There are 4,129 reviews so far. To add a review of your own, click on the item in question, then click the Vote link.
 |  |  |
 | More Time Twisting from Jonathan Morris |
|
| | |
| What: | Prisoners of Fate (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Sunday 12 February 2017 |
|
| Rating: |   7 |
Prisoners of Fate is going to impress those who like tidbits thrown to the fans. It has these in abundance. The brief for this was to tie up the loose ends that have been hanging about Nyssa's story as Big Finish has developed it. This means much emotionality and hand-wringing. It means that Turlough's part in the story is much smaller, though to be fair he got his spotlight in Eldrad Must Die and Kiss of Death. The story itself revolves around a time paradox set in motion by Nyssa crossing her own history, but a part of it she knew nothing about. Now, having learned that she left behind her children for 25 years, she cannot go back to her old life as she thought. But, there is a villain just waiting to capitalize on the energies of the paradox from her doing just that. Much of this story has similarities to Morris's earlier time twister, Flip-Flop, in that we have a depressing society run by corrupt leadership, setting the stage for much "it did happen/it didn't happen" plotting. The corrupt leader, Sibor, is too much of a cartoon baddy to be of much interest. The story does present some challenge for the listener regarding the various directions of the possibilities. It also does tie up most of those loose ends.
| What: | The Power of the Daleks (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
|
| By: | justin barnes, st.louis/mo, United States |
|
| Date: | Saturday 11 February 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 10 |
This has always been a BBC favorite, so for them to totally do this was not a
surprise for me.It's looks Fantastic, Mark Ayres has done a wonderful job with the
audio, plenty of extras, and the plus is the original BBC Website Recon of the story with audio and telesnaps.
DVD's were done write.
SPOILER
There a humors animated error in episode 1 if anyone can spot it and the scene
actually adds to it.
| What: | Tomb Ship (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Friday 10 February 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 7 |
Tomb Ship is one of those claustrophobic tales that pop up every now and again. The Doctor and Nyssa arrive on a giant tomb in space for the god-king of a lost race. Unfortunately, this tomb is full of deadly traps requiring intelligence and a little more to escape. To make matters worse, there is a tomb-robbing family trying to break in to steal the treasure supposedly hidden in the tomb. Basically, we have something like a 19th-century lost world adventure story set in space. Being set entirely inside the tomb places a limitation on what can happen in the story. It's the City of the Exilons or the Pyramid on Mars episode stretched thin to four episodes. A real problem for me is the mother, the ruthless matriarch of this robber family. As the actress says in her interview on the bonus track, the character is two dimensional. She's all greed and self-interest, a two-note part that really does not provide much of an antagonist for the Doctor. The story is entertaining enough, and there are no major blunders. It just runs a bit longer than it ought to.
| What: | Aquitaine (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Friday 10 February 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 8 |
Aquitaine presents Doctor Who in a format that almost always works for the show and is all too seldom done. It is science fiction in a pure form. Doctor 5 with Nyssa and Tegan answer a distress call leading them to the spaceship Aquitaine. Things are not quite right. The place is overgrown with weeds, dusty and deserted apart from the ship's robot intelligence, known as Hargreaves, and what appear to be ghosts. Our crew get split up, not just in space, but also in time. Something is up with the black hole around which the good ship Aquitaine is in orbit. Impending disaster is looming faster and faster and the options for survival are rapidly reducing. The premise is marvelous, giving the audience much to think about. The character of Hargreaves draws admiration as the kind of artificial personality one would actually like to have in a robot. The plot moves apace, and tension builds well. There is only one thing preventing me from giving this full marks, and that is the addition of a Russian mad scientist of the Professor Zaroff variety. The stock villain is the weakest character in the piece, providing an artificial and awkward plot twist in what is otherwise a quite logical story.
| | |
| Definitely Graham Williams |
|
| | |
The first of the unproduced episodes from the 1985-6 season of Doctor Who would have had the return of the Celestial Toymaker, probably with Michael Gough reprising his role. This story would have brought the matter up to date with the Toymaker now working on video games, the newest vogue in entertainment of the mid 1980s. When Big Finish decided to produce audio versions of the missing episodes, Michael Gough had already passed away. In his stead, David Baille does a marvelous job of recreating the mixture of menace and bored ennui that Gough brought to create a memorable villain. In this story, the Toymaker has taken up residence in the funfair at Blackpool. He is now working on producing the ultimate video game, a game that would ensnare millions of users.
Big Finish has worked very hard to recreate the 1985 Doctor Who feel. This includes having a much tetchier Doctor 6 than in the regular Big Finish dramas. Also, the background music is set to sound like 1980s analogue synthesizers. I think that the arrangement of music is a little too simple, more 1978 than 1985 if synthesizers were used.
The story itself is entertaining, if a bit disjointed. Scenes switch back and forth, often with returning to a scene skipped ahead a bit in time so that it is difficult to gather what happened there between scenes. Characters appear that seemingly have importance, but turn out to be irrelevant, such as the police detective in the early section of part 1 and Kevin's missing friend at the end of part 2. Other characters appear only because they are needed, and then get simply forgotten once their use is done. Typical of Graham Williams' approach to Doctor Who, menace gets undercut with light satire, so nothing feels quite as urgent as it ought to. In the end, kudos go to Big Finish for a faithful rendition of the story.
| What: | Robophobia (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Tuesday 24 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 8 |
Nick Briggs has done well with his sequel to The Robots of Death. He has kept some basic elements and added an interesting twist. Doctor 7, sans companion, has decided to take a look at what, if any, lessons have been learned from the events on the sand miner. It's a few months later and the Doctor has made contact with a Kaldor City agent working undercover on a space freighter shipping thousands of robots. The government hushed up the sand miner affair, but the agent has uncovered some of the details and believes that something related to it will happen on this freighter. He is killed before this knowledge gets passed on and it seems like deja-vu all over again, but the Doctor is not at all convinced that this is what is happening.
The story is typical late-period Doctor 7, with the Doctor plotting and scheming, pushing people around through suggestive questions and comments and revealing very little of what he knows. The story is pacey, and the acting is effective.
I reserve full marks mostly because of some dodgy psychology near the end of the story. In total, though, this is quite an entertaining adventure.
| What: | The Return of Doctor Mysterio (BBC new series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
|
| By: | Earle DL Foster, Invercargill, New Zealand |
|
| Date: | Monday 23 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 8 |
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster apparently didn't conceive the pop-cultural character admiringly known as Superman.
The real genesis was made responsible by the Twelfth Doctor misplacing an alien gemstone.
Well, that's the initial premise for Steven Moffat's latest Christmas special, a genuine tongue-in-cheek parody cum homage to the equally wayward Kryptonian (he makes a cameo appearance, via the print medium!), now a masked vigilante recognized as "The Ghost".
Throw in a British version of Lois Lane, some evil brain-swapping alien invaders with a Lex Luthor-like spokesperson, the surprise reappearance of Nardole (having regained his headpiece, virtually!), and you have a decidedly different but nonetheless culturally and humorously appropriate homage to the Metropolis scene. There is even a festive mention with the Doctor being mistaken for Santa Claus and being rewarded with milk and cookies!
The 2016 television event was topped off with an upcoming Season Ten preview, complete with the eventual introduction of newest female companion Bill Potts, and more of the bumblingly likeable Nardole (possibly a subtle reference to the animated Shalka instalment?). Actual judging of the content material aside, it looks like Steven Moffat's last official season will certainly commence with all creative paradoxical guns blazing.
| What: | Time Reaver (Tenth Doctor Adventures audios) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Sunday 22 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 7 |
Time Reaver is another example of the effort Big Finish puts into reproducing the era of a particular Doctor. Time Reaver would have sat very comfortably in the Tennant canon of televised Doctor Who and could very easily have been filmed. It is on a par with stories like Planet of the Dead and New Earth. The Doctor and companion arrive on a planet for mundane reasons (needing a spare available only from a scrap yard) and behind the scenes on the planet something nasty is cooking away. The Doctor steps in, takes charge, defeats a blobby baddy, and the powers that be have to change their ways. In between there are some funny bits, with Donna really winding up the Doctor's know-it-all pomposity, and some emotional bits, with more of Donna's growing maturity. There are no surprises, but it is quite a bit of fun.
| What: | Warlock (New Adventures novels) |
|
| By: | David Turner, Buckinghamshire, UK , United Kingdom |
|
| Date: | Sunday 22 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 6 |
Warlock has lots of good in it, but also lots of bad. It has quick ending and doesn't feel like a dw book however there are some good.
| What: | Parasite (New Adventures novels) |
|
| By: | David Turner, Buckinghamshire, UK , United Kingdom |
|
| Date: | Sunday 22 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 4 |
Parasite may have a creative setting. It's actually a very confusing, boring and nothing book
| What: | Birthright (New Adventures novels) |
|
| By: | David Turner, Buckinghamshire, UK , United Kingdom |
|
| Date: | Sunday 22 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 9 |
Birthright may be very short but it is a thrilling and exciting adventure. Although the first half is a lot better.
| | |
| Average but not very special |
|
| | |
| What: | Sting of the Zygons (BBC New Series Adventures novels) |
|
| By: | David Turner, Buckinghamshire, UK , United Kingdom |
|
| Date: | Sunday 22 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 6 |
This adventure is rather good but it does not do anything interesting or different. While there are good moments the majority is just ok
| | |
| A Brilliant Audio Re imagining |
|
| | |
| What: | Cold Fusion (Big Finish novel adaptations) |
|
| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
|
| Date: | Saturday 21 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 10 |
I never read Cold Fusion when it was first released. I was never tempted to buy it either when I saw the price of the book now online. But I was really glad to hear when Big Finish announced they would be doing an adaptation of Lance Parkin's novel.
Let me begin by saying I am a huge fan of Lance's writing now. His audio drama Davros I still take to be the definitive Davros story. What impresses is his grasp of the characters. They seem totally one hundred percent real and true. But this review is not about Davros so down to business.
Well, I got Cold Fusion and didn't really know what to expect from it. But I knew it would most certainly be memorable. And I wasn't wrong. The picking of the Fifth and Seventh Doctors to meet was inspired. So we have one of the most agreeable and human like Doctors meeting the most manipulative and devious incarnation! And boy it makes for some tremendous scenes in this fantastic story!
Multi Doctor stories are always going to b huge fun no matter what the story content is actually like, but with Cold Fusion we get multiple Doctors but also with an excellent story line. And not only that, but we get FIVE companions thrown into the mix. Sarah Sutton is as lovely as ever as Nyssa, Tegan is her usual gobby Australian self, Matthew Waterhouse is back as the great Adric. And then we have Travis Oliver and Yasmin Bannerman as the delightful adjudicators Cwej and Forrester. And together they are an often chaotic but brilliantly matched brew. I particularly loved Adric's scenes with Forrester. And Nyssa's deep embarrassment as a nude Cwej in the hotel room! They were hilarious scenes. And then Nyssa gets some good scenes with Cwej as they start to really get on well with each other. I found these scenes too to be touching and really cool.
Then we also get a rarity. Patience. The Doctor's wife maybe? I love how Lance portrays this character, with bucketloads of mystery and suspense. And not all the questions about her character are answered by the end of the story. There are only slightly taunting hints as to her past with the Doctor. She is a time lady, and she certainly knows the Doctor well. But the vagueness surrounding her whets the appetite and just leaves me wondering more and more about this character. I do hope Big Finish have the sense to get her back again one day again. I cant wait to see if we get a return. Kristine Kavanagh must be praised. I love her in the role of Patience. She was perfect.
But its still the two Doctors again where the most fun is to be had. Sylvester McCoy is again such a little sly fox in his dealings as the seventh Doctor with his earlier incarnation! But Peter Davison rises to the challenge and has some great lines for the seventh Doctor to hear too. Lance really made the most of these two oh so different incarnations of the Doctor here. Lance has done a brilliant story for the two of them!
I like also that the seventh Doctor meets Adric...and that makes for some great scenes of subtlety on the doctor's part so as to not give away what is to happen to the ill fated Alzarian. Matthew Waterhous really is back in the TARDIS again with the brilliant eighties crew. I am delighted to have him back for more stories.
So I cant give this brilliant adaptation less than a whole 10 out of 10. This is awesome Doctor Who!
| What: | Dark Eyes (Dark Eyes audios) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Friday 20 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 7 |
In the tradition of The Chase and The Daleks' Masterplan, Dark Eyes follows the adventures of the Doctor and a companion on the run from the Daleks, chased across space and time. As in The Daleks' Masterplan, the Daleks are helped out by a humanoid turncoat, the mysterious Kotris, also known as X. The story begins with a Doctor distraught after Lucy's death being offered "hope" from Time Lord Straxus. Of course, Straxus has secret motivations for this, but the Doctor seemingly accepts Straxus' offer and heads off to France in WWI searching for some kind of unusual something. He finds it in the young Molly O'Sullivan, whose unusually dark eyes provide the title of the whole story. Part One, The Great War, gets the two together and lets us in on the idea that the Daleks have something to do with this. Part Two, Fugitives, has our duo bopping around time and space, encountering Daleks, and generally working up the Doctor's distrust of Molly. In Part Three, Tangled Web, there is more running around, but also we learn that Molly is the centerpiece of the Kotris/Dalek plan to destroy the Time Lords. Part Four, X and the Daleks, gives us the big showdown with all the principal characters.
I find this story not as compelling as so many others have found it. There is too much running and hiding, going here and there and getting not much of anywhere. By the end of Part Three, a heck of a lot of blood has been spilled, emotions have been emoted, and TARDIS's been battered about, but the listener is not much wiser about the overall plan than at the end of Part One. The Doctor is more a pawn than anything else and has almost nothing to do with resolving the conflicts. Molly strikes me as just a bit too Irish. And there are too many large gaps in the action while the Doctor is unconscious, leaving this listener to wonder very often "how did we get here?" This is especially true for the sequence in the mental rehabilitation unit. How did X manage to get The Doctor and Molly there?
Of course, the cast is impressive, including Peter Egan and Toby Jones, both highly respected. Big Finish regulars Alex Malinson, Beth Chalmers, and John Banks provide multiple voices and do so admirably. Even though the story is in four "parts," it is really a continuous adventure. It runs for four hours and is never boring. It's a good, but flawed effort.
| What: | Shield of the Jötunn (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Friday 13 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 6 |
Start with a vision, a viking tomb in the middle of the Arizona desert, and ask, "How did it get there?" A good start, you might say. "Shield of the Jotunn" has many interesting elements and some surprising plot developments. There are many clever bits. However, these are interspersed in a story that is otherwise rather run-of-the-mill Doctor Who. The Doctor and his new companion, the intrepid Mrs. Clark, arrive in Arizona, 2029, following a time trouble that bothered the TARDIS. There, a high-tech terraforming operation is in place ostensibly to save the planet from the ravages of global warming. The establishment is run by what appears to be a dodgy American billionaire entrepreneur and his almost as dodgy science advisor. The operation accidentally triggers an alien device buried with a bunch of thousand-year-old Viking skeletons. This device creates an instant deep freeze and releases a giant monster in the storm that eats flesh so that it can form a body for itself. At this point, the regular listener can predict where the main story is going to go. There are a couple of surprises, such as that the entrepreneur and scientist really are not baddies, and are not really even misguided fools led to do bad things. They really want to save the planet. The Doctor here is Old Sixie at his best, straight to business, right to the point, doesn't suffer fools, overcompensating for his mistakes. Mrs. Clark is an excellent foil for this Doctor because in many ways she is just like him. It's entertaining enough, but not tense enough because it's too formulaic.
| What: | 1963: The Space Race (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
|
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
|
| Date: | Friday 13 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 5 |
What is it about Big Finish and the Doctor 6/Peri stories? They've already had a talking pig, the little mermaid, and some other really stupid story elements to work with. Now, it's a talking dog. This thing just ruins what could have been a very intriguing Cold War drama. The Doctor and Peri arrive in Kazakhstan because the TARDIS is on the blink again, and fairly quickly run across some dead bodies in a booby-trapped car. They are mistaken for the people supposedly in the car, scientists going to observe the Soviet space program, and get taken away to the main base of operations. There, they discover that the people whose identities they stole were not scientists, but KGB interrogators. For their own safety, though, our intrepid heroes have to keep up the pretense. All of this is just fine. Had the story stayed there and worked through that problem, we would have been alright. The added fold is the existence of a secret Soviet moon launch to get the first cosmonaut to orbit the moon. However, this capsule has gone missing after passing the dark side of the moon. Intriguing. Then, the capsule reappears, but the cosmonaut seems to have had a memory wipe of some kind. Intriguing. I was thinking that maybe we were going to get reintroduced to the unnamed aliens from "Ambassadors of Death." That would have been an interesting story. However, instead we get the talking dog, and our alien turns out to be a mini black hole turned into a computer. The rationale for performing surgery on a dog to give it a human larynx and brain matter makes no sense. Additionally, that would not create a talking dog, let alone an intelligent talking dog that can lead hundreds of other animals in an animal revolt. At this point, the preposterous just heaps on higher and higher. Can a monkey, not matter how intelligent, actually manipulate a gun? How can an augmented dog suddenly know how to start the launch of an ICBM? How did the black hole perform this surgery on the dog? How did the dog perform the surgery on the monkey? Why didn't the script editor have the good sense to tell the writer to cut out the taking dog?
| What: | Prisoner of the Daleks (BBC new series audiobooks) |
|
| By: | Terri Stevens, Phoenix, United States |
|
| Date: | Wednesday 11 January 2017 |
|
| Rating: | 10 |
Wow what a book! This is a truly amazing accomplishment. A real page turner, it kept me up all night. The Daleks were actually scary in a way that watching them on the television could never convey. You really felt that none of them would be able to get out of there alive. Some of was especially hard to read with the torture of the doctor being particularly brutal. The author makes you feel like you are standing in the room with him, watching him suffer but being unable to help. This is not a children's book, only adults should read this. This is the best 10th Doctor and possibly the best Doctor Who book ever hands-down.
Well, I am glad to say I am a mega fan of John Hurt now as the War Doctor. He is such a ridiculously good actor, is John. One of Britain's finest in my opinion. And his voice is just so suited to audio work. And when its Doctor Who work, then its bound to be memorable! I love his take on the Doctor. He definitely puts his own mark upon the role. And he conveys this Doctor's weariness at the Time War perfectly well throughout all three War Doctor sets so far! He is sublime in his inflection and is never less than seriously impressive as the War Doctor! I am so very glad indeed that Big Finish had the sense to do these War Doctor sets! They have made this fan very very happy indeed.
The Shadow Vortex starts off the third box set superbly well. It has all you could want from a cold war style tale. Russians. Spies. Alien spies and daleks. And of particular note here is Neve McIntosh as the Dalek agent! She's not my favourite character in her portrayal of Madame Vastra, but here she is excellent as the devious and nasty little spy for the Daleks. She is brilliant! And the voice of the Dalek Time Strategist I found really unnerving and weird. Makes this Dalek one of the creepiest sounding ones ever. Nick Briggs really is such a talented guy.
The Eternity Cage gets even grander and bigger in scale. And here, with immense relief, we have a non dipsticky sontaran is who well and truly in the vein of classic series Sontarans! In that he is nasty rutish and short. And its good to show a sontaran who for once isn't a totally out of depth buffoon! Makes a brilliant change as Strax is just a divvy insult to Sontar if you were to ask me. Its great to see them being full on villains again here, and great to hear them whacking the daleks, albeit even if it is only for a very short while. Its good to hear those psycho alien pepperpots get treated like rubbish every now and then! And its also great to hear the conversation between Ollistra (who is once again voiced superbly and easily by Jackie Pearce!) and the Dalek Time Strategist! That makes for a great scene. And the cliffhanger to this episode was genuinely a surprise!
Eye Of Harmony just so happens to be the most epic section of all the box sets so far. Here the daleks are at their boldest ever. Evil refined as engineering. Totally soulless and evil and ever more degenerate! And here they actually finally make me think maybe they are just that bit more sick in the head than the Time Lords. They just go from evil to eviller every time! And the acting from all involved here is very strong indeed. I really like the new character of Kalan, and its genuinely sad as heck when....well, You will have to listen to the story to hear what happens, but its gripping and gut wrenching all the same. John Hurt is at the forefront of these stories, like I said. And boy has the War Doctor saga just gone from strength to strength. Only The Monstrous was a stunning audio cinematic epic, then Infernal Devices raised the game even higher, and now Agents of Chaos is the best of the run so far. Palpable and strong writing combined with superb first class acting. Paired with yet again truly cinematic sound, this all leaves me beaming from ear to ear.
Agents of Chaos is a sublime set. One cant wait for Casualties Of War. I have a feeling this can only be better still....
The second War Doctor trilogy is a step up from the first. Perhaps using three writers rather than one made a difference in this case. There is a story arc and central theme of the "infernal devices," horrifying weapons. The catch is that the weapons are being developed by the Time Lords, not by the Daleks. This goes along with the theme of the moral drop of the Time Lords as the Time War continues. It also helps to provide rationale for the moral dilemma the War Doctor faces in Day of the Doctor. The conscious effort to explain how the Doctor becomes that person works well in this set of adventures.
It starts with Legion of the Lost, in which the Time Lords try to create a zombie army that can be eternally resurrected. David Warner plays the high priest/planetary leader of the planet that uses "magic" mixed with technology. They have tapped into something from the dark times. Have the Time Lords gone too far?
Next is the Alastair MacLean secret mission story A Thing of Guile. The Time Lords have stumbled on a secret Dalek base, so secret that Dalek High Command does not even seem to know about it. A team of commandos, including Prisoner 001, the Doctor now charged with war crimes, must sneak in to find out what the Dalek secret weapon might be.
Third is a return to the eternally resurrected army concept with The Neverwhen. This time, the Time Lords are using their own technology. As far as the War Doctor is concerned, that only makes it worse.
Despite being written by three different hands, there is a nice continuity of quality in this set. John Hurt is suitably impressive, as is Jacqueline Pearce as his High Council foil, Cardinal Ollistra. The acting all around is quite good. Big Finish also really have sound design down to a fine art. The two point deduction from me on this has to do with the limitations placed by having the series in the Time War scenario. I know this cannot be helped, but it does rather limit what the Doctor can do, and what the writers can do with him. The Doctor is in constant state of moral outrage, and must say that everything is "horrifying" just a little too often. So, the formula becomes "present situation that will suitably horrify the Doctor, have him say how horrifying it is, have him forced into doing something against his moral code, and then have him agonize about doing it." These elements are just a little too predictable. Otherwise, this box set is quite enjoyable.
| | |
| What A Christmas Special Should Be! |
|
| | |
| What: | The Husbands of River Song (BBC new series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
|
| By: | Ethan Gibson, Alberta, Canada |
|
| Date: | Thursday 29 December 2016 |
|
| Rating: | 10 |
Fun, camp daft with an amazing performance from both Capaldi and Alex Kingston. Like the Title said, Fun, Camp and Silly and a great way to celebrate the holidays. If you enjoy River Song, I also highly recommend the The Diary of River Song Series from Big Finish
