I went in with an open mind as I always do on a rewatch.

Still don’t see why it’s a 5/5 or best thing since sliced bread. Sorry. For me it’s a 3/5 at most and I’m wavering into dropping that to a 2.5.

I can recognise the good elements but for me it is definitely less than the sum of its parts.

The direction is excellent (if not particularly groundbreaking). The imagery is striking. Capaldi is good (but there are a couple of bits he mumbles through which frustrated me a bit). The Veil is properly scary (I did actually jump when it appeared behind the garden door).

But…

It’s just not very interesting. The Doctor walks round a castle talking to himself and then punching a wall whilst a monster kills him over and over again. I know I’ve joked about that previously but, it’s true.

It might be a good piece of ‘art’ in terms of performance, direction etc, but I really don’t think it’s a very good Doctor Who story. I definitely don’t think it bears rewatching once you know the truth.

I’d put this alongside Listen. Two episodes which are designed to examine the character of the Doctor and his response to fear in particular. Maybe that’s what fans like about it, but for me it just leaves me cold and not a little bored. I just suppose that isn’t what I’m here for. I think I definitely need my Doctor interacting with other characters; I need some gags; maybe I want a more ‘obvious’ adventure.

Heaven Sent is just a bit too serious for my tastes. Oh and I really didn’t like the mind palace TARDIS scenes. They didn’t work for me at all. The other thing I would say - and I think this is true of Listen as well - is I think this is an example of an episode that has forgotten this is a family show. I don’t believe there is enough here working on the different levels that a really good Doctor Who story works on. I just don’t see what in this story would appeal much to the children in the audience and I think that’s a shame because I think it misses the point of the show.

But I think I can see why people like it and that’s great because we all come to the show for different reasons and take away different things. I didn’t hate the episode and I can pick out individual elements I liked (the main one being the Veil, I think) but, nope, not really what I'm looking for in Doctor Who.

Black or White or Black or White or Black

This was an awful lot more mind-bending and timey wimey than I remember from the first time round! I actually contemplated listening to it again to understand it properly!

Flip Flop is what Big Finish do really well - playing with the format. The TV series can go so far, but is limited to some extent by the need to cater for a wide, general audience. Because of the way Big Finish is released/listened to, they can do stuff like Flip Flop where it doesn't matter which CD you listen to first because either way round you have a complete story. Jonathan Morris must have had one heck of a flow chart to keep track of this plot!

It is immensely enjoyable, though, and Sylvester and Bonnie are on top form. The Slithergees are a genius creation - malevolently obsequious and the epitomy of slug-like.

The Christmas elements are slim with the main thing being that the story is set at Christmas.

It is also has the most horrific scene ever commited to audio - two characters getting it on. The music is a bit odd as well as it sounds an awful lot like late night telly guilty pleasure 'Cheaters'!

A bold and successful experiment.

I chose to read The Wages of Sin due to it being set in 1916 and it tying in – at the time -with my History of the Universe marathon.  I was also intrigued a little by the pairing of Liz and Jo as the 3rd Doctor’s two companions and by a historical Pertwee story.

All in all, it was a massive disappointment.  Halfway through, I realised it was like reading a Young Indiana Jones episode with the Doctor inserted.  And not a very good Young Indiana Jones episode either.

The Wages of Sin is just a huge pile of dull.  The Doctor, Liz and Jo pitch up in  St Petersburg, the TARDIS is stolen, they meet Rasputin, lots of Russian dignitaries and a secret agent called Kit.  Rasputin is the focus for the story and the events of the novel lead up to his murder.

Now, I’ll admit I’ve got into a bad habit lately of reading before I go to sleep, quite late at night and, quite often, I’ll drift off mid-page.  This means it’s taken me a while to get through this book, sometimes only managing to read a few pages a night.   This might have influenced my engagement in the book as might the plethora of Russian names.  I’ve always found I have an issue when names in a story are difficult to pronounce.  My brain can’t skip easily through the text and I seem to fail to get a short hand of who is who.  I spent a sizeable chunk of this book confused about who was who and how they were related (I’m still not 100% sure who Kit was!),

But putting this aside, there doesn’t seem to be a lot happening anyway.  Liz hangs out with a guy who may have stolen the TARDIS, who is also part of the plot to kill Rasputin.  Liz is coerced into persuading Rasputin to attend a meeting where the conspirators intend to kill her.  And that is the extent of her plot.  Jo hangs out with Rasputin, decides he isn’t as bad as history makes out, and almost derails history by replacing poisoned cakes and glasses meant for Rasputin.  And that’s her contribution to the story.

The Doctor wanders around St Petersburg, meets Kit, gets arrested, and heads off to find the TARDIS.  He really does very little throughout the whole story – oh, and he stands and watches Rasputin drown at the end.

I just don’t know what to make of the story.  Historically, it paints Rasputin in a more favourable light than we might be used to (and slightly more intriguing than he was in The Wanderer) and his character is definitely the highlight of the novel.  His murder is the most dramatic part of the book, but having waded through 200 odd pages of not very much happening, it is little reward.  Apparently, according to I Who, this was originally to be a 1st Doctor, Barbara, Ian and Vicki story which makes a bit of sense – I’m not sure it would have made it any more interesting though (Liz would seem to be fulfilling Barbara’s role and Jo I would assume has Vicki’s plot (with maybe less of Rasputin leching after her).  Ian would have hooked up with Kit, the secret agent and the Doctor would probably have just hung round the local dignitaries and police force acting all superior.  I’m not convinced it would be much better but it may have felt like a better fit than it does for the slightly odd grouping of 3rd Doctor, Liz and Jo.

Maybe I have done this tale a disservice and I’m sure it has its fans somewhere (I’ve read two contrasting reviews on the internet – one which agrees with my assessment and one which says it’s an underrated gem) but it isn’t a novel I could honestly recommend to anyone.

The Sarah Jane Adventures is quite the phenomenon. A successful spin-off from Doctor Who starring a companion from the 1970s in the lead. A cast of young actors who manage to be engaging, funny and grow as characters and actors as the series progresses. Strong ties to its parent series whilst maintaining its own identity. Production standards as good as Doctor Who. Guest actors of high calibre (and female-focussed) such as Jane Asher, Samantha Bond, Floella Benjamin, Suranne Jones, Nigel Havers, Jeff Rawle, Donald Sumpter and Peter Bowles. And it was a series which was unafraid to treat its young audience with intelligence with a number of excellent scripts involving pretty mature concepts (as well as a sizeable helping of gunge).

The first series introduced the character of the Trickster in the story Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane Smith (a superb story) and this story from series 2, The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith saw his return and also gave the audience something classic Doctor Who rarely did – an examination of a companion’s childhood.

Sarah Jane is unwittingly tricked into travelling back to 1951 and finds herself in the village where she was born and lived with her parents before their untimely deaths in a car accident. Initially choosing to avoid the inevitable paradoxes likely to result from interacting with her own history, Sarah Jane eventually succumbs and finds herself the victim of the Trickster’s trap to take control of Earth.

The period details of 1951 are fun – a village fete is convincingly recreated with Georgie Glen as the officious Mrs King organising the entire town. She adds an element of verisimilitude to the story due to her being inextricably linked, for me, with her role in the period drama Call the Midwife (in a similarly officious role). She even has a line about Rani’s clothes surely not being what they are wearing in the Punjab (Glen’s character in Call the Midwife while English was raised in India and speaks Punjabi).

But central to the village setting are Sarah’s parents, Barbara and Eddie. They are written perfectly to be Sarah’s parents – loyal and open-minded, they quickly adapt to the increasingly strange events occurring around them. Barbara is intuitive and eventually realises the true identity of Sarah Jane (who is amusingly using the pseudonym Victoria Beckham). Eddie is loving and yet maintains an element of cynicism. Their characters build nicely over the two episodes and the sacrifice they make at the end is convincing and there are some nice parallels drawn between their characters and how Sarah Jane inherited the best of both of them. There’s also a fun reference to Sarah’s Aunt Lavinia, Eddie’s sister, who is apparently never in one place long enough to lick a stamp – a phrase used by Lavinia herself to describe Sarah in K9 and Company.

Does Elisabeth Sladen succumb to a little bit of overacting here – I have to admit I think she does; but then I have never been convinced as many in fandom are about Sladen’s skills as an actress. I often find her to be rather mannered and occasionally stiff, especially in emotional scenes and this story showcases a few of my bugbears with her performances. She is also saddled with a terrible pink outfit, worthy of joining Sarah Jane’s wardrobe of fashion faux pas which is already teeming with see-through rain macs, stripy dungarees, that godawful flat cap from Dimensions in Time and the brown all-in-one from Death to the Daleks.

Back in the present day, Clyde and Rani experience travelling into a parallel universe where Earth is under the control of the Trickster. Joining forces with a Graske, there are some good parts where Mina Anwar gets to try some different, more tortured, aspects of Gita as a slave in this new world.

I do love the Sarah Jane Adventures and the episodes exploring Sarah’s past and which are pretty high concept always seem to work well in the series. The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith is an excellent example of what this series does best.

This is a Christmas tale, originally written as part of the Short Trips: Companions collection (the story very much focusses on Sara Kingdom).

It also ties rather nicely into the 2017 Christmas special, Twice Upon a Time which featured the same historical event which forms part of this story – the Christmas Day 1914 truce between the British and German forces and the resultant football match.

The Little Drummer Boy is set in the ‘gap’ between episodes 7 and 8 of The Dalek’s Masterplan which Big Finish have exploited as an opportunity to give Jean Marsh’s Sara Kingdom a new life as a ‘proper’ companion.  The trilogy of Companion Chronicles featuring her are excellent and this early Short Trip is just as good.  I know a few fans have issues with adventures being squeezed into tiny gaps of the TV series’ narrative (such as all the stuff with 5th Doctor, Peri and Erimem being slotted in between Planet of Fire and The Caves of Androzani) but for me, it’s one of the wonders of Doctor Who – that we can have fun with the TV narrative to explore characters and give us more adventures to enjoy (and Twice Upon a Time continues this tradition by creating a whole new adventure for the 1st Doctor between individual scenes of a TV story).

The story actually flits between a few time zones but the one afforded the most time is the WW1 battlefield where fighting has stopped and the men sing carols and play football.  Steven joins in the game whilst the Doctor enjoys some time pretending to be a minister from the War Office.  Sara, meanwhile, talks to the eponymous drummer boy, Robert, who it soon becomes apparent is travelling in time.

The way he is doing this is slowly revealed and, at one point, I assumed it was going to be a human TARDIS like Compassion.  It turns out, however, to be other technology from another race.  The tale ends in a rather bittersweet way with the boy being returned to his own time.

This audio version is one of the Short Trips Rarities which are basically releases which were, originally, exclusive to subscribers but have now been put on general release.  It’s a lovely reading by Beth Chalmers (although her Steven is inexplicably more Cockney than Peter Purves ever was).

Silver Scream is a 10th Doctor comic strip which was published in 2009 by IDW Publishing. It was the first part of a run which introduced two new companions to the 10th Doctor – Emily Winter and Matthew Finnegan.

Silver Scream sees the Doctor attending a Hollywood party (and using a series of pseudonyms including Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise). There he meets Archie Maplin, who owns a nearby film studio, and stumbles across an alien plot to steal the talent of actors.

I;m going to begin this review by saying I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. I read the two parts a good couple of months apart as I was unmotivated to finish the story, so little impact did it have on me.

Firstly, the artwork was of a style which I found hard to warm to. Ever so slightly scratchy and undefined, it didn’t draw me in and I didn’t really get a sense of time or place – neither the 1920s nor Hollywood ‘scream’ from the page.

Another huge issue is the character of Archie Maplin. Initially this story was supposed to be what the modern series likes to categorise as ‘a celebrity historical’. Maplin was intended to be Charlie Chaplin. Mere days before printing, the team discovered that whilst they could use Chaplin as a character they could not use the ‘Tramp’ likeness as this is a copyrighted image. At short notice, Chaplin became Maplin with a top hat instead of a bowler and a huge handlebar moustache.

However, in countless frames Maplin is drawn in poses which are clearly meant to be Chaplin. As a result, it becomes very distracting and becomes an itch it is hard to scratch. A story where the 10th Doctor teams up with Charlie Chaplin would have been enormous fun. A story where he teams up with a second-rate substitute fails to work. It also doesn’t help that the moustache they use to disguise his Chaplinesque features often looks ridiculous.

I was also not enamoured by new arrivals, Emily Winter or Matthew Finnegan. Admittedly, at this point they are only ‘guest stars’ and their companion status is in the future but neither is particularly striking at the point. I am interested to see where their characters go (as I understand it all gets a little bit complicated).

The villains of the piece are a couple of Terronites. These are basically human in appearance and failed actors from some other planet. One looks a bit like a matinee idol might, the other a rotund, balding ‘agent’ type. There is little feel for their culture, race or planet and as such their modus operandi could just as easily be a couple of failed human actors. In the story, the technology they use to suck the talent from poor unsuspecting humans has been scavenged by them from another race so I’m not really sure why they couldn’t have been a couple of humans who had stumbled across the technology on Earth rather than two human-like aliens who have brought their stolen technology with them.

There were a few sections that were quite enjoyable. The cliffhanger to part one, involves the Doctor being tied to train tracks as a steam train fast approaches. Echoing the silent films produced in the era this is set in is an obvious trope, but one which would seem odd if avoided. This is pushed even further in the second half where the chase involving one of the Terronites is depicted in a series of panels laid out like a silent film – black and white, with no dialogue save for a couple of ‘speech captions’. This bit actually works really well and in a way a shorter comic strip written mainly in this style would have been a lot more entertaining.

A Doctor Who story set in and around this time is a no-brainer but this comic strip doesn’t fulfill that potential. Indeed, the other principal visit to this era, is of course in The Daleks’ Master Plan when the 1st Doctor, Steven and Vicki pitch up on a Hollywood film set and get involved in comedic shenanigans for Doctor Who’s very first Christmas ‘special’. This too played with the conventions of the silent movie and, of all the missing episodes, is probably the one I would love to see the most – so unusual does it sound. But again, it is merely half of an episode. Other novels and audios have visited Hollywood and different points in history and Sylvester McCoy is on record as wanting to do an audio in the style of a silent movie (I would love to see how Big Finish managed that!) but it does seem like this world has not been properly explored by the series.

Theatre of the Mind is a ‘one shot’ DWM comic strip which finds the 12th Doctor and Clara meeting Harry Houdini who has been trapped in a virtual prison.

In a clever piece of scripting which takes advantage of the brevity of this comic strip, the plot is basically Houdini escaping from the ultimate ‘trap’. A virtual prison, based on his own mind, where he is acting out his most famous escapes. The Doctor and Clara become trapped there too and experience some of his famous tricks including, inevitably, Clara being caught in a water tank.

The story also begins with Houdini on his mission to expose psychics as frauds, something the real Houdini was passionate about. Caught in a trap whilst doing this, Houdini sends a message to the Doctor as his only hope of aid. It’s interesting that this scene is written/drawn with a clear begrudgement on the part of Houdini that he has to call on the help of the Doctor – which fits in neatly with the strained relationship the pair have been seen to have throughout the previous stories in the marathon. Another clever addition is the fact that Houdini cannot speak to the Doctor and Clara and this adds an extra layer of distance between the them which fits with the difficulties the two characters have experienced in their previous stories together.

Houdini’s investigation of psychics is also interesting in that it taps into the theme of spiritualism which was prevalent in many of the Victorian era set stories that featured earlier in my marathon (such as Hypothetical Gentlemen and the Jago and Litefoot series). I can imagine that spiritualism was something which saw something of a resurgence in the aftermath of WW1 as people mourned the loss of loved ones and lacked the closure that a body and funeral would have provided. Contacting loved ones who had died was probably quite a popular way of dealing with the grief and as something which was so prevalent only 30 years or so prior would be something the grandparents and older generations may have been more inclined towards.

Clara is given some strong material in even this short a story, with her working out a sizeable chunk of what’s going on. The 12th Doctor feels like Capaldi even if both he and Clara are rather caricatured through artist Roger Langridge’s style.

Although it’s short, this does feel like a fitting ‘finale’ to the Doctor and Houdini’s relationship as well as showcasing what Houdini will always be the most famous for. I understand that a further Houdini short story has been written for the recently released ‘Star Tales’ from BBC Books so it will be interesting to see how this ties in with the established Houdini/Doctor relationship.

Our adventures with Harry Houdini continue with the Destiny of the Doctor’s story Smoke and Mirrors. Released as part of the AudioGo celebratory box set, but produced by Big Finish, Smoke and Mirrors was the 5th Doctor segment (each story featured a different Doctor from 1-11 with 11 making cameos in all the stories leading up to the finale).

Smoke and Mirrors is a classic 5th Doctor, Season 19 story. It has the historical aspect of The Visitation and Black Orchid; the interplay of the three companions; the Master as the main villain and, in a plot device popular with authors of the Virgin Missing Adventures, Nyssa being possessed by the baddies.

And it has Harry Houdini.

But this is an older Harry. A Harry who has finally got fed up with the Doctor teasing him and tantalising him with stories of other worlds and technology beyond his comprehension. This is a man who hates to be kept in the dark and, it eventually is revealed, has come under the thrall of the Master because of his burgeoning disenchantment with the Doctor.

It’s a really fascinating dynamic to play with and sits remarkably well with Harry Houdini’s War. Clearly the creative team behind Harry Houdini’s War did actually consider the storyline of Smoke and Mirrors and the seeds to Harry’s disillusionment are definitely sown in that story. Listening to them in chronological order allows this character development to pay off and gives Harry a satisfying arc.

The idea that the Doctor should meet an old friend – one of those historical characters he’s always boasting of being besties with – and discover he’s actually working for the enemy is a great hook for the story and works particularly well with that most vulnerable of Doctors, Number 5.

A Harry Houdini Doctor Who story wouldn’t be complete without a water-based escape and Smoke and Mirrors is no different with Houdini trapping the Doctor inside one of his own illusions, but with little chance of escape. The rest of the story is set around a carnival which makes for an evocative atmosphere and a contrast to the other theatre-based Houdini stories. In my ill-spent youth, I once tried to write my own Doctor Who story based around an Edwardian funfair (it had the 4th Doctor, Leela and K9 and a murder plot which revolved around K9 being a key witness but having lost his voicebox – I’m rubbish at endings!).

Despite the presence of four regulars, Steve Lyons, the writer, manages to find enough incident for all of them. Nyssa, as mentioned, comes under the thrall of the Master; Tegan and Adric are menaced by an escaped tiger and there is a great sequence where Adric climbs atop a fairground ride to escape it. The Doctor, meanwhile, is dealing with Houdini’s betrayal as he finally works out that events are the result of a previous adventure he had with Houdini whilst in his first incarnation.

This unseen adventure serves to provide further background to this complex relationship Houdini has with the Doctor and it highlighted to me how Houdini is possibly the historical character with the most established relationship with the Doctor – even moreso than Shakespeare, for example, which didn’t seem to be as deep a relationship as he has with Houdini. There is a friendship there, but also complexity and a touch of darkness. It’s a very different approach to the way the Doctor relates to humans and is a real success of these stories.

Janet Fielding does a good job at narration and her performance as Nyssa is spot on. There were a couple of occasions where she got Sarah Sutton’s intonation spot on. Tim Beckmann (who BF had originally wanted to return in Harry Houdini’s War) is excellent as an older Houdini and portrays Houdini’s complex character very well.

Smoke and Mirrors is a perfect companion piece to Harry Houdini’s War and will be interesting to see how Theatre of the Mind builds on the character arc established in these two releases.

Harry Houdini is a significant figure in the Doctor’s life. As far back as Planet of the Spiders, the Doctor revealed Houdini had taught him many of his escapology tricks. In the years since, the expanded universe has explored the relationship between the two and developed it from some throwaway references to some full-blown adventures.

The first encounter with Houdini in this marathon was in the short Christmas story – Houdini and the Space Cuckoos. In that story, Houdini met the 11th Doctor mid-performance. However, it was also clear that this wasn’t their first meeting. The Doctor and Houdini’s chronological relationship is almost as complicated as the Doctor’s is with River Song. What becomes clear over the course of the Houdini stories is that he has met multiple incarnations of the Doctor but that he has met them in a random, and undefined, order.

Harry Houdini’s War is set in 1917 and finds Houdini meeting the 6th Doctor. But it’s all very strange. The Doctor seems to be working for the Germans and betrays Houdini to them. The Germans want Houdini’s brilliance to be used for their own ends but they have also discovered some alien technology which could allow them to instantaneously transport hundreds of the troops right into the middle of Allied territories.

My son listened to this story just before I did and part way through was very concerned that the Doctor was working for the Central Powers. Of course, it all turns out to be a ruse – hoisting the Germans by their own petard, so to speak – but it hints of the complex relationship Harry and the Doctor have (which continues through into the other stories). Because the Doctor has always been reluctant to share his secrets with Harry, Harry has always retained a suspicion and a resentment towards him. Harry readily accepts that the Doctor has betrayed him and is working for the Germans. Even Peri’s protestations that the Doctor must have a plan don’t convince him and, oddly, even for the listener, Peri herself doesn’t seem convinced the Doctor isn’t actually working for the ‘baddies’. In fact, Peri herself seems a little ‘off’ – of which, more later.

The Doctor effectively gets a surrogate companion in Helen Smith, or Helga Schmidt – a German spy living in New York. With the Doctor apparently working for the Germans they begin the story as allies and the story progresses she learns to respect the Doctor on a more personal level. When she discovers he is an alien himself, her eyes are opened to a universe beyond the Great War and realises that he is actually working for a greater good than a petty conflict between humans. This, of course, is part of the Doctor’s plan as he is only helping the Central Powers so that he can achieve his true aims. Preventing the Germans from effectively utlilising teleporting technology is important to him for the sake of history’s true path but there is a secondary aim which, for him, is just as important.

And this is where Peri and her slightly odd behaviour comes in. It transpires that it isn’t actually Peri. She is an alien who has taken on Peri’s form based on the Doctor’s memory. The TARDIS and the alien’s time ship collided in the vortex and the ship crashed on Earth (which is where the tech the Germans are using has come from) and the alien found refuge on the TARDIS.

All of the Doctor’s mysterious machinations are not only to stop the Germans from developing technology that could see them win the war in one foul swoop, but also to help the stranded alien to return to the vortex and be rescued by others of their kind.

But because Peri isn’t really Peri, it is, ironically, a great story for Peri. Nicola Bryant really gets her teeth into the role and delivers the various hints that all is not as it seems cleverly and subtly in her performance. The Doctor’s actions also allow Colin Baker some more things to play with and, particularly when betraying Houdini, the listener really feels wrong-footed even by this most ‘sketchy’ of Doctors.

John Schwab (from the TV episode Dalek) plays Houdini. Apparently, BF had wanted to cast Tim Beckmann who had played the role in Smoke and Mirrors but he proved unavailable (having returned to his native Canada). Therefore, Schwab steps into the role having similar vocal tones to Beckmann. He is excellent in the role and has great interplay with both of the leads.

One aspect of World War One which Doctor Who hadn’t thus far covered was the world of the airforce. We’ve had trenches and submarines. We’ve had field hospitals and life away from the war. Young Indiana Jones travelled the full expanse of WW1 experiences and aeroplanes were explored in the Jon Pertwee-starring episode Attack of the Hawkmen. Harry Houdini’s War finally redresses the balance with Houdini and Peri in a thrilling air fight which ends with them crashing into woods and barely escaping with their lives. This action set-piece also ties in with Houdini’s real life history as he was an aviation pioneer and became one of the world’s first private pilots.

The idea of Harry Houdini’s ‘war’ also ties in with historical events. Houdini was a staunch patriot of the USA (despite being born in Hungary) and aided the war effort in a variety of ways including teaching American troops how to escape from sinking ships or extricate themselves from various restraints if captured by the Germans. Therefore, it isn’t too much of a stretch to believe that the Germans, particularly spies working in the USA, would want to use Houdini’s talents for their own ends.

As mentioned, Houdini has a slightly fractious relationship with the Doctor and this story sees this developing in its antagonism. Houdini is increasingly angry that although the Doctor is friendly towards him, there is so much about him that he doesn’t know. He easily believe that the Doctor would betray him to the Germans because, he realises, he really doesn’t know who the Doctor is. At the close of the story, the Doctor returns Harry to New York, but on the day all the adventures started. Harry is unconscious for his ride in the TARDIS and is furious he has been denied the opportunity to see inside the Doctor’s time machine. He’s also frustrated by the fact that no one can know what he has done in terms of helping to save the world. He just has to return to the theatre, finish his act and return to his normal life, waiting to see if the Doctor turns up again.

This frustration clearly festers in Houdini because it will reach a peak in Smoke and Mirrors, our next story. Both produced by Big Finish (although Smoke and Mirrors was released by AudioGo), these two releases tie in together very well and it’s clear Steve Lyons, the writer, is laying groundwork for the relationship between the Doctor and Houdini in Smoke and Mirrors – which was released six year prior to this release.

One other, more prosaic, common theme of these Houdini stories aside from his relationship with the Doctor, is his ‘chinese water torture’ escape trick. It featured in Houdini and the Space Cuckoos (it was, in fact, the cover illustration for the downloadable story – with the Doctor suspended upside down in the tank). Again, in this story Harry is mid-trick when the Doctor recruits his assistance. His return back through time at the close of the story allows him to make a spectacular entrance at the theatre having ‘escaped’ the tank of water. Escaping from water and a box will be the signature feat of Houdini revisited again in both Smoke and Mirrors and our final Houdini story – Theatre of the Mind. Obviously Houdini is known for much more, but the water torture is an arresting visual image so I’m not surprised it features in all of the Houdini stories in some form or other.

Harry Houdini’s War is a great 6th Doctor story, a great WW1 story and a great Houdini story. It ties in with the other Houdini stories in a way which must have been planned at least to some extent and helps develop the Doctor’s relationship with a historical character in a way that I’m not sure happens anywhere else – or at least not is as much detail as these stories do.

Three Doctors, a one off companion, space wolves and Coal Hill School.

This is a fun read but it does rather lay on the continuity quite heavily.  The First Doctor is at Coal Hill School in 1963.  There's fog.  A policeman gets sent to check on the junkyard.  The Third Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor retell part of the story.  Sarah Jane Smith is being told the story.  There's a reference to Clyde and the Doctor's fez.  And the Doctor's signet ring.  There's even a bit about the school being rebuilt and renamed as an Academy as it is in Class!

So whilst this is an entertaining, released for free, short story, is all a bit much continuity wise.