Next is The Red House, featuring Six and Charley, one of the more unique Doctor/Companion pairings as Charley started off as an Eighth Doctor companion but found herself travelling with the Sixth Doctor. The whole story arc being that she has to keep her true identity a secret to protect the Web of Time, I'm not really a fan of how the story arc is executed, with Charley constantly making slip ups and stumbling over her words to make an excuse, and meanwhile the Doctor never presses her on the matter, it just makes both of them look idiotic. In the years since though when revisiting this part of Six's life, they've toned down Charley's slip ups, though in this story a whole ten seconds in she makes another bone headed remark that draws Six's suspicion. But that's the least of this story's problems.

This was scripted by Alan Barnes, Charley's creator, one of Big Finish's early main writers and one of the main writers for the comics. I don't dislike Alan Barnes or his works, but his best material really came from his early years at Big Finish, in later years his style has gotten to a point where I kind of groan when I see his name on the writing credits. Barnes style and tone for his stories is often very goofy and over the top, and it reflects a lot in the performances of the characters who give these very cartoonishly exaggerated performances, which in an audio is either gonna make you laugh or it's gonna irritate you. Granted The Red House isn't as annoying as most of his recent works, to do that the story would have to be set on Earth in the last few decades where characters drop pop culture references every few lines or so. But this still has some of his mannerisms like the reverse werewolves talking like stoned teenagers, the head of the police force having an unconvincing copper voice and Charley's muffled ranting and yelling for minutes on end. 'these seem like nitpicks but having listened to so many of his works in the last few years, it just really gets on my nerves whenever they crop up. The Valeyard's really the biggest saving grace, the story itself is fairly generic, the reverse werewolves concept's a bit confusing and the story has a very abrupt ending, easily the weakest of the set

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The End of the Line

A very interesting spin on a werewolf story, having it be wolf people that turn into rabid, raging humans instead. The whole wolf society is very fun to listen to. Charley is absolutely brilliant as a companion, I can't wait to get to her stuff with 8. The story really gets going when the Valeyard arrives. His interactions with Charley were great fun and I always forget that the Valeyard has technically lived through all this before, he knows all these companions because he's already travelled with them. The end with the nuclear missile about to detonate was tense stuff and the I liked the hint that the Valeyard left a TARDIS key in the lock so that the Doctor could escape.

Great story and the plot is really starting to thicken.

Next Story: Stage Fright

2 stories left...

A perfectly fine if a little unexciting spin on a werewolf story. Very nice to hear the Valeyard in the second half. He lifts the story considerably. It's a case of strong performances and a so so script.