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 | The superb feelof the late 80s |
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| What: | The Warehouse (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 January 2016 |
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| Rating: |  10 |
This story was written by Mike Tucker, a name I am glad has come back to Big Finish after many years of not a whisper of him. He previously wrote the superb stories The Genocide Machine and Dust Breeding. I was really glad when I saw that he had contributed a new story to Big Finish again. I really like Mike's writing. He's one of those writers who instantly manages to drag you into a story, and keep you hooked.
The Warehouse is a pure delight from start to finish. It has totally the right feel of the era in which it is set. And it also boasts Bonnie Langford as Mel but gratefully without the screams, which I'm sure Bonnie must be glad about too. With Big Finish Mel has been allowed to blossom as a companion and she is really really catching as a companion. And she works brilliantly with Sylvester McCoy. They are just as strong a double act as Seven and Ace are to me.
The characters in this story are all very well rounded too. And the story never pauses for breath. The tension mounts well in this story too, as one discovers just what is brewing in the Warehouse. I love the Doctor and Mel's packaging scene in particular. This has wholly the feel of the first season of Sylvester's on TV. It was an age of new discovery and varied storytelling techniques that I found totally endearing honestly. And The Warehouse would fit right in with the four stories of the much underrated season 24.
As ever Big Finish''s attention to sound design and production is flawless and one can easily picture the huge warehouse and the pulsating mould and the huge alien rats. The climax is superb, and the underlying tones of regret for past beliefs in falsehoods is written extremely well by Mike. It adds a very interesting slant to the story that is already amazing and very entertaining. So this is nothing more than yet another Big Finish hit.
I am really glad to welcome Mike Tucker back to the Big Finish fold. And with the Warehouse, he doesn't disappoint at all. We have a full on piece of Doctor Who with some great themes and some great set pieces. And the actors all portray very likeable and varied characters that add spice to an already satisfying story indeed. I would recommend this brilliant tale to anyone! The Warehouse is a Big Finish highlight.
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| Flaming henry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| What: | We Are the Daleks (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
This story has to join "Enemy of the Daleks" and "Jubilee" and "The Curse of Davros" as Big Finish's finest scripts for the famous pepper pots from Skaro. Its great how new avenues never seem to run out with these metal beasties as Jamie would say. The story in this episode is really superb and surprisingly thought provoking too. And Jonathan Morris does what he always does and tells a frankly excellent story which is then added to by the brilliant acting of the performers. This story is hugely enjoyable, and is already one of my favourite audio stories from Big Finish. Bonnie Langford is no longer a screamer which is a bit of a relief as it gives us yet again the chance to hear what a brilliant companion she is.
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| A great end to the Locum Docs... |
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| What: | The Secret History (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Its been great to hear later Docs with earlier companions. Here the trilogy comes to a brilliant head with the return of an old psycho and a new one! And I always have loved Lysette Anthony, a first class actress. Peter Davison is on high form and goes really well with Steven and Vicki, and Peter and Maureen easily bring these sixties characters back to brilliant life again in this highly brilliant tale from the ever reliable and clever Eddie Robson. Im so glad Big Finish consistently choose the best writers to still keep all the classic Doctors alive and kicking. This trilogy really does have the overtones of a Will Hartnell story, and its a great end....
| What: | Last of the Cybermen (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
1: Colin Baker, together with my favourite companion ever, namely Frazer Hines as Jamie, are brilliant together yet again in this second Locum Doctor story. Add Wendy Padbury to the mix and you're bound to be onto a total winner.
2: Big Finish actually get writers who know how to write great stories for the Cybermen, the best of all Doctor Who monsters. Unlike the new TV series which has totally moronicized the silver giants, here with BFP they are still as menacing as they used to be back in the black and white sixties!
3: Alan Barnes seems to be a very dependable writer. And Last of the Cybermen has to be one of his finest stories.
4: Big Finish do the best Doctor Who around today, and here is a story that clearly shows this off to great effect.
| What: | The Defectors (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Placing later Doctors with earlier companions is a brilliant idea. And its great to hear Sylv with Katy! They just gel so very well indeed in a highly entertaining story by the ever dependable Nick Briggs. Big Finish do the best Doctor Who around today, it has to be said. This story flows along nicely, and as per usual the soundscape and score are brilliant and totally in keeping with the Jon Pertwee era of the show! The Defectors is a great story, and the ending really surprised me in that Jo gets so flared up about...well I wont give too much away but I will say this is a great start to The Locum Doctors trilogy!!
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| Still of a high standard..but... |
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| What: | Series 9: Part 2 (BBC new series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 14 January 2016 |
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| Rating: |  8 |
I definitely thought the ending with Clara going off with the most annoying character ever on Doctor Who, except for maybe River Song and Rose Tyler, ie Me or whatever the annoying character wants to call herself just a load of balderdash. Who would honestly wanna run off in a TARDIS with a prat whose previously has been responsible for your death I ask you?! Seriously off the mark were the final moments of Hell Bent. One again it was about only Peter Capaldi himself stopping this episode from being another lame duck of a series cliffhanger. And just what the hell does Ohila think she's going on about, saying the Doc's breaking every set of rules he ever made just by doing what he did a long long time ago again?!!!!!!! I don't know. Maybe I'm just thick and someone else can enlighten me.
Hell Bent was such a disappointment that it did truly mar what for me was an otherwise superb season. The double episode Zygon adventure for a start was a rare return to the feel of the old series. Its good to see the Zygons again being developed beyond just being out and out villains. And Peter Capaldi's "peace speech" in part two has to be his Doctor's finest moment ever so far, bar none. What brilliant writing here. And the zygons do a lot more than just stand around in this episode too.
Sleep No More is an odd little episode but I cant see why Ive already seen so much negative stuff from others about it online. I think this episode is definitely different, but good different. And the ending is pretty scary. What Doctor Who should always be. Its not the best episode ever, but its not in the worst section either, not by a long chalk. A stolid Mark Gatiss story as ever.
Face The Raven (until it was totally ruined by the mess that was Hell Bent) was another superb example of Doctor Who at its best. Newcomer writer Sarah Dollard has written the best female written episode of the new series to date. I was crying at Clara's death at the climax of this powerful episode. Ive loved Jenna Coleman, and now I think she's seriously contending with Cat Tate to be my favourite new series companion! But grrrrrrr I still feel so marvellously cheated by what comes after this story in Hell Bent. It totally made me groan. Cant any person in the new who stay dead properly? Especially when their exit before was so gut wrenching. Not a good idea. I think I'll pretend I never saw the end of Hell Bent.
And Heaven Sent I thought was leading up to something great. Peter was absolutely superb in this episode. Handling his almost solo role in an episode nether the less still packed with frights and brilliant scenes. The fact that it didn't really carry on into Hell Bent was a real disappointment for me. Hell Bent was really really annoying.
Which is sad as the rest of the episodes were definitely strong and very enjoyable.
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| The REAL 50th Anniversary |
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| What: | The Light at the End (Miscellaneous audio dramas) |
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| By: | James Vick, poole, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 7 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
A 50th anniversary done right, all the Doctors and companions used here are used perfectly, the Master is used perfectly, unlike some of his/hers more recent TV appearances and the plot isn't easy to follow. The only very minor complaint i have with this story is the its a shame Big Finish couldn't use New series content at the time because it would have been brilliant to hear David and the others interact with the classic Doctors, but that's a very minor issue and doesn't effect the story at all. 10/10 Big Finish at it's best!
At last! John Hurt is back playing the War Doctor and its brilliant! John Hurt is an absolute delight to listen too and the supporting cast are also amazing. 9/10
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| This book should have been better. |
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| What: | Twilight of the Gods (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 4 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
This novel is a sequel to the TV story 'The Web Planet.' The story concerns Doctor 2's returning to Vortis, the web planet. It hangs together well. The companions were not pushed off into a meaningless subplot, but were instead active participants throughout the book. This makes a welcome change by Bulis, who all too often has little for the female companions to do except be stranded and wait to be rescued. The Menoptera are depicted as rather overbearingly noble. Also, there does not seem to be much plot. It's all rather like sight-seeing than story. What story there is involves another invader of Vortis, but one that is politically divided into what we can call Imperialists and Communists. This situation gives the reader some highly simplified political science to go with the story. There is also a strange bit involving Menopteran gods who turn out to be real, after a fashion.
| What: | The Ghosts of N-Space (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 4 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Barry Letts' novelization of his BBC radio drama is reasonably good as a novel on its own. Letts has filled in some details, rounded out characters, and generally gone beyond merely reproducing the script with a few descriptive details. The faults are mostly in the original conception of giving a seemingly scientific justification for the popular concepts of an afterlife.
This book is a collection of critical essays by academics. There are some truly bad pieces here that show many of the excesses that have crept into academic critical studies. Among these are Tat Wood's "The Empire of the Senses," a truly and typically illogical essay in the manner of Foucault that has all the faults of such readings, such as mistaking analogy for equivalence, lack of historical context, and breathtakingly sweeping generalizations. Alec Charles' "The Ideology of Anachronism" is little better. Charles takes a post-colonial position, so the conclusions are as predictable as they are trite - "Doctor Who" stories use "narrative closure" to reinscribe colonial values in a wave of nostalgia for empire. On the good side are David Butler's "How to Pilot a TARDIS," which makes some keen observations about the relationship between the show and its audience, and David Rafer's "Mythic identity in Doctor Who," a look at the various mythical elements of the program. The editor should be praised for including material on multiple aspects of the show, including the music, the original novels, and the Big Finish audios.
| What: | Mission to Magnus (The Missing Episodes novelisations) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 4 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
What was to have been the sequel to the excellent Vengeance on Varos never got made for TV. So, this novelization came out. Since it was part of the Target line, it had to be kept simple for the young audience. The story itself is nothing like the gritty "Vengeance." Instead it is rather a farce with The Doctor as the former victim of a Time Lord school bully now being scared of the same bully and trying to hide much of the time. In typical camp fashion, the plot is basically "boys vs. girls," to go with the schoolyard theme begun with Anzor the Time Lord bully.
| What: | Harry Sullivan's War (The Companions of Doctor Who novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 4 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 3 |
One would think that Marter could write the character he played better than this. The novel is basically a Hitchcock-styled spy thing with Harry caught up as that man in the wrong place at the wrong time who gets chased by baddies. Harry spends most the novel fumbling around and being kind of stupid through most the plot. The villain is rather bland, and the plot has many holes.
| What: | Legacy of the Daleks (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 3 January 2016 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
This sequel to The Daleks' Invasion of Earth is one for the fans, with plenty of the things one would expect to have the fans going "wow." This is particularly true when The Master turns up. The novel's post-apocalyptic setting works well, with a society rebuilding and going through the typical political problems that seem unavoidable for humans. The novel has quite a bit of death at the end.
| What: | Nightdreamers (Telos novellas) |
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| By: | Matt Saunders, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Wednesday 30 December 2015 |
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| Rating: | 3 |
..at all. Some of the personality of Jon Pertwee's Doctor is excellent, but the story as a whole: not good. Sorry.
| What: | System Shock (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 21 December 2015 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Justin Richards tries to take on the emerging Internet culture as a subject of this near future, for the time, novel. The Doctor and Sarah arrive in London 1998 when the total world wide web is set for complete linkup. Harry Sullivan now middle aged and working for MI5 is investigating a shady tech company called I Squared. The Doctor and Sarah get involved when they are sitting in a pub minding their own business and an agent investigating I Squared is now on the run from one of its homicidal execs and drops a CD-ROM into the Doctor's pocket. So, the setup for the story is rather contrived. The bad guys in this are a bunch of androids that have added organic components from their snake-like creators. Now, they have come to Earth to enslave the entire population to a hybrid robot-corporate ideology virtually embodied in a computer super-virus that will take over the entire human computer network. After some spy-novel bits in the first third of the novel, the rest is a hostage story very similar to "Die Hard," with The Doctor in the Bruce Willis role working as a lone agent to try to thwart the villains. There is quite a bit of running through the building dodging bullets until The Doctor finally gets out of the building, when, fresh out of ideas, Richards has to substitute Sarah running through the building dodging bullets. The novel has several bits of clumsy writing. Though some of the ideas are interesting, I am confused by the high ratings this novel gets. It really is just run-of-the-mill.
This was just wonderful, fun and fascinating. Well done, Big Finish! Sir John was excellent, as was Jacqueline Pearce, and the other actors. I really liked the character of Rejoice. I can't recommend this audio set enough. It doesn't matter if you like the new or old series best: this has a foothold in both! Sir John, I salute you. Thank you.
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| I Always Thought She'd Be Good at This! |
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| What: | The Drosten's Curse (BBC prestige novels) |
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| By: | Earle DL Foster, Invercargill, New Zealand |
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| Date: | Monday 30 November 2015 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
The Death Pit has literally quadrupled in size and sheer velocity. A.L Kennedy has more than outshone her earlier effort in the Time Trips anthology, with an outstanding characterisation of King Tom, and two enjoyably new companions who deserve visual representation in their own right. And I always was a fan of Fawlty Towers, so tremendously loved the subtle cultural references throughout where appropriate.
| What: | City of Death (BBC prestige novels) |
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| By: | Earle DL Foster, Invercargill, New Zealand |
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| Date: | Monday 30 November 2015 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
I already have an unofficial novelisation of this epic story (which was enjoyable enough), but this brand new presentation has delivered so much more in both televised and literary detail. Undoubtedly the best effort yet of James Goss, and I also hope that this could be the beginning of yet another branch of Who-related reading merchandise.
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| Yeti another brilliant spin off |
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| What: | Downtime (Miscellaneous direct-to-video spin-offs) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Wednesday 18 November 2015 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
It was great to see Nicholas Courtney again in his usual brilliant role of the Brigadier. It was great to see the first appearance of Kate, his daughter and his grandson. Its great to see he never lost his flair for acting the role of the Brigadier so effortlessly! Its a real massive insult that the new series of Doctor Who never had him back in the role one last time before Nick's untimely death. He was a superb actor, and always seemed to be a thoroughly decent old chap too. I'll cherish his Brigadier forever.
And it was also great nostalgia seeing Debbie and Jack Watling back in this superb spin off show too. Here too Debbie somehow manages to gain my feeling very badly for what's happened to her here since she left the Doctor. She's not totally controlled, and so she's not predictable. And I think the ending, with her just seeming to disappear is wonderfully mysterious. Could leave the way open for a return story. And Debbie doesn't scream here too, which is relaxing for the ears for once! And Jack Watling is superb in returning to his role of Professor Travers, the embodiment of the Great Intelligence.
And the effects too I was rather glad to see weren't half bad either. And the red eyed Yeti are a brilliant reappearance but the most woefully underused monster of the classic series I feel. Only the zygons share that title with the yeti. To see them thwarting UNIT and crushing heads and smashing people about is great. The soulless New World group are all creepily eerie too. As is the booming, resonant voice of the Intelligence. And this DVD has been superbly restored too. Just as good as the BBCs Doctor Who releases, if not better.
Marc Platt's script is not nearly so convoluted as Ghost Light, and he packs a lot of twists and turns into the mix. And one cant write a proper review without mentioning the ever brilliant Elisabeth Sladen either. Yet again she adopts the role of Sarah Jane Smith with the ease of putting a coat on! So, altogether this makes for a delightful little snippet of Spin off. Very good indeed.
