If I could condense this story into just three letters, those letters would rightly be WTF!!! The strangeness levels in this story is off the scale and I love it! This is clearly James Goss adapting some repressed nightmares he clearly had as a kid about the Muppets, Sesame Street or any of these typical puppet kids shows, turning them into these frighteningly cheerful homicidal monsters!!! (but not bad singers)

The Scorchies sees Jo Grant captured in their studio during their final episode as they prepare to destroy the human race, and that’s really kind of the whole story. It’s just Jo and the Scorchies interacting with each other as she learns about their origins, what happened to the Doctor, tries to work out a way of stopping them and all while the Scorchies sing a couple of songs and Jo makes a thing with lights that go bing!

The Scorchies are an idea that would probably be too silly even for the show to attempt and yet thanks to Melvyn Hayes’s hilariously creepy performance as all the Scorchies (with Katy Manning lending a hand on a few of these sadistic puppets), they end up being one of the more entertaining villains Doctor Who has ever done.

There’s not much to really get into here as it’s one of the shorter Big Finish audios even at two parts long, but it is some of the most fun I’ve ever had listening to their audios, Melvyn Hayes and Katy Manning are a delight to listen to, the songs are hilarious, especially when they’re reincorporated in the second half, it’s just a blast to listen to and I highly recommend this one.