Has it really been nearly a year since The Condemned? Time, once again, has flown. Oh dear.

Yet already, we have a sequel to that story which first gave us the pairing of the Sixth Doctor with Charley. Also written by Eddie Robson, The Condemned was a modern day tale set in Manchester that tried to be gritty and urban and was really very good.

Which is what makes The Raincloud Man something of a disappointment. While The Condemned was quite tense and managed to throw aside some of the usual conventions of Doctor Who stories, this is a semi-comedic affair that although by no means bad, really isn't as big or as clever - or even as funny - as it thinks it is.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - 116 - The Raincloud Man"

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One of the greatest of all Doctor Who writers was Robert Holmes. Creator (to varying degrees) of the Autons, the Master, the Sontarans, virtually everything to do with the Time Lords and sundry other Doctor Who arkana, he also wrote perhaps the best ever story, Caves of Androzani; no lesser person than Russell T Davies thinks he wrote some of the best dialogue in British television history.

However, his first piece of Who writing was a particularly arse piece of work for Patrick Troughton. The Krotons, which starred Welsh god Philip Madoc in the first of his many Who appearances, was a slightly dull piece originally intended to be a serial in its own right. It featured the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie landing on a planet run by South African monsters who want to drain the brains of the intelligent natives. And that was about it. For four episodes.

Here, after no particular clamouring that I've detected, is the triumphant return of the Krotons. A bonus play for subscribers to Big Finish's plays, it's written by, directed by and stars Nick Briggs and also features the sixth Doctor and Charley - and Philip Madoc, even if he isn't playing the same part as in the original.

Good job it's free though.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - Return of the Krotons"

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We're now entering the fifth Doctor's era for the first time in Big Finish's Companion Chronicles range. To a certain extent, I can't help but wonder why.  

Peter Davison's willing to do just about any old muck Big Finish throws at him; all the actors who want to recreate their roles as companions (Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Nicola Bryant as Peri, Mark Strickson as Turlough) and even some of those who don't (Janet Fielding as Tegan) have had a go, too.

So this really feels like "we couldn't get the budget to do a proper production of this" rather than a justifiable entity in its own right.

On the other hand, it does enable a "full companion" story featuring Nyssa, Tegan and Adric, which they probably couldn't get to happen otherwise. So I'll give them the benefit this time.

However, there's a couple of things I won't give them the benefit over:

1. Bringing back the cocking Dar traders from The Death Collectors
2. Picking, of all the fifth Doctor stories to write "in the style of", the most goddamn boring one of them all Terminus

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x6 - The Darkening Eye"

Sometimes Big Finish have a good idea and they run with it: make lots of audio plays featuring the original actors from Doctor Who. Sometimes they have a bad idea and they still run with it: make lots of audio plays featuring none of the original actors from Sapphire and Steel.  

But sometimes they just have an entirely mundane idea that no one would really consider re-using - and they run with it. Case in point: 100 was a series of four, one-episode plays gathered together to celebrate the 100th Big Finish Doctor Who audio release. So far so good. What you might not then have expected is for Big Finish to release four more one-episode plays under a numerical umbrella for no really good reason whatsoever.

Which is why Forty Five would have surprised you. It's just four plays, all featuring the number 45.

That's silly.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - Forty Five"

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How disconcerting. I thought they were going in Doctor order with these, but now we've skipped back to William Hartnell again. Wait a sec while I get my bearings.

Right. Whenever there's a Doctor Who list-writing competition/meme (and these do happen very, very, very often), one of the lists is invariably "shortest-lasting companion", with the challenge being to identify who counts as a companion: anyone who travels in the TARDIS? Anyone in two or more consecutive stories who travels in the TARDIS? It all starts to become a bit tricky, when you consider that Liz Shaw, for example, never actually travelled in the TARDIS yet is undoubtedly a companion.

Fellow competitors in the 'tricky' stakes are first Doctor companions Katarina (Trojan priestess) and Sara Kingdom (future secret agent), both of whom pop up around the time of The Dalek Masterplan then promptly cark it after a minimal number of episodes in said story.

Which makes a Sara Kingdom Companion Chronicle an even trickier prospect for Big Finish. How exactly can you get Sara Kingdom to start recounting a tale of her life with the Doctor when she meets him and dies in the same adventure?

Sounds like a bit of a ghost story. Gather round, everyone...

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x5 - Home Truths"

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Hands up anyone who's not a Charley fan. Right, get out: you're barred.

Since we're now left only with people of pleasing intellect and taste, we can begin the review. First, as a brief aside, is "Nicholas Briggs as the Daleks" really a major selling point, worthy of the cover? Okay, so he does the TV voices, too, but who, other than committed fans, knows that and cares. More to the point, won't they already be buying at least three copies of every Big Finish release already? You don't think it's because Briggsy is one of the Big Finish producers that his voicing mysteriously warrants a cover praise, do you?

Anyway, moving on. When you sit down to write a piece of intelligent fiction, more often than not, you tend to want to make it "multi-layered" - ie "not too basic". The audience need brain stimulation, you convince yourself, so let's add some plot twists. All well and good so far.

The problem is when you go overboard and start to cackle to yourself as you add in every single plot twist and clever idea you can possibly think of. Suddenly, your play lurches from minute to minute like a rodeo bull, throwing off audience members willy nilly.

Oops Alan Barnes. I'm looking at you here.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - Brotherhood of the Daleks"

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What's up here? This is getting silly. Not only has Louise Jameson already starred in three entire series of Gallifrey already, she's been in the Tomorrow People plays, the last Sapphire and Steel play and a previous Companion Chronicles piece, The Catalyst. Now she gets another one? What did Mary Tamm, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton and Matthew Waterhous do wrong? Actually, don't answer that.

Of course, the quick answer is that Big Finish producer Nigel Fairs seems to like Jameson, given that he's responsible for writing and directing a sizable number of the plays I just listed. In fact, this follows on directly from The Catalyst, at least in storytelling metaphor, even if the story itself is set at a more random point. Co-starring David Warner (oh look, another Big Finish fave. Fancy that.), the play isn't as good as The Catalyst and feels like a couple of old Blake's 7 episodes cobbled together.

I'm not selling it to you, am I?

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x4 - Empathy Games"

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It's going to be interesting to see how the crop of companions from nu-Who are regarded in 30 or 40 years' time. As much as Rose might be loved and Martha disliked now, will time swap them in future generations' affections?

Take a look at Jo Grant, one of the third Doctor's companions, for example. Brought in to appeal to kids in a way connoiseur's companion Liz Shaw was unable to, Jo Grant was very popular during her stint on the show.

Now, she's reviled as a brain-dead waste of space and a retrograde, anti-feminist step on the part of the producers, who had also wanted a companion who needed saving and had to have everything explained to her - and Liz Shaw is revered by anyone with any sense.

But Big Finish is here to save the unsaveable. It made Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford popular. Surely it can make Jo Grant interesting for one of its Companion Chronicles. Can't it?

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x3 - The Doll of Death"

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Every so often, something dumb happens. In the world of Doctor Who, this usually equates to a stage play. Always a bad idea, since they're usually sub-panto pieces of rubbish.

Now along comes another bad idea to the world of Doctor Who. Big Finish are going to adapt these stage plays and turn them into audio plays, trying to be as faithful as possible to the original productions, no matter how arse they were. They're even hiring as much of the original cast as possible, no matter how appalling they were, too.

First up is The Ultimate Adventure, a stage play from the 80s that featured first Jon Pertwee then Colin Baker (and occasionally understudy David Banks) as the Doctor. Written by Terrence Dicks, it also features the Daleks, the Cybermen, mercenaries and - oh my God - songs.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - The Ultimate Adventure"

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There's always something more to look forward to with a fifth Doctor Big Finish play. Okay, so Colin Baker's still the best audio Doctor and he's usually partnered with India Fisher (best audio companion/actress), Nicola Bryant (ah, Peri…) or Bonnie Langford (nearly best audio companion/actress. Honest). But his stories tend to be considerably poorer than the ones Peter Davison ends up with.

Whether it's the TV era itself that encourages the writers to come up with cleverer storylines or the editor of the fifth Doctor range (whoever that might be) simply commissioning better pieces, you can usually assume that a fifth Doctor piece is going to be good, with just the occasional minor fluff-up (such as The Boy That Time Forgot.

Here, though, we have Marc Platt, author of the Sylvester McCoy TV story Ghostlight, who can normally be guaranteed to over-write his audio plays something chronic. So we have a battle on our hands: the pretension of the seventh Doctor's era versus the cold sci-fi of the fifth Doctor's. Who will win? And should you spend money on the spoils of the war?

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - Time Reef"

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