, for some reason, in the 2005-6 crop of Colin Baker CDs, it seems a requirement for him to say "I'm sooo sorry" at least once in the story. A script editor, please.
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 | Grim, but not the typical Master story.. |
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| What: | Master (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Monday 30 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
As the cover indicates, Master is a dark and dreary tale. But this story shows us the Master in a new light and makes it believable. In doing so, it turns the Geoffrey Beevers Master into the richest character of the four incarnations we've seen (counting Eric Roberts' version as one), which is rather amazing, given that this incarnation has really only had three appearances at this point (plus The Deadly Assassin, where this incarnation is played by Peter Pratt).
True to what was done in Dust Breeding, the Beevers' Master is again shown to be quite scary and genuinely menacing in this story. I won't give away what it is here that expands his character so much.
It's also interesting to hear Philip Madoc again, and all of the small cast give top-notch performances here. Overall, the story is quite intriguing, and is one of the more imaginative of the Big Finish series.
| What: | The Gathering (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
In both the Big Finish CDs and the Doctor Who novels, there has been this habit of knocking the Doctor. Either "its all the Doctor's fault," or the Doctor makes everyone around him miserable. Joseph Lidster in The Gathering decides to use both. I am beyond tired and annoyed by story after story in this vein. It is not a new idea and not a particularly smart one to say that everyone the Doctor comes into contact with is miserable. The return of Tegan, even for just a one-off, should have been much better than this. As the third longest-running companion, she deserves better consideration. At the end, she does get a 5-minute speech in which she says how it was all worth it to travel with the Doctor, but that does not make up for 85 minutes of her an everyone else saying how awful the Doctor makes their lives.
| What: | Pier Pressure (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 3 |
The previous two reviewers have said much of what I have to say about Pier Pressure. It is just plain dull, taking seemingly forever to get going. Even then, what are we faced with? - a bad showman mentalist and an alien so uninspiring it does not even get a name. And how do we deal with it? Just stick a wire in the right place? No, the whole thing is ill-conceived and unredeemable.
| What: | Medicinal Purposes (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
I am sure that Robert Ross took the idea that the Doctor should have "alien" attitudes, but the ideas he hands to the Doctor here simply contradict all that we know of the Doctor's morality. Praising murder because it somehow indirectly advanced medical science is not the broad view, but just the worst kind of ends-justify-the-means thinking that the Doctor always crticizes. The basic idea of replaying history as a snuff film is interesting. However, we never learn just where this audience. This script needed a serious rewrite.
| What: | Doctor Who and the Pirates (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 1 |
I agree with Stephen Carlin. This is awful drivel. We get thrown one cliche after another, over-the-top performance after over-the-top performance. It is full of wretchedly silly dialogue. By the time episode 3 comes around and, having exhausted all the other pirate cliches, the producers heap Gilbert and Sullivan on us, I have lost all my patience with this. I am sure that many fans like it because it is "silly" or some such thing, in the same way that fans like those horrid Star Trek episodes with gangsters and Romans. I find the whole thing is just an insult to the intelligence.
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| Another Winner From Shearman |
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| What: | Jubilee (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
Jubilee contains many of the ideas that would go into Shearman's teleply "Dalek" (the best of the Eccleston episodes). The parallel history idea is a bit contrived, and the notion that the Doctor has to "hold back" by unknown means the past from breaking into the present just does not make much sense. However, the alternate history itself is brilliantly conceived, with Martin Jarvis providing a standout performance. Shearmen works the device of pairing off characters for confrontations and revelations to great effect. As usual, his dialogue strikes the right emotional tones.
| What: | Arrangements for War (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Arrangements For War is a very chatty production - lots and lots of talk. Unfortunately, it is just not interesting talk. Mostly it is people being foolishly emotional and acting quite stupidly in the process. The alien menace promised in episode 1 does not show up until the end of episode 3, and mostly it is just gunfire sound effects. The unconvincing part is that somehow in a matter of days and entirely indepently of each other, The Doctor and Evelyn manage to become important within the governments of a world not their own, and both do so entirely accidentally. Furthermore, we get a stock baddie at the beginning, but then there is a change of heart in the writer and the baddie's assistant becomes an even more cliched stock baddie in his place. I know actors love this sort of thing because they get to emote like mad, but as a listener I just got annoyed with everyone.
| What: | Real Time (Miscellaneous audio dramas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Real Time has been written with a sequel in mind. That sequel has not and probably will not be done. Thus, there are some very obvious holes in the story that have been deliberately left to fill. Thus, the whole thing just has an incomplete feeling to it. It does work in a very traditional Doctor Who way, similar to
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| Colin Baker Gets To Be Bad Again |
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| What: | The Sandman (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
This story I found better the second time I listened to it, but it still has many problems. The idea that the Doctor must be evil incarnate to someone is fine. The choice of Doctor for this role is also good, since before Doctor Who Colin Baker was known for his baddies on TV. The problems with it are these: 1. Why does he not just tell Evelyn what he is up to rather than stringing her along? It is not as though she is one of the kids the Doctor usually travels with. She is more than capable of handling the moral ambiguity. 2. The memory egg idea needs more work. Even the slightest knowledge of genetics reveals the silliness of the idea. 3. It is a small world - everyone keeps conveniently running into everyone else (this is known as lazy writing). Still, the production is worth listening to; one gets to hear why Colin Baker works so well asa bad guy.
| What: | The One Doctor (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 25 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Doctor Who has rarely been any good when played just for laughs. One need only recall The Romans and The Gunfighters to see that the format is not generally conducive to continuous humor. The Once Doctor is the great exception to this rule. Playing on the lore of the program, the story rarely goes for the "in" joke. Similarly, the satire is brilliantly managed. The choice of Doctor and companion is also just right, with Colin Baker as the "pompous" Doctor, only he could play the part of the wounded ego so well. Mel as the most "goody goody" of the companions supplies additional natural fodder for the jokes. And there are so many good jokes in the program, so many memorable lines: Oh here we go on another journey round the English language; everything seems to be "great" on Generios; prepare to be disassembled; I'm sorry Doctor, but you are the feeblest contestant. The One Doctor will probably remain the best production Big Finish has produced.
| What: | Rags (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Harold Cogle, Irmo, USA |
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| Date: | Tuesday 24 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 1 |
This was just an excuse to write a horror novel. The Doctor Who characters were not themselves. I consider it a non-Doctor Who book and not an enjoyable read at all.
| What: | Arrangements for War (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Monday 23 October 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
In Arrangements for War, the Doctor and Evelyn go to the planet Világ to give Evelyn some time to slow down for a while and process her experiences with the Doctor, so she can decide if she wants to continue with him or not. They remain there for some time, and separately, they both get rather involved in the society's affairs.
The sound design in this production is rather exquisite. Everything is very finely done, from the ambient sound effects to the incidental music, and from the newscasts to the dramatic clipped tones and sibilance of Gabriel Woolf (voice of Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars) as Governor Rossiter. Listening to Gabriel Woolf really is kind of mesmerizing.
It's a good thing that Arrangements for War is technically superb, because the story falls flat. It really didn't even begin to feel important until the end, when the Doctor can't deal with the results of his actions, and it appears he's going to do something he's repeatedly said he could not or would not do. But instead of getting an interesting shocker of an ending, we get a cop out from the writer, and an ending that's probably the thing that sent the previous reviewer here on his tirade.
Still a nice production though.
