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| What: | Shadow Planet / World Apart (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 27 February 2019 |
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| Rating: |   8 |
Part of the 2-short series, this set has Doctor 7, Ace, and Hex in two thematically related adventures. Created after Big Finish had let Hex go off into legend, these stories would fit into the Hex sequence early on, as Hex is still learning about life aboard the TARDIS. "Shadow Planet" has the crew travel to world set up as a kind of pretentious spa in which people apparently have their Jungian shadow selves temporarily removed so the people can discover their true selves. The process has something to do with the planet itself, which turns out to be a single living entity (Gaia hypothesis, anyone?). The spa director is overtaxing the planet's resources to maximize profits. Now the planet is fighting back. "World Apart" is the more interesting of the two stories. The TARDIS gets pulled onto a kind of Flying Dutchman world that exists outside normal time, but puts into existence in some random place every 1000 years or so. The Doctor and the TARDIS disappear, leaving Hex and Ace on their own in a crash course in survival while The Doctor tries to get back to rescue them. There is a big confrontation at the end where Hex and The Doctor just do not see eye to eye about ethics. The story is interesting in part because it is just the three characters, although Ace gets the most attention. The situation allows us to explore the Ace-Hex dynamic more minutely than occurred in the main run.
The second collection of classic Doctors of old Who meeting monsters of New Who does not quite meet up with the promise of the premise. Doctors 4,5,6, & 8 confront the Vashta Narada, the Racnoss, the Carrionites, and the Vashta Narada again. Each Doctor flies solo. Each story is one hour, uninterrupted. "Night of the Vashta Narada" has Doctor 4 arriving on Fun World, a planet-sized amusement park that has yet to be opened. The owner, a rapacious American capitalist (which seems to be the standard for how to portray Americans in British entertainment these days) has hired some mercenaries to destroy some killers so she can get the park opened and start making some serious moolah. The Doctor attempts to rescue everyone despite everyone's wish not to be rescued. Next is "Empire of the Racnoss" in which Doctor 5 tries his honest and earnest best to save the Racnoss from obliteration by the Time Lords, but he fails to account for the Racnoss' vengeful and rapacious nature. In the end, The Doctor seems to pick up a new companion. Third in the set is "The Carrionite Curse," in which Doctor 6 encounters some witches in 1980s northern England. Of course, The Doctor doesn't believe in witches, but these ladies certainly do seem like witches. Last is "Day of the Vashta Narada," in which Doctor 8, now mired in his attempts to save everyone he can from the Time War, responds to a distress call from a research station where some of the Vashta Narada from Fun World are being weaponized for the benefit of the Time Lords. There's a Jurassic Park moment when one of the employees sabotages the lab while trying to steal the weaponized microbes to sell on his own, dinosaurs, sorry Vashta Narada, are let loose, and The Doctor, Cardinal Olistra come to collect the mighty mites for the Time Lords, the staff of the lab, and Olistra's body guards find themselves trapped in a fight for survival, avoiding being eaten by the dinosaurs, sorry Vashta Narada. If there is a theme that runs through this set, it is "nobody survives." Well, a few do, but nobody The Doctor actually cares about. The overall production is up to the usual Big Finish high standards for sound. The let down is that this set of stories is fairly routine.
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 | Sorely Lacking any significant VAM |
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This set seems to be lacking any real value added material. When the new series came out the boxed sets seemed to have been stuffed with hours upon hours of commentaries that were fun to listen to. This set just seems thrown together by the BBC and they are not showing any real effort to the fans. Sure there are a few commentaries, but it is very anemic in content.
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| A great return for an underrated Villain |
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| What: | The Movellan Grave (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Wednesday 13 February 2019 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
I really love Andrew Smith's stories for Big Finish. He knows how to entertain me every single time. And his return for the Movellans is extremely strong. I really like the fact that he explains away the rather convenient defect of the first Movellans within the story! And what I also like is he greatly expands on Destiny of the Daleks and here the Movellans at last are more of a force to reckoned with than in their previous outing! I love the fact that Tom and Lalla both work so well together as the Doc and Romana. They have a great chemistry and are a hugely enjoyable doubtle act as they always were on screen. And the support guest artists are all brilliant in this story too. This story is everything good decent Doctor Who needs to be. I just love Big Finish. Everytime they bring back old villains, they always find something new and interesting for them to be or do within the story, and every sequel is justifiably cool and brilliant. This great two parter is no exception at all. First class!
| What: | Vortex Ice / Cortex Fire (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 12 February 2019 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Part of the 2 Short Stories series, we get Doctor 6 and Flip retreading much ground already covered in Doctor Who. "Vortex Ice" is a time paradox story involving a cyborg killer (ala Alien) and a scientific investigation into strange energies emerging from an abandoned salt mine in Mexico. The story is mostly another exercise in the "you can't change what you know will happen" lesson, this time for Flip. "Cortex Fire" is wholly unrelated. In this one, The Doctor and Flip visit a planet that is itself the central cortex for the society. The cortex has developed a kind of brain disease called The Urge, and starts turning citizens into electro-fire generating killers. The story is an exercise in the "psychopathy is caused by evil forces from the dark dimensions that invade people's minds" line.
| What: | Time in Office (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 12 February 2019 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
This story is played for laughs mostly. The Doctor is recalled to Gallifrey to take the office of President, which he had abandoned at the end The Five Doctors. There's a new cadré in charge, and quite a bit of controversy over whether The Doctor should become president. The story itself is made of four set pieces of The Doctor's short time in office, in which The Doctor is is challenged by various threats that turn out not to be very threatening. Tegan gets a big head when she gets named official ambassador from Earth. Leela gets her first outing with Doctor 5. The whole story is a well executed lark.
| What: | The Lady of Mercia (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 12 February 2019 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Imagine, a Paul Magrs script that doesn't suck. In this case, Magrs eschews his usual pointless whimsy and instead focuses on the story. This is a historical/time travel tale involving an academic conference and a rogue time machine linked to dark ages Britain. Tegan gets transported back in time to meet the Queen of Mercia and has to pretend to be her daughter for the sake of the local politics. The real daughter, a bloodthirsty warrior princess, gets transported to a Yorkshire university in 1983, where she causes quite a bit of mayhem. The star of the show is Tegan, who comes through really strong here, a no nonsense, grab the sword by the hilt kind of woman that we should have seen in the TV series. Plus, she has an amazing hidden talent - a killer North English accent. Turlough gets short shrift in this story, being mostly just self-centered and snarky. It's a fun story, but not much more.
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| Saward Can't Rescue This One |
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| What: | The Twin Dilemma (Target novelisations) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 3 February 2019 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Eric Saward's novelization of Anthony Steven's script for the TV serial is quite different from most Target novelizations that just reproduce the script with a few sentences of filler to make it seem like a novel. Saward tries hard to rescue a dreadful script, but just cannot do it. The problem is that the main story makes little sense and has more holes than a golf course. Saward tries to knock some sense into the story by adding quite a bit of back story, particularly at the beginning. He also removes large sections of the dialogue, replacing either with different lines or with brief paraphrases of what was said. And to give it some pizazz, he throws in a few "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" sidebars about goofy scientists being destroyed by their own inventions in absurd ways. The problem is that Saward is still stuck with the story as broadcast, and no matter how much explanation he adds for motivations, it just does not hang together.
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| Mostly great except now the Pting exist. |
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All episodes were 5/5 except
Opener, The woman who fell to earth 4/5
4th Ep, Arachinids in the UK 4/5 (because spiders)
2nd ep, The Ghost Monument 1/5
5th ep, The Tsuranga Conundrum 1/5
The most developed companion is Graham. Ryan and Yaz are great too though.
Love Jodie's performance as the Doctor. Shame others don't think so.
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| Mr Baker, I love you Sir! |
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| What: | Scratchman (BBC prestige novels) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 31 January 2019 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
When I heard that Tom Baker's long lengendary story Scratchman was going to be coming out in prose, I was filled with a mixture of elation and joy and wonder. I had heard of this story for ages but had thought that anything to do with it would never come to be. I only knew that I would have loved to have seen or read how it would have gone! And now wonderfully the BBC have had some good sense and allowed Mr Baker (together with the talented Mr James Goss) to weave mr Baker's and the late Mr Marter's film script into a workable piece of fiction. When I say workable, I mean absolutely splendid in the extreme.
What immediately excites you is that this is a rare story indeed, in that it is the Doctor narrating. Tom's wonderful Doctor has seldom been as colourful as he is in this wonderful bonkers novel. There is such amazing prose in this book. I love how easy it is to read and delight in. And then there is the matter of the story content. I have heard lots of people say that this story was rubbish and we're relieved it never saw the light of day. Sorry, But I have to disagree in the most vehement way possible.
Not only is Tom's grasp of his Doctor incredible (no brainer really!) but also his grasp of Sarah and Harry. I really appreciate the banter this brilliant trio share within the book. Its totally true to the characters of all three and holds me totally captivated. Its a wonderful fannote to the memories of Lis Sladen and Ian Marter that Tom writes them so lovingly. And he actually gives them a thoroughly decent amount of stuff to do! And the other characters in the story too are all wonderfully diverse and inspired.
The Scratchman himself is a truly fiendish creation, and his scheme as mad as a box of frogs. But I absolutely adore how Tom brings him so alive on the page as well. And I hear the voice of Vincent Price as the Scratchman, as he is whom would have been asked to play him had the film of seen the light of day! The wonderful cameos by some Doctor Who greats too is very well handled by Tom. So that they may not be in it long, but you truly feel their presences! And Tom's writing of these returnees is flawless.
This story would have fitted so well into the Philip Hinchcliffe/ Bob Holmes years of the show. Im only lamenting that the Scratchman was never instead given to the BBC to make into a Tom Baker adventure. But I am so thrilled and chilled now to be able to see Tom's vivid and brilliant prose leap off the page at me. Tom has woven some superb horror and gothic elements into his story too. Its a hugely enjoyable romp and one I shall definitely be re-reading all the time. I would love it if Big Finish could do one more novel adaptation and have this story be on audio. That would be incredible.
The fact that it is the Doctor himself who wrote this story could have been little more than a novelty. But instead, Tom has cemented himself, for me, in the annals of the best Doctor Who writers. Why? Because his story is multilayered, rich in vivid imagery and some gruesome moments along the way. And the fact that he actually manages to write about his Doctor without tipping over into over indulgence has to be applauded. His Doctor gets some superb moments, and yet so do Harry and Sarah and every character. This is a hugely exciting and delightful story.
One heck of a novel. Tom Baker, you are the Fourth Doctor. Oh if only someone would have realised your imagination could be harnassed in more Dr Who novels and stories. Scratchman is utterly enthralling and I for one would recomment this to all lovers of Tom Baker and Doctor Who. This fan is so amazed to be able to lose himself in such a well thought out and gripping adventure with the Fourth Doctor and Sarah and Harry.
Even that the fact that I dont know where this story would tie in with TV adventures is irrelevant as the Novel is just totally flawless and I do hope Mr Baker does well from this story. He deserves to. Scratchman is no more and no less than a superb Doctor Who yarn indeed!
| What: | The Time Vampire (The Companion Chronicles audiobooks) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 29 January 2019 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This story becomes the end of a trilogy that we did not really know was going to be a trilogy. Leela lies dying, seemingly, and recalls an adventure with The Doctor. Or, is the adventure happening now? There is quite a bit of Heinlein style "nearly every character is really the same character" playing with time. Louise Jameson does a pretty good Tom Baker impression, getting the cadences and quirks of his performance with great accuracy. John Leeson gets a nice turn, playing both K-9 and another character, and doing so with great gusto. This story is fun and confusing in turns.
| What: | Fear of the Daleks (The Companion Chronicles audiobooks) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 29 January 2019 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
The Companion Chronicles are almost entirely narrated stories, with only a bit of dramatizing. The narrator plays nearly all the voices. Here, Wendy Padbury is Zoe talking to a counselor about her dreams in which she vividly recalls adventures with The Doctor and Jamie that she thinks she could not possibly have had. This one involves a Dalek plan to use surrogates to wreck a peace conference. The evil plan does not make much sense as evil plans go.
| What: | The Dalek Occupation of Winter (The Early Adventures audio dramas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 29 January 2019 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This new series of retro dramas have the mix of narrated and dramatized storytelling that one finds in Companion Chronicles, but with more drama and less narration. Here, Peter Purves performs Doctor 1. He goes for getting the flavor of the character without doing a strictly accurate impression. Narration duties are split between him and Maureen O'Brien. The story itself would have fit well with Doctor Who 1965. There's a twist in it involving the role of the Daleks, but otherwise the story is rather straightforward and simple, with a cartoonish villain whose motivation for killing people just does not add up. It's a great piece of nostalgia, recalling a simpler time in Doctor Who where the moral lines a clear.
| What: | The Complete Eleventh Series (BBC new series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Friday 25 January 2019 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
I was very unsure of Doctor Who's future when I heard a lady was going to be the Doctor next after Peter Capaldi. I now apologize for my stupid pigheaded sexist remark and state quite unreservedly that Jodie Whittaker is the best thing to happen to the show since it rebooted in 2005.
I am a total die hard fan of her kind, caring, thoughtful and beautiful 13th Doctor. She is just s simple and amazing to love as a character. And all the companions have no idiotic traits and they all meld together more like a family than a Doctor and companions. Its a wonderful new direction that Chris Chibnall has brought to the show.
And the stories of season eleven just blew me away. There is extremely strong characterisation, extremely well plotted stories and some powerhouse acting. I also hugely enjoy the return of the proper historical story to the mix. Rosa and Demons of the Punjab and The Witchfinders are stunning in the portrayal of some less than brilliant times in human history. There are some gut wrenchingly sad scenes throughout these stories, and some moments of joy and wonder too. Its also so amazing to have a series of such variety too. The stories of this first season have been more varied than they have in yonks.
I truly cant pick any true favourites as each episode is amazing in its own way and they all get a huge thumbs up from me! Although the exquisite moments of Rosa and Demons of the Punjab make them definite highlights. The alien races all look amazing. The Pting, Tzim Sha, The mutated Spiders...all look brilliant in the extreme. The exquisite filming of the show too adds to the wonderful feel of this season too.
And I for one love the lack of foul language and swearing in this season. I just dont see the need for course lanaguage in every programme these days.
Perhaps the extras in the set are just a tad meagre, but the series itself is so beautiful and brilliant that I cant and wont mark it down for that. I love this series and Jodie to absolute bits. After years of frustratingly baffling and incomprehensible stories its so amazing to have a truly coherent and marvellous series once more. This is plain and simple magic...
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| The pinnacle of the historicals and more |
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Marco Polo 5/5 absolutely great and I wished it was recovered
The Reign of Terror 3/5 Not so good, but an enjoyable listen
The Crusade 5/5 The pinnacle of the historicals! I love the interaction of King Richard and the companions and The Doctor. Incredible!
Galaxy 4 5/5 An absolutely underrated story.
The Myth Makers 4/5 Mostly enjoyable but loses its value without the visuals.
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| A Better Dicks Novelization |
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| What: | The Caves of Androzani (Target novelisations) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 27 December 2018 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
"The Caves of Androzani" is considered a classic of classic Doctor Who. This mostly comes down to the fantastic directing of Graeme Harper, who made probably the most knuckle-bightingly tense episode of all time. In Terrance Dicks' novelization, we get the story without the visual content, and this serves to highlight, unfortunately, many flaws in Robert Holmes's script. That one mad genius with an indeterminate number of androids could hold off an entire army in a culture that has routine space travel just does not make much sense. The man-eating cave creature is a plot complication that does not really go anywhere. Despite this and some other flaws in plausibility, the story is still fairly interesting, with all the competing egos out to destroy each other. Dicks this time makes some effort at truly novelizing the script rather than simply transcribing it. This makes the reading more enjoyable than it probably otherwise would have been.
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| The end of the world! Or the beginning.. |
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| What: | Festival of Death (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Leon Coward, Sydney, Australia |
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| Date: | Sunday 2 December 2018 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
I had reservations about this novel, fearing it would be a zombie horror cliche. Very pleasantly, it is anything but.
For those familiar with the later stories of Tom Baker's Dr Who, "Festival of Death" fits perfectly with its style of plotting and characterisation. Morris doesn't depart from "how" the story might have looked - interchanging between scenes with the pace of a television show, and also a tongue-in-cheek low production budget - no digital era for spaceships, I'm afraid, it's still lightbulbs and tape spools.
My impetus to read this book came from the fact it was reprinted for the Dr Who 50th celebrations, and this fact kept me in for about 30 pages where I was tempted to read something else. I'm glad I held in, because you begin to realise the challenge Morris has taken up in creating a story where the characters keep looping back in on their own timelines.
The book entertained, it was thought-provoking, and kept me reading faster and faster to find out what happened next. I would certainly recommend it to those who enjoyed this era of Dr Who.
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| Doctor Who and the Civil War |
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| What: | Blood and Hope (Telos novellas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 22 November 2018 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
This is a short novel featuring Doctor 5. "Blood and Hope" occupies the pure historical genre of Doctor Who stories, so has a place left vacant during the Peter Davison run on TV. This story also includes the character Erimem from the Big Finish audio series. The plot is fairly simple. The Doctor and companions land, immediately find themselves in trouble, get separated, and spend the rest of the story trying to reunite. In this case, they land at a farmhouse in the borderland between sides near the end of the American Civil War. The Doctor gets in trouble with a kind of jailbreak of some slaves, leaving Peri and Erimem to fend for themselves. The two have to pretend that Peri is a woman displaced by the war, and that Erimem is her slave. They run afoul of mad Confederate Colonel Jubal Eustace, who goes on a vendetta against them. Meanwhile, The Doctor has been forced into service as a surgeon for the Union army. Simple as the plot is, McLaughlin complicates the story and makes it more interesting by writing this as an epistolary novel. The main "narrators," therefore, are a Union officer named Will Johnson, writing letters home to his sweetheart about his search for his cousin, Paul le Val, who is forced into service for the Confederacy, and Peri, who is dictating a kind of personal confession of some action she does not want to admit to. There are a few other writers, plus some extracts of historical documents, but most of the narrating is from these two perspectives. This means that The Doctor is pretty much a side character, seen only in how his actions affect other characters. The novel is not "about" The Doctor all that much. Instead, it is about the psychological effects of war on Peri, Will, Paul, and Jubal. In that regard, the novel is fairly accurate, and McLaughlin does not overplay either the "you should be horrified" angle, or the sympathy angle. The plot does proceed by an abundance of remarkable coincidences, which seems to me a bit of lazy plotting. Overall, it is an interesting and worthwhile read.
| What: | The Angel of Scutari (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 20 November 2018 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
"The Angel of Scutari" ends what we might call a Hex-trilogy. Deeply disturbed by what happened on Bliss in "Enemy of the Daleks," Hex asks the Doctor to take him somewhere that he can make a difference. The Doctor takes him to a crucial point in the Crimean War a couple of weeks before the arrival of Florence Nightingale. Leaving Hex to sort himself out, The Doctor and Ace quickly find themselves embroiled in events that they have committed in their future, but in the historical past (just a few weeks). Then, The Doctor and Ace get split up. The Doctor, taken for some kind of double agent, ends up in the Czar's best dungeon in St. Petersburg, Ace in a military hospital in Sebastipol, where she meets a young Russian ensign named Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi. The story is broken into segments and criss-crosses through the weeks (about six altogether). It is potentially interesting to tell a story this way, but here that gets marred a bit by some clumsy and clichéd scene-switching cues (any echo-fade out fans? How about swirly sounds?). It's another pure historical for this character trio and seems in a way a bit redundant because they get caught up in their third war from Earth's history.
| What: | Enemy of the Daleks (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 20 November 2018 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
This story begins a sequence in which we explore the character of Hex in significantly more detail than hitherto. The Doctor takes Ace and Hex to the planet Bliss, which turns out to be used mainly for a scientific research station in the middle of the Dalek wars. We get an intriguing kind of mad scientist whose drive to end the Dalek war leads him to create a monster potentially worse than the Daleks. The framework for the story is pretty much the old Daleks set a base under siege ploy. Hex's moral conscience gets explored a bit as we see how his major motivation in life is to use his medical skills to alleviate suffering, a moral code that takes priority in his mind and leads him to make several foolishly rash decisions. Ace continues her big sister role with him, constantly aiming to protect him from both the monsters and the Doctor.
