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| What: | Davros (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: |   7 |
Of the three history of the baddies adventures, this one is by far the best. Terry Molloy has completely put his stamp on the Davros character. Old Doctor Who favorite actors Wendy Padbury and Bernard Horsfal are put to good use, given excellent and unexpected roles to play. Another plus is that the story presents a balanced picture of corporate morality. Repeatedly the corporate head balks at doing something such as spying on his employess because it is unethical. On the other hand, this contrasts rather sharply with his willingness to commit murder. This contradiction never satisfactorily works itself out. Another problem is the pop-psychology explanation for Davros's character. He was disappointed in love and that lead him to be a self-obsessed megalomaniac? Finally, the everything goes boom ending drags on too long. Entertaining, but flawed.
| What: | The Maltese Penguin (Big Finish subscriber bonuses) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
A Maltese Penguin as in Mike Maltese, who wrote many of the best Bugs Bunny cartoons? This is a failed pastiche, with most of its supposedly funny bits having already been done in the film "The Cheap Detective," and in the Firesign Theatre's "Adventures Of Nick Danger, Third Eye." There is a good running gag, though. Everyone is after the "something," though no one knows what it is. However, the whole tale is one idea that should have been tabled.
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 | Just Another Vampire Story |
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| What: | Project: Twilight (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
I have never quite understood the fascination with vampires. As baddies go, they are rather limited. All they do is either eat or turn others into vampires. Project:Twilight adds nothing to the conception of vampires or understanding of vampire lore. Another problem is the ineffectiveness of the Doctor, who gets played for a sucker by everyone involved. Stupid Time Lord, indeed. The story does, however, maintain a consistent atmosphere. All the actors play well in this production.
| What: | The Wormery (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
The story is needlessly complicated. I never did figure out what the worms were, exactly. The shadows just added one too many details. The fighting worm factions makes just a little sense, but the shadows of what they might have been coming in to take over makes no sense at all. Another problem is the narrated presentation, with an old Scots woman being just a little bit too "poetic" in the wrong way about everything and dragging down the suspense. There are some funny bits, though. Iris Wildthyme fits into this story much better than in the dreadful Excelis Dawns.
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| Best Of The Excelis Adventures |
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| What: | Excelis Rising (Excelis audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Excelis Rising is far superior to the other two Excelis dramas, especially the hideous Excelis Dawns. Rather than simply going over the same material, David McIntee has made this almost wholly independent. It has much that is typically Doctor Who: a single enclosed setting, a limited set of characters, a tightly compacted sequence of events. Anthony Head is much better in this one than in Excelis Rising. He was unconvincing as the lumbering Grayvorn, but the civilized Maupassant plays into his strengths of modernity and subtlety. Still, as part of a series, there is too much left out and left unexplained. The story advances our knowledge not one bit regarding the Relic, what it is, what it really does, how it came to be.
| What: | Bloodtide (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
If this adventure were without reference to previous stories, I would give it a better rating. However, it pretty much just redoes The Silurians, but places it 100 years earlier. Additionally, Darwin's gradual revelations about natural selection are wholly misplaced given the circumstances. Who is going to be abstrusely theorizing about humanity's place in the cosmos while imprisoned by lizard men?
| What: | The Holy Terror (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
How this story works beats me. It shouldn't. How can we get "all hail the big talking bird" and the child murderer in the same story and have it all make sense and fit together? Furthermore, in the DW comics I always hated Frobisher; just a cheap grab at the 80s penguin craze caused by Opus. Here, however, Frobisher fits into the story well, and Robert Jezek performs hims well. The real star, though, is the story itself. This mixture of satire on pointless English historical rituals and tragedy of one man's endless self-punishment works itself out beautifully. Every part has a reason to be in there and the story maintains its internal consistency. Peter Guiness, playing Childeric, is a vocal dead ringer for Paul Darrow. The one complaint I have is the reliance on Time Lord technology in the end. Gallifrey, Time Lords, and TARDIS's are getting just too common these days.
| What: | The Apocalypse Element (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
I am perplexed about why this one is not rated higher. There are only two drawbacks for me: it is played rather on one note, and the exact nature of the Apocalypse Element never gets explained well. However, the Daleks come across in the auio format as a true menace. The story itself is an extended "assault on..." and works very well given the Daleks' reputation as military tacticians. All the acting is top quality. The plot holds together quite well.
| What: | The Spectre of Lanyon Moor (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
The Spectre Of Lanyan Moor is too typically Doctor Who in many ways. It reminds me a bit of Hinchcliffe-era Gothic SF, with it focus on English folklore and spooky haunts. There are also nods to The Daemons, The Stones Of Blood, and Ghostlight. For me, it was just too much deja-vu. I also agree with one of the previous reviewers that the affected screechy voice for Sancrider (no spelling given on the packaging and presumably voiced by Toby Longworth) is truly annoying.
| What: | The Marian Conspiracy (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 29 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
The best thing about The Marian Conspiracy is the introduction of a new companion, Dr. Evelyn Smythe, for once not a kid. A mature, knowledgeable companion is an excellent foil for Colin Baker's bombastic Doctor. Baker himself demonstrates his magnificent vocal talent, with range and nuance of superb skill. Other good bits include a balanced perspective of Queen Mary, who could easily have been treated as a stock villain, and realism regarding character motivation. On the negative there is the "temporal nexus," a rather weak maggufin. Another is that characters tend to respond to anachronisms rather tamely. There is much commentary on Evelyn's pills, but none about the obviously plastic bottle and its label that would be wholly unintelligible to Tudor age people. Still, this is a good, character based story.
| What: | ...ish (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 27 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
As a word lover, and a lover of English, I should have liked this one more than I did. Like the other reviewers, I quite enjoyed the word play. I agree that Colin Baker is the right Doctor for this sort of story. This one for me is like "Paradise Towers" and "Greatest Show In The Galaxy" in that it has a brilliant first three parts and a dreadful explanation for it all in part 4. The whole Omniverbum living word monster idea just did not convince me. I would have been more satisfied with the concept proposed earlier in the story of a postmodernist faction who want to undo the language, but do not understand the results of their actions. Also, the reason given for Osefa's suicide just does not work. As a motivation, it is pretty pathetic. Still, one must admit that the Doctor 6/Peri combination works much better here and in the audio dramas in general than it ever did on TV. Baker is a truly great voice actor, and Bryant's American accent is impeccable.
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| Good Idea, But Lacks Plausibility |
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Justin Richards has decided to take the sonic medium seriously by making a sound-oriented story. Set in the Museum of Aural Antiquities, the story's reliance upon a sound-creature, audio broadcasts, and verbal exchange is commendable. There is a tremendous plausibility gap, though. The center of focus, Visteen Krane, is supposed to be the "greatest actor of his generation." Yet, there are few photos or recordings. This makes no sense. Spend 5 minutes with an actor and you will understand that this makes no sense. An actor's career rests upon appearance. An actor who is not seen is not an actor. Neither is an unseen politician a politician. How could Krane become the prime candidate for the highest elected office if he made no political appearances? It just does not make sense.
I am giving this one high marks for tight plotting. I have complained in the past about loose ends in some of the Big Finish stories, so I must admit that Nev Fountain has splendidly tied up everything. Not a "what about..." left to be said. The demerits come because this story just does not fit the Doctor Who format. When the Big Finish authors try to get funny, they tend to reach for the Douglas Adams. Adams' approach to Doctor Who was problematic at best, and writers should have learned from those 1979 stories that Voltairean satire and Doctor Who just do not work together. Good Doctor Who uses some humor in an otherwise serious context. And while the plot is all neatly wrapped, there are serious anachronisms running throughout. For instance, commemorative tea towels sold at the pub in the 1400s. Tea does not arrive in England until the 1600s, and does not become a regular part of English life until the 1700s. The problem is that the joke undermines the whatever authentic tension is built into the story. Final assessment: This would have been great in some context other than Doctor Who.
| What: | Slipback (Miscellaneous audio dramas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles |
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| Date: | Wednesday 27 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
When Doctor Who was sent on an unanticipated hiatus early in 1985, fan outcry was loud. The result was that a team at BBC radio filled the gap with this production. Series script editor Eric Saward provided the script, and regular Radiophonic Workshop Doctor Who contributor Peter Howell provided the soundtrack. With a guest appearance by Valentine Dyall, things seemed right for vigorous reaffirmation of the program. However, Saward provided a script that can only be described as a poor man's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Full of quips and gags, vaguely satirical of something, space opera perhaps, this story returns us to the send-up year of 1979. Remember "Creature From The Pit"? It rests right around there in its "you can't possibly take any of this seriously" winking and nodding to the audience. Like those 1979 stories, the humorous element interferes with the main action/adventure story, so that the script feels schizophrenic. Additionally, the story was broken up into 15-minute segments, which means an abundance of cliff hangers. Most of these involve Colin Baker operatically bellowing "Periiiiiiiii" or "Nooooooo." There are some funny lines, and Peri does get to do a bit more than she did in the TV series; however, the script just does not work.
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| An average / poor Horse Flog release |
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| What: | The Nowhere Place (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Phil Ince, Up Jessica Simpson's crack |
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| Date: | Monday 18 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
Horse Flog have - it is generally agreed - lost their way. This release confirms that, as yet, they haven't recovered any sense of direction.
There's insufficient story to merit this long-ish Flogging and the characterisation is painfully poor. Besides the regulars, a young and (judging by her manners and speech) over-promoted space captain is just about it. Short of asking, "What the hell ...!" she serves no purpose besides taking up time.
The story itself substantially repeats aspects of previous releases.
To all intents and purposes, it retreads the Divergents from the 8th Doctor series and Briggs (an ordinary writer who nonetheless compelled with Creatures of Beauty) repeats his cause and effect trick from that story.
Stables and Baker are good enough but all the signs are that Doctors have finite life spans because - as Tom Baker so astutely pointed out 30 years ago and has been pointing out in fan doicumentaries ever since - they don't really develope.
Is it time to kill of these releases?
Better men that the Horse Flog crew couldn't come up with good scripts for Baker after 5 years. How could this lot hope to provide worthy material for his successors indefinitely?
With the exception of the pretty terrible and slightly average Fear Her, these episodes are fantastic. Watch them. NOW.
| What: | The Juggernauts (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Wednesday 13 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Think of it this way: The Juggernauts is to Revelation of the Daleks as Destiny of the Daleks is to Genesis of the Daleks. One reason I say this is that it seemed like I was hearing the ghost of Douglas Adams in the script of The Juggernauts - a lot of pretty goofy dialogue here (*not* in a good way). Aside from that, we have a story of the Daleks in a clash with another mechanical force (as in Destiny), significant references to the previous story (as in Destiny), and the borrowing of elements of the previous story - in Destiny, the return to Skaro for Davros, and in The Juggernauts, Davros' use of human bodies to build his creations, similarly to what happened in Revelation. Other criticism: the damaged, studdering Dalek could've been interesting, but came out ridiculous, and the fate of Davros in this story could've been nicely tied into his appearance in Remebrance of the Daleks, but wasn't. What a wasted opportunity, and what we're left with here *appears* to be a blatant disregard of the series continuity. Also, the performances were a mixed bag. Colin Baker is fully in character and sounds just like he did in season 23 (in a good way), but some of the supporting actors were mediocre at best. Overall, interesting but a bit frustrating.
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| continuity drenched gory and well writen |
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It should not be much of a shock that the cyber leader should write a book. Its a good one as far as im concerned its suspenceful, well thought out, as its woven into the history of the cybermen (and much better than the dire attack of the cybermen)so continuity junkies will be pleased,characters are interesting and well developed the doctor a little bland as if theres no feel to him. The cybermen are first rate there menaceing appperences are a real treat although gory in places its not gratuitous and has a point to it a sprincle of new ideas here,a dash of the old there and you get a damn good story highly recomended get out an buy it
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| Come on now - it's just a story |
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| What: | The Council of Nicaea (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Sunday 3 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
Okay, well, I'd judge this a little differently than the other two reviewers have. I agree that it makes no sense for someone in Erimem's position to judge Constantine as being a cruel tyrant, I agree that Constantine is most likely rather poorly characterized, and I agree that Erimem's sudden near-betrayal of her friends stretches credibility. But in spite of all of that, I found this to be an entertaining story. Even though it was rather unsensible, what Erimem did was an interesting departure from what the Doctor's companions typically do. I also enjoyed how Constantine was written, and I thought the speculations about what was actually happening in Rome in those times (as presented by the script) were rather interesting. If you don't take it all too seriously, you might just enjoy this one.
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| Nice production. However... |
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| What: | The Roof of the World (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Sunday 3 September 2006 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
What we have here in The Roof of the World is high quality sound design, good performances all around, and fairly tight scripting, at least as far as it concerns the way the performances came out. Peter Davison in particular delivers some excellent scenes. As far as the story itself goes, maybe it was me, but it seemed to get a bit lost at times. Overall though, an interesting production with a nicely realized soundscape.
However, something must be said about the characterization of Peri in this story. I liked Peri in this story much better than I ever liked her in the t.v. series. But it's not really Peri. This story is supposedly set between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani, and here Peri is just far too intelligent and far too self-assured. She knows far more than she should, and is too capable for the character we saw in season 21 (or season 22). If the stories require that she be written in this way, it would be truer to the original show if they were alternative universe or alternative timeline stories...
