I realise lots of people like the work of Jim Mortimore, such as Campaign and the BF audio, The Natural History of Fear, but I’m going to raise my hand and admit that, for me, he is my least favourite writer of Doctor Who fiction – his prose and I just don’t get on. I’ve read a number of his books such as Campaign and Eye of Heaven and they share similarities with The Sword of Forever – specifically a non-linear narrative.

I coped with this structure when reading Eye of Heaven and, looking back at my review for that novel, seemed to quite enjoy it. That can’t be said for Campaign which, despite flashes of brilliance, I found a very frustrating book. The Sword of Forever though just fell apart for me to the point where I literally had no idea what was happening by the end. Reading some online and print synopses afterwards, I found myself thinking ‘Eh? When did that happen?’ and ‘Oh, is that what was going on in that bit…’. Maybe I’m doing Mortimore a bit of a disservice, though. I tend to read before going to sleep and often I’m quite tired and so tend to drift off mid-page. As a consequence, a book like this is going to be even more difficult to follow.

However, there are other issues I had with the book. The characterisation of Bernice doesn’t really seem right and there’s stuff she does which doesn’t really feel right, such as marrying the man who owns London and sacrificing herself to religious artefacts. I didn’t find any of the characters particularly endearing and that isn’t helped by the chopping and changing between timelines, places and situations meaning it was very hard to get a handle on each character.

One character, in particular, didn’t really work for me. Patience, the velociraptor. There’s some quite nice stuff back in prehistoric times where we see life on Earth from Patience’s point of view. It’s quite well-written. However, when Patience is brought, somehow, into Bernice’s company, it all gets a bit odd. At this point, the character doesn’t really evolve from the initial gimmick of Bernice hanging out with a dinosaur.

As a Christian, it was actually quite intriguing to have Bernice hunting down relics of that religion but I get the impression Mortimore is trying to be controversial by including such iconic items and by having the book climax with Benny being crucified. Having read a fair bit of Mortimore’s work, all it did was kind of make me mentally roll my eyes whilst clinging to the plot by my fingernails.

I love Bernice Summerfield and her spin-off ranges in print and audio are the only ones I ensure I have in physical media. The Sword of Forever is a bit of a marker in her journey away from the Doctor because it’s the last book to retain the cover-style of the Doctor Who New Adventures before they become generic sci-fi style covers from the next release – Another Girl Another Planet. The Sword of Forever feels like a book making a range pull as far away from it’s ‘source material’ as is humanly possible. It’s odd because the last two novels, The Medusa Effect and Dry Pilgrimage, felt like more traditional Bernice/Doctor Who adventures. I think though, that from here on in, the novels pull further and further away from Doctor Who and into setting up their own distinct universe (and there’s Lawrence Miles’ ‘bottle universe’ story Dead Romance which I think will be the pinnacle of that).

Not great.

This Short Trip finds the 2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe visiting the Festival of Britain in 1951 and discovering an alien plan to harness British patriotism for their own ends.

This is a good little tale with a number of nice details, although some which maybe don’t go as far as they could to be satisfying.

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe meet a scientist called Imogen who is trying to get a radio wave transmitter working – an exhibit the Doctor had been excited to try out. It turns out that Imogen has been possessed by a Vardan. The scene where the Vardan reveals itself is vividly depicted and it’s quite a horrible end for poor Imogen.

The Doctor’s plan to trap the Vardan builds neatly on some historical details shared earlier in the story and there’s a good use of the difference betwen Jamie and Zoe which subverts what initially just seems to be a joke about Jamie’s lack of intelligence.

There are also a couple of fun references to other appearances of the Vardans in Doctor Who. It always amuses me how fandom – now involved in so much of the expanded universe – likes to take singularly unimpressive ‘monsters’ from the show and turn them into valid threats with a developed back story. The development of the Vardans here is clever, tweaking them as a race which absorbs the characteristics of the races they team up with – the militaristic tendencies of the Sontarans or the deviousness of the Monk. Here, they want to team up with the human race, the British in particular, who have a renewed sense of hope and patriotism in the aftermath of World War Two, channelled through the Festival of Britain. It’s a clever little idea which presents the Vardans in a different light.

There’s also a nice little character beat for Jamie, although this is one I would have liked more of and does seem to get a bit forgotten as the story moves to its climax. It dawns on Jamie that the King George he and his kin were fighting when he first met the Doctor was one in a line of Georges who continued on the throne right up to 1951. He realises that the Jacobites are forgotten combatants – and ulimately losers – of the battle he was part of. Sadly, the only real consequence of this realisation is that he goes off in a bit of a mood. It really is something that deserves further exploration (although I know similar themes are explored in the Companion Chronicle, The Glorious Revolution).

Not a ground breaking story but an interesting use of an often derided classic Who alien and all well-read by Wendy Padbury.

Dragon’s Claw is, frankly, a huge disappointment. The majority of the story is a beautifully depicted visit to China in the 16th century. The ‘kung-fu’ monks and their monastery are a fun and unusual group for the Doctor to find himself amongst. The three main monk characters have some depth and come across well in the dialogue. The inclusion of a group of Sontarans – all military honour and cloney – fits well with the honourable monks and their ‘shaved head’ likeness.

But the strip ends on something of a whimper.

The Doctor, K9 and his comic strip companion, Sharon arrive in China and soon make the long journey to the Shaolin Monastery to investigate the mystery of violent monks with anachronistic weapons, who have attacked a group of Japanese pirates. There they discover the presence of the Sontarans and, having also uncovered a plot by the Abbot, Yueh Kuang, to become Emperor of China, set about defeating both the Sontarans and the Abbot.

The main problem with this story is that the Sontarans don’t even play second fiddle to the machinations of Yueh Kuang. They are barely playing third or fourth fiddle and could be any non-descript alien race you care to mention. Apparently they have crashed on Earth in a scout ship (which is clearly a larger ship than seen in The Time Warrior as it can hold twelve Sontarans, whereas Linx’s only had room for one). They are hidden at the monastery in the hope of gaining quartz crystals to repair their communication device so they can contact the fleet. They are using Kuang’s ambition to become Emperor to gain access to a large amount of quartz they know the Emperor to be in possession of.

But they are presented as no different to any other ‘stranded alien race’. There is no reference to their interminable war with the Rutan or why they were in the vicinity of Earth. The whole aspect of retrieving the quartz they need seems to hinge on the enormous coincidence that: 1) the Emperor has a large chunk of the stuff; and 2) the Abbot of the local monastery has ambitions to depose the Emperor.

Add to this the fact that they hardly appear in the story and worse still, their defeat happens ‘off page’, so to speak, and you are left with a very unsatisfying ‘Sontaran’ story. They are also fairly stupid. The Doctor escapes because they cannot shoot at him whilst he stands in front of a computer bank. Why, when there are twelve of them against one of him, do they not just take him by physical force. It’s not as if the Doctor could defeat them by himself – he’s unarmed and there’s no way he’s going to get at their probic vents when there are twelve of them and his has no allies hiding behind them (a la Professor Rubeish in The Time Warrior or Donna in The Poison Sky).

On the positive side, the characters of Yueh Kuang, Chang and Hsiang the Ancient (the previous, deposed Abbot) leap from the page. Kuang, it could be argued, is a little 2 dimensional in his villainy but he serves the purposes of the plot. Chang, a young monk who aids the Doctor and Sharon, shows companion potential – honourable and strong-willed, he is even able to resist, to some extent the hypnosis Kuang is using to control the other warrior monks. Hsiang the Ancient is a fun character, buried up to his waist in the ground and constantly demanding food from whoever happens to be nearby.

The undetermined fate of Chang at the close of the story, however, does add to the disappointing ending involving the Sontarans, particularly as, after doing the Doctor’s job for him – however violently – the Doctor is seemingly unconcerned about his fate and whether he will recover from his injuries. It does seem a little heartless on both his, and Sharon’s, part. It’s almost as if there was no more page count for the story, it just had to end as quickly as possible, with as few frames as possible!

The regular characters are as expected. The Doctor does utter a few lines I found difficult to imagine Tom Baker saying and K9 is little more than a mobile laser (although he does come in handy when breaking the monks’ hypnosis). Sharon is potentially more interesting, but this story sees her stand in the background quite considerably.

I’ve always found the fact that Doctor Who Magazine (Weekly/Monthly/Whatever it was at the time) was the first branch of Doctor Who to feature a black companion interesting. It took the TV series till 2005 to feature a regular black character (Mickey) and 2007 before a black female had ‘proper’ companion status aboard the TARDIS (and even then Martha was technically just a guest for the first half of the season!). DWM had Sharon blazing a trail for equality in 1980. Beginning as a teenage schoolgirl, Sharon was aged to womanhood by the Time Witch and eventually stayed on an alien planet to shack up with the local hunk. Although nothing is made of her ethnic background (and rightly so), the monks refer to her as African and her angry reply of ‘I’m British’ strikes an interesting note of some depth for the character. What I also like about Sharon is that she clearly loves travelling with the Doctor and although she does very little in Dragon’s Claw, I look forward to touching base with her again in the future.

Historically, whilst the characters are fictitious, the setting of Shaolin Monastery on Mount Song (or Sung as it is referred to in the strip) is a real place and was indeed home to monks, trained in various martial arts, from the 5th century onwards.

China is a country which, surprisingly, the Doctor has visited on quite a few occasions (Marco Polo, Reign of the Stone Monkey, The Immortal Emperor) and whilst this story is ultimately disappointing on a ‘Sontaran level’ it does evoke a time and place almost as well as The Chains of Olympus does with Ancient Greece. Still not entirely sure why it’s called Dragon’s Claw though….

The Time Witch is a comic strip adventure for the Doctor and his companion, Sharon. It opens on a planet existing before the Earth was formed and sees Brimo banished to an eternity capsule for her crimes against the planet Nefrin. She eventually ends up in a blank dimension (after millions of years in captivity) and finds that her will can create anything she wishes. To do this, though, she is drawing energy from our universe, something which affects the TARDIS and drags it to the dimension’s gateway. The Doctor and Sharon battle Brimo to prevent her drawing any more energy from our universe, which would ultimately destroy it, and trick her into trapping herself again.I have fond memories of this strip. I have owned the American reprints of many of the DWM comic strips for many years, since my early days of being a fan, and have always enjoyed these stories, particularly the presence of Sharon a fun, if under-developed companion.  Brimo is a fun villain. She’s like a less insane version of Omega. Able to create a world of luxury from nothing. It doesn’t seem she’s aware what effect her dimension is having on the rest of the universe but then why should she. She only turns nasty when she realises the Doctor is also able to conjure things up and is therefore a threat to her monopoly. The fact that the TARDIS is blocking the gateway and therefore the power means that, ultimately, she was always going to be defeated as long as the Doctor could distract her for long enough.

Sharon gets very little to do in this story but it does end with the rather bizarre epilogue where, because the TARDIS was split by the dimension leak, its two sections are four years apart by the end of the story. Recombining it is a simple matter but it means the Doctor and Sharon age 4 years each. For the Doctor this is unnoticeable but for Sharon it means she skips her teenage years. I think Sharon is supposed to be around 16 when she meets the Doctor in The Star Beast, which would mean she is now 20 years old. This is shown in the illustrations by a more defined, ‘cleaner’ face and by giving her much more obvious breasts!

Overall it’s a very slight tale but marvellously eccentric. Brimo has a Guardian of the Gateway but all it seems to want to do is drink tea with the Doctor and Sharon. There is a weird part where Brimo and the Doctor fight for control of the Guardian (Doctor vs Master style in the King’s Demons) and manage to split him into two parts –one wanting to kill, the other wanting to drink tea. There is a cliffhanger ending where Brimo conjures up a menagerie of monsters which the Doctor defeats by imagining a pit which they all fall into. It does reflect rather well the tone of Season 17 which was the most recent TV series.

The fact this initial scenes of this strip are stated as happening long before Earth was formed is quite interesting. The extrapolation is that there was quite an empire (the characters are not all the same species) that Nefrin is part of and it is millions of years before it all disappears and Brimo is left alone in space.

This dating doesn’t really tie in with much else from Doctor Who although recent audio, A Death in the Family establishes another planet with a fully developed civilisation at least 7,000,000,000 BC and there is also the scientific civilisation of Daemos, so it seems there were plenty of well developed planets and peoples long before Earth was even a glimmer in the universe’s eye.

A fun strip and certainly one which I have always considered fondly throughout the many years of my fandom and wasn’t disappointed in when revisiting for this marathon.

This early DWM comic strip sees the 4th Doctor and K9 arrive on a desolate sea shore after something goes wrong with the TARDIS console.  There, they find the huge form of Prometheus, the ancient Greek God who created man.  He is chained to a rock.  The Doctor, knowing his Greek myths, recognises him but says Prometheus was chained to a mountain by Zeus.  Prometheus has been here so long, though, the mountain has been eroded to a small rock not much bigger than himself.  The Doctor decides he has been chained long enough and releases him with a quick blast from K9.  Prometheus takes the Doctor to Olympus to meet Zeus and it is clear nobody is particularly pleased to see him.  Apparently his attempts to create man were, according to the other Gods, including Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares and Hermes, a complete disaster.  He is taken away and the Doctor is sent to Asclepius.  Fascinated by this ‘man’, Asclepius (who is growing ‘men’ in his laboratory) plans to dissect the Doctor.

Escaping, the Doctor is able to aid Prometheus’ liberation from the cell Zeus has him locked into and together they steal the life spores Asclepius was cultivating in his laboratory.  Zeus attempts to stop them but they manage to get into the TARDIS and in the depths of space, Prometheus launches himself from the TARDIS and towards an unnamed planet, ready to start life anew.

This is a very odd story as it doesn’t seem to explain who these Greek gods are.  Are they the real thing?  An alien race?  Has the Doctor landed at the dawn of time, on an alien planet, in another universe?  The strip doesn’t want to give clear answers, which is fair enough.  The conclusion has the Doctor wondering whether he was on Earth or whether Prometheus is heading there at the end of the story to start life.

This ambiguity leads to the rather arbitrary placing Lance Parkin has given it in A History; in the very early stages of the universe (around the time of the scene in The Pandorica Opens where the Doctor and Amy visit the oldest planet in the universe).  What I don’t understand is where these ‘failed’ humans are that Zeus is so concerned about.  If this is before the creation of life on Earth, where is ‘man’?  Are we to suppose these gods (their race is never given a name) are contemporaries of the Daemons and their world-meddling, creating and destroying life?  Are they more akin to the Guardians or the Great Old Ones from the universe before ours?

It’s all very intriguing and open to various interpretations.There are some nice touches to link this world with the Greek myths.  Aside from fairly traditional depictions of the various gods, their city is modelled on the Parthenon (and is HUGE) and Aphrodite travels in a clam-shaped flying machine.It’s not a story you can ever imagine seeing on television, but the concept of all powerful, mysterious god-like beings is one the series (in all its various forms) has toyed with on numerous occasions.

Overall it is a fun story but feels inconclusive.  I suppose that’s sort of the point, but it’s slightly frustrating not to know exactly who these Greek gods are.  The Doctor also seems a little too reactive probably because he doesn’t really know what’s happening.  He aids Prometheus without really knowing the full story and hardly interacts with the other gods at all who see him as little more than a lab rat.  I do wonder why Zeus doesn’t consider him more important seeing as he seems to imply there is currently no life in the universe – where does he think the Doctor is from, and why doesn’t he care if he is so concerned about there being no human life in the universe until it can be guaranteed they will be peace-loving and perfect?  It’s all a little strange.  That said, I do like the final frames showing Prometheus flying towards a planet with the Doctor wondering exactly where and when he is.  It does seem quite epic.

A long time ago, the 6th Doctor was put on trial by the Time Lords and viewers got a 14 episode epic that introduced the character of the Valeyard – a distillation of the Doctor’s dark side from somewhere between his 12th and final incarnation.

Also, a long time ago, Big Finish had only released 50 stories. The 51st story was called The Wormery and featured Colin Baker, Katy Manning and Maria McErlane and was written by Paul Magrs.
It’s mad to think of how long ago both those things were.

Back then, an audio with a solo 6th Doctor meeting Iris Wildthyme was quite the novelty (on audio, Iris had only appeared in Excelis Dawns at this point). Nowadays with Doctors meeting all manner of time-hopping, larger than life characters, the combination seems less remarkable.

But The Wormery is an unusual story in many ways and not just for it’s combination of the loud and brash Iris with the equally loud and brash Doctor (a contrast to their first audio meeting in Excelis Dawns with Iris joining forces with the 5th Doctor). This, in a way, is far more an Iris story than a Doctor Who story and as well as dipping its toe in the world of musical theatre, it also has one of the strangest aliens in Doctor Who – tequila worms!

The story is vague about it’s dating, merely mentioning the 1930s but A History pinpoints it to 1930. But far more important than historical placement, is the fact that this story is based in the fictional world of the musical Cabaret (and there are strong echoes of another, lesser known musical, She Loves Me, which has a sequence set in a cafe with a similar atmosphere to the club seen in Cabaret. It’s also set in the 1930s, although in Hungary rather than Germany).

Along with my other passions, I’m a massive fan of musical theatre. It all started back when I was 13 and I was taken to see Starlight Express for my birthday. It blew me away and, combined with regular trips to the pantomime every Christmas throughout my childhood and a regularly played LP of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, cemented by love. It’s an expensive interest so I don’t go to the theatre as much as I’d like.  However, just as I can reel off the name of every actor to play the Doctor, name every companion, identify production codes and list the entire Peter Davison era in story order, I can also recite – word for word – lyrics from numerous musicals.

Cabaret is not one I’ve ever been a huge fan of, though – at least, not the famous Liza Minelli-starring film. I am quite fond, however, of a stage production that was once shown on ITV starring Jane Horrocks and Alan Cumming. It’s bawdy, salacious and moving all at once with the chilling undercurrent of facism lingering in the background.

That last sentence could, to some extent, also describe The Wormery. Iris is bawdy. Bianca – the owner of the club where the Doctor ends up – is silky and alluring. The Doctor is melancholic, reflecting on his trial and discovery of the existence of the Valeyard and the path Germany is setting out on quietly lingers in the background of the story.

I remember enjoying this story on first listen, all those years ago, but this time found myself a little bored by the time the final episode came round. Part of the problem is the limited setting of Bianca’s cabaret club. The revelation that it is actually floating in the vortex is good but quickly means the story is stuck in the same set of rooms for four episodes. Contributing to the claustrophobia is the limited cast of characters – the Doctor, Iris, Bianca, Mickey (a waitress at the club) and Henry (the manager) are the only principal players with a couple of customers bolstering the ranks. A small cast is not necessarily a problem, and Big Finish have good form on producing excellent stories with limited casts. But when a cast is dominated by Katy Manning’s Iris, no one else really gets a chance to get a word in edgeways.

Maria McErlane, who I really only know as the cheeky voice-over of Eurotrash, is good as Bianca but she ends up being a bit one note. Her reveal as basically being Iris’s version of the Valeyard is fun, but doesn’t really go anywhere as it is a deliberate retread of the Doctor’s relationship with the Valeyard. There’s nothing new beyond the initial amusement of the parallel.

Henry, the manager, is stoic (and reminiscent of the head waiter of the cafe in She Loves Me) and then generically evil once his true affiliations are revealed. Mickey, the waitress, is the best character. Effectively becoming the Doctor’s surrogate companion, she also narrates the story in the framing story which involves listening to audio surveillance tapes of events at the club.

This is one of Katy Manning’s earlier outings as Iris. I’m never quite sure about what I think of Iris. I like the concept of the character and have enjoyed her own audio series but often, and especially here, in The Wormery, I find Manning’s performance to be just a bit ‘much’. It’s very broad and quite an assault on the ears. I love Manning but she is very much a ‘character’ in the same way Tom Baker and John Levene have become. Iris sometimes comes across as Manning just with a Northern accent. There isn’t a huge amount of nuance or subtlety to her Iris – at least not in these earlier audios, and especially in this one as there is also a fair bit of ‘drunk’ acting which always, to my ears, comes across as quite forced. I think that actually she becomes better when she has a companion to bounce off, especially when she is paired with David Benson’s Panda. In this story, though, she is just a little too much, especially when put alongside the equally bombastic 6th Doctor and the overly-silky Bianca.

Colin Baker, though, is well-served in this story by a melancholic take on his Doctor which directly picks up on the ramifications of his recent trial. Baker does some good work and his scenes with both McErlane and Manning are the stronger parts of the story – at least for him.

The threat in this story – alien worms inside bottles of tequila – is a strange one for Doctor Who. It’s certainly not a storyline I can see the BBC agreeing to nowadays and, for me, doesn’t quite fit into the world of Doctor Who as well as some weird threats have done in other stories. Part of my issue was the worm’s plans to control all of humanity with their mind powers. Because they achieve this through alcohol I sort of wondered what about those people who don’t drink? I’m one of those people and so it maybe struck me more but a couple of times when the overall plan was being discussed, I sat there thinking – hang on, that wouldn’t work. I know we can say that of many a Doctor Who villain’s plan to take over the world, but here – maybe because I was getting increasingly tired of the characters and setting by the end – I found myself pondering it much more.

Historically, as I have said, this is more based around the ‘Cabaret’ world of 1930 Berlin. However, what we do get is the first mention in our marathon of a group of people who will have a significant impact on upcoming stories – the Nazis. A group of German soldiers are present throughout the story, often being intimidating – but it is not till the final episode that the Doctor explicitly refers to them as Nazis. I’m not sure, though, if this contradicts A History’s 1930 placing as a bit of research suggests the Nazis weren’t really a prominent organisation until a couple of years later. Nevertheless, it’s marks a important milestone in this marathon for them to be referred to be name.

The Wormery, oddly, is a story I remembered enjoying and looked forward to re-hearing. This has been one of those rare occasions where a story has gone down in my estimation rather than, what usually happens, up. I found the characters annoying, the setting limiting and the story just a bit too ‘out there’. There’s individual aspects that appeal, but as a whole, a disappointing revisit.

Doctor Who Adventures are a strange beast.  The stories they tell, usually in 4 pages of frames, are incredibly simplistic.  Their format tends to be: the Doctor and companion(s) arrive in setting; a strange event is taking place; it is revealed to be because of an alien; the Doctor dispenses with the alien in a cursory manner and the Doctor and companion(s) go on their way.  To be fair, this is the basic format of any Doctor Who story, but the brevity of DWA’s comic strip adventures means that there is very little in between.  Other characters are thinly sketched in, the alien is usually a one-note weirdo who roars and then falls foul of the Doctor’s intelligence and the impact of the adventure is minimal on all involved.  One other thing a lot of these strips have in common is an obscure historical setting (obviously those are the only ones I have reviewed in my marathon so far, but knowing the wider canon of strips, the odd, weird, obscure settings continues into the alien plant-set stories as well).   Red Christmas finds us in the village of Hollograd in 1873.  As far as I can ascertain, Hollograd is not a real place (correct me if I am wrong, please) but the link with the story’s alien antagonist: the Krampus, places the village in the Alps as the Krampus is an Alpine Christmas legend.

The Doctor and Amy arrive in Hollograd expecting a traditional Christmas snowy scene.  What they find is a red mist covering the village and wailing villagers.  The adults are distraught because all of the children have gone missing.  The Doctor tells Amy to look closer and they realise the children are still there but that the red mist is being used to obscure them from the parents’ minds and cause grief and sadness.  The red mist is a product of the Krampus, an alien that feeds of fear and sadness.  Light from the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver briefly banishes the mist allowing the parents to find their children but it is not powerful enough to banish it completely.  The Doctor disappears in the TARDIS and returns moments later with it all decked out in Christmas lights which makes the mist, and the Krampus disappear.

For all its short length, its quite an affecting story.  The distraught parents and terrified children are drawn well to emphasise their plight in the few frames they appear.  They are all dressed appropriately peasanty/19th century European too.  Of course the resolution – a bit of light, is fairly cursory, but as I say, that is par for the course for these strips.  What rankles a little more is the fact the Doctor doesn’t really confront the Krampus.  It floats in the background and then, when the Christmas-lit TARDIS appears, disappears in the puff of red smoke.

The Krampus is an interesting choice of villain.  It is a real Christmas legend in Alpine areas – a creature who takes naughty children and eats them – a sort of anti-Santa Claus.  It is a creature featured or referenced in some more fantasy-based TV series such as Supernatural and Grimm.  As such it seems a little too ‘magical’ for Doctor Who (and there isn’t any ‘alien/scientific’ explanation really given by the Doctor) although it does fit with the ‘fairytale’ motif so beloved of Steven Moffat and the era of Doctor Who this story is set in.  It is a shame it is so passive in the story, loitering in the background, never interacting with any of the characters and, as I say, disappearing at the end without so much as a by your leave.

The Doctor and Amy are as well-characterised as they can be in such a short space.  Amy is full of concern for the distraught parents and the Doctor wears another in his collection of silly hats (this time a Christmassy ‘jingle bell’ affair).

As always, the DWA strip provide a fun snack in this marathon meal I am undertaking.

The 10th Doctor and Donnna are aboard a train enjoying the ambience and the food when the train is attacked by robotic cowboys on flying robotic horses.  They are after an alien power source which looks like a small, green ball.  In turns out, however, that these two robots (called Butch and Sundance) are actually law enforcers attempting to prevent the power source falling into the hands of the Black Hole Gang, who promptly turn up.

The Black Hole Gang send the train careering off a bridge and into a matter transporter which brings the train on to their ship.  They demand the power source which, surprisingly, the Doctor is more than glad to give them.  It turns out that the power source is notoriously unstable and promptly drains all its energy and starts sapping the energy of the alien ship, eventually causing it to explode (after the Doctor, Donna, Butch, Sundance and an entire train of passengers have managed to escape in 47 seconds….!)

This isn’t the greatest of DWA comic strips.  It is very action-focussed with the usual DWA strange looking monsters.  It has the usual – scary aliens turn out to be good actually trope but this time alongside the scary aliens who actually are bad but are blown up/sent packing in the usual cursory manner trope.  DWA usually sticks to one or other of these tropes, but here they are combined in one, slightly disappointing package.

The one thing that really struck me was how generically Donna is portrayed.  She could be replaced by any companion and is barely recognisable as the gobby temp from Chiswick.  The 10th Doctor is also fairly bland and there was one frame that reminded me far more of Capaldi or Smith in the dialogue given to the Doctor than it did Tennant.

Historically we are on a train in the American West of the 19th Century.  All the local inhabitants are frozen a few frames into the story, so the only interaction is between the Doctor, Donna, the alien police and the Black Hole Gang.  Butch and Sundance are an odd pair.  The strip portrays them as the baddies but then switches to them being goodies with hardly any reasoning or explanation.  The Doctor and Donna just sort of accept it and the readers are clearly just supposed to go along with it.
The Black Hole Gang are a reptilian race (again) with no background or development and its all rather inconsequential.

Not one of DWA’s greatest stories and what’s odd is that it is a two parter and these usually, with more room to breath, are slightly better than their one part counterparts.

Warfreekz is a DWA comic strip featuring the 10th Doctor and Rose. It’s taken me a while to read this, mainly because I couldn’t find where I’d put the copy of Doctor Who Adventures it’s in. Picking it up brought a weird wave of nostalgia. It’s been a while since I flicked properly through an issue of DWA with it’s child-centred focus. The issue containing Warfreekz was released a little bit before the transmission of The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit. The magazine, only the 5th edition, includes articles on Mickey, Paul Kasey, The Girl in the Fireplace and the top five 10th Doctor moments. What struck me the most were the mentions of things like Totally Doctor Who and adverts for the Character Options action figure range with toys of Cassandra and the Moxx of Balhoon. It’s like a different world. It’s amazing how much the landscape of Doctor Who has changed since 2006 when this magazine was released. Doctor Who is ever-changing and that’s what I love about it so much.

Warfreekz fits into this bouncier, more colourful age with it’s slightly odd juxtaposition of World War One soldiers and bizarre aliens watching them on telly. The Doctor and Rose arrive in Belgium in search of chocolate, only to find themselves confronted by three German soldiers. Only the appearance of some strange alien tech prevents them from being shot and soon, the Doctor has realised that they are being observed by a strange alien race, the Warfreekz. These are aliens who like to observe and learn about warfare across the universe. The Doctor isn’t too impressed by this and sends them and their camera packing as well as preventing a company of British soldiers from killing the Germans.

Within the story there are references to the Angel of Mons, a phenomenon which also features in the much darker story involving Doctor Who’s very own scary angels, The Weeping Angel of Mons – but here, in Warfreekz, it is Rose and the sonic screwdriver singing a bit of Robbie Williams (!) which scares of the British troops.

The three German soldiers are not particularly developed, although that is unsurprising in a story as short as the DWA comic strips are. The privates are scared and more trusting of the Doctor and Rose than the Captain who spends the story barking orders and refusing to listen to reason (even in the face of alien technology). At the close of the story, one of the privates gives Rose his chocolate ration as a thank you, which is a lovely touch.

The Warfreekz themselves aren’t really explained either. It’s unclear if Warfreekz is the name of their race or the group that enjoys observing warfare (although the latter is more likely). They tend to be mainly reptilian (like a lot of DWA monsters) and are in a massive auditorium watching events on a large screen. There isn’t really a reason for the Doctor to be as bothered by them as he is. Their equipment is interfering with the soldiers’ compasses causing them to have become lost in the forest, but aside from that they don’t seem to want to influence events in any way, merely observe. Yes, they are voyeurs, but they are not actually causing any harm so I find it a little odd that the Doctor is so disgusted with them. That said, all he does is send a sonic feedback signal down the camera causing them a bit of pain, so it’s unlikely he’s deterred them from seeking our other carnage around the universe.

The Forest of Mormal, where this story takes places, features in the real history of World War One as it is the forest that British troops retreated through during the ‘Great Retreat’ which was from Mons. It seems that this is what both the German and British troops are involved in, in this story.

Initially, Warfreekz looks like it might be a little meatier than other DWA comic strip fare but unfortunately, it doesn’t quite manage it. I think if there was a little more depth to the guest characters it might have felt more consequential but, as it is, I don’t think this manages to add particularly to Doctor Who’s depiction of World War One, despite it’s smattering of historical details.

This short Doctor Who Adventures comic sees the trio dining at the mansion of Mr and Mrs Johnson in Louisiana in 1929.

These comic strips are always short and to the point, often with little in the way of depth or, I’m sorry to say, originality. There have been a few exceptions during my marathon – but this isn’t one of them.

At dinner, Mr Johnson tells the Doctor about a monster in the nearby swamp and so after dinner he takes Amy and Rory to investigate. In the swamp they are attacked by an enormous green monster and taken back to a cave where they discover a group of other people who have recently been going missing. The monster leaves and the Doctor manages to free everyone with a wave of his sonic screwdriver. When the people take up flaming torches and pitchforks to take revenge on the monster for kidnapping them, the Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves trapped.

It then transpires that the monster is an orphaned child and that he has only been trying to protect the locals from some vicious alligators. The Doctor sorts it out and then takes the alien back to its home planet to live happily ever after.

It’s a very common trope in the DWA comic strips for the monster to turn out to be misunderstood. It’s also quite common for the setting to be pretty cursory to the story being told. This could have been a story set in any swamp on any planet at any time as there is no story reason for this to be set in Louisiana in 1929. Mr and Mrs Johnson are merely there to tell the Doctor about the monster and the kidnapped locals don’t do anything except be rescued and then chase the monster.

A visit to 1943 for a short Doctor Who Adventures comic strip where the 11th Doctor and Amy meet a stranded Australian soldier in the Outback. It turns out he is being hunted by a Mirrorite, a weird alien that looks like a shiny pool of water when lying on the ground. Fortunately, the soldier had been ignoring it because he believed it to be a mirage. The Doctor and Amy have arrived with a plan to force the Mirrorite to divide itself in two which weakens it and allows them to capture it.

As with most of the Doctor Who Adventures a lot of the story remains unexplained: why is the soldier alone in the Outback; how do the Doctor and Amy know the Mirrorite is there; where has the Mirrorite come from? But plot is never really that deep or developed in these short 4 page strips.  It is enough to have an innocent human being terrorised by a weird alien and saved, non-violently, by the Doctor and companion.

One of the common tropes of these strips is bizarre alien design. They are always something that could never have been realised on TV. The Mirrorite is hugely reminiscent of the Stingrays from Planet of the Dead (a similarity strengthened by the desert setting). The setting and flying alien also reminded me of the DWM comic strip, A Wing and a Prayer.

I quite liked the conceit of the Mirrorite having camouflage which makes it look like a pool of shimmering water. It made the alien feel like something based on a real creature as the camouflage of creatures in the real world, for both prey and predators, can be just as innovative as the Mirrorite’s fictional adaptation. The way the Doctor and Amy defeated it also made sense and was definitely in the spirit of Doctor Who with them obviously wanting a non-fatal solution for a creature which was just following it’s nature.

Even though the DWA comic strips always feel a bit inconsequential, I think I’ve said before about how I still look forward to giving them a re-read and appreciate the desire the writers seemed to have to take Doctor Who all over the world, and all over time and space. Here it is the rarely-visited Australia in 1943 and other strips, as this marathon will attest to, have visited many far flung times and places, possibly more than any ‘version’ of Doctor Who.

In the Stars is a short comic strip featured in Doctor Who Adventures as sees the 11th Doctor and Amy visiting Babylon in 905 BC. An astronomer called Urtaki is mapping a new group of stars which turn out to be an alien smart weapon.

The Doctor and Amy discover it cannot stand its own reflection and they get the locals to surround it with mirrors. When the sun rises, it deactivates and the Doctor and Amy leave.

This is a very slight story, the norm for Doctor Who Adventures, covering only four pages.

Babylon is depicted quite nicely, but could really be any ancient civilisation. Urtaki is the only native we hear speak and again, he could really come from any ancient civilisation.

The resolution is very similar to the end of Kinda, with the monster being defeated by mirrors, and there is even some dialogue which seems very similar.

All in all this is nothing significant but it is nice to see some more unusual periods of history appearing in a children’s publication – especially as most of the Doctor Who Adventures’ comic strips tend to be set on weird planets rather than recognisable periods or places.

A lot of DWA comic strips are short, sweet and pretty inconsequential. But I enjoy reading them because, every now and again, they visit somewhere a bit unusual.

Rock Quasar and the Mudslugs of Gurn is one such example. The 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory (who have possibly featured the most in my marathon up to now) arrive in Hollywood 1932. At first they don’t realise this, believing they are on an alien planet. But it’s a movie set and, in scenes reminiscent of The Feast of Steven, they find themselves being roared at by an irate director and glared at by the interrupted actors.

But, it turns out, they may have been closer to the truth to begin with. Amy discovers an alien slug costume is inhabited by….alien slugs! The three main actors are also aliens – who are apparently visiting Doctor Who on an exchange programme from Bucky O’Hare – and just want to be able to make their films, not being appreciated artistically on their own planet.

The Doctor begrudgingly agrees to let them finish the film as long as, on completion, they leave Earth.

At only four pages, there isn’t a lot to the strip, but a few fun elements are squeezed in. First of all is Rory’s fandom for the lead character, Rock Quasar. It’s Rory as a Doctor Who fan and its quite cute. His knowledge helps the Doctor decide to let them finish their last film and there’s a great frame where Rory is debating, mainly with himself, whether to go ask speak to the actors. Arthur Darvill’s characterisation of Rory shone through this story and it was easy to imagine him saying Rory’s lines. As a reward, Rory gets to be in this story and I would have loved seeing Arthur Darvill hamming it up in a Hollywood sci-fi serial.

Setting a story in the filming of a serial reminiscent of 1930s Hollywood’s output is very fitting for a Doctor Who story. The cliffhanger nature of Doctor Who stems partly from the Flash Gordon serials shown in cinemas in its early days; each week’s episode ending on a cliffhanger designed to tempt the audience back to the picture house the following week. The actor playing Rock Quasar is one Rick “Crusty” Cobbe – a name which instantly reminds us of Buster Crabbe, the actor who played Flash Gordon in those serials. He, in human guise, even looks a bit like him – all square-jawed and blond.

There’s also a part where Amy tries to defend herself with a film prop – a sink plunger-like affair which Rory identifies as a mind-probe from another film he has seen.

Weirdly, I found this brief sojourn in Hollywood more engaging than The Silent Scream and it’s a shame that we don’t have a better, longer story set in this era as I think it is an excellent setting which, up to now, has not really been utilised the best it could be.

The Fairest of Them All is a brief Doctor Who Adventures comic strip and what a strange beast it is. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in what seems to be an old American Wild West town – apparently deserted – to watch a meteor storm. A spaceship crashes into the town and an alien emerges. The alien ponders on bringing some massive air-conditioning units to Earth and the Doctor gets rid of it by making its make-up run.

Yes – the Doctor defeats an alien menace by making its make-up run!

The alien, when it emerges from the crashed ship, is revealed to be some sort of bear-like humanoid dressed in the bizarrest outfit ever. A hat like Carmen Miranda, a tight-fitting green dress, green boots and a massive wrestler-trophy style belt. The outfit is topped off with a necklace and bangles. The story is very vague about what species this alien is, where they’re from or anything beyond its bizarre appearance. I imagine that’s part of the point, as the alien is totally obsessed with its image but it leaves the story feeling very slight and inconsequential.

I’m also not sure if the bear is female or some sort of terrible drag artist! There are certain frames where it looks decidedly ‘male’ and its physique is quite muscular.

For some reason, the alien’s weapon turns stuff into mirrors with which it begins to admire itself. The Doctor, Amy and Rory use these mirrors to reflect the sun straight at the alien, melting it’s make-up and sending it packing.

At the end, Amy bemoans losing a potential shopping buddy and being left with ‘her boys’.

The historical setting of 1908 is arbitrary and seems to be reasoned around wanting a deserted town. As a coda to my Wild West stories, it hardly counts.

It is, frankly, a terrible story. It’s shallow and dull and quite a few frames are confusing. It’s only four pages long but I had to reread it to make sense of what was actually happening (it wasn’t initially clear what the alien’s weapon was doing).

I rarely say this about Doctor Who but…one to miss.

Doctor Who Adventures provides us with another brief, slightly odd, encounter for the 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory. I hesistate to call it an ‘adventure’ because so little happens and it’s almost over before it has begun.

A submariner has locked himself on the bridge of a submarine and is determined to direct the submarine to a specific destination. The TARDIS arrives in the locked room and the 11th Doctor soon ascertains that the man is a disguised alien desperately trying to return to his crashed spacecship which is lying at the bottom of the ocean. The alien, Gein, had crashed four years earlier but his efforts to repair his ship and escape Earth had been scuppered by the outbreak of World War Two. He has used the submarine to return.

Unfortunately when he does get aboard his ship he finds it is completely lifeless and he needs the Doctor to take him home.

The Doctor performs a bit of jiggery pokery which allows the ship – which is organic in origin – to be devoured by the local marine life meaning the technology contained within won’t be discovered and used by the Nazis to tip the war in their favour.

Quite why, bearing in mind it’s been hidden at the bottom of the ocean for four years, the Nazis are suddenly going to become aware of its presence, is left unexplained.

Gein is a typical DWA alien – bright colours and slightly odd appearance. His ship is purple and a little bit fish like. The Doctor, Amy and Rory are the most basic versions of their characters and all in all this is easily one of the slightest and least engaging DWA comic strips.

The World War Two setting seems to purely be to give a bit of nebulous threat to proceedings but there is hardly any real jeopardy in the story.

A mild diversion.

The Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory materialise on a battleground in the middle of the English Civil War, somewhere outside Bristol, in this Doctor Who Adventures comic strip.

As usual with these strips the plot is very slight.  The TARDIS crew witness a Royalist dog with an alien-charged bark.  With a bit of sonic jiggery pokery, the Doctor reveals a dog-like alien piggy-backing the poodle with vague plans to ‘influence the King’.  The Doctor whisks said alien pooch off in the TARDIS and allows the Civil War to continue on it’s preset course.

This story is as barking as it sounds.  The Roundheads apprehend the Doctor, Amy and Rory only for them to be rescued by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and his Super Poodle.  The Roundheads are placed in a trance by the poodle’s super bark but the Doctor reveals the alien influence and leaves.  Surprisingly, this story was written by Big Finish go-to writer, Eddie Robson, but then there’s only so much plot you can get into four pages of colourful frames.  Amy and Rory do nothing but then three regulars don’t lend themselves to this format at all so again, Robson is fairly blameless.

Although, as a story, this is fairly unsatisfying, I do admire the Doctor Who Adventures comic strips for their variety of historical settings.  The DWA strips do tend to focus on bizarre alien planets or modern day settings, but the fact they are even willing to venture into periods of history which their average reader probably won’t know much about shows a desire to, ever so slightly, stick with the series original educational remit.

Here we have the English Civil War and the real historical personage of Prince Rupert of the Rhine and whilst this and the fact it occurs near Bristol are the only historical facts laid down in black and white, if these strips send even one child off to check Wikipedia for a bit more background information then the Doctor’s work is done.  The comic strip is even specifically dated to the 26th July which got this child checking Wikipedia to find that ‘the Storming of Bristol’ did indeed occur on this date as part of the English Civil War.

The one thing I will say about these strips, though, is I really don’t like the way the various alien races are drawn.  Something about them always feels too cartoony.  The dog-like alien in this story is ‘Scrappy-Doo-like’ in appearance and is purple.  Surrounded as it is by historical detail, it stands out as too unrealistic.  In the alien planet set stories, the designs are even worse.  To be honest I’m not a massive fan of the DWA style of artwork but I can tolerate most of its idiosyncrasies, just not the aliens.

In The Demons of Repton Abbey, a Doctor Who Adventures comic strip, the 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at the home of Lord Cranarch ready for dinner. They are all decked out in their glad rags (with the Doctor wearing his top hat and tails as seen in Let’s Kill Hitler) only to find aliens have invaded the house and taken both the upstairs and the downstairs captive.

Doctor Who Adventures comic strips are bright, brash and short and this is no exception. Pleasingly, though, this doesn’t go for DWA’s usual story twist that someone is an alien in disguise or that the alien is actually benevolent. In this case, right from the word go we know the aliens are baduns and the Doctor is going to kick them back to where they came from.

I’m a big fan of the 11th Doctor and Rory (Amy I can take or leave) and whilst Amy and Rory do very little in this story, the Doctor is quite nicely written (for a short comic strip). There’s a lovely part where he claims he’s always been more of a ‘downstairs than upstairs’ kind of guy when rushing down to the servants quarters. I also love the reappearance of his sonic cane. Moffat has tried to reinvent the sonic with Capaldi’s sunglasses but I love the cane as it’s something that the Doctor is able to flourish with aplomb.

The aliens are reptilian but we don’t learn their species name, although the individuals number Lord Ryzt and K’Tang. They are pretty generic baddie aliens with big lasers and devices which can take the humans memories. Quite why they have invaded the house isn’t particularly clear apart from the Doctor making a quick supposition about Lord Cranarch being quite high up in British Intelligence so having useful info in his head the aliens can steal. Why the aliens, after taking the humans captive and put under their machine’s influence, then proceed to trash the dining room isn’t really explained.

1912 is, nominally, the year but aside from a reference to the Titanic, it’s all rather superficial. The aliens do make the effort to blend in by weating some contemporary clothes (although I’m not sure if the one wearing a long dress with frilly sleeves and mop cap is female or just a male alien dragging up). The humans seem to take being invaded by reptilian aliens within their stride – the last frame sees them laughing and joking with the Doctor, Amy and Rory as if nothing beyond some local ruffians trespassing on the ground has occurred.

Not the greatest of DWA’s strips and not the worst but a fun diversion nonetheless.

Like many DWA comic strips, it is a short tale with many unanswered questions.

The 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory (kitted out in 18th century garb) are travelling in a carriage when the driver refuses to go any further for fear of the ghost of Carole Rose, a feared highwayman (or woman to be exact).  They are attacked by the ghost and discover it is a defence system for a crashed alien spaceship.  They rescue the alien and set off to return it home.The plot of this story is very similar to many DWA strips.  The regulars arrive in a time and place, find a mystery and discover an alien (sometimes nasty, sometimes nice) is behind it.  It’s basically the same plot as Dog of War, another DWA strip, except in that the dog-like alien was malevolent and here the monkey-like alien is benevolent.

Oddly, we never find out why the Doctor and friends are travelling in the carriage or why they are decked out in 18th century clothes (aside from blending in, obviously) and bearing in mind Amy has gone the whole hog with powdered wig and all, I can only assume they were having another ‘adventure’ before and after this brief sidestep down Malthill Way.  And that’s odd too.  The story is called Malthill Way but not a single character or frame makes any reference to it.  I assume the road the carriage driver won’t venture down because of Carole Rose’s ghost is called Malthill Way.  As far as I can tell it isn’t a famous place and Google doesn’t highlight any links with York, which is where the first frame of the strip states it is set.

The illustrations give the characters some nice 18th century garb, I particularly like the Doctor’s red coat, and Carole Rose’s ghost is presented in traditional highwayman gear – cloak, tricorn hat, britches etc.

Other than that, there isn’t a lot to say about the story.  There’s another odd bit where they decide to surrender their jewellery to Carole Rose and Rory, for some reason, is shown holding a sandwich and an apple which the ghost grabs and eats ravenously (something to do with the defence program searching out food).  Quite why Rory has a packed lunch or why a defence program needs to eat is beyond me.

A fun little diversion, and as I’ve said before I have to applaud DWA for setting it’s comic strips in a range of historical times and places.  Exposing its target audience to even the most surreptitious of historical education can’t be a bad thing.

Doctor Who Adventures continues its grand tradition of setting stories in obscure historical periods with this little tale involving a dragon attacking a Chinese town.  The 11th Doctor and his latest comic strip companion, Decky Flamboon, arrive to find that a dragon, usually revered and worshipped by the Chinese, is causing terrible hurricanes to destroy the local town.  Teaming up with a local man, the Doctor realises the dragon is actually a robot-controlled alien spaceship and uses some fireworks (with sonic boosting) to destroy the ship.

As with all Doctor Who Adventures comic strips this is a simple tale dressed with some interesting visuals.  The ‘it’s really an alien/alien spaceship, not a legendary monster’ plot is fairly old hat and has been done in DWA before – Malthill Way, In the Stars and the Reign of the Stone Monkey (which was also set in China) for example.  But what DWA does is provide a fun setting and a little bit of history (in this case, fireworks and their Chinese origins).
Quite why the alien spaceship looks like a Chinese dragon is not explained (in the same way it wasn’t in Reign of the Stone Monkey) but the fact it is a robot-controlled one seems a bit like a plot convenience so the Doctor can just blow the thing up.  It reminds me of when Battle of the Planets was mucked around with by the Americans to make sure all the scenes with enemies being blown up left, right and centre were explained to be robots or automated ships so as to not upset the impressionable youngsters watching.

The other bizarre aspect of this comic strip is Decky Flamboon.  I didn’t regularly buy DWA but did occasionally get it for my eldest when they were younger if there was a good free gift or if they'd been worthy of a reward.  Consequently I missed the issue where Decky was introduced.  He was the result of a reader’s competition for a new comic strip companion (presumably to fill the gap between Amy and Rory’s departure and Clara/Oswin/Oswald’s arrival).

In the past DWA have run two similar competitions (alongside quite a few design a monster ones too) to create a new companion.  They resulted in history student and distant relative of Jamie, Heather McCrimmon and Austrian teenage exchange student, Wolfgang Ryter.  Both these characters were fairly run of the mill – humans on board for a wonderous trip round the universe.  Decky is immediately different seeing as, for starters, he is a six foot lizard with an enormous tail – a Brancheerian apparently.  He is also a shapeshifter which allows him to take on human (or whatever he wants) form but seems to spend most of the strips I’ve seen as his lizard self.  It also seems, from the smatterings of clues I can pick up from the strips I have read, that the Doctor is trying to get him home to his own planet.

I don’t think ‘alien’ companions always work (although I’ll make an exception for Ssard, the Ice Warrior, from the sadly curtailed Radio Times comic strip from back in the day).  DWM did it well with Izzy/Destrii but even then, when Destrii herself came on board she used a device to make her look human in a couple of strips.  Majenta Pryce, whilst green and scaly, was still more human than Decky and even the aforementioned Ssard found it fairly easy to hide under a hood.  Decky is a bit too out there for me – and it saddled with a stupid name as well.  But, as this is a child’s creation and I am sure the winner was over the moon when their creation won, who am I to take that away?

Welcome to the illustrious Companion’s Club, Decky Flamboon.

The Church and the Crown is an enormously fun, fast paced romp.

I love it when Doctor Who wears its influences on its sleeve.  This adventure is 100% Doctor Who and the Three Musketeers.  Although it leans to a slightly more historically accurate account, particularly with the depiction of Cardinal Richelieu, it still revels in the trappings of swashbuckling romps, particularly, to my mind, the two film versions of The Three Musketeers – the Michael York/Oliver Reed one and the Charlie Sheen/Rebecca de Mornay one.  It’s a shame, though, that there doesn’t seem to even be a subtle reference to the greatest of Musketeer adaptations: Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds!

The TARDIS team of the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem return for yet another adventure.  The regulars are all on top form and this is a very strong story for both Peri and Erimem.  Caroline Morris, in only her second story as Erimem, gets to show her leadership in battle and has a lot of fun playing up her royal background at King Louis’court.  The story, however, belongs to Nicola Bryant playing both Peri and her double, Queen Anne.  Doctor Who has a long tradition of doubles but it’s usually the Doctor rather than his companions.  Although this is audio, a strange medium to base a sizeable chunk of plot around physical appearance, it works brilliantly.  This is mainly due, I believe, to our familiarity nowadays with Nicola Bryant’s real accent.  Therefore we can easily imagine her in both roles even though her performances are quite different.

The plot actually boils down to some fairly basic politicial intrigue: the English Duke of Buckingham is planning to invade France.  But the focus of this story isn’t an intricate plot, it’s the Musketeer stylings.  The two Musketeers that hook up with the Doctor, and then Peri, are enormous fun as as are the brief scenes with Blind Maurice.  King Louis (portrayed by the same actor as Blind Maurice!) is also great.  In sharp contrast is Michael Shallard as Richelieu.  It could be argued that he, and Nicola Bryant as Anne to some extent, doesn’t fit into the play’s more humorous leanings.  However, the fact the play is historically more believable than something like Castle of Fear or The Kingmaker but not as serious as something like Son of the Dragon or The Council of Nicaea means it balances the two sides of its nature quite well.

Historically we have as mentioned, King Louis XIII, Queen Anne, Cardinal Richelieu, George Villiers (the 1st Duke of Buckingham) and Madame de Chevreuse (a Lady in Waiting to Queen Anne).  Buckingham’s plot to invade France, however, seems to be complete fiction – more akin to the film inspired stylings I have mentioned.

I haven’t a huge amount more to say about this story.  It’s fun and amusing.  It has some great scenes of tension, particularly any involving Richelieu and it has the regulars and guest cast all on top form.  Had I not waited nearly two weeks since listening to this to write the review I may have had a few more things to say.

I have been looking forward to including this audio in my marathon for quite a while. Gallifrey is a series from Big Finish which I have enjoyed since it’s debut. I’m not usually one for political dramas (it has often been described as a Doctor Who version of The West Wing) but for some reason, I find the series thoroughly gripping and absorbing. I think this is, in part, due to an extremely strong core of characters played by exceptional actors. Taking Lalla Ward’s President Romana and Louise Jameson’s Leela from their appearance in Zagreus and extrapolating an entire series around, effectively, their contrasting and sometimes conflicting solutions to Gallifrey’s problems as a hugely influential power in the universe makes for a great series. Add into that mix, Miles Richardson’s Irving Braxiatel (at an earlier point in his timeline than the Bernice Summerfield range….or at least until it gets a bit complicated further down the line), Sean Carlsen’s utterly wonderful CIA coordinator, Narvin and John Leeson as both K9’s Mark I and Mark II, gives the series a core of characters who are just a joy to listen to.

This first series of four stories adds in turns from Lynda Bellingham returning as her Trial character, the Inquisitor – now given the name Darkel; Hugo (Knightmare) Myatt as a ‘time-conman’ called Arcadian; Andy Coleman as CIA agent Torvald; Jane Goddard as a Time Lord diplomatic powerhouse, Hossak; and, in this final story of the quartet, Susan Engel as Miss Joy, David Warwick as Erich Keppler and India Fisher as Charley’s sister, Sissy.

I’m glad that this series includes a story set in 1939 otherwise it would have been many, many years before I could expound on the series’ brilliance as part of my marathon. How this happens is down to Arcadian, the aforementioned conman, who summons Romana to the timezone because his own plan to alter history has gone somewhat awry. Romana takes Leela with her but Coordinator Narvin has also travelled to the time period with Torvald to clear up the mess on behalf of the CIA – who have already turned ‘a blind eye’ to Arcadian’s mischief in time. Arcadian is very much in the vein of the Meddling Monk (although not a Time Lord) and also has hints of Leslie Philips, Doctor Knox. A time-travelling conman out for himself but able to charm the right people when he needs to. Hugo Myatt is a brilliant fit for the role.

Arcadian has summoned Romana to ensure that Sissy Pollard meets the fate she is destined to meet. In the original history she commited suicide back in Germany rather than boarding the Transcontinental Express as has now happened because of a fake telegram from Charley that Arcadian sent to Sissy. This is so that Sissy can be sold to an alien Nazi-memorabilia collector! Meanwhile, unknown – initially – to Arcadian, his partner in crime, Erich Keppler is actually a Time Lord intent on releasing anti-time back into the universe as almost happened with Charley in Neverland.

It’s actually all rather complicated but, like the train it is set on, rattles along at a heart-thumping pace, with revelation after revelation throwing itself into the story. I actually chose to re-listen to the entire first series rather than this closing chapter and I’m glad I did because a lot of the revelations within are tied into the overall story of this first series involving a Timonic fusion device, the disappearance of Leela’s husband Andred and subterfuge within the other time powers allied with Gallifrey.

Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson are simply excellent throughout this series and bounce off each other extremely well. India Fisher brings a different energy to Sissy Pollard and although their are similarities – enthusiasm and adventure are clearly a family trait – her defence of Nazi ideals is actually quite disquieting. Sean Carlsen has become quite the Big Finish darling and he really did hit the ground running in this first series of Gallifrey. It was interesting to go back and listen to Narvin’s earlier character as oppose to the later one who has acquired a grudging respect for the ‘savage’ and has found a more balanced relationship with his President. In this series we have a Narvin who barely manages to hide his contempt for Romana and Leela and yet is still a capable and almost respected coordinator.

Due to this story being confined to a train (or rather two trains, split between two alternative timelines (I told you it was a bit complicated)) the sense of time and place is rather limited and with the only native character turning out to be Sissy, this isn’t a story about the history of the setting. That said, there are a sprinkling of details, courtesy of Sissy, which link into the trail of breadcrumbs the recent crop of stories have been laying to lead us to the inevitable outbreak of WW2. This is a world where there are people like Sissy who are actually embracing Nazi rhetoric. She namechecks Oswald Moseley and Adolf Hitler. She claims to be a proud member of the League of English Fascists and is their official observer in Munich, reporting back the words and actions of Hitler. There is also the insinuation that at various parties and rallies, she had relations with a series of Nazis. It is even revealed that she acquired a an apartment which had been taken from a Jewish family. Her suicide, that Arcadian’s telegram diverted, however, was a futile attempt on Sissy’s part to draw attention to what she had decided would be a futile war.

It also seems likely that Sissy is based on Unity Mitford, a real life socialite who’s sister had an affair with and then married Oswald Mosely and who, herself, was part of Hitler’s inner circle of friends. Like Sissy, she was given an apartment taken from a Jewish couple. Her story actually ended with same fate as Sissy – she shot herself in Munich when war was declared. Unity survived however and returned to England. Unfortunately, the bullet could not be removed from her brain and Unity eventually died from meningitis as a result of the wound, passing away in 1948.

This is an exciting conclusion to a gripping series. If you haven’t dipped your toe into the world of Gallifrey, this first series is a perfect mix of the sort of stories you can expect and A Blind Eye, though atypical in its setting, satisfactorily wraps up the story, presents a group of fun, well-acted characters and provides a different yet appropriate vehicle for two of Doctor Who’s best loved characters.

It’s time for another dip of the toe into the wonderful world of Doctor Who short stories and we are going right back to the very beginning of this medium. One of the things that I love about Doctor Who is that I am never going to run out of stories. There are more novels, short stories, audios, comic strips and TV stories than I am ever going to have time to read, watch and listen to. It’s a fact I came to terms with a long time ago. I suppose if, in 10 years, the TV series if finished forever and Big Finish has gone belly-up that maybe, just maybe, I may get to the end but I really don’t see that happening. When it takes me, on average, 2-3 months to read a novel and I look at my heaving bookshelfs; when I realise I have just listened to #156 in the Main Range of Big Finish audios and they’ve just released 201; and when I realise that the Main Range is just the tip of iceberg; when I look at the numerous Short Trips collections; the IDW comics; the Titan comics; the non-fiction….eek! And when I realise I’ve owned the first ever Doctor Who annual for years (at least 20; it was one of the earliest annuals I got a hold of) and never read any of the stories in it….well, now is a good a time as any to put that right, even if I’m just going to tackle one of its six stories.

As most fans know, the merchandise released in the 60s on the back of the TV series’ success often only has a passing resemblance to its source material. TV Comic probably took the most liberties and I expected these annual stories to bear similar hallmarks. However, I was surprised to find the level of continuity between this story and the TV story it is a sequel to: The Keys of Marinus. The Doctor even feels quite like Hartnell’s portrayal. I know it is rumoured that David Whitaker may have had a hand in the stories for these annuals and to some extent I can see this to be possible. The Doctor is companionless but is presented as an explorer and an intellectual. He doesn’t have a bag of tricks as his TV Comic incarnation does and relies on his wit and intelligence to escape the situation he finds himself in. There are a few character beats which don’t quite ring true but overall it is much closer to Hartnell’s portrayal and the TV original than I had expected.

The Doctor arrives on a water planet and finds the native population have been forced into slavery by the Voord. We are apparently thousands, if not millions of years after those events and yet the Doctor eventually discovers that the Voord are in possession of two Keys of Marinus and two of Arbitan’s travel dials. This stretches credulity somewhat, even if it does tie the two stories closely together. There isn’t actually a huge amount of story; the Doctor sees the native ‘Fishmen’, he sees and is captured by the Voord; he talks to their leader; he breaks the Voord’s hold over the Fishmen (by realising the strange antennae on their heads are a telepathic organ; actually a part of their body it seems!) and then he escapes. The Doctor never interacts with the Fishmen and just slips away in the TARDIS pondering on events and some unanswered questions.

What struck me most about this story, though, was how elements of it reappear in Domain of the Voord, the Big Finish Early Adventure. In that story the Voord have also invaded a watery planet, enslaved its populace and are revealed to be telepathic. The ‘main’ Voord in both is shown to be more powerful than the sundry Voord minions and with his defeat, the other Voord become weaker and more easily overcome by the locals. Domain of the Voord is a remake of The Fishmen of Kandalinga! It cannot be coincidence that Andrew Smith, its writer, has included so many elements from the annual story. He makes regular appearances at conventions and the next time I manage to get to one (I haven’t the time or money to go to very many of them) it will definitely be a question I want to ask him if he is in attendance.

With Domain of the Voord providing a natural bridge to The World Shapers and The Fishmen of Kandalinga linking so closely with The Keys of Marinus, there is actually a rather coherent storyline of the Voord from The Keys of Marinus to the Worldshapers via Domain of the Voord and The Fishmen of Kandalinga.

I was surprised by how faithful to the TV series this story was bearing in mind its vintage and it was a pleasant diversion. It has also made me want to read the other stories in the annual which feature returning aliens such as the Zarbi, the Menoptra and the Sensorites.  As a side note, I actually used the PDF version of the annual available on The Web Planet DVD (as my hardcopy was in a box under two other heavy boxes in our slowly collapsing garage). It was actually quite pleasant reading this as an e-book but I did miss the smell of that paper.

The fifth instalment of Magic Bullet’s Faction Paradox series, Ozymandias, takes as far from the worlds presented in the first four parts. We now travel to Mars circa 5000 BC, to what, for us and the Faction, is history. Most of this story is concerned with the Osirian court convening to hear Sutekh’s challenge to his brother Horus to prove his divinity and therefore his right to rule their people. Horus, by now, is a hybrid of Osiris and Cousin Eliza, and Sutekh clearly plans to avenge his defeat in battle with a challenge to Horus’ purity.

The other strand of the story sees Corwyn Marne and Finton (from the first and second stories) travelling from 1764 to Mars via the time tunnel left behind by Justine and Eliza. Corwyn has been having dreams compelling him to travel to another world. With Finton in tow, he travels to Mars and discovers its native insect species. Attacked by the insects, Finton is rescued by a clone of Justine whilst Marne meets Lolita.Little else happens but the story is still absorbing as we get an insight into Osirian culture hinted at in Pyramids of Mars.

Edward de Souza joins the cast as Geb, a gloriously working class Osirian, father to Sutekh, Osiris and Nephthys. Gabriel Woolf as Sutekh continues to ooze evil as he challenges Horus to battle and it is a welcome return for David Bickerstaff as Finton and Robert Lock as Marne.

Historically there is little of fact (being as much of it is set on Ancient Mars) but the naming of the story – Ozymandias – refers to the famous poem by Percy Shelley which is about the inevitable decline of all leaders and the empires they build. A suitable reference for a series of audios all about the decline and fall of the Osirian court, and Sutekh in particular.

To be honest, very little actually happens in the story – it’s an awful lot of talking about things that have happened and things that will happen. There is some great dialogue though (I particularly liked Lolita’s line about eating something that didn’t agree with her (i.e. the War King)) and that is what maintains an audio that is essentially just set up for the final instalment, The Judgement of Sutekh.

It will be interesting to see how this all ties into Pyramids of Mars and how satisfying as a whole the series has been. If I’m honest, the middle instalments have been treading water slightly with a vague sense of simply manoeuvring characters into place for a great final showdown. But then, the scripting has been thoroughly absorbing and the dialogue so strong that it hasn’t been blatantly obvious. The fact that this series is populated by such a strong calibre of actor helps enormously and I can only shudder at the thought of what this series would have been like with a BBV Faction Paradox cast (who were fine, just not as impressive as the actors gathered by Magic Bullet).

The second instalment of Magic Bullet’s Faction Paradox is less focussed than the opening episode, but is still a production of high calibre.  With the action shifting from 1763 Naples to the eponymous ship, the narrative is split and after establishing great performances in the first story, one can’t help but think that the likes of Isla Blair, Robert Lock and Alastair Lock (who is a very good actor, despite being better known for his astounding sound design and music skills) are a little wasted in this part.  This instalment is far more concerned with Sutekh and Upuat aboard the Ship and with Cousin Justine’s discovery of what Sutekh is planning.  Gabriel Woolf and Julian Glover continue to excel and are ably supported by the new addition to the cast of fan favourite, Peter Miles as the officious and jobsworth Anhor.

There are some interesting developments and twists to the story, one of which relies as much on the listener’s perceptions as the characters themselves.  The revelation of where Marne’s baby has come from and why it is ill is heartbreaking.  A child of the Black Tree race bank under Pompeii, the baby is physically and temporally imperfect.  The description of how her father and mother sometimes forget all about her, because of her incomplete timeline, is heart wrenching.  Maybe it’s because I’m a father that nowadays I am more affected by tragic storylines featuring babies and small children (any viewing of Call the Midwife is a tear-soaked occasion).  Robert Lock and Patricia Merrick are wonderful in these scenes and it’s a shame it looks as if this is the last we will hear from their characters.

The other twist is the identity of the Dark God that Isla Blair’s Merytra worships.  Both the characters and the listener assume she is referring to Sutkeh – the characters because of her link with the Malakh, Sutekh’s personal retinue, and the listener because of Pyramids of Mars and Sutekh’s role as the Destroyer and God of Death.  The fact that she actually worships Upuat is a great reveal.

The concept of the Ship of a Billion Years is a good Lawrence Miles idea.  The Osirian court is a number of different places spread throughout the universe, the Ship just one of these, allowing for a grand scale to be hinted at without actually visiting each and every place.  The Ship itself sounds suitably grand and it is intriguing to hear these godlike beings in their own environment, particularly Sutekh’s opposition to the status quo.

Quite where the story will now go, with its ties to 18th century Italy severed is anyone’s guess, but I am very excited to find out.  The next instalment, Body Politic, introduces Philip Madoc as the War King (who may or may not be the Master depending on how much you believe the elements of Faction Paradox are ersatz Doctor Who elements), Chris Tranchell (of Leela-loving Andred fame) and Tracey Russell (a key player in the Kaldor City series of audios) as Nephthys – who in the world of the novels is the Osirian who causes trouble for the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan in the Missing Adventure, The Sands of Time.

The only downside is that Julian Glover’s Upuat seems to have done a runner (as he said he would if it looked like Sutekh was going to succeed in his bid to take over the Ship) along with his new slave, Merytra.

How any of this series ties in with The Sands of Time or, for that matter, Pyramids of Mars is anyone’s guess, but the first two instalments of this version of Faction Paradox have restored my faith in Lawrence Miles’ writing ability and made me eager to listen to the rest of the series.
I would strongly recommend searching out these Faction Paradox CDs, still available I believe direct from Magic Bullet, and giving them a whirl, particularly if you think we never got enough of Gabriel Woolf even with his return in both The Impossible Planet and Empire of Death.

Within about 10 minutes of listening to Coming to Dust all my reservations about listening to further Faction Paradox adventures, after the BBV contributions, dissipated. Better acted, better produced and better written, Coming to Dust opened my eyes to why Faction Paradox is a popular as it is.

The story effectively picks up from In the Year of the Cat, in that it is set in 1763. Events in that story are obliquely referred to and it is made clear that many ‘Earth people’ know of the Faction’s presence in the 18th century. Our ‘locals’ are still members of a secret society and Cousins Eliza and Justine are back trying to sort out the mess. But the story itself heads off in a very different direction, as it enmeshes another Doctor Who story into its tangled web. The Faction Paradox audios have involved the Sontarans, human TARDISes and The Talons of Weng-Chiang and now the Magic Bullet series pours Pyramids of Mars into the melting pot. And a delicious meal is made for all.

The Great Houses and Osirians are old ‘friends’. Too powerful to conquer, the Great Houses have an ‘arrangement’ with the Osirians. Cousins Justine and Eliza discover, in 18th century Italy, quite how far the Houses have been prepared to go and discover a plan to bring the Osirians to Earth in a time period which as far as they are concerned, belongs to the Great Houses.

All of this, in lesser hands, would probably not have come off any better than the storylines in the BBV efforts, but Magic Bullet have a trump card. Gabriel Woolf. Woolf is back as Sutekh and the moment his voice drifted through my earphones I literally felt a shiver run down my spine. He is magnificent. But Magic Bullet didn’t just stop there. A flashback scene to the glory days of the Osirians sees Sutekh debating with his brother, Upuat. And who do they have playing him. Only Julian flipping Glover! It makes for a brilliant scene.

The rest of the cast more than match up to the calibre set by these two greats. Justine and Eliza have been recast, Wanda Opalinsky and Jane Lesley respectively, and they are superb. Justine is now mannered and slightly arrogant, Eliza is all enthusiastic Cockney and it works. Mrs Julian Glover, Isla Blair is on villain duties and is marvellous. The three members of the secret society are very good, although unfortunately fall into the same trap as in the BBV audios in that the men sound very similar so it is difficult to tell them apart in some scenes (although this may be partly because two of them are played by brothers Alastair and Robert Lock). There are also some dodgy Italian accents on display, but I’ll let that go.

Also infinitely better than the BBV offerings is the sound design and production. Sound effects are spot on, outdoor scenes sound as if they are outdoors and interiors as if they are indoors. It’s something you don’t necessarily notice unless contrasting two productions as I have done here. A lovely touch is the sound of the sarcophagus/time tunnel from Pyramids of Mars. It’s subtly fed into the background of the scene and when you realise what you can hear, the mental images flood through.

The scripting is much better too. This is Lawrence Miles at his best. The dialogue is crisp, the plotting concise. Scenes lead effortlessly from one to the other and it all builds to a climax which leads, teasingly, into the next instalment with Justine and Eliza off to take the fight to the Osirians.

Historically, this is more about atmosphere than fact. References are made back to Lord Sandwich but all the characters on display are fictional as far as I can tell. The idea of a secret society is well established from the BBV stories but this isn’t the Hellfire club. The concept of the Great Ape echoes this century’s fascination with the strange and bizarre and the three Englishmen’s presence in Naples, certainly fits with the era’s propensity for loving all things Italian.

There is a little historical titbit though, when Justine, Eliza and the three Englishmen, travel to nearby Pompeii to find the Faction Paradox race bank. It is established that, in the 18th century, the area wasn’t known as Pompeii as the name ‘hadn’t been dug up yet’ and the place was referred to as Civita. This, I did not know, and it’s quite nice to have a story set around Pompeii after our two visits there earlier in this marathon.

Unless you couldn’t tell already, I really enjoyed Coming to Dust and am eager to listen to the next instalment. With actors of the calibre of Philip Madoc and Peter Miles yet to join the action, things can only get better. The action is clearly moving away from 1763 but I may well continue to post my thoughts on the entire series before moving on to the next part of my 18th century marathon – it will depend on how far removed from this century the story becomes and whether I can place the latter part of the series, timewise, as specifically.

Magic Bullet’s Faction Paradox series comes to a close in the fairly confusing final instalment, The Judgement of Sutekh. If you think Steven Moffat does ‘timey-wimey’ try this audio on for size. The action jumps around from Mars to Earth to the Osirian Court and back again. The final battle between Sutekh and Horus is raging across time and consequently characters meet in the wrong order and we see events from various points of view. To be honest, it all got a little confusing and I have to admit to being underwhelmed by this last part of a series I have enjoyed immensely.

This is a story which definitely requires more than one listen. Whatever happens in it though, it all builds to leave Sutekh defeated and in the position he is at the beginning of Pyramids of Mars. It also ends on something of a cliffhanger regarding Eliza’s position as Horus with her regaining control of her body but realising she needs to continue posing as Horus for the benefit of the Osirians. There is also a tragic ending for both Marne and Finton following their traumatic adventures – Marne is stranded on Mars and Finton dies soon after being returned to 1764 by Sutekh.

The cast continue to deliver excellent performances and it is good to have Alastair Lock back on board if only for his brief scenes of Pennerton.

One minor niggle is the switching between locations is not reflected particularly well in the sound design. Ancient Egypt sounds no different to Ancient Mars and it would have been nice to have some soundscaping to back up the dialogue.

As a whole, Magic Bullet’s Faction Paradox series has been of excellent quality. I did prefer the earlier instalments to the latter because the final 3 parts tended to have a lot of action happen ‘off screen’ as it were with characters talking about what had happened rather than us actually being able to listen to it. This was in contrast to the earlier stories which had Naples under attack from monstrous Malakh and Eliza and Justine discovering Faction technology buried under Pompeii. We only hear the briefest snatches of the various battles, even between Sutekh and Horus, and this becomes a little frustrating towards the end as it feels a little anticlimactic.

All in all, though, this was a very enjoyable series and one which I would happily revisit in the future (if only to properly understand what happens at the end!)

The beginning of this short back-up strip from DWM dates the initial scenes as 1928. I’ve opted to place the story here in my history of the universe marathon due to the main tale which is told in flashback, which is clearly set somewhere in Egypt’s pyramid building phase, possibly c3600 BC. There is a suggestion that a Pharaoh is having a new style of tomb built – possibly a pyramid, although the artwork is decidedly vague – so this probably occurs sometime prior to The Eye of the Scorpion (although I did not realise this until reading it), possibly around a similar time as when the Daleks pursued the Doctor, Steven and Sara to the part-built pyramids.

The story inscribed in hieroglyphs on the tomb discovered by the 1928 archaeologists, tells of the arrival of a Sontaran scout to Egypt. The Sontaran, named Styx, sets about using the locals to build an emplacement for an ion cannon with which he plans to attack the Rutan Host. He surmises that the Rutan will retaliate and probably wipe out Earth, but he cares little for these primitives (and clearly plans to be away from Earth long before any retaliation comes to pass). An Egyptian overhears him making these plans and when he settles down to recharge himself has Styx walled up in the Pharaoh’s tomb so he can do no harm. Styx awakes but finds himself trapped until in 1928, the archaeologists open the tomb and release him. He kills the archaeologist but clearly the knowledge of his entombment was passed through the generations of Egyptians and a group are waiting for him, slamming the heavy stone door on him and burying him in the sand. However, the last frame suggests that maybe Styx is still alive.

The artwork for this strip does it few favours making its depiction of Ancient Egypt difficult to discern. There are two main Egyptians on display – a Pharaoh (or at least nobleman) and presumably his ‘number two’. Styx is described, entertainingly, as Toad God, and we see small parts of some tombs (as I said, it is never clear if they are actually pyramids or not).

It is not one of the best back-up strips in DWM, but at only one part does not really have time to develop any of the characters unlike the Silurian scientist in Twilight of the Silurians.

The People’s Temple is a short story by Paul Leonard which was originally published in BBC Books Short Trips anthology. It was subsequently read by Paul McGann as one of the three stories on BBC Audio’s Earth and Beyond collection which featured the only original material performed by McGann in the wake of the TV Movie – at least until Big Finish came along.

The People’s Temple tells of the Doctor and Sam Jones (a companion from the full length novels published at the time) visiting Stonehenge during its construction. The plot revolves around Sam attempting a ‘Barbara in the Aztecs’ by stopping a sacrifice which ultimately leads to her realising that she cannot affect the behaviour of a race of people as different to her as aliens from another world.

We meet members of the tribe, in particular Bear and Deer who we meet briefly as children before fast-forwarding to their time as adults and the Doctor and Sam’s arrival. Bear Cub is now Great Bear, the ‘physical’ leader of the tribe, whereas Young Deer is the Deer Man, seemingly the ‘religious’ leader of the tribe. Sam saves a young boy, already perceived as a man by the tribe’s culture, from sacrifice.

The setting of Stonehenge is sketchily presented with reference to round huts and wooden and earth defences, as well as, obviously, the stones themselves (one of which crushes a poor unfortunate girl).

Overall, The People’s Temple is a little slow and uneventful. The slightly dreary setting is reflected in slightly dreary characters and a slightly dreary plot. The possibility for an interesting dichotomy in the two sides of the tribe represented by Bear and Deer is not really explored and Sam’s contact with Doran, the young sacrificial victim, has some potentially interesting material when he first experiences the TARDIS, but ultimately comes down to Sam realising that, try as she might, she cannot impose her values and culture on to a human who has been brought up in a totally alien culture to hers.

I’ve only listened to The People’s Temple about twice since buying the cassette in the late 90s and, were it not for this marathon, I don’t think I would have revisited it any time soon. As it is, I don’t feel it has much listenability although one day I may read the written version to see how close it is and maybe pick up on any aspects I missed from the reading. I will admit that single-voice audio tends to allow my mind to wander whilst listening to it, which can mean salient points are missed from time to time.

The Power of Thoueris is a one part comic strip in issue 333 of DWM. It’s artwork is by Adrian Salmon with a story by Scott Gray. It sees the 8th Doctor alone, holidaying in Ancient Egypt. He seems to have made a companion in Ediphis who is taking him on a boat ride down the Nile when it is interrupted by the sudden emergence of Thoueris, a huge, hippo-like alien. The Doctor quickly deduces she is an Osirian and despatches her rather swiftly with some oil and crocodiles.

This is a very slight tale, vaguely reminiscent of the old DWM back up strips in that events happen very quickly, it features an alien race seen in the TV series and the artwork is sometimes difficult to make out.

I quite like Adrian Salmon’s artwork for things such as the Time Team pictures and Bernice Summerfield audio covers, but – as with The Cybermen comic strip – I find his art difficult to follow in a full blown comic strip. Much of this story takes place at night which is very atmospheric, but I’m still not endeared to his style of art.

The Doctor acts quite out of character in the way he despatches Thoueris, although admittedly she has already thrown caution to the wind with her murder of an innocent villager.

Ediphis seems like a nice bloke and seems to accept the Doctor’s idiosyncratic ways and, in another universe, may have made a good companion for the Doctor.

Egypt is sparsely presented but it is good to finally see the Nile feature in Doctor Who and to see a normal, small, fishing village.

After our brief trip we leave Ancient Egypt now and move into Ancient Greece for a few forays into myth and legend.

In the company of Bernice Summerfield and her erstwhile husband Jason Kane, we take a time trip to Ancient Greece. Benny and Jason are seeking the Oracle of Delphi in search of an answer to a burning question (part of the overall Benny arc at this time in the series). The Oracle is missing and Jason is kidnapped by a strange woman, Megaira. Benny tracks them to Athens and meets up with Socrates. Benny realises a plague is on the way and eventually finds Jason. Exposing Megaira as the Oracle and finding the answer to their question, Benny and Jason return to their own time.

The Oracle of Delphi is a very different beast from Walking to Babylon. Babylon is quite serious and sensible compared to the bawdiness, comedy and frivolity of Delphi. Jason and Megaira get naked, both Socrates and Benny drag up, and there is a fair amount of farce when they infiltrate both the Assembly and Megaira’s cult.

Where the characters of Babylon spoke in the cod-ancient civilisation dialogue common to the stories experienced so far in this marathon, the characters of Delphi are far more modernised – in particular Benny’s temporary companion, Socrates. He banters with Benny throughout the story, even uttering swear words and distinctly un-Athenian turns of phrase. The script is vague about how Benny is speaking Ancient Greek, implying she is actually speaking the lingo and suggesting by association that Socrates is also speaking Ancient Greek and what we are hearing is the ‘English translation’. In contrast, the character of Megaira upholds the cod-ancient speech tradition although this is seemingly because she is the villain of the piece.

In contrast to this comedic edge, though, we do have the terror of the plague convincingly played out and represented by some gruesome images such as the dog which has been forced to feed on it’s dead owner.

Historically we have the eponymous Oracle, Athens, mention of Sparta, a marriage between an Athenian and a Spartan, twin sons (very Romulus and Remus), the plains of Attaca and the Athenian assembly and a lot of discussion of the division of roles between men and women. I’m assuming the plague is also historically accurate as Benny makes a lot of noise about having to let it run its course due to it being an historical fact.

The presence of Socrates is another example of a historical figure featuring in an adventure which in a way works similarly to the celebrity historicals seen in the new series; particularly Dickens and Shakespeare, with his very modern take on the events unfolding around him.

A fun story, this does suffer from feeling too much like a part of a much larger whole, although this was very much the direction the Bernice adventures were moving at this time in the range.

The Chains of Olympus is a DWM comic strip and, interestingly, features said comic strip’s earliest historical period for a multi-part story. The only other DWM strip set earlier than this is the Eighth Doctor one shot, The Power of Thoueris.

Athens is gorgeously depicted in the comic strip and really gives the entire story a sense of place and time, particularly the bustling market place at the beginning of the story. When Amy and Rory (in his first DWM comic strip appearance) step out in togas, this immediately feels like a proper Doctor Who historical ala the Hartnell years when the companions, and occasionally the Doctor, would dress up appropriate to the era. There are some lovely touches such as Rory pointing out the homeless as a counterpoint to Amy’s awe and wonder at real live, classical Greece and each frame of art seems vibrant and energetic which, for still images, is to the credit of the artist, Mike Collins.

The story sees the Doctor, Amy and Rory encountering Greek Gods and Monsters in Athens, accompanied by Socrates and Plato. An alien telepathic generator has been absorbing the dreams, wishes and prayers of the Athenians and a defence mechanism within the device triggers and creates Zeus and the pantheon of gods accompanied by various monstrosities. I’m not entirely convinced by the plot of the story as it all seems a little vague. As I’ve mentioned before (in my review of The Quality of Mercy) I find vagueness surrounding the origins of antagonists in science fiction to be a bit frustrating. I’m going to give the fact that the origins of the telepathic generator are left a mystery the benefit of the doubt for now, however, as I have a feeling that this is something that is going to be picked up on in future comic strips (DWM seems to have a thing about long running story arcs at the moment). The Doctor is asked a question by Athena in the final instalment ‘What is buried in man?’ and Socrates comments to the Doctor before he leaves that he may be brave and clever, but he is not wise. The Doctor clearly ‘knows’ what he’s saying but just smiles and brushes off the comment.

A fun reference to the TV series is the reappearance of Roranicus – Rory’s Roman persona, this time in full Greek Warrior get up. There is also a fan-pleasing reference from the Doctor to The Myth Makers when he mentions to Zeus that he was once mistaken for him.

The dialogue given to the Athenians feels in keeping with the current trend for historical stories within the TV series. This stories closest cousin is probably The Fires of Pompeii and the style of dialogue is similar – modern but with ‘ancient’ overtones. In fact, I’d say The Chains of Olympus manages it better than The Fires of Pompeii as that had some silly inclusions and iffy performances – Caecilius’ Welsh accent for example or Phil Cornwell’s ‘lovely jubbly’ stallholder, which felt too out of place for the setting. The Chains of Olympus involves us with Socrates and Plato and both speak much like 21st century characters, but with an air of classicalness about them.

Of course, this is not the first time we have encountered the great philosopher, Socrates, on this marathon. Bernice Summerfield had the pleasure of his company throughout her audio story, The Oracle of Delphi. The two portrayals are not so dissimilar as to be incompatible and it is probably only the slightly comedic style of the Bernice Summerfield play which allows Socrates the sort of dialogue which would be completely out of place within the pages of DWM (the swear words, to start with). That said, Socrates thumping the Doctor good and proper on their first meeting and spending much of the first instalment of this adventure drunk seems thoroughly in keeping with the ‘Delphi’ portrayal of dragging up and swearing.

For the classical scholars amongst us we have Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, Haephaestus, Hermes and Ares atop Mount Olympus and terrorising the Athenians we find a Hydra, Cerberus, Harpies, a Griffin and a Cyclops (all of which are created out of water, fire, wood or earth/rock which recalls other such-created creatures from a variety of myths).

The destruction of Athens, in particular by the monstrous Ares, is not, as far as I can tell, a fact of history and much of this tale falls very much into the pseudo-historical camp with the setting being little more than an attractive backdrop as oppose to a plot point – more The Smugglers (where it’s all about the ‘feel’ of the period) than The Fires of Pompeii (where it’s all about the historical eruption of Vesuvius).

The Chains of Olympus is one of DWM’s best strips, in my opinion. It’s exciting, fast paced and funny. There are some wonderful images and spot on characterisations of the regulars accompanied by fun characters like Socrates. Wonderful.

In Farewell, Great Macedon, Big Finish have done an amazing job at recreating a Hartnell historical. Even though it is merely three actors – William Russell, Carole Ann Ford and John Dorney (as Alexander) – they evoke the atmosphere of the first season of Who effortlessly. The script has echoes of Marco Polo, The Aztecs and The Crusade with the TARDIS crew fulfilling similar roles as they do in those stories – the clearest being Barbara’s position as the ‘expert’ stemming from her history teacher background. Indeed, Alexander himself is reminiscent of characters like Marco Polo and King Richard – a real person with shades of grey; neither good nor evil.

The story plays as a real tragedy with the unavoidable death of Alexander at the close of the story but also with the systematic dispatching of Alexander’s nearest and dearest, the blame – unsurprisingly – being placed on the strangers in Alexander’s camp.

The main plot of the conspiracy to murder Alexander and take power seems based on actual theories that Alexander was poisoned in real life. The majority of characters are based on real people: Antipater, Ptolemy, Hepheastion, Cleitus.

The setting of the Babylon, and the TARDIS’s landing place of the Hanging Gardens allows the series to tick off another of the ‘famous’ landmarks of history – as only Bernice Summerfield had visited Babylon prior to this point.

This is much philosophy in the script. There is discussion of Socrates statement that ‘I know that I don’t know’ and how the world is full of mysteries – nicely foreshadowing when Alexander realises that the TARDIS crew have knowledge beyond the bounds of his world and time’s experience. There is also a reasoned discussion from Ian of the rights and wrongs of slavery (which contrasts with an over-emotive one argued by Jason Kane in the Bernice Summerfield audio, Walking to Babylon).

The stock scenes of historical ‘epics’ such as this are present and correct – feasts, whispering conspiracy behind pillars, gardens, ‘gladiatorial’ games and aspects of Greek life are dropped in here and there. There is quite an emphasis too on Alexander’s dream of a united world, reflected in the diversity of characters – Indians and Africans for example, and highlighted by Alexander’s toast to the Greek, Egyptian and Persian gods.

I wonder how much of the original script made it through to the Big Finish version. There is such an overwhelming feel of Season 1 in the production – Susan mentions the 57th century; the Doctor gets Ian’s surname wrong. The latter of these feels like a modern inclusion, the first a hangover from the early days of the series (the pilot episode included a line about the Doctor and Susan originating in the 57th century).

There is also a fascinating discussion at the beginning of the first episode about Heaven. Susan believes the TARDIS to have landed there but the Doctor dismisses her. Not, however, because he doesn’t believe in such a place, but because he doesn’t yet know the way. He ponders that one day the Almighty will take him to the afterlife and there is no question that the Doctor and Susan’s culture believes in an afterlife and indeed the implication is that is a Christian idealogy. I wonder if, had this been made for television, this section would have been removed as not tying in with the educational aspect of the series. I cannot think of a single Hartnell story where there is any suggestion the Doctor is religious at all, let alone a Christian.

There are also subtle hints towards the relationship between Alexander and Hepheastion. It is not described as love in the sexual or romantic way but Alexander’s reaction to his death is far more extreme than to any of the other deaths. This is something that probably could have made it to screen – especially seeing as the early series did not shy away from sexually implicit situation – Vasor’s treatment of Barbara or the domestic violence hinted at in The Keys of Marinus, for example – and these were relatively explicit compared to the restraint shown in the script for this story.

The story does take time to tell a tale which could comfortably fitted into four episodes, but in reflecting the era this story was originally written for, the extended length is another echo. At no point does it feel padded but there are times when the pace slows to a leisurely stroll.

The final episodes of the story include the entertaining image of the Doctor firewalking to prove his integrity to Alexander, followed by Ian besting various athletes at wrestling. Ian as the action man is, again, very reminiscent of the early series but I do wonder how many other talents he has hidden under his bushel.

The last part of the story also includes some interesting discussion as to whether history can be changed. Barbara believes they can do nothing but it is the Doctor who decides he will do all in his power to save Alexander’s life. Even after Susan points out that his death at this time is historical fact, the Doctor holds to his Hippocratic oath taken when he briefly studied medicine. This is a contrast to the positions Barbara and the Doctor take in The Aztecs. Apparently Farewell, Great Macedon was being written whilst Marco Polo was airing on television, meaning The Aztecs had yet to go into production. Maybe these roles would have been reversed in light of that story’s central theme.

Farewell, Great Macedon is simply marvellous and a jewel in Big Finish’s crown. This is a historical story as valid as anything transmitted on television and should stand shoulder to shoulder with the greats of that era.

The Companion Chronicles is one of Big Finish’s most celebrated ranges.  The original remit of stories featuring the first four Doctors (then, unrepresented in any of BF’s other ranges) saw various companions narrating tales of adventure and derring do.  That remit fairly quickly transmuted into featuring all the Doctors and the format was experimented with from fairly early days.  The Emperor of Eternity, though, is more of a ‘traditional’ Companion Chronicle and features Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield.  Watling has only featured in two Companion Chronicles to date (and indeed, has not featured anywhere else in the Big Finish canon – even The Rosemariners (a Lost Stories release) which, as far as I was aware originally featured Victoria, was released by Big Finish with Wendy Padbury playing Zoe).  Neither of her stories seem to be particularly celebrated – the first, The Great Space Elevator, is enjoyable enough, but nothing special.  I wasn’t expecting great things of The Emperor of Eternity but, to be fair, I was pleasantly surprised and found myself quite enjoying it.

What is a little odd about this, is the fact that the story is highly reminiscent of Marco Polo – and we all know how much I didn’t like that story…  Aside from the China setting, it features assassins, an Emperor and a tussle in the throne room.  The 2nd Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive in Ancient China having narrowly avoided a meteorite.  Horrifically, said meteorite has ended up crashing into a Chinese village, killing its population.  After encountering some locals, the Doctor is declared a god and taken to meet Emperor Qin Shi Huang who, as explored in the 10th Doctor comic strip, craves immortality.  Jamie and Victoria follow, foil an assassination attempt and escape back to the TARDIS.  The ending, in particular, is quite a lot of fun and quite exciting.  I’ve often commented on how my mind wanders a little with single voice audio and, to be fair, it did a bit during the earlier parts of the story; but the ending started to really grip me and it all builds to a rather satisfying conclusion.

Deborah Watling’s narration serves the story well, but Watling’s voice has aged considerably and, of all the regulars employed by Big Finish, she sounds the most different to her time in the show.  Yes, William Russell, Carole Ann Ford, Maureen O’Brien and others from the black and white era have clearly aged, but Watling’s voice seems to have suffered more than those and she really cannot imitate how Victoria used to sound in the 60s, even though she makes a concerted effort.  It is thrown into sharp relief by the presence of Frazer Hines as Jamie, who provides the second voice for this release.  Having two ‘famous’ voices in one release was, if I remember rightly, the principal selling point of this release.  Up to this point, the Companion Chronicles had featured one companion accompanied by a ‘back-up’ voice – often the villain or an antagonist; or the character the companion is telling the story to; and sometimes both of those at the same time.  Here, we simply have Hines performing Jamie’s lines.  What’s a little odd is that Hines isn’t required to provide the Doctor’s lines, this duty being performed by Watling.  Hines had already shown how marvellous his Troughton impression is in the second ever Companion Chronicle: Helicon Prime.  I have no idea why Hines wasn’t asked to do it here as it would have made an incredible difference to the listener’s engagement in the story.  Maybe it was financial – Hines doesn’t actually have a huge amount of lines and I guess his part may well have been recorded as an addition to a production he was more central to and extra lines for the Doctor would have required a greater fee.  Maybe the production team saw this as Watling’s project and therefore wanted to give the lion’s share of narration to her.  Whichever it might be, it remains a shame this story doesn’t benefit from Hines’ talent at bringing the 2nd Doctor back to life.

Historically, we have the presence (in yet another story) of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (who spends part of the story disguised as a wandering monk).  Meng, his ‘second in command’, also features (although he is presumably not the alien version as featured in the 10th Doctor comic strip, The Immortal Emperor!  Huang’s desire for immortality is a matter of historical record and the story also features his terracotta army (also seen in The Immortal Emperor).  Most disturbingly, a Chinese village was indeed wiped out by a meteorite at this time and the surrounding populous were massacred when an anonymous person inscribed on the rock that the Emperor would die.

The Emperor of Eternity is not the greatest of the Companion Chronicles by a long shot, but it is a fun tale, and (as the interview extras point out) it is good to have Victoria featuring in a purely historical tale – something which had been phased out by the time Watling joined the show.  The lack of Hines’ Troughton performance does jar, as it is so common place now in Big Finish 2nd Doctor stories, but Watling does a good job and I do actually think it would be nice if she returned to do some further adventures – particularly with the advent of the Early Years range which, without her, could be find the Troughton-era set stories a bit limited to Jamie/Zoe releases.

For the record, Genesis of the Daleks is one of my least favourite serials. I know, I know. Just pick your jaw up and I’ll explain. I’ve never been one to adhere to ‘fan wisdom’. My absolute favourite story of the classic series is Delta and the Bannermen (about as far from Genesis of the Daleks as you can get) and in terms of the new series my favourite episodes have been marmite stories such as Love & Monsters and Gridlock rather than acclaimed stores such as The Empty Child or Human Nature.

Consequently, Genesis’ appearance towards to top, or indeed the very top in one case, of DWM surveys, has never sat well with me.

I get it, I really do. Davros is an amazing creation, both in design and in Michael Wisher’s execution. Peter Miles, Dennis Chinnery, Stephen Yardley, Harriet Philpin and many of the other cast members are note perfect in their performances.

Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Ian Marter are a great team.

The idea of the Doctor visiting the creation of the Daleks is one of Nation’s best and the script is tense and contemplative on everything from science to war.

There are some cracking cliffhangers (even if Episode 2’s amazing freeze frame of Sarah falling from a high gantry is resolved by the massive cop out of a previously unseen platform a couple of feet below her).

But…Genesis of the Daleks is awfully grey. The sets are grey, the Daleks are grey, the wasteland is grey, the mutos are grey. The military elite wear black; the scientific elite wear white; mix them together and what do you get….grey. The Thals get to wear green and have yellow-beige walls, but the only true splash of colour comes from the Doctor, Sarah and Harry.

Being grey, it singularly fails to stir much emotion in me. I don’t honestly know what it is but I just cannot get excited by the story despite the fact I can recognise all the wonderful elements within its six episodes.

Possibly it’s over exposure on television is mainly to blame. In the 90s there was a paucity of Doctor Who on television. Every now and again the BBC would see fit to repeat the odd serial. More often than not, they chose Genesis of the Daleks.

What really riled me the most was when it looked like they might actually repeat a string of serials from Spearhead from Space onwards. I suppose, naively, I thought this might actually see the broadcast of all of Pertwee’s era and possibly beyond. In retrospect I realise this was unlikely but when after Spearhead from Space and Doctor Who and the Silurians the BBC announcer announced that next week would see the beginning of a thrilling adventure not, as expected, involving Mars Probes, mysterious astronauts and Liz Shaw in a thrilling car chase, but Tom Baker, Davros and the Daleks, I was livid. I realise now that, with the incomplete nature of The Ambassadors of Death, the most we could have hoped for was Inferno, but yet another repeat of Genesis of the Daleks – as if it was the only decent Doctor Who story ever made – just annoyed me.

Watching the serial now has done little to change my mind about its over inflated status. I just cannot get excited about it.

There are performances I enjoy; Stephen Yardley is great, especially when protecting Sarah Jane; Harriet Philpin is fun as Bettan – thoroughly unmoved by the possibility of having to sacrifice people she hardly knows (or hasn’t even met in the case of Sarah and Harry!) for the greater good of destroying Davros and the Daleks forever. Peter Miles is deliciously evil and, of course, Michael Wisher embues Davros – the human Dalek – with so much character that the crippled, embittered scientist survives not only this story but all the way to the Medusa Cascade and his rematch with Sarah Jane Smith. Terry Molloy and Julian Bleach give great performances as Davros – and David Gooderson does well enough in Destiny of the Daleks – but it is Michael Wisher who set the standard. (That said, having listened to I, Davros prior to watching this story, I am of the opinion that outside of the television series, Molloy actually gives the best performance as Davros – probably because I, Davros gives him so much more material to work with).

The central dilemma of whether the Doctor has the right to destroy the Daleks and change history is a worthy subject to explore and that one scene is justly revered. The problem is that, as a serial, I find Genesis of the Daleks dull. I know I’m in a minority but I cannot shake it, try as I might. This is particularly frustrating as I love I, Davros.

Following on from I, Davros’s portrayal of Skarosian civilisation we finally get to see visual representations of the barren wasteland and city domes – gently sloping plastic and metal affairs judging by the model work. Mutations in the wilderness are represented by giant clams, of all things. It would have been great if Nation had drawn on his previous Dalek stories, as I, Davros did, and reintroduce creations such as the Varga plants.
As a depiction of a war ravaged planet it is faultless (just very, very grey).

The final chapter brings us right up to events clearly preceding Genesis of the Daleks, possibly by only a matter of months. Davros’ experimentation on Kaleds takes a gruesome turn when he requests the Council grant him access to all children under 5. Ostensibly this is because Davros has predicted that the Kaled race will mutate and these mutations need to be spotted as early as possible. In reality, it transpires that he wishes to advance that mutation as quickly as possible rather than waiting for nature to take its course (which Davros surmises could take up to two generations).

The council, unsurprisingly, refuse Davros’ initial request and as a consequence, Davros murders them, including the Supremo, and takes control himself. He delivers the edict that all children under 5 are to be handed over to the Paediatric facility, never to see their parents again.
I found this part of the story utterly horrific – far more than I remember feeling on my first listen. I think it’s the fact I am now a father of an under 5 and even the thought of him being taken away from us permanently, let alone experimented on by some mad scientist, is something which makes me sick to the stomach.

Guilt also sees the first appearance of Nyder, Davros’ right hand man in Genesis of the Daleks. Peter Miles slips effortlessly back into the obsequious role of Davros’ ultimate sidekick as if the 40 odd years separating the two productions never happened. The manner in which Nyder feeds Davros’ sense of self-absorption and single-mindedness presents a man who is clever enough to know where the real power in the Kaled city lies and who may finally wipe the Thals from the face of Skaro. Nyder is clearly as ‘patriotic’ as Davros and they are the perfect match.

The downside to Guilt is the inclusion of Nick Briggs as Thal spy Barran. I have nothing against Nick Briggs or his performance but the character of Barran seems to merely be included so that Nick Briggs can play a Thal who becomes the first Dalek (do you see what they did there?). Nick Briggs says as much in the behind the scenes feature. Unfortunately, although this could have been a nice cameo, we have to suffer the character wandering around the Kaled base for half of the story, occasionally being confronted by other characters, but usually talking to himself. Characters talking to themselves on audio are an occasional necessary evil, but when it happens in scene after scene is becomes far too noticeable. It’s particularly grating in the scene where Barran is ‘reading’ the files about Davros.

The only other minor issue I have, with the whole series in fact, is the Supremo. In the Behind the Scenes material, Gary Russell states that he chose the actor, John Stahl, due to his ability to be (to paraphrase) ‘determined and powerful’ in Purity and become ‘old, doddery and ineffectual’ by the time of Guilt. I, however, felt he managed the opposite and stayed as a fairly identical character throughout the 3 stories he is in and, in fact, was relatively bland and unaffecting when placed up against the other actors in the mini-series.

These, however, are two very minor gripes and, on the whole, I, Davros is easily one of the best productions that Big Finish has released. The cast, scripts, sound design – even the covers – all work together to produce something rather special. Filling in the blanks of major Doctor Who characters is always a risky business. It can smack of fanwank far too easily. With I, Davros, Big Finish – and Gary Russell in particular – have got it pitch perfect.

And so the history of the universe enters the well worn (at least in BBC repeats) territory of Genesis of the Daleks. The chemical soup of a sky and barren wasteland below alluded to by Davros in the final instalment will see visualisation and we will meet further members of the Kaled and Thal race as the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry find themselves on a mission for the Time Lords.

The third chapter of I, Davros finally sees Davros become the crippled, wheelchair bound maniac we all know and love from the TV series. Death paves Davros’ inevitable march towards insanity, be it his colleague, and potential love interest Sharn, or his own mother, Calcula, dying at the hands of the Kaleds themselves.

This chapter is fascinating as we see Davros’ amorality descend further and further into the realms of evil. When his mother becomes the first ‘Dalek’ mutant it is bad enough as, technically, that is by her own hand when she commits suicide to elevate Davros to the upper echelons of power within the Kaled elite. Davros’ visit, however, to the Kaled maternity ward is horrific and sees him injecting mothers-to-be with chemicals which, it is implied, will turn their unborn babies into Dalek mutants. Giving birth to these monstrosities then leads to the mothers dying in childbirth.

Terry Molloy cleverly shifts Davros’ voice from the younger, calmer version of the previous chapter into the harsher tones recognisable as the older Davros until, ultimately, he becomes the slightly more artificial voice of the crippled Davros.

Calcula has lost all perspective and, now the head of the Military Youth, condones showing the gruesome massacres of Thals to school children and the press ganging of young children with the murder of ten year olds occurring as a consequence of speaking out, innocently, against the current regime. Again, Carolyn Jones is wonderful and manages to portray the subtle shift of her character from scheming mother to the desperation of the second chapter to the borderline insane woman seen in this third instalment.

There is less world building in this episode and most of the action is restricted to the Kaled dome and Davros’ laboratory. This episode is more concerned with showing the terrible choices that Davros is willing to make to further his own desire to carry out his scientific research without interference from the Council and to ensure the Kaleds stay pure and defeat the Thals.

The racism angle, so evident in Dalek stories on TV, is not heavy-handed here, but is shown to drive many of the characters motivations. Any suggestion of peace between the two races – who are revealed to be completely different genetically – is seen as traitorous and even leads Davros to sentence his colleague Sharn to death by revealing her pacifist tendencies to the Supremo.

The reason for Davros’ condition in the TV series is finally revealed here and, to be honest, it fairly perfunctory. There is a missile attack and Davros’ laboratory is destroyed. One of the characters comments that they had to scrape Davros off the floor but the technology used to save him will, ironically, see him outlive all other Kaleds. Of course, the reason for Davros’ condition is probably the least interesting aspect of his background and it’s therefore understandable that little time is given to this. It’s the psychological evolution of Davros that makes this series so engrossing, not his physical.

This series is simply wonderful and I look forward to Nyder’s appearance in the final chapter, Guilt, bringing the story right up to the events of Genesis of the Daleks.

The second chapter of I, Davros rejoins Davros as a 30 year old member technical operative in the Military elite. Davros, however, is desperate to be part of the Scientific elite but finds his aspirations hindered and frustrated.

This chapter plants further seeds for Davros’ eventual descent into insanity. He is clearly a genius but is ignored by the scientific community. He is forced to work with substandard technology and has his ideas and proposals for winning the interminable war rejected out of hand. The only person who has faith in him is Calcula.

Calcula, though, is seemingly clinging on to her sanity by the fingertips. Her position of the power in the council is clearly unstable and the death of her husband (at her own hand) has lead to financial difficulty with Davros’ unattainable trust fund the only glimmer of hope. It is fascinating to see Calcula struggling to cling to her old life by living it through Davros’ success. It leads to a horrendous, disturbing scene where she murders her own daughter, Yarvell when she discovers that she had passed information to the Thals about Davros’ secret mission nearly causing his death.

Davros’ secret mission forms the core of this chapter. Recruited by the Supremo – the head of the Kaleds, Davros and his colleague Reston are sent to gain intelligence about the Thal operations, along with soldiers including the ineffectual Major Brint. The mission affords us a look at Skaro’s wasteland and a glimpse into the Thal base.

The series continues to tie elements of television stories into Davros’ background. Here we find Varga plants (from The Dalek’s Masterplan) in the wasteland as well as the ‘mutos’ seen later in Genesis of the Daleks. I also wonder if the title of Supremo is a reference to the Supreme Dalek rank seen on television. There is even a sequence where a character is paralysed from the waist down by Kaled gunfire much like Ian in The Daleks and later the Doctor himself, in Planet of the Daleks.

Terry Molloy plays Davros from this chapter onwards and does a sterling effort at playing a 30 year old version. The rest of the cast, as in Innocence, are wonderful (although Gary Russell crops up as a slightly stilted Thal guard) and special mention must again go to Carolyn Jones as Calcula. This chapter also features Andrew Wisher, son of Davros originator Michael Wisher, in the role of Davros’ ‘best friend’ Reston – and very good he is too.

A strong continuation of the series with some interesting character developments and a touch more plot.

We jump now to the planet Skaro to witness the life of a certain mad scientist known as Davros. Lance Parkin’s A History has placed the Davros mini-series from Big Finish (and subsequently, Genesis of the Daleks) in a variety of different time periods depending on the edition and the evidence available. Initially placed BC, the third edition of the book (which forms the backbone of this marathon) now places it around 600 AD. Placing the mini-series in particular, parallel with stories set in the Roman Empire seems incredibly apt seeing, as I mention later in this review, this series parallels with the glorious BBC series I, Claudius which detailed the lives and deaths of various Roman Emperors.

So what of the first episode of I, Davros – Innocence? Aside from the framing device of the Daleks ‘trying’ Davros, the part is played by Rory Jennings (from The Idiot’s Lantern). He is great as the young Davros: all teenage disinterest and morbid curiosity. He is backed up by a superb cast including Captain Yates himself, Richard Franklin as Davros’ ‘father’, Colonel Nasgard, ex-Neighbours star Richard Grieve as Major Brogan, Peter Sowerbutts as Magrantine and Big Finish regulars, Lizzie Hopley as Yarvell and Sean Connolly as Councillor Quested. However, nearly everyone is eclipsed by the tour de force delivered by Carolyn Jones as Calcula, Davros’ mother. If anyone was going to have the sort of mother presented here, then it would be Davros. She is scheming, murderous, manipulative and borderline insane. The apple never falls far from the tree.

This audio is very much a character piece and there is little plot to speak of. That said, it’s really just the first chapter in a 4 part story so what we have is an establishment of characters such as Calcula and Yarvell, and the background to Davros’ later achievements such as his tuition by Magrantine and experiments into how radiation affects the Kaled biology.

There are lots of clever nods to other Dalek stories: Calcula refers to ‘the flying pests’ (as a Dalek does in The Evil of the Daleks); Davros’ older (half) sister is called Yarvell (recalling the character of Yarvelling in the 60s Dalek comic strip).

It makes sense to me that this period of Skaro’s history should be set thousands of years before this sort of technology was possible on Earth as we need to believe that the Daleks could develop to the level of space exploration they are capable of in ‘later’ Dalek stories such as The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Also, having recently seen the planet Mondas and how far ahead of Earth it was in technology, it seems reasonable that Skaro would also be this advanced.

Skaro as a planet is detailed sketchily: Davros’ family home is next to a lake and the Kaleds and Thals are already well into their war (which has been going for hundreds of years already) and the main cities are housed under the giant domes seen later in Genesis of the Daleks.

Technology is much the same as seen in Genesis of the Daleks, although the war of attrition doesn’t seem to have taken hold as much as it has in that story.

I, Davros plays like a science fiction version of I, Claudius (which, bearing in mind the choice of title is probably deliberate). As such it is a joy to listen to the machinations of Davros’ family and see the groundwork to Davros’ later achievements laid out for us in all its terrible glory. I look forward to the next chapter.

Doctor Conkeror is a short one-shot comic strip with more than a whiff of the old TV Comic approach to Doctor Who in cartoon form. It’s a slight tale which sees a solo 7th Doctor arrive in 9th Century England (I assume) on the trail of conkers. After narrowly avoiding Viking invaders and meeting a local inhabitant, the Doctor collects his conkers and returns to the TARDIS. On the way, he finds the spear belonging to the local boy and surmises something has happened to him. Indeed, a group of locals have been taken captive by the Vikings and are being led away to their longboats when, suddenly, they are on fire. The Doctor has set the boats alight as a distraction which allows the captives to escape. In the ensuing chaos the Doctor knocks out a Viking called Olaf with his conker. The local boy is very grateful to the Doctor but the Time Lord declines his offer to be honoured by the elders of the village. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS to continue his game of conkers and ponders on who first invented the game. The final frame shows the local boy demonstrating how to play the game.

There is very little to this comic strip which is a criticism I have levelled at many of the ‘one-shot’ strips I have already read as part of this marathon. It seems it is difficult to tell a satisfying story in only a few pages of frames. Here we have some fairly stereotypical Vikings – horned helmets, longboats and all and some unnamed locals in Celtic-style clothes; even the boy who interacts with the Doctor remains nameless throughout.

There is a forest and a beach and one frame shows us a very small village with thatched stone houses and a well.

The story is basically one extended joke – the Doctor invented conkers. There is nothing more to this story than that and it certainly isn’t an in-depth exploration of this period of history.

An unusual time and place, 9th Century Sudan, is where our next adventure takes us. The 5th Doctor and ‘human tracer’ Amy are on the trail of the missing segments of the Key to Time in this, the second instalment of Big Finish’s Key2Time trilogy. At the beginning of the story, they meet the Black Guardian who cannot locate the fifth segment and whose powers are waning. The Doctor suggests that rather than the systematic searching of the universe, they attempt something random and the Guardian flings the Doctor and Amy through time and space whereupon they end up separated but both in 9th century Sudan.

The Black Guardian is also there in the guise of Kassim Ali Baba and it soon transpires that the White Guardian is also present, posing as the Legate of the Caliph (the messenger of this part of the world’s current leader). The Black Guardian is withholding gold from the Legate (whom he does not know is the White Guardian) so it can be used as a power source for his spacecraft, hidden in the nearby desert.

Eventually the Doctor and Amy are reunited and manage to both locate the segment and escape in the TARDIS, leaving the Guardians trapped on Earth and limited to five dimensions.

And that is about the sum total of the plot. There is a lot of toing and froing from the desert to the palace but very little actually happens. The Doctor and Amy arrive; the Doctor meets various locals; Amy becomes a slave; the Black Guardian tries to destroy the White Guardian; they then bitch at each other; the Doctor and Amy locate the segment and whizz off in the TARDIS.

In a way the story betrays it’s ‘middle of a trilogy’ characteristics. It picks up directly from the end of The Judgement of Isskar, which hopped from time to place hardly landing in one place long enough to lick a stamp and also featured Zara, Amy’s ‘evil’ twin sister/tracer. It then leads into The Chaos Pool with some silly slug-like aliens, Lalla Ward and even more bitchy banter between the Guardians. But both those stories have more plot than is on display here.

This story is far more concerned with setting up the Guardians in their new roles as camp, bitchy ‘no-longer-all-powerful’ beings. It is a character shift from the TV series’ portrayal that put a lot of fans’ noses out of joint and I can see why. My problem with that negative view however, is that David Troughton and Jason Watkins are so funny in the roles, I don’t really care. I quite like the idea of taking these two omnipotent beings and cutting them down to size as I’ve always disliked omnipotent beings in stories anyway – they tend to be terribly boring or have to be given human vices to display their weaknesses so a human hero can defeat them. Here we have a logical extrapolation from the concept of the Key to Time decaying with them being trapped in five dimensions – essentially becoming human. Bearing in mind the campness of their television portrayals – all wicker chairs, cocktails, dead birds on their heads and shouty villainy – it fits that, in a time of crisis, they would bicker and banter and threaten to slap each other when all other avenues are lost to them.

An overriding theme of this story is slavery. I’ve mentioned before the references to slavery in other adventure usually amounting to ‘slavery is bad’. Here we have a more detailed look at a culture where slavery is ingrained. Nisrin is a slave who knows her place, but has learnt how her position can work to her advantage – moving around places as if she were invisible; remaining unquestioned by guards due to the assumption she must be doing the bidding of her master. Her relationship with Amy sheds a different light on her position. Amy – a being designed to mould themselves to whoever they are with – immediately accepts subservience and marvels at how easy Nisrin’s life seems to be, with all her decisions made for her. It’s a shame, though, that this examination of slavery undoes a lot of the character work built up for Amy in The Judgement of Isskar, as she becomes slightly generic and uninteresting – playing the obedient, and slightly naïve, slave role.

What’s very interesting, though, is the fact that Nisrin is Scandinavian in origin, and indeed a lot of slaves in this part of the world at this time were drawn from all around the world. The idea of ‘white’ slaves is an interesting one which would work even better in a visual medium. Nisrin’s origins also allow the Doctor to impart a little bit of knowledge about how the Scandinavian’s often described Africans and Middle Easterns as ‘blue’ which was their word for ‘black’. (He is of course partly wrong when a ‘real’ blue man appears in the form of the Djinni.)

Historically, although the ins and outs of the plot are complete fiction, the places and positions are based in fact. The Legate of the Caliph, the ‘tax collecting’, the nomads in the desert, sandstorms etc all lend an air of authenticity to the story. There is an amusing scene in episode one where the Black Guardian is choosing entertainment for a feast which includes jugglers, acrobats and ‘professional farters’!

The dialogue in particular is rich with Arabic terms including the eponymous Destroyer of Delights – a euphemism for death – one of many phrases used throughout the tale for this; as well as the Doctor and Amy both being called haraffers (sp?) an insult meaning ‘a teller of tall tales’.
The extras for this mention that consideration was given to the actors adopting Middle Eastern accents. In the end, however, they opted for precise English, with the rhythms and patterns familiar to ‘ancient civilisation speak’: a lot of flowery language coupled with a lack of contractions or slang.

Aside from the historical aspects there is also a strong sense of the Arabian Nights tales – particularly with the presence of the Djinni (or genie) and with the ‘cave’ (the Black Guardian’s ship part buried in the desert) and its voice activated entrance – ‘Open sim, sim’ recalling Open Sesame.

Ultimately, whilst enjoyable, this story feels too much like the middle part of a trilogy. Listened to out of context, as I have done here, it feels a little inconsequential. It is entertaining, and the Guardians do make me laugh, but the best thing about this is probably the unusual setting and the chance to play around with some tropes of the Arabian Nights.

They Think It’s All Over is an IDW comic.  I managed to get hold of digital copies of these comics due to the recent Humble Bundle offer which was a ridiculously good deal (and the only way I was likely to get my grubby mitts on this part of the expanded universe).  And I’m glad I did because, on the strength of this short strip, I think I’m going to find much to enjoy (that said, I have already read The Forgotten, and that was rather good, so I should have known).

The Doctor, Amy and Rory are on their way to the 1966 World Cup, but end up about 1000 years too early and become embroiled in an attempt by a Viking, Henghist, to take control of the area from the Anglo-Saxons.  Henghist murders his more peaceful father, witnessed by Rory, and attempts to blame the Anglo-Saxons to incite war between the two groups.  The Doctor manages to challenge Henghist instead, to a football match and, with some little tricks and the help of Rory, manages to defeat Henghist and turn his own men against him when the truth of his actions is revealed.

I hate football.  Always have, always will.  In the same way as Doctor Who stories about Westerns give me a little sinking feeling, so to do ones revolving around football.  I like The Lodger, but I can do without the football bits.  I really didn’t enjoy the 8th Doctor comic strip The Nightmare Game.  Fortunately, Doctor Who writers tend to steer clear of the sport as well.  Cricket is far more common and I should imagine some of that stems from the fact that the sort of people writing Doctor Who nowadays (the geeks as it were) are probably of a similar opinion to me when it comes to football (although that said, I don’t particularly like cricket either).  Of course, this is a gross generalisation and I’m sure there are plenty of Doctor Who fans who are also fans of the beautiful game. I quite enjoyed the football scenes in this strip though.  I think it’s maybe because it revolves more around the dirty tricks each team tries to play to distract the other team.

The characterisation of the regulars in this story is good, although I think Rory has been better written in the  DWM comic strips.  Amy comes across well and the Doctor feels like Matt Smith’s portrayal.  The guest cast don’t have a huge amount of time to develop but the noble king and queen (who accept the Doctor very quickly) are fine and the two main Vikings are suitably fierce.

Historically, Wemba Lea, the area the TARDIS materialises is, indeed, the Old English name for the area which would become Wembley.  I cannot find an online reference to the Saxon Lord Wemba, and his wife, Frida (although they mention Alfred the Great).  The two Vikings, Ragnar and Henghist are referenced in some works and Ragnar is apparently a character in the online series Vikings, although I can’t be sure if they are real historical figures or not (I’m guessing possibly not, as Ragnar is murdered by Henghist and unless there was some ambiguity surrounding Ragnar’s death and the situation surrounding it, it would be difficult to include it in the story as a major plot point without contradicting historical fact quite a lot).

This was a fun story which uses its short length well.

Big Finish a few years back settled into a pattern for the main range.  After experimenting with 3 episode/1 episode releases (which obviously weren’t felt to work very well, as they disappeared from the release schedule) they now seem to favour trilogies of releases centred around a particular Doctor and a trilogy which features one of three Doctors across the three releases (the 1963 selection, the trilogy starting with The Burning Prince and the upcoming ‘displaced Doctors’ releases).  Nestled between these trilogies is usually a single anthology release.  The majority of these have been 4 distinct stories, occasionally linked by a running theme (the numbers 45 and 100 for example).

With 1001 Nights, however, we have a different use of the format.  Drawing on the tale of Scheherzade, we find Nyssa forced to tell tales to a Sultan to preserve her own and the Doctor’s lives.  What this means is that we actually have 3 stories, surrounded by a framing device which is a proper story in its own right.  Indeed, the first and final episodes are mainly concerned with telling this ‘1001 Nights’ tale.  The first story Nyssa tells is very short and only the second (The Interplanetarian) and the third (Smuggling Tales) are a full episode in length.  Even then, the ‘main’ story recurs throughout as we cut back to the Doctor’s attempts to escape prison.

So, the story opens with the Doctor and Nyssa somewhere on the Arabian peninsula in the 9th century.  Searching for an alien device, the Doctor has ended up in the Sultan’s dungeon and Nyssa is being forced to tell stories of their exploits.  As her stories continue, the Doctor meets an old man in the cell next to his, who claims to be the Sultan but seems to be suffering from some sort of perception control.  It is revealed, eventually, that the Sultan in the palace is an imposter but before he is unmasked, the Doctor ends up stranded in 9th Century Arabia for the best part of 3 years – 1001 nights, in fact.

This is more than just a framing device.  Were this a Companion Chronicle, this story would be secondary to the one being told by Nyssa.  In this release, the stories Nyssa tells are smaller, less consequential, than the tale of the fake Sultan.  It is a great story.  Performed faultlessly by Davison, Sutton, Alexander Siddig as the fake Sultan and Nadim Sawalha as the real Sultan, it weaves itself around Nyssa’s tales and most of the time, even though Nyssa’s stories were engaging, I kept wanting the action to return to the palace.

The climax, which takes us away from 9th Century Arabia, sees Siddig getting a chance to play ‘the Doctor’ and its quite exciting to hear another ‘what if’ cleverly integrated into the story.  With Siddig’s Star Trek credentials, not to mention his other forays into fantasy (such as Atlantis), it is easy to picture him as a potential Doctor.  When his ‘Doctor’ starts to struggle with his psyche, Siddig is marvellous: desperate, angry and broken all at the same time.The palace and Arabia are convincingly realised through sound design, script and performances.  What’s interesting, though, is how the dialogue in this story sounds more natural than the more theatrical style favoured by other Arabic-flavoured stories such as The Crusade or The Destroyer of Delights.  I found this made the story much easier to listen to.  In fact, this story provides a good companion piece to The Destroyer of Delights which took one of the common tales included in 1001 Nights anthologies, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and gave it a Doctor Who twist.

Historically, there is the link with Scheherezade, but not a lot else.  Although only legendary, the character is tied up in many Arabian legends and members of royalty.  The place the story occurs is not named, although reference is made to the Caliphate (although it seems to be a different one that the one referred to in The Destroyer of Delights (where the White Guardian has taken on the role of his Legate)).  A History’s dating of the story is a little arbitrary but based on the ‘Sultan’ knowing of Scheherezade (which is loosely dated to the 9th century) and that the Arabian sequences have happened ‘many centuries’ before the 1892 date of The Interplanetarian.

A very enjoyable anthology and definitely one of the best examples of this type of release.  It isn’t a format which Big Finish could repeat too often, but it would be good to see what else they could do with the anthology format rather than just having four separate stories all the time.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I found it very difficult to warm to Capaldi’s Doctor in his first series.  It wasn’t until Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline that I began to adjust to his version.  Fortunately, Series 9 seemed to have toned down some of the more unlikeable characteristics of the 12th Doctor and upped some of the more Doctorish qualities we know and love.  He is far closer now to a Tom/BF Colin version of the Doctor than his more Hartnell/Pertwee style of last season.

The first few episodes of these series have been great, and the move back to two parters has definitely given the series a different vibe. I love how Doctor Who can stay as essentially the same show but change so much from one series to the next.  After the ‘movie in 45 minutes’ style; the intricate story arc style; and the different time, different place styles; it’s fun to have stories which take longer and explore a wider remit.  The opening story dealing with Davros and the Doctor’s relationship was great and I absolutely loved the ‘classic’ base under siege-ness of Under the Lake gloriously followed up by classic Moffaty timey-wimey stylings in Before the Flood.

The Girl Who Died adds a different ingredient into this two-parter world; the ‘not quite a two parter’.  Ostensibly, The Girl Who Died’s plot is finished by the end of the episode with only the character of Ashildr linking us into the next episode.  However, I have a feeling there may be a little more to it than that, although that is something about which we will just have to wait and see.

And what a fun story it is.  The Doctor, Clara and a bunch of Viking farmers battle a mad alien and his armour-clad allies.  A baby gives the Doctor his plan and the Benny Hill theme tune gets an airing!  I’ve always loved the diversity of Doctor Who.  How you can have stories as downright scary as Under the Lake; or as head-scratching as Before the Flood; followed by something as delightfully bonkers as The Girl Who Died.

One thing I did notice was how unrushed this story felt.  A lot of the time with the 45 minute format, I feel episodes spend time setting things up and then are forced to rush to a conclusion.  Maybe it’s because the two parters have changed my mindset, but I really felt this episode spent time on scenes and, as a whole, it felt far more satisfying.

The early part of the episode was great fun with the Doctor and Clara up to high jinks in space, only to arrive at a random location and get taken captive by Vikings.  Back at the village, we quickly get some glorious bluffing from the Doctor.  I’ve seen it described as a bit too Matt Smithy, and whilst I can see the similarity, I think Capaldi makes this his own.  For a start, I think the 11th Doctor would be far more confident that it was going to work, whereas I think the 12th Doctor does this kind of schtick without his heart really being in it, making it funny in a different way to Smith’s version.  The sudden arrival and culling of the village’s warriors leads us quickly into Clara’s confrontation with Odin which is a great scene.  I love how Ashidlr undermines Clara’s success leading to the declared destruction of the village in one day’s time.  This then leads into a brilliant sequence where the Doctor has to train up a bunch of farmers in combat.  There’s some great stuff in this part of the episode; I particularly enjoyed the Doctor naming the Vikings.

The defeat of the Mire is a lot of fun too and perfect for Doctor Who.  Those stories where he has to improvise, MacGyver style, are always good value.  Of course, the presence of electric eels in what we presume is Scandinavia raises some awkward questions, but I’ll come to that later.  The use of the baby language to prompt the Doctor into this idea, harking back to Closing Time and the reveal that the Doctor speaks baby, is probably going to send some fans into apoplexies of horror at the frivolity of it all; but I love it when Doctor Who does silly.  The point is, it doesn’t do it all the time and so, when it does, it’s easy to go with it and enjoy the silly.  Were the Doctor getting his plans by talking to babies, horses and bacteria every week, it would grow old and boring very quickly.  Popped into the lighter-hearted episodes every now and again, I like it.

With the ‘plot’ over, the episode focuses in on the death of Ashildr and the Doctor’s guilt at causing it, setting up events and their ramifications for the next episode.  Capaldi is great in these scenes and I look forward to how this all plays out in the next episode.

Is the episode perfect?  No.  If I have some criticisms then a slightly confusing explanation of what Ashildr is doing during the climax, would be the first one.  We aren’t really told how Ashildr wearing the helmet is going to defeat the Mire.  Yes, the Doctor has a conversation with her about stories and her apparent abilities of premonition, but her ability to transmit a hallucinatory snake monster into the Mire’s minds is a little fudged.  That said, during that scene between the Doctor and Ashildr I have to admit my mind wandered ever so slightly so I may have missed a salient point of dialogue.

Another criticism would be some iffy decisions on historical accuracy.  Before watching the episode, I read the preview in DWM which has the writer, Jamie Mathieson, commenting on why the Vikings, in this episode, have horns on their helmets.  He gives a bit of guff about that being what the audience would expect and it’s Doctor Who so of course they have to have horns.  Now, I’m usually one to defend the new series production teams from the baying mobs of the internet sitting behind their keyboards and griping about every last detail they don’t like, constantly implying that they are better writers, actors, producers, directors etc than any of the professionals, blind to the inconsistencies and prejudices of their arguments.  But I have to admit here that I mentally tutted when I read that quote.  I think Mathieson (and by proxy, the production team in general) is completely mistaken on that front.  The modern audience, with programmes like QI and Horrible Histories, is very aware of various myths and misunderstandings about history being debunked.  There is no reason for the Vikings in this story to have horned helmets so it seems an odd design decision.

The other sticking point is the aforementioned eels.  Chris Packham of the Really Wild Show went on record as being disappointed that Doctor Who has made such a glaring zoological error.  Electric eels only live in South America, principally the Amazon and Orinoco rivers.  How in Odin’s name did they get to Scandinavia?  Now, there may be a get out clause in the fact that the Vikings sailed to the Americas in their exploration of the world and there is a slim, very slim, outside chance that maybe they got down to the south and found exotic creatures such as electric eels and brought them back.  But it’s all very tenuous.  I’ve seen a theory that the script originally had Vikings lost in South America, which would reverse the issue, but overall I think this is a rather large fudge to allow the Mire to be defeated.  It seems a bit sloppy from the same writer as Flatline and Mummy on the Orient Express (and this is where people start wondering how much influence Moffat’s co-writing credit had on the story).
It is very difficult to place this story chronologically although A History goes with a, sitting on the fence, circa middle of the 9th Century dating.  There are next to no clues in the story as to a specific placing and the anachronistic details such as horned helmets and electric eels only compounds the problem.

The cast are all great value, particularly Maisie Williams as Ashildr.  It’s fairly common knowledge that Odin was originally to have been played by Brian Blessed.  He would have been awesome in the role and you can see how his particular brand of bombast would have suited the role.  In fact, David Schofield, whilst good in the part, seems to struggle a bit.  Maybe it’s because I knew the behind the scenes story, but I did feel that a lot of his dialogue/performance was Brian Blessed-lite and this felt I found him, ultimately, to be a slightly less effective baddie than I think he could have been in the hands of King Yrcarnos.  Even the various Viking farmers are well-acted and I particularly liked Ian Connigham as Chuckles and Tom Stourton as Lofty (the father to the plan-giving baby) who had a Rory-like air about him.

Historical inaccuracies aside, this was a fun episode which provides an intriguing springboard for the next episode.  Capaldi grew ever more likeable as the Doctor (for me) and Jenna Coleman continued to give good value as Clara (although there was an inevitable sense of treading water with her character, now that we knew she was leaving).  A good ‘pseudo-historical’ (although I think the title is a bit naff).

The Book of Kells is the fourth story in Season 4 of Big Finish’s 8th Doctor adventures.  It is the third story to feature Tamsin Drew and this is her first appearance in my marathon.  I had been holding off including this story in my marathon until I had got around to listening to the previous stories.  The recent Big Finish sale on 8th Doctor audios allowed me to plug my gaps and The Book of Kells was one of the stories I snapped up for a bargain price (along with most of Season 4!).  One of my principal reasons for looking forward to these stories, was the presence of Tamsin.  Being behind in the my listening, I was unable to participate in the mystery surrounding who the new 8th Doctor companion would be after Lucie Miller’s departure.  The concept of Situation Vacant (an Apprentice-style series of tasks to choose a new companion) was intriguing (and a lot of fun when I finally listened to it) but due to the length of time between these season’s release and me finally listening to them, I knew long ago that Tamsin was the eventual ‘winner’.  Fortunately, Niky Wardley is wonderful as Tamsin.  Her sarky, spiky persona is different enough from Lucie to not feel like a retread and her background as an actress allows for some lovely little touches (such as her anecdote in the next story, Deimos, about once working at the London Dungeon as a Jack the Ripper victim; or her use of The Sound of Music as a basis for improvising a back story for herself and the Doctor when arriving at the monastery).  She strikes me as a more 21st century, slightly less capable Bernice Summerfield.  Her relationship and interplay with the Doctor has been instantly likeable and (with my knowledge of spoilers) it’s a shame she doesn’t stick around with the Doctor for much longer.

This inability to avoid spoilers for this series caused problems for The Book of Kells.  Prior to listening to the story I had discovered two key facts about the story.  It featured the return of the Meddling Monk and, more importantly, the return of Lucie.  Having finally listened to the story, it is difficult to disguise the fact that most of this audio hangs on these shock revelations.  Admittedly, Lucie’s presence is only revealed at the very end but, knowing she was involved in the story it wasn’t hard to detect Sheridan Smith’s tones in the ostensibly male actor playing Lucianus.  Even the way some of the characters pronounced the name; Lucy-arnus – seemed designed to make it fairly obvious who it was really.  That said, both the technical trickery involved, and Sheridan’s performance, to make her voice sufficiently different for it not to be blatant who she truly is, but in hindsight, it is relatively obvious.

The presence of the Meddling Monk is more integral to the story.  The plot makes no attempt to delay the reveal though, with the Doctor realising the Monk is present by the end of Part One, even if he identifies the wrong guest cast actor.  Both Jim Carter (the Doctor’s mistaken Meddler) and Graeme Garden (the true Meddler) give excellent performances and they are supported by solid turns from Ryan (Luke Rattigan) Sampson and Terence (Demon Headmaster) Hardiman.  However, as good as all these performances are and how well Barnaby Edwards scripts lays the clues, knowing the Monk is present means there isn’t an awful lot left to the story.
The real life basis for the plot – the mysterious disappearance of the Book of Kells; isn’t much of a mystery to be honest.  It only went missing for about 3 months and turned up on a dung heap (effectively).  The revelation that the Doctor dumped it there after it had got ripped and torn in an altercation with the Monk doesn’t really measure up to other Doctor Who answers to historical mysteries such as the Daleks emptying the Mary Celeste of occupants or what really happened to the Princes in the Tower.  The story really boils down to the Doctor and Tamsin meeting some monks, finding the Meddling Monk and, right at the end, solving the mystery of the Book of Kells.  It all felt a little insubstantial and smacked a little of simply being a device to reintroduce the Monk and Lucie (both of whom feature heavily in the rest of this season).

Historically, there are a few real life aspects aside from the aforementioned Book of Kells mystery.  Terence Hardiman plays King Sitric, the King of Dublin at this time.  The Doctor fills in a lot of historical details about this period of history (although oddly, I didn’t think it was made clear that this is happening in Ireland – aside from the blurb on the back of the CD), including the strong Viking influence around the time.  The Abbey of Kells is our main setting and there are references to Iona as well as the Monk’s plan revolving around the monk’s artistic talent for illuminated pages of manuscript.  The Book itself is also referred to by its proper name of the Gospel of Columkille.

Overall, the performances in this story make up for the slightness of its storyline.  The return of the Monk is a great idea which I look forward to seeing played out over the rest of season and the pairing of the 8th Doctor and Tamsin is one I would happily enjoy in numerous adventures if we had the opportunity.  The historical setting for this story is interesting, but unusually for Doctor Who, I didn’t really get a sense of time or place.  There is also an odd reference which seem rooted in the ‘old’ version of the 8th Doctor adventures: the presence of the Vortisaur felt out of place in the fast-paced world of these later stories, belonging to the more relaxed pace and tone of the original Charley Pollard era.  I did find it amusing though that it is the presence of a monastery, monks and Vikings which tips the Doctor off that the Monk might be present inferring that all of his plans involve these elements.

It’s probably unfair to review this story without acknowledging that it is really Episode 4 of a five part adventure, Hornet’s Nest. The first three ‘chapters’ of this series: The Stuff of Nightmares; The Dead Shoes and The Circus of Doom, are actually more standalone that this story but still form part of an ongoing adventure which sees the Fourth Doctor (sort of, I’ll come to that later) recounting his encounters with alien hornets back through time. He is recounting them to Captain Mike Yates and is living in a small cottage with a housekeeper called Mrs Wibbsey and a wolfhound called Captain. As the stories progress it is revealed that the Doctor’s and hornets’ timestreams are travelling in opposite directions (e.g. the Doctor’s first encounter with the hornets in 2010 is actually the hornets last encounter with him). This is all very Eleventh Doctor/River Song timey wimey.

I will do proper reviews of the other chapters when I reach them chronologically (1832 for The Circus of Doom; 1932 for The Dead Shoes) and so will focus now on A Sting in the Tale. This instalment ties up many of the threads from previous chapters, leading to the finale in the fifth and final CD, Hive of Horror. The Doctor tells Mike of how he tracked the hornets back to 1039 finding them inhabiting the mind of a pig. A pig which is being treated as the Mother Superior by a group of nuns! The hornets eventually decamp to a wolfhound which the Doctor manages to get on board the TARDIS. Once there, the hornets invade the Doctor’s mind and there ensues a fairly length conversation about the previous stories, the timey-wimey nature of the overall arc and the swarm’s plans for domination. The hornets eventually leave the Doctor and we return to the present where the Doctor and Mike decide to leave the cellar they have been hiding in (from hornet-possessed stuffed animals and a hornet-possessed Mrs Wibbsey).

Basically, not a lot happens. There are some gruesome scenes early on when possessed wolfhounds are attacking the convent in an attempt to retrieve the swarm leader (residing inside the pig) but a sizeable chunk of the story is taken up with a very long (and not very engaging) conversation between the Doctor and the Swarm.

A lack of plot, though, would be forgivable were I more attuned with the way this series has been presented. For Who fans used to the full cast audios of Big Finish, or even the single voice audios from the BBC, Hornet’s Nest is a weird amalgam of the two. It’s closest in presentation to Big Finish’s Companion Chronicles, but has more than their usual two or three voices. At minimum, we have the Doctor, Mike and Mrs Wibbsey, accompanied in each story by a mixture of other, usually quite strange, characters performed by other actors.

But even this could work if, and here is my biggest problem with this series, this felt anything like Doctor Who.

It doesn’t.

Within half an hour of listening to the first instalment I was struck by how much this series is, basically, The Tom Baker Adventures. Tom Baker is not playing the Fourth Doctor. He’s playing Tom Baker. This feels like what Baker would have become in the original television series had JNT not restrained his excesses when he took over for Season 18. Frankly, it’s terrible. I’ve never been a fan of Tom Baker and have baulked at the hero-worship he receives from a lot of (generally older) fans. As a child of the 80s I don’t have a ‘romantic’ relationship with the Fourth Doctor. He was just the curly haired bloke who came before the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors (who I grew up with). I think Tom is a great Doctor, but then I think ALL the actors (with one exception) have been great Doctors (and I include the ‘non-canonical’ in that statement).

The Tom Baker Adventures continue throughout the episodes up to and including this story. This is a ‘character’ who could quite convincingly spout Tom’s anecdotes about profanity-strewn tombstones, grannies with heaving bosoms or dogs at bus stops and it would seem in keeping with the dialogue writer Paul Magrs has given him (although to be fair, there is little way of knowing how much Tom has ‘adapted’ the original script).

The underused Captain Yates (who is basically just a device for the Doctor to tell the story to) and the ridiculously named (although delightfully performed by Susan Jameson) Mrs Wibbsey have no chance of matching the sheer barminess of Baker (and Richard Franklin’s material is atrocious – question after question merely written to draw the next part of the Doctor’s,…I mean Tom Baker’s, story).

The concept of the hornets and the timey-wimey relationship with the Doctor/Tom Baker is a good one but it is lost underneath an unending barrage of florid dialogue and what constantly feels like an indulgent Tom Baker.

Historically, A Sting in the Tale gives us our first medieval Nuns but they are particularly ballsy types, wielding axes and swords with aplomb, with a crazy line in pig care. A wintery landscape and a convent, sprinkled liberally with wolfhounds (one of which becomes the Doctor/Tom Baker’s loyal pet, Captain), gives way to the TARDIS console room fairly quickly leaving this as a game of two halves.

This was the first time I’d ever listened to this audio. When I come to review the other instalments it will be the second time. I will be interested to see whether approaching them with a better idea of their idiosyncratic format will make me more accepting and able to appreciate them a little more. We will see.

This story sees the Doctor and Nyssa visiting Stockbridge in the late 19th century and watching a Mummers play which, surprisingly, features a large blue cart, bigger inside than out, and a character called the Doctor. When one of the actors becomes possessed, the Doctor and Nyssa head back to 1199 to discover the origins of the play.

It soon transpires that the Rutan are messing around at Stockbridge Castle, creating clones and generally causing bother. The Doctor and Nyssa meet a wide variety of serfs and knights and eventually manage to defeat the Rutan. Returning to the 19th century they discover a fully grown spaceship under the castle which explodes – with them still in it!

Castle of Fear is, as the cast constantly points out in the extras, all very Monty Python. This is particularly apt as this was released not too long after Peter Davison had been starring as King Arthur in the Python musical, Spamalot. The cast has a lot of fun with a very silly script and overall it is very entertaining. There are a couple of gags, however, that seem a little out of place – the Russell Brand one in particular. Another influence is clearly Blackadder and it also brought to mind, particularly in the portrayal of the peasants, Maid Marian and her Merry Men, the 90s children’s series written by and starring Tony Robinson.

Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton are having a whale of time, particularly when the Doctor is trying to explain to the peasants what is happening in real terms whereas Nyssa thinks it is easier to speak in their own ‘language’ and when Nyssa has convinced the Rutan that the Doctor is her underling. They are ably supported by Joe Thomas (from the Inbetweeners – a very funny actor in my opinion) as Sir Hubert and Susan Brown as Maud the Withered. John Sessions seems to have thought he was part of a new range of Allo, Allo audios – although to be fair his terrible French accent is revealed to be fake within the course of the story. That said I’ve never been able to stomach Session’s particular brand of arrogance which seems to seep through his performances and personality (evidenced in shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and QI).

The Rutan are utilised really well in the story and their modus operandi is expanded on from Horror of Fang Rock. The sound effects are lovingly recreated (Big Finish had already recreated them for the Bernice Summerfield story, The Bellotron Incident) but I was distracted by the fact that the effect applied to their dialogue basically made them sound like Daleks.

Castle of Fear plays like The Time Warrior 2. The setting and plot are incredibly similar to The Time Warrior, with smatterings of The Sontaran Experiment thrown in. The story even ends with the prospect of the castle exploding. The idea that the Rutan would have cloning technology at first seems too close to the Sontaran way of life, but thinking about it, it makes sense that they would match their enemies style of warfare, particularly if their spies were stealing the actual technology from the Sontarans and adapting to their own needs.

The links to The Time Warrior are made explicit when the Doctor assumes the Rutan are on the trail of Commander Jingo Linx (the name tying the Target novelisation into the TV continuity). This throws up some dating issues with Lance Parkin’s decision to place The Time Warrior in 1273 (based mainly on Sarah Jane’s dialogue in The Sontaran Experiment about Linx being destroyed in the 13th century). If the Rutan are on the trail of Linx, then The Time Warrior must be set earlier than this story (and there is, as discussed in my review of that story, dialogue in The Time Warrior, which implies a ‘Crusade-era’ setting). However, Alan Barnes includes a get out clause by having the Rutan unaware of the Sontaran’s presence on Earth with the Doctor then deducing that maybe Linx was on the trail of the Rutan. This means that the dating of The Time Warrior could still stand with Linx simply missing the Rutan by around 80 years. Whether this was intentional on Barnes’ part or not, it’s a good way of addressing the vagueness of The Time Warrior’s dating without setting anything in stone.

Interestingly, for a story that is basically a comedy set in the Middle Ages, it does contain one historically ‘real’ character. John Sessions plays, before his impersonation is revealed, Roland of Brittany. As the Doctor points out, Roland is a legendary character from medieval times and that the character may as well have presented himself as King Arthur. Roland was, apparently, a real military leader in the service of Charlemagne who probably died in 778. However many medieval legends sprang up around such a character in the 11th and 12th centuries, with him often featuring in the stories of travelling minstrels. Aside from this interesting inclusion, the rest of the story is, as I’ve said, the Python skewed view of the Middle Ages, but including plenty of historical detail – dirty serfs, burning at stakes, arrogant and inept lords, a castle, a keep, a moat, secret passages with entrances in gnarled old trees, wild boars, boar pits, swords, pikes, spears and quarter staffs, a water wheel, mercenaries, apothecaries, a cackling woman and the Crusades.

We also have Nyssa being mistaken for a boy because of her trousers, which is a fun nod to Vicki masquerading as a boy in The Crusade and Polly being mistaken for a boy in The Smugglers.

In the 19th century scenes, we also have some history surrounding the tradition of Mummers plays performed on Boxing Day and featuring characters such as George and the Dragon (which in this localised version are based on Hubert’s real name and the green Rutan throwing out fireballs).

The only issue I have with the story is that the comedic tone rather ruins any level of jeopardy particularly when the Doctor presumes Nyssa to be dead, a scene which doesn’t really convince. (That said, that type of scene never really works with the TV characters in any of the audio stories as we know the Doctor and companions have to survive to feature in their next canonical television story).

A fun, lively and amusing script, great performances and more medieval trapping than you could shake a quarterstaff at.

During Series 8 I had a huge amount of trouble with the 12th Doctor.
In Deep Breath, I enjoyed Capaldi’s grumpy, post-regenerative furiousness.  In, Into the Dalek, it was used to great effect.  Robot of Sherwood, though, annoyed me.  The Doctor was just being a miserable sod for the duration of the story and I got to the end of the episode with a distinct anxiousness about the way the scripts were taking the Doctor.  Does he even smile in Robot of Sherwood?  And so it continued into Listen, Time Heist and The Caretaker.  It’s only in Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline that this ‘anger’ seems to have been toned down and balanced with the Doctorish traits we are more familiar with.

To be fair, the 12th Doctor is probably suffering in comparison to the 11th.  This marathon, and my general viewing of his 3 series have cemented him as one of my favourite Doctors.  I love Matt Smith’s twirly, whirly portrayal.  It’s taken me much longer to get used to Capaldi’s grumpy version – but I’m getting there.

The most recent episodes of the series have clearly been scripted to reflect the audience’s possible issues with this new version of the Doctor.  He is very different from the 10th and 11th, although not that far removed from the 9th, meaning we have needed reassurance.  That has been shown through Clara’s difficulties accepting this very different version of her special friend.  The Caretaker, Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline have developed this and through those three episodes I think I’ve joined Clara on her journey of acceptance (it helped that Mummy and Flatline are two cracking episodes which will feature highly in my personal head rankings).

Now, I could write paragraphs about what I like and dislike in episodes such as The Caretaker (his attitude towards Danny, for one) but for now, we’ll stick with 1190 and Robot of Sherwood.

This is a fun episode.  It’s got a great script, good visuals and top-notch performances.  Jenna Coleman continues to shine as Clara.  Tom Riley is brilliant as Robin Hood – all swagger and derring do.  The spoon/sword fight across the river is inspired and I rather enjoyed Capaldi’s deconstruction of the Merry Men, particularly Ian Hallard’s Alan a Dale.  The scene in the dungeon was also a lot of fun (even if I didn’t like the 12th Doctor’s attitude) with Clara growing increasingly exasperated by the Doctor and Robin’s argument.  The archery contest is also a lot of fun, particularly the escalating arrow-shooting which ends with the Doctor blowing up the target with his sonic (how he does this will forever remain a mystery).  I also think the robots themselves are a brilliant design, particularly the idea of the cross-shaped laser beam, echoing the arrow slits you would find around castle battlements and towers.  The climactic battle between enslaved peasants and robots using reflective surfaces is also a lot of fun.

I’m not as keen on Ben Miller’s Sheriff.  There have been a lot of comparisons to Anthony Ainley’s Master and I don’t think that’s a particularly favourable thing.  The fact we have lost the ‘he’s actually a robot too’ bit because of terrible events in recent news, means his character seems a little lost.  He’s a bit ‘moustache-twirling’ for my liking.
The Maid Marian reveal was also a bit naff.  An underwritten character who we see briefly in a quickly forgotten scene near the beginning who suddenly reappears in the castle (in scenes heavily reminiscent of The Next Doctor) and then, suddenly reappears again hiding behind the TARDIS (where she must have been stood for sodding ages).  That reveal worked with K9 in School Reunion, here it just seems forced and not a little embarrassing.  Her character is also a bit redundant bearing in mind Clara is sort of fulfilling that role (particularly the more ‘active’ portrayal of Marian seen in modern interpretations of the legend, such as the BBC’s recent Robin Hood series).

And I really don’t like the 12th Doctor in this story.  Okay, so he thinks Robin Hood isn’t real.  But even when all the evidence points to the contrary, he digs his heels in and just gets grumpier and grumpier.  It makes him horribly unlikeable.  Even when it is being played for comedy, such as when he and Robin are locked together in the dungeon and Clara has been taken away to see the Sheriff, it just didn’t work for me.

But, overall, I did enjoy this story.  Coming to the end of Series 8, I’m realising that I’ve been on a bit of a journey with Capaldi’s Doctor.  Every now and again there was a glimmer of the character I knew and loved, but there was a veil of unlikeability which was refusing to budge.  I promised myself I would only make a judgement based on the whole series and resist the kneejerk reactions so prevalent around Gallifrey Base.  It was tough going.  People kept asking me whether I liked the new Doctor and I would um and ah.  What’s interesting is my son, very keen to see Capaldi before his debut, watched Deep Breath (skipping over the long talky scenes, admittedly), Into the Dalek and Robot of Sherwood.  We haven’t let him watch Listen and he didn’t really like Time Heist, giving up partway through.  He turned to me and said he didn’t want to watch the series any more and although he didn’t quite come out and say it, he was clear he was finding Capaldi’s portrayal difficult.  His interest has renewed lately after we told him about the hilarious TARDIS shrinkage in Flatline, but I think he’s found it difficult to understand how this grumpy, antagonistic old man can possibly equate to the Tennant/Smith portrayals he grew up with.  The irony is, he quite likes Jon Pertwee and initially saw Capaldi as echoing this version (something highlighted by his sudden use of Venusian aikido to knock the sword from Robin’s hands so they could be captured and find out the villain’s plans).

Now I see where the series was going and what Moffatt has been doing with the character.  It’s good to have a change and do something different with the Doctor and whilst I might not put the 12th Doctor near the top of the list, it isn’t going to stop me watching.  Just like Pertwee, who is my least favourite Doctor, there are stories which I really, really enjoy.  Robot of Sherwood isn’t necessarily one of those, but it is a fun romp and that’s never a bad thing.

We arrive in England in 1215 at the castle of Sir Ranulf Fitzwilliam. The 5th Doctor, Tegan and Turlough (a first appearance in history for our exiled alien public schoolboy) arrive in the middle of a jousting match between Hugh Fitzwilliam and Sir Gilles Estram (have you worked it out yet). Sir Gilles is at the castle accompanying King John but it is soon revealed that Sir Gilles is (gasp!) the Master and that King John is, in fact, a shape-changing android called Kamelion. The Master is in 1215 to prevent King John from signing the Magna Carta. The Doctor kidnaps Kamelion thwarting his plans. The end.

That is basically it. There is a fair amount of toing and froing from banquet hall to dungeon with some sword fighting and horse riding thrown in for good measure, but basically this two episode story is a vehicle to introduce Kamelion.

Kamelion is, for me, one of the more imaginative creations of the JNT era. I know that the plans he had for the robot never came to fruition through tragic circumstances but the general concept of a shape changing android on board the TARDIS could have made for some brilliant stories. One of my favourite Virgin Missing Adventures is The Crystal Bucephalus by Craig Hinton (the one with Kamelion on the cover) which plays with the character’s potential. I’m aware that, eventually, he would probably have to break down every other episode, just as K9 did before him, as his abilities may have been too easy a get out clause for writers, but as one of Doctor Who’s ‘might-have-beens’ I have always found him fascinating.

Unfortunately, Kamelion is introduced in one of the slightest television stories ever. I have complained quite a few times in these reviews that the one shot comic strips from the likes of DWM are often very unsatisfying in that very little happens in them. The King’s Demons feels like the televisual equivalent of one of those one shots. The short length is obviously a contributary factor, but I don’t feel the same about other two episode stories such as Black Orchid or The Awakening. It’s the fact that the Master’s scheme is so low key that the viewer never feels there is very much at stake. The Doctor himself doesn’t seem overly concerned and Tegan and Turlough do very little plot wise.

Ainley’s performance as the Master also leaves a little to be desired. This story, I reckon, shows the first glimmerings of the twirly-moustache villain we see through the rest of the 80s. I didn’t feel this was evident in Time-Flight (and to be fair, I don’t remember it being particularly prominent in Planet of Fire) but it’s probably the script that’s to blame as it doesn’t give Ainley much to work with, especially as the Master’s scheme is so odd.

The medieval setting, however, is very well realised. There is a lovely (I presume) glass plate shot at the beginning showing the expanse of the Great Hall, and the whole production is designed beautifully. At times it does feel a little clichéd what with wolfhounds and dwarf jesters, but the sheer number of extras in authentic-looking costumes makes this feel far more of a story than it actually is. Possibly the director, Tony Virgo (who delivers an informative if slightly dull commentary for Part One), realised how slim the script was and decided to try and distract the audience with nice things to look at.

I’m not entirely sure how historically accurate everything on display is and, at times, it feels like the production design is based more on familiar tropes from 1930s/1940s films such as Robin Hood or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, but as a short hand for the viewer it does the job. Aside from the wolfhounds and jester, we have guards, swords, crossbows, horses, the castle, jousting, tents, iron maidens, a king’s champion, lutes, mention of Saracens, lots of moustaches and beards, Sir Gilles slapping the Doctor with a gauntlet to challenge him to a duel, banquets full of food and lots of animal skins and furs.

The guest characters dialogue is suitably medieval but doesn’t reach the florid heights of The Crusade’s Shakespearean verbosity.

There are, technically, no real historical characters in this story as King John is really a robot, but we do have allusions to a real historical event, even if it doesn’t actually occur within the timeframe of the story.

We do have a little history lesson from the Doctor when he explains to Tegan about the Magna Carta, debunking the idea that King John was forced to sign it.

I think I’ll always have a soft spot for The King’s Demons simply for the introduction of Kamelion. As a Master story it is forgettable (although his TARDIS being disguised as an iron maiden is fun – especially the scene where he is forced into it with some blood-curdling screams). It’s a shame it became a lacklustre end to Season 20 when the planned Dalek story fell through (although seeing what eventually became of that (Resurrection of the Daleks) maybe it’s not such a bad thing) but it’s not the worst story of this era.

Now that was odd. I had only listened to The Quality of Mercy once before, soon after purchasing it. I remember being intrigued by the idea of David A McIntee continuing the adventures of Guy de Carnac, a character from his New Adventures novel, Sanctuary – a novel I had enjoyed immensely.
I also remember enjoying the audio.

As JNT once said…the memory cheats.

I had fully expected to be writing a positive review of this story in the same way I had fully expected to write a negative review of The Green Man (which I had actually listened to more than once). My hazy recollections of The Green Man were, frankly, spot on. My hazy recollections of The Quality of Mercy were not.

The story sees disgraced Templar Knight, Guy de Carnac arrive in a village to find himself aiding a local priest who is looking after a mysterious foreigner who apparently arrived in a flying ship. Soon after, the Inquisition arrive to question the foreigner. One of the Inquisition aids Guy in helping the foreigner escape. The end.

It struck me, as I listened to this story, that nothing really happens throughout the entire play. Guy arrives in the village, Guy meets the strange man, Guy, the priest and the Inquisition debate the foreigner’s origins, Guy and Brother Reynard help the man escape back to his flying ship, everyone goes home.

The cast perform quite well but there are endless scenes of characters just talking about things: the foreigner, religion, Guy’s morality, the Inquisition’s morality.

The main problem I have with the story is its vagueness. The blurb states this is medieval Europe and that is as definite as the time and place get. Guy is an ex-Crusader but there is no indication of where in the world he is now, how long he has been dismissed from the Templar Knights or whether the Crusades are still occurring. The presence of the Inquisition suggests the 13th Century but nothing more specific than that. Even more vague are the origins of the stranger. He cannot speak our language but can be understood if the locals wear a scarab beetle broach. His flying ship is not (as one may assume early in the play) a spaceship, but an actual flying boat. At the end of the play he intimates that his ancestors once lived in Egypt, but his race now live far, far south – wherever that may be. But ultimately, there are no real answers. We don’t find out who the stranger is, or where he came from, or how it is he has a flying boat or a magic language translator shaped like a scarab. We don’t find out why Guy was dismissed from the Templar Knights or why he is wandering apparently aimlessly through Europe.

I know some writers enjoy ambiguity in their writing, but it just irritates me as a reader/listener/viewer. I don’t mind working some stuff out for myself, but in a story as vague as this there is no sense of satisfaction – which is something I look for in a good story.

Historically there are some interesting sections commenting on the rites and rituals of the Templar Knights, the public perception of the Inquisition and the odd detail thrown into dialogue such as references to the Crusades and Saracens. It is also good to finally have some medieval monk characters – aside from the Meddling kind (although I am aware there are some in The Book of Kells, an 8th Doctor audio I have skipped due to not owning it yet).

This story has been a surprise for me – a surprise that I hadn’t remembered how unsatisfying it is. The constant dialogue scenes take the story nowhere and offer very little insight into the characters or the situation, constantly skirting around the edges of the plot rather than being willing to offer up some actual answers. It is not an audio I am going to rush back to listening to again and, coupled with The Green Man, makes for a unimpressive start for BBV’s contribution to this marathon. I hope that my fond recollections of stories such as The Barnacled Baby and In2Minds don’t prove to be as misremembered as these.

I sometimes realise I need to do more research before embarking on various parts of this marathon. This 3rd Doctor comic strip from TV Action was listed on my spreadsheet as being ‘WW2’ with no specific date attached and, indeed, it does have no date attached. However, it does involve the French resistance and with Scorched Earth touching on similar ground, but at the end of the war after liberation has begun to occur in the wake of the D-Day landings, this has to place prior. Therefore, I have given it a arbitrary date of 1943.

Oddly, this story feels extremly reminiscent of another 3rd Doctor ‘Nazis in France’ comic strip – Timebenders. It has many of the same elements – the Nazis/Gestapo capturing the Doctor; a scientist; a blond lone female member of the resistance; the resistance needing to be convinced of the Doctor’s reliability.

Like many comic strips from this era, it echoes the sentiment from a generation growing up post war. If more modern stories set in World War Two are sometimes at pains to humanise the Germans, those written during the 60s and 70s (such as the Sgt Fury and the Howling Commandos comics from Marvel) only ever depict the Germans as evil Nazis, hell bent on taking over the world by whatever means necessary. They are almost always written as caricatures seemingly always on the edge of losing their temper at any given opportunity. The Nazi scientist in this story allows the Doctor to slip him the truth serum he is trying to trick the Doctor into drinking. Consequently he goes on to tell the Doctor exactly what the Germans are planning!

The Doctor uses this information to make contact with the French resistance and, ultimately, capture the scientist, root out a spy within their midst and set fire to the Gestapo headquarters.

These are very matter-of-fact comic strips. The good guys and bad guys are clearly defined. The spy is a pretty blond girl (who never speaks and is never actually seen conspiring or doing anything except stand around). The scientist and Gestapo are hoist by their own petard. The resistance are suspicous of, but won over by, the Doctor.

During this marathon we’ve seen the 3rd Doctor travel back in time three times now, twice to World War Two Occupied France. Bearing in mind the TV series didn’t have the 3rd Doctor travel back into history ‘properly’ until The Time Warrior (allowing for the brief trip to Atlantis in the final two episodes of The Time Monster) and that the only audio trip for the 3rd Doctor in my marathon so far has also been to World War Two, it seems odd that this is the period of history is the destination for these rare trips for the 3rd Doctor.

With Backtime, we finally cross paths with the world of Countdown, the comic which hosted a long run of Third Doctor comic strips.  As I’ve discussed before, the comic strips pre-DWM have only a loose relationship with their parent show.  The TV Comic versions of the 1st and 2nd Doctors bore very little resemblence to their TV counterparts with both magic and violence being far more prominent in the comic than they ever were on screen.  The 3rd Doctor Countdown comics move a little closer to the TV series and do in part reflect the tone of Seasons 7 and 8.  Backtime, however, is a strange beast.

We find the 3rd Doctor pottering around Victorian London in 1863.  In the first instalment no mention is made of the fact of how unusual a trip into history is for the 3rd Doctor but then, from the second part onwards, the text keeps referring to how the Doctor has used ‘backtime’ to travel into the past.  ‘Backtime’ is never explained – is it a process, a machine, something different to his TARDIS (which, if memory serves, hardly featured at all in the Countdown comics, with the Doctor more often being based in a country cottage and travelling around in his vintage yellow roadster, Betsy…)?

Whilst apparently researching 19th century flying machines (by reading a book!) he has his pocket picked by a young boy called the Artful Dodger…I mean Charlie Fisher.  Charlie is so obviously the Artful Dodger it is painful.  Indeed the final frame of the comic strip is a copy of a publicity photo of Jack Wild, the actor who played Dodger in the musical film, Oliver!  There are even a couple of frames of the first two London-set parts which look like copies of scenes from the film (particularly the one of the Doctor and Charlie running to find the TARDIS).  Charlie is arrested, but then the Doctor is too for producing a modern bank note.  Charged with pickpocketing and forgery, respectively, Charlie and the Doctor make a break for freedom and escape in the TARDIS.  The Doctor promises to take Charlie to start a life somewhere nicer but ends up materialising in the midst of the American Civil War, a short while before the Battle of Gettysburg (also in 1863).

This begins the main part of the story which sees the Doctor and Charlie travelling from Union territory to Confederate territory to Union territory again in an effort to avoid being executed as spies.  The Doctor, rather brazenly and recklessly uses a hot air balloon to map the Confederate lines, which he then proceeds to give to Abraham Lincoln himself.  Gettysburg is won by the Union soldiers but the TARDIS is taken away forcing the Doctor and Charlie to follow it on horseback.  On the way they are accosted by the rather nasty Bamford brothers.  Bizarrely, the Doctor almost takes them with him in the TARDIS to also find a better life along with Charlie, but they are spooked by the interior of the TARDIS and scarper, only to be captured by soldiers themselves.

The Doctor then takes Charlie to Australia (also in 1863 it is implied) and leaves him with a spotted handkerchief tied to a stick and miles and miles of outback to trek through!

This is a decidedly odd story.  The Doctor acts nothing like the Doctor and is very much like the character usually seen in the TV Comic strips, particularly their version of the 2nd Doctor.  Admittedly, Pertwee’s portrayal of the Doctor, particularly in Seasons 7 and 8 was a lot more brusque and condescending to those around him, but this version seems motivated by self-preservation far more than his TV counterpart.  His treatment of Charlie is also very odd.  He plans on taking a boy who cannot be more than 13 or so to some other place for a better life and ends up leaving him in the Australian outback in 1863!  It seems rather ill-thought out.  I wonder if, somewhere, Charlie Fisher’s bleached bones lie in the orange sand being picked at by the local wildlife and given a wide berth by the Aborigines for fear of some dark evil that brought a young white boy to the middle of the outback.

The whole American Civil War section is thoroughly uninvolving with the Doctor and Charlie running from one group of soldiers to another and seemingly escaping various deadly predicaments with a wave of the artist’s pencil.  The coda with the chasing of the TARDIS on horseback and their encounter with the villainous Bamford brothers is pointless and nonsensical (especially when the Doctor offers to take them in the TARDIS like some taxi service for the time vortex)!

For the marathon I read the reprint of this comic strip presented in the shortlived Classic Comics.  Rightly or wrongly this publication coloured all of the strips.  On some this works really well and its lovely to read.  Unfortunately, with the line artwork for the Countdown strips it just looks awful when coloured.  There are massive blocks of colour and the fine detail on many of the characters is lost when colour is added.  Some frames are impossible to work out what is actually being depicted.  It is a massive shame and made me wish I could view them in their original black and white form.  Also, the strip is split across two issues of the magazine and the colouring in the second part is much worse than that in the first.

We’ve rarely crossed paths with the 3rd Doctor in this marathon and it is a shame this comic strip is a poor representation of his character and era.  Charlie Fisher is a rather pointless temporary companion and is horrendously cliched uttering such gems as ‘Cor luv a duck’ and dropping his H’s left, right and centre.  The fact that he is clearly just the Artful Dodger is embarrassing and the whole Gettysburg bit is dull and nonsensical.  The ending is awful and the whole idea of ‘Backtime’ is bizarre as it is written into the text as if we should all know exactly what the writer is talking about.

Shocking!

In 1992, a new magazine appeared on the shelves of WHSmith (and other outlets). It was called Classic Comics and it’s remit was to reprint various comics based on Doctor Who. I remember buying my first copy (and the rest of the, sadly only, 2 years worth of issues). It was comforting and thrilling and new all at the same time. Here were comic strips with the Third Doctor from TV Action comic and Countdown and TV Comic and old DWMs. It was heaven. It was also weird. The comics grasp of Doctor Who, as a programme, was often tenuous at best. I’ve reviewed some old TV Comics before in my marathon and, much as I love them, there’s no doubt they bear only the slightest resemblance to the TV show.

Likewise, the Third Doctor strips from Countdown and TV Action are similarly slightly askew from the screen version of the show. There are obvious anomalies such as Bessie being called Betsy and the Doctor having a house in the countryside, but there are also the way the Doctor is characterised which doesn’t always seem to owe a huge amount to Pertwee’s performance. The colourisation which Classic Comics did on these originally black and white strips also results in an odd atmosphere. Everything is a little dreamlike. The strips are more closely related in this way to the annual stories than they are to much that was shown on TV.

Timebenders also has a time travel storyline which sets it far apart from most of the Pertwee era. This is, in some ways, similar to Backtime, the 3rd Doctor Countdown comic strip I reviewed many moons ago which saw the Doctor bouncing through time and space. Here, we only have the Doctor travelling back to World War Two but the time travel into history aspect is still something of novelty for this era of the show which really only did it a handful of times and not at all until a couple of years into Pertwee’s tenure.

The first thing to say is how, tonally, the title Timebenders is totally at odds with the very sombre atmosphere of the piece. Timebenders just sounds silly and yet this is a story with Nazi soldiers, air raids, the French resistance, the Doctor getting knocked out and a whole class of children being threatened with execution! This is quite adult stuff. This is Doctor Who extrapolated from Season 7 but with elements of World War Two based comics drafted in from the likes of Commando, Action or Sergeant Fury and his Howling Commandos.

The Nazis are nasty individuals – none of the reasonable Rommel from The Instruments of War. The officer in charge, Spiegal, has no qualms about killing people to achieve his ends and, as mentioned, holds a class of young children and their teacher hostage to force the Doctor to surrender himself. But even the members of the French resistance are violent and ‘hit first, ask questions later’ sort of people. That one of them, Marcel Sangenez turns out to be local aristocracy and owner of the nearby chateau provides a bit of plot convenience towards the end, although he does form something of an allyship with the Doctor. It all seems a little cursory though and there’s never a sense of the Doctor being anything more than an outsider who is using the people around him as a means to returning home – just as much as they use him to help defeat the Nazis.

The ‘companion’ role is taken by Monique Vedrun, daughter of Professor Vedrun. The Professor is the one who has somehow created a matter transmitter which has brought the Doctor through time. Quite how he has achieved this is left largely unexplained. Monique herself does little more than get captured and rescued although she does convince the resistance of the Doctor’s ‘futuristic’ origins by finding a coin minted in 1972 in his jacket. Monique is blonde and very 1970s in her look and is a poor substitute for the Doctor’s usual companions from TV.

Timebenders joins the subset of World War Two stories that involve the Nazis pursuing a superweapon to allow them to win the war. The Professor’s matter transporter is a project he has been commissioned to complete by the Nazis. The time travel capabilities are a serendipitous side effect of his work. Quite what happens to his technology after the Doctor returns to the present is not explained. The story also, weirdly, ends on a bit of a comedic note with the Nazis who attempt to travel into the future, finding themselves merely travelling in space, directly into an English jail cell. With clear proof the transporter works, it does beg the question as to why the Nazis don’t pursue the project any further (although Spiegal’s superior is seen dismissing Spiegal’s fanciful claims) but also why the Resistance don’t use it to their advantage.

This is such an odd story – it doesn’t feel particularly in tune with the TV era it stems from, struggles to balance quite adult concepts with brief comedic elements and has quite thinly drawn guest characters. The Doctor really feels like a complete outsider throughout the story and never quite in command of the situation. It’s been good to share some time with the 3rd Doctor as he has rarely featured in my marathon but this is, like previous brief encounters with him, a very atypical 3rd Doctor story.

Deep Breath is an event episode. It’s the start of a new Doctor’s journey in the TARDIS. Peter Capaldi’s arrival in the role is unusual. He was announced a long time before actually appearing in the series and this was done with a special half hour programme on BBC1. This was unprecedented. The BBC was clearly chuffed as chips to have bagged such a prestigious actor as Capaldi for the role.

With such a long wait, the anticipation for Capaldi’s first episode grew and grew. Now, I have to admit to being a huge Matt Smith fan. I was always going to find the transition to a new Doctor difficult. I liked some of Capaldi’s previous work (Neverwhere, for example) but can’t say I’m a big fan. But, as my love for Doctor Who is unconditional, I sat down with a bunch of friends (premiere episodes tend to be a social event for us) to watch his debut.

I enjoyed it. But I cannot say I was overwhelmed. It felt a bit long. It felt a bit drab (colour-wise). I wasn’t taking to Capaldi. This was a problem over the next few episodes. I wasn’t warming to the 12th Doctor’s grumpy characterisation. There were episodes I enjoyed such as Into the Dalek, but it wasn’t until Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline that I started to accept this new Doctor.

I returned to Deep Breath with some trepidation, but also a knowledge that episodes (especially from the new series) which had underwhelmed me on first watch often rose in my estimation on repeated viewings. I’m glad to say that Deep Breath has joined that number.

There is so much to enjoy in this episode that I’m not even sure why I felt underwhelmed the first time through. It looks gorgeous. The scenes in the spaceship at the end of the episode with the variously costumed clockwork robots look stunning. I love the array of period costumes from military to prostitute to Li H’Sen Chang-alikes. The sound work is also brilliant. I hadn’t appreciated how utterly chilling the clockwork sound is in this episode. It is used to great effect throughout the episode. And the clockwork effect on the side of the Half-Face Man is amazing. I know it must be CGI but the effect is seamless and looks utterly like part of the actor’s own physiognomy.

Bringing back the Clockwork Droids is also great fun. In their first appearance in The Girl in the Fireplace they were really playing second fiddle to the love story between the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour. Wonderful as that story is, they were a rather perfunctory monster. Here, in Deep Breath, they seem more menacing for some reason. Maybe it’s because, this time, they have a ‘leader’ in the Half Face Man. Peter Ferdinando is excellent in the role and I don’t think I properly appreciated his contribution to the episode. Maybe, first time round, I was too focussed on the new Doctor. Now that I’m used to Capaldi’s performance from two series’ worth of episodes, I was able to look past that aspect of the episode. I also like how the audience probably reaches a conclusion about the droids before the Doctor does; the SS Marie Antoinette part simply being confirmation for the viewer of where we’ve seen them before – whereas for the Doctor it is really the start of him making the connnection. His post-regenerative muddle stopping him from immediately remembering.

And I think that is another aspect of the episode I hadn’t properly appreciated first time around. The ‘post-regenerationness’ of the episode. It is played in a different way to how it was for the 10th and 11th Doctors. The 10th was unconscious for a sizeable chunk of his episode, but when he finally turned up proper he was right into the thick of the action. The 11th too wasted little time in investigating the mysteries he was presented with. The version they’ve gone with for the 12th Doctor is far more similar to the traumas experience by the 5th and 6th Doctors. Stumbling around, not knowing who they are; being antagonistic and unlikeable; putting the companion in mortal danger and making the companion, and the viewer, disconcerted and uncomfortable. For some reason I ‘got’ it far more this time around. The part in the spaceship where Clara thinks she has been abandoned by the Doctor and confronts the Half Face Man alone is thrilling. We needed an unlikeable Doctor for this story to work as well as it does. Continuing that unlikeability for as long as they did; well that maybe harder for me to come to terms with. However, as this marathon will watch the episodes out of order, I’ll probably find myself – as with this episode – appreciating each one far more.

Capaldi will never be my favourite Doctor but I am definitely appreciating his characterisation far more now than I did initially. This is also a great story for Jenna Coleman as Clara. She is in a Peri-like role of having to accept and adjust to this very different Doctor from the young, youthful version she knew (and one she knew a lot better than Peri knew the 5th (if we ignore the Big Finish additions to their time together). As I say, her scenes facing up to the droids alone are thrilling, but I also love her interplay with the Paternoster Gang.

Ah yes, the Paternoster Gang. I know they divide fan opinion (what doesn’t) but I am very fond of them. This is the story, though, where I went right off Madame Vastra. Her treatment of Jenny is appalling; this is even pointed out by Jenny. Why does she still treat her as a servant behind closed doors? It doesn’t make any sense, aside from portraying her as arrogant in her attitudes towards ‘apes’. There is, of course, the controversial kiss between Vastra and Jenny (excused in the script as being a transfer of oxygen) but it does seem as if there isn’t very much left to be done with these two characters, Vastra especially. I do wonder if we will actually see them reappear in Series 10. Strax, on the other hand, provides everything I could want. A hilarious performance from Dan Starkey as always and its no wonder that, in the world of Big Finish, its Strax they have chosen to cross-over into their Jago and Litefoot range. Having Strax a bit more central to the story would have been nice, but as his role is, principally, comic relief, I suppose that is just how it will have to be.

Historically, this felt very Victorian. The date of 1894 is a little bit of guesswork based on the explicit dating of The Crimson Horror. As I’ve mentioned, the costuming is exquisite and the location work really adds to the time period’s atmosphere. The early scenes on the banks of the River Thames work extremely well. We are, still though, in the Victorian era that is more inspired by Sherlock Holmes than real history. In fact, this story is strongly influenced by the Penny Dreadfuls. It has a little of the atmosphere present in the audio series I have reviewed previously (with a third instalment soon to be listened to) from the Wireless Theatre Company – The Legend of Spring Heel’d Jack. It’s also reminiscent of the atmosphere conjured in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. It feels more akin to that story than it does to either The Snowmen or The Crimson Horror (although I commented on how The Crimson Horror is a very different style of Victorian story in my review of that). The links with Sherlock Holmes are reinforced by the presence of Inspector Gregson, a character from some of the Conan Doyle stories. He appeared briefly in one of the short prequels to The Snowmen, and it is fun to have him return as the ‘police’ character to Vastra’s Holmes. She even says ‘the games afoot’ and Jenny makes reference to the Paternoster Irregulars in a – not very subtle – reference to the Baker Street Irregulars from the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Of course, the one very unhistorical aspect is the giant Tyrannosaurus Rex. Clearly just included for some good pre-publicity, it’s gigantic size is rather silly and hand-waved away with the most cursory of explanations. Impressive though the effects are, it doesn’t really fit into the rest of the story’s tone and does raise awkward questions about why a giant dinosaur in the Thames (for quite an extended period of time) isn’t a matter of more import in the wider history of Doctor Who’s Earth. Ah well, let’s not worry too much about it.

Oh and then there’s Missy. But that’s a discussion for a different time, I feel.

I really enjoyed this story second time around and I’m even tempted to sit down and rewatch it again. I sometimes don’t give the episodes my full attention when watching them as part of my marathon; squeezing them in whilst working for example. A few times I rewound sections to rewatch properly and I feel I actually need to give this episode my absolute undivided attention. It certainly deserves it. Could I be coming round to Capaldi? Maybe. It certainly felt like a better episode than I remembered.

The Third Doctor Adventures from Big Finish are not a range I have clamoured to purchase. The recasts don’t always work for me and the bits and pieces I’ve heard of Tim Treloar in other releases haven’t convinced me I’d be able to suspend my disbelief for a full story.

But, completist that I am, when the volume of Third Doctor Adventures containing Operation Hellfire, a World War Two set story, appeared in a Big Finish sale, I grabbed the chance to buy it so I could include the story in my marathon.

The first hurdle to get over when listening to these stories is always going to be accepting Treloar’s 3rd Doctor. This is Volume 6 of the range and it is clear he has settled into the part and found a way of doing it. There were times when he did sound like Pertwee but I can’t say he convinced me for the whole running time. But I did manage to make peace with his performance and it didn’t take me out of the story.

The same can’t be said, unfortunately, for Katy Manning. I know what she’s trying to do – it’s the same thing Wendy Padbury does when she’s recreating Zoe. They pitch their voice higher but, unfortunately, it just makes them sound like little children. Manning in particular teeters on the brink of a twee, silly voice which just doesn’t sound like Manning from the 70s. I know she never is going to (years of smoking will have put paid to that) but actually, I think she’d be far better off just sticking to her own voice with just a slight lightening of tone. In constantly pulled me out of the story, particularly in the earlier episodes when I was also trying to get used to Treloar’s performance.

There is a hilarious bit though where Jo pretends to be an acolyte of a Nazi occultist and she goes all husky and sensual which Manning does brilliantly.

Ah yes – a Nazi occultist. That’s essentially what this story is about – the Nazi obsession with the dark arts. Many Doctor Who stories so far in my marathon have explored the Nazi desire to find the next super weapon but, as we know from the Indiana Jones films, they were also fascinated by how the supernatural may be able to assist them in their efforts to control the world.

The Doctor and Jo are sent on a mission by the Time Lords to retrieve a powerful Gallifreyan artefact which has fallen into the hands of a Nazi-sympathising British cult. They are assisted by an Ian Fleming-like member of the London Controlling Section (a branch of British Intelligence) called Douglas Quilter.

This is a very atypical Pertwee story which, judging by the extras, was part of the point. As such, it is rather difficult to picture this as part of the era it purports to be from/inspired by. It also makes it a bit of a weird experience. It’s all very sensationalist and bizarre despite being grounded in the real life agency of the London Controlling Section. The guest cast are all playing larger than life characters who audibly chew the scenery, especially Jeany Spark as Daisy Chapel. and although it’s entertaining, it makes the whole thing rather comic strip like. In fact, the whole story is far more reminiscent of the Countdown comic strips than anything on TV. Taken on that basis, it does work but it’s all rather over the top. As if to emphasise the unrealness of it all, the one ‘real’ person in the story, Winston Churchill, really only appears in cameo, almost as if he is popping up for the odd frame in the comic strip.

Taken as an audio comic strip in the style of Countdown, this isn’t a bad audio. It’s very over the top and the fact the whole Nazi occultist thing turns out to be a ruse, is a bit of an anti-climax. The macguffin of the amulet is apparently influencing events but it’s a bit unclear and overall it’s a story which feels like it had a lot of fun elements but doesn’t really know what to do with them or how to turn them into a coherent, satisfying Pertwee era story. Manning and Treloar do work well together but I think I might need to hear a more ‘traditional’ story to better judge whether I think the recast works and whether the Third Doctor Adventures are a range I want to pursue further (I do also own the box set with the Monk and the Cybermen simply because the whole ‘Pertwee never had a Cyberman story’ is something that has been an itch in my fandom that needed scratching since the early days (I even wrote a Pertwee Cyberman story for my school days fanzine).

Victory of the Daleks is a story that everyone knows. It’s the story that had Winston Churchill and it’s the story that redesigned the Daleks. The first hook has been grabbed and run with by Big Finish, with Ian McNeice’s performance being called on in an evergrowing number of audios – including his own spin-off box sets. The second hook has, like many an unsuccessful idea in Doctor Who, been quietly forgotten.

This is also a story of two halves with the first part being far more successful and engaging than the second.

I really like the World War Two opening. The Cabinet War Rooms are effectively realised and McNeice makes an instant impact as Churchill. It’s easy to forget that this is only Matt Smith’s third outing as the Doctor on screen (and only his second story to be recorded) as he is simply perfect as the Doctor. He has easily become my favourite new series Doctor by a fair distance and the way his performance is just so natural is evident even this early in his time.

It’s also easy to forget this is only Karen Gillan’s second-recorded/third-screened story. I’ve been less enamoured by Amy Pond but I think this may be due to later appearances and, possibly, her dynamic with Rory. In this story, where she is the sole companion I find her more appealing, This wasn’t something I thought about her solo outing in Vincent and the Doctor where I had a few issues with Gillan’s performance but here, there is a freshness and energy to her which I don’t know I’ve ever felt as clearly from her other appearances in this marathon. Her interaction with Bracewell, in particular, is a delight.

Bill Paterson’s Bracewell is an undersung character of the new series – overshadowed by Churchill and the Daleks, he gives a warm, likeable performance as an eager scientist almost unable to believe his luck in getting to contribute so significantly to the war effort. His reveal as a Dalek android is effectively done and I particularly like the final scene where he expects the Doctor to deactivate him but the Doctor and Amy try to subtly tell him to scarper while they’re not looking.

I’ve occasionally seen the scene where Amy manages to ‘defuse’ the bomb planted inside him accused of being a little trite and unbelievable but I think it works. The way the Doctor fails to connect to his ‘human’ side but Amy is able to draw on a lost love and draw out his humanity works for me, even though I know, deep down, that the idea that a Dalek construct has any ounce of real humanity is a little silly. I think it is down to Paterson’s performance that this scene convinces me. I can believe that the Daleks have managed to implant memories into him that are so real they can counteract his mechanical elements.

Bracewell’s ‘invention’ of the Ironsides is also one of this episodes highlights. The khaki green design, the little soldier ‘accessories’, the covers on the ‘ear-lights’ and the Union Jack really work on the classic new series Dalek design. It’s a clever twist on the design and its a massive shame when halfway through they are literally destroyed and disappear from the story. It’s also a design which is never likely to reappear in the series. I have special memories of this Dalek design too as it was at the first Doctor Who event I took my son to when he was a toddler. Scenes of him meeting an Ironside Dalek and wielding his sonic screwdriver will always be extremely special to me.

Gatiss choosing to riff on the memorable ‘I am your servant’ line from Power of the Daleks is also a clever addition to the script as it works purely within the story’s own narrative but also gives a little thrill to classic fans.

And then it all falls apart.

When I first saw the reveal of the new Paradigm Daleks I was nonplussed. Something about them didn’t sit right with me but I actually couldn’t pinpoint it until their design was cross-examined, nit-picked and pulled apart by fandom. They are a contradictory design in that the both seem like Daleks and yet not like Daleks simultaneously.

Firstly, the colours don’t bother me. The Dalek movies did colourful Daleks decades ago so that was never going to be an issue for me. I also like the titles, especially the never-explored mystery of what the Eternal Dalek is.

But the change of silhouette I just don’t think works. The oft-mentioned ‘humpback’ simply doesn’t work (even with the stated intention that it housed various weapons which could interchange with the gunstick and sucker). But I also realised that the grill section is redesigned in a way which doesn’t work either. It seems too bulky and prominent, taking focus away from the ‘head’ and eyestalk.

I also know that the increased height was rationalised as matching the height of the Doctor and Amy but I really don’t think creations as menacing and destructive as the Daleks need worry about the Doctor being a bit taller than them. It isn’t something which is particularly noticeable when Smith is in scenes with the Ironsides so it does feel a bit like a reason being given after the fact to justify part of a badly-received design decision.

It does seem that the production team ended up agreeing with general consensus on the design as the Paradigm Daleks have been quietly forgotten as the years have moved on with the original new series design returning as the dominant form. The redesign seen in the Reconnaissance Dalek in Resolution and the security drones in Revolution of the Daleks works much more successfully because, I feel, there is a better narrative justification and rationale for it. But the classic design remains the go to look.

But the Paradigm Daleks aren’t the only issue with the second part of Victory of the Daleks. I just don’t like the Dalek spaceship set. It is colourless (ironically) and lacks any atmosphere. When the Doctor arrives, he spends an inordinate amount of time just standing there talking. It’s almost like he gets removed from the interesting part of the story in WW2 and parked up on the ship. Even when he gets returned to Earth, it is Amy who manages to defuse Bracewell.

I love Matt Smith but as soon as he gets to the Dalek ship, his performance is stifled. With only the Daleks to play with, he struggles to keep the energy in his Doctor. Maybe if this story came much later in his run, his experience in the role would have been able to combat the stiffness of the script at this point but as it is, the second half of this story is a letdown after the strength of the initial setting and characters.

The rather silly ‘Spitfires in Space’ bit also does little to lift this portion simply because that action seems divorced from the other two settings. The pilots are faceless (even if one is voiced by Gatiss) and have no connection to the other characters. The logic of the spitfires just doesn’t make sense within the narrative unless the viewer squints a lot.

For me Victory of the Daleks is definitely a game of two halves. The WW2 portions are excellent. McNeice and Paterson are brilliant guest stars and the characters they play are engaging. Yes, Churchill is portrayed as a ‘character’ rather than as the historical figure but within a family programme, would it be appropriate to delve into the alleged racism or less savoury aspects of the man? In the context of a story visiting WW2, the broad strokes with which Churchill is painted are completely understandable and appropriate. Whether Churchill should be introduced as an old friend of the Doctor is where things may get a little muddier but I think aspects such as the Doctor refusing Churchill access to the TARDIS hint at a level of caution on the part of the Doctor. This isn’t someone he’s willing to take on trips through time and space and not, I hazard, simply to preserve the timeline. Obviously the Big Finish Churchill Years do have him travel in the TARDIS but only once his contribution to the war is over.

But the story grinds to a halt once the Doctor arrives on the ship and my interest in it wanes. The WW2 scenes just about save it from being a total washout. I’m also not convinced by the conceit that the Daleks are victorious when their victory seems to just be buggering off in their spaceship. I do like the scene of Amy defusing Bracewell but it is too little too late.

There is lots to enjoy in Victory of the Daleks and it’s position as the keystone to the numerous Churchill audio adventures that now exist is a better legacy than the Paradigm Dalek reveal which the story is most known for.

The 8th Doctor has been blessed by some of Big Finish’s best output and by some of the BF’s best original companions. Starting with Charley and then followed by Lucie, two extremely strong and memorable TARDIS teams were created, to the point where both have returned recently with their own ‘flashback’ box sets to their time aboard the TARDIS.

The 8th Doctor’s third triumphant team up has been with Liv Chenka who, from rather inauspicious beginnings in a Robots of Death spin-off with the 7th Doctor, has emerged as one of the shining lights of the 8th Doctor range and has even gained her own spin-off which currently has more volumes than Charley’s much delayed two box-set spin-off.

Their Finest Hours opens the Ravenous arc of four box sets. Not having finished Doom Coalition – the series before Ravenous – I was a little concerned this story would confuse me with references back but, aside from vague references to their fellow companion Helen having been lost and being on her trail, this is what BF like to term a ‘jumping on point’.

The ‘story arc’ is parked at the beginning of the story when a phone call from WInston Churchill calls the Doctor and Liv to 1940 and a mystery of missing planes. The Nemonite Invasion gave us a story based around Dunkirk and this story takes us into the air and references the Battle of Britain. The Doctor and Liv team up with Polish pilots, yet to be deemed skilled enough by the RAF to join the war effort proper (despite the fact that the opinion of individuals is clearly that they are as good, if not better, than British pilots) to investigate the disappearing aircraft. Unsurprisingly, aliens are involved and Liv and her pilot are captured. The Doctor meanwhile is inventing things on the ground.

Plotwise it may seem a little thin, but the strength of this story is in its characters. The two Polish pilots, Wilhelm and Jan are hugely likeable and Liv’s rapport with Wilhelm is particularly lovely (made all the more touching by the closing reveal). Strangely, Churchill himself is somewhat on the sidelines and McNeice’s performance is more subdued than I’ve become used to in the Churchill Years stories (or indeed in the upcoming Victory of the Daleks). The amusing running gag that Liv has no idea who he is, is a great way of stripping the character of the hero worship which lingers around him and cleverly, I think McNeice reflects that in his performance. He really does behave as if the wind has been taken from his sails somewhat and the Doctor’s continued insistence that history must take its course continues to frustrate him when alien technology is at his fingertips and yet just out of reach.

The aliens are a little cliched to begin with but an original twist in their motivation gives the story a lift towards the end.

Historically, the prejudice that Polish pilots faced after ending up in Britain after Germany invaded their country, is well-documented but maybe not well-known. Placing the events in their hands rather than of RAF pilots adds an extra layer to an already interesting story and creates a poignancy at the close of the story which I think has more impact because of the prejudices they faced in their desire to fight back against the evil that had invaded their country and killed their friends and family.

The dialogue in the story had me smiling throughout, Liv continues to be one of the Doctor’s best companions and the WW2 setting was viewed from a new angle creating, overall, a strong audio and definitely a recommendation.

The end of the war has arrived and it would be churlish not to celebrate VE Day with Winston Churchill himself. With Churchill Victorious, we reach the final story in The Churchill Years Volume 2 and Winston is out on the London streets on the night of the 8th May, 1945.

There’s an alien hiding out in the ruin-riddled streets with a mysterious bounty he needs to deliver, a couple who are struggling to celebrate because their son has been unjustly arrested and one William Churchyard, an unassuming bank manager caught up in events.

It’s fairly obvious early on that the bounty the alien, Visguard, has aboard his ship is the Doctor but the story is no less fun for knowing this. Churchill’s plucky Blitz spirit shines through the events and he is ably assisted by Diane and Sidney Wheeler. What makes these characters interesting is that they show a different side to the end of the war. Their son is in prison having been arrested for looting. Convinced he is innocent, they play along with Churchill’s ruse of being William Churchyard, despite immediately recognising him, with the hope that by gaining favour with him, they will secure a possible release for their son.

A couple not excited by the VE Day celebrations and jubilation echoes the fact that, for many, VE Day would have been a bittersweet time. Many souls had been lost and the war in Japan was still being fought with many families having relatives still in that part of the world. VE Day only marked the end of part of the war and people’s troubles would still be there the next day – the Wheelers reflect this.

I’ve enjoyed the Churchill Years stories for the way they have pitched Churchill against various aliens. His stoic, no-nonsense attitude and wartime spirit work well against various alien foes and it’s fitting that, in this last story from the second box set, he effectively takes on the role of the Doctor (right down to taking on a fairly unconvincing pseudonym). Ian McNeice really seems to revel in this role and the opportunity it gives him.

Churchil Victorious is a simple story but has a real sense of time and place and was quite enjoyable. Although this was the last story of Volume 2, there is one more Churchill Years story from Volume 1 set during his retirement and also another Main Range adventure for the Prime Minister set in 1945. There’s life in the old dog yet.

The third entry in the second volume of The Churchill Years is a story which goes full ‘science-fiction’ in a way some of the others haven’t. We’ve an alien arms dealers, strange beings walking the streets of London; metaphors for depression and a Dalek in Roman times (okay, that last one is pure Doctor Who). I Was Churchill’s Double takes Winston into the realm of alternative histories. This makes sense, of course, for a series rooted in World War Two as the conflict is often the jumping off point for many an alternative history dystopian tale such as The Man in the High Castle, Fatherland and even Doctor Who’s very own Terrance Dicks-penned New Adventure – Timewyrm: Exodus.

That said, this story takes a slightly different track and shifts the ‘branching off point’ back to World War One.

Here, we find ‘our’ Churchill swapping places with an alternate Churchill from a world where Germany prevailed during the Great War and Britain is now part of the Kaiser’s extended Empire. Somehow, the 9th Doctor has ended up in this alternate history and with his usual investigation and Churchill’s help, discovers they have passed into a world created within a Utopia window – and, in actuality, isn’t a true parallel universe in the way we are used to in science fiction. These universes are virtual so the rules are rather different. In this story, the threat is more from the alternate Churchill who, with a far more ruthless streak, could cause trouble in the real world.

The true villain of the piece though, played with aplomb by Roberta Taylor, is Louisa who plans to use her virtual counterpart to get the plans for an atomic bomb, via the alternate Churchill, into the hands of Hitler in the real universe. It all becomes a little convoluted but Taylor is fun in the part.

Rather oddly, as he doesn’t really do very much, this story also features the inventor of the television, John Logie Baird. It is he who stumbles across a broadcast of Churchill from the virtual universe, kickstarting the story, but beyond that he does very little else.

I do enjoy these Churchill adventures but I’m not sure they are stories I’m ever likely to revisit on a regular basis. In a way, now that we have Eccleston and Tennant (and a bunch of audios with Jacob Dudman doing his uncanny 11th Doctor impersonation), the need for Ian McNiece-as Churchill-as the Doctor narrated adventures seems less needed.

But, they exist and they were a means to an end in the early days of Big Finish’s ‘new series’ licence. They’ve been an interesting look into World War Two from Churchill’s perspective and included a wide range of interesting sci-fi ideas. There are two more adventures to come – one set on VE Day and another looking at Churchill’s retirement but the lion’s share have now passed through the marathon and it’s definitely been a fun ride. I look forward to the wrapping up of Churchill’s Years.

First things first. It has been very hard to date this story accurately. The historical details are thin on the ground with only Churchill’s reference to a respite from the London Blitz – with the bombers moving on to other targets in the UK – being the only indicator. Whether this story happens before or after Victory of the Daleks is difficult to tell. That story is clearly during the London Blitz but that was happening from 1940 to 1941. Bombing of places such as Coventry also occurred during this time so where to place either story is tricky.

Going by story details, we might assume that this is set before Victory however. The story concerns Churchill and the Germans in a race to obtain a weapon of huge power – which is eventually revealed to be alien in origin. The fact that Churchill makes no reference whatsoever to the Ironsides – another superweapon which turned out to be alien – suggests that Human Conflict is set before Victory of the Daleks. Weight is leant to this theory if we suppose that Churchill, slightly annoyed at losing such an opportunity, renewed efforts for unique weapons and came across Professor Bracewell’s plans for the Ironsides.

So I’m plumping for placing this story in late 1940/early 1941 (there is a brief reference to winter if I remember rightly) and moving Victory of the Daleks to 1941 (which is where TARDIS wiki places it despite AHistory placing it in 1940).

Human Conflict is a rather entertaining romp. Churchill is drawn as a bit of an action hero throughout this which possibly stems from the fact that one of the main guest characters is Lieutenant Ian Fleming – the man who created James Bond. I have to admit to being oblivious to this fact until checking details of the story on TARDIS wiki before writing this review. But in hindsight, it make sense. There is a climactic scene at the end of the story where Churchill and a Nazi officer, Fischer, help each other escape from a building which has been demolished by an explosion. In retrospect, it does feel a little bit ‘action film’.

Fleming is played by Gyuri Sarossy who, neatly, also featured as one of the two Polish pilots in Their Finest Hour.

Central to the story is a superweapon which both the Nazis and Allies want their hands on. It apparently has the power to remove entire mountains from existence and is, unsurprisingly, alien in origin. It is being offered by an arms dealer called Bragnar. For most of the story it is easy to believe that Bragnar is what she says she is and the performance of Bethan Walker brings to mind characters such as Elsa Schneider from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: the intelligent femme fatale who is often more clever than the men around her that she easily manipulates. Her alien background is a tiny detail which is merely there to explain how the weapon can be so powerful.

The alien background is revealed by the 9th Doctor who, much as in The Oncoming Storm, is very much a background presence in this story. He pops in every now and again to despair at the Allies and Nazis and discouraging them from even pursuing the weapon and imploring them to let him deal with it (requests which, naturally, fall on deaf ears with Churchill’s desire to end the war as quickly and efficiently as possible – which leads in nicely to Victory of the Daleks and is another reason I have chosen to order the stories in the way I have.

All in all, an entertaining listen with some effective links to other Churchill stories.

Young Winston opens the second volume of The Churchill Years and is rather a lot of fun. The story is Churchill narrating a much earlier encounter he had with the Doctor and, as such, allows the writer Paul Morris, to riff on a couple of different things which wouldn’t fit as well with the ‘contemporary’ Churchill.

Firstly, the story obviously echoes the film, also titled Young Winston. It isn’t a film I’ve ever seen but is one that has a strange place in my memories. A poster of the film adorned a wall in one of the classrooms in my secondary school – a striking image of a young Winston Churchill standing, gun poised and ready for action, amidst a flurry of other images. Oddly, my memory must be unreliable because try as I might, I cannot find that actual image on any contemporary posters of the film – although I can find ones which are similar. But that memory – accurate or not – helped establish the tone of this story’s opening scenes with WInston in battle in Cuba.

But even moreso, the scenes of Winston and his friend in Cuba, adventuring in war brought to mind, almost instantly, another ‘Young’ character – Young Indiana Jones. This story, at least for the first third or so, really felt like an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. It has Winston flirting with an exotic local, it has battles, threatening mercenaries and a sought-after artefact with legendary properties. It was huge fun to sort of revisit that series through this story.

However, partway through, the story metamorphoses into a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Madame Vastra is this audio’s main guest star and, once back in London, Churchill crosses paths with her as she begins a case involving finding something Churchill encountered back in the Cuba – at the behest of his old flame. Churchill’s Cuban acquaintance even makes direct reference to Sherlock Holmes – and a pathologist and theatre impresario who investigate strange happenings! A wonderful throwaway line.

The London sections have swarthy foreigners, hansom cab rides to mysterious locations and unusual items being delivered through the post. It really feels like a Holmesian mystery.

The final part leans back into the world of Doctor Who when the 11th Doctor enters events properly and the artefact, and Churchill’s old flame, are revealed to be more than they first seemed.

Of the stories reviewed so far, this is my favourite. The mystery is paced well, the different ‘genres’ of story style work well together and it moves seamlessly from one to the next. Neve McIntosh is great as Vastra (a character who, on TV, I do have some issues with) and Iain Batchelor has a good stab at a young Winston. In the earlier 1895-set scenes I did think he sounded a bit too old but he settles into the role and is a good match for Ian McNeice.

What’s really interesting is that this story does not hero worship Churchill in the same way as The Oncoming Storm and Living History do. In fact, Churchill’s flaws are more emphasised throughout the story. Churchill’s arrogance and single-mindedness cause him to fall into more than one trap. Vastra certainly doesn’t see him as someone to be venerated, even though she is aware the Doctor has told her how important he will be in the future. Churchill is a far less appealing person in this story which is an interesting counter-balance to McNeice’s general performance.

A quite different style of story for this series and I’m intrigued to see if it is something which continues across the other stories in Volume 2.

Although the Winston Churchill narrating this story comes from a period post World War Two, the main narrative occurs in 55 BC at the time of one of the Roman invasions of Britain.

On one of the trips hinted at in A Christmas Carol, the 11th Doctor and Kazran Sardick arrive at Churchill’s door in the TARDIS and whisk him away on a journey back in time, ostensibly to help Churchill research a history of Britain that he is writing.

After the TARDIS gets shunted a few seconds ahead in time because of a timelock, Churchill and Kazran are stranded in a cave and consequently, the majority of the adventure is purely this odd couple fighting to survive in Ancient Britain, caught between Romans, Ancient Britons and a stranded Dalek.

It’s a fun romp. Churchill gets to meet Julius Caesar, a Dalek becomes a ‘bronze god’ and Kazran gets to be a bit Doctory with some technical jiggery-pokery.

There are, unsurprisingly, strong echoes of the 4th Doctor audio adventure, Wrath of the Iceni with Tristanhe, the Briton queen behaving very similarly to Boudicca although she is in the thrall of an alien interloper. The story also echoes the novella, I Am a Dalek which featured a Dalek appearing in a Roman mosaic.

I really enjoyed Danny Horn’s return as the young Kazran. He stood out in A Christmas Carol as having potential as an actual companion and here, although he is partnered with Churchill rather than the Doctor, he fulfils that potential. He is sparky, resourceful and brave – excellent companion material and a likeable performace from Horn.

One odd aspect is Kazran’s admiration of Churchill which implies he has a rather extensive knowledge of Churchill’s life and contribution to world history. The expanded universe has identified the unnamed planet in A Christmas Carol as a human colony, first colonised in the 38th century – although its inhabitants status as human isn’t explicit in the televised story. Kazran is from a few centuries on from the 38th century so it does become a little bit of stretch to believe he would know who Churchill was especially as the audio ends with him all but venerating Churchill. This, of course, also plays into the quandry I had with the first story from the box set – The Oncoming Storm – of whether or not Churchill should be venerated in this way. I’m not sure I’ve decided where I stand on the issue yet, but there are a number of Churchill stories to come so it will be interesting to see whether the ‘hero worship’ is sustained or whether some balance to his character’s documented faults is brought into play.

Churchill’s interest in Julius Caesar is a character beat which links neatly with the real life Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples and the idea that Churchill actually got to investigate primary sources for his research is a fun riff on the historical truth.

Living History is a fun adventure although, if I’m honest, moreso for the presence of Kazran than Churchill himself. The Dalek’s contribution to the story is fairly predictable (crashed ship, manipulating the natives so it can escape, ultimate plan to wipe everyone else) but I as I find Daleks a little dull and repetitive, it was probably my least favourite part of the story. The historical setting helps elevate that plot and the unusual pairing of Kazran and Churchill lifts it even further.

1941 returns us to The Churchill Years boxsets and the second story of that first release. The first, The Oncoming Storm, set out the series’ structure and tone with Winston narrating events (often including those he isn’t actually present for) and a handful of guest characters around to flesh out the story. The Oncoming Storm also introduced Hetty Warner, Churchill’s private secretary who also serves as a pseudo-companion to the Doctor.

This story, Hounded, plays on Winston Churchill’s experience of depression which he often referred to as the ‘black dog’. It isn’t the nuanced take on mental illness that we’ve seen in a story such as Vincent and the Doctor. Rather it is an excuse to have a Hound of the Baskervilles-style runaround with a vicious, scary dog, a mysterious foreigner and a half-hearted plot to take control of Churchill.

Churchill is now Prime Minister (after having been Lord of the Admiralty in The Oncoming Storm) and, while residing at Chartwell, has seen a huge black dog. Hetty has decided something isn’t right and so writes a letter to the Doctor asking for help. There is some odd timey-wimey nonsense involving this letter being and not being sent at the same time which doesn’t really contribute anything to the narrative, but after being accused of being a spy, the Doctor finally convinces Churchill of his identity and is able to save the day and uncover the true plot behind the black dog’s appearance.

The black dog, it turns out, is actually a spirit attached to Kahn Tareen, a former fairground turn who was able to summon the black dog at will. There is only the most cursory of ‘scientific’ explanations given for the manifestation and, in fact, it rather comes across as something like a reverse Patronus (from Harry Potter) especially when, to defeat it, the Doctor tries to get Churchill to manifest his own black dog (and ends up creating one himself) from his own dark psyche.

I remember being underwhelmed by this story on first listen and, unfortunately, little has improved on the re-listen. The Doctor is extremely generic. This is partly due to Ian McNeice’s narration. In The Oncoming Storm he made some attempt to give the Doctor at the very least a Northern accent but here there is no attempt at all to reflect David Tennant’s performance. The script also doesn’t distinguish the character enough either meaning that, with the added obstacle of the odd narrative structure of these releases, there is a disconnect between the Doctor and the rest of the cast.

This especially has an impact on Hetty’s character. Emily Atack gamely does her best with what she’s given but her eventual sacrifice doesn’t feel earned within the script and comes from nowhere. The fact it is supposed to make Churchill angry enough to produce his own black dog but doesn’t hurts it even more, even if it does have the desired effect on the Doctor. The lack of chemistry between the Doctor and Hetty just makes the whole sacrifice a rather flat end to Hetty’s character.

It’s a shame that Hetty is killed off as I think it would have been fun to see her relationship with the Doctor (particularly across different incarnations) develop across the box sets. However, with them jumping around much more in his timeline after this story (the final one of the first box set is set in his retirement and the first one of the second box set, Young Winston, is set in his far distant youth) that may be why she is dispensed with in this second story).

The Churchill Years stories definitely work better when the Doctor’s role is kept to an absolute minimum (such as in Living History and Human Conflict) and Hounded, for me, is the least successful so far

When Big Finish first got the licence to produce ‘new series’ audios, it took them a while to secure any Doctors (and even now have only enticed two into the fold). Consequently, they took a couple of approaches. One was to employ impersonator extraordinaire, Jacob Dudman; while the other was to create box sets such as The Churchill Years with a guest character from the modern series narrating adventures. The Churchill Years was actually one one of the earliest examples and featured stories featuring the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors performed by Ian McNeice and also featuring other guest characters such as Kazran Sardick, Lily Arwell and Madame Vastra.

The first adventure in Volume One has Churchill in his role of Lord of the Admiralty in 1939 encountering a 9th Doctor who is alone and chasing a rogue weapon from the Time War. Unfortunately, prawn-like androids are also after the device but with the assistance of Churchill and his secretary, Hetty Warner (played with aplomb by Emily Atack), the Doctor manages to thwart their plans.

The narration style of this release takes a little getting used to. McNiece doesn’t try very hard to ‘impersonate’ the Doctor – certainly not as much as people like Peter Purves or Frazer Hines (or even Maureen O’Brien or Katy Manning) do in the Companion Chronicles – but does give him a vague Northern accent. But this is very much, Churchill recounting a story with some scenes playing out as a little bit more full cast where appropriate or needed. The Doctor is, actually, kept in the background somewhat and there is a reason given that he can’t be seen to interfere or meet with Churchill at this point in history for fear of upsetting the timelines. This concern more or less goes out of the window later in the story but as a conceit to keep the Doctor on the sidelines and reduce the need to for McNiece to perform as Eccleston, it just about works. But Doctor-impression aside, McNiece is an engaging narrator and does well with both the narrated and performed parts of the story.

Emily Atack is excellent as pseudo-companion Hetty Warner (who gets a return appearance in one of the other stories in this set, due to appear later in my marathon (as it is much later in Churchill’s life). She has the traditional mix of bravery, incredulity and determination that a good companion needs and although she doesn’t get a huge amount to do, Atack invests her with a likeable energy.

The cast is bolstered by Michael Gould as the Prof (Frederick Lindemann) and Derek (Tooth and Claw) Riddell as McNish, colleagues to Churchill at the Admiralty. Lindemann is a historical figure who became the prime scientific adviser to Churchill during WW2. The friendship between them is evident in this play with Lindemann more than happy to put Churchill in his place when he thinks he is wrong about something. McNish – a lieutenant commander – seems to be fictional however.

The ‘monster’ for this story are the android RATS (Reactive Automated Trail Seeker). They are a fun creation with their idiosyncratic speech pattern which results in them giving 2 or 3 synonyms for the last word in their sentence, apparently part of their programming to make sure their intentions are clear. Their dogged determination to retrieve the weapon – a device which increases intelligence – gets a little repetitive towards the end but overall they are an effective threat.

One little thing which stood out to me during listening was a reference the Doctor makes to the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. Churchill claims to not understand the reference and this made me wonder if that is chronologically likely. The original book was published a couple of decades before 1939 but in the US and I couldn’t seem to find any solid information on when it was first published in the UK. That said, even if it had been, is it likely that Churchill would have read a children’s story? The famous film version wasn’t released until August 1939 and therefore it’s highly likely this is set before that month and also that, again, Churchill was unlikely to have trotted along the yellow brick road at the cinema.

And now for the elephant in the room when it comes to stories featuring Churchill. Much has been said, in recent years, about how Winston Churchill was maybe not the honourable figurehead he is sometimes portrayed as. Less appealing aspects of his character, such as quite strong indications of racism, have been highlighted as reasons why we shouldn’t venerate the man. Of course, his leadership was key to victory in World War Two but some argue this isn’t enough to simply ignore the less savoury aspects of his character.

The Churchill we meet in Doctor Who is undoubtedly a softened, almost cartoonish version of the man – a version which is more of a fictionalised version of the man. Within the confines of Doctor Who, is this allowable? Are we really of the opinion that other real historical figures have been presented in all their three-dimensional fallible reality. Probably not. Part of the issue here, though, is that the Doctor is clearly good friends with Churchill. I’ll comment more in my review of Victory of the Daleks, but there is a clear warmth between the two (even if the Doctor resolutely will not allow Churchill access to the TARDIS).

The characters in this story spend a lot of it praising Churchill and protecting him at all costs due to his importance in government. The Doctor is aware of just how very important he will soon become and the script firmly places this story at the feet of the ‘hero’ Churchill.

I’m not entirely sure where I fall on this debate – I don’t feel I know enough about the real Churchill to make such a judgement. I do know that I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable teaching one our of writing units based around his speeches (which have some excellent hooks and devices that children find easy to replicate in their own writing).

Reservations about Churchill the person aside, The Oncoming Storm is a strong start to this box set and although I remember being a little underwhelmed by the other stories, I look forward to giving them another go and also experiencing the second volume which will be completely new to me.

The range of novella published by Telos are not part of the expanded universe I have any experience of. The novellas had a relatively high price point and something about them just never really appealed at the time of publication meaning I never bought any of them.

Two of the novellas were distinct in that they featured unspecified incarnations of the Doctor – The Dalek Factor and The Cabinet of Light. The Dalek Factor, obviously, had the draw of Daleks to compensate for this, but The Cabinet of Light is more of a curio. It is less a Doctor Who novella and more an original piece of fantasy fiction with a cameo appearance from the Doctor. True, the Doctor is central to the mystery but he only appears in person for a short section of the story, with the rest of the novella focussing on the main character of Honore Lechasseur – a time sensitive detective from New Orleans – who has been tasked with tracking him down.

Honore, and a young woman he meets in the course of his investigation, Emily Blandish, ended up spinning off into their own range of novels entitled Time Hunter and this is where we actually find ourselves experiencing The Cabinet of Light. The version I am reviewing here is the audiobook of the Time Hunter iteration of the novel which replaces the Doctor with the ‘completely different’ character of Doctor Smith… and is read by Terry Molloy.

The 1940s are drawing to a close but the aftermath of the Second World War still hangs over London. Buildings reduced to rubble, men dealing with the traumatic events of being involved in the fighting, Londoners happy to manipulate, cheat and squeeze every last financial opportunity from any situation they find themselves in. And within this, strange people, not of this time and place, operate in the shadows with their own unknowable agendas.

The atmosphere of this novella is dark and oppressive. Squalid boarding houses, dark streets and unsavoury people fill the story and it is equally engaging and unsettling. This tone is matched by the unknowable qualities of Lechasseur and the amnesiac Emily Blandish. Both characters are enigmatic and yet people you want to spend time with. Lechasseur’s eventual meeting with ‘Doctor Smith’ is a brilliant sequence and well worth the wait.

As a ‘pilot’ for the Time Hunter novels, this is actually a pretty successful book. It piqued my interest enough to want to find out more about Lechasseur and Emily – especially the mystery around how the Cabinet of Light (yes, that’s actually the TARDIS) caused Emily’s amnesia. I am also intrigued by the hints of Lechasseur’s abilities around time. It is a range of books it may take me a long time to get around to but they have gone on the list (helped by the entire range, as audiobooks, being available for free on Spotify Premium).

I was trepidatious going into The Cabinet of Light but it was an enjoyable, atmospheric experience even if, I have to admit, there were a couple of times I was a little lost as to what was actually going on.

The Curse of Peladon is an extremely atmospheric story.  The faux-medieval trappings really work to build a picture of an alien and yet familiar society.  The dark torchlit corridors and almost stifling atmosphere really draw you into the story.

I've always loved Alpha Centauri and the collection of alien delegates are good value (even if Arcturus is a little silly).  Having the Ice Warriors turn out to be 'good guys' is a good twist and allows the Doctor to be seen as just as prejudiced as anyone can be.  It's a good choice for one of the most arrogant Doctors.

Less successful, maybe, are the rather cuddly-looking Aggedor and Grun, the King's Chamption, who I've never been able to take seriously (especially that silly up camera shot of him when the Doctor finds out it is Grun he'll be facing in combat.

It's a good story for Katy Manning too.  Jo gets loads to do including bossing the delegates around, throwing shade at the Doctor while pretending to be a princess and an actually pretty well written romance between her and Peladon.

Good, comfort Doctor Who.

The Quick Reads, as I understand it, were published as part of a wider range to encourage adult literacy.  I say this because the other non-Doctor Who titles listed in the book don’t strike me as children’s books.  Consequently, Revenge of the Judoon (and the other titles that I’ve read – I am a Dalek and Magic of the Angels) seem a little out of kilter being rather simplistic and child-like in their approach.

That’s not to say they are bad (although Revenge of the Judoon isn’t great – but I’ll get to that later) just that I’m not sure many reluctant adult readers would pick one up and feel they weren’t being a little bit patronised by the style.

Revenge of the Judoon is written by the elder statesman of Doctor Who prose – Mr Terrance Dicks.  It’s a simple tale riffing on Smith and Jones where the Judoon transplant Balmoral Castle to the desert at the behest of an alien who wants to use time weapons to wipe out the major cities around the world.  Quite why he wants to do this is a little vague and quite why the Judoon are helping him is a bit confusing.

There’s a bit about them being lied to in regards as to the nature of Earth which leads to their ‘revenge’ but overall I was a little befuddled by the whole plot line which didn’t seem to make a huge amount of sense.

For a book whose appeal supposedly hinges on the Judoon (each of the Quick Reads is based around a recognisable monster – Daleks, Cybermen, Angels, Silurians, Krillitanes (!) etc) there isn’t actually a lot of Judoon action.  They don’t really feature until the last third of the book at which point they get cross they’ve been lied to by the real villain of the piece – Challoner – and then beggar off in their spaceships to leave the Doctor to clear up the mess.  There wasn’t even one little bit of ‘Blo, mo, fo, ko sto’ dialogue which was disappointing.

Terrance Dicks just about manages to get a hint of Tennant into his 10th Doctor (although Dicks’s idea that the Doctor, in whatever incarnation, is basically the same character does shine through) but his Martha is terribly generic.  Martha could easily be replaced by any female companion – classic or modern – with very little changing in the script.  She wears uncomfortable Edwardian clothers; changes into men’s clothing; gets lippy with the villain and banters with the Doctor.

Historically, there’s quite a bit of interest.  The setting of Balmoral castle has echoes of Tooth and Claw – even more so with the Doctor meeting yet another monarch – Queen Victoria’s son, Edward VII.  Unlike Victoria’s appearance in Tooth and Claw, Edward doesn’t have a lot of action being held prisoner in one room of the castle for the majority of the story.  He is personable and matter-of-fact about the situation but there’s isn’t much we find out about this king.

The other historical figure is Arthur Conan Doyle.  His inclusion is all a bit weird.  He’s a friend of the main guest character, Harry Carruthers (an aide to the King).  Previous to the story, he has given Harry a strange globe given to him by the alien villain.  It is this globe which will bring about the alien’s ultimate plan.  Martha and Harry visit him to find out where it came from and this leads them to the villain’s lair.  Bizarrely, Doyle’s memory is then wiped by the villain and when he next meets Harry and Martha he remembers nothing, dashing off into the London crowds never to be seen again in the story.  There’s no real reason for him to be Doyle aside from the villain going by the fake name of ‘Challoner’ which sounds a bit like Doyle’s creation, Professor Challenger.  Very odd.

Aside from this the 1902 setting is a little perfunctory mainly revolving around Harry Carruthers and not extending much further than Harry hunting a stag and being awkward about Martha being seen a) in his apartments and b) in men’s clothes.  There’s also a bit of local colour when Harry and Martha track down the villain’s lair but that’s about it.
The story has a very weird ending too.  The Doctor and Martha head off to prevent Challoner from achieving his plan leaving Harry and the King at Balmoral and the Judoon heading off in their spaceships.  They defeat him and then hop off in the TARDIS to find other temporal globes deposited around the world in 1902.  The way they leave the story without so much as a by your leave to the characters their strange world collided with just feels unfinished.  It’s as if Dicks was limited in his page count (which may well be the case).

Revenge of the Judoon isn’t bad, but it isn’t great.  It’s disposable in a way that reminds me of my feelings towards the Doctor Who Adventures comic strips.  Inoffensive but a little disappointing.

Medicinal Purposes saw the first appearance of Doctor Knox, a time meddling businessman played with a certain amount of relish by Leslie Philips.  Assassin in the Limelight sees his return in a tale which pulls together Knox, the 6th Doctor and Evelyn, the Indo from the writer, Robert Ross’s other 6th Doctor audio Pier Pressure (the one we’re ignoring for the time being); all wrapped up in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  It’s a lot of elements but it works.

I really enjoyed this story.  Oddly, I don’t remember it having much impact on me on first listen.  This time round it felt fresh and interesting.  It is possible that on first listen it had been ages since the release of Medicinal Purposes, whereas this time I have listened to them in relatively quick succession.  The interplay between Baker, Stables and Philips is great and the rest of the cast provide solid support.  Possibly having been stung by criticisms of accents in previous audios featuring American characters, all of the supporting cast (with the exception of Lysette Anthony) are American or Canadian.  (Hilariously, the authenticity of the American accents is a fact reiterated time and again in the interview extras at the end of each disc almost as if Big Finish are making sure no listener is in any doubt at all that the accents are properly accurate – even to the point where the actor playing John Wilkes Booth explains exactly why his accent is the way it is in the production).

The first episode builds nicely to the revelation of Booth’s death before he can assassinate the President but, interestingly, this aspect of the story then takes a bit of a back seat whilst Knox’s personal predicament and the presence of the Indo takes up the lion’s share of the story.  The reappearance of Booth is actually rather underplayed and oddly, I think this works as otherwise it might have been a more predictable runaround of the Doctor and Evelyn trying to ensure history remains on track (a little more like 100 BC for example).  As it is, the listener finds themselves starting to feel some sympathy for Knox.  Ross himself comments in the extras that Knox in this story is a far softer, more likeable rogue than in his first appearance in Medicinal Purposes.  Knox is far closer to the perception many have of Leslie Philips as a loveable old rogue, and Ross again states he found himself writing specifically for Philips in this story rather than a more abstract Knox as in the first story.  The culmination of this character development is a touching scene of Knox’s death and his last words which manage to insult the Doctor even in death.

Apart from this I can’t quite put my finger on what I liked about this story.  Maybe its just the slightly unusual historical setting which bolsters the rather glorious trinity of Baker, Stables and Philips.  The presence of an even more advanced TARDIS than Knox has in Medicinal Purposes is a fun aspect, with a sultry computer voice (Lysette Anthony, again), an elevator and voice control.  I would love to see something like it visualised.  It also allows for some of the best scenes between the three leads with the Doctor pretending he isn’t phased by the functions of the advanced TARDIS and convincing no one, least of all himself.  And there is a little reference to Six Gun Sadie who also graced the stage of the Palace Theatre owned by one Henry Gordon Jago – a lovely little touch, drawing together the Victorian world of Doctor Who.

There are a few minus points.  I wasn’t impressed by the music or soundscape.  I found them a little sparse and lacking.  There were scenes that it wasn’t clear whether they were interior or exterior and a few of the scenes did sound a little too like they were being recorded in booths.  I also found the voices of Lysette Anthony’s Clara Harris and Madeleine Potter’s Lizzie a little too similar and did wonder, initially, if it was the same actress.  Knox’s off-screen resurrection is also a little bit disappointing after such a wonderful ‘death scene’ earlier in the story.

Historically, everyone featured is a real person (with of course the exception of the three leads): John Wilkes Booth, Clara Harris, John Parker, Lizzie Williams, Henry Clay Ford and Thomas Eckert are all mentioned in dispatches concerning Lincoln’s assassination.  My own knowledge of the assassination is based mainly on the usual ‘general knowledge’ aspect and the musical Assassins which has a lengthy section involving Booth deliberating over the assassination whilst being an inspiration to other American presidential assassins throughout the years (my description makes it sound less brilliant than it is – it is a very good musical, even if it is a very odd subject matter). The majority of the story is set in and around Ford’s Theatre, the site of Lincoln’s assassination with brief forays to the nearby park, public house, Clara Harris’ home and the Blue Room in the White House itself.  This is the first Doctor Who visit to the White House and, although I could be completely wrong, I’m not sure we revisit it again until around 1969 and The Impossible Astronaut.

Interestingly, the only major historical figure missing from the story is Abraham Lincoln himself.  The story doesn’t even really show his assassination.  There is a brief flashback (although technically it’s a flashforward historically) from Knox telling the Doctor about what inspired his current plan of the ‘Booth Experience’ having witnessed the assassination on an earlier trip to the time period.

Knox is also passing himself off as Oscar Wilde and is using The Importance of Being Earnest as the play he is taking around the theatres – Wilde would have been around ten years old in 1865.  At the close of the story, after the credits, Knox (now played by director Barnaby Edwards (doing a passable impression of Leslie Philips it has to be said)) is found travelling back to England having adopted the guise of Arthur Conan Doyle (A History makes an effort to point out the inherent flaws in this and suggests that he must discard this alias soon after).

A curiously good adventure.

The conceit of this marathon often throws up some interesting story orders that contrast with the original release order. Already in this marathon we have had two stories by Robert Ross: Medicinal Purposes and Assassin in the Limelight. Both featured Doctor Knox, as played by Leslie Philips and the latter saw him in league with the Indo – a parasitic alien race. In ‘real life’ Assassin in the Limelight was a return for the Indo after their debut appearance in this story, Pier Pressure. For the 6th Doctor and Evelyn it is the first time they have encountered them but for the Indo, unless they have time travel capabilities, this is the second time they have encountered the Doctor.

In Assassin in the Limelight we saw the Indo prolong Doctor Knox’s life through possession and this is exactly what we are presented with here. The ‘villain’ of the piece, Professor Talbot, is in a similar position to Knox: supposedly dead and being kept alive by the Indo. There is the vague suggestion that the Indo are aware of who the Doctor is. They are immediately concerned that he will disrupt their plans and there is definitely a throughline between the two stories which works in either order.

Unfortunately, this may be the most interesting thing about this story because the rest of it, excellent performances aside, is a terribly dull and meandering affair.

Pier Pressure has a lot going for it – possessed humans, a mysterious psychic at the end of the Pier, Brighton as a setting and, most importantly, Roy Hudd giving a brilliant performance as the real life comedian Max Miller.

But all of this is squandered on a four episode story where so little happens its almost embarrassing. Indicative of this is the part of the story where Evelyn and Max spend almost an entire episode sitting in the TARDIS playing I Spy! The script literally takes two of its most interesting characters and puts them in the TARDIS to do nothing while the story – what there is of it – happens outside.

Another problem with the story is the underwhelming adversary. Professor Talbot and the Indo are both played by horror icon Doug Bradley (him of Pinhead from the Hellraiser films fame). Firstly the script doesn’t seem to know what Talbot’s situation is. For the first two episodes he seems completely possessed by the Indo, incapable of acting under his own volition and desperate for their help to achieve his aims – although these are never really explained.  Is it the return of his dead wife?  Is it fame and fortune. Later in the story, though, he is suddenly acting under his own agency and able to do things without the Indo being aware – such as inexplicably helping an incapacitated Doctor back to the TARDIS after both Max and Evelyn get possessed themselves.

As an adversary, Talbot just makes no sense at all and it isn’t helped by Bradley’s terrible performance. His ‘Indo’ voice is a vaguely raspy whisper which contrasts with the weak Talbot but later, the weakness disappears from his voice and it becomes harder to distinguish between the two ‘voices’. Talbot is easliy one of the worst written and worst performed villains in Big Finish Doctor Who.

Alongside an underwhelming adversary is the fact a lot of the story happens ‘off-screen’ and then characters tell us about it later. This happens multiple times and its incredibly frustrating.

There are, however, some positive. First and foremost is the 6th Doctor and Evelyn and how sublime they are. Maggie Stables is peerless as Evelyn and the relationship of mutual intelligence and affection – and the fact that Evelyn is one of those companions who gets to tell the Doctor to stop being an idiot – make for a very happy listen, even in a story that is frustrating on so many other levels.

The guest cast is headed up by Roy Hudd as Max Miller. Hudd is something of an aficionado of Miller, as I understand it, you can feel the admiration shining through his performance. It’s similar to the situation with Simon Callow playing Charles Dickens and having already played him in other productions outside of Doctor Who. Miller – and Hudd – is a wonderful foil for the Doctor and companion to Evelyn and, again, the fact that he hardly does anything plotwise is hugely frustrating. There is so much potential in a story featuring a stand up comedian fighting monsters with the Doctor that it beggars belief that it was wasted on this non-entity of a plot.

The rest of the cast ably support although there is one odd inclusion – a character called Billy. An actor working with Miller, apparently he is supposed to be a young William Hartnell (films he mentions appearing in are indeed films that Hartnell appeared in). However, Billy scarpers at the first sign of the strange, uncanny events and is never seen again in the story. It’s such an obscure inclusion (unless you know the films mentioned – and they aren’t well-known – there would be no reason for realising it was Hartnell) and, like much of this story, completely wasted as an idea.

Something went wrong with the production of Pier Pressure. Either a script editor never looked at it (I can’t believe they would let almost an entire episode go by with two main characters literally sitting in the TARDIS playing I Spy) or the team’s focus was elsewhere and it didn’t get the attention it needed. Baker, Stables and Hudd work with what they’re given and do at least make it a listenable experience even if it is incredibly frustrating as a story that has, on paper, a huge amount going for it.

We return to the company of the 6th Doctor and Evelyn as they arrive in what they believe to be 19th century Edinburgh.  On learning the time and place, the Doctor is eager to meet the infamous graverobbers, Burke and Hare but soon discovers that all is not right and that, although Hare is up to dastardly deeds, no one seems to know who Burke is.It soon transpires that a time traveller, under the guise of Doctor Robert Knox, is manipulating time within a bubble as a show for alien tourists.

Medicinal Purposes is a brilliant 6th Doctor story and one of my favourites.  It is dripping with atmosphere and after a couple of releases for which I struggled to get a sense of time and place, Medicinal Purposes has it in spades.  When thinking of why this is, I realised that what this story has that the others have been missing: regional accents.  Medicinal Purposes is full to the brim with Scottish accents.  It immediately places you in the story.  The fact that a lot of the actors go for fairly rough sounding tones (the old woman murdered in the first (and third!) episodes; Burke; and even to some extent Mary and Jamie) places the story firmly in the rougher part of town and this is contrasted by Leslie Philips gentrified and suave performance as Knox, who spends most of the story in the more well-to-do part of Edinburgh.  The soundscape also helps the sense of place: the pub scenes are bustling and loud; Knox’s home/TARDIS is filled with ticking clocks – an early clue to his true identity.

The characters are well written and well acted.  Special mention has to be made of David Tennant’s performance as Daft Jamie.  He is superb.  A mentally and physically disabled character like Jamie could be horrendously overplayed or caricatured, but Tennant manages to make Jamie seem odd but endearing.  Evelyn’s reaction to him is, to be honest, a little nasty and it’s another occasion when I don’t think the writer has her characterisation right (I didn’t like her characterisation much in 100 BC).  I can’t see someone who shows such compassion in stories such as Doctor Who and the Pirates, being quite so horrible about someone with obvious mental or physical disabilities.  In fact, Evelyn’s characterisation is something I have a bit of an issue with in this story.  The writer seems to ignore the fact she is a history lecturer.  I know this isn’t her period, but she is written as being almost wilfully ignorant of anything related to Burke and Hare, rather than, at least, having a basic general knowledge – something I would find far more believable in a character of Evelyn’s implied education.

Jamie is also given some lovely lines, particularly about how other people in Edinburgh ‘drift in and out’ as only he can perceive that something isn’t quite right with reality.

The other performance of note is, of course, Leslie Philips as Knox.  I am undecided about Knox.  On the one hand, Philips is clearly having a whale of a time as this immoral time travelling doctor/businessman/carnival showman but on the other I think his performance sometimes tips to the hammier side of hammy and it takes the edge off what is, otherwise, a fairly grim and gritty story.

The beginning of Episode 3 plays a clever trick on the listener, being an exact replica of the opening to Episode 1 but exchanging Burke for Knox.  It is so similar that I thought I’d messed up transferring the audio files to my mp3 player!

Historically, this story introduces us to William Burke and latterly, William Hare.  Within the context of the story I am a little confused as to whether we are meeting the real thing or whether these are alternative versions trapped within Knox’s sideshow.  Indeed, the nature of how Knox is delivering the ‘Burke and Hare Experience’ to alien tourists is left a little vague.  Robert Knox is also a historical figure, along with Mary Patterson and Daft Jamie, but this Knox is an imposter so, as far as this audio is concerned, we are left without a clear picture of what the real man was like.  Mary and Jamie were both victims of Burke and Hare’s murder spree to gain bodies for the real Knox.  There were many other victims but these do not feature in the story and we do not actually witness either of the murders: Mary is dead by the climax of the story but offscreen and more tragically, Daft Jamie is returned to his rightful place and time (after a quick trip to the future) to fulfill his historical destiny.  We also witness the execution of Burke, betrayed by Hare (who was offered the chance to give ‘King’s evidence’, meaning he escaped prosecution).  (And here, I have a confession, that I’ve just had to swap around Burke and Hare’s names as I had got muddled as to which was which in both the context of the story and the real history).  We also have a anachronism as a clue for the Doctor to realise Knox is a time traveller when he mention Jekyll and Hyde, a novel not to be written for a good many years after.
The presence of Burke and Hare allows the story to ruminate on the morality of body-snatching.  The Doctor goes into quite a long speech about how medical science would never have advanced as it did without the machinations of people like Burke, Hare and Knox and how whilst he cannot condone the murders, he can see how the ends, ultimately, will justify the means.  It is an interesting point of view for the story to take and it is a topic perfectly suited to the more alien and colder 6th Doctor.

The only problems I have with the story are, as mentioned, the slightly off characterisation of Evelyn and also the slightly vague nature of exactly how Knox is manipulating the time bubble and allowing alien tourists to view the events in Edinburgh.  The atmosphere, performances and dialogue, however, are superb and contribute towards an excellent story.  It is unsurprising that Big Finish returned the story’s writer Robert Ross to pen a further 6th Doctor and Evelyn story…it’s just a shame it ended up being Pier Pressure (but that’s a review for a different day).

Point of Entry is one of the more unusual entries in Big Finish’s Lost Stories range. Unlike The Nightmare Fair, Mission to Magnus or Song of the Space Whale, it was a story which I suspect few fans had ever heard of. It wasn’t ever included in the fabled Lost Season 23 run down detailed in various magazines and DVDs. It seems that Barbara Clegg, it’s writer, submitted a number of storylines to the production team sometime after she wrote Enlightenment, but none of them were taken up. Point of Entry is one of those. As such it stands out in the Lost Stories range as it doesn’t arrive with a bundle of preconceptions. Everyone thinks they know what The Nightmare Fair or Mission to Magnus would have been like had it been made. I suspect some fans were incensed that an unknown quantity was put into production over and above more famed lost stories such as The Ultimate Evil or the legendary Yellow Fever (and How to Cure it). Strip away these grumbles and preconceptions and Point of Entry stands as a strong story which both feels and doesn’t feel like something which could have been produced in the 1980s.

The idea of the Doctor and Peri meeting a historical figure in a period setting has precedence. The Mark of the Rani did this with the Industrial Revolution and George Stephenson. In tone, however, the Doctor and Peri’s visit to Elizabethan England and their encounter with Christopher Marlowe could not be more different.

Many of the cast make the point of saying how dark a script this is and they are correct. Human sacrifice, tongues cut out, flesh creeping over Velez emaciated form. It is difficult to picture these images being broadcast on BBC1 in the early evening. Audio, of course, allows for more visceral Doctor Who than we ever witnessed on television and, as Colin Baker says, it is to Point of Entry’s advantage that it wasn’t made in the 80s and gets the Big Finish treatment instead.

The concept of the Omnin as an alien race able to control and communicate through vibrations is an original one and the idea they have destroyed their own planet through uncontrolled vibrations adds an apocalyptic nature to their potential invasion of Earth. The fact that the Doctor initially wants to help them find an uninhabited world allows this side of the Doctor’s personality seen in stories such as The Silurians to come through his sixth incarnation – an aspect that is easily forgotten behind the ‘violence’ and antagonistic nature dominant on television.

Historically, the story plays with the idea that Marlowe, in researching ideas for his plays, particularly Doctor Faustus, has entered into an unholy pact with the Spaniard, Velez and is practising ‘the Dark Arts’. At the same time it includes the commonly held belief that Marlowe worked as a spy. As such the story includes Sir Francis Walsingham, ‘spymaster’ to Queen Elizabeth I. At base level we have houses, cellars, inns, dungeons, ships and streets all of which, through the marvel of Big Finish’s sound design, sound authentically Tudor.

Something that Point of Entry does very well is atmosphere. Even without visuals, it is incredibly easy to imagine the darkness pervading the Tudor houses and streets. Everything feels claustrophobic and threatening. When the characters traverse the astral plane (another element that audio does more favours to than some dodgy CSO in the 80s would have) the atmosphere changes to one of an arid expanse. The finale with Velez growing to enormous size and taking on the form of Quezacotl, the Aztec god (another effect saved from the 80s) does feel slightly at odds with the rest of the story’s tone but serves to be dramatic enough to make allowance for. It does also allow for a brilliant climax where the bells of London are all rung at the same time to defeat the Omnin.

The cast are excellent and of particular note is Nicola Bryant revelling in the chance to do some comedy with her performance as a fake Queen Elizabeth I. It is often easy to forget, when watching Season 22, how good an actress Nicola Bryant is when not forced to fulfil the stereotypical companion role (as seen in Timelash for example) or the argumentative relationship with the 6th Doctor which she and Colin Baker were only just escaping the shadow of at the beginning of Season 23. It’s often stated that Big Finish have done wonders for the 6th Doctor and Mel but it has also served Peri well, giving her a different slant to her character with the relationship between her and Erimem and then allowing her time with the 6th Doctor to become more of a believable friendship rather than the constant battle it seemed to be on screen.

Point of Entry is easily one of the strongest Lost Stories so far and is possibly my favourite alongside Leviathan (although when the competition is as dreadful as Mission to Magnus or The Hollows of Time it isn’t a hard contest to win).

The 5th Doctor and Nyssa arrive on the planet Mondas and discover a population eking out an existence below ground; a situation which will see the beginning of the Cybermen.

Nyssa meets the Hartley family and witnesses their daughter, Yvonne, become a proto-Cyberman. The Doctor meets Thomas Dodd, a ‘spare parts’ black marketeer and the earliest Cyber forms.

The planet Mondas is dying and the Committee is processing humans into Cybermen to allow them to survive on the surface of the planet. Despite the Doctor and Nyssa’s efforts, the humans trudge inexorably towards their predestined fate – to become the Cybermen.

The Doctor is horrified when Doctorman Allen, the creator of the cyber process realises that his alien physiology could be the answer to the problems she has been having with humans rejecting the process. Against his will she includes her findings in the process meaning that all Cybermen are, in part, based on a template of the Doctor.

However, the Committee eventually loses all vestiges of humanity and the processed Cybermen begin to take charge; their cold logic defeating the cries of even Doctorman Allen, who finally realises the terrible mistake she has made.

The Doctor and Nyssa succeed, however, in destroying the Committee – now the Cyberplanner – and the Cybermen’s commander, Sheng. They leave Mondas presuming that, if nothing else, they have given the Cybermen a chance to coexist with the unprocessed humans and that Allen is planning on reversing the processing as far as possible, allowing the Cybermen to at least experience some emotion.

In their absence, we discover that Sheng is still alive and that the humans are doomed after all…

As Lance Parkin states in A History, the dating of Spare Parts is difficult as there is little in the story itself to suggest when this occurs relative to Earth.
The Doctor states that Mondas’ technology is millennia ahead of Earth, therefore implying that although the setting and characters reflect 1950s Northern England (all planet’s have a North), this is merely an affectation for the purposes of storytelling; giving the drama somewhat of a post-World War Two vibe.

The Doctor does state that, due to the Committee’s decisions the planet is ‘stuck in the 1950s’ suggesting that were it not for the cybernetic enhancements to their population, the Mondasian culture would be millennia ahead of Earth in technology and culture, seeing as their ‘1950s’ has occurred whilst Earth humans are still little more than apes.

A History suggests that this story occurs somewhere between 65,000,000 BC and 12,000,000 BC. The planet begins its journey back to our solar system at the end of this story and Parkin suggests that, as this will not take as long as the journey out due to the propulsion system, that the Cybermen may well pilot Mondas around the Universe before re-entering out Solar System in 1986 as seen in The Tenth Planet.

It’s interesting that in this ‘prehistory’ section of the Universe’s history, it is the 5th Doctor and Nyssa who seem to be witnessing many of the events (both real and, in the case of The Boy that Time Forgot, artificially created). They have visited Jurassic Earth, witnessed the destruction of the dinosaurs, visited an alternate prehistoric timeline and now, have seen the early days of Mondas. Looking ahead, they will also visit the distant past of Nyssa’s own planet Traken, in Primeval.

Spare Parts is simply put – superb. It is the ultimate tragedy. As listeners, we know exactly what the Mondasians will become and to see it painted for us with human characters who you really care for, brings home the horror far more than the origins of the Daleks in Genesis of the Daleks ever does. Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton are brilliant in one of their best performances as the Doctor and Nyssa. The personal level of seeing the beginning of the Cybermen so soon (relatively) after Adric’s death hits home and the contrast between the Doctor’s initial desire to leave Mondas to its ultimate fate and Nyssa’s determination to fight against it happening makes for some passionate scenes. The guest cast are note perfect, particularly Sally Knyvette (of Blakes 7 fame) as Doctorman Allen and Paul Copley as Mr Hartley.

It is quite possibly the ultimate Cyberman story and will stand as, not only one of the best stories that Big Finish have produced, but one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time.

The 2nd Doctor, Polly and Ben arrive in post-war London and head to a department store – by the name of Henriks – and settle and altercation between a tin can and possessed teddy bears.

Lost and Found is a Short Trip narrated by Anneke Wills and notable, mainly, for the TARDIS crew meeting Polly as a child. The moment Polly mentions having lost a teddy bear in a department store in the year they have arrived, it becomes fairly obvious where the story is going.

Polly and Ben are characters who, in the expanded universe, have a lot of focus placed on how they are children of World War Two and its aftermath. Unfortunately, this story doesn’t really evoke the time and place because far too much focus is placed on the rather silly aspects of the story – a talking tin can and teddy bears with glowing eyes that are possessed only because people are missing them.

There’s some nice moments when Polly and the Doctor realise who the little girl is but beyond that, I didn’t really feel engaged in this story. Ben also doesn’t get a huge amount to do aside from teasing Polly and rewriting a Lost and Found sign (which is all that is needed to save the day). Overall, it’s all a bit too silly – and the Henriks reference (the department store where Rose works) feels ever so slightly out of place. Anneke Wills does make for a pleasant narrator though.

With a narrative split between the modern day and 1941 which also ties into Jack’s personal history, it seems fitting to look at this story from the perspective of its World War Two setting.

Tosh and Jack are investigating an abandoned dance hall where music and voices have been heard. Almost instantly, they are transported back to 1941 where Jack meets a certain Captain Jack Harkness – an officer in the RAF destined to die during a training exercise who Jack assumed the identity of. Tosh, meanwhile, desperately tries to send a message into the future to allow them to open the time rift that she and Jack seem to have fallen through.

The episode does tie into the two either side (Out of Time also featured characters from the past slipping through a time rift and the aftermath of the for Owen is a driving force for his actions during the story; End of Days,which follows this, sees the return of Bilis Manger, the enigmatic ‘caretaker/manager’ of the dance hall (who is, inexplicably present in both time periods). However, it works well enough as a standalone with the three main plots – Jack meeting Jack; Tosh attempting to send a message to the future and – back at the Hub – Owen and Ianto fighting over how to retrieve them. Gwen features less and this was, apparently, due to this episode double-banking with another.

The period detail is excellent and much is made in the accompanying documentary and commentary about how much work had to go into costuming and styling the extras at the dance hall. There are lots of story details surrounding WW2 RAF pilots and there is also time to touch upon the issue of Tosh’s race and the problems it causes in this time period.

One principal aspect of the story which defies the historical setting is the romance between Captain Jack and Jack Harkness. It starts coyly with Jack warily testing the water. The presence of a girlfriend for Harkness throws a spanner in the works, but it is clear his heart isn’t really in the relationship. The connection between the two Jacks builds until the climactic dance scene and, to be honest, this is where it lost me a little. I know the story states that the real Jack Harkness will die within the next couple of days but for him to brazenly step on to the dance floor with our Jack, embrace him, dance with him and, ultimately kiss him, is very on the nose and raises the question as to why the crowded dance hall doesn’t react more ‘realistically’. Bearing in mind the askew glances and more pointed racist comments Tosh endures, it seems a little like the story wants to have its cake and eat it. The idea that WW2 Jack would openly announce his sexuality to a room full of people, including his subordinates, stretches credulity somewhat and rather, for me, ruined the ending.

The 'same-sex dance scene in a period setting' has also now been repeated in Rogue with a very similar vibe.  I don't think that scene fully works there either (it's far too long).  I know why these scenes are important in both stories but I just don't think they are as successful as the people involved might want them to be.

More successful, in Captain Jack Harkness, are Tosh’s attempts to send a message to the future which is fun and the presence of the enigmatic Bilis Manger. Murray Melvin is an odd-looking man (in the best possible way) and creates a very unsettling performance. Of course, his plans are only just beginning in this story but the fact that after End of Days he doesn’t feature again in the series does make me intrigued to seek out his Big Finish audio appearances.

The scenes back at the Hub are a little frantic and don’t really match the atmosphere or spirit of the WW2 scenes but this is Jack and Tosh’s story so it doesn’t matter too much.

Although the romance between the two Jacks is a bit on the nose for me, the period setting is well-realised and the simple plot of trying to get rescued from the past by sending messages to the future is fun. A strong early Torchwood episode (which definitely belies the received wisdom that Series 1 was a stumbling, often-failing experiment).

It’s Christmas and time for a tale from CS Lewis. This DWM comic strip is a gorgeous riff on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with the 11th Doctor – or Professor – having an adventure with two children, Amy and Rory, who stumble into his bookshop one wintertime.

The bookshop, naturally, is bigger on the inside, and even has a small hexagonal desk on one of the landings between the many shelves and staircases – a desk which looks very like the console from the secondary console room in Season 14.

When Amy reads from a book (called Shada) the bookshop travels to another planet where they find a statue of a queen who awakens and pursues them, rather like a Weeping Angel. Heading to another world, they find a place suffering from eternal winter (and never Christmas) and inhabited by anthropomorphic animals strangely reminscent of Judoon, Fish People and a Nimon (among others).

They manage to break the spell and return home, having only been away two minutes.

Published before the TV show did it’s only version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (in the severely underrated and misunderstood The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe), this story hits a few of the same beats but it is much more of a pure fantasy and this is because it is a story being told by CS Lewis to the Doctor, Amy and JRR Tolkien.

This story is packed with lovely little details from the titles of lost stories on some of the books, the secondary console, the towering shelves of books and labyrinthine interior of the bookshop, the wintery forest, the Queen, the creatures that look like Doctor Who monsters. It’s extremely charming and gives a warm glow, echoed by the glow of firelight in the final panels where we find it is all a story being told by one of the world’s greatest fantasy writers (to one of the other greatest).

CS Lewis is a perfect person to feature in a Doctor Who story (even if only in cameo). In real life, CS Lewis died on the 22nd November 1963, the day before Doctor Who aired. But the legacy of his work is threaded through Doctor Who – I’ve always been a staunch believer that the TARDIS is basically the wardrobe from the first of his books. A magical box which is larger on the inside that the out. But it goes further than that – the character of the Professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has some rather Doctorly vibes. The way time passes differently in Narnia to our world and the children return minutes after they left echoes the time travel aspect of Doctor Who. The stories deal very clearly with good vs evil and while the Christian allegory is strong and the fantasy aspect is far greater than Doctor Who tends to lean into, Doctor Who and the Chronicles of Narnia have much in common.

A little gem of a comic strip if you don’t mind your Doctor Who with a fantasy bent.

Jodie Whitaker and Chris Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who continues to come under an undue amount of criticism even now that a few years have passed and it didn’t, as the more hyperbolic critics would want you to believe, sound the death knell of the series.

I haven’t actually revisited a lot of modern Doctor Who in isolation and haven’t seen many of the episodes since broadcast but my History of the Universe marathon has hit this episode and I’m so glad it did.

I thoroughly enjoyed Chibnall and Whiaker’s time with the TARDIS and rate Whitaker highly as one of my favourite Doctors. I’m not blind to Chibnall’s faults as a writer but those that act like he’s the only writer or showrunner or producer of Doctor Who who ever made mistakes in their choices are being hugely selective in their memories. But even amongst all the noise about this era, there are episodes which seemed to draw a consensus of positive opinion. Demons of the Punjab was one of them.

I remember enjoying this episode on broadcast but this rewatch saw me appreciating it even more and coming away from it desperate that critics of this era watch it and explain to me how any part of it isn’t ‘Doctor Who’.

Demons of the Punjab is a story about faith, death, inevitability, politics, national identity, war, family and history. It has Doctor Who running through its veins. It’s The Massacre of the modern series. And it looks amazing.

I instantly fell in love with Yaz’s Nani. The opening scene at her birthday with her dropping casual insults like calling Yaz her favourite granddaughter, right in front of Yaz’s sister, Sonja is brilliant – made all the more so by her mum’s admonishment making it clear this is something Nanni makes a habit of doing. Vinay Patel paints a believable family dynamic deftly in a scene which works well to set up the rest of the adventure. What is that Nani won’t tell?

The first scene in the TARDIS is also lovely with the little gag about the Death Eye Turtle Army. Yes, it is another scene where two of the companions just stand around spouting lines while the other one has the actual interaction with the Doctor (I love the idea of having three companions just like the classic series, but they did need to work out a way of better utilising them all in scenes). I like how the Doctor is finally worn down and 13 is a Doctor who wants to please and her protestations are only ever surface level. This joy at exploring and discovering is one of my favourite characteristics of Whitaker’s Doctor.

And then we’re off to the past on the trail of Yaz’s family history and unwittingly find ourselves on not only the border between India and the newly-formed Pakistan but also on the border between two families about to be torn apart by the Partition. We are witnesses to tragedy – as are all the characters in this story both human and alien.

The mystery of the Thijarians and the twist that they are professional mourners is well paced through the episode with their threatening appearance (surely insired in part by Hellraiser’s Cenobite horrors) and their teleport technology pointing the audience in one direction with the truth being carefully revealed at just the right point in the story.

But the aliens are secondary to the true enemy of this story – human nature. Watching a loving relationship be slowly destroyed with utter inevitability is heartbreaking and this story did something no other Doctor Who story has ever done – it made me cry. The march of history makes the Doctor unable to do anything except try and make Umbreen and Prem’s final hours together as joyful as she can. The Doctor cannot save them as a couple but she can ensure Yaz’s personal history stays on track. But once Umbreen has run to safety with her mother and Prem is facing down his brother and his death, all the Doctor, Yaz, Graham and Ryan can do is walk away. It is hugely moving.

Every scene of this story looks gorgeous and there are so many lovely moments – the night before the wedding with the men and women spending time separately; Yaz realising who Prem is and that her Nani had a history she didn’t know about; the scenes in the Thijarian Hive; the wedding; the flashbacks to Prem’s war service; the men on horseback confronting Prem.

The guest cast are uniformly excellent but special mention has to go to Amita Suman as Umbreen and Shane Zaza as Prem. It may be argued there is a modernity to them which works against the historical setting but really all it does is serve to make the events feel more relevant both to the audience and to Yaz.

Demons of the Punjab is a story Doctor Who should tell – and has done in a handful of stories – but not one it should tell too often. The inevitable, impassive march of history, reflected in the impassive Thijarians, is something which was far more prominent in the Hartnell era in stories such as the The Aztecs, The Massacre and The Myth Makers’ final episode and shows how, contrary to far too many Doctor Who commentators, shows how well Chibnall understands Doctor Who and it’s underlying themes.

A modern classic.

Directly picking up from Tooth and Claw, where Queen Victoria established the concept of Torchwood, The Victorian Age sees Queen Victoria visit the London headquarters to check up on how her brainchild is doing.  It is there she meets the enigmatic and already slightly legendary, Captain Jack Harkness.  But the inspection turns into something quite, quite different when a monster escapes the base and heads off into London, pursued by Jack and his newest Torchwood operative – Victoria herself!

The Victorian Age is, essentially, a two-hander between Jack and Victoria.  The monster plot is fairly by-the-numbers and I’m not sure, as a story, there was much to interest me.  The interplay between Jack and Victoria, though, is fun.  That said, I was far more impressed by Rowena Cooper’s Victoria than John Barrowman’s Jack.  I liked Jack on television, both in his Doctor Who and Torchwood versions; but something about this performance didn’t quite convince.  Barrowman’s delivery throughout much of the story is rather flat.  To be fair to Barrowman, though, some of his dialogue is terrible – a lot of ‘describing what I can see for the benefit of the listener’ which Big Finish is usually very good at avoiding, or at very least disguising more cleverly.  As it is, Barrowman spends a lot of time telling the audience where the monster is and what the monster is doing.  He is better when ‘bantering’ with Victoria but not enough to convince me – I hope is other Torchwood performances have a bit more life.

Cooper has better dialogue to work with as Victoria, although by the end of the story I did feel like I didn’t need to be told – again – how feisty and independent this woman was even though she’s the Queen.  Yes, it ties in rather nicely with the action and steel present in Pauline Collins’s performance in Tooth and Claw, but we’re also talking about a real person who in 1899 was around 80 years old and two years away from death!  When you realise this and look at contemporary pictures of Victoria from the time, it seems to stretch credulity a little that she would be getting up to the sort of stuff this story has her doing.

The rest of the cast is minimal and a very odd decision to have the instantly recognisable Louise Jameson play two separate minor roles is rather distracting.  It’s also a shame that a Victorian Torchwood London story focuses so much on Jack and not on the resident operatives (bearing in mind that Jack is – conveniently –  ‘on secondment’ from Cardiff.  The two we do meet, Josephine and Archie, have very little to do once the initial scenes are over and done with.

I like the idea of Torchwood London being based in the Natural History Museum, but once the story gets out into the London streets is all becomes a little generic.  It gets better when they hit the underground which is something about Victorian London which my marathon has only ventured into in Jago and Litefoot.  The idea of steam trains running through tunnels under London is frankly bizarre and I like the idea of Victoria turning up on a train full of her public.  Her behaviour in the pub is fun in a similar way.

As my first foray into Big Finish Torchwood I’m not quite convinced, but as this is probably not representative of the rest of the range, I’ll withhold judgement until I listened to a few more typical examples.

The Sixth Doctor, it has consistently been said, was rejuvenated by Big Finish. An incarnation traditionally loathed by fandom (and by fandom I mean those fans who don’t like any change) it took Big Finish to allow Colin Baker the opportunity to show fans how wonderful his Doctor could have been on TV were it not for behind-the-scenes issues. One of the main reasons for this reinvention of the character was the introduction of Dr Evelyn Smythe.

Evelyn is the type of companion that fandom has mooted for years – an older companion. Professor Rumford, of The Stones of Blood fame, has often been cited as an example of how an elderly companion might work. She is immense fun and it is easy to see elements of her character as inspiration for Evelyn. As I understand it, the New Adventures, at one point, came very close to having an older male companion called Tom (who would have eventually turned out to be Bernice Summerfield’s father). In the event, however, it was Roz and Chris who joined the Seventh Doctor. And so it fell to Big Finish to finally pick up the baton and run with it proper. Evelyn is the result, and a wonderful one she is too thanks, in no small part to the performance of Maggie Stables.

The Marian Conspiracy is a very strong debut story for Evelyn. The entire story revolves around her personal family history and allows her profession of university history lecturer to be a driving force in the story.

The Doctor takes Evelyn back to Tudor England to investigate a nexus point centred around her family tree. In doing so, they become embroiled in religious conflict in and around the court of Queen Mary I.

As a pure historical story it also proves that Doctor Who can still pull these off very successfully. I still think it’s a shame the TV series shies away from straight historical stories as, generally, they are considered the pinnacle of Doctor Who fiction across all media – from the Hartnell era (The Aztecs, Marco Polo), to the books (Sanctuary, The Plotters), to the audios (The Fires of Vulcan, The Council of Nicaea).

The Sixth Doctor is a perfect fit for a Tudor based historical. The only other Doctor I can imagine hobnobbing with royalty quite so freely is the Third, but that would probably have come with a side order of arrogance. His scenes with Queen Mary are wonderful as he tries, in vain, to convince Mary of the errors of her ways.

It is these scenes, and those with Sarah Whiteside, the Queen’s lady in waiting, that focus on the religious conflict of Tudor England. A message of religious tolerance runs throughout the story as we see how the Protestant religion is treated under the reign of the devout Catholic, Mary. The hypocrisy of how under Edward Protestantism was the legal religion and how, with a change of monarch, Catholicism is the true religion is examined in a dramatic and interesting way. Sarah’s problem of a now illegal marriage to a member of the clergy is touching and ultimately tragic as she is forced into effective house arrest and her husband is executed. This conflict between Protestants and Catholics is something which features heavily in the next story of this marathon, The Massacre and the treatment of religion in these stories may become the feature of a separate post.

Evelyn, as a time travelling novice, drives the rest of the plot (both literal and figuratively). Her initial mistake at raising a glass to Queen Elizabeth is, of course, the Doctor’s fault for not arriving in the correct time, but her continual gabbling about future events – Mary’s non-pregnancy, Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne – and her innocent prattling about her ‘poisonous’ pills leads to various problems that the Doctor has to extricate her from.

Historically we obviously have the presence of Queen Mary I, played superbly by Anah Ruddin. The rest of the characters, however, seem to entirely fictional. The local Protestant common folk, George, William and John (played by Gary Russell) are fairly stock characters but are accompanied by the rather arch Reverend Thomas Smith (played by Dalek operator Nicholas Pegg) and the borderline Allo Allo accented presence of Barnaby Edwards’ (another Dalek operator) Francois de Noailles. Francois, as the French Ambassador to Queen Mary is presented as a historically accurate character, with both the Doctor and Evelyn commenting on how his story plays out when Elizabeth comes to the throne. However, my research whilst finding historical figures with the same name – including one who was a French Ambassador at around the same time; doesn’t seem to match up with the man being present at Mary’s court in 1555. Maybe, for once, Wikipedia is not being my friend and actually Jacqueline Rayner has done some proper historical research.

Jacqueline Rayner is one of the strongest writers for Big Finish (and indeed in the novels produced by various companies). It was, after all, her adaptations of New Adventues into the early Bernice Summerfield audios that secured the Doctor Who license for Big Finish. The Marian Conspiracy is a strong and involving script which includes some cracking cliffhangers (the end of Part 3 where the suggestion that the Doctor will end up marrying Lady Sarah and becoming Evelyn’s ancestor is brilliant), intelligent dialogue and an interesting central message about religious tolerance. It also introduces a brand new, and unusual, companion with confidence setting up a character who is still going strong today (and even crossed over into the novels at one point).

A fascinating, entertaining and wonderful visit to Tudor England.

Excelis Dawns was the first of three adventures which saw the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors visiting the planet through its development from primitive medieval backwater to decaying industrialism. (There is also a Bernice Summerfield adventure set post-apocalypse). Their adventures centred on the city of Excelis and here, in Excelis Dawns, Excelis is a small village clinging to the side of a Mount Excelis, with a convent of decidedly single-minded nuns looming over it from the peak.

This medieval flavoured story is full of the requisite tropes and clichés.

There is a warlord (Grayvorn, played with relish by Anthony Head), ramshackle villages and peasants, religious relics, markets, festivals, a convent full of nuns, harsh environments (a mountain, a swamp and a dense forest) and, central to the plot, a quest. All this lends the tale a familiar air.

Apart from the specific Excelis aspects, this story could very well have happened on Earth, as clichéd as many of its aspects are. The vague back story that civilisation on Artaris has already risen and fallen many times before our first visit separates it a little from the history of our Earth, but very little of this idea is explained or explored.

Thrown into this world is the Doctor (on his way back from dropping the Gravis off on an uninhabited planet – meaning this adventure happens partway through Part 4 of Frontios with Tegan sulking in the TARDIS and Turlough stranded at the edge of time until they return for him). Alongside him he has the questionable presence of one Iris Wildthyme – transtemporal adventuress and cabaret singer.

I love Iris and, in particular, Katy Manning’s version of the old soak. The Big Finish mini series of Iris Wildthyme adventures are hilarious and it’s a shame this story is so early in her Big Finish career as we don’t have the benefit of David Benson’s sublime Panda. I can only imagine what this story would have been like with Panda’s dry wit accompanying the Doctor, Iris, Grayvorn and Sister Jolene on the quest for the relic of Artaris. His reaction alone that the relic is Iris’ lost gold lame handbag would be priceless.

I am aware that Iris as a character is one of the more ‘marmite’ aspects of Doctor Who outside of the television series, but I think she is a fun foil for the Doctor and throws his attitude to time and space travel in to sharp relief. In this adventure, specifically, her lackadaisical approach to time travel draws out of the Doctor the fact he has lost the frivolous attitude of his previous incarnation, due to the death of Adric.

But it is Iris’s twisted versions of the Doctor’s own adventures which always bring a smile – in this adventure we hear of the time seven of her incarnations were dragged to the Death Zone on Gallifrey by Morbius and forced to fight Mechonoids, Voord and Zarbi. As Iris puts it – all the rubbish monsters!

The rest of the cast are entertaining and Anthony Head seems to be having fun as the gruff, but surprisingly accepting, Lord Grayvorn. Posy Miller’s Sister Jolene is an oddly modern sounding nun who ends the play with her motives and ultimate fate left hanging (her story is followed up in the Bernice Summerfield section of the ‘trilogy in four parts’). Indeed, the end of the story sees the Mother Superior and Grayvorn merged – a thread which is followed up on in the later Excelis audios.

The only aspect which falls a bit flat for me are the zombies guarding the relic. The Zombie King with his ‘beloved’ schtick reminds me too much of Gollum and his precious and the fact that the zombies are never really explained is unsatisfying in a series which usually doesn’t embrace supernatural elements at least without explaining them away with a little bit of cod science – whether it be vampires, ghosts or werewolves.

I do however, look forward to our next trip back to Excelis.

The Dark Planet, one of Big Finish’s final season of Lost Stories, takes us back to the very dawn of time. The Doctor surmises that the planet they arrive on is far, far back in the past when the universe was new and all sorts of unusual things developed and evolved. In a way, it ties in quite nicely with the Ancient Greek Gods depicted in The Life Bringer, a DWM comic strip which is also suggested to be set at a time long before humanity developed. Both the Olympians and the natives of this planet have phenomenal powers, way beyond anything seen in humans, even far into their future.

What impressed me about this story was how in keeping with the era it seemed. I could completely visualise the opening episodes with the TARDIS crew exploring this strange planet mainly due to it echoing similar scenes in stories such as The Web Planet and The Space Museum. As the story develops and we learn about the two distinct races it, again, echoed themes of stories such as Galaxy 4 and The Space Museum. Fortunately these similarities with other Hartnell era stories serve to make the story believable and of its time which, ultimately what the Lost Stories need to do, possibly moreso than the Companion Chronicles or the Main Range audios. I understand that Maureen O’Brien was convinced they had actually made this story for real in the 60s, so authentic is the script.

Admittedly, the plot is a little sparse but, in a way, it echoes the serials from Series 2 and 3 it is mimicking. There is a fair amount of toing and froing between the city of light and the dark shadow caves. I like how Vicki pairs up with a rebellious youngster from the light beings which has strong echoes of Susan and Ping-Cho’s relationship in Marco Polo, coupled with Vicki’s aiding and abetting of the young rebels in The Space Museum. The ‘good vs evil turned on its head’ theme is probably too like Galaxy 4 to seem particularly ‘new’ but it is given an added layer in that there is no definite ‘black and white’ to the two disparate groups of aliens – it is far more in shades of grey with us being allowed to understand the motivations of the light beings as well as the shadows.

William Russell and Maureen O’Brien do an excellent job, though, of maintaining the interest. I’ve never been convinced by Russell’s Hartnell but it serves its purpose. Likewise, O’Brien’s Barbara is fairly generic but, again, does what it needs to, to keep the story moving. They are ably supported by John Banks and Charlie Norfolk who give voice to various light and shadow beings.

Dating-wise it is made fairly explicit that this planet’s story is happening in the earliest days of the universe when various evolutionary oddities are commonplace, such as these light and shadow beings. There is also the suggestion that the descendants of these aliens become a future intriguing mystery that the Doctor has heard of and until now not known the origins of.

Arguably there isn’t enough story here to sustain six episodes (although the TV show of this era is often guilty of that) but I found this far more engaging that The Masters of Luxor. I would recommend it and it’s a good start to the final season of Lost Stories.

Of all the Doctor Who stories I have read, listened to and watched, there haven’t been many I’ve actively disliked and, for want of a better word, dreaded having to re-experience.  Many of you will know I have a relentlessly positive outlook towards Doctor Who and will always give a story a second, third or nth chance.

But Year of the Pig was always going to be a story that was in for a tough ride with me.  I’ve listened to it once previously and on that first listen, did not enjoy it at all.  My memories of it were that it was far too long and structured as two episodes; nothing really happened; characters spent interminably long scenes talking about not very much; and that the plot, what there was of it, was so inconsequential I couldn’t even remember any salient details except the cliffhanger at the end of part one.

I did remember it had a pretty good cast, though: Colin and Nicola as the 6th Doctor and Peri, of course; Maureen O’Brien, Michael Keating and Adjoa Andoh; and that guy with the funny eye (Paul Brooke) as the pig.

Did it’s second listen grant it a reprieve (as has often happened throughout my marathon) or is this story to remain condemned to suffer my disdain?

Nope.  Still don’t like it (although a don’t like it a little less than before).  I think the best word to describe this story is ‘frustrating’.

The problems I remembered are still problems.  Year of the Pig is simply far too long for the story it is trying to tell.  It is just shy of two and a half hours long and with it only being split into two episodes, the pace is decidely languid.  I’m aware that, probably, this is part of the point.  The Doctor and Peri are having a ‘reading week’ to catch up on the works of Proust.  They are at a rather swish hotel is Ostend, Belgium in 1913.  As such, the story reflects that gentility and luxury, taking its time to introduce the various characters and feeding its plot in little by little.  For me, though, that just doesn’t work.  It takes ages for the story to get anywhere and whilst there are dramatic incidents: a drowning man; dead cows falling from the sky; Peri locked in a steam room; a talking pig, for goodness sake, they don’t grab the attention in the way they should.

I think the reason for this is that they are surrounded by endless scenes of people talking, describing what they can see or listing different types of food.  Over and over, Toby (the sapient pig) sits in his hotel room and demands various humans order him food.  Thereupon, the script demands a full list of various exotic and luxurious foodstuffs.  Once, I could understand to set up the decadent priorities of Toby.  Even twice, to emphasise the character beat and/or provide a humorous aside.  But almost every time the story cuts back to Toby, he orders some more food.

And here, I wonder that I might be missing something.  Year of the Pig talks a fair bit about Marcel Proust, a writer I have to admit to being completely unfamiliar with.  He even appears (in a non-speaking role – yes, a non-speaking role on audio) in the story.  I studied English Literature at university, so this is a little embarrassing, but other more literate people round here might be better placed to elucidate me as to whether the style and structure of Year of the Pig reflects Proust’s writing in anyway.

I’ll admit I’m no fan of Matthew Sweet, the writer of Year of the Pig.  I really dislike the documentary he did for the 50th anniversary.  It was the epitome of my issue with Sweet’s style – a ‘look how intellectual I can make this ostensibly silly and escapist children’s sci-fi show..aren’t I clever’.

His other stories for Big Finish are a mixed bag.  The Magic Mousetrap is probably the best of the bunch, although his first Jago and Litefoot, The Man at the Bottom of the Garden is okay (if victim to his penchant for over-wordiness).  Voyage to the New World, though, is an impenetrable, ‘intellectual’ durge.  Year of the Pig is similar.  It isn’t dense in the same way as Voyage to the New World, but it is far too full of ‘stuff’.  Each guest character is a grotesque – way over the top and too far removed from what could be considered real people.  This might work in the case of Toby (and Inspector Chardalot, in transpires) but its the sort of characterisation for Maureen O’Brien’s Miss Bultitude and Adjoa Andoh’s Nurse Albertine that overstays its welcome in the three hour running time.

But all the ‘stuff’ packed into it is merely window dressing.  It’s the back stories to the characters such as Albertine’s work as a black nurse during the Boer War; Miss Bultitude’s penchant for taxidermy; Chardalot’s detective work; even Toby’s life on the stage as part of the now unfashionable freak shows.  None of it is relevant to the story.

In the hands of a different writer, that wouldn’t be a problem.  We need the history of characters to understand their motivations.  But Sweet just seems to have had idea after idea and not been ruthless enough to cut out what wasn’t needed.  Heaven knows what the script editor was doing on this, he must away that week!

I also think the sense of humour on display in Year of the Pig is simply not to my taste.  Year of the Pig is often cited as an example of a 'witty' script.  The script definitely believes it is being witty but by the end of the first episode it was, for me, becoming one of those people you meet an a social engagement, who you end up smiling politely at whilst trying to catch someone else’s eye so you can escape the conversation.

It just adds to the nagging feeling that I’m being condescended by Year of the Pig.

Now, I’m fully prepared to admit that Year of the Pig just isn’t for me, but that is possibly what I find the most frustrating.  Doctor Who is my thing.  I like every story, to differing degrees.  How ever much I don’t like Genesis of the Daleks, it’s still accessible and I can appreciate many of its aspects even if the whole doesn’t chime with me.  With Year of the Pig, it is a rare example of a story I feel I’m being excluded from.  I may have the idea of a Proust style influencing the story completely wrong but if I am mistaken on that front then I’m not sure why I feel so disconnected from the story.

Historically, the story is set in 1913 and there is mention of the looming Great War.  It is very much an aside, though, almost framed as the misguided ramblings of Toby who has gleaned knowledge of the future from the left over belongings of his creator (an unamed alien intelligence – another source of frustration).  Nurse Albertine has a scene discussing her field work in the Boer War and how, as a black woman, she has seen her contribution go more or less unrecognised.

Other Doctor Who stories set in a similar time period,have involved freakshows and its interesting, here, to see those attractions presented in their dying days.  Much mention is made of the kinematograph and how this new technology is beguiling even avid fans, like Miss Bultitude, of ‘performers’ such as Toby.  It is interesting to see the new, emerging technologies of this period being highlighted by the story.

Year of the Pig is, for me, a rare type of Doctor Who story.  It is one that I do not anticipate returning to for a very long time, if ever.  Whilst there are a few elements I enjoyed more this time around; mainly the performances of the regulars and guest cast (I particularly like Maureen O’Brien’s turn here which is a million miles away from Vicki, and Adjoa Andoh’s Nurse Albertine), there is an overriding sense of superiority in the script that I simply cannot get past.

I’m not prone to following fan consensus.  I have issues with received fan wisdom about which are good, worthy stories and which are mud upon our shoes to be derided and mocked.  It’s the old Genesis of the Daleks vs Delta and the Bannermen divide.

But every now and again I do agree with the majority and The Chimes of Midnight is one where I simply cannot disagree with the general opinion.  The Chimes of Midnight is one of Big Finish’s most celebrated releases – it topped their best 200 poll; it’s one of only two releases (the other being Spare Parts) to get a special, limited edition re-release; and it’s written by the peerless Rob Shearman.

In the past, I have talked about how wonderful this story was and how it felt like its own distinct entity, in terms of Big Finish releases.  It wasn’t trying to ape a past era of the show (as with ‘It’s teatime 1977 all over again’) or trying to fit in with the dynamic of the modern series (as the 8th Doctor adventures started to veer towards with the introduction of Lucie Miller and 50 minute stories).  It was this run of 8th Doctor adventures that felt like a proper, new era.  This was long before the series was revived and it was a huge deal that Big Finish had managed to convince Paul McGann to return to the role.  Whilst the first season of 8th Doctor audios may have been a little shakey, the second season is much more confident and builds a defined tone for the 8th Doctor audios.  There was an dark atmosphere threaded through the stories and, long before the modern series ‘shipped’ the 10th Doctor and Rose, the 8th Doctor and Charley ventured into relationship areas the series had been reluctant to touch on before.

The Chimes of Midnight is, accurately, compared to Sapphire and Steel.  This is a story about time and objects becoming sentient through mysterious powers which are never quite explained – magic, if you like.  This is Doctor Who as ‘fantasy’ rather than hard science fiction.  This is also character drama.  The central tragedy of Edith Thompson, the scullery maid, manages to impact on the listener, particularly when her true history and association with Charley is revealed in the climax to the play.  But this is also the dark comedy that Rob Shearman seems rather fond of.  Characters are murdered in bizarre, sometimes comical, ways and the characters slip from silly to sinister on the flip of a coin.

The Doctor and Charley are thrown into this bizarre world (brilliantly evoked through sound design and music) and Paul McGann and India Fisher are simply superb.  Their interplay is effortless and it’s one of the best Doctor/companion pairings in the series long history.  The guest cast are wonderful too, particularly Lennox Greaves and Sue Wallace as Mr Shaughnessy, the butler and Mrs Baddeley, the cook.

One of Rob Shearman’s trademarks in his writing is the use of repetition.  It’s a device threaded through The Holy Terror and his BBV audio Punchline.  In The Chimes of Midnight it is used to great effect.  The characters repeat lines, actions and whole scenes but with the occasional changes which add layers to the mystery, or give clues to the solution, or twist things in darker and more sinister ways – but often with a comedic edge (such as the Chrysler/Bentley confusion or their insistence that the deaths are a result of suicide – even when one of them involves the chauffeur, Frederick, being run down in the kitchen by his own car).

The upstairs/downstairs world of the aristocracy and their servants isn’t something which has appeared a huge amount in Doctor Who which is surprising considering how many stories are set in the 19th Century and the Victorian era.  Ghost Light touches upon it and there are characters from both sides of the divide in stories such as The Evil of the Daleks and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, but it isn’t something which has been the focus of a story such as it is in The Chimes of Midnight.

The idea of servants being of little importance to their Lords and Ladies is drummed home over and over again.  Edith is ‘nobody’ and when Edith is gone and Mary slips into her role as a scullery maid, she too is ‘no-one’.   The servants obey their masters without question – that is their role.  But even within the servants there is a hierarchy.  Mary, the ladies’ maid, looks down on Edith, the scullery maid.  In one part of the time loop she is having an affair with Frederick, the chauffeur but when she assumes Edith’s role after her death (literally becoming the scullery maid, with Edith being forgotten by the characters) Frederick reacts contemptuously at the idea of him having an affair with the scullery maid.

There are obvious echoes of the relationships as characterised in Upstairs Downstairs, the popular drama invented, in part, by Jean Marsh.  That too had a hierarchy of servants such as Mrs Bridges, the cook, and Rose the maid.  It isn’t difficult to see the parallels between that series and this story (even with the fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen a whole episode of the series).

There are also some historical details dropped into the script as the Doctor begins to work out that all is not right with the situation – when the first Chrysler appeared or when Agatha Christie published her first novel.  It all ties in beautifully with the fact that the time loop is a mish-mash of Edith’s real life and whilst this story is, ostensibly set in 1906, it’s actually more ‘early 20th century’ linking in closely with the chronological setting of 1930 of Storm Warning, the first story to feature Charley.

Sometimes it’s easy to write a negative review but difficult to write something positive.  Here, though, we have a story which is brimming with dialogue, performance, production, direction, atmosphere and a damn good plot, which is so easy to write about.  Everything in this story works.    Yes, it’s a bit Christmassy but – a bit like the Doctor Who TV Christmas specials of late, the Christmas aspect is minor and merely window-dressing for a spooky, darkly comedic tale of macabre murder, time paradoxes and a personal tragedy.

Sublime.

Tooth and Claw is that new series beast – a celebrity historical. What’s a little odd is that, after having a Victorian celebrity historical for the first series, RTD chose to do another Victorian celebrity historical for the second series. Having Queen Victoria has the main guest star is a departure from the other celebrity historicals beloved by the new series as she isn’t a writer (Dickens, Shakespeare, Christie) although a mystery surrounding the real life figure is woven into the story just as on those other three occasions.

We often think of the Doctor consorting with royalty on a regular basis due to the number of throwaway lines thrown into the scripts, but in terms of actual adventures they are relatively sparse, even with the addition of the audios, comic strips and books. So the appearance of Queen Victoria, arguably the most famous British monarch, is quite significant.

Pauline Collins is magnificent in the role. Her steely determination and no nonsense attitude are believable and this doesn’t seem like an attempt to ‘modernise’ her as a character (like is done with Shakespeare, for example). It seems in keeping with a woman who has lost her beloved husband, has been on the throne for many, many years (with many more to come) and is constantly aware of the desire from some parties for her assassination. The fact that the Doctor and Rose’s antics appall her is an interesting slant on the main guest star of a story, who isn’t the villain. This sort of character usually grows to respect the TARDIS crew and enjoy their company. There’s often a hint that maybe the character could step aboard the TARDIS now that their eyes have been open to a new world. Figures such as Dickens, Mary Shelley or Reinette all enjoy their adventures with the Doctor. Victoria sees it merely as a window to a horrific world she doesn’t want as part of her empire. It is a world and a life her subjects must be protected from at all costs. The deflation of the Doctor and Rose at the close of the story when she banishes them is unusual for Doctor Who, a series which usually sees the Doctor and companions shaking hands and brushing away gratitude as they whizz of to their next adventure.

In hindsight, of course, this was laying groundwork for the ultimate separation of the Doctor and Rose in Doomsday. This also explains the horrendous smugness which pervades the Doctor and Rose’s relationship throughout this story. I remember at the time of broadcast, Series 2 was getting a lot of criticism for how unlikeable the Doctor and Rose were becoming, particularly in their smug attitude to the people and dangers they were encountering. It’s on show in The Idiot’s Lantern and The Impossible Planet. It’s dealt with more effectively in School Reunion when Rose meets Sarah Jane Smith and has to deal with the fact that she isn’t the first companion.

Tooth and Claw is a story where they are almost insufferable, and Queen Victoria’s reaction to them is very understandable. The problem is that they present an exclusive clique with in-jokes and sly glances which, I feel, alienate the viewer. It’s not just the guest characters who are excluded from their little club, but the audience as well. I don’t think anything was accidental in the RTD era and this relationship was seen to have consequences, but I think this story takes it a step too far and because the Doctor and Rose don’t engage with the other characters much, it is very hard for the audience to care for the other characters, or for that matter, the Doctor and Rose.

The guest cast are all perfectly fine, but their characters seem underdeveloped. Sir Robert, Lady Isobel and Father Angelo are the main speaking parts aside from Victoria but they are all relatively 2 dimensional. Father Angelo, in particular, is a fairly ineffective villain and is dispatched partway through the story once his plot usefulness has been expended. Many of the other characters, such as the many servants in the house, are merely werewolf fodder but their deaths have little impact as we are not asked to care for them. There is a brief scene between Rose and a frightened maid which echoes the similar scene between Rose and Gwyneth in The Unquiet Dead, but once this meeting has lead to Rose being captured and chained up with the rest of the household, this minor character slips back into the background until a rather odd decision to have her quietly smirking at the knighthood ceremony as if she is joining in the Doctor and Rose’s amusement at the situation. It doesn’t work because, after their brief scene together, Rose shows no further specific concern for the maid. The non-speaking monks are another poor addition as they look like the local Cardiff Martial Arts club drafted in only to do the opening fight scene and then stand around for the rest of the episode doing very little. It’s also unfortunate that the fight scene, so applauded in the Confidential documentary, looks an awful lot like one of the old BBC idents with various styles of dancing due to the bright red costumes the monks are wearing.

The accompanying Doctor Who Confidential is called Fear Factor and it talks about how Tooth and Claw has a number of scary tropes. My issue with the story is that I just don’t find it very scary. The monks are weird rather than menacing and although the initial transformation from human Host to werewolf is quite terrifying and difficult to watch, the actual werewolf just doesn’t work for me. As a CGI creation, it is quite impressive, but it never feels as if it is actually in the scenes with the rest of the cast. It feels detached from the actors and therefore the threat is reduced.

I’m also a bit underwhelmed by the finale where the werewolf is basically defeated by magic. Now, as I’ve said before in this marathon, I have no problem, usually, with Doctor Who as fantasy. It has always been far more science fantasy than science fiction. Moffat’s take on the series is as a fairytale and I quite like that slant on the series. Maybe its because I find the rest of Tooth and Claw so underwhelming that I don’t like the solution of using the moon to basically magic the werewolf away. It probably doesn’t help that previous to this scene it alternates between characters talking (usually the Doctor working things out on his own) and then characters running down corridors. The action (running down corridors) stops when they reach the observatory and the macguffin of the Koh-i-Noor diamond allows the story to just kind of, stop.

Historically we obviously have the presence of Queen Victoria along with the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a famous jewel (note how Rose has clearly heard of it). The Doctor mentions the number of assassination attempts on Victoria’s life which precede this story and the end of the story mentions the condition Victoria developed, thought to be haemophilia. She was the first of her family line to develop it and it was indeed passed on to some of her children. Explaining this away as the result of the possible werewolf bite is a clever little addition. There is also the less amusing inclusion of Rose’s attempt to make Victoria say ‘We are not amused’ which contributes to the unlikeable in-jokeyness and isn’t even, modern historians would seem to believe, a phrase which is even attributable to Victoria; more of an urban legend.

Overall, Tooth and Claw has always underwhelmed, both on first broadcast, subsequent rewatches and again for this review. Other stories I have reasssessed, but not this one. A combination of a lacklustre threat and a faintly unlikeable TARDIS team means this one doesn’t sit well with me and were it not for the presence of Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria would probably be even less enjoyable.

This is a story with a lot going on, a large cast of characters and a real sense of energy and fun. Paul McGann and India Fisher return for the start of their second full season as the 8th Doctor and Charley Pollard and they launch themselve into it with gusto. McGann immediately grabs the chance to play the hard-boiled detective and India Fisher embues Charley with an appealing exasperation with the Doctor hinting of further adventures beyond the four from their first season. There is such a comfortable, sparky rapport between them and it isn’t hard to see why they continue to be one of BF’s most popular TARDIS crews.

Alongside the detective noir conceit, replete with gangsters and femme fatales called Glory Bee, there is plot involving Orson Welles famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast which, allegedly, caused mass panic in the US when people thought it was real. A little like the controversy surrounding the BBC’s Ghostwatch, there are varying opinions on precisely how extensive the panic caused was, but – historically accurate or not – it’s a fun backdrop for the adventure and allows Mark Gatiss to play with the idea of an real alien invasion being thwarted by a fake one. It also means we get Orson Welles himself in a Doctor Who story.

The gangster plot, which also involves Nazi sympathisers and Russian spies, brings a clutch of impressive guest stars, namely Mark Benton, Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (formely Stevenson). All have subsequently appeared in the modern series and are great here. Pegg is almost unrecognisable as Don Chaney, the Al Capone type and Hynes has a lot of fun as Glory Bee in both her fake femme fatale persona and her real Russian spy character. She also gets to go full New Yorker as Carla, an employee at the radio station broadcasting War of the Worlds.

The cast also includes David Benson, known for his turn as Panda in the Iris Wildthyme audios, and Paul Putner who appeared in the sketches for Doctor Who night alongside Mark Gatiss and David Walliams. Both are great. Benson plays Welles and Putner is Bix Biro, the producer of War of the Worlds. While Welles is real, Biro seems to be a fictional creation. Jonathan Rigby also appears as John Houseman who is a real person and founded the Mercury Theatre with Welles.

The real villain of the piece, Cosmo Devine – a Nazi sympathiser – is played by John Arthur. He is hugely camp and leads the overall tone of the story which, belying the noir trappings and gangsters, is actually rather over the top and silly. I remember that, the first couple of times I listened to this, I found his performane a bit much, but this time round I leant into it and found it fitted a bit better than I hard originally thought.

The reason for this is because of the aliens – the bizarrely named Laiderplackers. Bat-like and huge, it turns out they are pretty useless and basically running a protection racket (a fun parallel to the gangsters). Paul Putner doubles as the more destructive (and yet completely ineffectual) of the two, with Jonathan Rigby playing the slightly more intelligent of the two who is more interested in scientific research before the destruction.

I don’t think they are the best Doctor Who monsters ever but the concept behind them is sound and although they are maybe a bit silly, the overall tone is so flamboyant especially in the performances of Arthur, Hynes and Pegg, that it just about works.

Historically, the oncoming war seethes in the background. Devine’s German allies are silent and because he is merely using them as a means to an end, the approach of World War Two is quite low profile but it is there and adds to the overflowing melting pot of this story. Critics may say there is too much going on and too many characters but I just enjoy the sheer bravado and silliness of the whole thing. It has some cracking cliffhangers (although the editing of them is a bit shonky at times – a problem I often have with Big Finish cliffhangers) and a real sense of devil-may-care. McGann and Fisher are sublime which forgives many a sin and listening to this reminded me how exciting those early days of McGann at Big Finish were.

The Stone Rose is a New Series Adventure, featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose. It also involves Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler and, as such, fits quite well into its Series 2 position (presumably prior to School Reunion when Mickey joins the TARDIS crew).

Mickey is volunteering at the British Museum, taking children on tours, and has discovered a Roman statue that is the spitting image of Rose. The Doctor and Rose take a trip back to ancient Rome to discover the truth behind the statue and discover that a sculptor called Ursus is actually turning people to stone. Aided by Gracilus, a rich man who’s son has become one of Ursus’ victims, and a slave girl called Vanessa, they eventually discover the truth behind Ursus’ unusual gift. His power to turn people into stone has been given to him by a GENIE – a genetically created wish fulfilling creature from the 23rd century. It transpires that the creature (half dragon, half platypus) arrived in Rome with it’s creator’s daughter, Vanessa – who is really from the 23rd century but wished to find out what it was like to live in ancient Rome.

After some timey wimey business involving a phial of, basically, magic potion which restores the stone people, the Doctor and Rose return to their own time, ensuring the statue discovered at the British Museum is still created – apparently by the Doctor, who manages (in between all the travelling around) to find time to be tutored by Michelangelo himself!

I’ve always found audiobooks a bit of a struggle. One voice continually telling a story tends to allow my mind to wander and I do have to concentrate that little bit harder. I had listened to this once before my marathon and the only bit I remembered was the GENIE and Rose in the white limbo. I’d even forgotten the fact that someone was actually turning people into stone, which shows how well it stuck in my head!

That’s not to say it isn’t a good story, though. It is fun, if a little silly. The idea of a wish-fulfilling dragon-like creature is very Five Children and It and, as a consequence, gives this story a far more magical feel than would normally be tolerated in the series. It’s the sort of tale that would have Gallifrey Base’s more strident critics up in arms were it the plot of an actual televised episode, being far more fantasy than even science fantasy or science fiction. The ‘science’ aspect of the GENIE doesn’t really hold any water and the constant tripping around in time feels like a precursor to the Moffat eras timey-wimey fuelled get outs (a la the Doctor’s escape from the Pandorica).

The magical silliness is further enhanced by David Tennant’s reading – a plethora of silly voices bring to life the characters and the fact that he makes the GENIE sound like a magical creature from a children’s story doesn’t really help matters.

However, it’s entertaining enough and the trip to Rome does include some good historical details such as the Coliseum originally being called the Flavian Amphitheatre, and the references to the construction of Hadrian’s Wall (which alerts the Doctor to Vanessa’s anachronisticity (is that a word?)).

The Doctor finally gets to experience a proper ‘thrown to the lions’ scenario, along with gladiators, bears and leopards; something he didn’t even manage on his trip to Rome in The Romans in 64AD.

I’m pretty sure the Doctor also refers to the current Roman Emperor, Trajan.There is also a short reference to the Doctor knowing the best marble merchants in the area which were it not for the fact this story was written long before the Doctor met marble merchant Caecilius in The Fires of Pompeii, would have been a lovely little nod to that story!

Aside from this we also get the obligatory “slavery is bad” rhetoric, with the Doctor pointedly telling Gracilus at the close of the story that Vanessa won’t be returning to his service.

The Stone Rose is fun, if silly, and David Tennant’s reading matches the tone of the story perfectly.

Terrance Dicks is a writer who carries a certain kudos. His time on the TV show is considered, by some, to be a Golden Age and his own scripts for the show included The Five Doctors – a proper celebration of the show. His contribution to the novelisations is unparalleled and when the original novels were launched by Virgin, Dicks wrote the second release (bringing back one of his own creations in the process).

Dicks continued to be a presence in the novel range even when the BBC brought it back in-house. Dicks wrote for a variety of incarnations of the Doctor but Catastrophea sees him return to his own era with a novel featuring the 3rd Doctor, Jo Grant and a return appearance of the Draconians.

Inside Catastrophea is a decent Doctor Who story. Unfortunately, it’s obfuscated by far too many characters, far too many factions and rather bland characters fulfilling stock types and contributing little to the overall plot.

Catastrophea is a planet settled by Earth organisations. There is a military presence as well as the ‘Company’. The native population, the People, are used as servants and labourers. They are giant, golden-skinned and silent – communicating telepathically. Smugglers operate in plain sight, trading in a drug called skar and ‘do-gooders’ from Earth are campaigning for the rights of the People and leading actions to liberate them.

Catastrophea starts off really oddly. Within the first couple of chapters, Jo has been called a bitch and a slut. It just doesn’t sit right on any level. It seems that Dicks wants to write a novel set in his ‘home’ era but also write something a bit more edgy.

To this end, Dicks also returns to one of his ill-advised tropes – drugs. It was a feature of The Eight Doctors and was a poorly-written aspect then. It’s not much better here. I rarely cringe at Doctor Who, but any of the drug-related bits made me mentally squint through my fingers; especially the bit where one of the ‘activist’ side characters, Alanna, reveals her addiction and trades information with the local drug lord for her latest fix.

One of the novel’s strengths is the characterisation of the Doctor. Dicks does get this right and it is easy to imagine Pertwee saying the words. Unfortunately, this is where the good character work ends. Jo is reduced to a damsel in distress who the Doctor keeps telling to stay put rather than join him in the dangerous parts of the story. When he is forced to take her along on a journey to a distant temple, she contributes nothing except hanging off the Doctor’s arm in a way.

The rest of the novel’s characters fair little better and there are far too many of them, in very similar roles. Charteris and Walton are the ‘officials’. Walton is military, Charteris is government. The Doctor is bounced between them like Jesus between Herod and Pilate and they change their attitude towards the Doctor from chapter to chapter and even paragraph to paragraph. There’s also Avery, an officer who spends most of the novel getting knocked out. I don’t know if it’s meant to be humourous but when that’s your principal character trait, you know things are bad.

In the activist camp are Garon and Makos – and aforementioned Alanna. Dicks tries to differentiate them with different motivations and ways to wanting to help the native People but they are basically the same and form a limp love triangle.

Villain wise there is Rekar who appears at the beginning of the story, disappears for the entire length of the novel, only to appear briefly again at the end to meet a grisly demise. He is a thoroughly nasty piece of work but serves no purpose. The other ‘baddie’ is Dove, the leader of the drug smugglers who has the weird distinction of having hardly any interaction with the Doctor. He tracks the Doctor through the jungle, thinking he will find a massive stash of the drug, skar, only to be shot down by the Draconians.

Ah yes, the Draconians. Like almost every other part of this novel, they serve little purpose and I honestly don’t know why they are even in the book. They don’t even enter the fray until the last third of the book, get massacred and then help the occupying Earth colonists to get off the planet.

Dicks doesn’t have any sort of handle on their characterisation which barely extends beyond the ‘noble death’ bit and saying ‘My life at your command’ every so often. A proper story involving the Draconians could be a fascinating thing – Catastrophea is not it.

Weirdly, despite my dislike of almost everything about this book, I still found it quite an easy read. Dicks, if nothing else, writes succinct prose which moves the story, such as it is, on a quite a good pace. If a bunch of the superfluous characters were shaved off and the story focussed on the, admittedly quite interesting concept, of an alien race who have telepathically neutered themselves and are on the verge of a catastrophic regression, this could have been a good novel. Dicks bothering to actually do something with Jo for any part of the book would also have helped hugely.

As it is, though, this is a book for completists only.

In yet another 5th Doctor audio from Big Finish, the Doctor brings an ailing Nyssa to Traken, uncovers the truth behind the planet’s history and becomes the first Keeper.

This one sentence sums up pretty much the whole story. Primeval is quite a languid story which meanders from episode to episode, never really convincing that the threats presented are in anyway dangerous.

The main evil is Kwundaar, played by Stephen Grief, an omniscient alien with the power to control Nyssa from across the universe. He sits in his spaceship until episode four and then gets defeated. The effect put on Grief’s voice makes it difficult to understand his dialogue and as an enemy I never really felt threatened by him.

The Consuls are clearly from the same stock as those originally seen in The Keeper of Traken and are singularly uninspiring.

It is nice to hear about the history of Traken but really that is what we get – hearsay. The Traken we are presented with, for all it’s ‘primeval’ status, is very similar to the Traken we see 3000 years later. Even the same locations are used – the Consul chamber, the Grove and the vault containing the Source. A brief visit to a spaceport does nothing to expand Traken.

When discovering the origins of Kwundaar and the Source, the even older Traken we are told about with Priest Consuls plotting against the living God, Kwundaar, sounds a much more interesting place to visit. Surely if a prequel was the idea, one where we find out how the Source was created would have been more interesting than this retread of the original story.

Were it not for the fact that Traken is destroyed in Logopolis, this story could just have easily been a direct sequel rather than a semi-prequel and that is its main problem. It simply feels like more of the same. Traken is nice. An evil is trying to corrupt it. The Doctor and Nyssa defeat that evil.

Primeval is a pleasant enough meander through Traken but there is a lot of talk and very little action.

The Doctor Who Adventures’ comic strips are probably one of those areas of storytelling that a large majority of Doctor Who fans haven’t experienced. They are a mixed bag. The stories are often simplistic and fairly similar in their plot beats. But one thing they do achieve is to explore a far wider range of locations and periods than the TV series will never have time to do. Now, whilst the 19th Century is definitely not a period of history that the TV series has neglected to visit, engaging with actual historical figures from that era has not been as common an occurrence. Stories such as The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Snowmen and Deep Breath are more concerned with the atmosphere of Victorian London; the literary version so closely tied to Sherlock Holmes; the gaslit, fogbound cobbled streets of mystery and dark deeds.

Bat Attack and The Battle of Reading Gaol, a two part comic strip from DWA bucks this trend. The story opens as if it will be a Sherlock Holmes-inspired visit to the 19th Century with the first frame featuring Inspector Lestrade and Rose referring to the Doctor as Sherlock. Unusually this frame also finds us joining the Doctor and Rose at the end of an adventure where they have apparently foiled the plans of the two-faced Professor Janus (looking similar to the alien race recently introduced in Face the Raven). As they make their goodbyes they find themselves in the midst of a vampire bat attack on a London street.

The writer, Alan Barnes, plays a very clever game here, probably aware his readership is going to include adult Doctor Who fans. We are lead, much as the Doctor and Rose are, to expect this story to be a pastiche on Dracula (another 19th Century literary staple). Charging into the Lyceum Theatre, the Doctor and Rose encounter Bram Stoker and Henry Irving. Suddenly they are all confronted by Frederick von Dracula – a direct descendant of Vlad the Impaler (as seen in Son of the Dragon). But he is not a vampire. He is merely a human determined to defend his family’s name which he feels Stoker is ruining through his new novel about Dracula.

But there is a real vampire present – Florence, Stoker’s wife, is a vampire and stops von Dracula from shooting an arrow at Stoker and the Doctor.

And then the story takes a very odd turn. The question is raised as to who made Florence into a vampire and it is revealed to be Oscar Wilde! This leads into the second part of the comic strip in the following issue of DWA where the Doctor, Rose and Florence go to Reading Gaol to liberate Wilde from his incarceration (after a ‘terrible scandal’).

So now, Wilde is a vampire, the gaol is being run by vampires and the Doctor cures them all by burping.

Excuse me!

It’s absolutely bonkers!

It isn’t explained why Wilde is a vampire, although the TARDIS wikia suggests it is all a metaphor for Wilde’s homosexuality. Whilst this didn’t really occur to me when reading the strip, it is a valid interpretation. As I mentioned, the strip states Wilde is in prison due to a ‘terrible scandal’ and those with knowledge of Wilde’s real world history will know this was his punishment for being homosexual.

The ‘burping’ resolution is very DWA. Many of their strips are resolved in a similarly cursory manner but to be fair, it isn’t any less convincing than the magical medicine ending of New Earth or the flick a switch ending of The Vampires of Venice – or Inside the Spaceship, for that matter.

Historically, this story has a lot going on. As I’ve said, characters featured include: Bram Stoker, Florence Stoker, Henry Irving and Oscar Wilde, as well as, the fictional, Inspector Lestrade. Two real locations are the Lyceum Theatre and Reading Gaol. Bram Stoker was a business manager at the Lyceum Theatre from 1879 to 1898. Irving was the inspiration for Stoker’s characterisation of Dracula. Stoker hoped Irving would play Dracula in a stage version of the story but he declined. What’s interesting is that, in the comic strip, a stage version is being rehearsed and Irving is sitting in the stalls watching with a face full of disdain. There is a definite hint to real life history in the way he is presented in the comic strip (although after this point he disappears from the narrative).

The title of the second part of this comic strip is also a clever link to real history. It is titled The Battle of Reading Gaol and after Wilde was incarcerated in the prison, he wrote a poem called The Ballad of Reading Gaol. In real life history, Wilde was indeed released from prison in 1897 when this story is set.

The characterisation of the 10th Doctor and Rose is okay, if a little generic, and the artwork for the strip is standard for this period of DWA (drawn by John Ross). Overall this is a strong, if bonkers, comic strip from the DWA stable. It works with some intriguing minor historical details, a bit of Victorian grotesque and some real life characters to provide a fun strip which, unlike some DWA output, works for both adults and children alike.

This DWA comic strip is from the very early days of the magazine when they, for no apparent reason split the story into two parts in the same issue.  The first part does end on a sort of cliffhanger, which I assume is the reasoning, but the story is split roughly 2/3 and 1/3 rather than half and half, which makes for a rather anticlimatic second section.

The Doctor and Rose are in Indonesia and open the story tied to a stake by natives.  Before long they are inside the volcano and have encountered lava-like aliens intent on drilling away the core of the Earth.  They escape and defeat the monsters with cold water.

If this sound a little like The Fires of Pompeii, you’d be right.  But let’s be fair, this was published a fair while before that story and the similarities are relatively superficial.  An interesting element of this story is the characterisation of the aliens as slightly dimwitted, argumentative simpletons.  It reminds me a little of the Ogrons.

The Doctor is pretty much spot on in his dialogue and characterisation, but Rose comes across as very aggressive and condescending towards the Doctor.  It doesn’t seem quite right and I found myself disliking her across the quite short length of the strip.

Historically, this revolves around aliens causing the eruption of Krakatoa (and is very similar to the ‘explanation’ of Vesuvius’ eruption in The Fires of Pompeii).  Presumably the 9th Doctor is somewhere on the other side of the island (he is pictured there in one of Clive’s records in Rose).

Like most of the DWA strips this gets points for its unusual time and place but is far too short to be satisfying.  The unlikeable characterisation of Rose doesn’t help, but I did enjoy the silly aliens, even if their defeat was reminiscent of throwaway scenes in The Fires of Pompeii.

A lot of the DWA strips are one shot, throwaway strips set on odd alien planets with odd looking aliens and fairly shallow plots and characterisations. Reign of the Stone Monkey, however, is much more involving. It is a two parter featuring the 10th Doctor visiting Ancient China and discovering aliens terrorising the locals.

The backdrop of Ancient China is nicely portrayed and the main character Li has a little more depth than usual. The implication that the Doctor has visited him throughout his life is a lovely touch.

The three aliens that have taken control of the village are, entertainingly a monkey, a pig and a ‘whatever’. The pig alien, in particular, has echoes of the TV series Monkey (beloved of my childhood Sunday lunchtimes).

The plot is fun to start with, the aliens having controlled the temple guards with telepathic transceivers. The Doctor makes short work of those however and the second part of the story is a bizarre ‘competition’ between the Doctor and the aliens.

The Doctor wins, obviously, and the aliens leave. A nice touch is the design of the alien’s spaceship, which is reminiscent of a Chinese dragon.

The only real problem with this story is that there isn’t really a logical reason for the appearance of the aliens or their ship, other than to ‘fit’ into Ancient China.

Overall, though, this is a fun little comic strip and it is good to see slightly more obscure places in time and space being featured in a children’s comic.

Houdini and the Space Cuckoos was a four part short story published on the BBC website around Christmas 2012.

Harry Houdini is a person the Doctor has long claimed to have a history with. As far back as Planet of the Spiders, the Doctor has boasted of his friendship with Houdini but it has taken until the expanded universe of the new series before we have actually been party to any of the Doctor’s meetings with the famed escapologist.

The first of these, chronologically, features the 11th Doctor and is set in New York City, 1920. During one of his acts, involving escaping from a safe, Harry finds a doorway to the TARDIS at the back of it. Enlisting Harry’s help, the Doctor reveals that aliens called Cuculus are possessing humans in an attempt to spread a virus and kill everyone.

Being a short story, the plot is fast-paced and to the point. Pretty soon after meeting the Doctor, Harry is being whisked away to the alien’s spaceship and using his escapology skills to escape his cell and rescue the Doctor from a glass box filled with liquid. Soon after this, the Doctor discovers the deadly virus and the means to stop it, provided in part by Harry.

The Cuculus are the eponymous ‘Space Cuckoos’ and, based on the illustrations, continue the new series penchant for ‘aliens-that-look-like-animals’ by looking like huge, eight-foot birds. Continuing the ‘cuckoo’ motif, they are planting their minds in humans in much the way that cuckoos put their eggs in other birds’ nests.

Historically, the cover illustration accompanying the story shows the Doctor in a version of Houdini’s ‘Chinese water torture cell’ set-up which he introduced to his act around 1912. Apart from this detail, the Houdini of this story is a simplistic ‘he can escape and the Doctor knows him quite well’. There is little depth to his character and he adapts to the bizarre situation as quickly as the brevity of the story requires. More is brought to the character of Houdini in the other stories coming in the marathon, particularly Smoke and Mirrors, but for now we have the Houdini as might be imagined from the Doctor’s anecdotes of knowing him and being taught his skills. Houdini, here, acts much like Lady Christina or Kazran Sardick – the one story companion – adventurous, adaptable and appealing.

As a whole, the story is written in a quite simplistic way which betrays its roots as a tale published as part of the BBC website’s Christmas Advent calendar – it’s a bit of fun and, dare I say it, written with a younger age group in mind (which isn’t usually a trap Doctor Who writers fall into but seems to be the vibe Joe Lidster is going for with this).

The 11th Doctor too is simplified – he’s the mad man in the box and rushes from predicament to predicament with the enthusiasm of Matt Smith’s most energetic performances.

I’ve meant to read this for ages and am glad I slipped it into my marathon, particularly because of Houdini’s inclusion but, overall, it’s not the sort of Doctor Who story I’ll ever be in a hurry to revisit.

The Eye of the Scorpion is one of Big Finish’s best audios. It is evocative, tense, engaging and exciting.

The 5th Doctor and Peri arrive in Ancient Egypt and immediately meet, soon to be crowned Pharaoh, Erimem. She’s in a runaway chariot being chased by an assassin! It is a great start to the audio and sets the tone for Erimem’s character.

The sound design on this story is exemplary. The initial chariot chase is easily pictured and later scenes set in the desert, the busy market of Thebes, the royal palace and the enormous battles are all vividly brought to life through the sound design, acting and music. All of this presents the listener with a wonderful evocation of Ancient Egypt and, in terms of Doctor Who’s “history of the universe”, is the first ancient culture that has been brought to life so effectively. It also demonstrates how good Big Finish is at creating whole worlds through good scripting, acting and sound design as it mirrors the excellent work done with Mondasian life in Spare Parts and even the alternative prehistoric world created by Adric in The Boy that Time Forgot.

The dialogue is excellent and it is performed excellently by the cast.   Of particular note are Caroline Morris as Erimem, Jonathan Owen as Antranak and Stephen Perring as Horemshep (who would return to the range in the semi-regular role of The Kro’ka in the 8th Doctor Divergent Universe arc).

The first couple of episodes introduce a few too many similar sounding characters (all with odd sounding names) a little too quickly to get a handle on who is who, their motivations and allegiances, but this does become clearer as the story progresses.

Interestingly, Episode 2 recalls the historical stories of the William Hartnell era. The Doctor is poisoned at the end of Episode 1 and does not reappear until Episode 3. Whether this was by design or necessity (was Peter Davison unavailable for some of the recording?) I am not sure but it allows Nicola Bryant and Caroline Morris to develop their characters’ relationship making Erimem’s eventual stepping aboard the TARDIS a logical and natural conclusion to the story. Indeed, it seems strange that prior to this release Erimem was not announced as a new companion (something which I do not think would happen under Big Finish’s current management) and that even during the story it did not occur to me that she may join the TARDIS crew, as listening to it again with this foreknowledge makes it hugely obvious that this was the plan all along.

Nicola Bryant shines as Peri and is given some great material – particularly in the shock ending where she is revealed as the host for the alien intelligence and Nicola gets to perform in her natural accent and as Peri fighting to reassert her own mind.

The climax of the story, where the Doctor and Erimem attempt to confuse the minds hosted in Peri to drive out the alien intelligence is amazing. It is one of the best climaxes to a Big Finish play – probably any Doctor Who story – ever. It is tense and exciting and works superbly on audio as it is all about words not actions.

The climax also sees reference to the Atlanteans with the Doctor defeating the intelligence in a chamber built below the Sphinx by refugees from Atlantis; designed to be a repository for their culture’s knowledge. I wonder if Queen Gallilea was amongst them (as she seemed to be the only ‘speaking cast’ survivor from the destruction of Atlantis in The Time Monster).
Some dating confusion does occur here though, as the Doctor states that the Sphinx is 10,000 years old although I’m not sure if he is implying that Atlantis was destroyed at a similar time. Obviously, Atlantis is slightly mythical in its history so I’m not even sure if this chamber below the Sphinx even exists.

An excellent story and an excellent introduction to a new companion.

This review comes with a large helping of nostalgia and I don’t know how I feel about that. Big Finish still, weirdly, seems like a ‘new thing’. It just feels current. But then, you look at the month and year they first released an audio – the audio adaptation of the Bernice Summerfield novel Oh No It Isn’t and realise it was September 1998. That’s the month and year I started my teaching career. I’ve been teaching for 24 years. That means Big Finish has been a going concern for 24 years. That’s only two year shy of Doctor Who’s original run. Big Finish isn’t a new thing at all. Therefore, even though it feels really weird, I think I’m allowed to see those early audios in a nostalgic light.

I was young, single and had cash to spend. I lapped up those early Big Finish releases with Benny and can still remember the excitement of the first Doctor Who release, The Sirens of Time. It was an exciting time to be a fan even though the prospect of a new TV series was so much pie in the sky.

In that first series of Bernice Summerfield was what was grandly-titled the Time Ring Trilogy. After only two other releases, BF decided to adapt three unrelated New Adventure novels – a Bernice Summerfield solo release (from after Virgin lost the licence to Doctor Who in the wake of the Paul McGann TV Movie), Walking to Babylon; the Doctor-lite Birthright; and the Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz-lead Just War. All three were majorly rewritten to tie them together into a, fairly loose, trilogy. Characters such as the Doctor, Ace, Chris and Roz disappeared to be replaced, mainly, by Benny’s erstwhile husband Jason Kane.

I’ve already reviewed the first two releases in this trilogy I’ve finally arrived at the final part, Just War.

I remember the first time I listened to this audio. One sequence of scenes have stuck with me and those are of Bernice’s torture at the hands of Mark Gatiss’s sadistic Nazi officer, Standartenfuhrer Joachim Wolff. It is harrowing and perfectly played by Lisa Bowerman and Gatiss. I also remember enjoying the performance of the actress playing Bernice’s foster mother in this time and place, Ma Doras – an unknown actress going by the name of Maggie Stables.

Just War is absolutely superb and easily the best of the Time Ring Trilogy, and also one of the best of the entire Bernice Summerfield audio range. (It was also one of the very best New Adventures too and, considering it was Lance Parkin’s first novel, that’s no mean feat). Ironically, it’s link to the Time Ring Trilogy are tenuous at best and as a conclusion to that arc it may lack something, but as an audio adventure in its own right, it is difficult to beat.

The memorable torture scenes really are only the tip of the iceberg. Every scene featuring Lisa Bowerman is gold. From her awkward relationship with the young Nazi, Gerhard, which Bernice guiltily uses to her own advantage to the point where that relationship leads to Bernice having to make a terrible decision. The terrifying scene where six innocent residents are executed because of a crime Bernice has committed. The perfectly reasonable and yet chilling conversations Bernice and Jason have with Oberst Steinmann (played perfectly by Michael Wade) about the future of the Third Reich. The brief glimmers of comedy of Jason working in British Intelligence and the tangible sense of relief when they are finally reunited. Bernice posing – complete with ‘country’ accent – as Celia Doras, the long-lost daughter of Ma Doras (the owner of the local guest house where Nazi soldiers are billetted). The gentle heartbreak of Maggie Stables Ma Doras as she loses her daughter for a second time. This, of course, was long before Maggie Stables was taken to fandom’s heart as Old Sixie’s greatest audio companion, Evelyn Smythe – but the seeds of Evelyn are audible in Stables’ performance.

Mark Gatiss gives a great nasty Nazi and would go on to play a German naval officer in the 1915-set segment of The Sirens of Time. He had also played a Nazi officer in the BBV production, Island of Lost Souls (which he also wrote), which I will be reviewing in the near future (it has an indeterminant ‘Second World War’ setting so I am leaving it until a little later in the marathon). It would seem that around this time in the late 90s, Mark Gatiss was the go to guy for audio Nazis.

Alongside Stables and Gatiss is another familiar face from this period of Doctor Who. Michael Wade plays Oskar Steinmann, the reasonable face of facism. Wade had featured in the lead role of the Auton trilogy, a series of videos released by BBV in the 90s which saw the return of the Nestene and the Autons. He, like Gatiss, would return for The Sirens of Time playing the Lord President of Gallifrey; a role he would play again in The Apocalypse Element.

Steinmann’s dialogues with both Benny and Jason are chilling in their normality and reason. He does not believe Benny can be from the future because he cannot fathom a future where the Nazis do not win, so convinced is he of their superiority and righteousness. His whole-hearted belief in his values and vision is scarily convincing until you remember the less appealing aspects of Nazi idealism.

If Just War has a fault it lies within the final scenes which go a little silly with Jason and Benny flying a German super stealth jet across the English Channel. But this is a tiny niggle at the end of a truly memorable and moving audio. A cast and production team that are near-faultless provide an audio which clearly shows why the BBC granted Big Finish the licence to produce Doctor Who on audio and why Big Finish are still going 24 years later.

If you have never listened to Just War, beg, borrow or steal yourself a copy.

Birthright is the second part of the Time Ring Trilogy released by Big Finish during their very early days before they were granted the Doctor Who licence.  It, like the previous three releases, is an adaptation of a New Adventure.  Birthright, though, is unusual in that the original novel was released as part of the Virgin range when it still featured the Doctor.  Birthright, though, was unusual in that it was an example of a Doctor-lite story and was released alongside the novel, Iceberg.  This novel featured the Doctor solo, whilst Birthright featured only Bernice and Ace.  Adapting this as a Doctor-less audio then was not too difficult and I assume it was relatively easy to replace Ace’s role with Jason.

In this audio trilogy Birthright has been adapted to follow on directly from Walking to Babylon, which I reviewed here.  The original novel has Bernice and Ace deposited in their disparate time zones by a disintegrating TARDIS.  In this audio, it is an exploding time corridor which sends Bernice and Jason their separate ways after leaving Babylon.  Bernice ends up in London 1909 and Jason on the planet Antykhon.  As Bernice is the main character (and Jason travels to this time zone at the end of the adventure) I have decided to place this story here in the early 20th Century part of my marathon.

When I listened to Walking to Babylon, the first part of this trilogy, I was impressed by how professional the audio sounded and commented on how it is clear, on the strength of that product, why Big Finish was granted the Doctor Who licence.  It’s odd then, that I found Birthright to be a little disappointing in terms of production.  There was something about the sound design, in particular, which seemed a little rough around the edges.  The music too seemed sparser and there were sections where it sounded very much like two people in booths talking into microphones.  The script is falls foul a little of the main pitfall of audio drama – having characters describe what they can see.  I suppose in an adaptation of a novel this is going to be more difficult to avoid as the story was originally written for a different medium.  Big Finish, nowadays, manage to avoid this problem through having huge experience in what works on audio and what doesn’t but it’s a little more obvious here that lessons are still being used.

That’s not to say it isn’t an entertaining ride.  Front and centre are Lisa Bowerman and Stephen Fewell as Bernice and Jason.  Both are, as usual, superb and carry the two plotlines well.  What’s particularly good is that Jason’s plotline doesn’t seem secondary to Bernice’s.  Both have interesting things happening and whilst the ‘mystery’ of what links the two time zones is fairly obvious (although this may be due to already having read the book and heard this audio a couple of times previously) the slow drawing together of the two stories works well.

The leads are ably supported by a good guest cast which features John Wadmore, a BBV stalwart who actually appeared in a surprisingly low number of Big Finish audios, and one Colin Baker.  A canny piece of marketing from Big Finish in those early days was to include Doctor Who alumni in their casts as an obvious selling point.  The first Bernice Summerfield releases featured Nicholas Courtney, Anneke Wills, Sophie Aldred and Elisabeth Sladen.   I was particularly impressed by Colin in this story.  He plays Mikhail Popov, a Russian police detective in London on the trail of a serial killer.  He gives a performance very different from the 6th Doctor and he manages to maintain a pretty good Russian accent throughout meaning he doesn’t even sound like the Doctor for the majority of the play.  Mikhail makes a good ‘companion’ for Bernice and it would be huge fun if Bernice was to revisit this time zone in a future Bernice release.  I mean, it’s not like Colin is averse to working for Big Finish.

The story involving the Charrl and the truth of Antykhon is a good one although it is solved a little through technobabble and I’m not sure how much Jared Khan, their human agent, adds to the story (although his role was much larger in the original novel).

Historically, this story is a bit of an oddfish.  Having left the Victorian era behind and focussing my marathon on the global exploits of Indiana Jones, it’s quite strange being back in London and have characters discussing Jack the Ripper and Spring Heeled Jack.  This story feels incredibly ‘Victorian London’, despite being set in the Edwardian era, with pubs and prostitutes, cockney scallywags and strange foreigners.  The plot wouldn’t look out of place in a Jago and Litefoot audio.  Birthright is a story set in the literary London of dark alleyways, monstrous hooded creatures and secret organisations.

The Time Ring trilogy was a strong set of audios for so early in Big Finish’s work and whilst I think Birthright is possibly the weaker of the three, it doesn’t feel like it is treading water before the final section.

Walking to Babylon is the first story in the Time Ring trilogy, three of the earliest releases from Big Finish when Bernice was their only product and the possibility of Doctor Who audios was still a little way off.

Lisa Bowerman is note perfect and ably supported by Stephen Fewell as Jason and Elisabeth Sladen as the Babylonian priestess Ninan. The rest of the cast – made up of Big Finish luminaries such as Nigel Fairs and Barnaby Edwards – more than match their performances.

Jac Rayner has adapted Kate Orman’s original novel well and the script includes quite a bit of educational content: Babylon is the largest city in the world of this time; nearby cities such as Ur are mentioned, along with references to Babylon having links to Egypt and Greece. Babylonian rites, such as Ninan’s inability to leave the temple, are discussed and, aside from a slightly heavy-handed polemic from Jason about slavery, flow naturally through the script.

The only aspect of the story which doesn’t seem to quite work out of the novel’s context (and particularly the over-arching storylines of the entire Bernice Summerfield New Adventure book range) is the People. Their war with an unnamed power (clearly the Time Lords) is intriguing but as characters they seem slightly ineffectual and not really alien enough. Lafayette, the Victorian time sensitive, is far more successful and a character it is odd Big Finish never revisited.

The sounds of Babylon (bustling markets, lavish feasts, holy temples) – and the more sci-fi elements (time corridors and space ports) – are convincingly presented and the music is suitably ethnic and ancient.

It is easy to see from this audio why this series convinced the BBC that Big Finish deserved the licence to produce official Doctor Who audios. It is astonishingly professional in every aspect – scripting, acting, sound design and music.

The Haunting of Thomas Brewster is (as the writer, Jonathan Morris, admits in the interview extras) very much inspired by the ghost stories of Charles Dickens (and other later, non-Victorian writers such as M R James and Susan Hill).  The Haunting of Thomas Brewster is centred on the atmosphere often conjured by Victorian stories on television and film.

This story fits the stereotype of Victoriana.  Another story with a similar atmosphere and tone to this audio was the DWM comic strip The Curious Tale of Spring-Heeled Jack.  Coincidentally, that story also featured gaseous alien beings, just as this story does.  Spring-Heeled Jack’s aliens were rooted in the gaslights which began to line London streets around this time.  The Haunting of Thomas Brewster’s gaseous aliens are more synonymous with the London fog so often used in horror and thriller stories set in this time.  The Unquiet Dead also features gaseous style aliens with the Gelth, again being aligned with the gaslamps dotted around Gabriel Sneed’s funeral parlour – more on this thematic link of Victorian-based aliens another time.

Another link between stories is between this and Assassin in the Limelight.  In that story, the plot of Lincoln’s assassination, Knox’s time meddling and the possessive Indo often took second place to the characters of the Doctor, Evelyn and Knox.  In The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, we also find a lot more focus on the characters than the rather thin plot of aliens from the future trying to create their own future.  The script spends more time on the eponymous Thomas Brewster (which is to be expected, bearing in mind the title of the story) but also takes time to take a look at the relationship between the Doctor and his temporary assistant Robert McIntosh.  Whilst not as interesting as the character work presented in Assassin in the Limelight (and arguably not as well acted by the guest cast) it does have some interesting aspects.

Thomas Brewster is, basically, the Artful Dodger.  The behind the scenes interviews explain that Big Finish wanted to try a companion character like Adric, but done right.  Whether or not they succeeded at this is something I may look at when I review Industrial Revolution in a couple of stories time which is Brewster’s final story, but in this story at least he does work as a ‘Dodger’-type character.  Aside from ghost stories, Oliver Twist is the other obvious inspiration for the whole story including Brewster’s character: the orphan; the workhouse; the Fagin-like Creek; the well-to-do aristocracy (represented by the Doctor, McIntosh and Nyssa) taking in the urchin from the wrong side of the tracks.  The difference of course is that whereas in Oliver Twist the orphan ‘belongs’ in the upper echelons of society, Brewster is a born and bred denizen of the gutter and, at the first opportunity, nicks the TARDIS.  Brewster is written as a wrong-un but I don’t think he comes across as self-serving as the production team want him to.  His epiphany in the final episode softens any edge he might have had earlier and his stealing of the TARDIS at the close of the episode comes rather out of the blue.  John Pickard does his best with the script but he’s not the most successful of characters.

It’s been a while since I listened to Time Reef, the next story to feature his character, but I have recently listened to The Crimes of Thomas Brewster which again seems a little too desperate to show how self-serving his character is but just seems to soften his edges too much.  Maybe I’m missing the point of the character but it will be interesting to see how he develops in The Feast of Axos and subsequently Industrial Revolution.

The other main guest character is Robert McIntosh, the Doctor’s assistant.  When The Haunting of Thomas Brewster was announced much was made of Christian Coulson (Tom Riddle from the Harry Potter movies) joining Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton as a new character, Robert McIntosh.  I am sure the publicity at the time suggested he was the new ‘companion’.  I could be misremembering, but if I wasn’t, it was obviously a tactic to draw attention away from the actual new companion of Brewster.  There is some good work between Coulson and Davison when McIntosh discovers that the Doctor has been misleading him for the past year, although it stretches credulity a little that in all that time, Robert never once brought up the fact the Doctor had a Police Box in his house.  Unfortunately, Robert sacrifices himself to save the Doctor (something I had completely forgotten from my original listen a few years ago) meaning much of this character work is a little wasted, not helped by the fact that Robert is then never mentioned again demonstrating how rather throwaway he was.  I feel it would have been much more fun to have had hints of many unseen adventures for the pair (a little Jago and Litefoot in tone, maybe) which could have been a source of jealousy for Nyssa.  (It would also have allowed for a cross-over further down the line with Jago and Litefoot teaming up with the 5th Doctor and Robert to defeat some terrible Victorian menace…although actually this story is set much earlier than The Talons of Weng-Chiang, so any encounters would have to have involved some form of timey-wimeyness.  If McIntosh hadn’t died, maybe he could have come into Jago and Litefoot as a guest character…but I’m rambling now).

All in all, The Haunting of Thomas Brewster is something of a mixed bag.  Whilst I am not as vehemently against Brewster as a character as some fans, I do think his characterisation is a little fudged and not quite as successful in what they were trying to do as they may have hoped.  The plotline of ghostly apparitions feels a little cliched but the structure of the whole story is interesting: Episode 1 is entirely from the point of view of Brewster showing his life from infancy to ‘the present day’; Episodes 2 and 3 involve the Doctor, Nyssa and Robert and we explore the alien’s plan; and then Episode 4 revisits the first episode from the Doctor and Nyssa’s point of view filling in some of the gaps and jigsawing the timey-wimey aspects back together.  This does make for interesting listening.

What doesn’t make for good listening though is the terrible incidental music.  It is truly awful.  It has a ‘Sea Devil’ vibe about and just stabs into each scene with no apparent feel for the actual tone or atmosphere of the piece.  It is odd that in Assassin in the Limelight, I didn’t even notice the incidental music whereas in this, I felt like I wanted to escape from it, very fast, in the opposite direction to the synthesisers creating this cacophony.
An interesting structure, a smattering of good ideas and a thematic link to other Victorian-set stories is where The Haunting of Thomas Brewster leaves me.

The second Ninth Doctor box set, Respond to All Calls, includes, as it’s second story, Fright Motif – a story set in 1946, post-occupation, Paris. The Doctor crashes into the lives of Artie Berger, Zazie Vincent and Maurice Le Bon on the trail of something which has escaped through a rift from a universe of discord.

With The Devil’s Chord fresh in my mind, it was interesting to have another story based around music being lost. Here, Artie has lost his musicality. Once possessing the rare skill of perfect pitch, he now can’t even bring himself to perform his beloved jazz on stage even with the encouragement of Zazie, a fellow musician.

The Doctor eventually realises a sound creature, of sorts, is at large and enlists the help of the three humans to help capture and nullify it.

In the same way that after a stretch of World War One stories, we had a few stories which explored the shadow of that conflict being cast over people’s lives, here we have an adventure which looks a little at how WW2 affected the lives of a few people, with a particular focus on Maurice, the owner of the hotel where Artie is living.

Artie is an American, in Paris for the jazz scene. Zazie is a double-bass player working hard to counter the still-repressive opinions on a woman’s place in society and even within the music scene. Maurice works to maintain a facade of respectability but ultimately allows the Doctor’s madcap world to collide with his own and ends up sacrificing himself to save the others. Maurice also reflects on his lost love, a member of the French Resistance who clearly died at some point during the war – although no details are given. For all the dashing round Paris, this is still quite a sombre affair with Artie also dealing with the loss of his mother and being unable to return home for her funeral.

I’ll be honest and say I lost a little of the reasoning behind how the Doctor defeats the sound monster and something about this story felt quite small despite the expansive setting of Paris. I’m still struggling to tune into Eccleston’s portrayal – a Doctor who I wasn’t hugely enamoured of on TV – and I do think the lack of regular companion is limiting his character. Each story of these box sets so far has had a new character or characters filling in the companion role with the usual round of story beats and this one definitely suffers from the short run time needing not only to introduce the menace but also the three guest characters, their relationships and make sure the Doctor has introduced himself and gained their trust.

I didn’t really get a huge feel or time and place for this story and consequently the whole thing felt a little difficult to get into. The story and characters were enjoyable but there was a depth that I felt was missing and I hope the Ninth Doctor box sets manage to find eventually.

The strength of Mrs Constance Clark’s character as a companion has, in the stories I’ve listened to so far, been her experience of WW2 and how the writers of her stories have chosen to place her in locations and communities which give her a very different perspective on what we see in Criss-Cross.

This Short Trip, read by Miranda Raison, has the 6th Doctor and Constance arrive in what turns out to be a small German town. Constance’s realisation that normal families in Germany live in fear in the same way English ones do.

The real fear of bombing raids here, though, is superseded by a more alien threat from the skies – although one cleverly grounded in German propaganda of the time. A fairly well known poster bearing the legend Verdunkeln (which translates as ‘black out’) depicts a British plane with a skeleton throwing bombs down to the German town below. A small boy that the Doctor and Constance encounter is truly terrified of the poster and when they return him home to his family, they discover that his fear is more rational than it may have first seemed. Something is terrorising the town and feeding on light. To push the horror even further, this cloaked figure will even take a human’s eyes because of the light it can see detected in it.

Constance’s shift in perspective over the war is well-played by Raison. Seeing innocent children who are terrified of a faceless threat from above really does hit her and make her reassess her position over who the actual enemy is.

The story is a little vague on a couple of counts. The origins of the creature are left undetermined with the Doctor merely supposing that it existed in the upper atmosphere and had flown to close to Earth (like Icarus) attracted by the burning fires of bombing raids, and crashed – becoming stranded and desperate. Whether it is an alien or some unknown native predator is left hanging.

The dating of the story is also vague. I have placed this in 1944 simply to fit into my marathon at this point (having only recently learned of it’s WW2 placing) but it could be at any point during the war when the British were bombing Germany.

Overall, it’s a good, atmospheric story which cleverly builds on the poster’s image.

The journey of the 6th Doctor and Constance through the Second World War, now also accompanied by Flip, continues in this audio adventure which takes the TARDIS crew to liberated France.

With the fast bond between Constance and Flip which developed in Quicksilver (and I assume over the subsequent audio adventures which I haven’t actually listened to yet) fresh in my mind, it is quite affecting to see it put under a huge amount of strain in this adventure.

Arriving in a small French village, the Doctor, Constance and Flip quickly realise they are in Constance’s personal future and that the war is coming to an end, the Allies are pushing the Germans back towards Berlin and the French are dealing with the intense emotions of being liberated from German control and unfortunately seeking targets for their anger.

Pretty soon after arriving the time travellers are confronted by a disturbing scene. A young woman, Clementine, accused of collaborating and fraternising with a German soldier, is surrounded by a baying mob and about to have her hair shaved off. Flip wants to wade in and save the girl whereas Constance declares that what the group are doing is utterly reasonable and understandable. This opposition of views, caused by Constance and Flip’s very different points of origin and the morals derived from those, is the driving force behind this story’s narrative and it is extremely powerful.

The choices the two women make lead to Flip ending up, at one point in the story, in a burning building with Constance on the outside battling with her conscience for contributing to Flip ending up where she is. The fire itself has been caused by an alien creature which, it is revealed, is under the influence of one of the French locals, Lucien. Constance admires Lucien because he is part of the French resistance, but when it is revealed he is in control of the alien fire creature, her faith in his honour wavers.

The Doctor meanwhile has gained the trust of Allied soldiers passing through the village and one, in particular, Walter, has piqued his interest in fire he had seen in the sky – the same alien fire. These threads tie together as the story progresses and the TARDIS crew realise that Lucien and the fire creature are a real danger which needs to be controlled.

The time and place of this story is palpable and there are a number of excellent sequences: the German plane, on fire, crashing towards the Doctor and Constance; Flip and Clementine trapped inside a burning building and top of the list. the Doctor flying a Tiger Moth over the French countryside.

It was also lovely to hear Katarina Olsson back in the audios (something pointed out by Baker in the extras) in a very different role to what we are used to hearing her in – the Headhunter from the 8th Doctor/Lucie Miller audios.

This another story where the German characters are given more than two dimensions as terrible Nazis. It’s becoming something of a theme within many of these stories to humanise the German characters whilst not shying away from the horrific acts they committed. In a couple of the stories where this has been a feature, I have found it a little uncomfortable but it feels fitting for this story as the two German soldiers who aid the Doctor are victims of Lucien’s fire monster and have lose one comrade to it at the start of the story.

I found this story to be utterly riveting thoughout. The ‘monster’ is fierce and terrifying; the guest cast are well-drawn and the tension between Flip and Constance serves both characters extremely well. The Doctor gets a good chunk of action and the solution is neat and doesn’t try to paint Lucien as an irredeemable villain, but a man who has taken advantage of an opportunity to bring, as he sees it, justice to those who have wronged his nation. That his justice has tipped into vengeance is examined and dealt with but, ultimately, we, just like Constance, can fully appreciate what has driven him to the point he has reached in this story.

A strong story.

Quicksilver begins with the Doctor returning Constance home to 1944. After some awkward goodbyes, the Doctor suddenly finds himself in the midst of the capture of a fugitive and Constance discovers she is a little later home than the Doctor lead her to believe and that her husband, Henry Clarke, has been lost in action.

By the end of the first episode, the Doctor and Constance are helping the fugitive, Kinvar, escape his pursuers, the Vilal, and end up in 1948. Unknown to them, the Vilal have discovered a discarded wedding invitation of the Doctor’s, outside the TARDIS, which leads them to kidnapping Flip Jackson from her wedding reception and transporting her to 1948 as well.

This is a hugely fun adventure with some good emotional beats. When Constance discovers her husband is alive and well and trading with aliens in Vienna in 1948, her anger is palpable. With Flip thrown into the mix, having coincidentally met with Henry after arriving, disorientated, in Vienna, Constance assumes he is having an affair with her. When Ana, Henry’s actual new partner, arrives – all bets are off as far as Constance is concerned.

The growth of her friendship with Flip when they realise they share a relationship with the Doctor is one of the highlights of the story. Putting the restrained, mannered Constance with the carefree, ever-so-slightly vulgar Flip, is a stroke of genius and one which definitely pays off in Scorched Earth. It has echoes of when Rose met Sarah Jane or Donna met Martha but manages to go a bit deeper and, because they are so different, makes for a really interesting dynamic.

The secret behind Kinvar and the Vilal is also an interesting idea – Kinvar is basically their battle computer, bred specifically to make the decision for their forces of armoured, troll-like creatures. Having developed a conscience, he wants to run away from the battle they are embroiled in – against glass-like praying mantises, the Zerith – but the Doctor manages to convince him that he can use his abilities to end the conflict rather than perpetuate it.

All of this plays out on the background of 1948 Vienna where an uneasy alliance between the allies in the aftermath of the war shows how the seeds of the Cold War begin to be sown with the various factions still searching out technology which will give their country the edge – in this case alien technology provided, foolishly, by Kinvar to Henry Clarke, back in 1943.

The climax of the story goes ever so slightly silly with a giant 6th Doctor booming out across Vienna but the image of Constance clambering on the outside of a Ferris Wheel and firing potshots at the enemy is huge fun – as is the reaction of the male officers from various countries observing it.

If anything, Colin Baker is slightly overshadowed by everything else in this story but the combination of Connie and Phillipa is what makes the story. The conclusion of the minor Mr Clarke subplot first introduced in Criss-Cross is satisfying and the alien plot has enough original elements to keep in interesting throughout.

Historically, this story reminded me of how the shadow of WW1 was cast across a number of stories set after 1918. World War Two may have finished by the time most of the events in this story happen, but it’s shadow and the uneasy alliances created in its wake are sure to influence any stories set in this time period.

After meeting a pseudo-Alan Turing and almost-Enigma Machine in Doctor Judson and the Ultima machine in The Curse of Fenric, it was only a matter of time before Doctor Who ended up at Bletchley Park, the home of the actual Enigma Machine and, although Turing himself doesn’t appear, Criss-Cross is a story steeped in the world of codes and espionage.

Criss-Cross is a great title for this story. It is the code name of a British/German double agent but also reflects the codebreaking, the radio signals and the way the plot criss-crosses back and forth from location to location. It’s an absolute roller-coaster of a story which builds and builds to a thrilling conclusion.

Central to the story’s success is the brand new companion introduced here, Leading Wren, Mrs Constance Clarke. Played with aplomb and distinctly stiff upper lip, by Miranda Raison, she is immediately likeable and the kind of companion who, like Dr Evelyn Smythe, is perfect for this story’s Doctor – Old Sixie. Insisting on being called Mrs Clarke rather than Constance, she brooks no nonsense from the 6th Doctor and yet quickly recognises his brilliance and accepts his disarming charm as the genuine aspect of his persona is. With Maggie Stables having sadly passed on, it’s marvellous to have a new companion for the 6th Doctor who returns to a similar dynamic.

And this is a great story for the 6th Doctor. The story begins with Doctor John Smith already ensconced in an office at Bletchley with his strange blue box in the corner (which had to be carted upstairs by some strapping young men). He is co-opting the machines and Wrens of Bletchley to help him work out why the TARDIS has died.

It’s traced back to radio waves and mysterious golden eggs and effectively, the TARDIS has been scuppered by sand in the engine or leaves on the line – advanced technology being fouled up by something simple and basic.

The golden eggs are at the heart of the mission being carried out by the double-crossing, double agent – Criss-Cross. The Germans, of course, have discovered a selection of the eggs and want to unlock their mysteries to further their war effort. Soon, the Doctor and Mrs Clarke are aboard a German submarine in the company of Agent Criss-Cross and confronting Hugh Fraser’s Nazi scientist, Dr Schwartzman.

The claustrophobia of the submarine (especially when the hull is breached) is effectively conveyed and contrasts well with the grounds, huts and offices of Bletchley Park. There are some properly tense scenes aboard the submarine as this is where the aliens – Vardan-like radio-wave creatures who exist on an entirely different plain – first manifest. The Waveform work well on audio and yet I felt I had a really clear visual image of them. The mark of a good audio is one where the visuals come readily to the imagination and Criss-Cross is a story where everything simply popped into my mind – characters and locations all effectively conveyed to the listener.

There are a number of stand out scenes throughout the story. Mrs Clarke’s first confrontation with the Doctor due to his treatment of her ‘girls’; the first appearance of the Waveform; the death of a lovestruck couple (with heavy echoes of the camper scene from The Stones of Blood; and most striking of all, the resolutions of Doctor Schwartzman’s and Agent Criss-Cross’s story.

Schwartzman ends up at Bletchley and the commanding officer there, Harris, reluctantly allows him to aid the Doctor, Mrs Clarke and another Wren, Sylvia, in constructing code which will disrupt the Waveform. Knowing that he cannot return to Germany with the knowledge of Bletchley’s work, Harris is left with only one option – the choice he makes is shocking and affecting and really packs a punch at the end of the story.

Agent Criss-Cross’s fate, even if it is highly reminiscent of Jafar’s at the end of Disney’s Aladdin, is also terrifying.

I had actually listened to this audio before but remembered little about it. This second listen saw it rapidly shoot up the rankings to become one of my favourite BF releases. It’s a striking setting; a rattling rollercoaster of a plot; strong characters; a superb new companion and a hugely fun performance from Colin as the 6th Doctor. Highly, highly recommended.

We are back again in the company of the 6th Doctor and Evelyn (who we only left in 19th century Scotland two stories ago) as they pitch up on the Galapagos Islands at the same time as a certain Charles Darwin.  What then ensues is an ‘almost retread’ of Doctor Who and the Silurians, with a splash of Warriors of the Deep and a dash of the current series fondness for a celebrity historical  and for a Doctor who’s been setting a few things up prior to the story we are enjoying (although this was written and released long before the new series aired).

I use the phrase ‘almost retread’ with a hint of trepidation.  I don’t want people to think this is a carbon copy of …and the Silurians but have to admit that in many aspects, particularly at the start, it feels very much like aspects of the Malcolm Hulke original have been ‘borrowed’.  Dr Quinn is replaced by Governor Lawson; a local encounters the Silurians which brings forth terrible race memories; there is a ‘bad’ Silurian and a ‘good’ Silurian; the Silurians plan to release a virus to destroy the humans.  However, there is much more to this story which helps disguise the fact that these elements are copied a little too closely.

Most obvious is the presence of Charles Darwin.  Alongside the Beagle’s captain, Fitzroy, he forms a bond with the Doctor and Evelyn which is akin to that seen with Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare or Agatha Christie in the new series.  The two of them join forces and battle the Silurians and are performed superbly by Miles (Braxiatel) Richardson as Darwin and George Telfer as Fitzroy.  The running theme of ‘descent by modification’ and of how this adventure leads Darwin to forumulate the Origin of the Species is played out throughout the story, with Evelyn and the Doctor giving him the odd nudge in the right direction.  To be honest, it is written a little heavy handed for my taste.  I’m not 100% convinced by this story’s assertion that all human life on this planet is a result of Tulok’s (the evil Silurian scientist who is the villain of the piece) genetic experimentation.  It is quite a pill to swallow in terms, not only of the Doctor Who universe, but also in terms of real life.  I know real life and Doctor Who are separate entities, but rarely do I feel slightly uncomfortable with what the series is suggesting might be the ‘truth’.  It’s not like the Daleks emptying the Marie Celeste, or even Scaroth’s spaceship jump-starting life on Earth.  The Silurians made Homo Sapiens just seems a step too far.  Maybe its because I’m a Christian.  This story goes to great pains to show Darwin renouncing his faith because of his discoveries (not just of the fictional Silurians but also the real life flora and fauna of the islands).  It is interesting to note that, in later life, Darwin did not completely renounce religion and described himself as agnostic, rather than atheist, suggesting that after these events he actually took a far more balanced view of science vs religion.  Doctor Who writers don’t often go out of their way to denounce religion as hocus pocus and mumbo jumbo for the masses but just occasionally a story’s implications sit a little uncomfortably with me and Bloodtide’s central tenets is one example.

That aside though, I do rather enjoy this story.  The Silurians are one of my favourite returning monsters and Bloodtide does some good things with them.  Not least is the rehabilitation of the Myrka.  A horrifying sea monster like the Myrka is supposed to be, obviously works a billion times better on audio than it was ever going to on screen in the 1980s.  I’m not even sure it would be carried off convincingly in the new series.  However good the CGI can be, I can’t help feeling it would turn into a bit of a Lazarus Monster (a creation which never convinced me as ‘real’).  Voiced, partly by Rob Shearman, the Myrka in this story is huge (an adult, apparently) and audio allows the listener to modify the visual memory of Dobbin the Pantomime Sea Dragon into something far more terrifying.  And the Myrka kills Greta, so that’s good.

Greta, ah yes.  Jane Goddard, wife of Rob Shearman, popped up a lot in the early days of Big Finish – she’s the brilliance behind Keri Pakhar, a character from the Bernice Summerfield audios, and has done all sorts of roles here and there.  But her performance as Greta is terrible.  Her South American accent is horrendously over the top and she spends two episodes wailing and moaning about eMEEEELLLLLLEEEOOOOOHHHHH, her brother.  She dies sacrificing herself to the Myrka and, to be honest, when I came back to the audio a day later to listen to the second half, I completely forgot she was even in the story!

The rest of the performances, though, are pretty good.  Daniel Hogarth’s Tulok and, Big Finish regular, Helen Goldwyn’s Shvak – the two main Silurians, do well to give good performances buried, as they are, under voice distortion (a very good recreation of the original Silurian voices).  Julian Harries as Governor Lawson is a glorious baddie – noshing away on roast tortoise whilst sending local fishermen to their doom.  When he is abandoned by the Silurians, his pathetic response is a little chilling.

Colin Baker is on top form as the Doctor and this is also a good story for Evelyn, paired as she is with Darwin for much of the story.  It’s good to see her written properly here.  As a history lecturer it is believable she would have a fairly good knowledge of Darwin’s voyages on the Beagle (although him being a personal hero of hers seems a little odd – if she was a scientist it might be more feasible) and it shows how nonsensical it was for her to be completely ignorant of Burke and Hare in Medicinal Purposes.

The sound design is excellent.  Of particular note is the way the various Silurian sound effects have been recreated and I also like the touch of ‘kazoo’ in the incidental music.  The Myrka’s attack on the Beagle and the flashbacks to prehistorical times are absorbing and contrast with the light airiness of the early scenes of the Doctor and Evelyn exploring the island.  It really is a superb production and another good example of a story giving sense of time and place (although possibly more with the place, than the time).

Bloodtide is a good example of Big Finish making Doctor Who for the fans – a rehabilitated 6th Doctor, a fun companion, returning monsters and references to old stories.  Bloodtide isn’t revolutionary or stand-out but it is a solid adventure, comfortable to listen to and, relatively, traditional in its writing.

Doctor Who likes to visit significant periods of history, as we know, and The Mouthless Dead takes as its seed an event that happened a full two years after the ceasefire that brought WW1 to an end on the 11th November 1918.  While Indiana Jones may have returned to a country forging forward in the worlds of entertainment, The Mouthless Dead takes us to a nation still mourning its dead and seemingly unable to shake the cloud of grief caused by the loss of so many loved ones.

The Doctor, Polly, Ben and Jamie arrive at a deserted train station in 1920 and find that is soon to have an important train pass through – the train that is carrying the Unknown Warrior from France to London.  This nameless soldier’s body is to be buried at Westminster Cathedral in a full state funeral and is symbolic of the nation’s grief and the many, many dead soldiers who would not be returning to their families.

At other stations along the route, people are standing, waiting to pay their respects but at the station the TARDIS crew have arrived at there is only one lone signalman, one grieving woman and, it turns out, one presumed-dead soldier.

A combination of the nation’s grief, and Frances, the grieving woman’s in particular, and the TARDIS’s telepathic capabilities are causing a manifestation of the dead to haunt the railway line the train is due to pass through.  These ghosts have the ability to kill the living and appear to each character as something related to their own memories – Jamie’s sees highland warriors whereas Ben sees sailors from his uncle’s ship.  The signalman sees contemporary soldiers, as does the other soldier.  The Doctor carefully avoids revealing what it is that he sees.

It is the reveal that the soldier is in fact Frances’s presumed-dead fiancee that ‘reverses’ the process and dissipates the ghosts.  Her outpouring of relief and love banishes them back to wherever they came from.

The whole production has an incredibly sombre, melancholic tone and is superbly acted by the whole cast.  Although this is a Companion Chronicle, it almost feels like an Early Adventure, particularly at the start (even Lisa Bowerman, the director, comments on the blurring of formats in the interviews).  With Frazer Hines playing both Jamie and the Doctor, Anneke Wills playing Polly and Elliot Chapman (whose real name is apparently Rob – who knew?) as Ben and the Signalman.  There are only two other characters, Frances and her fiancee, Michael Thomas.  Wills reports Frances’s speech and Hines does Michael and it is only in the latter part of the play when there is more focus on the couple that it becomes more like a Companion Chronicle’s ‘narrated story’ than the first part’s practically full cast drama (or ‘in situ’ dialogue as Bowerman refers to in the extras).

The imagery in the script is brought to life by Big Finish’s always excellent sound design and the whole rather funereal atmosphere is brilliantly conveyed.  It has more than a sniff of Sapphire and Steel about it as well (specifically the train station-set second ‘adventure’), something I thing many a reviewer of this story has noted.

I also think the title is very clever.  The dead of World War One have no voice and, in a way, neither do the loved ones they have left behind.  The Unknown Warrior is providing a conduit for the grief – in the same way the TARDIS provides a conduit for the ghosts.  They have no mouth, no voice without the Warrior or the TARDIS.  I’m not always struck by titles but this one, combined with the story’s palpable atmosphere really struck me.

I haven’t listened to the rest of the box set that forms this ‘Volume 1’ of the Second Doctor Companion Chronicles and I think it’s rather a shame that The Mouthless Dead isn’t available separately as it is yet another superb release which, rather than costing you less than a tenner, is going to cost considerably more than that.  I’ve never been sure how I feel about the change of release format for the Companion Chronicles (or for that matter the proliferation of box sets for characters such as the 8th and War Doctors or the UNIT or recent 4th Doctor sets).  It makes it difficult, for me, to justify the expense (even though I’m sure that, overall, it costs less than four individual releases).

This is a touching memorial to those who lost their lives and a great story effortlessly performed by an excellent cast.  Highly recommended.

By its very nature, The Time Warrior is something of an oddity. As Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks both point out on the commentary and in the accompanying documentary (The Beginning of the End), having the Third Doctor visit a historical period was incredibly rare. In fact, the only time previous to this story that the Doctor had ventured into Earth’s past was in The Time Monster when he and Jo followed the Master back to Atlantis. There has also been a visit to the medieval-inspired planet of Peladon, but this is the first time we see the Third Doctor really get stuck in to history. Interestingly, the writers of the novels and audios have also steered clear of Pertwee-based historicals. In the novels, there is David A McIntee’s 1916 set The Wages of Sin and David Bishop’s 1952 set Amorality Tale (which, being only 20 odd years prior to the Third Doctor’s usual period only just qualifies as a historical).

Of course, this lack of history day trips is mainly down to the ‘present day Earth’ format of the Pertwee era, forced on it for budgetary reasons in the early days. What’s odd is that once the production team of Letts and Dicks started getting the Doctor away from Earth (because they had realised this limited the possible script scenarios) that it took so long for them to get him back into history. Colony in Space was the first time the Doctor took a trip away from Earth and that was in Season 8. The Time Warrior is Season 11!

And what a lot of fun it is too. Despite Robert Holmes’ reluctance to write a historical story, he produces one of his most entertaining scripts. The medieval characters are a joy, brought to life perfectly by the cast. David Daker’s Irongron and John J Carney’s Bloodaxe spit out wonderful ‘middle ages’ dialogue and have immense fun goading Linx and the Doctor and pushing around Hal the Archer and Sarah. Their polar opposites Edward and Eleanor (Alan Rowe and a simply brilliant June Brown) perform a slightly more realistic version of the King and Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland – the ineffectual, weak king accompanied by his strident, cunning and strong wife and queen. Barry Letts mentions what a shame it is that the story was not a six parter as this would have allowed the character of Eleanor to be developed more. I agree with this, although do wonder whether the actual plot of The Time Warrior would have stretched beyond the four episodes it already is (there is a fair amount of toing and froing from castle to castle). Alongside them with have Jeremy Bulloch as Hal and Sheila Fay as Meg, both of whom give great performances. I particularly like Sarah’s scenes with Meg in the castle kitchens where they discuss women’s liberation. It’s slightly heavy-handed characterisation for the new companion but is an entertaining section of script all the same.

Linx the Sontaran is a brilliant creation. The Sontaran race have, quite rightly, become Doctor Who classic monsters. Their back story of the interminable war with the Rutan allows future stories featuring them to plough a limitless furrow of story ideas. Their constant need to get the upper hand in the war allows for stories of experimentation, expansion and other audacious schemes. So iconic are they that it was only a matter of time before the new series brought them back. Kevin Lindsay performs him beautifully and it is no wonder he returns to play Styre in The Sontaran Experiment. The costume and mask are well designed.

Of course, this is also Elisabeth Sladen’s debut as Sarah Jane Smith. I was never the biggest fan of Sarah Jane, but her revival in the 21st century has opened my eyes somewhat to her greatness. The sad loss of Elisabeth last year will be keenly felt by fandom for many years to come, but it is in stories like The Time Warrior where we see why, as a character and an actress, she was so iconic. She just fits as the companion. As always a lot of the independence and fighting spirit Sarah displays in this story comes and goes depending on who is writing the script and, like all female companions, she is forced to revert to stereotype on occasion. Here, though, we get Sarah as she should always be and Elisabeth is a joy to watch.

What’s particularly striking about this story, with these disparate characters, is the richness of dialogue and the contrasts between the different characters. Linx’s alien, scientific approach to everything gives his dialogue a robust preciseness which contrasts with the florid, almost Shakesperean medieval flavoured dialogue of the native characters. Throw into this mix Sarah Jane and Professor Rubeish’s modern 70s speech patterns – including Elisabeth Sladen’s Liverpudlian ‘gerroff!’ when captured and we have a script which sparkles.

Less successful are some of the sets. After watching The King’s Demons which had a very convincing castle set which looked solid and believable, The Time Warrior suffers from flat walls and wooden ‘stone’ steps which look very stagey. There is some good set dressing (and Jim Acheson’s costuming is magnificent, particularly the medieval get up that Sarah gets to wear) but overall, the sets feel unreal and, with some wonderful location footage, this jars slightly with the rest of the production. I know it is unfair to compare serials which were broadcast 10 odd years apart, and the other way round, but this is the nature of my marathon. That said, the much earlier The Crusade, had solider looking sets than this story and that was a good 10 years previous.

Historically, the story is incredibly vague. Terrance Dicks points out on the commentary that this was deliberate. We know nothing more than it is ‘middle ages’. Many of Edward’s soldiers are away fighting a war for the king, but which king is never revealed. Irongron is described as a ‘robber baron’ but apparently Edward’s title of Wessex is an anachronism for even the vague period this is set.

Lance Parkin chooses to set this story in 1273. He acknowledges that Edward refers to interminable wars – possibly the Crusades – and that Irongron refers to Normans – possible dating it soon after the Norman invasion of 1066. However he also takes into account Sarah Jane’s comment in The Sontaran Experiment that Linx died in the 13th century. He also bases the date on a comment in The Paradise of Death that this adventure happened 800 years ago. I don’t quite get this as that would surely mean a setting for The Paradise of Death of 2073 but maybe I’m misunderstanding Lance’s reasoning.

Either way, the dating of this story is really no more placeable than ‘the Middle Ages’. Consequently, the costuming and set design are reminiscent of a ‘medieval’ story like Ivanhoe or Robin Hood and this story owes much to films like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, much as The King’s Demons did. I think the fact that this period of history is one which, for many years, was considered ‘The Dark Ages’ means we rely on television and film interpretations as our reference points, unlike periods far more well documented like the Tudors and Victorians.

A great story.

Why do fans hate this story so much? It is constantly cited as one of the, if not THE, worst of the Christmas specials. But I just cannot bring myself to even dislike it, let alone hate it. It's just so magical - I love it.

And there, I think, may lie the problem. It is magical. There's some sort of science guff to explain events, but basically it's Doctor Who with the fantasy quotient ramped up. Of course, hating it for this reason is to ignore the fact that Doctor Who's attention to scientific rigour has been pretty loose from the day Ian and Barbara walked into a police box that was bigger on the inside than the outside and took them to a different world.

Sounds a bit like something by C S Lewis. Oh, I see what Moffat did there.....

Doctor Who is 'science fantasy' if we must give it a label; not science fiction.

So what do I like about this story. First and foremost is Matt Smith. He is definitely my favourite modern series Doctor and ties for first place (depending on my mood) with Peter Davison and Patrick Troughton for overall favourite. I've seen some commentators online mention this story as the point where he goes too twirly and from then on never really recovers the subtleties of his earlier performances. Poppycock. He's twirly in this story because of the 'role' he's playing. He's avoiding facing up to leaving the Ponds (which he addresses is a lovely scene at the end of the story); he's giving Lily, Cyril and Madge a Christmas to remember and fully engaging with his childlike enthusiasm (There's no point in being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes, as another Doctor once said).

And this is Christmas fun - lemonade taps, hammocks, mechanical Christmas trees, dancing chairs. This is Doctor Who as a honest-to-good children's novel. There's obviously the CS Lewis influence but there's bits of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, Philip Pulman and Anthony Browne in there too. This is how children see the Doctor - the fun, crazy uncle. The wizard. It's how Hartnell himself saw the chracter (although a little less manic, obviously). And the characters echo the tropes. Cyril is Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia or Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - wide-eyed wonder and innocence. Lily is Susan and Peter from Narnia - sensible, protective and that little bit too old to be playing a teenager (Holly Earl, the actress, was about 19 and Lily is clearly supposed to be nearer 15/16). Madge is a bit of an anomaly as usually, in this sort of story, the adults remain ignorant to the adventures of their children but there are elements of Grandpa Joe in Madge in that she enters and embraces the fantasy world. She's a modern character really because in books like The Chronicles of Narnia, human adults from 'our' world are few and far between. The Doctor, of course, is the Professot/Diggory (from the Narnia books) who owns the eponymous wardrobe and visited the world himself once long ago.

The 'wardrobe' is a Christmas present and it's huge! The stuff children's Christmas dreams are made of. What child wouldn't adore a box that's a gateway to another world? Indeed, how many parent's bemoan the fact their children spend more time playing with the box the present came in than the gift itself. And what does that box do - it becomes a cave, or a hideout, or a racing car, a spaceship or a house - a portal to a world of fantasy. Oh, look what Moffat did there....

Through the box we enter a snowy, tree-covered landscape (a complete steal from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and discover a lamppost - or rather a huge tower with a strange, bulb like structure at the top. Fairy lights (the spirits of the trees) sparkle around the forest and it is reigned over by the Wooden King and Queen - creations straight out of Narnia or the Land of Oz (dryads - tree spirits - feature prominently in the Narnia stories). I love the design of these and there's an lovely overhead shot of the Queen which shows how her crown/head is like a tree tunk sawn through with the rings showing.

The plot is simple yet effective with the trees desperately saving themselves from the coming disaster and for a Christmas day story, where no one wants anything too convoluted, it works. It also reflects the children's novel roots (not that they're always simplistic, of course).

Thrown into this are three comedy characters - Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Paul Bazely (a less well-known name, but certainly a recognisable face from various projects). They sit a little uncomfortably within the fantasy and are in and out in too short a time to really appreciate the performances (which are good). It's almost as if Moffat felt the need to remind the viewers that this is still Doctor Who with people in space suits with big guns stomping around in a big mechanical monstrosity (and remind the fans too, by throwing in the Androzani references). It's a bit of a shame, as I think creating some characters who fitted the tone of the story better, but still played by the same actors, wouldn't have made them quite as forgettable as they are. As it is, poor Arabella Weir keeps getting the raw deal when it comes to her contributions to Doctor Who.

I'll also admit that the final part of the story overdoes the sentimentality a little. The saving of Reg is a little too saccharin even for my taste but I'll let it go as, like Moffat's first Doctor Who script, it's an 'everybody lives' story. And, actually, up to the point where he is saved, the scenes of Madge imploring not to see him dying are well-played by Claire Skinner and in Lily and Cyril's reactions to what she is saying.

I've skipped over the precredits sequence. It's completely separate from everything else, but is huge fun as the Doctor tears through an exploding spaceship and then plummets to Earth. It's the flipside of Doctor Who's fantasy in a nutshell and works better than the insertion of the comedy space people halfway through the story. The Doctor, literally, crashing into an ordinary person's life also sets Claire Skinner's Madge up in good company as that is precisely how the Doctor, particularly modern series Doctors have entered his companion's lives. It gives the impression that, were she not so committed to her family, Madge may well seriously consider accompanying the Doctor on his universal jaunts. She certainly has the open mind and the wherewithall to cope with unusual situations. Madge Arwell isn't often cited in the lists of 'one-shot companions' like Adelaide, Astrid and Christina, but I think she certainly qualifies.

So I say, give The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe another chance. Watch it as a child would and enter into the wonderous world the Doctor opens for Madge, Cyril and Lily. Fans celebrate the fact that Doctor Who can be so many different things. Why can't it be this? It's certainly the most Christmassy Christmas special so far.

World War Two is over and Churchill is running for re-election. The 7th Doctor arrives to visit his old friend and discovers an old enemy is meddling in Churchill’s election campaign. And German spies are still at large in London.

It’s the Meddling Monk up to his old meddling tricks and superbly played by Big Finish’s current Monk of choice, Rufus Hound. The rather fun conceit of this story is that the Monk is attempting to get Churchill re-elected so, as far as Churchill is concerned, his new campaign advisor is an absolute boon. Only the Doctor knows that Churchill is destined to lose the election and that history must continue on its correct path.

To add to this problem, a German spy is using a stranded alien brother and sister to his own ends.

Subterfuge’s success rests almost entirely on the shoulders of Rufus Hound. His Monk is a marvellous creation and leans into elements of the character just like the different actors do with the Doctor. Whereas Peter Butterworth leant into the more gentle comedy, and Graeme Garden into a more ‘Cambridge’ humour, Hound takes the ‘Carry On’ association of Butterworth and gives the Monk more than an edge of Sid James and a far more ‘saucy’ humour. It’s not the ‘material’ that is saucy, but more an element of ‘oo-er’ in how Hound performs it and it really works.

Ian McNiece returns as Churchill and is as solid as always but he didn’t make as much as an impact as he has in other stories. It is interesting to see a Churchill who must convince the British public to re-elect him, but that is pretty much the only thing that involves him here. The irony of knowing that he must lose adds a bit more interest and there is some good stuff at the end where he loses his belief in the Doctor because of the latter’s determination to keep history on track.

McCoy is good in this story as is Brian Capron as the spy cum art thief and there is convincing support from the the sibling stranded aliens.

The pace of the story is good and there is enough incident to keep the listener engaged, with a couple of good cliffhangers but, overall, this is a story which is easy to forget a few weeks later.

I’ve always had a soft spot for BBV. They carried the flame for fandom through the dark ages of the Wilderness Years TM and set a standard for fan-made drama which surpassed the usual iffy fan efforts and certainly laid excellent groundwork for Big Finish to pick up and run with when they were granted the official license. Many of BBV’s audios are very good – well written, well acted and well produced.

The Green Man is not one of these audios…

BBV had, at this point in their releases, already delved into the world of Krynoids with the story, The Root of all Evil. It was okay, but mainly served to suggest that there wasn’t a lot to be done with the Krynoids that hadn’t already been covered in their television outing, The Seeds of Doom. BBV had successfully explored the Zygons and the Sontarans in their ‘monster’ audios and the most obvious difference between those alien races and the Krynoids is why those stories succeeded and Krynoid-based adventures fail.

Krynoids don’t really say much.

This means lots of other characters talking about the Krynoids and the Krynoids only contribution to the dialogue being the odd roar.
In The Green Man, to be fair, there is one scene set in the church which sees the main cast speak with the more human-like early stage of the Krynoid, but pretty soon after it’s grows to ‘monster’ size and all chance of reasonable dialogue is abandoned. The other Krynoid uses a wolf as it’s host, so from the off there is no chance of a quick chat.

The idea behind The Green Man is a good one. Carvings of green men are, as the script explains, a common sight in churches and other medieval buildings around England. To link this with the Krynoids is a natural combination of both fictions. But beyond this basic idea, nothing is actually done with it. There is no suggestion that the Krynoids have been seeding ancient legends leading to the humans creating the myth of the Green Man and no exploration of where the Krynoids have come from. The cast of characters find the Krynoids, battle the Krynoids and defeat the Krynoids.

Many of the story’s main beats are taken from The Seeds of Doom. There are two Krynoid creatures, the first of which is the more human. The Krynoids start to control the plants, including a scene where a hapless soldier leaps into the castle’s moat only to be drowned by weeds – in much the same way Scorbie is dispatched in The Seeds of Doom. The larger Krynoid monster attacks the castle in the same way one attacks Harrison Chase’s mansion and the medieval equivalent of bombing the creature – Greek fire – sees an end to the menace.

The cast do their best with the script but much of the dialogue falls foul of audio drama worst enemy – the need to describe the visuals. Arthur Bostrom (of Allo Allo fame) plays Earl Godfrey but fails to include any emotion or urgency in his performance. Saul Jaffe as Henri, a Knight Templar, has the emotion and urgency, but also a slighty comedic French accent (which is ironic when he is performing opposite Arthur ‘Good Moaning’ Bostrom). The rest of the cast includes Time-Flight’s Keith Drinkel and writer/director/actor Nigel Fairs (who features on the CDs cover, photoshopped into a Krynoid).

Unfortunately the script is merely a bunch of set pieces with the humans fighting various stages of Krynoid development. It turns into a siege story in the final third which fits nicely with the medieval setting but there is very little to engage the listener in the drama as the characters elicit very little sympathy with their two-dimensional personas.

The script also ends on an absolutely atrocious joke where Godfrey wonders what his wife, Maud, will think of the state of the castle (wrecked by the Krynoid) when she fully recovers from her illness (which has kept her ‘off-stage’ for the entire audio).

The script aside, this story’s other main problem is shonky sound design. It is unusual for BBV, but this audio sounds as if it was recorded in a fan’s back bedroom with three mics and a CD of sound effects. Some of the sections are hissy and difficult to hear clearly and volume levels chop and change between very loud and very soft, giving the impression of some actors standing right next to the microphone and others saying their lines from the other side of the room.

Prior to listening to this audio I was unable to find any online sources with an exact date for the story beyond a medieval setting. Whilst the script give no actual date, it does have Earl Godfrey mention King Richard and the battle for the city of Acre, dating this to sometime around the same time as the television story The Crusade, around 1191.

Other historical aspects included are the Earl in the castle with a nearby peasant village and forest (there is a nice line where the Earl realises he has never seen inside a peasant’s home before); collecting herbs for medicine and a Jewish physician (Moses of Tyre); a siege; battlements, a moat and catapults; arrows, swords and axes and a Sergeant at Arms; Greek fire (an incendiary mixture used by the Byzantine Empire and discovered by the English during the Crusades); lots of riding on horseback, wolves, boars and livestock (presumably sheep and cows); the Knights Templar; and lots of olde English names: Godfrey, Alfred, Leofric, Geoffrey, Osbert.

Overall, the trappings of this story fit with the portrayal of medieval England seen in The Time Warrior (soon to appear in this marathon). Certainly all the medieval tropes are present and correct. It’s a shame The Green Man doesn’t do more with it’s central conceit and that the post –production makes listening to it an uncomfortable experience. As an example of BBV audios it is not the best but as proof that some Doctor Who monsters really were one-shot wonders it certainly serves that purpose.

The Wilderness Years were a heady time of fan creativity and innovation – and a fair amount of copyright-circumvention. Top of the ‘it’s not Doctor Who honest but it is really just don’t say it out loud’ was BBV. One of their products which sailed the closest to the wind was the audio series, eventually titled ‘The Time Travellers’. Featuring Sylvester McCoy as the Professor and Sophie Aldred as Ace, these audios were – for the first few releases at least – basically the further adventures of the 7th Doctor and Ace.

The second release was Island of Lost Souls, a World War Two set story written by Mark Gatiss. It’s basically a traditional Doctor Who adventure in all but name. McCoy is mysterious and manipulative, Aldred is feisty and bolshy. The British have stiff upper lips and the Nazis are traitorous and pursuing scientific advancements. There are even insectoid aliens possessing humans on an isolated base on an isolated island.

This is Doctor Who 101 but, ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with that. McCoy and Aldred are excellent and slip straight back into their roles (and clearly were given the memo about who these characters actually are) and the guest cast are all providing solid support. Nicholas Briggs, in particular, is great fun as the base commander forced, as so many of this type of character are, into having to trust the Doctor – I mean, Professor. (And it’s canny that they use Ace’s habit of calling the Doctor – Professor, to get around it).

The story continues the oft-used trope from the World War Two adventures of Nazis seeking a technological edge to win the war – in this case the weapon being developed by the British at this secret base in Greenland. Within the base crew is a traitor, adding an extra dose of danger beyond the alien possession. The aliens themselves have some interesting traits such as having body and mind separated as well as their ability to possess human and animals.

The other thing that struck me about this story, especially after listening to Colditz, is how accomplished the sound design is. The windy Greenland landscape is evocative and the various sound effects paint vivid pictures for the listener. It’s easily as good as many a Big Finish (and really shines a light on why Colditz was as painfully bad as it was).

These early BBV releases are really rather good and they’re definitely worth seeking out or give a re-listen to, to spend a bit of time revisiting a very different era of Doctor Who and being a fan.

Phantasmagoria is a very special story.  In my eyes, it was the first ‘proper’ Doctor Who story that Big Finish released.  Yes, I know, of course The Sirens of Time came first (and very exciting it was too – I still have photographs of my two friends and I on the train back from an autograph signing at the 10th Planet store in Barking clutching our signed copies of that CD with ridiculous expressions of glee) but it isn’t really representative of either Big Finish’s output or the ‘classic’ Doctor Who they were trying to emulate in the early days.Phantasmagoria, on the other hand, is a traditional Doctor Who story (although with its 5th Doctor/Turlough pairing it could still be argued that ‘proper classic’ Doctor Who doesn’t appear until Whispers of Terror with the 6th Doctor and Peri seeing as Turlough only ever appeared as a ‘solo companion’ with the Doctor once and that was when he was leaving, Peri was joining and the production team suddenly remembered that Kamelion was still on board the TARDIS).

There are three Big Finish releases I can remember precisely where I was when listening to them.  ‘Dust Breeding’ was in my bedroom at my parent’s house with the CD in the stereo sitting on my sofa.  I had to replay the cliffhanger to Episode 2 about 3 times because I couldn’t believe the reveal that had just occurred.  ‘Scherzo’ was whilst driving to work one day because I almost crashed the car when a sound effect was used to shocking effect.  Phantasmagoria was sitting on the floor of my bedroom.  I punched the air moments before the reveal at the end of Episode 3 of who Major Billy Lovemore was as I finally twigged.

I love Phantasmagoria.  I remember thinking at the time that 18th century England was a time and place Doctor Who rarely visited (as this marathon’s upcoming schedule proves) and as a result this felt like something a bit different and a bit, for want of a better word, exotic.  Mark Gatiss’s script is a little rough round the edges and does betray a lack of experience with audio only writing as a few too many characters talk to themselves (Turlough is a particularly bad offender in the early episodes) but his characters and plot more than make up for it.  Every character is well written with some brilliant dialogue (similes spout forth from practically every character and I lost count of the number of glorious outbursts such as ‘tish’ and od’s fish as characters reacted to the bizarre events unfolding around them) and this is rewarded by performances which are top notch.  Particularly delightful are David Walliams as Quincy Flowers (and Ned Cotton) and Julia Dalkin as Hannah.  Mark Gatiss himself takes the role of Jaspar Jeakes and although he sounds a little ‘League of Gentlemen’ he clearly loves playing such a grotesque character.  David Ryall is simply wonderful as Sir Nikolas Valentine, the villain of the piece.  He is gloriously over the top towards the end, but it fits the florid, hyperbolic nature of the story.

The plot is interesting as it revolves around apparent supernatural occurrences, which seems to be a bit of a running theme for the 5th Doctor in Big Finish’s productions.  The 5th Doctor also faced spirits in Winter for the Adept and elements of the supernatural such as werewolves and living gods like Kwundaar in Primeval.  What’s interesting is the contrast in approach to the supernatural in Phantasmagoria and Winter for the Adept.  In the latter, the Doctor seems very open to the idea of supernatural beings such as poltergeists and doesn’t set out to find a rational explanation.  In Phantasmagoria however he is the rational foil to Dr Holywell’s believer in spirits.

The atmosphere of the piece is fairly horrific, even when the science fiction kicks in during the final episode.  Valentine’s ‘house of blood’ is gruesome.  Much of this story was, apparently, inspired by a League of Gentlemen sketch which I can well believe.  I’m a big fan of The League of Gentlemen and their dark humour and there is, in fact, a section in the film, League of Gentlemen Apocalypse which very much echoes the atmosphere of this piece (and features Sir Isaac Newton himself, David Warner as a villain not far removed from Valentine.

Historically, Phantasmagoria probably has more in common with The League of Gentlemen and Blackadder the Third than it does with anything approaching reality.  That said, it is very specific about its placing in 1702 and the recent death of William of Orange which discussion about who will ascend to the throne (with the agreement that Princess Anne is the most likely candidate).  Also, the presence of gentlemen’s clubs and the foppish nature of characters such as Quincy lend a historically atmospheric air to proceedings.  What I found interesting was how this background to the story hints at a shift in English society.  So far in this marathon, the historical stories have had a clear divide between royalty and peasants.  Here I believe we see the beginnings of the middle classes.  Characters such as Jeakes, Quincy and Holywell and not nobility but nor are they servants like Hannah (and even she is not really poor).  They are people who have money (either through inheritance or work) and are free to spend it how they wish, whether that is collecting antiques and curiosities (in Holywell’s case) or gambling, drinking and eating (Jeakes and Flowers).  The nearest we’ve come to characters like this, so far, have been people such as Richard Mace and Shakespeare, but they have been stand out characters among the more traditional divides between rich and poor we have been accustomed to.  Phantasmagoria is populated by this new breed of character.

The other aspect of note is the first Doctor Who appearance of a highwayman.  This romantic notion is immensely popular throughout literature with the likes of Dick Turpin, but is something mysteriously lacking from Doctor Who, at least on television.  Again the closest we have is Richard Mace in The Visitation.  Big Finish finally delved into the highwayman trope with The Doomwood Curse, but even that is not straightforward.  The Hannah/Lovemore reveal in Phantasmagoria owes a lot to the common conceit of highwaymen being women in disguise but even that is given a science fiction flourish and consequently it seems we are still waiting for Doctor Who to do a ‘proper’ highwayman-based adventure.

One weird thing I did notice was how obvious it was that certain people were playing more than one part.  It’s probably because I’ve listened to this story quite a few times and also because David Walliams character voices are so familiar now from Little Britain and his other projects.  Also, the duality of Hannah and Lovemore is actually really obvious when you know its coming and there are plenty of clues littered throughout the first three episodes before the big reveal at the end of Episode 3. But then, that’s a bit like watching The Sixth Sense once you know the twist (and no, I didn’t get that one till about five minutes before it was revealed – I’m a bit thick like that sometimes!)

Phantasmagoria is, as you can probably tell, a favourite of mine.  It is fun, atmospheric and has a good villain at its heart.  The cast are clearly enjoying themselves and it shows how, even right at the beginning, Big Finish knew exactly what they were doing, rough round the edges though it might be.  The presence of Big Finish stalwarts Steven Wickham and Jez Fielder adds to the nostalgia value for me and all in all this is a story I could revisit time and time again and never grow tired of.

I have a bit of a funny relationship when it comes to the Yeti. It’s a bit of Doctor Who I sometimes feel I have a blind spot for. ‘Received wisdom’ would have us believe that the Yeti – and their TV stories – are iconic examples of Doctor Who. When The Web of Fear and The Enemy of the World were re-discovered, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say fandom seemed a lot more excited for Web than Enemy (even when we all found out that Enemy is actually rather bloody good). It was the Yeti who got one of the first spin-off Wilderness Years stories – Downtime. A Yeti even made it into The Five Doctors.

But I’ve always been rather non-plussed by them and their stories. That said, I remember devouring Terrance Dicks’ Target novelisation of The Web of Fear in one afternoon, sitting in a camping chair in Greenwich park whilst my brother did something (probably playing) and my uncle and Nan snoozed.

There is part of me that wants to like the Yeti, that wants to understand why everyone raves about The Web of Fear and that wants to understand why they get the ‘top tier’ monster treatment despite only having the same number of full stories as the Mara and Sil.

And so I went into The Abominable Snowmen (The Web of Fear’s older, and yet somehow less loved, brother) with an attitude of finding the positives.

I didn’t do very well.

I’ve occasionally said that Doctor Who’s worst stories, for me, are those that are a bit boring. The most recent examples for me were The Rings of Akhaten and In the Forest of the Night (although both of those deserve a re-watch and re-assessment). The Abominable Snowmen has quite a few chances now and it is, I’m sorry to say, just boring.

Ultimately, part of the problem is that the story is simply too long. There is not six episodes-worth of plot here. The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive at the monastery, some Yeti lumber around a bit, Padmasambhava is clearly under the influence, the Monks argue a bit about the strangers and then Jamie smashes some controls and it’s all over. And Deborah Watling’s Dad is in it.

There is an awful lot of back and forth – up and down the mountain; in and out of the cell in the monastery; in and out of the inner sanctum and nothing ever seems to develop fast enough. In fact, at one point I’m sure the Doctor finds out that Padmasambhava is in contact with an alien presence but then goes off to use his tracking equipment and discovers that the source of the power controlling the Yeti is – shock horror – in the inner sanctum where Padmasambhava is! I couldn’t work out why he hadn’t already worked this out after speaking to Padmasambhava who had clearly indicated he was fighting possession by some powerful intelligence.

The Yeti simply don’t work for me. They’re far too cuddly! I don’t feel any menace from them and even in the episode we can actually watch they don’t come across any better than in the still photographs we have to assess them on for most of the story. I do think it’s telling that when the Yeti return, only a couple of stories later, they have been redesigned to be shaggier and scarier suggesting the production team thought similar. I think the fact the Yeti are faceless and silent does them little favour in coming across as scary. Maybe more moving images would help their case – the scene where they attack and destroy the monastery late in the story might be quite impressive – but, ultimately until that day, I can only really judge them on what we have got. I did watch a recon of this story and a valiant attempt to computer animate some Yeti scenes adds a little movement to episodes. Unfortunately, the Yeti look awfully like grey Mr Blobbies and the effect is unintentionally quite comical. I admire the time and effort though.

The lack of music is also, for me, a huge issue. I’ve seen various commentaries on the episode citing this as a positive but I just can’t see it myself. Obviously the silence is compounded by being on audio only meaning there are whole swathes of episodes where it seems very little is happening. Obviously music wouldn’t help this a lot, but in an audio-only situation it certainly detracts further from problems of slow pace and lack of action.

I have also seen suggestions that it adds to the creepiness of the story. Firstly, I don’t find the story creepy in the slightest but, interestingly, the creepiness is – according to a commentary written by Jonathan Morris in the telesnap special released a few years ago by DWM – rooted in the religious overtones of the story. He talks about the echoing monastic corridors and relates it to children having to attend cold, forboding churches around the time this was broadcast and how it might tap into their experience of this.

For me, as a born and raised Christian I have nothing but positive experiences of going to church (and certainly not of cold and draughty buildings – my church (the same one I’ve attended since birth) is a ‘modern’ building and not in the slightest bit creepy). It’s not a creepiness I can associate with. I think the only ‘creepy’ element that works for me is Wolfe Morris as Padmasambhava. He is excellent and certainly, for me, one of the few positives I take away from the story. He is creepy, although I think his ‘possessed’ voice is a bit too much. I think he is far more effective when talking in his ‘normal’ voice and, actually, one of the better cliffhangers is the one where he invites Victoria into his inner sanctum because she has ‘no alternative’.

The Great Intelligence, too, is presented (it is suggested in some commentaries on the story) as a ‘religious’ threat.  I can see where they are coming from and I do find the Intelligence to be an interesting foe (certainly more threatening than the Yeti).  I’m not sure it’s an adversary that needed the extrapolations into the world of Lovecraft that came in the expanded universe and I’m not sure it has enough of an impact when it returns in the modern series but, for this story it is a new type of enemy and credit to Haisman and Lincoln for trying something a little different.

But are there any other positives I can take from the story. Well, yes there are. The regulars are all excellent – even if, particularly in Jamie’s case, they aren’t really given much to do. Troughton is great, as usual, and I particularly like his initial excitement at having arrived near the monastery and the way his joy is undercut by being accused of murder the moment he sets foot inside. I also think this is a pretty good story for Victoria – in amongst the long, drawn out periods of not much happening, she does get some brief spurts of action such as entering the sanctum, being confronted by the chained Yeti at an episode cliffhanger and tricking various monks with her wily ways. Deborah Watling also cites this story as a favourite but is honest enough to admit that’s because of the opportunity to work with her father.

Jack Watling’s Travers is a good guest star and does have some good scenes although the story does tend to send him out to the mountain an awful lot just to watch things happen. What did strike me is how different he is from his performance in The Web of Fear. He really does ‘age’ the character well in that story and here, the ‘young’ Travers does have an energy about him which is absent from the older Travers. It is a lovely moment when he spots the ‘real’ Yeti at the close of the story. I’d be fascinated to see how that was actually presented on screen.

Of the monks, David Spenser’s Thonmi and Norman Jones’s Khrisong are good value. I was especially struck by how Khrisong goes on something of a journey as a character. I had remembered him only from his Episode 2 performance which is all ‘suspicious of the strangers’ and aggressive but actually, as the story progresses he starts to accept that the Doctor may be a force for good and that his approach may be better if he tempers himself a little. I also enjoy David Spenser’s gentle strength as Thonmi. It’s a quiet performance but actually is one that has always stuck with me, even from the one existing episode.

What’s not so good about the monks, of course, is the fact that they are played by exclusively by white actors. In recent times stories such as The Talons of Weng-Chiang have got an awful lot of stick from fandom for ‘yellow-face’ and yet The Abominable Snowmen seems to slip under the radar. It is absolutely full of ‘yellow-face’ and silly accents (particularly from Sapan and Rinchen) which stray dangerously close to the world of ‘velly solly’ and, worst of all, is the clear use of tape to pull back the actors eyes into a more ‘oriental’ look. It’s really clear in some of the telesnaps. I’m not the sort of fan who will go on a crusade to enlighten everyone to the stories racist approach because I feel that loses sight of historical, societal and cultural context and achieves nothing. But it does strike me as a little unfair to Who’s current ‘racist punchbags’ that this story escapes any criticism on this front.

I’m also not a fan of Charles Morgan’s Songtsen. He just feels like a middle-aged European businessman has wandered into the monastery. He reminds me of the men in Planet of the Spiders, particularly Lupton. It was a casting that took me out of the story because, for all the ‘wrongness’ of the yellow face, at least those attempts make the actors look like they fit into the world of the monastery. Songtsen always seems out of place to me.

Historically, this story is supposedly set in 1935. This date is mainly derived from the Doctor’s earlier visit in the 1630s and of course the ’40 years hence’ of The Web of Fear. UNIT dating controversies aside, the actual historical setting of this story could be any time at all. There is very little tying it into the 1930s and even Travers (who causes the dating issues in the first place) could be from any time period on Earth in the early 20th century (or even later frankly). The Fact of Fiction article in DWM makes some interesting points about how, actually, expeditions to discover the Yeti didn’t occur in the real world until much later and, by 1935, the entire concept of the Yeti wouldn’t really have been widely-known. The setting of the monastery and Himalayan mountainside gives this story a relatively timeless atmosphere and really the 1935 dating is unimportant to the story.

With an underwhelming monster, too much toing and froing and a general lack of atmosphere, The Abominable Snowmen is clearly going to remain one of those stories I just don’t get. But, me being me, I will return to it one day (and indeed due to the recommendations various acquaintances I am currently listening to the audiobook version of Terrance Dicks’ novelisation) and hopefully I will find other aspects to enjoy.

Titan Comics is a world of Doctor Who which, I think, has a limited reach in fandom.  Certainly, the stories are not discussed in any great detail and strip companions such as Gabby, Cindy, Alice and John Jones are rarely mentioned in online discussions.

For me, they are a curiosity rather than an essential part of the world of Doctor Who.  They’re sort of like the old Doctor Who annuals in that respect.  Some of the stories are solid, traditional Doctor Who – particularly the 12th Doctor storylines.  Some are far more left field, and in another similarity with the Doctor Who annuals of yore, border on surrealism and bizarre concepts.  The 10th Doctor ones lean into this, particularly some of the more recent strips, but the 11th Doctor storyline is one of the most confusing, rambling, strange concepts to have the title Doctor Who.

What He Wants is relatively early in proceedings before the whole story delves into the Time War with huge alien companions, young Masters, War Doctors and the strangest Daleks you have ever seen.  At this point, the Doctor and his comic strip companion Alice Obiefune – a library assistant – are having relatively ‘normal’ adventures.

Many of the 11th Doctor adventures span multiple issues and multiple stories.  At this point, the Doctor and Alice have begun to encounter agents of SERVEYOUinc and this story finds them stumbling across the Talent Scout, one such agent, in Mississippi in 1931.  On the way to visit an old jazz musician friend of the Doctor’s, they also pick up an unexpected travelling companion in the form of failing 1960s musician, John Jones.

Jones is clearly based on David Bowie – it’s not even particularly subtle.  As a character, though, he’s not very well established in this story although that’s partly because he is being set up with a ‘chameleonic’ ability to blend in.  There’s a very weird section where the Doctor and Alice don’t notice him aboard the TARDIS despite the fact that he’s standing right next to them.  There’s a mystery in Jones which will play out a little over the following stories – although it’s not one I ever remember having a satisfactory conclusion.

Alice is a solid addition to the pantheon of reliable companions who give as good as they get where the Doctor is concerned.  She’s fun, adventurous and knowledgeable.  There’s even a part where the Doctor admits he’s enjoying travelling with someone who knows some of the answers.

Historically, 1930s Mississippi is a little stereotyped.  We’re in the bayou and the locals are a large number of non-descript black locals who have been taken over by the Talent Scout.  Their zombie-like behaviour has echoes of the Deep South’s oft-portrayed belief in voodoo but overall there isn’t much time spent on establishing them as characters in their own right – and there are the slightly uncomfortable slavery overtones.  Even the Doctor’s jazz friend, Robert Johnson, is a relatively two-dimensional character that functions in the way many of the Doctor’s ‘old friends’ do.  He’s very reminiscient of Omar from A Wing and a Prayer and it does seem that the 11th Doctor has a propensity for making friends throughout time and space (and even more than friends if we’re to believe what happened with Marilyn Munro).  It’s actually quite a nice element of this incarnation of the Doctor and it does seem that the comics have picked up on it from the TV series’s liking for giving him ready-made help – whether it’s Winston Churchill or a young Kazran Sardick.  Robert does help at the climax to the story, but other than that, there was probably more that could be done with him as a character.

The art style of the 11th Doctor comics from Titan is also a problem for me.  It’s a rather indistinct, sloppy style which doesn’t flatter Matt Smith and makes a lot of the other characters quite vague, especially when not in close up.  When contrasted with the style of the 10th and 12th Doctor strips is really stands out as being less appealingly drawn.

A very weird aspect is the reintroduction of Bessie.  Apparently stored inside the TARDIS, for some reason it has now been metamorphosed into a monster truck!  It’s a silly idea and one which doesn’t seem to have much purpose.  Bessie is used at the climax of the story to rescue the Doctor but there is no reason, whatsoever for Bessie not to be the Edwardian roadster we know and love.  It’s just another element which adds to the slightly off-kilter atmosphere of these comic strips.

One silly little titbit is that the story’s title – a very non-descript, uninspiring trio of words – features one of, what I believe, are only two uses of ellipses in a Doctor Who story title – the other one being …ish, a 6th Doctor audio from Big Finish.

All in all, What He Wants… is pretty inconsequential, even though it introduces one of the ongoing strip’s main companions.  Reading these strips is a slightly odd, slightly disconcerting experience and, unlike the DWM strips, or even many of the IDW ones, the 11th Doctor run is not one I can see myself often returning to.

The Eye of the Jungle is a first listen for me which is always an exciting prospect in my marathon.  It’s also the first 11th Doctor audiobook I have listened to out of the entire range.  I had forgotten, initially, that it wasn’t read by one of the regulars (all the previous BBC audiobooks I’ve listened to have either been read by the Doctor or companion) and it was a little jarring when David Troughton’s immediately recognisable tones wafted from my headphones.  However, Troughton is a brilliant reader and made listening to this audiobook a very pleasurable experience.  I have cited before my difficulties with single-voice audio, but Troughton is a reader who makes it easy to keep attention on the story.  His range of voices doesn’t stray too far from his own but he did enough with certain characters to distinguish the main players.  He does do a rather bizarre ‘oo-ar’/Somerset accent for Amy which becomes more pronounced as the story develops which seems odd when a Scottish accent would surely not be beyond his skills.

The story sees mysterious disappearances in the Amazon jungle, both of wildlife and humans.  An expedition is in the jungle capturing animals for the collection of London Zoo, due to open the following year.  The ‘white men’ are portrayed as nasty and racist and the locals are kind, yet simple.  It is a stereotypical delineation but serves the story to set up the dynamics early on with a minimum of exposition.  Blazington, the archetypal hunter, is allowed redemption at the end of the story, but nothing feels particularly new or unusual in the characterisation of the guest cast.

It transpires that the disappearances are due to a race of aliens, the Nadurni, who are genetically ‘mashing together’ the animals and humans in an attempt to create the ultimate warrior.  This warrior will be deployed in a war the Nadurni are engaged in which has seen them genetically modify themselves to the point of degeneration, causing them to visit Earth.  The visual images of the mashed-up creatures is suitably horrific and not something I can envisage ever getting to the TV series.

The story is a little run of the mill, to be honest, with fairly familiar beats.  The most obvious is the apparent destruction of the Doctor when he is zapped by one of the eponymous eyes.  It is blatantly clear he hasn’t been killed and the beam is probably of the transporter kind – anyone who’s seen Bad Wolf will suspect this immediately.  There is also a slightly unsatisfying reset switch employed at the end of the story when the Doctor effectively ‘reverse the polarity of the neutron flow’ and separates all the mashed-up wildlife and humans with apparently no ill effects.

The regulars are written well with some good dialogue for Amy and Rory, particularly a nice moment between Amy and a native girl working for the local priest.  Matt Smith’s portrayal of the Doctor is well served and you can easily imagine him whirling around the jungle, avoiding crocodiles, winding up amoral naturalists and butting heads with mercenary hunters.  Rory is great, even without Arthur Darvill’s performance and proves what a great addition he is to the pantheon of companions –  he is one of the best companions the series has ever given us.

Historically, there is little in the way of facts.  The characters are fictitious although the background of the opening of London Zoo is a nice touch.  The jungle setting feels very like the early Tarzan films of European hunters crashing into the unspoilt rainforest (although I think they were Africa-set, but the feel is the same).

Overall, this was another entertaining listen with a good narrator in Troughton, but ultimately a fairly obvious and unsurprising story.

No Man’s Land is the Doctor Who story which is relatively unique in its setting – a pure historical set during the Great War. There are stories with Weeping Angels and Daleks infiltrating this time period but setting the Doctor and his companions down in the middle of this terrible conflict and just allowed them to experience it as was is far more unusual.

Admittedly, No Man’s Land does still have the slightest of sci-fi twists but overall, the Doctor, Ace and Hex have to fight against the horrors of humanity. There were many parts of this where I could see it working as a Young Indiana Jones story, particularly their investigations around the hospital and when Ace and Hex head out to an abandoned church in No Man’s Land.

From the outset, things seem a little awry at the military hospital. A letter has been received announcing the arrival of the Doctor and two associates. This gives the TARDIS crew an immediate in road and a compulsion to investigate the mystery not only of the letter, but also of the murder it predicts.

Even without the letter, things don’t seem right. The soldiers are regularly subjected to the ‘Hate Room’ where they are more or less brainwashed into becoming killing machines. What’s bizarre is that nobody seems to be questioning this rehabilitation tactic, not even the Doctor initially – and that’s with Hex being subjected to the room. If there’s one criticism I’d level at the story it’s that obviously odd or suspicious occurrences go almost without comment. Hex, for example, goes missing for quite a while (he’s being held captive in the Hate Room’ and yet the Doctor and Ace don’t seem to be actively searching for him. The hospital can’t be so big that they couldn’t do a quick sweep to find out where he’s got to.

When the Doctor does eventually find Hex, very little is made of the fact that he has been subjected to the process or why Sergeant Wood put him there.

Aside from this, though, the story rattles along at a good pace with the focus, initially, being on the predicted murder, and then shifting to the machinations of Lieutenant Colonel Brook and what’s really going on at the hospital.

There’s also some interesting examination of the role of soldiers and the idea of cowardice. I remember, many, many years ago, watching a schools serial called ‘How We Used to Live’ based around the First World War. One aspect which has stuck with me all these years was a character being sent a white feather as a sign of cowardice for not enlisting in the armed forces. It’s a horrible example of society guilting people into put themselves up for death and yet here, in No Man’s Land, we see how soldiers were constantly battling not just the enemy, but prejudice in their own ranks either for perceived cowardice or unentitled privilege.

Listening to No Man’s Land has highlighted something which has been bugging me about Sophie Aldred. I recently listened to the ‘Hector trilogy’ (Nucleus of the Swarm, Mask of Tragedy and Signs and Wonders). Weird creative decisions about Hex/Hector’s character development aside, one frustrating aspect of those audios is Sophie Aldred’s sudden change of performance style for Ace. In stories like No Man’s Land, it’s clear Ace has matured and Aldred’s acting is spot on. In the Hector trilogy, though, Aldred has become very shouty, Ace seems to have regressed into a teenager again and, strangest of all, she sounds more and more like a boy. Aldred, a few years ago, did a series for CBeebies called Tree Fu Tom. In that, she provided the voice for the main character – a boy called Tom who shrinks down and hangs out with fairy folk. What seems, oddly, to be happening is that Ace is turning into Tree Fu Tom. More and more, her voice acting seems closer and closer to that performance than it does to those from No Man’s Land (and Gods and Monsters, although there are hints of Tree Fu Tom breaking through, even there).

Listening to No Man’s Land highlighted the change in Aldred’s performance to me and it’s frustrating that directors of the audios don’t seem to be noticing this weird shift in her performance. Aldred can be amazing as Ace, particularly in the run of stories from The Harvest through to Gods and Monsters, but it’s just not working after that (and I haven’t heard great things about her performance in the more recent audios teaming her up with Mel again – all of which are supposed to occur after her travels with Hex).

No Man’s Land is also a good vehicle for Philip Olivier’s Hex, a companion I’ve had trouble with in previous audios for this marathon. Here, he is great, and bounces well off Ace and the Doctor. Sylvester McCoy also gives a good turn as the Doctor without too much of the ‘angry’ acting and more of the ‘quiet menace’ that he’s much better at.

The guest cast are good, although due to it all being male a few of the soldiers are a little difficult to distinguish at certain points of the story. Leading them, as Brook, is Black Orchid and Ghost Light alumni Michaael Cochrane, who is brilliant as a man able to charm and intimidate in equal measure, turning on a sixpence as the situation demands it.

Historically, this story hits many of the same beats as previous WW1 set stories, but with specific focus on the hospital and No Man’s Land itself. The overall mystery does have a slightly sci-fi reveal (in that the people Brook works for are hinted as being the Forge, which – signficantly – ties in to Hex’s tragic family background). But this reveal is a minor tag at the end of the story, almost an afterthought, and the main thrust retains its historical focus.

No Man’s Land is a bit of a forgotten gem and a Big Finish audio worth seeking out as a good example of Doctor Who doing ‘history’ and of the 7th/Ace/Hex TARDIS team.

Hunter’s Moon, by Paul Finch, is a novel which seems to predict a genre of story which becaming quite prevalent a few years after it’s publication in 2011.

It’s, basically, the 11th Doctor, Rory and Amy dropped into The Running Man but without the ‘gameshow’ trappings and actually with more elements familiar, now in 2023, from other films and TV series most notable The Purge series, The Hunt, Escape Room and Squid Game. It’s about a group of innocent people being kidnapped and forced to run for their lives whilst being chased by wealthy businessmen intent on killing them for sport.

It’s an unusual sub-genre of horror for Doctor Who to be based on as, really, it’s a terrifying concept.

Rory ends up in the ‘game’ after losing a bet in an alien casino. Amy goes undercover as a ‘hostess’ and the Doctor as a mercenary who joins the hunt. A family from Earth also find themselves kidnapped and dropped into the game and are the heart of this tale.

For me, this novel was very much a game of two halves. The hunt is thrilling and Rory, in particular, gets lots to do. Amy is sidelined a little but still gets to do a bit of sneaking around and standing up to the bad guys. The Doctor is a terrible mercenary but his ‘transmat gun’ is a fun idea as it allows him to look like he’s exterminating people when in actuality he’s transporting them back to the planet (the game occurs on an abandoned moon).

I really enjoyed the hunt scenes. Unfortunately the aliens behind the hunt – the Torodon – aren’t particularly engaging. They have a plethora of silly names and it became increasingly difficult to tell them apart. They also spend some of the book vying for power and double crossing each other which meant I completely lost track of who was who.

The Doctor being old friends with the planet’s chief of police is a oft-used trope but is actually played quite well with the chief being both unwilling and unable to help the Doctor because of the corruption in their society and because he doesn’t consider the Doctor the most reliable of people either.

Thankfully, Finch chooses to centre his guest cast of ‘people the Doctor needs to save’ around a human family (rather than adding even more alien names into the mix). Harry, Dora and Sophie Mossop are a dysfunctional family dealing with unemployment, depression and teenage rebellion who are broken down and built back up by their experience in the game. Harry, a washed up policeman redeems himself quite spectacularly and the dynamic of all three is something I can easily see as a reflection of the TV series and is the part of this story which best emulates the modern series.

A rather thrilling climax atop a transmitter tower and a clever denouement with a powerful magnetic field seeded earlier in the book actually make this a satisfying read even with the frustrations I had identifying the various alien baddies.

In 2013, to celebrate Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, Big Finish released a trilogy of Companion Chronicles featuring a recurring character – Quadrigger Stoyn, played by Doctor Who veteran: Terry Molloy.

The first story in the trilogy was The Beginning, written by Marc Platt, featuring Carole Ann Ford as Susan and, as the title suggests, visits the very beginning of the Doctor’s travels in time and space.

In the interview extras on the CD, Carole Ann Ford expresses her disappointment that, despite being about the ‘beginning’ of their travels, she still doesn’t know why the Doctor and Susan ran away from their planet. It may seem odd that a story called The Beginning, released in the 50th anniversary year, doesn’t actually spend an awfully long time on Gallifrey. But the story’s title refers to more than just that most intriguing of events. The story is also about the beginning of the Doctor and Susan’s travels, the beginning of their relationship with the TARDIS and also about the beginning of life on Earth, the Doctor’s favourite and most visited planet.

It is a good story which echoes the early days of the series with its ‘big’ science fiction ideas and sense of wonder and yet manages to cross-pollinate it with later Gallifrey-lore without those elements seeming out of place. There are also some cheeky nods to various inconsistencies in the series’ narrative such as whether Susan named the TARDIS and the looms introduced by Platt in his novel Lungbarrow.

Carole Ann Ford is an excellent reader and performer and Terry Molloy is great in his role as a disgruntled TARDIS engineer. The idea that, when he ‘borrowed’ the TARDIS, the Doctor also accidentally kidnapped a lowly ‘quadrigger’ buried in its inner workings is wonderfully silly and it also allows for contrast in the way Stoyn reacts to the alien Archeons are oppose to the Doctor’s awe, wonder and excitement at making first contact.

The huge time jump between the first and second episodes is a little jarring and I’m not sure it completely works although it does allow Platt to include a little of the telepathy that Susan was once given but was usually ignored on TV. It also brings Lisa Bowerman in for a little cameo as a nurse tending to Susan who meets a grisly end.

The portrayal of the Archeons as sentient globules of silver is suitably alien for a time when the series went out of its way to present all manner of strange alien life and the whole tone and atmosphere of the story really does fit with those early days of exploration and experimentation.

The idea that they seeded life on planet Earth may contradict other versions of how life started on Earth in other Doctor Who fiction but when has Doctor Who ever let its already very loose continuity get in the way of a good story.

A lot of the expanded universe has explored what the Doctor and Susan did before arriving in the junkyard in Totters Lane, to varying degrees of success, but this story fits perfectly with what we know and what we may have imagined happened before two schoolteachers followed Susan home.

Something about this story almost feels mythical, dealing, as it does with the very beginnings of the series but it doesn’t feel bolted on or contradictory. Even with the modern Gallifreyan elements that are included, it works extremely well and is highly recommended.

Finally this strips sees the return of the Mechanoids but primarily the story is concerned with Robot 2K sent from the planet Zeros to avert war between the Daleks and Mechanoids.

It is an interesting twist to have a race of apparently benign and benevolent aliens attempting to prevent a war which could have potentially deadly consequences for themselves. A quick picture of this society is painted when a young boy comments that he cannot see their leaders any more. Apparently, the Zerovian government meet in a transparent dome where all people can see them. Only when something of such terrible import as the threat from the Dalek/Mechanoid war occurs do they debate in secret (although I don’t quite understand why they have to debate this particular situation in secret unless all their conversations are broadcast as well, as just being able to see their leaders doesn’t mean the populous know what they are discussing).

Robot 2K is a fun creation. He’s a 60s version of Inspector Gadget, with rocket pack and drill head, and manages to outwit the Daleks fairly easily. What’s very interesting is how he deals with the Daleks and Mechanoids differently. He allows the Daleks to believe they have succeeded whereas he appeals to the Mechanoids’ better nature in making them believe the Daleks have offered an olive branch of peace. The Mechanoids accept this, at least temporarily, with the caveat that they are still the sworn enemies of the Daleks.

What is the most disappointing is that, after the Mechanoids were introduced to the strip seemingly as recurring adversaries for the Daleks, they have been absent for two whole ‘stories’ and in this, their last appearance in the strip, they barely appear, let alone do anything. So why were they even introduced in the first place to feature so fleetingly? The answer would seem to be in their depiction. Ron Turner’s illustrations of the Mechanoids are clearly based not on the TV version but on the toys! The Mechanoids arrival in the strip seems like a rather cynical marketing ploy. Maybe, when the Mechanoids failed to set the world alight, it was quietly decided to remove them from the script. Had they been more of a success, who knows how much presence they would have had in the strip (and perhaps beyond).

It’s been a lot of fun revisiting the Dalek strips. They are something I’d read when published in DWM and Classic Comics but hadn’t ever really enjoyed. This more focussed reading has allowed me to appreciate them much more and to spot some really weird story themes, most notably oddly camp comedy (particularly from the Golden Emperor) and terrible tragedy. The fact the Daleks fail to succeed in practically every one of the schemes depicted in this strip is fascinating. I wonder if it was a deliberate decision not to show characters who are basically evil to the core, achieving their despicable aims. What’s more interesting though, is that many of their combatants aren’t shown to be victorious either. The plants of Alvega, the Archivists of Phryne, the Monstrons and even the Mechanoids, are all shown to be defeated and in some cases destroyed.

It’s all oddly downbeat for what is, essentially, a children’s comic strip.

Another strip, another absence of Mechanoids. This next strip sees the Daleks detecting a rogue planet (no tricky conundrums in this strip’s assigned title). As it heads towards them, the Daleks track it and after a collision with another planet, realise it is heading straight towards them. With a bit of Dalek tech, they manage to deflect the planet and not only have they saved themselves, but they have also managed to send the planet careering off towards the planet of the Mechanoids. Cue evil laugh!

I hadn’t realised that the previous strip, The Archives of Phryne, was actually drawn by yet another different artist – Eric Eden; it’s probably why I felt a little underwhelmed by the strip as the return of Ron Turner’s dynamic, bold, graphic style is very welcome, particularly in a story which doesn’t really have a huge amount of plot.

Fortunately the Golden Emperor is back in his rightful place, but really not a lot actually seems to happen in this comparatively short strip (at only 4 pages long).

What’s interesting is that this is the first time the Daleks have actually been outright victorious for what seems like ages. They are able to save themselves with no loss of Dalek life and set up the potential destruction of their deadliest enemies. It is interesting that their ‘enemy’ for this story is a non-sentient planet simply becoming a threat through natural events. We have yet to see the Daleks properly defeating a sentient enemy, at least not without sacrificing swathes of their own or failing to actually achieve their aims.

Rogue Planet is a better story than the recent strips have been and I’m hoping the following strip, Impasse, continue the upward trend, particularly as it introduces Robot 2K and sees the actual return of the Mechanoids

So, after the dramatic arrival of the Mechanoids, the Daleks now face THE LIBRARIANS!It seems bizarre that after a strip which felt like a prologue to a huge story arc involving a galactic war between two terrifying alien forces, we get a story where the Daleks face a group of strangely-foreheaded librarians on the planet Phryne.

The Archives of Phryne is thoroughly underwhelming. The Phrynians are as dull as ditchwater and the Daleks don’t fare much better. This strip also continues the increasingly strange vein of tragedy which pervades this strip. The Phrynians are forced underground, their leader commits suicide and the Daleks, yet again, fail to achieve their aim: in this case, to obtain the secrets of the many weapons and defensive measures the Phrynians catalogue.

A big hole in the story is the absence of the Golden Emperor (as he’s referred to in this strip). His conniving, scheming, hilarious monarchy is sorely missed in a story which sees the Daleks the closest to their TV counterparts’ characterisation so far in this strip’s run.

One interesting twist is the reveal that all the secrets the Phrynians hold are stored in their brains rather than physically, but frankly as story goes, it’s too little too late.

The artwork for this story continues the clean lines and bold colours introduced halfway through the previous strip but a lot of the backgrounds are quite dull and almost beige in colouring. The Phrynians clothes come in a variety of bold primary colours (helpful for identifying who is who). The comic strip also obtains a brand new, striking title logo in blue and yellow which, oddly, feels less in keeping with the strip’s spirit than the original red/Daleky one did.

We move on now to the discovery of a rogue planet!

The next strip in the series sees the arrival of the Daleks’ arch nemeses, the Mechanoids. I was looking forward to their arrival immensely and I have to admit to being a little disappointed. That said, this strip clearly acts as a prologue to a larger, ongoing story, so I can forgive it a little. I don’t know what it is about the Mechanoids but they make me smile. Their one television appearance isn’t the most auspicious of debuts but the fact that various people, Terry Nation included, thought they might be able to compete with the Daleks for ultimate Doctor Who monster is amusing. Following in the wake of failed attempts of Voordmania and Zarbimania, it’s a wonder the writers and production team ever thought they could top the Daleks. It took 3 years before another monster struck the public psyche in the same way, when the Cybermen arrived in the Antarctic.

I love the fact that the Mechanoids got to be toys in the 60s and that they had a complete makeover to become the Daleks’ recurring antagonists. Their only other return to the series was in Big Finish’s audio The Juggernauts which did some interesting things with them but, again, didn’t exactly set the world on fire. But still, I love their weird spherical design and complete impracticability of being either service robots (as their initial TV appearance showed them to be) or as conquerors of the galaxy (as the comic strip would have them be).

The strip itself, though, keeps the Mechanoids on the sidelines. We really only see two or three of them, including their leader the Menoin. We discover very little about who or what they are except that they object to the Daleks encroaching into what they consider their part of space. They prefer subterfuge (using a weird ray to send one Dalek insane and hiding in a space cloud) to all-out war (at least at this juncture) and have weird, spherical spaceships, which is a nice contrast to the saucer design of the Daleks.

The Daleks, for their part, are furthering their plans for universal domination. A few months have passed since the destruction of the Dalek city in the previous story and it has been completely rebuilt (along with, presumably, more Daleks). They are also building a spacestation as a waystation between Skaro and planets too far away to reach in a single trip. It is here the Mechanoids first attack them. The consequences of this initial encounter between the Daleks and Mechanoids is to put the robotic globes on the Daleks’ list of ‘things to be destroyed’, but little else of real impact occurs during this strip.
Interestingly, the artist for the comic strip clearly changes halfway through this story. The initial artist, Richard Jennings is replaced by Ron Turner, whose artwork is much cleaner, bolder and more pop-arty in styling. I much prefer it to be honest, although it is jarring for it to happen part way through a story. One striking aspect is Turner’s different take on the Dalek design preferring to draw them far more like the Cushing Movie Daleks. The Mechanoids become a little grander when Turner takes over, but both he and Jennings draw them close to their TV appearance.

It will be fun to see where this war between the Daleks and Mechanoids goes but, strangely, the next story, the Archives of Phryne sees a total absence of the Daleks’ new enemies, as the Daleks go on the search for weapons to defeat them.

Having described the Monstron spaceship as Movellan in my last review I slowly realised that this comic strip, as a whole, actually does feel like a television story but not Destiny of the Daleks.  The Menace of the Monstrons is basically The Daleks vs The Dominators!

Aboard the Monstron spaceship are two Monstrons.  They proceed to use their robots the Engibrains to destroy the Dalek city and are ready to send word to their invasion fleet that Skaro is ripe for exploitation when a lone Dalek causes the volcano they landed in to erupt, destroying them in the process.  It does sound familiar, doesn’t it?  However, this strip was written years before The Dominators (around the time of The Mythmakers according to the Altered Vistas website) so if anyone is to be accused of ripping off a story idea it’s surely Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln.  It is, of course, probably a total coincidence, but the parallels are striking.

Beyond this intriguing coincidence though, I didn’t enjoy this strip as much as some previous.  The Monstrons themselves are, like the Dominators, a little dull and shouty.  The Engibrain robots look fabulously weird, but ultimately are just tools (and I don’t mean that in the pejorative sense).  The Daleks are pretty pathetic too, failing miserably to defeat the Monstrons and preferring to run away and hide in the city (which then proceeds to collapse on them).

There is a hilarious scene, though, which recalls the glories of Duel of the Daleks where the Emperor is trapped under the city and pleads with his Dalek subjects to rescue him ‘with a magnet’ but the magnet won’t work without electricity and a mutated eel is advancing quickly towards the Emperor.  This allows this instalment of the strip to end with the glorious frame showing the Daleks studying the impotent magnet and a tiny speech bubble peeking up from below with the legend ‘Help!’.  Imagining the Emperor pathetically pleading for help like a helpless 60s heroine actually had me laughing out loud.

One unfortunate aspect of the strip is the depiction of the Monstrons.  They are blue-skinned with yellow lips and slightly odd oval-shaped helmets but have distinctly stereotypical, cartoon-like ‘African’ features.  It smacks of the way ‘Black Sambo’ would be drawn during the early part of the 20th century.  I’m probably being way to sensitive about it, but it did strike me immediately I started reading the strip.

This is also another rather tragic script with no real victors.  It has distinct echoes of The Amaryll Challenge where a lone Dalek commits suicide but takes the enemy with him.  Only a few Daleks seem to survive the destruction of the city and the Monstrons pay the price for landing in a volcano.  It seems odd that the strip is obsessed with showing the Daleks taking defeat after defeat but it seems this is designed to show how determined the Daleks are to be all-conquering and how, despite the numerous setbacks they encounter whether its murderous plant life, plagues or rust, human rebels or alien invaders, they start again, rebuild and continue to view themselves as the greatest force in the universe.  There is some serious self-denial going on!

The next strip is one I was really looking forward to as it introduces the Daleks’ recurring nemesis, the Mechanoids!

Plague of Death returns to Skaro to find the Black Dalek acting as Deputy Emperor battling against the Daleks greatest fear…rust! (And there is a frame with text written exactly like that last bit, ellipses and all!) Experimentation with the Dalatomic beam (yes, Dalatomic, what?) leads to a cloud of radioactive rust floating around Skaro and getting up to mischief, disintegrating Daleks and their bases willy nilly. The Emperor returns to find the planet in disarray and it is discovered that the rust has become a plague and Patient Zero is THE BLACK DALEK!

This story nearly returns to the glorious heights of Duel of the Daleks but falls slightly short because, actually very little happens within the actual plot. The Daleks accidentally create the rust, the rust destroys some Daleks, they think they’ve defeated it, it turns into a plague (!), the Emperor returns, the Black Dalek is cured.

What we do have, though is a return to the characterisation which made Duel so much fun. The Black Dalek seems to have tempered his trash-talking ways and risen to fill the role of Deputy Emperor quite successfully. Of course, when it is discovered he is carrying the rust germ (!) he is quickly persona non grata. Thankfully he manages (somehow) to infect himself and after getting a new casing can continue as normal.

This strip also sees the welcome return of the Brain Computer which seems to have been programmed with Key Stage 2 science facts (that’s primary age for the non-teachery/parenty people amongst you). It delivers the shocking revelation that the Daleks can deal with the rust cloud using magnets because – and I quote – unlike poles attract, like poles repel. Who knew? (Seriously, though, this is the first example of the strip venturing into the television series’ mission statement to educate as well as entertain which it has to be given credit for).

The artwork for this strip is less impressive as a lot of frames are a little indistinct due to the majority being pictures of the Daleks disintegrating, or the rust cloud destroying things. There are also quite a few frames where it is quite difficult to tell which is the Black Dalek as his colourings look very similar to the ordinary Daleks (although this may be an issue with the modern reprinting rather than the original comic strip).

The strips concludes with another cliffhanger with an alien spaceship (which is a little Movellan-like in styling) arrives on Skaro unnoticed by the Daleks (who are still preoccupied with the aftermath of the rust plague). The Monstrons have arrived.

Ugh. My worst fears were realised and The Penta Ray Factor is, indeed, as generic as Power Play. If possible, it’s even worse! The story sees the Daleks arrive on the planet Solturis, wheedle their way into the ruling elite’s trust, steal the planet’s super weapon, make deals with a traitor and get blown up.

So much of this story echoes Power Play, I wonder whether they just took the first story and tweaked bits here and there. The two human leads in the story are a man and woman much like the two from Power Play only this time instead of a blond woman and a brunette man we have a brunette woman and a blond man. The traitor in the original story was the girl’s uncle, in this story the traitor is her grandfather’s cousin (which make him some sort of blood relative to her but I’m not going to waste time working out how many times removed he is). The Daleks make a deal with the traitor and they all end up dead, just as they did in Power Play.

There are a few interesting aspects to the strip, and a couple of strange ones too. Firstly, the Solturan civilisation seems to be vaguel Roman Empire-like with the ‘just’ leader decked out like a Roman general, and the other character’s clothing echoing a similar style. In a similarly Roman-esque vein, the leader has a ‘soothsayer’ of sorts, Lurr. Strangely, he has a ‘bowl of tomorrow’ which, initially seems to be magic. Later in the story it is revealed to have vaguely technological workings (although how the ‘bowl’ works isn’t really explained). The bowl allows him to see visions of the future and he warns his leader of the threat the Daleks pose although his warnings fall on deaf ears. The bowl also leads to his death as the traitor, his cousin, realises that he can see the future and will work out who has betrayed the Solturans to the Daleks, therefore stabbing him rather dramatically (and decidedly Julius Caesary).

Another interesting aspect is the relationship between Lurr and his granddaughter. It struck me as a little Doctor/Susan ish. In one frame, she refers to him as granddaughter and he to her as ‘child’. It’s only a little hint, but I wonder if the writer based their characters on the leads of the TV series.

There is a ridiculous sequence where the Daleks steal the eponymous Penta Ray by taking a huge box into the Penta Ray Room, taking out a fake Penta Ray and swopping it for the real one. All this happens off screen but it reminds me of the Emperor Dalek’s inflatable imitation from Duel of the Daleks. The Daleks do seem adept at making facsimiles of things. All this does it cement the opinion that the Solturans are complete idiots. Although, to be fair, the Daleks aren’t much better as, for the second comic strip running, the Emperor and most of the fleet depart the planet before the fat lady has sung. The remaining taskforce are then wiped out by the Solturans. I suppose it is indicative of the Daleks’ supreme arrogance that they believe they have won before the final axe has fallen but you think they would have learnt a little from the mistakes of Alvega.

The Daleks, again, seem characterless in this strip. The scheming is present but the vitality the characters had in Duel of the Daleks is still missing. Hopefully future strips will reintroduce this more appealing side to the Daleks.

The final frame though, where the Emperor declares they will not return to Solturis because he has received a worrying message from Skaro makes for an intriguing cliffhanger into the next comic strip, Plague of the Daleks.

This strip opens with the Dalek’s many failed attempts to create a working spacecraft.  Eventually the 13th version is successful and the Daleks are free to conquer space.  The familiar Dalek saucers head towards their nearest planet, Alevga, where their sensors suggest, there is not intelligent life.  On landing, however, the Daleks discover that the plant life is sentient and aggressive to intruders.  And so ensues the Daleks’ first invasion of a planet.  With the plants seeding the Daleks and their saucers(with fairly horrific consequences), the Daleks decide to retreat leaving a small taskforce behind to attack the controlling root at the heart of the planet.  As it is, most of these Daleks are destroyed and the last survivor exterminates the central root causing the entire planet to explode!  The Emperor Dalek vows to destroy any planet they cannot conquer – a new Dalek creed.

This is a far more straightforwardly dramatic story than Duel of the Daleks.  Surprisingly, it is also relatively tragic (in the dramatic sense of the word) in that the Daleks are technically defeated by the native life forms, who are also wiped out when the planet explodes.  The story even starts by detailing the Daleks’ various failures at inventing a working spacecraft.  Initially it seems an odd thing to do for the ‘leads’ of your comic strip, to show their failures, but in retrospect it makes sense.  It highlights how driven the Daleks are to reach their ultimate aims – the conquest of the universe.  They are willing to sacrifice themselves and entire races to achieve this.  It’s actually quite chilling.

Also quite chilling is the best frame of artwork so far in any of these strips.  It depicts a Dalek that has been consumed by plant life.  Flowers and tendrils wrap around and through the Dalek casing, bursting from its gun and grills.  It’s beautifully drawn.

What I felt was lacking from this story, though, were the defined characters of Duel of the Daleks.  Even the Emperor in this strip merely spouts a few lines of dialogue.  The Dalek taskforce sent to the centre of the planet are characterless.  Even the remaining survivor isn’t given the character afforded to Zeg in the last story.  It’s a shame because it take something away from the story.  Bizarrely, for Daleks, I was able to invest in the characters in Duel but here they are just a bunch of metal aliens who may as well be robots.  There is very little scheming.  When the going gets tough, the tough bugger off and blow the planet up.

Overall, though, it’s a good story which is certainly better than Power Play.  The next instalment, The Penta Ray Factor, however, looks like it may be returning to (if we consider the Daleks to be our protagonists) human ‘antagonists’ (ala Power Play).  It will be interesting to see if the story becomes as generic as Power Play did or whether it manages to continue the strong run of stories started with Duel of the Daleks.

After the lacklustre and generic Power Play, I was delighted to read the next story, Duel of the Daleks. This strip is glorious and had me laughing out loud at its eccentricity. This is the Daleks as you’ve never seen them before. This is a super-villain’s origin story told through the Daleks. The similarities between the Daleks presented here and those seen in the television series end at in the title frame. These are Daleks who are conniving, scheming, emotive and insane to a higher degree than is ever depicted on screen, particular in the later years when, with the introduction of Davros, they became little more than robots.

The story details the exploits of Zeg, a Dalek inventor who is trying to create a new, super strong, Dalek casing. An accident sees him imbued with super powers which make him indestructible, even to Dalek firepower, and he decides to challenge the Dalek Emperor for control.

Everything about this was a joy to read. Zeg is brilliant. When he receives his super powers he changes from silver and blue colurings to supervillain RED! He exclaims that he feels DYNAMIC! He is INDESTRUCTIBLE! He brazenly challenges the Emperor and proceeds to duel him to the death. If you don’t want to know Zeg’s fate, look away now – sadly, he fails in his attempts of conquest and is outwitted by the Emperor Dalek’s superior intelligence.

The Emperor Dalek is equally brilliant. At the beginning of the story he is explaining to the Daleks why they haven’t conquered the universe yet. It’s a gloriously prosaic scene as if the Daleks are a run of the mill business which hasn’t met its quota or something.

When Zeg challenges him, he asks the Brain Computer, what they should do. He realises that although Zeg may be stronger, he is the more intelligent and lays a series of traps for Zeg in the Skarosian wilderness. The best of these is a fake Emperor which Zeg exterminates and then, on examination realises isn’t the real Emperor but a copy made of, wait for it…INFLATABLE PLASTIC. Yes, I know! The Emperor, somehow or other, manages to make a life-size inflatable replica of himself. It’s just a shame the story didn’t give us a frame showing the Emperor blowing himself up… I just wonder if the Emperor has a collection of these inflatables stuffed in a cupboard somewhere and whether he plans to start selling merchandise of himself to his Dalek minions.

Zeg is finally defeated by the Emperor by LIQUID AIR which freezes Zeg and causes him to explode! The Emperor is victorious but vows to use Zeg’s research to find a more reasonable way of the Daleks becoming as indestructible as he was without tipping into absolute insanity.

This is the best instalment of the Daleks comic strip so far simply because it is so hilarious. The artwork is rapidly improving too and I adore the Emperor Dalek and his huge golden globe head and in this story we get a much better look at him from all angles than we had done previously. Zeg is drawn well too and, when he turns red, he contrasts nicely with the ordinary Daleks. Another character introduced in this story is the Black Dalek (or the DREADED Black Dalek as he’s described in the story) who is clearly the court executioner. He has a marvellous line in trash-talk when the Emperor commands him to destroy Zeg before submitting to the duel suggested by the Brain Computer. It’s this highly emotive aspect to this version of the Daleks which makes them so entertaining. One of the problems I’ve always had with the Daleks is I find them terribly boring as an adversary because they are so monotonous (in both speech and ambition). In the comic strip I don’t have to listen to their voices and, to be frank, there’s no way you can imagine David Graham or Roy Skelton, Michael Wisher or Nicholas Briggs delivering this script with any semblance of believability (but I do now want an audio adaptation of this comic strip from Big Finish just to hear what Briggs would do with it. His insane Dalek Caan from Journey’s End probably wouldn’t be a million miles away from Zeg’s supervillain rantings).

The next story, The Amaryll Challenge sees the Dalek’s finally launching into space in their familiar saucers for an encounter with, if I remember correctly, some rather unusual foes…

The Daleks move one step closer to universal domination in this second TV21 comic strip. A slave ship arrives on Skaro and, through various double dealings and Dalek machinations, some slaves are freed and the Daleks learn the secrets of space travel.This strip feels even more ‘sixties’ than the previous one. The slaves are humanoid and their captors are purple with weird glasses. The two ‘lead’ slaves are Sala (blond and pretty) and Astolith (a chisel-jawed matinee idol). There is also a bald, grovelling slave, Sala’s uncle, who betrays the slaves to their captors and ends up dead for his troubles.

Nothing about this strip feels new. It reminded me in some way of the stageplay (adapted for audio by Big Finish) The Curse of the Daleks. It’s very much of its time. Lead characters were white and blond and handsome, traitorous characters were short and fat and bald, aliens were odd colours. The best thing about this script are the Daleks. They are at their scheming best here – manipulating both Sala and her captors for their own ends.

The artwork begins to improve throughout this strip as well, which makes it a lot easier on the eye. Other than that, though, it’s a fairly light script. Bearing in mind it is over twice as long as Genesis of Evil, not a lot actually happens. The slave ship arrives. The Daleks trick Sala. The slave ship is captured. Sala and Astolith get back on board. I think some of the story loses focus with effectively having two groups of villains, the Daleks and the slave masters. The slave masters can never hope to be as interesting as the Daleks and it probably would have been a more effective story if this had just been a story about the Daleks vs either the slave masters (without any slaves) or the slaves (without any captors).A decidedly underwhelming instalment but there’s everything to look forward to in the next episode, Duel of the Daleks, as it introduces Zeg the Dalek – yes, the first Dalek with a proper name! And a proper, spacey-sounding one at that.

Genesis of Evil comprises the first 3 instalments of the TV21 Dalek comic strip.  I’ve read this comic strip a couple of times before and have never been a massive fan.  The Daleks are probably my least favourite ‘monster’ from Doctor Who.  I am never excited about their return to television and am certainly never excited when they crop up in yet another Big Finish audio.  Particularly on audio, I find their voices incredibly difficult to stay focussed on.  This means scenes featuring only Daleks tend to lead me to lose interest and therefore miss salient plot points.  I do enjoy most of the television stories featuring them, but my favourites are probably those which do something a little different with them, or have them in the background – Revelation of the Daleks, The Chase (just because it’s so ridiculous), Asylum of the Daleks.

The main issue I have with this comic strip though, at least for these early instalments, is the artwork.  It’s horrible.  It’s really hard to make out what is happening in the pictures and just seems terribly messy.  It doesn’t help either that occasionally it is difficult to work out which order the frames are supposed to be read in.

The story itself is quite an interesting take on the creation of the Daleks.  The scientist Yarvelling and War Minister Zolfian survive a horrendous accident involving a neutron bomb which wipes out life on Skaro with only a few mutated Daleks left.  They manage to put themselves into the war machines Yarvelling had invented before the accident.  Zolfian and Yarvelling die from radiation sickness but not before aiding the mutated survivors to build more Dalek machines, including a very impressive gold Emperor.

What I do remember about this strip is that the Daleks are far more interesting as they are much more conniving and scheming than they have been on television.  Indeed, Big Finish, certainly in the early days, seem to have deliberately veered closer to this version of the Daleks as they are far more interesting to write for dialogue wise.  The whole Dalek Empire series seems much more in the spirit of these TV21 strips than it does the original TV series (which I believe was partly the intention).

Reconciling Genesis of Evil’s account of Dalek creation with either The Daleks or Genesis of the Daleks is a tricky matter, although Lance Parkin and Lars Pearson seem to have managed it in A History’s third edition and I’ll comment on how these versions of Dalek history can match up, later.

The Daleks, in humanoid form, are shown as short blue men with rather large, Mekon-like, heads.  The Skarosian landscape is one of craggy outcrops and odd colours, both before and after the atomic devastation.  The Dalek machines themselves are similar to their TV counterparts but seem shorter and more compact (and certainly a far cry from the Paradigm Daleks!).  And of course we also have the gold Emperor with his enormous globe of a head, extra headlights and shiny gold colour scheme (there is a hilarious frame where he decides he needs better ‘armour’ and details the ingredients as including the sap of a flower!).

The strip ends with the Emperor deciding they need slaves because (apparently) Daleks are all-powerful but can’t actually do any manual work for themselves.  It’ll be interesting to see how this changes in later stories as I’m not sure it’s a conceit which can be sustained for very long without starting to seem a bit ridiculous.

The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances are two episodes which have become iconic. It’s the first writing credit for Steven Moffat on the TV series. It’s the first appearance of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness. It features the ‘the Empty Child’ and the ‘gas mask zombies’ who have remained a striking, recognisable image for even casual viewers of the series.

It’s also a story which, typical of me, I was underwhelmed by on broadcast. I don’t think I’ve watched it since. Series 1, as a whole, was enjoyable at the time – not least because of it being brand new Doctor Who after the long years in the wilderness – but was, as a series, utterly eclipsed by what came next and, in my mind, wasn’t an era I was desperate to revisit.

The beauty of Doctor Who though (and something I really think the more rabid, kneejerk denizens of fandom forget (or wilfully ignore)) is that it is eminently rewatchable and more often than not, as this marathon has proved time and time again, when I revisit a story which underwhelmed me on broadcast, I find I enjoy and appreciate it much, much more.

Already immersed in World War Two what with The Churchill Years and particularly, my last entry on the Torchwood episode, Captain Jack Harkness, and previous to that Victory of the Daleks (or at least the first half of it) the story immediately struck a different chord. The way that war-torn London is depicted is immediately on a much larger scale than those previous stories. Torchwood was restricted to period costumes and set dressing in a dance hall and Victory of the Daleks spent its budget on a new paradigm of Daleks.

The Empty Child has entire sequences of Rose hanging from a barrage balloon whilst planes zoom around her and explosions rock the ground and sky. An invisible spaceship is tethered to Big Ben and plays Glenn Miller. There are numerous locations: a family home complete with Anderson shelter; a ‘deserted’ hospital; a crash site surrounded by barbed wire and armed soldiers. Everything is presented in glorious period detail and the atmosphere of doom and desperation pervades the story, making the climactic scenes all the more joyous.

Key also to the story’s success is Florence Hoath as Nancy. She is the entire heart of the story; the secret key to everything that is happening. As I understand it, Hoath has since retired from acting, which is a shame, as she is a powerhouse in this story showing steel and vulnerability in equal measure. She would have made a superb companion. Rose, in contrast, doesn’t actually get much to do aside from flirt with Captain Jack. Her main function seems to be to aggravate the Doctor by commenting on Jack’s more appealing sci-fi credentials. I’m not a huge fan of Rose but it does seem that Moffat is happier writing for Nancy’s pseudo-companion and of establishing Jack’s ‘loveable rogue’ credentials before he, himself, does join the TARDIS crew.

I’m never going to be a massive fan of the 9th Doctor either but this is definitely one of Eccleston’s better stories. Unsurprisingly, his scenes with Nancy are the best, particularly the scene where he appears at the dinner table with the children. The way they interact at a level of almost equals is fascinating. The Doctor knows less than Nancy about the situation so respects her advice and intel. He also simply accepts the way she has to live without judgement. There has been much said about how the Doctor is Series 1 is a facilitator, often taking a back seat to other characters solving the dilemma. It was an aspect I found frustrating. In this story, however, it works better than in others because whilst Nancy is the key to solution, the Doctor isn’t completely passive in the resolution.

The macguffin of the nanobots causing the gas mask ‘infection’ is a fun idea which allows for an ending that is slightly unusual in Doctor Who and earns the Doctor’s unbridled joy in the climactic scenes (as well as earning Richard Wilson’s gag about Mrs Harcourt’s extra leg (which itself seems to riff on Moffat’s other ‘too many legs’ joke in Coupling)).

The one aspect of the story which I’m not sure is warranted or needed is the whole ‘Doctor Dances’ theme. As a metaphor for ‘sex’, it seems a little on the nose when Rose invites the Doctor to ‘dance’. As a way of contrasting the Doctor with Jack, I’m not sure it is needed as the ‘sci-fi’ credentials schtick is more than enough ( especially the amusing sonic screwdriver scene). I know the modern series has been more in touch with the Doctor’s sexuality than the classic series ever was, but having an episode with a title that effectively means ‘The Doctor has sex’ seems a bit too much.

But it’s a minor niggle with a story packed with great performances, a tangible atmosphere deriving from excellent period detail and some exciting and chilling set pieces.

Madame de Pompadour is a historical figure I think I may have heard of in passing but really knew next to nothing about before this story aired.  Sophia Myles plays her beautifully and we are given enough snippets of information about her real life to gain enough background without feeling like we’re in the middle of a historical documentary.  The slightly more salacious aspects of her life (she was the King’s mistress after all) are subtly alluded to but not dwelt upon.  Her relationship with the Doctor is one of almost equals, highlighted by the mindreading scene.  It is disappointing that her relationship with King Louis XV is rather cursory on screen (not aided by a slightly wooden performance from Ben Turner) and the viewer gets the impression that, at least from when Reinette is grown up, her only romantic attachment is to the Doctor regardless of the years spent with her husband or her King.  This seems a little conceited of the series.

Also, I find the Doctor to be a little too ‘much’ in this story.  I like David Tennant’s Doctor but Series 2 was when the 10th Doctor and Rose began to become too cliquey and annoying when in each other’s company – they gang up on Mickey, they laugh at their own in-jokes.  At the time there was speculation it was set up for the spectacular fall that was coming for them at the end of the series and, to an extent, it is, but taken stories in isolation as I am, it can be a bit grating.  Rose, in this story, isn’t too bad mainly because she has Mickey to interact with more than the Doctor but the Doctor himself is quite arrogant for much of the tale.   I love the scene where he bursts through the mirror astride Arthur the Horse but the wink to Reinette, whilst funny the first time, begins to grate on repeated viewings.  Now I know that ‘repeated viewings’ isn’t really what the production team have on their minds when making the stories and its probably unfair to criticise an aspect of production which only begins to annoy after a third or fourth watch but there are plenty of stories which are a pleasure to watch time and again and if the central character’s behaviour is something which, on repeated viewings, is annoying, then surely that is a bit of a problem.

The Doctor’s stupidity at the end of the story is also irritating as it is merely a device to ensure that his and Reinette’s love story has a tragic end.  The Doctor knows full well that time moves differently on the 18th Century side of the windows than the 51st century side and yet he whizzes through for no real apparent reason and then comes back and finds that times has passed and Reinette is dead.  I just find this part frustrating as it seems to rely on the Doctor being foolish to maintain an emotional ending (and to ensure ‘real history’ is not derailed by having Reinette travel with the Doctor to a parallel Earth to fight the Cybermen).

This frustration was also felt when the whole adventure seemed to be avoiding explaining itself.  I have vivid memories of watching this on first airing and spending the last ten minutes or so becoming increasingly worried that we weren’t actually going to get a reason for why the Clockwork Robots were after Madame de Pompadour.  The final tiny reveal was one of the most satisfying endings Doctor Who has given me for a long while and something which I didn’t see coming.

Another satisfying aspect are the Clockwork Robots.  Whilst the 18th Century costuming is rather quickly brushed aside as some sort of ‘blending in’ protocol, it doesn’t detract from the fact they are a very creepy creation.  The clockwork inside is beautifully realised and contrasts nicely with the horrific masks covering it.

Rose and Mickey don’t get an awful lot to do but it’s quite a nice relationship on display between them (particularly as at the close of School Reunion, Rose seemed less than impressed that Mickey was stepping on board.  It’s a shame, in a way, that this is clearly scripted as Mickey’s first trip in the TARDIS as it would have made more sense for Rose’s sudden change in attitude to have happened during a couple of off-screen adventures).  I particularly like Rose’s ‘now you’re getting it’ comment when Mickey realises that a companion’s job is to ignore the Doctor’s instructions and her disdain for the apparently drunk Doctor (a scene which I’m not sure really works for Tennant, but does for Noel Clarke and Billie Piper).  In fact, bearing in mind she is sidelined in favour of Reinette, I think this is one of the better stories for Rose as a character, at least in the way she is presented and the dialogue she is given.

The rest of the guest cast is limited with only Ben Turner’s aforementioned lacklustre performance as King Louis and Angel Coulby (pre-Merlin) in a brief cameo as Reinette’s friend.  Oh, and Arthur the Horse of course (which does give Rose’s another good line about not keeping the horse).

Aside from the irritating Doctor aspect (which is probably more of RTD’s influence than Moffat), Moffat’s script it a good one and much better, I think, than The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances which, whilst everyone raved about during Series 1, I was a little underwhelmed by.  The Girl in the Fireplace, and latterly Blink, were the two scripts that meant I was excited when it became clear Moffat was in line to take over from RTD.

The Girl in the Fireplace is a fun story with good monsters, a good guest character and a good central conceit.  It’s only marred by an increasingly irritating and arrogant Doctor but is still a sumptuously realised production with well-chosen locations and excellent costumes.

It’s been a long time since I read a Torchwood novel and, in fact, I’ve only read one – Another Life. Border Princes was part of the same original release of three novels including Another Life and a third one, Slow Decay.

Set in the early days of Torchwood, the full team are present but confusingly, this team includes an agent called James.

Everyone seems extremely settled with James as a team member – Gwen is even having an affair with him. James is not written as a new member but as someone with history within the group. He has clearly defined character traits, such as referring to everything by catchphrases and idioms – Captain Analogy as they call him. As the story progresses, the rest of the team start to notice anomalies involving James such as superheroic strength and, as a reader who knows the Torchwood team, I was constantly looking for clues that everything wasn’t quite right. What’s strange is that, I was expecting those hints to appear long before they eventually do in the story. For a good half of the book, James is written as a long-standing member of the team with the hints of strangeness being about his abilities which, for the team who think they ‘know’ him also come across as strange. It is written in the same way Owen or Tosh suddenly exhibiting ‘powers’ would be written. It’s all rather discombobulating – but engaging at the same time.

Unfortunately, it is also highly reminiscent of the TV episode Adam, which was broadcast the year after this book was published. That, likewise, had a team member suddenly appear in the base and have everyone behave as if they had always been there. The parallels are strong – and it seems odd the book was commissioned so close to the TV episode so a lack of communication seems to have occurred between the book and TV production teams.

One thing I found a little strange about this book is that there are a number of different situations that Torchwood seem to be dealing with. The novel opens with them tackling the Amok. A strange man called Mr Dine is in Cardiff eating Indian food and protecting someone or something. A double glazing salesman is using alien technology to manipulate people into buying windows they don’t need and an old man has a killer robot in his shed. Only Mr Dine eventually ties into the main plot revolving around James – and even that, as a plot, is hidden in the background behind the double glazing salesman, Amok and robot storylines which dominate the first half of the book. It’s a little odd as both those plots just sort of stop partway through when the focus shifts on to James. I suppose it is how James behaves in those situations – it is where he shows his superpowers that begin to make the team suspicious – that is the reason for their presence but they just seemed to be resolved so suddenly (particularly the double glazing salesman) that I wondered why had invested any time in them. There’s also a really odd bit where the team gets separated across time which, again, doesn’t really go anywhere in terms of the main plot and gets resolved rather cursorily.

Consequently, there are too many disparate parts to this story for it to feel ‘whole’. The revelation that James is, basically, royalty from another world that’s fallen through the Rift isn’t massively original and, for me ended what had been a quite enjoyable book on a bit of a damp squib.

That said, the multitude of threats does keep the book pacey and engaging – it’s just a shame they don’t really tie into each other in the way I would have expected them too.

The author is Dan Abnett, more familiar to me as the writer behind some classic DWM comic strips such as The Mark of Mandragora and the Sontaran origin story, Pureblood. His handling of the regular Torchwood team is excellent, especially Gwen. James is immediately likeable and integral to the team which is a clever piece of writing on his part. I almost began to feel like I, myself, had forgotten that James had been in the TV series as he seems to fit so well into the dynamics already present, particularly in the early days of the show when Ianto was very much the ‘tea boy’ stuck back and base, Owen had the murky ethics and Gwen was trying to figure out how to deal with this strange new world she had been thrown into. With Jack deep into his enigmatic schtick its possible only Tosh who doesn’t really come to the fore and feels a little bit surplus to requirements.

There is some effective imagery throughout the book which is wriiten evocatively so, whilst I may have ended up a little unsatisfied with how the plot developed, I was always entertained. There is a particularly effective ‘battle with an alien robot’ sequence which can be tricky to write in prose.

A fun, pacey read.

Unlike the other ‘official’ TV spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood has spawned quite a lengthy range of novels. Another Life by Peter Angehelides is, arguably, the first; although the initial three novels were actually released at the same time.

It’s been a long time since I actually sat down and watched any Torchwood. In fact, I don’t think I’ve watched an episode since the rather disappointing Miracle Day series. Reading a novel featuring the original team of Jack, Gwen, Owen, Tosh and Ianto, though, brought the memories flooding back and I was immediately back in the Torchwood hub.

Pleasingly, this novel seems to sidestep, somewhat, the first series of Torchwood’s habit of throwing in sex and swearing to make it seem adult. There is more swearing, there is definitely more gore and there is a smattering of sex, but it all seems natural within the context of the plot and characters.
The story sees Cardiff Bay flooded (with a series of well-realised images) and a series of unexplained, savage murders. How these are tied together isn’t the most original of ideas, but it is a satisfying resolution and is well told throughout.

One aspect of the plot which is more or less abandoned half way through is the online virtual reality game being played by Owen. Much is made of Tosh improving the system and Owen using it to track down an old flame, Megan, but then it is forgotten about until the climactic scenes where it is suddenly brought back into play to trick the villain. There was a point in the story where I wondered whether the author had deliberately abandoned the whole idea because it has served its purpose of bringing Owen and Megan together. There is, of course, the parallel with the alien controlling humans by possessing their bodies in a similar way to the players of the game taking on avatars, but I didn’t feel like the two parts of the story gelled as well as they could. I also felt the whole game concept seemed a bit dated (although I had just watched an episode of Grimm from Season 2 with a very similar idea) and Owen was the last person of that team I would expect to be the ‘geek’ spending hours playing online (that’s more a Ianto or even Tosh kind of thing).

The inclusion of Megan as a potential new recruit from Torchwood ends, inevitably, with her death. As a way of developing Owen as a character it was interesting, but it was a shame that Megan’s fate was fairly obvious in the same way ‘surrogate’ companions in Doctor Who novels and audios are rarely to have a happy ending just because otherwise, their presence raises awkward questions for why they don’t appear or get referenced in the TV series (like how Erimem is absent from the roll call of companions in Resurrection of the Daleks).

All of the regulars are written well, although Tosh and Ianto don’t get a huge amount to do. There is a focus on the early relationship between Gwen and Jack and her difficulty with reconciling her new life at Torchwood with her old life with Rhys. It will be interesting to see how this changes in later novels when they start to reflect the development of the characters through Series 2. There are some nice hints to TV continuity as well such as a subtle reference to what Ianto has hidden in the basement.

All in all, this was an enjoyable read and a good start for the Torchwood novels. I look forward to reading more of them and it has actually made me eager to rewatch the TV series and become reacquainted with these characters.

The 1st Doctor TV Comic strips are rather endearing, both in storyline, characterisation and artwork but the 2nd Doctor ones are utterly atrocious.  Egyptian Escapade is, unfortunately, not an exception to the rule.

Firstly, the artwork is awful.  It’s scratchy and indistinct and no pleasure to look at.  Secondly, the storylines have clearly been written by someone who might have overhead something about Doctor Who once, in a pub, when they’d had a few pints – something about a bloke in a police box with a couple of kids travelling through time?  Finally, the Doctor is written as a completely different character to that seen on TV.  What kids of the day thought about this we might never know, but surely they were more discerning and critical than this rubbish would suggest.

Egyptian Escapade is a particularly egregious example of TV Comic’s failings with the 2nd Doctor.  The story sees the TARDIS pitch up in the middle of a fracas between British troops and Arabs loyal to their leader Mahadi.  The TARDIS is captured by the Arabs (with the Doctor, John and Gillian still inside) and put in Mahadi’s treasure cave.  Leaving his companions in the TARDIS, the Doctor heads off, disguised as an Arab, to warn the British of an imminent attack by the Arabs.  This done, he pretends to perform magic, scares off the Arabs and heads back to the TARDIS which is, fortunately, the only bit of treasure the Arabs haven’t taken with them when fleeing!

Aside from a penchant for dressing up (as an frolicking, camp Arab) this 2nd Doctor is nothing like the TV version.  The most blatant difference is that, on two separate occasions, the Doctor explicitly identifies himself as British (worrying what the Arabs will do to himself, John and Gillian if they find them).  But it also his attitude to events, siding with the British without even a second thought for right or wrong in the situation he finds himself in.  To be fair, the British are only ever seen to be playing cricket (which, obviously is all they ever did in occupying countries full of savage, ignorant foreigners) and the Arabs are only ever seen attacking, or planning attacks, but this is, of course, a very simplistic and Empirical view of British-World relations.  But then, to a large extent, this sort of racism was still very much alive and normalised during the 1960s.

The Doctor’s use of a utility belt and a smoke and light show to scare off the Arabs at first seems a little bit ‘Batman’ but actually, if you consider the 3rd Doctor’s tricks to scare of Irongron and his men in The Time Warrior, it doesn’t actually seem quite as out of place.

John and Gillian are completely useless.  As I mentioned in my review of Pursued by the Trods, John and Gillian were often left behind in the TARDIS whilst the Doctor went off to have an adventure.  This is exactly what happens here.  I don’t think the two children are even named and have hardly any dialogue, even in the frames where they do appear.  Their characters may have been twee and jolly-hockey-sticks-esque in their 1st Doctor days, but at least they did something and had some character, however simplistic.  Here, they may as well have stopped including them as they contribute absolutely nothing to the story and the Doctor, save for one concern about what the Arabs might do to them if captured, doesn’t ever seem particularly worried about them – certainly, on his return to the TARDIS at the close of the story, he is evidently more delighted at the fact the TARDIS is safe and sound than the fate of his grandchildren inside (and note, the TARDIS is still on its side, so John and Gillian are stuck inside a machine where the walls are the floor and they probably can’t actually do anything except sit tight till the Doctor deigns to return!)

Historically, this is quite interesting because, like with the Doctor Who Adventure strips I’ve often reviewed, we have the Doctor visiting a less well known period of history.  Mahadi is a real historical figure, properly Muhammed Ahmad, an Sudanese Arab who revolted against Egyptian rule of Sudan.  The British troops became involved as the Egyptian government was largely controlled by the British.  The events depicted in the comic strip are only vaguely based on real events, but ultimately the various skirmished in real history did build up to the Battle of Khartoum in 1898.  The only named British character is General Harvey, although he seems to be fictitious.  The rest of British troops aren’t even given believable dialogue.  When the TARDIS materialises in front of them, one reacts as if he’s a peasant from the Middle Ages muttering about wizardry and magic, whilst another declares it has come from space (I’m not sure the Victorians thought much about ‘space’ – most of their focus on other worlds came from the spiritual).

A terrible story, appallingly written, badly characterised and with horrendous artwork this is a low point for the early comic strips.

Doctor Who, John and Gillian find they are being pursued by another time and space machine. Doctor Who surmises that it can only be the…Trods! The TARDIS materialises in Stone Age Britain in, according to their handy year-o-meter, 500,000 BC. The trio are keen to experience whatever the Stone Age has to offer seasoned time travelling tourists but are confronted by a herd of mammoths. Fortunately, Doctor Who’s recorder/flute playing makes the mammoths happy. Doctor Who gets captured by the Trods but before they can atomise him, he plays his recorder/flute and the mammoths crash into the Trods’ ship and rescue him. He then uses the mammoths to destroy the Trods’ static electricity supply and they are rendered powerless. Doctor Who, John and Gillian head off for their tour of Stone Age Britain with no Trod pursuers to worry about.

Eek! This TV Comic strip is everything that was wrong with Doctor Who spin off material in the 1960s. It bears only the slightest resemblance to what was being broadcast on television and is clearly pitched below the intelligence level of the average 6 year old.

The Trods are a blatant rip-off of the ‘far-too-expensive’ Daleks: they run on static electricity and have a time/space machine which they are using to pursue Doctor Who. They speak in a strange manner; their last word is apparently elongated letter by letter with the speech bubbles being written l-i-k-e-t-h-i-s. Their plan is ludicrous and the way they plan to dispose of their greatest enemy owes far more to the 60s Batman series than anything broadcast on BBC1 under the title of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who’s only character quirk is his recorder playing which, ridiculously, tames and summons wild mammoths. (As a former flute player, I have always balked at the supposedly interchangeable terms of recorder and flute…the Second Doctor plays a recorder NOT a flute).

John and Gillian are odd characters who were introduced in the very first Doctor Who comic strip in TV Comic, The Klepton Parasites, originally appearing as Doctor Who’s grandchildren. When William Hartnell was replaced by Patrick Troughton on television, and the Second Doctor began to appear in TV Comic, they remained but oddly, their relationship no longer seems to be familial as they only ever refer to the character as Doctor or Doctor Who rather than grandfather. In this strip, as in many others, they do absolutely nothing except follow Doctor Who around. Indeed, in many other strips they get told to stay in the TARDIS – at least here they get to tour Stone Age Britain.

Not great.

A visit to TV Comic land sees us join the company of Doctor Who and his two grandchildren, John and Gillian.

The Challenge of the Piper is wonderful – if completely at odds with the Doctor Who we know and love from television.

The story opens with the familiar tale of the Pied Piper in Hamelin (which I have used to date this story, as the Doctor merely surmises they are in the Middle Ages). The children of Hamelin are led away by the Piper after the townsfolk refuse to pay him the amount agreed for ridding the town of rats. The children are taken to a magical land reminiscent of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and soon after the TARDIS arrives in the Piper’s kingdom.
The children have tired of the unending supply of sweets and want to return home but the Piper won’t release them. The Doctor, John and Gillian travel to the Piper’s castle past a series of obstacles. The Piper sets the Doctor a series of challenges before he will agree to return the children to their parents. The Doctor, of course, succeeds and the children return to Hamelin. The Doctor retrieves the Piper’s money from the mayor but when he tries to give it to the Piper the magical kingdom below the hill has gone and only the TARDIS remains.

This adventure is a fantasy. This is the sort of story that Steven Moffat sailed dangerously close to, and now RTD has dived into more consistently (and consequently annoyed many fans).   I’m not one of those fans. I’ve always been of the opinion that Doctor Who is, if a genre can even be assigned to it, ‘science fantasy’ not ‘science fiction’. A central conceit of a box bigger inside than out, piloted around time and space by a near-immortal alien with two hearts isn’t an extrapolation of current science. It’s magic. Pure and simple. However the series likes to explain away various ‘magical’ aspects, the bottom line is that the series is a fantasy with science fiction trappings.

The Challenge of the Piper dispenses with any scientific pretence. The Doctor battles a dragon with a fire extinguisher; the Piper has the power to turn himself invisible, fly and (as in the original tale) play music with magical powers; the Piper’s realm is filled with lollipop trees, mysterious marshes and a dark spooky castle. For these reasons, I love it! This is Doctor Who as a fairytale. I’ve always loved the fact that Doctor Who is one of very few programmes that can be any genre it likes – horror, fantasy, romance, historical, comedy. Although the TV series has to understandably, always stay just on the right side of its science fiction/fantasy label, the spin offs have usually taken the opportunity to jump feet first into the extremes. Whether that be the novels which toyed with horror (Rags and Combat Rock) or cartoons (The Crooked World); the audios which have ventured into musicals (Doctor Who and the Pirates), broad comedy (The One Doctor) and interactive storytelling (Flip Flop); or the comics with wordless strips (Onomatopeia) and cross-overs (the IDW comic featuring the world of Star Trek: The Next Generation and featuring a Borg/Cyberman alliance!).

All these examples feel the need, again understandably, to give a narrative justification for the genre or storytelling device. TV Comic, only ever having a tenuous grip on its parent show, never feels that need. The dragon is a dragon, the Piper is a magician.

Interestingly, though, the Doctor only uses real life/scientific gadgets to solve the many puzzles he is presented with – a fire extinguisher, a radar, a sonar device, a parachute and a tape recorder. It is a slightly bizarre juxtaposition with the outright fantasy of the story’s setting, but feels oddly in keeping with the Doctor as we know and love him from the TV series.

John and Gillian contribute nothing to the story. They don’t even know the story of the Pied Piper, apparently, making me wonder if the writer of this comic strip assumed, as the Doctor’s grandchildren, that they weren’t from Earth, even though practically every other comic strip they appear in suggests that they are – even down to Gillian’s reference to pop singers in this very story. The two children spend the entire story trotting along behind the Doctor, literally for most of the story. There is one wonderful frame where the Doctor has jumped out of a turret after the Piper and the children’s reactions are so underwhelming it just made me laugh.

Historically, this story is clearly based on the fairy tale and, if I’m not mistaken, a 1933 cartoon version of the Pied Piper made by Disney as part of their Silly Symphonies series, which features a magical land not dissimilar to the one depicted here. Certainly there is no indication that the Doctor is visiting a historical period experiencing one of the possible explanations for the tale – that the Piper is a representation of Death and that the children of Hamelin all died! The story does, however, keep the place names intact – Hamelin, the river Weser, where the rats drown, and Koppelberg Hill where the Piper’s magical kingdom is hidden.

It was refreshing to read such as fun story as this.

The 4th Doctor
Leela
Set between The Talons of Weng-Chiang and Horror of Fang Rock
Written by Jim Mortimore

It was a month or so since I actually finished this book before sitting down to write the review.  Bearing in mind this book’s unusual structure that was probably a bit of a mistake – but I decided to have a decent stab at it, all the same.

The story sees the Doctor and Leela aiding Horace Stockwood, an archaeologist, to solve the mystery of moving statues on Easter Island as well as absolving his guilt for leaving his friend to die.  What they discover is an alien plot to seed the universe with their DNA.

Looking back, the plot of Eye of Heaven isn’t actually very complicated.  What makes this book stand out is the unusual structure.  Each chapter jumps back and forwards in time showing us events in England, on Easter Island and at sea.  It’s a little reminiscent of the film Memento with the reader slowly piecing events together and understanding the cause and effect of character’s actions.

The idea of unnamed aliens seeding their DNA into the islanders of Easter Island – or as it should be known, Rapa Nui – is a bit confusing; as is how the moai statues actually move around.  But I didn’t feel like I was being short-changed and just that maybe I needed to be paying more attention to pick up all the clues.

The main strength of this story, though, is the characterisation – particularly of Leela.  Jim Mortimore writes her perfectly.  Every line of dialogue and every internal thought rings true.  With Louise Jameson’s proliferation of appearances in Big Finish productions, it was also incredibly easy to hear her ‘performing’ the part.  The 4th Doctor is also well written with Mortimore nailing Tom Baker’s Season 14/15 stylings.

The guest cast are generally well formed although I did get a bit confused between a few of the characters particularly as the chapters jumped around and I lost track of who was allied with who.  The ‘villain’ of the piece, Jennifer Richards, didn’t really make an impact and I think her characterisation was one of the few things which suffered at the hands of the unusual structure.

I chose this novel as an epilogue to my 19th Century marathon and it’s 19th century setting is well-realised through both the description of England and of the characters and their sensibilities (although this was where Jennifer Richards didn’t quite work for me as I found her characterisation to be a little too modern).

It’s intriguing to know that Mortimore planned a linked story to this novel which, ultimately, never saw the light of day.  I wonder how this would have developed the story from Eye of Heaven.

I would recommend Eye of Heaven but with a health warning.  It’s not an easy book to read and you really have to pay attention, but the characterisation is so expertly done it’s well worth the price of admission.

On my last re-listen to this story, I started listening to it on October 1st 2020. October 4th 2020 was the 90th anniversary of the R101 airship disaster as depicted in the story (albeit with a fair number of fictional embellishments and alterations). I’m not aware of experiencing any of the historical stories so close to the anniversary of the events depicted and, having enjoyed this story immensely – even on this, probably about the third or fourth time round – the anniversarial aspect adds a new dimension.

Listening to Storm Warning again and I was transported back to 2001. It was a heady time to be a fan of Doctor Who and, especially, of Big Finish. After a couple of years of stories featuring rotating incarnations of the 5th, 6th and 7th Doctors alongside a bunch of Bernice Summerfield audios, we suddenly had Paul McGann on board. Paul McGann. The ‘current’ Doctor. The Doctor who, up to that point, was sometimes referred to as the George Lazenby of Doctors – only having one TV outing which many saw as a failure due to it not spawning the hoped-for series (I wasn’t one of those – I loved the Movie at the time and still love it now).

And here was the 8th Doctor getting a whole four more stories (with probably more beyond that). I can distinctly remember listening to the story for the first time on the stereo in my bedroom having purchased it at a signing event at Tenth Planet involving India Fisher, Helen Goldwyn and Alan Barnes.

I spent a lot of my early twenties at Tenth Planet with my friends. Travelling up to London on the train and taking the Jubilee Line to stand in line in a shopping centre in Barking on Saturday mornings was how we hung out. A trip to the Wimpy across the road for food afterwards was a common ritual. We made friends with the owners of the shop. We would see the same fan faces each time and even made a few new friends.

India herself was already familiar to us having attended a signing for her first Big Finish appearance in Winter for the Adept. Alan Barnes had just been appointed editor of DWM. Helen Goldwyn had already been in quite a few stories and was also a familiar face at the signings. It was a friendly, fun atmosphere.

In a previous life I wrote up these little misadventures and published them on the net. I managed to find what I said about this signing and it seems that, after attending the signing we listened to the first two episode together (which wasn’t something we often did – audio listening isn’t the easiest of communal experiences unless you’re sitting in a car, I find). It also seems like we didn’t actually have the covers for the CD at this point as they had been sent by Tenth Planet to be signed by Paul McGann himself.

But what I distinctly remember is that opening sequence of the 8th Doctor in the TARDIS by himself. On that first listen is was both thrilling and slightly strange listening to McGann recreate his Doctor. I recall finding the Doctor talking to himself for a good few minutes as awkward and clunky.

This time round, I really didn’t feel that at all. I thought the opening monologue actually worked. Maybe its the 11 extra years of audio listening that’s meant I’ve become more accustomed to different styles of presenting story on audio that a bit of a character talking to themselves doesn’t jar as much as it seemed to back then. Maybe I was just enjoying the wave of nostalgia.

But, even allowing for a bit of clunkiness in this scene, the story soon rips along to the Doctor being aboard the R101 and meeting the best thing about this whole story – India Fisher’s Charlotte Pollard.

The rapport between McGann and Fisher is instant and the Doctor and Charley feel like best friends after about three lines of dialogue. Barnes’ script for the two characters is absolutely spot on. The 8th Doctor is born anew in this story. It takes the TV Movie depiction and adds new layers to him which feel natural and atuned to McGann’s performance. All the ‘played tiddlywinks with the Tzarina’ and breathless excitement is perfect and the steel he later shows when confronted by various adversaries is 100% the Doctor.

Charley is perfect companion material. Awe and wonder, no nonsense around fools, determination and an adventurous spirit are all brought to scintillating life by Fisher. I love every scene she is in and when it is with McGann it’s a positive joy to listen to. More than once I found myself smiling as the audio played, wallowing in the dynamic between them.

The rest of the cast more than match the two leads. Principal guest star, Gareth Thomas, is absolutely brilliant as Lord Tamworth. Initially painted as a gruff, aristocratic entrepreneur, he softens and grows as the story progresses and he realises his folly. His relationship with the Doctor grows and forms a mutual respect as the story progresses and his decision to join the Triskeli as a guide and adviser demonstrates a man of honour and humility which maybe wasn’t evident in the first episode but bubbled under the surface of Thomas’s performance.

Big Finish stalwarts (particularly in these early days of the company) Nicholas Pegg, Barnaby Edwards and Helen Goldwyn form the majority of the rest of the cast. Pegg is a bit of comic relief as Frayling, the designer of the R101 and Edwards chews the scenery as the villain of the piece, Rathbone. His South African accent is probably a bit broad but in audio heightened accents (yes, even slightly dodgy American ones) don’t bother me as the more distinct the voice the easier it is to follow who is who on audio. There’s nothing worse than characters sounding similar when there are no visuals to guide the listener. Helen Goldwyn is lovely as the various forms of the Triskeli trinity. She is ethereal and alien in just the right measure.

The sound design on the audio isn’t always something I comment on but something about Storm Warning really struck me and I remember it being the same on my first listens. The soundscape of the Triskelion ship makes it sound vast and cavernous and it is incredibly easy to imagine. The climactic scenes of Triskeli appearing in multitude behind the the Doctor, Frayling and Tamworth whilst they stand on a three-armed sigil is a long-lasting image I have from listening to this audio even now 11 years later. Something about the imagery in this story is very memorable and the soundscape and direction are to thank for this.

Historically, the R101 disaster did occur but this audio plays fast and loose with the facts. Mentions of the Cardington base (also featured in Zagreus) are factually correct as that is indeed where the R101 was built and launched from. But whilst the Doctor is adamant there are no survivors from the crash, there were, in fact, six people who did. None of the characters are historical figures or based on anyone.

It’s a slightly odd approach for a Doctor Who pseudo-historical, particularly one based around a specific event as, usually, Doctor Who writers delight in riffing on real people involved in real events. But I imagine that a disaster which is, just, in living memory is a sensitive topic to deal with. It’s a matter of record that families of people involved in the Titanic disaster were unhappy with various elements of the movie.

It was an absolute delight listening to this story again and I think it ranks as one of my favourite audios of all time. McGann and Fisher hit the ground running and, frankly, they don’t put a foot wrong from here until The Girl Who Never Was. They are the best Doctor/Companion pairing ‘people’ don’t know about. When Big Finish does stories as good as this, it makes me cross that there is still a group in fandom which refuse to acknowledge the audios as ‘proper’ Doctor Who. If this isn’t proper, I really don’t know what is.

The two part story comprising of Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks has something of a reputation.

With a cliffhanger spoiled by the Radio Times and a script derided and ridiculed, with it’s author, Helen Raynor, getting a disproportionate amount of vitriol directed at her online, its two episodes which many would think aren’t particularly shining examples of Doctor Who.

Me being me, of course, I rather like them and find them quite charming. Bearing in mind this is a Dalek story and Daleks are an enemy I find dull and uninspiring whenever they crop up on TV or in Big Finish audios, it’s quite an achievement for me to enjoy such as story.

But enjoy it I did. The first episode is stronger than the second but overall I think there’s lots to enjoy and entertain across both episodes – as well as, of course, some less than successful elements which is par for the course of any episode.

To begin with, 1930s New York is brought to life gloriously from the theatre to Hooverville to the Empire State Building. It just feels sumptuous and tangible. Theatre is one of my other loves and seeing backstage always thrills me. I’ve been lucky enough to appear in a small role in an amateur production of Anything Goes (way back when I was a youthful 16/17) which was performed at Wimbledon Theatre – a theatre I had visited every single year of my childhood for a trip to the pantomime. Being backstage, in dressing rooms, standing in the wings, treading the boards was absolutely one of the best things I’ve ever had the opportunity to do. So seeing backstage in Who gives me all the feels. I love the dancers and their cheeky devil costumes. Tallulah (three Ls and a H) in the contrasting angel costume is a bundle of New York Broadway energy and I could have spent so much longer in the theatre than the story eventually does. Miranda Raison brings to life a character which could have been hugely two-dimensional and annoying but has a adventurous spirit and determination that is hugely appealing.

What’s odd is that the theatre scenes in the second episode feel detached from those in the first. The empty theatre and darkened stage feel light years away from Tallulah’s number and it actually feels like a completely different setting. I’m not sure if this is intentional but it brings a disconnect to the two episodes which is strange as those scenes more or less bookend the story.

The deprivation of Hooverville provides a dynamic counterpoint to the colour and vibrancy of the theatre and as with the inhabitants of the theatre has residents who add to the believability of the setting: Solomon and Frank are great characters, fitting perfectly into the role of the Doctor’s local allies, along with the sassy Tallulah. The later destruction of Hooverville by the Daleks is a brilliant set piece, with added atmosphere by being set at night, and the Pig Men attack is suitably scary.

At the top of the Empire State Building, the third main location of the story, we find the ostensible villain of the piece, Mr Diagoras. He is an interesting character, as he is ever so slightly chewing the scenery but pulls back from being cartoonish. Helen Raynor, in the accompanying Confidential admits to making him more moustache-twirling in the initial drafts but that this was softened and with references back to the Great War (it’s shadow lingering just a little bit longer than I’d thought), Diagoras has some shades of grey. His ultimate fate is tragic rather than horrific especially as his humanity is what leads to his death. I’m not sure Eric Loren’s performance fully carries the shades off in part one and once he dons the silly Dalek Sec head all hope of subtlety goes out of the window – although, to be fair, you can see he’s trying.

And that brings us to the Daleks. Possibly my least favourite Doctor Who baddie, the Daleks in this story are, at least, interesting. However, Dalek Sec as a human/Dalek hybrid looks utterly ridiculous. It’s the sort of thing Doctor Who gets ridiculed for, even by us fans. It’s the Kandyman, the Taran Wood Beast and Erato levels of crazy. It’s what Doctor Who does and often gets away with but this time it’s just a step too far. The silly head with wiggly appendages stuck on top of a 1930s pinstripe suit and spats just doesn’t work that well. I think the worst part for me is the cyclopic eye in the centre. It’s an aspect of the modern series Dalek mutant design that’s never really worked for me, so when it’s presented as part of an already ridiculous costume, it’s just the icing on the silliness cake.

The other Daleks are pretty normal fare although I like that their cunning is slightly heightened and the oft-mentioned scene of one Dalek looking over its shoulder is fun. Their scheme is suitable insane. I find the human Daleks at the end rather silly but more because the whole stompy choreography given to them reeks of the way the Cybermen are directed in the new series and the costume and make up makes them seem too similar. There’s a part of me that feels they could have been better presented but also part of me that thinks they are unnecessary to the story – they’re an extra complication that could have been adapted to utilise the Pig Men better (a much better presented monster). The Doctor’s solution to them is a bit ridiculous too. Just because some lightning passes through him, suddenly they’ve got a bit of Time Lord in them which has the effect of making them ask why. It’s a rip-off of the climax to The Evil of the Daleks but, much as I have no problem with the series mining its past for story ideas, it doesn’t really work very well here.

To be honest I think Daleks in Manhattan (save for the slightly silly title) is better than Evolution of the Daleks. The Dalek Sec hybrid and the climax of the story are a bit of a problem and some of the vibrancy of the first episode seems to be lost. There are some superb set pieces though, such as the attack on Hooverville and the excellent guest cast of characters performed by some noteworthy actors (not least Spider-man Take Two himself, Andrew Garfield).

I particularly like Freema Agyeman as Martha in this story too. She gets a lot to do and actually, for her, Evolution of the Daleks is a strong episode particularly the way she takes command at the top of the Empire State and rigs up a defence against the approaching Pig Men. Tennant is also on good form as the Doctor with the annoying hubris of Series 2 seemingly long gone (even if it will return before his exit from the series).

Historically, we actually get some ‘educational content’ included with explanations for Hooverville and the building of the Empire State Building and the re-creation of 1930s New York is very convincing.

I really enjoyed this rewatch and even if the second part is a little anti-climactic and has some less satisfying elements, I still find it a very watchable story. I think it’s the characters that help this, particularly the Pig and the Showgirl and overall its a fun package with some choice details peppering the script.

The First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan
Set between Planet of Giants and The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Written by Simon Guerrier

Various marathoners had read and reviewed this book and intrigued me with their thoughts (although I hadn’t read any review in great detail to protect myself from spoilers).  For some reason I had come to the conclusion that his was a story with a large amount of, shall we say, fanwank.

Reviews and synopses mentioned WOTAN and the idea of a 2006 where the Doctor hadn’t defeated the supercomputer in 1966.  I envisaged a timey-wimey story with lots of references to other stories.  That wasn’t what I got.

Whilst reading the book I did find I was a little bored.  A sizeable chunk of the plot involves the TARDIS crew being captured, escaping and being captured again.  Set, as it is between Planet of Giants and The Dalek Invasion of Earth, this capture/escape structure is actually, very fitting for the era – look at the number of capture/escapes that populate the middle episodes of The Reign of Terror for example.  But to keep the reader interested in the story, this fails.In retrospect, what I’ve realised is that I love the concept of the story and its ‘version’ of time travel rules but just didn’t enjoy the execution as much as I anticipated.

As the Doctor Who Book Club podcast points out, a lot of the story is concerned with the relationship between Ian and Barbara with the Doctor very much pushed to the sidelines.  This treatment of the Doctor is also fitting with the era, but is also why I sometimes dislike Hartnell stories such as Marco Polo, where the Doctor seems to do very little, compared to the other regulars.

That said, the love story between Ian and Barbara is well told and Barbara’s grief when she believes Ian to have been shot is quite harrowing.

The time travel aspect of the story did, however, leave me scratching my head.  Initially I wasn’t too worried as I thought an explanation would be forthcoming about how there were duplicate people appearing despite no one ever having actually passed through the hoop (the time travel device extrapolated from Dalek technology, it turns out, found in a school basement, somewhere in Shoreditch…).  As the story progressed, however, it became clear an explanation wasn’t going to be forthcoming, at least not in the clarity that I would have liked.

I was also frustrated by the lack of detail afforded to the war between Britain and South Africa.  Many of the secondary characters involved in this strand are ultimately disposable and are, indeed, disposed of and this is a little frustrating.

The DWBC podcast mentions how the pace of the story improves dramatically when the TARDIS crew travel back to 1972 to stop the time travel experiments.  This section has some good reveals and provides a fairly satisfactory ending to the story.

When I read books, occasionally I will get an actor stuck in my head for a certain character – regardless of whether that fits the description provided.  Many of the characters in this were too thinly sketched for me to get a real handle on, but one that did was Griffiths – the South African double agent.  I must have started reading this book around the time of Series 5 of Being Human and I pictured Griffiths as being played by Colin Hoult – who played Crumb, the nerdy vampire.  It just seemed to fit with the initial impression of Griffiths (before his true identity was revealed) as being the nerdy, non-vampiric Crumb to be replaced by the far more confident vampire Crumb (although obviously without the fangs in the context of this book).

Overall, The Time Travellers was not what I was expecting.  I wouldn’t say I didn’t like the book, but I did find myself a little bored in the middle.  One thing that did strike me is that, in a way, this was like reading a ‘future historical’.  In the same way that historical stories from this era involved only human characters and no science fiction elements except the TARDIS, the Doctor and his companions, so The Time Travellers involves only human characters with the only true science fiction element being the time travel equipment.  There are references to things such as ‘the Machine’ and the machine men at the South Pole, which are references to WOTAN and the Cybermen and the South Africans have alien tech for weapons, but really this is a very human story.  In a way, that is probably what I disliked the most, which is odd because a lot of stories I enjoy are those with very little focus on monsters or technology but far more on the humans and their troubles (Inferno, The Roundheads, Gridlock, The Kingmaker, The Eye of the Scorpion, Delta and the Bannermen).

I probably would have enjoyed a story which examined this alternative world in more detail but I think this book’s biggest problems were how repetitive it felt, particularly in its middle section and its refusal to explain a little more clearly its central conceit.

Christopher Bulis is an author whose work in Doctor Who novels often elicits disappointment and occasionally derision from fandom. Books such as The Ultimate Treasure and Twilight of the Gods (the 2nd Doctor Web Planet sequel rather than the Bernice Summerfield New Adventure) aren’t likely to trouble the top spots in the novel range. That said, I have often enjoyed his books. His first one for the New Adventures, Shadowmind, was an engaging straightforward adventure which, in a range that often tried to hard early on to seem ‘grown up’, was just happy to be Doctor Who. For all its weird Kamelion stuff, I quite liked The Ultimate Treasure, although I will admit that Twilight of the Gods bored me to tears. He’s also the author of the excellent The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and The Device of Death, another novel that wasn’t that well received but I remember really enjoying.

City at World’s End is, for me, another strong contribution from Bulis. The 1st Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara arrive on a planet on the verge of a cataclysmic extinction event. The remaining population are trying to escape with their hopes pinned on a huge rocket ship. Materialsing atop an abandoned building, the building then collapses burying Barbara and seriously injuring Susan. The rest of the novel deals with the attempts to rescue Barbara, the adventure she has trying to escape herself and the Doctor and Ian becoming inveigled in local politics.

The countdown to destruction gives this novel a tension not always present in Doctor Who novels. Susan’s injury puts her out of action for the initial part of the story until a very intriguing twist partway through has her accompanying Barbara whilst still, apparently being in the hospital. Barbara discovers the sort-of villains of the piece, hiding below ground although their plans ultimately amount to very little. The Doctor and Ian manage to gain the trust of those in power which helps them get the resources they need to find Barbara.

The regulars are written well and the various twists throughout are well-paced. The conflict between religion and politics is nicely portrayed and the desperation of the people is successfully conveyed. A few aspects were a little confusing at time to time, although I partly put this down to my current habit of falling asleep whilst reading late at night.

It could be argued there are slightly too many guest characters and that there were times when I became a little lost at who was who and how they were related, but actually, by the end of the book I had a pretty good handle on each character as they are well written. There is a particularly moving scene where the Mayor destroys the rocket ship with most of the population unconscious aboard it. What initially seems like a callous act of elitism actually transpires to be an act of mercy as the rocket ship is actually a false hope as it will not be able to complete its mission. One of the first things the Doctor realises when examining the ship is the faults in its design but he chooses to maintain the secrecy as he can see the motivation behind it.

This is a doomladen book and its a little disappointing that the final act drags in a rogue AI and android duplicates as it shifts the disaster movie vibe of the story to something a little more straightforwardly Doctor Who. But the twist involving Susan’s ability to be in two places at once is key to this section and leads to a satisying climax.

This book is highly recommended. It feels true to the era it is set in – one which I have been rewatching with my son – and yet also manages to expand on it believably. The mystery builds well and the various strands tie together well at the end. A number of good twists maintain interest and an engaging troupe of guest characters (who accept the Doctor and friends for who they are quickly enough that the usual suspicion and frustrating obstinence of some guest casts is dispensed with before it outstays its welcome) provide good support and conflict. A winner.

The Crimson Horror continues a trend of top-notch Moffat-era Who and is a story which benefits from the contrast with The Snowmen.  Comparing these two Victorian-set stories from the same series makes for interesting viewing.

The first striking thing is how we continue to see the Paternoster Gang thrust into centre stage (it’s a full 14 minutes before the Doctor appears properly), although this time for different reasons.  In The Snowmen it focussed on Vastra, Jenny and Strax because the Doctor wouldn’t become involved in the mysteries surrounding them.  The reason this time is because the Doctor can’t help because he has already been involved and has, shockingly, been rendered incapacitated.

Of the three it was Strax who was more prominent in The Snowmen.  Here it is Jenny.  It is a pleasant change and also avoided my uncomfortableness with the odd relationship between Vastra and Jenny seen in Deep Breath, where she treats her like a servant even behind closed doors.  Jenny is placed into the companion role – and very good she is too.  I’ve been a bit indifferent to Jenny through their other appearances, but she’s very strong here.  Vastra fulfils the Doctor’s role to begin with.  When the Doctor is rescued, though, it is interesting that Vastra almost disappears from the narrative.  Strax, also, has less to do in this story – although Dan Starkey is consistently great and he does have some good gags.

The Doctor and Clara are a great team and this is a good story for the pairing with lots of ‘banter’ and mutual admiration.  Their confrontation with Mrs Gillyflower towards the end of the story is a great scene, aided, of course, by a brilliant performance from Diana Rigg as the principal villain.  Rigg is simply superb, clearly relishing every syllable of the script – from her fire and brimstone preaching at the start, to her cackling villainy at the end; every moment is pure Doctor Who gold.  I particularly love the exchange about ‘the wrong hands’.  Rachel Stirling, Rigg’s daughter in real life, plays Gillyflower’s blind daughter, Ada.  She, too, is excellent and her growing realisation of the truth of the situation makes for some tense and heart-rending scenes.

The rest of the cast is minimal: a bunch of non-speaking extras, a northern woman who helps Jenny, a man who is merely there for a running gag, and a mortician; but when you already have 2 regulars, 3 semi-regulars, a villain and a ‘sympathetic’ character, there isn’t much room for anyone else in 45 minutes.  Mark Gatiss seems to be trying to squeeze a 4 part story into the length of a 2-parter.  He achieves this quite well for the first 35 minutes by using a fun flashback scene to show the audience what the Doctor and Clara were up to before the Paternoster Gang arrived.  Those flashbacks are essentially what would have formed Episodes 1 and 2 of a longer story – there’s at least one obvious cliffhanger (the Doctor being submerged in red goo) – and I, oddly, got a real Baker/Sladen vibe for some reason (maybe it’s the bowler hat – a bit like the one from Horror of Fang Rock).  The close of the story feels ever so slightly rushed but I think I’ve commented on that before as being a compromise we may just have to accept with the format of the new series.

The ‘monster’ of the story ‘Mr Sweet’ is a slightly odd addition which I’m not fully convinced works.  It’s a disquieting image to see it suckling on Diana Rigg and I like the idea of a parasite from the Silurians’ time.  It’s just that I’m not 100% sure how Gillyflower discovered it’s abilities, it’s propensity for symbiosis or how it could further her insane plans.  There is a fleeting mention of her being a chemist, but that’s about all we get.  I’m all for a script allowing audiences to fill in the blanks, but I think this aspect of the story suffers from the slightly rushed climax.

Historically, we get a different slant on the Victorian era with the setting being ‘oop North’, specifically Yorkshire 1893 (with a caption in the opening outright stating this time and place – something which isn’t used in Who as much as you’d think it would be in a show about time travel).  It’s recognisably Victorian but it’s more open, more ‘industry’ than the dark, foggy cobbled streets of London.  The scenes seem open, wide.  It’s raining.  The perfect, uniform world of Sweetville is in stark contrast to the higgledy-piggledy alleys of London.  As a contrast to The Snowmen, it is striking.  Sweetville, itself, has echoes of similarly named ‘ideal’ towns from the 19th century, namely Saltaire and Bournville.  Saltaire was built in 1851, and its founder had a daughter called Ada.
Sherlock Holmes continues to inform this era’s stories too with ‘The Repulsive Case of the Red Leech’ being an unseen adventure referred to in The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez, along with the continued activities of Vastra and her consultations.

The costuming is sombre with strong echoes of the Salvation Army (founded in 1865) in Gillyflower’s minions.  I also adore the Doctor’s costume in this story – although I’m less keen on Clara’s.  It’s not as nice as either of her Victorian splinter’s costumes from The Snowmen, and her hair looks weird. The singing of the hymn, Jerusalem is, apparently an anachronism as the tune wasn’t joined to the words of William Blake’s poem until 1916.  That aside, it is the perfect analogy for Gillyflower’s view of the paradise she hopes to achieve through her evil machinations.

There is also the plot device of the optogram.  Optography, and the idea that the eye retained the last image seen before death, was a popular belief in the late 19th century, to the point where the police began to use the technique in an attempt to solve murders, including one of Jack the Ripper’s victims.  It was seriously researched by some scientists of the time and, as always, Doctor Who draws on this contemporary belief to propel the plot by giving it some fictional proof.  It is similar to how the 19th century fascination with spiritualism has been ‘proved’ through a Doctor Who lens.

Throughout the new series, I’ve been underwhelmed by most of Mark Gatiss’s scripts.  The Unquiet Dead, Robot of Sherwood, The Idiot’s Lantern.  The Crimson Horror is definitely my favourite of his stories and, for my money, his best script.  It plays to his strengths as a writer with a strong League of Gentlemen vibe running through it far more than in any of his other stories.  He writes well for the Paternoster Gang, the 11th Doctor and Clara and for his main guest cast.  The episode received criticism at the time for the kiss/slap scene between the Doctor and Jenny.  I know the sexism accusation keeps rearing its head for Moffat Who but I don’t think this scene contributes much for the complainers’ arguments.  The Doctor is newly out of the ‘crimson horror’ and is loving having his full faculties back.  Jenny is a Victorian woman with the morals that entails, despite her ‘modern’ relationship, and is all fired up ready for a fight the moment she walks into Sweetville.  And I don’t hold much to the idea the Doctor is checking her out when she reveals her catsuit.  He is reacting to the surprise of a skintight suit on a Victorian maid.  He isn’t leering.  He’s being the Doctor – an alien who doesn’t quite know how to react to something he knows would receive comment from other species’ males.

The Crimson Horror is a strong story with a memorable villain, great dialogue and the welcome presence of the Paternoster Gang and a fun TARDIS team.

We reach the end of Series One of Jago and Litefoot with The Similarity Engine and I have to confess that, unlike the first three stories in this box set, I didn’t remember a single thing about this story from my first listen, aside from the fact it sees the return of Dr Tulp. As a series finale should, The Similarity Engine ties up plot threads from across the previous stories, as well as loose ends left by the original Companion Chronicle, The Mahogany Murderers.  There are call backs to The Bellova Devil (the Far-Off Travellers Club has been funding Tulp’s experiments) and The Spirit Trap (the mention of another ‘presence’ and travelling the astral plane to the 49th Century.  The wooden dummies of The Mahogany Murderers have here been refined into practically life-like puppets – one of which is a perfect replica of Jago himself.

Tulp’s ultimate plan is revealed.  In his mental trips to the future he has discovered uranium.  He plans to take control of the world’s resources and subsequently rule the world.  His plan is discovered when policemen under the command of Sergeant Quick are going missing.  It turns out many of them are moonlighting at the docks and are being exposed to uranium.  They are suffering from radiation poisoning.  Jago is captured and replaced by a doppleganger but Litefoot sees through the charade.

The final confrontation with Tulp reveals that, whilst traversing the astral plane, he has encountered an alien intelligence.  Eventually it absorbs him.

This was a satisfying end to the season.  The tying up of plot threads is welcome and allows the Jago and Litefoot universe to seem a little more developed.  This feels a more involved adventure than the fairly straightforward format definers of the previous releases; although of course as a story this wouldn’t be able to stand alone.

After focussing on Ellie in the previous story, this adventure sees more time spent with Sergeant Quick; including a fun scene where he accidentally saves Litefoot’s life.  He isn’t developed as much as Ellie but it is good to see him getting more ‘screen’ time.  Jago and Litefoot continue in the roles that have been set out previously: Litefoot is the investigator, initially skirting the fringes of the mystery and gathing clues; whilst Jago gets into the thick of the action.  This has worked well in this series, but I hope their roles are developed a little in Series 2.  I liked Toby Longworth’s performance as Dr Tulp and Matt Steer gives good support to Christopher Benjamin as one of Quick’s missing coppers, Smitty.  Lisa Bowerman only appears briefly as Ellie.

Intriguingly, another thing I had forgotten about this story was that it ends on a cliffhanger.  Bodies drained of blood are being found by Quick’s men but for some reason, Litefoot decides to keep this from Jago declaring it to be a case for Litefoot and Sanders.

I don’t find I’ve a huge amount more to say about this.  I liked it, but as I’ve said before, this series hasn’t set my world on fire.  I am, however, still eager to listen to more.  Big Finish must be doing something right with this series for it to reach 13 box sets before the sad passing of Trevor Baxter (with another being released posthumously).  I really like the leads, the support from Conrad Asquith and Bowerman is solid and the overall atmosphere is a good listen.  I would just like the storylines to expand this universe a little more.

The Spirit Trap is a puzzling story. It starts to widen the ‘world’ of Jago and Litefoot, as well as put a lot more focus on Ellie; on the other hand it is also perilously similar to The Unquiet Dead, I’m surprised Mark Gatiss didn’t sue! Consequently, I’m not sure if I like it or not.

Ellie alerts Jago and Litefoot to a medium, Mrs Vanguard, she has visited who claims to have spoken to her brother Jim. Naturally cynical about Mrs Vanguard’s supernatural abilities, Jago and Litefoot attend a séance principally to expose her charlatanism but also partly because if there is even a vague chance she is speaking the truth, the secret of Jim’s death – and Jago’s part in it – may be revealed to Ellie. Jago successfully reveals Mrs Vanguard’s apparent tricks to fake the spirits of the departed but it transpires a far more sinister situation is afoot when both Ellie and Jago are possessed, their own selves plunged into some form of purgatory.

Whilst listening to this it was almost impossible not to think about The Unquiet Dead. There is a séance and body-possessing spirits. It even climaxes with a character sacrificing themselves to banish the spirits from our world. Apparently, the original version of The Unquiet Dead was even closer to this story, with a fake medium just like Mrs Vanguard – a delightfully named, Mrs Plumchute – turning out to have ‘real’ abilities thanks to the alien spirits. Seriously, has Mark Gatiss heard this story? Of course, there are differences – principally the origin of the ‘spirits’ and, more importantly, the fact that two of the bodies which are possessed belong to Ellie and Jago, still very much alive throughout the process; unlike the corpses used by the Gelth in The Unquiet Dead.

Ellie and Jago are very much the focus of this story. In fact, I’m starting to wonder when Litefoot is going to get a more central chunk of the storyline. Here, again, he is on the fringes of the story, investigating the mysterious situation whilst Jago himself is in the thick of it, actually experiencing the supernatural happenings. Both Benjamin and Baxter, though, continue to be excellent; even if Benjamin’s ‘possessed’ acting is a little cliched.

After worrying that I was finding it difficult to become accustomed to Lisa Bowerman as Ellie, so used to her performance as Bernice Summerfield, it seems that the production team of the series may have had a similar concern. To some extent it worked as I became much more accepting of this character – although I still find her ‘cockney’ voice to be oddly pitched; it seems she is suggesting youth by pitching her voice high, but this has the effect of making it sound a little mannered and ‘performed’. There were a couple of times when her performance reminded me a little of Catrin Stewart’s Jenny Flint (another ‘cockernee’ girl performance I find a bit difficult to ‘believe’ in.)

It could also be, of course, that the production team just wanted to push Ellie’s character to the fore a little more, seeing as she is the third main character. That said, there isn’t a huge amount of character development here and what there is, isn’t particularly complimentary. Ellie is presented as being rather gullible and Jago and Litefoot are rather untactful with their destruction of Mrs Vanguard’s operation, not really taking Ellie’s feelings into account. That said, when trapped in ‘purgatory’ with Jago, a gentle bond develops between them with Jago insisting Ellie calls him Henry. I think we may consider this story to be a turning point in the relationship between Jago and Litefoot and Ellie, taking it from being the ‘gentlemen’ and the friendly barmaid to one of friends brought together through shared experiences. It will be interesting to see how this develops, particularly with the secret the gentlemen are hiding about the circumstances of her brother’s death.

A small cast supports the three main players with Mrs Vanguard is played with relish by Janet Henfrey and Lex Shrapnel gives good value as the sacrificial Toby. Sergeant Quick is conspicious by his absence and I wonder if a later story will push him a little more to the fore.

One aspect of the story which chilled me a little were the references to spontaneous human combustion. As a child, about 11 or 12, I think, I had a book of the strange and unexplained. One chapter was about spontaneous human combustion. The concept of human beings bursting into flame for no reason terrified me – and stuck with me for quite a few of my teenage years (I think it only stopped terrifying me when I finally saw Threads…). The scene between Toby and Litefoot discussing the apparent death of Toby’s wife brought the memory flooding back and I could picture the book and the photographs within it. It’s a gruesome element to a quite spooky story.

Historically, this story deals with the previously mentioned Victorian fascination with spiritualism and focusses on the fact that, at the time, there were many fake mediums who preyed upon the recently bereaved. Jago’s exposure of Mrs Vanguard’s tricks highlights some of their practices.

There are less overt Holmesian references (of the Sherlock, not the Robert) variety this time round, although Litefoot’s investigations have a familiar flavour.The presence of disembodied antagonists places this story firmly in a growing list of similar stories I’ll be casting a retrospective eye over towards the end of this century.

As a Jago and Litefoot story this continued to establish the basic format. The adventure was fun and the mystery surrounding the ‘spirits’ remains to be fully resolved (I’m assuming it will be picked up in the final story. However, the strong similarities with The Unquiet Dead made it seem overly familiar, particularly listening to this relatively soon after watching that story.

I still can’t say I’m convinced Jago and Litefoot is the jewel in the Big Finish crown that endless reviews have it pegged as but I can't deny they can still be entertaining.

The second story, The Bellova Devil, has a slightly odd structure which makes it feel almost like a Companion Chronicle. There are quite a few scenes where Jago and Litefoot both recount events which have happened previously and there are possibly a few too many times where events happen ‘off-screen’, as it were. However, it is certainly a stronger story than The Bloodless Soldier, with a few more twists and turns and more than a passing resemblance to one of this series’ ancestors, Sherlock Holmes.

The story sees Jago and Litefoot investigating another mystery surrounding a dead body. In a unfortunate similarity to the first story, the body is that of a soldier. Initially this made it seem like this story might tread similar ground, particular with early scenes at the mortuary, but fortunately as some clues are revealed, the story takes some intriguing turns. Eventually, the duo are lead to a ‘gentlemen’s club’ and an encounter with Dr Tulp, the mysterious figure behind the Mahogany Murderers of the original ‘pilot’ episode for this series.

The many references to Sherlock Holmes may seem a little gratuitous but I find it quite heart-warming that the series is this willing to wear its heart on its sleeve. Doctor Who has never been shy of pushing its influences to the front and Jago and Litefoot’s two main influences are, at this early point in the series, Hinchcliffe-era Who and Sherlock Holmes (which are, of course, neatly wrapped together in the parcel that is this spin-off’s birthright: The Talons of Weng-Chiang). In this story there is an overt reference to ‘the Red-Headed League’ and a rather funny joke about Holmes’ philosophy of detection (where eliminating the impossible leaves the, however improbable, answer). There is also Jago donning a disguise and dodgy accent to evade his creditors in a manner reminiscent of Holmes going undercover to solve a mystery (and indeed, Jago later uses the same disguise to attempt just this). Furthermore, the whole mystery feels very Sherlock Holmes in its structure and resolution. It reminded me somewhat of the aforementioned Red-Headed League and The Sign of Four.

This story also continues to cement the characters of Jago and Litefoot; Jago in particular. His internal struggle of being an inveterate coward against his desire to seem brave and steadfast has played out across this first three stories and Christopher Benjamin plays it beautifully. Litefoot still seems slightly less interesting, although his growing affection for Jago is touching and, again, Trevor Baxter, is brilliant in the role.

This stories main guest star is Doctor Who legend, Stephen Thorne. Playing the ‘Club Secretary’, he oozes dignified menace, especially when he leads Jago off to his apparent death. The rest of the cast (including Big Finish regulars, Duncan Wisbey and Toby Longworth) provide good support.

One aspect of the series I am having a slight issue with is the presence of Lisa Bowerman as Ellie. Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Lisa Bowerman. She is utterly superb as Bernice and, in person, is completely lovely (and always remembers (or at least pretends to remember J ) me. It’s probably because of this that I find it really hard to take her seriously as Ellie. It just feels like Benny doing a ‘bit’. Ellie hardly appears in this story which helps, although Lisa does also crop up as a Bulgar woman with a thick European accent. The same problem more or less applies. I am hoping that as the series progresses and I become used to hearing Lisa as Ellie, this problem , which I fully admit is totally my issue and nothing to do with Bowerman’s performance, will cease to be.

Lisa Bowerman’s Bulgar woman is where this series ties itself into history a little more closely than it has up to now. The Bulgars who are featured in this story are a real-life semi-nomadic Turkic people (a large group of people living in various parts of Asia). I couldn’t however, find any reference to them tying rose-briar around the feet of the dead to prevent them from rising from the grave (although I probably haven’t tried very hard).

One aspect of the production I neglected to mention in my review of The Bloodless Soldier was the awesome theme music. It is simply wonderful. Some of the spin-off ranges, where there hasn’t been a ready made TV theme tune to use, have struggled to find a successful intro. I really don’t like the Iris Wildthyme and everyone at Big Finish is, I’m sure, desperately trying to forget the awful ‘Adventure is My Name’ fiasco that sullied the Bernice Summerfield range for far too many releases. However, this effort for Jago and Litefoot is perfect and manages to be evocative of all the series’ various influences.

Whilst still not the most gripping of tales, The Bellova Devil shows an upward trend for these stories and I continue to look forward to where this series is heading.

With the success of the Companion Chronicle, The Mahogany Murderers, it wasn’t long before Big Finish announced a box set of full-cast audios featuring the investigators of infernal incidents, Jago and Litefoot.  I have listened to this box set once before and, to be honest, I was a little underwhelmed.  I don’t really know why, but I’m up for a re-evaluation and plunged into this first adventure, The Bloodless Soldier, with aplomb.

The plot is fairly straightforward and it more serves as a platform to set up the main players and setting for this series.  Obviously we have Jago and Litefoot, but they are also joined by Bernice Summerfield as Ellie Higson (given far more to do here than in the Companion Chronicle) and Conrad Asquith as Sergeant Quick (a minor character from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, also played in that story by Asquith).  Ellie is relatively central to this story, as her brother – a soldier returning from the Empire – is involved in the mystery presented to Jago and Litefoot.  Quick is a link to the various crimes which begin these mysteries, bringing various corpses to the attention of Professor Litefoot at the mortuary.

A small group of soldiers has returned to England from India, but their captain is an unwell man.  It turns out he has been scratched by some monster and has, effectively, become a werewolf of some sort.  It is all a little vague and unexplained as, aside from a small scene at the beginning.  A character from India arrives, Sunil (played by John Banks) to explain a little more; there is some stuff about a monster which survives on blood and tops itself up on unsuspecting humans – but I never really felt like the ‘explanation’ was fully explored.

The soldiers, unfortunately, all sound rather similar and I did find it difficult to tell them apart.  John Banks is here again as Private Higson (Ellie’s brother), with Robin Bowerman (Lisa’s brother – confusing, eh?) as Corporal Lorton, Alex Lowe as Private Michaels and Alex Mallinson as Private Smith.  Scenes involve various combinations of them with the ‘monster’; their former Captain (again played by John Banks, but it’s mostly growling).  From scene to scene, I started to get a bit lost as to who was who and doing what.  Eventually, Michaels heads off with the monster to try and make some money and Higson dies at its claws trying to protect Jago and Litefoot.

With the vague back story and an interchangeable guest cast, this is, to be honest, a bit of a step down from The Mahogany Murderers.  It doesn’t help that ‘werewolves’ have been done to death a little in genre fiction and nothing new is done with them her, aside from add in a less than interesting, vampiric ability.  The plot is basically: find a dead body with animal-like wounds; track it down; realise its actually a human; do away with it; the end.  It is too similar to many others of its ilk.

On the plus side, the dimension of Ellie’s brother being involved and ultimately sacrificing himself adds some interest.  It’ll be interesting to see if this is picked up later in the series as Higson dies at the hands of Jago when he is forced to shoot him, implored by Higson, to prevent a full transformation.  Jago and Litefoot are also the highlight of this story with their characters being explored a little more and some progression in their friendship is allowed to occur.  I particularly liked Christopher Benjamin’s scenes immediately after shooting Higson which showed a side of Jago – the juxtaposition of his cowardice with his desire to do the right thing by those he loves -hinted at in Talons but obviously due to be explored a little more in this series.

Atmosphere-wise, Victorian London (or at least the ‘romantic’ interpretation of it, is well-realised in the soundscape and whilst this is never going to be regarded as a pinnacle of the series, it is at least, a satisfactory beginning which establishes the regular cast and hints at some developments to come  I think it’s telling that I’ve waited a few days before finding the will to write up this review, so I’m hoping that the later episodes are more inspirational.

When it was first announced that Jago and Litefoot would be featuring in a Companion Chronicle - which was, originally, designed to allow opportunities for stories with Doctors no longer with us - there was a little ripple of consternation which soon gave way to interest and anticipation when fans realised that Jago and Litefoot were perfect for this sort of format. I have always thought it a shame that Big Finish didn’t pursue this a little further – we had The Prisoner of Peladon with David Troughton’s King Peladon, but it would have been great to see stories featuring Glitz and Dibber, or HG Wells, or Hugo Lang, or (oh this would have been superb) Will Chandler! – all those ‘nearly companions that could have had one extra adventure with the Doctor.

But, I digress. Jago and Litefoot fit perfectly and even after the first few scenes this Companion Chronicle had spin-off series written all over it. Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter slip effortlessly back into their roles. As they say in the interview included with the CD, Andy Lane, the writer, has written the characters perfectly and every line of dialogue feels authentic. With two voices already, the only other performer in this is Lisa Bowerman who takes on dual roles of director and the small part of Ellie Higson, local barmaid. She has very little to do here, but it will be interesting to see how her role develops in the full series.

The plot of wooden puppets containing the souls of various criminals is good fun and a good fit for Jago and Litefoot’s Victorian world. It has certain steampunk echoes and it will be interesting to see how this is developed in the full series. There are, however, a number of unanswered questions which suggest this was always intended as a possible pilot for a full series. In the interview at the end of the story David Richardson asks if Benjamin and Baxter would be willing to return for a further adventure but I wouldn’t be surprised if this hadn’t already been mooted by the Big Finish bigwigs and this bending of the Companion Chronicle format was a result of such a discussion.

The production has some lovely sound design evoking a Victorian pub, a warehouse full of mysterious electrical equipment and various other locales.

Historically, this is tied in more with the romantic, literary view of Victorian London than anything factual. There are some strong Sherlock Holmes vibes throughout the piece – particularly a sequence where Litefoot pursues a suspicious character through the streets of London. The Victorian obsessions with science and spiritualism crop up with the wooden, electrically-controlled bodies being occupied by intangible souls (echoing the similar themes of The Unquiet Dead).

Overall, this is a strong Companion Chronicle and it is clear why Big Finish saw this potential of Jago and Litefoot having their own spin-off series.

This story is the most quintessential and famous example of Victorian Doctor Who. The Talons of Weng-Chiang is one of those stories which has gained legendary status. It consistently comes in the top ten of any poll and is a story which has spawned possibly more spin-offs, sequels and linked stories, than any other story not featuring a classic ‘monster’: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, The Bodysnatchers, The Butcher of Brisbane and of course 14 box sets of Jago and Litefoot (plus sundry other audios).

Something about The Talons of Weng-Chiang sits well with how fandom considers Doctor Who should be. A well-realised historical setting; unsettling vllains; a pitch perfect Tom Baker; well-scripted and performed supporting characters; a good plot; exciting set pieces and a effectively sketched backstory: all these make to produce something a little bit special. Oh yes, and a giant rat.

I’ve always enjoyed this story, but watching it for my marathon I started to find some things which bugged me a little. Maybe it’s a case of familiarty breeds contempt. This was possibly the first VHS I ever bought(the memory is a little hazy) but I distinctly remember going into my local branch of Our Price (blimey, who remembers them?!) and choosing Talons. And why did I chose it? Was it the stunning cover (a rather odd shot of Greel and the large dragon from the climax of the story? Was it the intriguing blurb on the back? No, it was the fact that it had the longest running time of all the choices I had and felt like more value for money!

Talons does justify its running length, though. It doesn’t feel padded at all. The opening of the story concentrates on the mysterious goings-on at the theatre, with the focus on Chang and Sin, before the middle episodes move the focus on to Greel and his plans, before the final episodes shift focus on to the growing bond between Litefoot and Jago.

The expanse of the story is quite epic; from the theatre to the back streets of Limehouse; the police station to Litefoot’s mortuary and home; the sewers and finally the House of the Dragon. However, I did find the set dressing to be somewhat lacklustre. The theatre is wonderful, but when we get to Litefoot’s house and I just felt something was lacking. Comparing it to Gabriel Chase from Ghost Light, for example, it seemed drabber and less interesting. Maybe Litefoot’s abode is closer to what true Victorian interior décor would have been. The House of the Dragon has the very impressive dragon as its centrepiece but the rest of the ‘house’ is a little sparse. Roger Murray-Leach, on the extras, confesses they had run out of money by this stage of the production and that the walls of the house’s interiors are simply black drapes. Any criticism of this story is always centred on the Giant Rat, but I think, just occasionally, the set design lets it down a little.

The performances are universally excellent, and if we tactfully ignore the arguable racism of casting John Bennett as ‘a Chinese’, he provides a great villain. In fact, I prefer Chang to Greel as he is a far more layered character. Clearly a gifted magician, someone who has been manipulated by Greel and who is ultimately abandoned. His final pathetic, drug-addled form is an interesting end for a character who has been an main antagonist for much of the story. Michael Spice’s Greel is saddled a little with ‘mad meglomaniac’ scripting, but there is also a tragic side to him which is more obvious at the climax when the Doctor is confronting him over his origins.

Tom Baker is on top of his game in this story. He has settled in the role and it’s a while before he started to let the eccentricity get the better of his performance. Louise Jameson is excellent as Leela, but it was interesting to watch her ‘earliest’ story of this marathon so far, and contrast it with the performances I’m more familiar with, particularly bearing in mind her ubiquity in Big Finish productions. This version of Leela is far more naïve and almost childlike. She seems incredibly fresh-faced and whilst the ‘savage’ tendencies are at the forefront it was less of the ‘warrior woman’ seen in Wrath of the Iceni, or the noble savage contrasted with the corrupt intellect of the Time Lords (as seen in the Gallifrey series); but more the attitude of a young, inexperienced child who reacts to the world with violence and anger because she hasn’t been taught how to talk through a situation. The Eliza Dolittle comparisons are fairly obvious, particularly in her scenes with Professor Litefoot at dinner, but it is interesting how this ‘education’ of Leela has been developed in the Big Finish audios.

Front and centre, though, of this story are Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter as Jago and Litefoot. In the extras, Baxter points out that the duo do not actually meet until the final third of the story. As characters they are developed and established as individuals in their respective worlds, interacting with the Doctor and Leela, until finally coming together to fight Greel. It is no wonder that Big Finish leapt on the idea of doing a spin-off series with them. Their worlds and characters are so detailed and entertaining that it does seem like a no-brainer. In just the same way that fans often call for a spin-off with the Paternoster Gang, if fandom had been like it is now, back then, you can guarantee the forums would have been full of Jago and Litefoot Need a Series threads. Benjamin and Baxter are superb. The scene where Jago confesses to Litefoot that he is actually terrified, is very moving (even if the audience has been well aware of this fact since the Rock fo Gibraltar fainted in the theatre cellar and had to be dragged out by the Doctor); and Litefoot’s dinner with Leela is a delightful comedy of manners.

Historically, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, as the extras point out, is more about the literary heritage of Victorian life than anything factually accurate. This story wears a lot of its influences on the sleeves of its enormous greatcoat: Sherlock Holmes; Jack the Ripper; Fu Manchu; The Importance of Being Earnest; My Fair Lady. It’s all foggy streets, murderous Chinamen, ladies of the night and mysterious foreigners. And very good it is too. It’s the sort of historical setting that the black and white historical stories were leaning to in their latter years: it’s reminiscent of The Smugglers and The Highlanders which were far more influenced by literary versions of history such as Doctor Syn and Kidnapped than the more factual approach of early historicals such as The Aztecs or The Massacre. It probable that we could work through all the historically-set stories, both pure and pseudo, and separate them into ‘fact-based’ and ‘literature-based’ versions of history: even the modern series stories probably fall into both – contrast the ‘Agatha Christie murder mystery version of the 1920s (even if including Christie herself) from The Unicorn and the Wasp, against the more intense ‘Pompeii erupts’ of The Fires of Pompeii or the examination of Van Gogh’s depression in Vincent and the Doctor.

Doctor Who does both of these types of historical well but they achieve different ends. Whilst The Massacre may educate us about history, The Talons of Weng-Chiang steeps us in atmosphere and draws on a cultural understanding of Victorian life perpetuated by continual adaptations of Charles Dickens, examinations of Jack the Ripper and even modern series which draw on Victorian tropes such as Whitechapel. Doctor Who itself continues to delve into Victoriana for inspiration with The Unquiet Dead, Tooth and Claw, The Next Doctor, The Snowmen, The Crimson Horror and Deep Breath spanning all 4 ‘new series’ Doctors; not to mention the Paternoster Gang providing a reason for the show to continually return to this time period.

After watching the story, I listened to The Foe from the Future, one of the Lost Stories range from Big Finish. It is the story that The Talons of Weng-Chiang replaced. It does bear some passing similarities – a deformed villain from the future being the most obvious; but on the whole it is a very different story, not least because its main setting is ‘contemporary’ Earth with a journey to the future in the middle episodes. It was good, but I prefer Talons and I don’t think, if it had made it to the screen, it would be topping the chart polls in the same way Talons does, as it seems rather more generic.

It has taken me a while to write this review. I think the fact that Talons is such a behemoth of a story within the series and fandom, that I wasn’t sure I had anything new to say. It is a quite wonderful story. It is brilliantly written and faultlessly acted. It shows just what Doctor Who is capable of when spinning together disparate elements such as a time travelling dicatator from a war-torn future with the foggy streets of Victorian London. Much as I disagree with fandom a lot on the relative merit of some stories, Talons is one where I have to agree with the consensus. A tour de force.

Firstly, a couple of thoughts about the previous adventure for Jago and Litefoot, Voyage to Venus, which begins their brief travels with the 6th Doctor in two special releases from Big Finish which were released alongside Jago and Litefoot’s own spin-off series .  Whilst set in the far, far future, Voyage to Venus owes a huge debt to Victorian literature with clear influences of HG Wells and Jules Verne; think Journey to the Centre of the Earth.  The whole idea of a tribe of female warriors on Venus screams Victorian ‘science fiction’.  I really enjoyed it.

And then we reach the colony of Roanoke and the New World.  I often stick these stories on my phone to listen to without looking at cast lists or writer’s credits.  As I’m listening to them I’m often pondering as to who the actors are as I recognise voices and sometimes, when I go online to check the cast list I’m surprised.  I hadn’t taken much notice of the credits for this story before listening to it and as the story wore on found myself wishing I had the cast list to hand – not to know the actors, but to know the characters.  There are a plethora of male voices in this story and they all sound almost identical.  I was lost for huge portions of the story as I had no idea who was talking to who.  It made it very difficult to follow what was going on and what the motivations of people were.

The story sees the Doctor, Jago and Litefoot taken prisoner by some European settlers who are fighting the native Americans.  A colony’s inhabitants have disappeared and a strange affliction is affecting people, including Jago.  Mysterious, ghostly children are visible to the sick and eventually both the Doctor and Litefoot succumb to what is revealed to be an alien parasitic species.

There is also some stuff with Sir Walter Raleigh travelling in the TARDIS and ending up a 500 year old man but I didn’t really understand how any of that happened!

I got to the end of this audio and didn’t quite know what I’d listened to.  The confusion of voices; the ethereal atmosphere; the timey-wimey Raleigh/TARDIS stuff.  It was all very unsatisfying, despite excellent performances from Colin Baker, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter who continue to delight in their respective roles.  The rest of the cast do their best and the atmosphere is suitably doom-laden.  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that this just didn’t work for me.

And then I went online and found the reason.  Matthew Sweet.

I hadn’t realised this script was the work of Matthew Sweet.  I’m not a fan of Matthew Sweet.  His audios for Big Finish have been some of least favourite.  Far too clever for their own good, they leave me cold.  The Year of the Pig, his debut, is one of the most horrendously smug audios I’ve had the misfortune to listen to.  A couple of other have been better, The Magic Mousetrap is okay and one of his Jago and Litefoot stories, The Man at the End of the Garden, isn’t bad.  Overall, however, I find the ideas in his stories far more interesting than the actual execution.  But Voyage to the New World is a prime example of why I don’t like his writing.  It’s just too dense.  I come to Doctor Who for adventure, escapism, fun.  Yes, I have enjoyed many a historical story where it’s all doom and gloom.  Yes, I’ve enjoyed many an introspective story that isn’t about romping through time and space.  I just don’t like the way Matthew Sweet does it.  His style grates on me (his documentary for the 50th anniversary year was my least favourite offering from that cavalcade of celebratory content – it, like his audios, was arrogant and reminded me of the way Elizabeth Sandifer writes about Doctor Who.  It’s this attempt to make Doctor Who ‘intellectual’ and ‘about something’ which I just can’t abide.  It might not be intentional on Sweet’s part, but I can’t help but feel like that about his writing.

Historically, the lost colony of Roanoke is a recorded event.  There was indeed a colony set up by Sir Walter Raleigh.  John White (who also features in the story) had been appointed Governor of the colony by Raleigh and, in 1590, he did indeed, after a trip back to England, arrive back to find Roanoke deserted with no trace of the colonists and the word Croatoan carved into a fence post.  Eleanor Dare, the daughter of John White, also features in the story – initially falling victim to the mysterious children, but eventually being saved by the restoration of the timelines (although in the real history, she did disappear).

Somewhere within Voyage to the New World is a great story based around a real historical mystery – the kind of story Doctor Who does so well.  However, obfuscated as it is by the style of Sweet, I found it difficult to enjoy.  Part of me wants to relisten and try to concentrate on the story (part of my confusion – the similarity of the voices – isn’t really Sweet’s fault) but mustering up the will to do so may take a while.

I’m not sure what I think about the output of Titan. There are definitely some good comic stories within their work but I think, overall, I prefer what IDW put out before Titan took over the comic licence. There is a lot of Titan’s output that is, how shall we say, ‘out there’. There are a lot of very odd concepts, weird characters and huge storylines. The 11th Doctor arc which ends up involving the War Doctor, a child Master and all manner of weird Time War shenanigans is one which made my brain go all swirly when I tried to read it.

The 10th Doctor stories are a bit more straightfoward – at least to begin with, as there is a very odd arc involving Sutekh and Anubis which I can’t quite get a handle on. One thing the strips do well, though, are the original companions accompanying the Doctor. The 11th Doctor has Alice and the 10th Doctor has Gabby Gonzales. She’s a fun companion to have around with some interesting abilities revolving around block transfer computations. Admittedly, some of the intricacies of her character have passed me by as I haven’t read all her stories (although I’m intrigued enough to go back and read everything in sequence to better understand her storyline).

In this two part adventure she demonstrates her strange abilities and seems to be enjoying life in the 1920s which is clearly where she, the Doctor and their other travelling companion Cindy Wu, have been staying for some time.

Cindy is not a character I have warmed to at all in the comics. She is Gabby’s best friend from New York but only seems to join the Doctor because she misses Gabby too much. Her defining characteristic seems to be ‘angry’. She’s constantly sniping at the Doctor and is a harsher version of Tegan in a way. The stories I’ve read featuring her never give the impression she particularly enjoys travelling time and space which is a stark contrast to Gabby, who seems to love it.

The Jazz Monster and Music Man put Cindy through the wringer and do nothing to improve her general mood. I’m not entirely sure what we’re supposed to think about Cindy as there’s little about her that makes her likeable and her adventures in time and space see her effectively playing third wheel to the Doctor and Gabby.

The story opens with Gabby strolling through the streets of New Orleans during ‘the jazz age’ (a lovely opening image with some nice period details) as she heads off the meet the Doctor. He, apparently, is in a bit of a mood and rarely leaves the TARDIS. Cindy is elsewhere and Gabby intends on taking the Doctor to meet her after they’ve eaten together. Cindy is at a jazz club, the Red Eye. As soon as the Doctor arrives he sense something is wrong and, true enough, it soon transpires that some of the musicians have been possessed by an alien entity. It turns out to be the King Nocturne, an energy being that deals in sound. The Doctor and Gabby have encountered the Nocturne before on an alien planet in the future and know how to defeat them. Unfortunately, Cindy’s new romantic interest, Roscoe is possessed and ultimately dies at the hands of the Nocturne.

Music is at the heart of this adventure, which is a difficult element to depict in comic strip form. I can imagine that this would be brilliant as an audio – although it would likely be headache-inducing as much of the story involves the musicians along with the Doctor, Gabby and Cindy, playing discordant music to weaken the Nocturne. But, it is really tricky to satisfactorily show this through the comic strip art. That said, for Titan comics, it’s a relatively straightforward affair albeit with a tragic ending – along with Roscoe quite a lot of other people die at the hands of the Nocturne. The final frame of a rather impotent-looking Doctor watching a grieving Cindy with Gabby comforting her and all of them surrounded by bodies is quite chilling and a contrast to the ‘angry’ 10th Doctor we got on TV in his final days, or even the ‘cocky’ Doctor we got in before the specials. It brought to mind the final scenes of Warriors of the Deep.

The artwork in Titan’s comics can be a bit hit and miss for me – I found The Weeping Angels of Mons to be a bit ‘scratchy’ and ill-defined. The 11th Doctor strips tend to give me a bit of a headache with their imagery. This strip, though, has good artwork which clearly depicts what’s happening with some nice images such as the Nocturne itself.

The story finds this TARDIS team in Singapore during the Japanese invasion of 1942. In a short amount of time the four of them are holed up at the local hotel alongside a squad of soldiers waiting for evacuation and the hotel owner, Maggie Bishop.

This is a fitting historical period for Ben and Polly. As ‘contemporaries’ of 1966 the war would be within living memory. Both of them could feasibly have been born during the war if we assume they are in the early to mid-twenties in The War Machines. Their parents would most definitely have lived through the conflict, probably being part of it and, indeed, The Forsaken finds Ben meeting his father as a young man and soldier.

A figure that looks like death stalks the hotel and it is soon discovered that the staff, thought fled because of the conflict and evacuation, have actually all been murdered. An alien called the Forsaken crashed in the forest and is feeding on the fear generated by the war raging across the globe. It also has the ability to temporarily take the form of others.

As an Early Adventure, this is one of Big Finish’s forays into trying to recreate an era of the show where some of the original cast are no longer with us. Initially, Big Finish did this through the Companion Chronicles where the conceit was one character telling the story. Whilst Jamie or Steven or Zoe may be telling us what the Doctor said, there was no suggestion they were ‘being’ the Doctor. With the Early Adventures, Big Finish developed the skills of actors like Frazer Hines and Peter Purves to imitate their respective Doctors and created a range of ‘full cast’ audios, albeit with some narration still intact (in this story, Anneke Wills is on narration duty). The role of Ben is filled by Elliot Chapman.

And for me, these Early Adventures can succeed or fail on my ability to convince myself I’m listening to the original cast. Chapman makes for a very good Ben, but as that really boils down to a young cockney accent it isn’t too much of a stretch. Add to that the fact that most of Michael Craze’s performances are lost and it becomes very easy to imagine Chapman is Craze.

Unfortunately, I’ve fallen a little out of love with Frazer Hines’s Troughton impersonation. In the early days it was astonishing an in the slightly heightened conceit of the narrated Companion Chronicles, worked really well. But as time has worn on, it’s become more and more apparent that Hines’s performance is a little one note. He relies almost exclusively on breathy pauses and whilst he does invoke Troughton’s voice, inevitably, he struggles to reflect Trougton’s performance. And I think Big Finish have over-relied on him. Ironically, it seems that they have realised this themselves with Hines seemingly having been retired in favour of Trougton’s son, Michael Troughton.

The Forsaken though is a good if rather slight adventure. It’s pretty straightforward and fairly obvious from the outset what’s going on. A crashed alien in the forest that feeds on fear, in a story set during World War Two isn’t hitting any particularly original beats. The squad of soldiers are a bit tricky to distinguish from each other but there are some effectively exciting scenes both in the hotel and the nearby jungle with the creature taking the form of various characters.

Sadly, the one interesting aspect – Ben meeting his father – is set up in the first episode and then more or less ignored until the final episode where it’s main contribution is a rather silly gag about Ben’s name. It’s a shame a little more couldn’t have been done with the conceit or even that Ben and his dad could have shared a few more scenes than they actually do. The whole idea is just sort of ‘there’ alongside the monster story and the two aren’t really meshed together.

Justin Richards, the writer, has delivered a story which falls into his ‘serviceable adventure’ genre. I’ve found his writing can go either way for me – a great, if traditional, Doctor Who adventure, or a by-the-numbers slightly dull ‘a to b’ plotline which doesn’t quite engage. This one definitely tips towards the unengaging end but does have some effective set pieces and good performances from the cast. The historical and geographical setting are also different enough to be interesting and Richards scatters a few elements of World War Two into the mix which haven’t featured in the marathon so far. Seeing the conflict from the point of view of combatants who are ‘escaping’ and evoking the hot jungles of the Far East contrasts with the Blitz-centred tendency to focus on the British aspect of WW2.

The horrors of the Japanese element of the war is something I’ve always been interested in as my grandfather was a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp and one of few men to survive the ordeal (apparently thanks to his first aid skills enabling him to assist the Dutch doctor in the camp). Whilst this story doesn’t even begin to touch on that part of the war, even being in that part of the world with the sort of men my grandfather probably fought alongside, adds a resonance to this story for me and a slight disappointment that Doctor Who doesn’t seem to have ventured into that world – although coupled with a thankfulness that a particularly horrific time and place isn’t in danger of being trivialised by the show. One only needs to watch shows like Tenko or the film Paradise Road to see the horror experienced by people in those camps.

But that’s not really what The Forsaken is about but, even if the story itself is a little formulaic, I’m glad it exists and acknowledges a war beyond the borders of the UK.

We're in the trenches of World War One as we join the 10th Doctor and his new(ish) companion, Gabby Gonzalez, on an unplanned trip to the Somme. In actuality, this strip has sequences set in many different years, including some set in 1914 as well as quite a few in the 19th Century where some of the Angels victims are sent back to.

The Weeping Angels of Mons is a Titan-published comic strip and, as the title suggests, plays on the World War One legend of the Angel of Mons.  There is another comic strip called Warfreeqz which was published in the Doctor Who Adventures magazine.   In that instance, it was Rose who became the Angel of Mons but here, it is arguably the modern series’s most successful monster – the Lonely Assassins; the Weeping Angels. The legend details the appearance of angels on the battlefield and the disappearance of soldiers…a perfect fit for the Weeping Angels’ modus operandi.

The Weeping Angels are popping up all over the expanded universe of Doctor Who. They are obviously a great monster on TV, as their various episodes have demonstrated. It’s a huge shame that Class seems to be dead in the water after the shock reveal in the final episode of an Angel’s presence. Novels have worked with the Angels and even the audios have managed to include these most visual of monsters (Big Finish’s Fallen Angel works extremely well with a monster which makes no sound). But the comic strips is arguably where, in the expanded universe at least, the Angels work the best. Comic strips are visual like TV and artists can work with the distinctive and striking image of the Angels to create some compelling artwork.

Not that I feel the artwork in The Weeping Angels of Mons is fully successful. It’s a rather messy, scratchy style from artist Daniel Indro. The Weeping Angels are effectively drawn – particular when they have scary faces, but the human characters have features which are incredibly wrinkly and lined. The 10th Doctor’s likeness isn’t great in some of the frames either.

The artwork style does lend itself better to the scenery – the ruined town, filthy trenches and No Man’s Land look horrendous and squalid.

The Angels themselves work well in a historical setting – possibly much better than they do in the present day/future settings of their TV episodes. Soldiers leaning against, or taking cover behind, memorials and statues featuring angels is a relatable sight and the myths, legends and religious teaching surrounding Angels is reflected in the characters of the soldiers who have heard various tales as well as the company’s chaplain, Thomas Monaghan.

This story doesn’t really explore the Angels background or modus operandi in any new ways, but it does suggest that they are attracted to war and battlefields because of all the lost potential (which is, in this story, ultimately their downfall). Of more interest to this script is tying in the fates of those sent back in time, with the contemporary scenes of the story. All of the soldiers sent back in time end up some time in the 19th century. Their fates interweave with each other (the chaplain finds himself at the birth of Jamie Colqhoun, a soldier who is key to helping the Doctor and Gabby defeat the Angels, as well as providing a love interest for Gabby; another soldier grows old and returns to the town as an old man, knowing he can rescue his former comrades; another leads a happy life, married with children, only to die from shock and grief when war breaks out in 1914).

The 10th Doctor and Gabby are thrown into this horrific world and the Doctor is on good form as he lurches from one crisis to the next. He is required to think on his feet quite a lot in this story and it reminded me somewhat of the fast pace of stories like Tooth and Claw. Gabby is a more difficult to get a hold on. She’s a companion exclusive to Titan comics. I have read quite a few of her stories, including her debut, but haven’t quite managed to get a handle on her. Her defining characteristics seem to be her Hispanic heritage and her art-loving background. The latter is often used in the comic strips to create interludes where she writes and draws letters/diaries for her friend Cindy, who is still back in Gabby’s home city, New York (although she will later join the Doctor as a second companion). The parts of the strip which feature Gabby’s artwork are cute, but the writing is often quite tricky to read as the artists try to reflect Gabby’s personal handwriting (I read ‘Cindy’ as ‘Gudy’, for example).

There is a definite Rose vibe around Gabby in that she works in her father’s laundromat and restaurant with no real opportunity to pursue her ambitions in life. She’s a strong, independent woman, with a bantery relationship with the Doctor, very much in the mould of Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy, Clara and Bill and as such doesn’t really stand out as much more than a generic modern series companion. It doesn’t help that for this story, a lot of her plot revolves around her blossoming romance with the soldier, Jamie. I want to like Gabby but I think I need to re-read her run of comic strips to get a better handle on her (later on, for example, she starts to display some special and unusual abilities).

The First World War aspect of this story is highly reminiscent of the scenes in The Family of Blood set during the conflict. This similarity is compounded by the coda to this story which sees the Doctor and Gabby travelling forward in time to a war cemetery where, from a distance, they watch an elderly Jamie Colqhoun and his family visiting the graves of his fallen comrades. It’s very reminiscent of the scene at the end of The Family of the Blood where the Doctor and Martha watch a Remembrance Day ceremony with an elderly Timothy sitting in a wheelchair (just as Jamie does in this strip).

The historical setting, though, is really just a backdrop with the focus being on how horrible it was for the soldiers involved. There are a couple of references to the Christmas Truce and traditions prior to going ‘over the top’ but the lion’s share of the story focuses on the Angels. The final episode takes the Doctor and Gabby into mine tunnels under the trenches which relays a bit of information about how both sides recruited miners with the hope of tunnelling under No Man’s Land to reach the enemy’s line. Unsurprisingly, these tunnels were dangerous and the presence of explosives provides a climactic sequence where Jamie and Gabby attempt to sacrifice themselves to stop the Angels.

Aside from the artwork style, I found a lot to like in this comic strip. It’s a thrilling runaround and demonstrates how effective the Angels are in a historical setting. With more appealing artwork, I think this would rank as one of my favourite strips, although that may be partly because I think the Angels are a great invention of the modern series. If you haven’t already read it, this is one to look out for.

Domain of the Voord is the first of Big Finish’s ‘Early Adventures’ range. When BF announced a (temporary) end to the Companion Chronicles and the end of the Lost Stories range, they soon after revealed plans to start a new range featuring early era actors such as Carole Ann Ford and Frazer Hines. These were to be the Early Adventures which would be ‘full cast’ original stories. Not lost scripts, not one/two voice audiobooks; full cast stories featuring the 1st and 2nd Doctors.

It was an idea that intrigued me but limited funds mean I can’t sample every range Big Finish has to offer (and we all know, those ranges seem to be expanding at an exponential rate). However, courtesy of a friend of mine, I managed to borrow this first entry of the series, neatly adding into the Voordiverse seen inThe Keys of Marinus, The World Shapers and Daleks vs Voord, among other stories.

Domain of the Voord is set 100 years or so after The Keys of Marinus and finds the TARDIS crew pitching up on Waterworld (the very Nationy-named planet, Hydra) to find the Voord have already conquered the planet. The story is simple – the Doctor and friends set about liberating the Hydrans from Voord rule. What author Andrew Smith has done here is use a simple plot – fitting for the era this is supposedly part of – to explore and develop an underwritten alien race.

Many of the alien races introduced after the Daleks entered a world of publicity trying to recreate the popularity of the Skarosian mutants. The Voord, being Nation creations, must have seemed like a prime candidate. Newspapers published pictures of Carole Ann Ford being menaced by a rubber-suited denizen and the Voord appeared in the first Doctor Who annual. However, aside from the Dalek vs Voord cigarette cards, they failed to return to the world of Doctor Who until the aforementioned World Shapers (where they were linked with a far more successful Doctor Who monster). The Voord didn’t set the world on fire.

From their TV appearance it isn’t hard to see why. They hardly appear in The Keys of Marinus; only in the opening and closing episodes. They are more or less presented simply as men in rubber suits, the implication being that they are protection against the acid seas surrounding the island. The strange antennae on their masks seem mere decoration and they are terribly ungainly flopping around in their flippered feet. They are defeated rather easily.

Smith takes a badly-realised alien and makes them threatening, sinister, horrific and credible. He even manages to suggest that The World Shapers continuity-shattering evolution revelation may well be true. The Voord have already won when the story begins. Survivors sail the watery planet in a flotilla of ships providing some vivid, and relatively unusual, opening images – the crew aboard a boat doesn’t happen often (Enlightenment, Carnival of Monsters is all I can think of – even including Big Finish I can only add Transit of Venus). The Voord are now a credible threat. When Smith goes on to add details about the mask we enter the world of horror. The Voord ‘convert’ people to their race but only if they are willing. They are given a choice of becoming a Voord or slavery. Anyone taking the mask out of a desire to avoid slavery is killed by the mask. They must truly want to wear it! There are ‘pure’ Voord (of the ‘blood tree’) but they seem few and far between. This element of conversion ties them in with the Cybermen providing a neat link to The World Shapers – I cannot believe this is coincidental ; Smith is a fan and is probably aware of the comic strip. Having people willingly join the Voord adds some moral drama to proceedings and Smith also gives the Voord the power of telepathy.

At four episodes, Domain of the Voord is exactly the right length. In trying to emulate this era of Doctor Who, six episode stories seem more common (The Masters of Luxor, Farewell, Great Macedon, The Dark Planet). I know these are ‘lost’ stories based on original scripts and submissions but six episodes can often seem too much and didn’t always produce the most thrilling of stories on TV either. Had Domain of the Voord be stretched over six episodes it would have been a bit dull. For starters the plot is, as I’ve said, fairly simple, but with the added fact that the Doctor and Barbara are removed from the story for most of the episodes 2 and 3, it would have seemed silly if they’d been gone for even longer.

Historically it is stated this is 100 years after The Keys of Marinus and explicit reference is made to Yartek’s group and their mission. As I’ve said, the extrapolation of the Voord race fits neatly in between Keys and The World Shapers. The Early Adventures are a combination of full cast and narration. The absence of Hartnell and Hill makes full cast impossible and I’m not sure this format works completely in covering those key roles. The Companion Chronicles work because they are single voice (more or less). Lost Stories work because we invest in the half and half approach because we know there is no other way of bringing us these stories. I’m not 100% convinced that writing brand new adventures for actors who are no longer with us and requiring those who are to ‘impersonate’ them really works as well.

However, it was an enjoyable story and I really liked the way the Voord were developed as a race.

The Highlanders is an odd tale.  It doesn’t feel like it fits into any particular era of the show.  It’s a historical produced when the production team had decided they weren’t popular enough to be worth producing.  It’s a story with Jamie where he is nothing like the Jamie we know and love.  It’s a Troughton story without a recognisable Troughton Doctor.

I’m never quite sure what I think about The Highlanders.  It was probably one of the last stories I experienced when it was finally released as an audio soundtrack.  The story itself has never made much of an impression on me, even though I’ve probably listened to it 3 or 4 times (and watched a reconstruction).  This time, as part of my marathon, some of my opinions have crystallised and I can see why I seem to have a problem with it.
The principal issue for me is Patrick Troughton.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the 2nd Doctor and Troughton’s performance.  When I did my chronological marathon a few years back, Troughton probably became my favourite Doctor (although I find that a hard ranking to make a final decision on) pushing Peter Davison off the top spot (Matt Smith is now making a good job of budging Troughton down to Number 2).

But Patrick Troughton’s Doctor is hardly in The Highlanders because he spends 90% of the time putting on silly accents and dressing up.  Now, I know that early in production, the dressing up aspect was something which was being tried out as a ‘characteristic’ of this version of the Doctor – probably in a desperate attempt to make him seem different to Hartnell.  To be fair, I think we can forgive the production team, and Troughton, for not really knowing what to do.  Changing a lead actor in this way was unprecedented and I can imagine numerous meetings and discussions about how to continue the series in this way and whether viewers would even accept it.As it is, though, Troughton’s performance isn’t great.  I particularly don’t like the German doctor stuff, which seems too cartoony and silly.  I also don’t like some of the scripting, such as the Doctor’s sudden violence towards Perkins when he bangs his head on the table – twice!

I know the dressing up continues into the next story, The Underwater Menace but Troughton’s version of the Doctor starts to take a clearer shape in that story and by The Moonbase and The Macra Terror, I think he had it pretty much nailed.

Something else I don’t like about this story is how utterly vile Polly is in the first episode.  She is an absolute cow to Hannah Gordon’s Kirsty McLaren and thank goodness she modifies her attitude later on in the story because I may have wanted to give her a good slap if she carried on.  Fortunately, the rest of the story proves to be a strong one for Polly.  Unusually for the female companion she doesn’t spend much of the story in peril, but is actually actively pursuing ways of rescuing the Doctor and Ben.  I do like how she basically uses her sexuality to manipulate Ffinch for her own ends.  It’s always struck me as odd that Polly and Ben were considered, for a long time, to be useless companions.  I remember a cartoon from the long ago days of Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett where there was a gag along the lines of ‘we couldn’t get the ‘useless companions’ we wanted to open some event…but Polly and Ben more than fill their place.  I think the fact that most of their stories are missing from the archives has really done Polly and Ben a disservice because, more often than not, both prove to be really strong characters in many of their stories.

The plot of The Highlanders I also find a little odd.  There is a point in the final episode where I realised that none of the regulars were in jeopardy.  Polly hadn’t been in danger for much of the story anyway, the Doctor had escaped from Trask and Grey and even Ben had managed to get off the ship where he had been held captive.  All three had managed this without help from any of the others.  It is only their compassion that means they hang around to rescue the remaining Scots aboard the Annabelle, due to be sold as slaves in the Americas.  In terms of interfering with history it flies right in the face of what the Hartnell era had established – who is to say that those Scots shouldn’t have been sold as slaves and what damage the TARDIS crew did to the timelines by rescuing them.

Of course, this is because The Highlanders isn’t really concerned with history, but more with telling a ripping yarn in the vein of Kidnapped.  This is a similar ‘history’ to The Smugglers – much more influenced by modern interpretations of history than historical fact.  The difference between The Smugglers and The Highlanders and earlier historical tales such as The Massacre or even Marco Polo, is obvious.  This is a tale concerned more with obvious villains such as Solicitor Grey (a bedfellow of the Squire from The Smugglers) and Trask (who would probably enjoy a drink with Cherub and Red Jaspar (from Doctor Who and the Pirates) who are ultimately defeated by the honourable and worthy Highlanders, loyal and true to the last man standing.

There are a few historical facts scattered throughout to set the scene, though.  The story opens in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden.  Mentions are made of Bonnie Prince Charlie and King George.  And of course, there are the Redcoats and the Highlanders.The Highlanders themselves don’t make a huge impact.  Colin spends most of the time in a state of near collapse.  Kirsty gets pushed around by Polly.  Alexander cops it before the first episode is out (which is something I always forget – I always think he lasts a lot longer).  And then of course, there is James Robert McCrimmon.  Jamie is nothing like the slightly bumbling, loyal, slightly dim, ever so slightly lecherous companion we all know and love.  Frazer Hines’ performance has ‘historical guest cast’ written all over it.  It’s not even particularly convincing at the end when he suddenly appears to help the Doctor, Polly and Ben return to the TARDIS and then accepts their offer to join them.  It belies the fact that his addition to the regulars was a last minute decision as ‘planned’ companions have far more hints around their character and their interaction with the regulars.  Jamie hardly spends any time with the Doctor and practically no time at all with Polly (and she’s the one taking him by the hand and leading him into the TARDIS!).  Of course, it was the best decision they ever made and Frazer Hines’ Jamie is rightly considered one of the great companions.  It’s just that his beginnings are so different to what we are used to from the rest of the Troughton era.

It isn’t that I think The Highlanders is a bad story.  It just isn’t a very good Troughton story or, for that matter, a very good historical.  There are enough good performances and fun scenes to keep the interest, but as a whole it just doesn’t seem to go anywhere.  Were this period of history visited now on TV or by Big Finish, or were it to have featured in a Past Doctor novel, you can guarantee that Bonnie Prince Charlie wouldn’t be off screen for the entire story, or that the Battle of Culloden wouldn’t be represented by a few sound effects, but that was the nature of the direction the series was going in at the time.

Persuasion involves a superweapon created by a Nazi scientist called Schalk being pursued by more than just Earthly nations but also by extraterrestrials. It also sees beings from another universe entering ours and the Doctor co-opting the services of Elizabeth Klein in investigating the device and its creator.

Persuasion has a lot going on but it takes a while for the disparate parts to come together. The super beings from another dimension, the Shepherd and Shepherdess, are tangential to the story for a fair while before influencing human characters as angels may in myths and legends. They are a difficult aspect to get a handle on due to being the sort of all-powerful, amoral beings that Doctor Who often loves to include but can’t always satisfactorily develop. To be honest, these two are a bit too similar to the Elder Gods, the Guardians and the Eternals to really be particuarly interesting (although the performances of Paul Chahadi and Miranda Raison are excellent).

This is one of those audios which maintain interest throughout but, afterwards, you’re hard pressed to actually remember a lot of the plot. Schalk has a terrible super weapon which behaves a bit like the Conscience of Marinus (and this time round the Doctor thinks its a bad thing, unlike in that story where he actively helps a man who wants to control the thoughts of an entire planet…..). Various aliens want the device (including the Sontarans apparently – they’re not in this story which is a shame because, despite BF’s arguable overuse of them, they might have made it more interesting).

The overriding take-away from this story, though, are the characters of Klein and Will Arrowsmith. The Doctor turns up at UNIT and basically tricks Klein into joining him in the TARDIS. Unknown to both of them, Will stows away and ends up challenging Jeremy Fitzoliver for the crown of ‘most ill-judged and annoying companion ever’. And that’s the problem with this story – Will overshadows everything about it. I’m writing this review a good couple of months since listening to the story and I don’t have much to comment on aside from Will.

He is terrible. I’m sure that Christian Edwards is a perfectly good actor, but this is basically Jeremy Fitzoliver 2.0 – he’s stereotypically posh, stereotypically useless in the field, stereotypically annoying. Is he supposed to be these things? If he is then the writer, actor and director have absolutely nailed it -but why would you want such a character in your story. If he isn’t meant to be like that, then at what point do the creative team step in and say ‘hold on a minute, maybe we should tone this down’.

Will thoroughly weakens the character of Klein too. Klein is a complicated character – alternate versions and all that, but giving her a ill-judged ‘sidekick’ does nothing to lighten the character or give Tracey Childs a chance to develop Klein in any sort of interesting way (which is a shame after the way the character was developed in her first ‘return’ trilogy).

There is also some mildly amusing business with an alien race called the Klecht who are like a company who goes around buying out other species so that they can eventually get what they want (in this case, the Persuasion machine).

But overall, this is an audio which has a lot of elements, none of which gel in a particularly satisfying way. This may be because, ultimately, the situation with Schalk and the machine is resolved at the end of the trilogy of releases (this is followed by Starlight Robbery (with the Sontarans) and Daleks Among Us) but neither of those are necessarily satisfying continuations or endings of the arc – or of Klein and Will’s time aboard the TARDIS.

As part of their Lost Stories range, Big Finish released a story written by Brian Hayles which serves as a sequel to The Celestial Toymaker.

I’m a champion of The Celestial Toymaker; I enjoy what my imagination extrapolates from what is on screen.  Much has been written about Brian Hayles’s original intentions for the story involving the characters of George and Margaret.  The final version of The Celestial Toymaker was, apparently, quite different from his original plans.

However, on the basis of The Queen of Time, he can’t have been too unenamoured with the final version.   The Queen of Time is an almost beat for beat retread of The Celestial Toymaker, but this time with a female villain who is obsessed with time rather than toys.  There’s also a generous dollop of The War Games with smatterings of The Mind Robber.

To be honest, I’m not sure how much of this was in Hayles’s original outline and how much has been added by the adapter/writer Catherine Harvey or whoever script-edited the range at this time (I think it was John Dorney).  Whichever way, it ends up being a story which feels too familiar to be thrilling and ends up committing the same sins that people dislike about The Celestial Toymaker – sins I cannot defend a second time around.

Let’s start with the positives, though.  Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury are great narrators and performers.  Occasionally I find Frazer’s Patrick Troughton impersonation to be a bit distracting – more focussed on the verbal tics than an actual performance.  In this audio, though, he pitches it just right and there were quite a few occasions where I forgot it was Frazer and not Patrick.  Wendy Padbury too seems better at pitching her voice for the younger Zoe, sounding less squeaky than she has done in other releases.

The games that Jamie and Zoe are forced to play have some fun elements and there is much more for the Doctor to do in this story than the first Doctor had to do in The Celestial Toymaker.  The disgusting three course meal he is forced to endure is gloriously described in the narration and there is a fun sequence (highly reminiscent of The War Games) where he is engaged in a battle of oneupmanship against Hecuba – the eponymous Queen of Time – pitting ever increasingly destructive forms of weaponry against each other.  His solution for ending the conflict is very Doctorish.

Catherine Faber, as Hecuba, isn’t given a huge amount to do but she takes what she has a gives it a glossy sheen of female villainy.  Hecuba is good enough as a villain to rub shoulders with Lady Adrasta, Vivien Fay and even the Rani.  I like the idea of her movie star-like appearance and attitude.  It might have even been better for her to have an American accent as she is described in the narration as being like a glamorous Hollywood star from the Golden Age – a Lauren Bacall style figure.

But, three performances of four characters isn’t enough to save this from being too similar in structure to The Celestial Toymaker and therefore falling into the same pitfalls without the saving graces I find in the previous story.  Principal among these is that Jamie and Zoe’s tasks are not against anyone.  There is some interaction with Hecuba’s ‘guard dogs’ Snap and Dragon but as they are non-speaking it doesn’t amount to much.  There are some fun ideas in the games, such as Zoe being aged forwards and backwards, but as the solution relies on Jamie whacking different buttons it isn’t very thrilling – it smacked, almost, of a subpar Crystal Maze game; as did the labyrinth they find themselves stuck in and the first game where they have to identify a particular clock among thousands of others.  However, without having opponents – as Steven and Dodo do in The Celestial Toymaker – the games are less engaging.  The Toymaker’s playthings are a huge factor as to why I enjoy that story.  The untold story of the Heart family, Cyril, Rugg and Wigg and Clara and Joey intrigues me.  Are they alive?  Were they people who lost games to the Toymaker?  Are they self-aware?  What would happen if they won?  The Queen of Time has none of this intriguing back story.

The link with Celestial Toymaker is also kept vague throughout the story with Hecuba almost revealing who she is a couple of times, only for the script to divert elsewhere before the revelation.  What we get is a half-hearted – oh, yes, she must be the Toymaker’s sister – tagged on the end of the story.  More could have been made of this pantheon of manipulative super beings, either by Hayles originally, or by Big Finish in expanding the limited outline they started from.

The Doctor’s final defeat of Hecuba does mirror his defeat of the Toymaker but is satisfying in its own way.  However, after four episodes of fairly repetitive story (I hesistate to use the word, plot, because there is very little of that) it almost serves as more of a merciful release than a successful denouement.

I don’t hate this story, but for people who don’t like The Celestial Toymaker, this story is not going to appeal as it is – to all intents and purposes – the same story with a slightly different theme.

The first series of Big Finish’s Lost Stories range concluded with this story from the writer team of Tony Rudlin and Ingrid Pitt – yes, that Ingrid Pitt. Ingrid ‘Queen Gallelia and Doctor Solow’ Pitt. Ingrid ‘karate chop a Myrka’ Pitt.

It’s more or less the most interesting thing about this story because, otherwise, it’s a very run of the mill ordinary Doctor Who story.

The 6th Doctor and Peri arrive aboard a ship but just like the first episode of The Space Museum, no one can see or hear them. The crew also seem to be in a time loop and the ship itself is covered in a strange green rust. It is revealed, fairly early on, that the ship is the USS Eldridge – the infamous ship at the centre of The Philadelphia Experiment, an alleged attempt to develop the facility of invisibility to the Allied war effort in 1943.

Here is the kernel of a fascinating Doctor Who story – a classic example of Doctor Who explaining a real life mystery. The USS Eldridge disappeared and was never seen again – although the official story was that the ship had been renamed and given to the Greek Navy. Unfortunately, The Macros, squanders this premise and instead shifts the story to a generic alien world with a generic dictator and generic world-invading ambitions.

The world of Capron with its mad, dictator Presidenta Osloo is such a pointless waste of story it just frustrates every time the action shifts there. The disintegrating Eldridge and the two characters aboard who haven’t been stuck in the time loop – the Bosun and Professor Tessler (responsible for the experiment itself) are constantly shunted to the sidelines so we can spend time with the thoroughly boring Presidenta, her generic stepson and his rebellious girlfriend. To be fair, the cast make the very best of what they are given and Linda Marlowe is suitably scenery-chewing as Osloo but the plot is just so dull it really does make me wonder why they couldn’t have thought of something more interesting to do with the Eldridge plot.

The extras reveal that the reasons for this may have been two-fold. Firstly, this was a last minute replacement for the planned finale of the season, the fabled The Children of January. Secondly, the original script was lost in a hard drive crash. It seems that this story was rewritten ‘from memory’. I wonder if Rudlin and Pitt could only remember the bare bones of the two parallel plots and ended up leaning into the simpler, more straightforward ‘mad dictator’ plot rather than the intriguing ‘solving a historical mystery’ plot. It’s a real shame.

Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, are really good of course, and this audio seems to be working towards softening the relationship which seemed to leap in dynamics on screen between Season 22 and 23.

Historically, the Philadelphia Experiment is an interesting mystery. Based on the alleged observations of merchant sailor, Carl M Allen, it is an event denied outright ever happened by the US Navy. The alleged event involved not only the USS Eldridge being made invisible for a short time, but it also being teleported briefly before returning to the harbour. The actual story around the USS Eldridge is fascinating with elements of conspiracy theory, Einstein’s unified field theory and sailors being melded with the ship after teleport! There is so much story in the mystery of the Eldridge and The Macros just uses them as a backdrop.

Even the mildly interesting element of Capron being in a micro-universe is never explored much beyond the Doctor having to do some macguffiny TARDIS stuff to ‘adjust’ people as they travel between the two worlds which seems to solely be to provide a cliffhanger to Episode 1. It isn’t even used as a way of incapacitating Osloo when she travels to the Eldridge. The Doctor has the prime opportunity to not adjust her body to the new universe which would have stopped her right in her mad, generic tracks. But he doesn’t and she just goes outside to rant and rave a bit before they all have to return to the TARDIS because the Eldridge is disintegrating.

There’s also a little side trip to Washington in 1943 which ends up being a dead end, plotwise, which again could have been quite interesting. The inability of the Doctor to return the Professor and Bosun to their own time does add some tension but the ultimate solutions for them didn’t really work for me. The Professor is betrayed by Osloo after she promises him sanctuary and dominion if he helps her invasion attempt. Unsurprisingly she reneges on her word and he ends up dead. The Bosun, bizarrely, ends up in a retread of the conclusion to The Leisure Hive, alongside Osloo herself.

There are many parts of The Macros that could make an interesting and absorbing Doctor Who adventure but in this script none of them gel and the most interesting parts end up treading water on the sidelines until the characters briefly spend some time in them. Historically, the details are thin on the ground and beyond being told this is 1943 and the brief visit to Washington there isn’t really a great sense of time and space.

Frustrating.

A fun little murder mystery aboard a replacement shuttle service.  John Barrowman and Camille Coduri bounce well off each other and the concept of an alien race extrapolated from the fact no one looks or talk to each other on the tube is a cute conceit.  The slightly camp robot driver is also good value and certainly had a bit of a Red Dwarf vibe.  Worth a listen.

The 8th Doctor is now travelling with Liv Chenka, Molly O’Sullivan having, apparently, been returned home by the Time Lords.  Seeking to find their old friend, they have arrived in London, 1921, and are trying to have a bit of a respite from their recent troubles.  Liv is staying at the Ritz Hotel courtesy of the Doctor whilst he tries to track down Molly.  His first port of call is the home of Kitty Donaldson, an alternative version of whom he met in 1914 when he first met Molly.  Molly is not there, but the Doctor is introduced to Kitty’s brother, Martin.  Martin is a survivor of the Great War although he lost a leg in the conflict.  The Doctor is intrigued to find that time is in flux around Martin.

Before he discovers this, though, the Doctor has already set Liv and Martin up on a bit of a date.  When he does realise the danger, though, much of the story involves the Doctor and Kitty trying to track Martin and Liv down as they enjoy their day out around London.  Added trouble comes from a group of androids who are attempting to capture the TARDIS.

Paul McGann is on top form as the Doctor.  The quiet tragedy of much of Dark Eyes seems to have momentarily passed and he is back to his bouncy, loveable, irritating self.  Even when being chased down by killer androids, everything still feels fun.  There’s a great sequence at the Ritz as he realises that something is amiss with the receptionist and his interplay with Kitty (who becomes this episodes ersatz companion whilst Liv is enjoying her day out with Martin) is natural and endearing.

Beth Chalmers plays Kitty.  Chalmers tends to get a raw deal from BF fans on the forums as she is an actress who pops up all over the place doing a variety of small roles – and of course originated the role of Raine, the 7th Doctor’s ‘lost’ companion.  A bit like with Nicholas Briggs, it is merely her ubiquity which draws negativity because, as an actress I find her perfectly pleasant.  She is suited to the ‘posh’ roles and it’s a shame this is her only proper outing with McGann as Kitty (they don’t really interact much in The Great War) because, as I say, their interplay is fun.

Nicola Walker is one of those coups that Big Finish so often gets.  She is an actress who appears in quite a few prestigious dramas on television and has a public profile far outside of a niche company such as Big Finish.  To have her play Liv Chenka once as a guest star in the 7th Doctor story Robophobia, was exciting but to have her return for such a long run as the character throughout not just Dark Eyes, but the Doom Coalition and now Ravenous story arcs, is quite something.  And she’s brilliant.  She’s dour and wounded by her experiences, but she’s also seeking something better – not just for herself but for humanity.  Her friendship with the Doctor is an interesting one as, having listened to the whole Dark Eyes saga and the first box set of Doom Coalition, I’m not convinced she actually ‘likes’ the Doctor all that much.  I often get the impression she sees him as a means to an end.  She survived by herself for a long time without the Doctor, facing up to the horrors being perpetrated by the Daleks (she often reminds me a little of Susan Mendes from the Dalek Empire series).  As such, she is under no illusions about how horrific and hard the universe can be.  But, being with the Doctor means she can make more of a difference than she could by herself.

Here, in this story, she cannot quite bring herself to ‘let her hair down’.  As Martin shows her around London she agrees to his suggestions for activities but with a slight ‘whatever you want’ attitude rather than a genuine enthusiasm for experiencing a time and place far, far removed from her own (let’s remember that her home time and place is Kaldor).

A key sequence in this story is a trip to the cinema.  Martin takes Liv to see a Buster Keaton movie and much is made of Liv not really understanding the humour of this style of entertainment but eventually getting into it, more through Martin’s infectious enthusiasm than anything else.  She is wanting to see the good in people, wanting to see that life can have joy.  In a way, Liv and Martin have both emerged from horrific conflicts and there is an unspoken bond between them, I think, because of this.

Walker also brings some real emotion to the final scenes displaying grief and confusion at the sacrifice of a man who gives his life to save hers despite – as far as she is aware – only having known her for a day.

And herein lies the crux of the story.  The time anomaly detected by the Doctor turns out to be a time loop that only Martin is trapped in.  Consequently he has been living the same day over and over again.  Every day he meets Liv and takes her on a tour of London, doing different things each day.  This is how his love for Liv has grown and partly why, although she doesn’t remember their previous days, she forms such a close bond with him so quickly.  Intriguing details from the episode begin to make sense as it becomes clear that Martin is trying to lead events to the point where he can best save the lives of the Doctor and Liv.  He reveals that he has tried many ways but they have all ended with him dying and re-awaking back at the start of the day.  But this is no Groundhog Day comedy escapade.  There is a real tragedy in Martin’s predicament and a melancholy in the way he has attemped to make the best of his strange life.  A Life in the Day.

This is a story which rewards relistening as Martin’s slightly strange reactions to the Doctor and Liv begin to make more sense and the clever plotting is clearer.

The only weak link, for me, are the killer androids.  Very little background is given to these enemies but they are merely a plot device – the reason for the time loop.  This is a four-hander between the Doctor, Liv, Martin and Kitty and, as such, it is hugely successful.  The Dark Eyes saga has its up and downs and, being so Dalek-centric, is never going to top my personal polls but in between the ranting metal pepper pots and the machinations of the Master are these individual episodes which shine.  Indeed, The Day in the Life is so tangentially connected to the whole arc that it easily works as a standalone.  It’s just a shame it has to be bought as a set (a discussion for another day, maybe).

Historically, we find the Great War continuing to cast a shadow over Great Britain despite having ended three year prior.  Martin is affected by his experiences in ways it is difficult for people who haven’t lived through such conflict to understand.  But his experiences seem to be what drive him to deal with his strange circumstances with the grit, determination and continual self-sacrifice that he does.

But contrasting against this darkness is the sequence at the cinema.  Just as with Harry Houdini’s profile in this era, we see a world trying to turn away from it’s grief and build a new world – particularly in Great Britain and the USA.  Already in Young Indiana Jones we witnessed jazz, Broadway and the ‘Silver Screen’ and here we have Martin and Liv watching a Buster Keaton movie.

Keaton, like Houdini, is a high profile ‘celebrity’ of this era.  His films were hugely popular and, even today, he is remembered as a star.  Coincidentally, my family and I recently visited a Steam Fairground in Surrey which has a ‘Bioscope’ which shows old silent movies.  Although this time it was clearly being run from a DVD (they do it properly with a piano and film at special times) the Buster Keaton film they showed fully entertained my 10 year old son, as well as the rest of the audience.  His style of slapstick humour and hugely dangerous stunts continues to appeal to people around 100 years since they were made.  That’s quite some achievement.

From the details given by Martin and Liv when discussing the film, it would seem to be that they watch The Goat.  This was released in May 1921 and involved Keaton’s character continually escaping the long arm of the law after being mistaken for an escaped criminal – Deadshot Dan (who appears in a number of Keaton films including the one my family saw recently).

A Life in the Day is an excellent story, with great performances, which slots effortlessly into this era and the way these stories reflect how the world, at this time, was changing.  The next story, The Monster of Montmatre is an unusual follow-up in that it was the subsequent story in the fourth Dark Eyes box set (which starts with A Life in the Day) so therefore also features the 8th Doctor and Liv.  But not only that, but it is also set in 1921, although this time in Paris.

Doctor Who writers do love a juxtaposition.  Taking two very different ideas and ramming them together can make for many an interesting story.

In The Monster of Montmartre, Matt Fitton has taken that Doctor Who staple – the Daleks and shoved them into the Moulin Rouge.  Two concepts that really shouldn’t work together but, because its Doctor Who, it does and its huge fun.

Daleks in a historical setting is always fun – The Evil of the Daleks Victoriana; The Dalek’s Masterplan/The Chase’s timehopping exploits; Victory of the Daleks Ironsides.  On audio, the Daleks appearances in history have been few and far between which, considering how often Big Finish seem to use them, is a bit strange.

But Daleks in Paris, 1921 is great fodder for a story.  Fitton has gone with big ideas here.  It’s always more interesting to have the Daleks on the back foot.  Here, the Time Controller Dalek has fallen through time to 1921.  He is desperately trying to create Daleks to reassert his dominance and save himself and as such has ‘married’ the owner of the Red Pagoda (a nightclub which has replaced the Moulin Rouge) – Madame du Temps.  She is, in reality, a Dalek duplicate, but the whole concept of this marriage of convenience is darkly hilarious.

Alongside this, Madame du Temps is providing the Time Controller with people to turn into Daleks by enticing penniless artists with her womanly wiles.  One such artist, Christian, befriends the Doctor before being taken and partly mutated into a Dalek before being rescued.

The most striking idea is that of the Red Pagoda itself.  Where the famous red windmill of the Moulin Rouge once stood is the Red Pagoda – something which resembles a silhouette familiar to the Doctor and Liv – a giant Dalek.  Inside the pagoda’s structure hides the Time Controller and his machinery.  He ascends the levels on a platform, whilst his human agents take the stairs.  It’s bizarre and satisfying at the same time.

The ‘monster of Montmartre’ aspect of the story is actually quite inconsequential.  Strange noises are heard at night on the streets of Paris, but it simply turns out to be the failed experiments of the Time Controller being disposed of.  Quite why it feels the need to do this out in the open rather than just destroy them in the privacy of the pagoda doesn’t really make sense to me but it allows the story to hark back to Spring-heeled Jack’ and similar legends so common the previous century (and indeed, our tour of Victorian times in this marathon).  That said, it’s a story element that’s abandoned fairly early on and doesn’t play a huge part in proceedings when it is there.  The focus is much more on the Doctor and Liv’s search for the missing TARDIS.

I like Liv immensely, but occasionally her dourness can grate.  There’s a few scenes in this story where she is getting information from a local gentlemanly crook.  There is far too much of Liv’s quiet sarcasm and it’s a relief when, later, Liv gets to be far more energetic and active when facing the Daleks.

I’m also not sure I’m a huge fan of the Time Controller.  The Daleks, in general, bore me a little and I do appreciate it when scripts try to do something a little different with them.  There are a couple of ‘prototype’ Daleks the Time Controller has managed to cobble together here which brought to mind the Heath Robinson Dalek from Resolution – although the TV one was far more deadly than these two who can hardly shoot in a straight line.  But the Time Controller doesn’t, for me, quite work.  He is too villainous, too eccentric to be a Dalek.  In a way he’s like a more Dalekified Davros.  He’s all manic glee and crazed insanity.  He comes across a little too like a poor man’s Davros.

The ‘Moulin Rouge’ part of this combination well-realised and definitely brought to mind the Baz Lurhman film.  The sound design in the scenes inside the club is excellent and evokes the hustle and hubbub of the filmic version.  Most striking to me was the use of music.  In the Lurhman film, modern music is juxtaposed with the period setting (songs such as Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend; Your Song; and Like a Virgin all feature) and it was that contrast that made the film so memorable (I’m a huge Lurhman fan, ever since Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge is one of my favourite films).  In The Monster of Montmartre, the music in the nightclub scenes definitely had a more modern feel and I’m sure I heard echoes of some of the film’s chosen songs.

The atmosphere of these scenes was spot on and the 8th Doctor, all Byronesque artistic style, fits in immediately and his very sudden friendship with penniless artist Christian (portrayed not dissimilarly to Ewan McGregor’s character from the film – also named Christian) is quite believable.  After the most ‘tiggery’ of Doctors had become strained by the events of previous Dark Eyes box sets, this story certainly sees his enthusiasm and energy return.  I think it’s also a mark of his developing friendship with Liv.

Whereas A Life in the Day - the previous story in this box set - was, aside from the stolen TARDIS, a self-contained adventure which could be enjoyed beyond the Dark Eyes saga, The Monster of Montmartre sets up the rest of the box set with the return of the Doctor’s oldest frenemy at the close of the adventure.  However, for a Dalek story, this for me still had a lot to enjoy and the Moulin Rouge setting is evocative and lifts the story beyond what could have been a fairly perfunctory story of stranded Daleks.

When I finished this book a few years ago I wrote the review after watching the first broadcast of Into the Dalek, the second episode of Series 8.  This adds an interesting dimension not mentioned in the reviews of Peter Capaldi’s first encounter with the Daleks.  A lot of reviews are citing the obvious influence of Robert Shearman’s Dalek on Into the Dalek, as well as The Invisible Enemy and, by association, Fantastic Voyage (along with Let’s Kill Hitler’s Tesselecta antibodies).  However, I’ve yet to see any commentator mention the parallels between Into the Dalek and Prisoner of the Daleks.  Both feature a lone Doctor stumbling across a group of hardened soldiers/mercenaries who have captured a Dalek and are holding it prisoner.  The leader of the soldiers doesn’t like the Doctor at all and only tolerates him due to the protestation of another soldier/mercenary, a female, whose trust in the Doctor develops and increases through the course of the story.The similarities more or less end there, but it was striking that the images of the prone Dalek in Into the Dalek were not a million miles away from the visualisation I had in mind when reading similar sections in Prisoner of the Daleks.

I chose this novel on recommendation and probably against my natural inclination.  I’m not a massive fan of the Daleks but felt I wanted to include them in an anniversary book marathon I was working through at the time, which, after all, was designed as a celebration of the 50th anniversary.  I’m rather glad I did as it was a rather good read.

It begins with the Doctor becoming trapped in a room on a deserted planet, only to be released by a group of Dalek hunters.  Before long, the Daleks have arrived and in the ensuing battle, one of the hunters is killed and a Dalek taken prisoner.  Torturing the Dalek leads to information which leads the Doctor and the hunters to the Arkheon Threshold and the possibility that the Daleks are attempting to access the time vortex and wipe humans from history.

David Tennant’s 10th Doctor is well written by Baxendale and his trademark catchphrases ( e.g. Sorry,…I’m so sorry) are present and correct.  But it’s more than that.  The characterisation fits the situation perfectly and the Doctor reacts believably to the situation he is in, which, to be fair, is extraordinary in terms of the TV series.  He is effectively stranded with the bounty hunters, powerless to prevent them torturing the Dalek, tricked into following the Dalek’s dying words and a cavalcade of other horrific events.  The Doctor’s initial impotence in influencing the people he is stuck with and the manner in which the bounty hunters trust in the Doctor is immensely hard-earned is highly reminiscent of the interplay between the characters in the TV episode, Midnight.

The supporting characters are clearly defined and work well as an ensemble.  From what I know of the other solo 10th Doctor novels, he is often paired up with a temporary companion, in the vein of the TV specials’ one-off companions such as Jackson Lake, Christina de Souza, Astrid Peth and Kazran Sardick.  Prisoner of the Daleks is unusual in that no character really fulfils this role.  Stella is the closest and she is murdered by the Daleks within a few chapters.  Even Koral, a feline alien with killer claws, whose trust in the Doctor grows as the story progresses, never really fits into the companion role.

There are some horrific set pieces in this novel which emphasise the period of future history it is set in.  The human-Dalek war is grim.  The massacre of refugees from a destroyed planet; the slaves bonded in small groups who are killed as a group if even one of them is considered weak; the mother and daughter who the Doctor tries to save but can only succeed in having them returned to slavery instead of execution.  It isn’t the most cheerful of books.  That said, the Doctor manages to create an air of hope which does begin to influence the other characters, particularly Jon Bowman, the leader of bounty hunters.The appearance later in the book of Dalek X, a feared interrogator, adds a shot of adrenaline to the final third and this culminates in a very exciting denouement with the Doctor chased through the tunnels on the planet he originally arrived on.

I really did enjoy reading this, despite its slightly harrowing subject matter, it ranks as one of the better novels.