Lizadier Canon?! TILL NIC HIJACKED THE STORY?!

I don’t like how they deal with the dementia theme I’ll say that straight up right now when a kids show from 2007 in the same universe can do a dementia story line better you are defo doing summut wrong

I feel some moments in the story feel very this needs to be 7 parts cause it’s s7 so padded out like the doctor just goes missing for a couple eps for no real reason

however I love how the ending gives us Bessie I love it but other then that defo not a recommendation

It was bound to happen eventually: a release in the 3DAs that was not an absolute banger of a boxset. Brain Drain sets up a conference in Scotland that the Doctor accompanies Liz and the Brigadier to extremely early in their time together. Then the story makes the bold choice to take the Doctor out of the equation for a third of the story. We know that a man, Linus, is hearing his 'father' in his brain who is an evil alien, we as viewers learn this very quickly and it takes a long time for the protagonists to catch up to what is obvious to us. Even then we don't get that much info on the villain...because it's an alien the Third Doctor will defeat in the future but we haven't met yet either as an audience. The plot is too predictable for the audience, and not enough for the Doctor. I also felt like Liz was weirdly underdeveloped in this, I know it's the beginning of Season 7 but I remember her being great in Intelligence for War. Finally, yes the alien leads to people having dementia, but it's not like it's responsible for all dementia just two people's so I don't see it as tasteless as some others did. Fingers crossed the fall set with undoubtedly Sarah Jane gets the range back to its usual sterling form. This story does have one of my all time favorite covers though! Gorgeous!

Okay, so to start off this review, I suppose I will start with what I enjoyed.

Starting with Daisy Ashford herself, the current voice of Dr. Elizabeth Shaw on Big Finish, and also Caroline John's daughter. I think that she's really on the mark with her performance as Liz, and with each release that comes out, I feel like it just keeps getting better and better. You can really tell that she loves playing the role, and handles said role brilliantly (unlike a certain other impressionist in another range!).

I also feel like Tim Treloar's performance is improving too, although I would beg that they never make him sing again after Poison of the Daleks... (sob emoji I can't use on desktop)

I would also like to point out how it has a decent enough atmosphere surrounding it, especially in the first few parts, though this is also where I feel it begins to fall apart as well, especially with the aversion of going into any sort of depth with these mythical creatures appearing around the grounds of Benbrannon Castle. They didn't actually feel remotely important to the overall plot, or relevant at all, to the point the inclusion just feels odd and rather silly as a bland, surface-level mystery.

As for the dementia subplot, which I feared would very much be handled tastelessly, I kept my head held high in those first couple of parts because there were genuinely quite a few touching moments between Linus MacLeod and his mother, Abigail MacLeod, reminiscing upon the loss of the late Peter MacLeod, father of Linus and husband to Abigail. Peter was one of the head researchers of this project, to try and find some cure to Dementia, but sadly fell victim to the condition he fought, in an act of cruel irony.

However, as the plot begins to progress, it feels as though they slowly drift further and further away from the humanity of all this, and how truly disturbing it is to watch someone slowly succumb to such a debilitating condition, we're back to the very bland, surface-level stuff, this time all about this dull alien masquerading as Peter in order to fool Linus.

This continues on for basically the entire story, as well as a few strange writing hiccups, like an emotional beat between Peter and Linus being repeated twice for some reason, almost word for word too.

However, I haven't exactly reached the part that I think truly drags this down to a measly half-star. It's not the fact that this alien is just incredibly dull and basic, but rather the fact that in the closing few minutes, they seem to outright state that this alien of the story was responsible for both Peter and Linus' suffering of dementia, the latter who received it after the alien's defeat had completely fumbled his memories. It's truly bizarre that this was included at all really, because to me that just screams as shallow and tasteless writing? "Aliens caused the dementia!" is seriously the ending we went for? I have relatives who've suffered from this same condition, and frankly it really boils my blood that they'd take such a childish angle with a condition that's still extremely prevalent in today's society.

I don't know, that's really lowered my view of Briggs, and hasn't inspired hope for any future stories penned by new writer Richard James either. Hopefully he gets a story to his own, then I can judge properly by those standards.

Solid 1/10, for me.