The Land of the Dead is a sluggish and often frustrating entry in Big Finish’s early run—one that squanders a promising premise and delivers a two-hour trudge through a narrative that feels stretched, aimless, and oddly lifeless. Set in the snowy wastes of Alaska, the story pitches the Doctor and Nyssa against ancient bone creatures stirred up by a wealthy industrialist building on sacred Native American land. It sounds like a recipe for atmospheric horror, but instead we’re given endless scenes of running, hiding, and shouting, with a monster that never feels particularly threatening and a resolution that’s more limp than climactic.

The character work is equally underwhelming. Nyssa, already underserved on TV, is again given very little to do here—reduced to wandering corridors and asking questions while the Fifth Doctor takes the lead. Peter Davison puts in a solid performance and does his best to inject energy into a story that gives him all the heavy lifting. Monica Lewis, who initially appears to be a morally complex figure, ends up a disappointingly generic damsel. Meanwhile, the portrayal of Native American characters like Tulung and Gaborik is clumsy at best—an uncomfortable mix of tokenism and thin characterisation that hasn’t aged well.

Big Finish had already shown real promise with stories like Phantasmagoria and Whispers of Terror, so The Land of the Dead feels like a sharp stumble. During the so-called “wilderness years,” other media like the Virgin New Adventures and BBC Books were boldly pushing the boundaries of Doctor Who storytelling. This audio, by contrast, plays it safe and ultimately forgettable. It’s a story that hints at big ideas—colonialism, exploitation, ancient horrors—but fails to explore any of them with real conviction. A disappointment, and a reminder that not every early Big Finish release is a hidden gem.