Neverland

✅88% = Great! = Essential!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: exposition, technobabble, and a cliffhanger!

Neverland is a complex story, building on plotlines from earlier 8th Doctor Main Range releases and progressing towards the big climax in Zagreus. It's something of a season finale dealing with the paradox that is Charley and her survival of the R101 crash in Storm Warning.

Part 1 is busy, overstuffed, and a bit hard to follow. Part 2 is more focused, tense, and fascinating. The entire story finds fuel in the Doctor/Charley relationship, and it also seeks to deepen the lore of Gallifrey, the Web of Time, the Time Lords, Rassilon, and the CIA.

This is mainly a three-hander between the Doctor, Romana, and Vansell. Paul McGann is on top form, giving his best performance as the Doctor up to this point. Lalla Ward and Anthony Keetch are at their best, and the story expands upon their characters greatly.

Despite Charley's slight sideline, the story still gives India Fisher plenty to do, and she delivers a fantastic performance.

The Neverpeople make for well-rounded, creepy, and effective villains, helped by great performances from their respective actors.

The atmosphere is palpably sinister, epic, and occasionally confusing. The two parts are around 75 minutes each, meaning that they require extra attention to sink in.

It does build to a wonderfully emotional finale that leans heavily on the Doctor's past actions and the universal stakes at play. Even if you rarely grasp what's going on, you feel the dramatic tension.

The adventure ends with one of the creepier and more intriguing scenes in Big Finish history, as Zagreus is unleashed…