Christmas Doctor Who takes on many forms: we've had Doctor Who as 'caper movie' (Runaway Bride); 'ghost story' (Chimes); panto (One Doctor); and disaster movie (Voyage); and here it is time for the traditional Christmas Day Eastenders misery-fest.

Death in Blackpool is Doctor Who as soap opera; Lucie even refers to Holby City at Christmas. And I by no means suggest this as a criticism. This is a lovely piece of work by Alan Barnes. Unlike Chimes and One Doctor, this is definitely not a standalone Christmas tale. It is the conclusion of the unofficial 'Auntie Pat' trilogy and follows directly on from events in The Zygon Who Fell to Earth.

It's always great to have Zygons and this does some work on expanding their race. What's interesting though is the information about what happens to Zygons when they stay in human form for too long. Clearly not a problem by the time of The Zygon Invasion!

Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith and Helen Lederer are all great in their roles and the scenes where the truth about Auntie Pat is revealed to Lucie are emotionally charged.

This isn't a happy story at all but sort of fits the other side of Christmas so often exemplified by Eastenders. I encourage you to seek it out, but only after listening to all the Lucie Miller stories up to this point.

NB: This review was written before the animation was available

We all have our own ‘fan-minds’. Opinions on stories are formed often when we are newish fans. Sometimes its influenced by ‘fan wisdom’; sometimes from having read the novelisation first. For me, I’ve always had an ‘opinion’ on the two David Whitaker Dalek stories: Power and Evil. This opinion was formed from listening to the cassettes of the soundtracks way back when (yes, the cassettes, people – I’m that old). As far as I’ve been concerned, The Power of the Daleks was the stronger of the two stories. The Evil of the Daleks always left me a little non-plussed. Now, admittedly, I haven’t listened to The Power of the Daleks for a long time (and won’t, in this marathon, for a few years to come), but I have come to appreciate The Evil of the Daleks a little more. I don’t think I’m quite at the levels of praise given by some fans, but equally, I don’t have the issues with the story that some detractors can have (including a rather damning review by Graham Kibble-White in an issue of DWM a few years ago).

I will focus on the Victorian aspects of the story for the most part, but the opening makes for interesting watching/listening (I went, as is my usual, with the audio soundtrack – as well as the existing episode, of course). The pairing of the 2nd Doctor and Jamie is absolutely golden and this is evident from episode 1 onwards. I enjoyed the tracking down of clues and the mystery presented by Waterfield. His character is one of the reasons I decided to include the story now in my marathon. He is every inch the Victorian gentleman, even when supplanted to 1966. I love the stuff where he doesn’t understant Kennedy’s vernacular and seems wary of the telephone.

Episode 2, having been available for quite a while (since the release of the VHS, Daleks: The Early Years) has always stuck with me. The Doctor and Jamie arriving at the shop, stopping the bell from ringing and musing over the antiques is an iconic scene for me. I also love the bit where the Doctor deduces there is another room behind the bookcase. What’s less appealing in the slightly odd, campy performance of Geoffrey Colville as Kenneth Perry. His delivery of the ‘they seem to have disappeared’ line which segues into the Victorian part of the story is so camp, I’m surprised scouts aren’t having a gang show in the shop. Quite why the Doctor and Jamie can’t have just left the shop rather than ‘disappeared’ is beyond me (the viewer knows they have done just that but Perry has no reason to be quite so ‘spooky-voiced’ about it).

Another reason I plumped for sticking this story here, was the fact that I realised the Victorian-set section is easily my favourite part of the story. From Mollie Dawson’s first appearance to Maxtible’s bubbling laboratory to Kemel’s silent yet powerful friendship with Jamie, most of this part really works. I say most of it because there are a couple of niggles. Ruth Maxtible, Arthur Terral and Toby are superfluous to requirements. Brigit Forsyth, as Ruth, has a thankless role as she contributes absolutely nothing to the story. Frankly, Mollie does more. Arthur, although linked to the plot, has a role in it which doesn’t seem to make any sense. Why is he being controlled? Is he a test subject? Why does he get Toby to kidnap Jamie? Nothing to do with him is really explained. Even his mood swings don’t really make sense as he seems confused/nasty/apologetic/desperate depending on what the scene requires him to do rather than any consistency with how his implant is affecting him.

But if we leave those three characters aside, the rest of this section has a lot to enjoy. Maxtible is a fun creation and his interplay with Waterfield is fascinating. One man driven by greed, the other by desperation, makes for a good contrast. The introduction of Victoria is also nicely handled (although the stuff with her mother’s portrait is a bit of a non-sequiter). Isn’t it good that we have Deborah Watling’s first appearance on film still? I realised, in this story, that Watling is actually very, very good. Her performance hasn’t yet reached the hysterical heights it will do as Season 5 progresses. Here she delivers a very convincing performance; even if her look (huge dress aside) does smack more of a 1960s girl than and 1860s girl (particularly the hair).

Another character I like is Kemel. I know there is much that could be written about the implicit racism – much as we have seen with the character of Toberman in the following story – but here I think, inability to speak aside, we have a better version of the muscular yet sensitive henchman trope. It is frustrating that Kemel is mute, particularly as much of the fourth episode involves Jamie and Kemel fighting and avoiding traps with very little dialogue (not a great match for audio). But his bond with Jamie is convincing as is the way Maxtible treats him like a simpleton. Maxtible’s attitude is consistent with the way he treats everyone, including Waterfield and Mollie. There is no trace of this condescension in Victoria, Jamie, Waterfield or the Doctor. The upstairs/downstairs aspect of Victorian life is something not much explored by Doctor Who but it is interesting to see the division of characters in this story: Mollie, Kemel and Toby are all treated as intellectually inferior to the Maxtibles, the Waterfields and Terrall; but it is done in a subtle way.

The trappings of Victoriana, from evidence of the existing episode and the telesnaps, are well-realised. I rather like how we have the bubbling, equipment-filled laboratory of Maxtible. A mad scientist’s lab, ala Jekyll and Hyde, is something we haven’t seen very much on our 19th Century journey. As I’ve commented before in my reviews, there seems to be an obsession for 19th Century-set Doctor Who stories to focus on the supernatural and spiritual fascination of Victorians rather than the scientific advances. It’s touched on a little in stories such as The Crimson Horror, and in the Jago and Litefoot series, but there are far more ghostly adversaries in this century for the Doctor to battle than mad scientists. Maxtible, therefore, stands out in this century, as a proper bonafide bonkers villain. He becomes steadily more unhinged as the story progresses and its almost a shame that he is ‘Dalekised’ in the final act as this robs his character of any nuance; or grand insane Zaroff moment for that matter. The almost fantastical science of this story – alchemy and mirrors that allow time travel – though, still fits with the obsession Victorians had with trying to marry the scientific and the supernatural.

To be honest, I sort of lose interest once the story arrives on Skaro. The Daleks are one of the least interesting monsters for me and whilst I quite enjoyed their being juxtaposed against a Victorian mansion, once we get back to their home planet I’m not as bothered. The Emperor Dalek is a good creation although I’ve always found the Doctor’s line about wondering when they would meet a little odd as there has been absolutely no indication up to this story that such an entity exists; but then the Doctor’s relationship with the Daleks has always been a moveable feast, what with their first encounter more or less being retconned by Nation and subsequent writers so that they could quickly become the mortal enemies we recognise them as now.  I’m also not convinced by the ‘human Daleks’.

It’s a nice idea, but the whole ‘dizzy Doctor’ stuff is a bit irritating. I think better use was made of these characters in the DWM comic strip Children of the Revolution. That said, it’s interesting that the humanised Daleks are used as a means of finishing off the Daleks, apparently for good (although I wonder how many viewers at the time, actually believed it was the final end proper for the series most loved and well-known monsters).

Something I do like, though, is the edge to Troughton and Hines’ performance of the scenes where Jamie loses his trust in the Doctor. Troughton really does come across as ‘alien’ and there a couple of times when it isn’t fully clear whether the Doctor has Jamie’s best interests at heart. It’s an enigmatic portrayal of the Doctor which doesn’t really appear again till Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy’s time – certainly it’s not something I feel we get from Pertwee or Tom. Yes, Tom plays up the ‘alienness’ of the Doctor, but I think its in a different, less sinister way. Some of Troughton’s scenes in this have an edge which is a little uncomfortable. Hines pitches his reactions as Jamie perfectly. These two really are a dream team of Doctor and companion.

The DWM review points out that The Evil of the Daleks is the show’s first visit to Victorian England and how surprising this was to the reviewer. Of course, technically the show visited the Victorian period in The Gunfighters, but he is right that it took so long for the series to visit this era. Can you imagine the 1st Doctor pitching up in Victorian London; how interesting would that have been? The ‘Edwardian gentleman’ persona of the 1st Doctor would have melded so easily into Victorian society that I think there could have been some interesting story possibilities.

I’m not falling over myself with praise for The Evil of the Daleks – I do think it’s too long at 7 episodes; I don’t think Maxtible ends up as a convincing character (having started out quite interesting; the lack of visuals is always going to hurt any serial; and I’m a self-confessed ‘not-a-huge-fan’ of the Daleks). However, I did find much to enjoy this time round.

Animation update June 2025:

The animation for this story is a really good production and does bring the story to life.  The all but silent episode 4 is convincingly animated (although it does remain a little clunky due to the this animation style's limitations).  I still don't think, though, that any animation can truly reflect the nuances and brilliance of Troughton's performance.  I tend to watch the colour versions of the animations but have decided this creates a slight disconnect for me as the stories were never shown originally in colour.  I will continue to watch the colour versions to begin with but on repeated viewings I think I will be more inclined to watch the black and white version or, indeed, the telesnap reconstructions.

One word sprang to mind as I finished listening to this story: portentous.

This is a story which wants to be Doctor Who on a GRAND SCALE. This is Doctor Who that wants to be poetic. This is Doctor Who that wants to be ‘about’ something.

And it just doesn’t work.

However much we may dislike certain things RTD has done since bringing back Doctor Who in 2005, there is no doubt that he understood the show. For all the differences between modern and classic Doctor Who, the throughline from one to the other is clear. They feel like the same show.

Death Comes to Time - released 12 years after Survival and after Big Finish had already started making Doctor Who on audio - simply does not feel like Doctor Who in anything but the barest, most basic aspects.

Sylvester McCoy plays a Doctor which does feel, at least to start with, like a development of his TV characterisation - particularly the mysterious manipulator of Season 26. Sophie Aldred plays Ace pretty much as she was on TV with slightly more maturity. And the TARDIS is here.

But beyond that, this is a story about gods and the games they play. It isn’t really Doctor Who.

Reframing the Time Lords as beings of immense power - they can tell someone to die and they will die - is not something that works for me. I tried to rationalise it as an extrapolation of the Time Lords seen in The War Games where they are far more god-like than the petty bureaucrats that we see throughout the rest of the classic era but it simply didn’t ring true. The idea that the Doctor has spent 26 years hiding the fact he could end a life with a single thought isn’t even close to the character we know and love.

There are some interesting characters such as the Minister of Chance, played well by Stephen Fry but there is so much overracting across the cast (including Fry in later episodes) that the entire thing just feels like an overblown, melodrama written by someone who never understood what made Doctor Who work in the first place.

The worst offender for the overracting is John Sessions. I’ve never been a fan of him. He was always the least funny contributor to improv comedy ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ and always seemed to carry himself with an air of superiority which was an unearned as it was irritating. As General Tannis he doesn’t so much chew the scenery as make a five course meal out of it. The reveal that Tannis is also a Time Lord but a very, very bad one, doesn’t ever feel earned and seems to merely serve as a reason for the Doctor to sacrifice themselves to save Earth (and the universe or something - it all got a bit unclear at the end).

The story doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. We start with an invasion of a planet, but then we’re chasing vampires around middle England. Then we’re with Ace and her mysterious mentor because she’s becoming a Time Lord (and exactly how that is possible is obfuscated by a whole load of poetic nonsense about ‘what makes a person’). And then we’re formenting rebellion on the invaded planet and witnessing a massacre before suddenly Tannis is targetting Earth instead but gets defeated by the Brigadier.

Yes, the Brigadier. Suddenly, in the final episode, it is as if the story suddenly remembers its supposed to be Doctor Who so shoves the Brigadier and UNIT into the final episode to convince us it hasn’t been trying to forge it’s own narrative path, divorced from anything the original show gave us, for the previous four.

The 90s saw various attempts at re-inventing Doctor Who - the continually aborted movie, Leekley’s bizarre ‘bible’, even the later Scream of the Shalka. None of them really understood what was central to the show’s narrative success (although Shalka probably came the closest). Death Comes to Time is a result of that same era of uncertainty and experimentation.

For me, it really doesn’t work. It feels very much like a BBC Radio drama - the sound design and music in particular doesn’t even begin to compare to Big Finish - even at this early point of their production. A story which wants to repaint Doctor Who as something only tangentially connected to what came before is not going to win me over as a fan.

Jumping on points or ‘soft reboots’ have become something of a common feature of Doctor Who. Its book and audio ranges, in particular, are so expansive that exploring them can seem daunting to many fans. The creatives behin the ranges, keen to keep people buying their product, often release stories which allow fans to dip their toe into a range without the need to have read or listened to a series of 20 odd other stories beforehand.

The BBC Books 8th Doctor range had become involved in an evermore complicated story arc involving the premature death of the 3rd Doctor, a companion metamorphosing into a TARDIS, a Gallifreyan voodoo death cult and a third, far more ruthless, incarnation of Romana.

The arc culminated in the epic The Ancestor Cell and then ended that story with an amnesiac Doctor ending up on Earth with a dead TARDIS.

Justin Richard’s The Burning launches the new, far less involved story arc – often referred to as the ‘Earth arc’ which sees the 8th Doctor arrive in late19th Century England and then spend the next few books travelling the slow path through 20th Century history.

Richards always seems very at home in this time period. The recent The Banquo Legacy, co-written by Richards, was also set here. Returning here immediately creates a comfortable atmosphere which Richards uses to his advantage to then twist into a horrific nightmare.

It’s a very simple story. A strange fiery alien entity has a man called Nepath in its thrall and is using his love for his dead sister to infect people in and around Middletown. The Doctor, with the aid of the local vicar, thwarts his plan.

The story moves between a select few locations: the mine where the entity originates, the moorland around it and Middletown. With a straightforward plot and few locations, it falls to a well-drawn guest cast – and extremely engaging and likeable 8th Doctor – to drive the story and maintain interest.

The 8th Doctor, excised of all the trauma built up in the previous novels, is the joyous, adventurous incarnation first seen in the TV Movie. His amnesia isn’t overplayed, thankfully, and his rapport with Reverend Stobbold is delighful. Stobbold himself is a great one-off companion for the course of this book. The Doctor is well-matched by an effective villain in Nepath. The fire elemental manipulating him and killing the locals is a little nebulous so a human mouthpiece is needed to anchor the threat a little more tangibly. The playful Doctor gives way at the climax to a steely, merciless approach which strongly echoes the end of The Family of Blood, with the Doctor condemning Nepath to a watery grave. It’s a sudden shock which reminds the reader that, as much as this is the Doctor we know, his amnesia (and subconscious ramifications of the previous novels’ events) may have had a slightly hardening influence on him.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I sometimes struggle with Justin Richards’ Doctor Who novels. The more I read of his work (and there’s quite a lot of it!) the more I’m finding his books falling into definite like or dislike categories. I’ve really enjoyed novels such as Demontage, The Banquo Legacy and The Burning whereas been thoroughly bored by others such as Dreams of Empire, Option Lock and The Deviant Strain. I definitely feel his ‘period’ books are stronger particularly those set in the 19th century.There’s not a huge amount more to say about this novel as it is a very straightforward story with a small, yet well-written cast of characters and limited but evocative locations. It really does feel like a breath of fresh air after the increasingly convoluted story arc preceding it and I look forward to the rest of the Doctor’s time stranded on Earth.

Like Star Death, the DWM back up comic strip, this is a short story showing us Omega the scientist, exploring, experimenting and developing Time Lord science. I had assumed from surface impressions that this was looking at the same event as Star Death - Omega’s sacrifice leading to Gallifrey’s ability to time travel, but actually this is set even earlier than that and is an earlier experiment involving Omega entering the time vortex.

There are some neat details in this. Omega’s protective outfit is described as something which sounds rather similar to what he wears in The Three Doctors (although I’m not sure how practical that would actually be floating around in the vortex). And the experiment is cut short by the interference of a Chronovore which presents itself as both the white, winged creature and a woman as both seen in The Time Monster.

The story portrays Omega as a compassionate, reasonable, ambitious scientist. His jealousy of Rassilon is explored but only in so far as his contributions to Time Lord society are secret whereas Rassilon is showered with adulation. Rassilon is still his friend.

Omega mourns the deaths of two of his team at the hand of the Chronovore and aborts the experiment when his team advise it. It’s a refreshing take on Omega and fits perfectly with the character presented in Big Finish’s Omega and in The Box of Terrors. A tragic figure; a victim of circumstance and of the Time Lord’s ruthlessness.

Going back to this early Series 3 story helped remind me how much fun the 8th Doctor and Lucie are together and why the events in later audios have such an emotional impact.  The Beast of Orlok is a fairly generic and slight story, if I’m honest, but Paul McGann and Lucie Miller, along with a note perfect guest cast, lift it and make it an enjoyable listen.

The story revolves around the legend of the golem which, bizarrely, the production team suggest they hadn’t done before – but I’m sure Grand Theft Cosmos also features a golem of some sort, but it’s been a long time since listened to that story, so I could be misremembering.  It is set in 19th century Germany, the Black Forest to be exact and sees the Doctor and Lucie discover galactic despots searching for genetic experimental babies in Dr Frankenstein’s castle (not literally but the parallels with the stereotypical horror film version of that story are fairly blatant).

As I say, the cast are what makes this story.  The extras focus quite a lot on the calibre of guest cast and heading it up is Miriam Margolyes who is wonderful as Frau Todd.  It also features Nick Wilton, Peter (Holy Terror) Guiness and Trevor (Revelation of the Daleks) Cooper.  My favourite performance, after the delightful Margoyles is Samuel (History Boys) Barnett who is great as the ‘romantic’ lead pairing up with Lucie for much of the story (I’ve been a fan of Barnett ever since seeing him in the underrated and little known comedy, Beautiful People).

My only problem with the story is a lack of sense of place.  Throughout the story I never really felt like we were in 19th century Germany.  The director and writer, Barnaby Edwards, made it clear he didn’t want German accents – fair enough, quite a few directors have avoided accents in foreign set stories already in this marathon and it isn’t a huge problem, but much of the dialogue doesn’t feel like how 19th century people would speak – or at least how they generally speak in drama.  It’s a sharp contrast to Mary’s Story which had the speech patterns and language they felt right for the period.  I think the script relies too much on the audience’s previous knowledge of a gothic horror at the expense of actually providing its own sense of time and place.  This is  further compounded by David Richardson’s asserting in the extras that this is 17th century Germany!!

I do like the revelation that Hans and Greta are a ‘real-life’ Babes in the Wood – genetic experiment left on Earth and hunted by a cruel dictator.  There are some thrilling scenes in Baron Teuful’s laboratory and some cracking dialogue between the Doctor and Lucie (I particularly like the Burger Master gag).  I think the German puns are a little self-indulgent on Edwards’ part, “Tod” is German for “dead”, “Teufel” means “devil”, and “Pausbacken” means “chubby-cheeks”, but they don’t detract from the story.

Not the best 8th Doctor/Lucie story, but by no means the worst and a solid if slightly ordinary adventure

Another Cutaway Comic and this one is a sequel to Vengeance. We find Omega entertaining himself on his world when a ship, Eltralla, crashes and brings with it device which begins to drain Omega’s psychic powers. In attempting to stop this, he becomes involved in a rebellion aboard the ship. It has been pirating around the galaxy and taking people as slaves from wherever it lands.

Omega helps but ultimately puts his own needs first which gives us quite an interesting characterisation of him. He isn’t the mad god of The Three Doctors yet, although there are glimmers of that. But we also have the man who was the scientist who was a pioneer amongst his people. He isn’t inherently evil. Selfish maybe. Arrogant, definitely. But this is a characterisation which marries well with what we see in Big Finish’s Omega. Someone who was abandoned by their people in a place with little hope and clung on through sheer willpower alone. The loss of his physical form is also started in this story.

The art is again by John Ridgeway and is as evocative as what we had in Vengeance. Ridgeway’s aliens are an odd breed - all the colours of the rainbow with strange head shapes and other physiology. They are extremely effective especially in a story where the ship has obviously taken people from many different worlds. The captain of the ship is grotesque in both her manner and her physicality. There is a series of panels where she punches Omega and he slaps her back which are brilliantly drawn with her facial expressions alone revealing a lot about the character.

I rather like the fact Omega has been drawn to vaguely resemble a young Brian Blessed as that, of course, ties in with the casting for the audio.

Apparently Ridgeway did his own colouring for this story (unlike Vengeance which was done by a colourist) and I think it shows because you can see he has chosen the colours carefully to depict this world.

Although this is a short story (it is paired with a Sutekh story in the release) it is an intriguing window into Omega’s life prior to The Three Doctors which manages to honour the character we know whilst creating an early life for him which makes sense.

Certainly of the various expanded universe material I’ve explored featuring Omega, the Cutaway Comic and Big Finish stories have been the most successful at taking the character from TV and building on him in effective, meaningful ways.

This was my first experience of Big Finish's Audio Novels - single narrated audiobooks of novel length (this one is 8 hours long).

This one was released for the 60th anniversary and was, apparently, the brainchild of Jon Culshaw who suggested the many (many) elements included - although writing it was given over to Lizzie Hopley.

The Third and Fourth Doctors, both travelling with Sarah Jane, become embroiled in Omega's latest attempt to escape his anti-matter universe. The story not only involves Omega and his Gell Guards but also [spoiler]two incarnations of the Master, Borusa, the Six, Sergeant Benton, Ogrons, Rocket Men and the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.[/spoiler] It was even going to feature Sutekh but that was vetoed (obviously because of what was heading towards our TV screens at that time).

Hopley goes for an epic, sprawling narrative to encompass all these elements with space stations, Earth deserts and distant planets with sentient, glass computers.

The plot follows a similar journey to many of the other Omega stories. Omega enlists the aid of someone in the matter universe - in this case, the Master - and uses them to help create his bridge across. This story, however, has Omega also pursuing the One who he believes is trapped in the Sandbox - a prison of many god-like entities created by the Time Lords and various allies.

What I liked about this is how, for a change, Omega isn't just a voice in the shadows. He feels much more present throughout and this is helped by Jon Culshaw's superb Stephen Thorne impression which really brings the villain to life.

Culshaw also does wonderful Pertwee and Baker voices so in many ways this almost feels like a full-cast story. Indeed, Culshaw's Delgado and Beevers/Pratt voices are also well performed.

I did struggle to follow the story at times. The changes of location became a bit dizzying as the story wore on, especially with two Doctors, two Sarah Janes and two Masters to keep track of, let alone the sundry other characters. The visuals of the Sandbox and its captives were interesting but I don't know that enough time was given to these god-like entities even though their names were extremely evocative and paint them with broad strokes at least - the Giggler, the Lone Horsemen and Mother Quiver.

The solution to defeating Omega, when it comes, is relatively obvious bearing in mind the elements involved but it is a satisfying tying up of the various elements.

I do think the story would work better with a few less elements (the Rocket Men and the Decayed Master are utterly superfluous and the Ogrons disappear after the first chapter or two) and the focus could be on the strange creatures released from the Sandbox, the Six and Omega's plan. Even the Delgado Master isn't really needed as he is just a conduit to Omega taking possession of a Time Lady which could easily have happened without him.

A little less planet hopping and a few less characters would have made this less epic but also maybe a little more easily followed as a story.

That said, this was an enjoyable listen and whilst it hasn't made me desperate to listen to more of the Audio Novels, it also hasn't dissuaded me. As an anniversary story it has a generous dollop of continuity and as an Omega story it builds quite nicely on The Three Doctors (the inclusion of the Gell Guards and their distinctive sound effects is a real highlight). Overall recommended - but be aware of the lengthy run time.

I love Lucie Miller.  Grand Theft Cosmos is quintessential Lucie Miller.  The Doctor and Lucie become embroiled in a jewel heist in Stockholm, 1898.  A relaxing train ride is interrupted by the appearance of the Headhunter and Karen (from the story, Human Resources) and they find themselves trying to steal a dangerous ‘diamond’ from the King’s vault, before the Headhunter does.

The interview extras for this story place a huge emphasis on this adventure being based around heist and caper movies.  Originally it was going to be set in the modern day but a historical setting was eventually picked.  To be honest, the setting is fairly cursory and, much as with Lucie’s other historical outing in The Beast of Orlock, I didn’t really get much of a sense of time or place.  The interviews also talk about how the production team wanted a sort of ‘Doctor Who does Ocean’s Eleven’ story but that isn’t really what we get.

What we do get is the Doctor and Lucie pitting wits with the Headhunter and Karen to be the first to steal the diamond.  This part of the story is a lot of fun as Lucie poses as Lady Palmer-Tompkinson to gain information from a guard as well as cause distractions whilst the Doctor materialises the TARDIS inside the vault to grab the diamond and some other priceless works of art.  Sheridan Smith is an accomplished comic actress and throws herself into Lucie’s charade with aplomb.  It had me laughing out loud.

The Headhunter, meanwhile, is hypnotising various locals and posing as Elizabeth of Bohemia to gain entrance to the vault herself.
But why, you may be asking yourself, is the Doctor committing grand theft.  The diamond is the work of an infamous 17th century artist, Claudio Tardelli.  The Doctor has, over the years, made it his mission to hide Tardelli’s work from the world.  Why?  Because Tardelli is actually an alien and his artwork has the ability to warp reality.  It further transpires that the Headhunter is well aware of this and is appropriating the diamond for a client who wishes an infinite power source – which it will provide as it actually contains a pocket universe.  Inside this universe is Tardelli is still alive and the Headhunter drags him out to offer him a position as the court artist for an alien king.

The second half of the story, once Tardelli appears, appealed to me less but this was probably more to do with the rather visual turn the story takes.  A statue, also created by Tardelli, turns out to be a golem of sorts – commanded to protect the diamond at all costs.  Attempting to escape aboard a train, the Headhunter and Karen are confronted by the Doctor, Lucie and the golem.  The story here falls into the audio trap of having the describe the action – a train-based ‘fight’ being difficult to realise in a non-visual medium.

But overall, this was a fun story and with the 8th Doctor and Lucie at its centre its hard to criticise it too much.  Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith are one of the best TARDIS teams the series has seen.  The guest cast for this story is also brilliant.  Katarina Olsson and Louise Fullerton as the Headhunter and Karen establish themselves well as returning ‘villains’ and its interesting to see what is essentially a ‘flipside’ to the Doctor and Lucie (considering the revelations about Lucie and Karen in Human Resources).  Michael Maloney (who seems to do a lot of Big Finish audios) is here playing Simonsson, the King’s official art buyer and provides good support to the Doctor and is pleasingly credulous when the Doctor explains his fears about Tardelli’s work (I sometimes find the usual “Doctor convinces the locals he is telling the truth” stuff a little tiresome).  Alongside Maloney we have two stalwarts of the TV series, Colin (Revelation of the Daleks/Rise of the Cybermen) Spaull as Henrik – essentially just a guard, although it is refreshing to have one presented with some actual character; and Christopher Benjamin as Tardelli.  What’s interesting is that this is before Benjamin returned to the role of Henry Gordon Jago in Big Finish’s immensely successful Jago and Litefoot range.  His turn as Tardelli has sprinkles of Jago in the character, but it is still very much a different person and one which shows Benjamin’s ability to do a villain.  The cast is rounded out by Sebastian Armesto as Anders, another guard at the vault but, as with Henrik, one who is actually given a nice slice of character.

Historically, as I say, the time and place are a little difficult to get a handle on.  The characters in the play are fictitious although they are mucking around in the vault of the unseen King Oscar II, who was the reigning monarch of Sweden (and also Norway) in 1898.  He was the last crowned monarch of Sweden and was, as the story implies, a lover of the arts.  The Doctor and Lucie are specifically in Stockholm of this year so the Doctor can ride the newly opened electric railway (which is where the story’s climactic train escapade takes place).  A cursory google hasn’t actually given me any solid information on this, but according to Barnaby Edwards in the interviews, this was a new invention and one of great significance (which was part of the reason they finally settled on an 1898 setting).

Overall, Grand Theft Cosmos is a fun and funny caper with a great TARDIS team and spot-on guest cast.

I am currently on a mission to complete the Virgin range of Bernice Summerfield New Adventures. I have had these books for 25 years and am only now getting around to completing the series. I love Benny as a character but with so many different book ranges, I used to skip from range to range but, with being a slow reader (and easily distracted by many other things) I have just fallen further and further behind.

The last novel in this range I read and reviewed was The Mary-Sue Extrusion and I hated it. Possibly the worst Doctor Who-related book I’ve read. Wilfully obscure and not even featuring Benny until past page 200, it was a chore to read.

I was wary, therefore, going into Dead Romance. Written by Lawrence Miles and openly not featuring Benny at all, I was worried I was in for a similar experience. I have found Miles’s books to be quite up and down. I loved Alien Bodies but Interference was overblown and overlong.

It was good to be pleasantly surprised and find myself thoroughly enjoying Dead Romance.

The book follows the life of Christine Summerfield who discovers she exists in a bottle universe on an Earth which is due to face the apocalypse in October 1970. She discovers this when she meets Chris Cwej who has been sent by the Time Lords (who are never named as such but we know who they are). He is to prepare the way for them to take over the Earth in this bottle universe as a way of escaping the emergence of the Gods in the main universe (as seen in the last couple of Virgin novels).

The novel is told through the conceit of Christine’s journal entries which makes for a chatty, pacy read with plenty of jumping back and forth between events. Christine is a fun character to spend time with and I also adore Chris Cwej so that helped to make this an easy read.

Miles is also excellent at evocative imagery both of Christine’s London and of the various strange worlds they visit outside of the bottle. The cast of characters is small – Christine, Cwej and Khiste (a ‘colleague’ of Cwej’s) are the only ones of any real note. The Horror is less a character and more a concept as it descends above London to devour everything in its path. It is the amalgamation of all the lives lost in the vortex and will hugely disrupt the Time Lord plans to take sanctuary in this bottle universe. Christine manages to defeat it with rock, paper, scissors.

Now that may seem rather anti-climactic but actually it really works and Miles manages to cleverly use Christine’s fear and humanity to give the outcome a little twist. Having recently watched Squid Game 2 which features a similarly desperate game of rock, paper, scissors it really did feel like a fitting denouement.

Although this story doesn’t feature Benny or the Gods – or indeed any of the main cast of the Virgin New Adventures – it still feels far more tied into the overall story arc than The Mary-Sue Extrusion did. Seeing the impact of the events from Where Angels Fear really works to show the true extent of what is happening.

Is this revelation of Christine’s true identity a little bit of an anticlimax? Possibly, but it does also fit with the depiction of the Time Lords as heartless higher beings intent on preserving their own lives at the expense of any other life forms (which is further emphasised by what happens to those who survive on the bottle universe’s Earth once the Time Lords invade). It doesn’t particularly do Chris any favours but he has always been depicted as a man often at the mercy of his own naivety and belief in others so, again, it is consistent.

For a book I was rather dreading, it was good to find myself enjoying the story, the characters, the world building and the overall style of the book. A book which is difficult to recommend in isolation, it is still a good example of Miles on form with this writing.

I remember going to Longleat back in the day for various Doctor Who days and, every now and again, they would do a little mini-drama (there was one involving UNIT soldiers fighting Daleks or monsters or something (can't actually remember), so i can easily visualise what this mini Goodwood adventure would have been like.

Jon Pertwee has provided a voice over for Elisabeth Sladen to interact with as Sarah Jane and she races around the track in a car only to be confronted by some Daleks and - bizarrely - Aggedor.  As this is an audio only version, Aggedor does little more than roar.  I have no idea who is voicing the Daleks but it doesn't sound like any of the normal voice artists and does sound slightly off.

But Aggedor here is our saviour and presents the Daleks with a force to be reckoned with.  I listened to this to 100% Aggedor on the site's Character Tracker and it's a bit of an ignominious conclusion for this most noble of Royal Beasts.

Fun to hear Sarah mention Exxilon and Peladon though.

Wooden Heart is a fun, pacey read with a good central mystery, a satisfying conclusion and a well-characterised Doctor, Martha and guest cast.

The Doctor and Martha materialise aboard an abandoned prison space station. The initial chapters of them exploring this setting a depicted well so when they step through a door and find themselves in the middle of a forest, the sudden change of scenery is palpable.

The village of people they find in this forest are an intriguing group. The traumatic disappearance of their children, one at a time, night after night is a great mystery and adds another layer to what is a story that already has some good mysterious threads already. The danger would be that these different threads compete against each other but Day balances them well. The abandoned prison is more or less forgotten about but only until the Doctor later passes back into that reality, leaving Martha behind in the forest world. The forest world, its monsters and exactly how it comes to be in the middle of a space station is compelling enough to drive the narrative before the two worlds come back together.

The best character in the village is the wise woman, the Dazai. One of those characters familiar in Doctor Who stories, who sees more than she should rightly know, she has a fun dynamic with all the characters she meets, especially the Doctor.

There are some great set pieces too. Martha and two villagers, Petr and Saul's perilous journey across the lake to a forbidden island is exciting. The Doctor and Jude's (another villager's) revelations aboard the prison station are also entertaining. The villagers congregating for safety in the village hall, lit by candles and surrounded by a mysterious fog from which the forms of their missing children emerge.

Indeed, the whole theme of missing children is one which I always think affects me far more since becoming a parent to when I read similarly-themed stories before that life event. The fear that their child may be next is palpable in those scenes with the villagers.

I also really liked the jeopardy around the Doctor and Martha being trapped in the wooded world when it disappears because of how the Doctor deduces that it extends beyond the actual spaceship also adds a great tension to the story.

A slightly messy soap opera-esque plotline where Jude turns out to be the child of an affair manages not to detract to much from the story but it's not something the novel really needed as the mystery and two 'worlds' of the story are more than enough to maintain interest and create a satisfying conclusion.

This is the sort of story that would fit perfectly as a middle episode in the RTD era. Nothing groundbreaking but a solid, fun, well-paced adventure.

Hmmm. I’m not 100% sure what I think about this book. It was an interesting story but possibly not something I feel fits into the era it is written for (Season 20). Admittedly, the novels should be able to push the boundaries of what TV Who did, otherwise what would be the point, but this one was maybe just a bit too ‘dark’ for my taste.

It starts off very much like Earthshock with the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan being caught up in what seems to be an archaeological dig. It soon transpires that there is more to it than that and soon the TARDIS crew find themselves terrorised by ‘the Dark’: a manifestation of evil from the dawn of time… I usually have issues with these all powerful dawn of time beings but the Dark is actually quite effective. It’s a more full on version of the Vashta Nerada and actually feels insidious and quite scary as the story progresses.

The archaeologists turn out to be miners, claiming rights to the moon they are on before the official authorities get their hands on a lucrative mineral find. With deaths occurring they are forced to send out a mayday which brings a ship to the moon, whose crew have designs of their own on the dark forces at work.

What then follows is a little too much toing and froing from a mysterious laboratory, a dark cavern and the ship. There is a spectacular crash involving the ship which involves scenes worthy of a blockbuster disaster movie, but ultimately it seems to take a very long time to build up to the inevitable confrontation with ‘the Dark’. When this finally occurs it is satisfying enough but it was such a long time coming that I found I had lost interest by then. Indeed, the last few chapters of the book were read over quite a few weeks simply because, of an evening I tended to decide to read other things rather than finish off the book.

The regulars are written well. Tegan is her usual spiky self and there is decent attempt to make her seem more believable by having her romance one of the miners a little and later be able to empathise with Stoker, the miner’s leader when her old flame (the ship’s captain) returns and is ultimately killed. Nyssa fairs a little less well with the author opting for the ‘Nyssa-possessed’ angle often taken with her character (both in the books and the audios). She becomes a little angsty in parts but she does show some bravado in various confrontations. The Doctor, too, becomes a little too angsty and low but, for the vulnerable Fifth Doctor, this is a believable extrapolation and although it could be argued it goes a little far (the Doctor almost seems to have given up all hope in the final couple of chapters).

The guest characters are all fairly stock – the build like brick s**t house but actually warm and cuddly one; the tough as nails woman leader; the no nonsense Captain; the shady and weasily looking second in command; the generic cockerney miners…no one makes a massive impact.

The locations of the story, though, failed to inspire me. Dark caves with the occasional visit to the spaceship are the only settings and my visual imagery was limited by this. As a consequence, my overall impression of the book was one of dreariness and depression – probably the point, but it didn’t make for a particularly uplifting read. Doctor Who, for me, is escapism, and stories which get too introspective or visit very ‘dark’ places (both literally and figuratively) entertain me less than the general output of Who fiction.

I don’t have much more to say about this as I don’t think I enjoyed it enough or hated it enough to find many things to say either positive or negative.

Almost immediately, listening to The Scapegoat was like a breath of fresh Doctor Who air. Paul McGann as the Doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller are easily one of Big Finish’s best Doctor/companion duo’s and the opening scenes of this story are an absolute delight as they bounce off each other on their way to the Moulin Rouge in 1899 (with Lucie hoping to meet Ewan MacGregor – despite him not actually being alive in 1899!) .

As it is, though, an alien device drags them down to Earth, narrowly avoiding a nasty crash, and they realise they are in Paris but not in 1899, but rather the occupied Paris of 1942.

I had forgotten this story was set in Paris, the same place and time – more or less – as the Torchwood audio story, The Dying Room. It involves some of the same elements but this story is very different in tone to that one – although just as gruesome. In places, it also reminded me of the TV Torchwood episode Immortal Sins.

This is a tale of Grand Guignol. Horrific, gory entertainment for the masses was hugely popular in Paris from the late 19th century through to the 1960s. A theatre actually called Du Theatre Grand-Guignol of Paris specialised in this type of show and the Theatre des Baroque is, essentially, the same place. The twist is, of course, that the troupe running the theatre and performing are actually goat-headed aliens.

The Scapegoat is most definitely a ‘horror-comedy’. Some of the visuals are stomach-churning but this is balanced by the hilarious scenes of Lucie ending up as one of the actors and ad-libbing her way through the scenes. Sheridan Smith’s performance of Lucie’s performance as a posh French aristocrat watching her love be guillotined is brilliant only brought into sharp, horrific relief when Lucie realises the actor, Max, has actually had his head severed from his body!

Meanwhile, the Doctor is giving the Nazis the runaround and this is a story which present the Nazis as a more comedic than a story such as The Dying Room does, despite being ostensibly based on similar premises. There are also elements of The Instruments of War with the Doctor effectively allying himself with the Germans against the aliens. It is less overt than in that comic strip but it draws an interesting parallel between both stories’ approach to the Doctor’s relationship and attitude towards Nazis.

The cast for this (and many of the 8th Doctor stories) is phenomenal. As the aliens we have Samantha (Mrs Wormwood) Bond and Christopher (Flatline) Fairbank. Both are clearly revelling in their hyperbolic roles and not so much nibbling the scenery as getting their nasty goat mouths around it and chewing it into oblivion. Paul Rhys – an unfamiliar name maybe but a face that has been all over British and US shows for a couple of decades rounds out the aliens as the unfortunate scapegoat himself, Max.

The concept of the scapegoat is a fascinating take on an alien society where all the society’s violent emotions are targetted at one individual rather than causing the culture to wipe itself out. Using alien technology they are able to, effectively, reverse time and bring Max back to life every time he dies (in a series of gruesome manners).

The Nazis are headed by Clifford (Warrior’s Gate) Rose. It’s a canny piece of casting with Rose being known for his portrayal of Gestapo officer, Kessler, in Secret Army. He brings a civilitude to the role and has some great interplay with McGann. Much like The Instruments of War, is sometimes feels slightly uncomfortable having a Nazi not be in the role of antagonist and clearly a lot less ‘bad’ than the violent, amoral goat aliens but I think, balance-wise, it manages it better than The Instruments of War – probably because we have a performance to back up the dialogue and Rose does it very well.

The Scapegoat is a wonderful story – it’s a great example of how well the 45-50 minute format can work to deliver a tight, funny, scary and exciting script. The cast are note perfect and it’s one of the 8th Doctor and Lucie’s best outings together.

Well that was huge fun. A silly little exercise in tying together what we knew of the Time Lords up until Season 22 courtesy of fanwanker extraordinaire, Gary Russell. Alongside the references to The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity, Russell also manages to wrangle The Two Doctors, Image of the Fendahl, The Deadly Assassin, The Invasion of Time, the Black and White Guardians and the Key to Time, Terror of the Autons, The Mark of the Rani, The Web of Feat, The War Games AND Shada!

There are some lovely bits of tying things together and then there's Rassilon creating the Black and White Guardians (seems fandom collectively forgot/ignored that little gem)! There's some fun additions too such as more details about why Morbius was executed and the revelation that Thalia and Zorac, High Council members in Arc of Infinity, got sent to investigate the Death Zone ahead of the events of The Five Doctors and ended up getting killed by some of those zappy lightning bolts which nearly did for the Master.

This is very much the approach to 'lore' that Russell, and others like Craig Hinton, would apply to their novels when the Missing and Past Doctor Adventures arrived on the scene - abundant references to any and every story and character that takes their fancy and fits, however tortuously, into the narrative (it's quite something to have one paragraph start with the events of The Two Doctors and end with a reference to Image of the Fendahl).

One can only imagine the fun Russell would have had tying in Hell Bent, The Timeless Children, The Power of the Doctor and The Reality War into his narrative machinations.

Our first Christmassy adventure is, to be fair, not particularly Christmassy. I've been holding off listening to this Bernice box set due to it being set during the season of 'Advent' on the planet Legion (which is where Benny and her friends currently reside), thinking it might be fun to listen to it during our own season of advent.

A Handful of Dust finds Bernice and her new friends, Ruth and Jack heading off on an errand for a millionaire. On route they pick up a distress signal from a supposedly dead planet. On the planet Ruth and Benny find a young man and woman living in an isolated dome, whilst Jack meets the galaxy's equivalent of Most Haunted's Yvette Fielding.

It's a fun adventure with a good central mystery. The scenes on the deserted planet are effective, especially as Benny solves the riddle of the planet and its reputation for being haunted. However, what doesn't work so well is the errand Benny is carrying out before receiving the distress signal. It is presented as a subplot, but all of it, save for travelling on a rubbish ship, happens off screen. There's some stuff about the mysterious millionaire actually wanting Benny, Ruth and Jack to spy on his employees but it doesn't really add up, doesn't go anywhere and gets wrapped up with some rather simplistic dialogue (which more or less amounts to 'he changed his mind'). It only seems to be there to set up the final reveal which feels totally unnecessary because there are tonnes of other ways that could have been achieved.

The regulars are brilliant as always and Ayesha Antoine's Ruth and David Ames' Jack are great additions to the Bernice Summerfield cast. Jack's slippery, egotistic, selfish impishness bounces well off Benny and Ruth is effective in what is, basically, the companion role to Benny's 'Doctor'. The guest cast, on the other hand, are a little underwhelming and a couple don't quite sound comfortable with the dialogue. Ellen Salisbury, though, is fun as Vonna Byzantium although I'm not sure why she's played as so obviously Welsh and her constant 'beloveds' get a little wearing after a while.

But, all in all, a strong start to this box set

The second story in this 'advent' box set sees Benny, Jack and Peter head off to investigate a spate of missing spacecraft. After some spacey shenanigans they find themselves at a dockyard where there is only one ship, hundreds of life signs but no one around and one lone, terrified man, handcuffed in a room.

This is a Christmassy 'ghost story' with zombies. It involves an ancient race (doesn't it always) that inhabit inherently good artefacts to preserve them. Benny knows of this race and credits them as keeping relics safe for archaeologists to discover. There's some good detective work on the part of all three regulars (although Peter seems to know a lot about 20th century ships for a half-Killoran boy from the 27th century) and overall it's quite a satisfying adventure if, again, not particularly Christmassy.

Well here's one for long time fans of the series! Fenman is the woman who swopped bodies with Bernice, got herself pregnant with Adrian Wall and then swopped out again leaving Benny to give birth to Peter. This all happened in the novel The Squire's Crystal which I haven't actually read - but enough of the story is filled in for the listener (as Benny needs to explain it for the benefit of Jack, Ruth and Peter). Fenman is after 'her' son and has, apparently, been manipulating our regulars for a long time, using mysterious crystals to swop in and out of various bodies, watching through her subjects eyes and controlling their actions where necessary.

Set on Legion's equivalent of Christmas Day, this is a story with only a very slight plot as it is more concerned with various flashbacks for Ruth, Jack and Irving Braxiatel explaining how Fenman has manipulated them and how they all ended up on Legion. It also fills in a little bit more background to the Epoch box set that kicked off this new era of Benny adventures. These flashbacks are a lot of fun. I particularly liked the revelations about Ruth. Jack's segment is a little less convincing as it requires David Ames to play not only Jack, but also two of his brothers and his father. It becomes a bit weird having four very similarly sounding characters in the same scene all played by the same actor. The story also ties up the loose ends surrounding Peter's mysteriously invisible boyfriend, Antonio and those scenes are very satisfying.

Being absent from the first two stories, Irving is given a lot more focus and it's interesting to see how this version of Brax differs from the manipulator from before the 'box set' era. This is a Brax from another universe, forced into this one and having to deal with the repurcussions of his other self's actions and attitudes. It's interesting and kind of made me want to go and re-listen to all of Brax's stuff in 'chronological' order (including his Gallifrey appearances) to get a better handle on the character and his machinations.

Ultimately it's Irving's underlying nature that saves the day and sends Fenman on her way and Benny's new family set about reconciling their pasts with their current situation.

A strong end to a fun box set.

The second prequel minisode to The Snowmen continues to establish the three members of the Paternoster Gang.  The focus here is, very much, on Vastra and Jenny.  Strax is, in fact, hardly in it.  Although this is titled ‘Vastra Investigates’, the Silurian crime fighter actually does very little investigating.  We start the short sequence as a criminal is taken away by Strax whilst Vastra and Jenny have a conversation with Inspector Gregson.  He mentions aspects of the case – identical twins, undetectable poison and an ancient Egyptian curse; tantalising us with elements of the unseen adventure.  Vastra gets to be condescending and then proceeds to shock the Inspector with the revelation that she and Jenny are an item.  The story concludes with Jenny and Vastra travelling by cab through the snow – snow which concerns Vastra, as there is not a cloud in the sky.

The influence of Sherlock Holmes is even more obvious here than in the previous minisode.  Firstly, we have Inspector Gregson who is actually a character from the original Sherlock Holmes stories, appearing in stories such as A Study in Scarlet.  Apparently, in those stories, he is presented as quite a clever person, almost matching Holmes’ intellectual capacity.  However, the  Gregson in this prequel is very much in the mould of those inspectors we are used to in Holmesian stories where the ‘Great Detective’ condescends, patronises and generally belittles the detective skills of the local police force.  This version of Gregson actually gets to reappear later in the series in Deep Breath.

Part of the teasing of Gregson comes in the form of emphasising the relationship between Jenny and Vastra.  After some dialogue about Strax being Turkish and Vastra’s  ‘skin condition’, Vastra reveals that she is in love with Jenny.  Gregson, is true Victorian stiff-collaredness, swallows hard and seems lost for words as Jenny and Vastra flounce off arm in arm.  I think I’ve mentioned before my difficulty with the Vastra/Jenny relationship – not not that – come on, it’s the 21st century for crying out loud. No, my issue is with the way Vastra treats Jenny like a servant, even when they are not around other people.  It seems a very unbalanced relationship.  That said, here, in the prequel, it seems much more as if they are equals and it seems odd, that in later, fuller, appearances, this imbalance is introduced.  I like the Paternoster Gang (and I know they aren’t popular with a vocal minority of fandom (but then some fans seem to hate writers inserting anything, you know, fun, into their precious show)) but of the three, Vastra is probably my least favourite and that’s mainly due to her arrogance and superiority.  Here it is evident in her treatment of Gregson, although that, as I say, has its roots in the Holmesian pastiche, but in later episodes it is her treatment of Jenny which riles.

The Stuff of Legend Live was an amazing experience.  To see and hear Paul McGann and India Fisher recreate the Doctor and Charley in a brand new adventure with Alex McQueen's Master and Nick Briggs' Daleks was simply brilliant.

It's events like this which remind you what is so great about being a fan.  Cadogan Hall, full to the brim with enthusiasm and excitement and a shared experience isn't something that can ever translate to online fan communities.  A truly memorable day.

I’m pleased to say that I enjoyed the second instalment of this story far more.  Whether it’s because more is explained satisfactorily in this part or because I  made a concerted effort to pay closer attention I’m not sure.

My problems with the first part still affect the second.  The acting is still of variable quality, although the addition of Caroline Burns-Cooke as Lolita improves proceedings greatly (even if she does borderline scenery chew).  The sound effects are still a bit indistinct.  There is a very long fight sequence between Eliza, D’eon and Sandwich and the automaton army which relies a lot of the sounds of swords and grunts from the actors without giving a real picture of what is going on.

What I did enjoy about this story was the extrapolation of events referred to in The Talons of Weng-Chiang.  Whilst these stories still skirt around actual references to Doctor Who, enough is given for the listener in the know to piece together.  The army of Peking, led one presumes by Magnus Greel, had 12 ‘commanders’.  These were automatons, or rather homunculi, with the cerebral cortexes of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac.  The one with the brain of a pig (Mr Sin) went missing but the other 11 are present in 18th century London as part of Lolita’s plan to disrupt established history and take control of this era.

This is the sort of extrapolation from Doctor Who stories that I find fun.  The idea that Mr Sin was one of 12 and that each of the other homunculi have the traits of the other animals of the zodiac – the snake is sly, the ox is huge etc – is absolutely fascinating.  I’d love to know exactly what the rabbit was like though – not the most battle-worthy of creatures!Also hinted at is the fact that Lolita and Mary Culver (or rather Compassion) are TARDISes (and that Sabbath is being turned into one also).  I’ve not actually read the BBC novels which chart Compassion’s conversion but know enough to be intrigued by the concept.  It is a concept Miles introduced in his first BBC novel, Alien Bodies and one which I think shows that, if nothing else, he is a good ‘ideas man’.

The story climaxes with Justine being tried by a court of representatives of the Great Houses (i.e. the Time Lords) in the place of Grandfather Paradox (who’s shadow she carries).  This makes it clear that this run of BBV audios is really one long story, beginning with The Eleven Day Empire and The Shadow Play (where Justine is given the Grandfather’s shadow) and ending with the final 2 parts Movers and A Labyrinth of Histories – at the end, Justine has been transported to prison to carry out the Grandfather’s sentence.  As such, maybe it has been unfair of me to judge these stories as isolated episodes, but then that is the nature of my marathon.

Extra historical details are few and far between as this story focusses more on the Automaton army (even Sabbath’s storyline takes a back seat).  There is mention of Queen Charlotte (who’s place Lolita has assumed), George III’s madness (which is implied to have been instigated by Lolita in her masquerade as Charlotte – altering George’s perception so he sees he only as Charlotte) and a final parting shot where Eliza tells Lord Sandwich his main contribution to the history books will not be the fierce battle with an army of hundreds of automatons but the fact he likes a bread and beef snack from time to time…

I know that Faction Paradox is very popular with some sections of Doctor Who fandom.  Unfortunately I can’t quite see the appeal.  I like some of the extrapolations from Doctor Who, but equally some of the veiled references are frustrating.  Overall, I just don’t find the central concepts as fascinating as some of the finer details (like the homunculi).

Cards on the table (if you’ll excuse the pre-emptive pun), I’m not a massive fan of Faction Paradox.  It’s not that I think it’s a bad idea, it’s just that I don’t see why it has gained the popularity it has.  I really only see fans raving about it.  I find it wilfully obscure.  I think it’s the frustrating nature of its links to Doctor Who which became non-copyright allusions once the Faction began appearing in spin-offs – i.e. the Time Lords become the Great Houses.  Now, I’m aware that it isn’t as simple as all that because, much like the Stranger series of videos started off being a bit like Doctor Who but eventually developed their own mythos, Faction Paradox is now its own entity with its own ‘background’.  But when it insists on including things like Compassion, the Sontarans or Sutekh in its stories, I can’t help but think it needs to decide if it is one thing or the other.

Sabbath Dei is really the third part of a series, The Faction Paradox Protocols which began in The Eleven Day Empire.  I have listened to the first two parts a number of times and quite like them – the presence of the Sontarans helps enormously in The Shadow Play – and I actually quite like the conceit of the Eleven Day Empire.  Faction Paradox purchased the 11 days that were lost from the calendar in 1752 when we changed from the Julian to Gregorian calendar (effectively one day was the 2nd September and then the next was the 14th).  This is a historical event I came across a few years ago in a book of ‘Millenium’ short stories for children.  One story was about the riots which apparently occurred from some poorer parts of society who wanted their 11 days returned, feeling they had been robbed in some way.  Apparently, these riots are an urban myth and are unlikely to have actually happened, but it made for an interesting short story all the same.

Sabbath Dei is set after the Eleven Day Empire has been ‘eaten’ and Lolita, a strange being, has taken over and is threatening the Homeworld of the Houses.  The two survivors of the Empire, Cousins Eliza and Justine have escaped in a time machine to 1762, an era well known to the Faction (the 18th century being where the Empire itself had first come from).  Here, they are hiding out with the Order of St Francis (better known as the Hellfire Club), biding their time.  Now, here I admit to having lost the plot somewhat.  This is partly because a few of the characters (notably Lord Sandwich and Sabbath) sound quite similar meaning I got confused as to who was allied with who for some of the play.  Basically, the secret service of King George III have secret plans afoot involving a homunculi army (yes, like the Peking Homunculus in The Talons of Weng-Chiang), a woman called Mary Culver is really in charge of the Order of St Francis and has been waiting for Eliza and Justine, and an agent of the service, Sabbath, is making contact with forces beyond our world by cutting himself in various patterns.

BBV’s audios are of varying quality.  As you may have seen in my earlier reviews of The Green Man and A Quality of Mercy, production and acting are often of variable quality.  Sabbath Dei benefits from good sound design and music (the chamber music in the first part of the story adds tremendously to the 18th century atmosphere – something which has been lacking in the Big Finish audios set in this era) but the acting is variable, from bad to wooden to fairly good.  Susanne Proctor as Cousin Justine is fairly wooden throughout, Emma Kilbey as Cousin Eliza is fine, but sounds slightly out of place due to her being originally from the 20th century (I believe) and so her speech patterns clash with those of the 18th century residents.    Saul Jaffe as Sabbath is also a bit flat and, as I said, sounds too similar to Michael Chance as Sandwich making it difficult in the early scenes to differentiate the two, although Chance is good as Lord Sandwich.  Mark Grieg as the Earl of Bute seems to have a very odd accent and Eric Maclennan as King George III is clearly trying to do ‘going mad’ acting but ends up with an odd high pitched delivery.  Jackie Skarvellis has fun as Mary Culver but does have a slightly mannered performance.  Jo Castleton, a BBV regular (she’s is the lead in the Auton series of videos and in Cyberon), plays the Sieur D’eon, an androgynous French spy.  She has an outrageous French accent and, despite the fact that D’eon is apparently a man, albeit one who passed as a woman for many years, sounds like a woman for the entire length of the play!

Also, although the music is great, the sound effects are a bit indistinct meaning some of the time it is difficult to tell what is going on – and this does lead to some poor dialogue with characters describing what they are seeing ; the eternal pitfall of audio drama.

I’m not a big fan of Lawrence Miles, either, so that doesn’t help.  I thought Alien Bodies was great but Interference, his two part BBC novel, was overblown and self-indulgent.  His Bernice Summerfield novel, Down, is alright but I can’t even remember what his debut Christmas on a Rational Planet was about (apart from also being set in the 18th century I think).  I have actually met Lawrence Miles at a fan get together and he is an odd man.  I think he has great ideas (I can see why Faction Paradox is a good idea), but can be very self-indulgent and clever for the sake of being clever.

One positive about this play, certainly compared to the other stories set in this century, is the amount of historical detail.  Not only do we have real life figures such as the Earl of Sandwich (yes, him of the sandwich invention), King George III and his Prime Minister, the Earl of Bute, but also D’eon is based on a real person – Chevalier D’eon (who apparently lived half his life as a man and then ‘became’ a woman) and there are numerous mentions of Sir Francis Dashwood, the infamous founder of the Order of St Francis (or as it is more commonly known, the Hellfire Club).

The story is full of gambling (echoing Phantasmagoria), high society balls, spies, secret organisations, salacious gossip, shadowy caves and rumours of human sacrifice.  There is even a scene where Eliza describes the peculiar arrangement of bushes outside the house, in the ornamental garden – initially I thought she meant they looked like a rooster…

A sure sign that this play struggled to hold my interest is that I had to listen to the end three times having fall asleep twice!  I rarely listen to audio without doing something else (washing up, walking to work etc) but happened to just be sitting down waiting for my daughter to go to sleep.

What I had forgotten in planning this marathon was that Sabbath Dei is actually the first part of a 2 part story ending with In the Year of the Cat.  Consequently, the next review in my marathon will be of the second part, also set in 1762 (I had been under the misapprehension that, due to the presence of Mr Sin’s brethren, the action moved to the 51st century).

The Swords of Kali/Okti was huge fun. Loved the split time periods and really enjoyed Clara and the guest characters. I’m even liking 12 in comic strip form

Also the vibrancy of these story’s art really stands out against 10 and 11’s stories.

8/10 even if the ending was a bit 'ghosts solve the problem with very little explanation'.

Oh and I loved the idea of 4 having an unseen companion in Tiger Maratha - would love to see some of their adventures.

Some thoughts on David Troughton's reading of the novelisation of this story:

* The novelisation also makes more out of the Doctor and Jo escaping the TARDIS before it topples down the mountain with Jo getting down on her hands and knees and crawling out of the doors. And the climb up is described a bit differently too.

* I always dismiss reading/listening to the novelisations because I forget how fascinating the little changes here and there are. I should do this more often.

* David Troughton’s Izlyr is an odd choice - it’s very deep and rumbling and more akin to Ssorg than Alan Bennion’s lighter tones as Izlyr.

* Troughton has Geoffrey Toone’s (Hepesh) delivery down pat.

* The chapters based on Episode 2 don't add much to the story beyond what is seen on screen - although the mentions of an alliance between Earth and Peladon through the possibility of KIng Peladon marrying the Earth princess Josephine get a tiny bit more attention in the scene after Arcturus’s fake attack.

* The book gives Peladon’s mother a name - Allua (not sure of the spelling). It’s a tiny detail but a nice touch. I’m also not sure about the emphasis put on Peladon thinking about how much Jo reminds him of his mother, particularly when thinking about marrying her!

* The lead up to the fight between the Doctor and Grun is given a number of scenes rather than just jumping straight to it (as in the TV story).

• First, Jo and Grun have a scene together when Jo sees the armour that Grun will wear for the fight.
• Then the Doctor and Ssorg have a scene where Ssorg worries about the Doctor’s chances.
• And then, most intriguingly, is a scene where King Peladon goes to the temple of Aggedor and promises Aggedor’s spirit (which he confesses to not really believing in) that if the Doctor dies, he will remove all images of Aggedor from the palace, renouncing all worship of him; whereas if the Doctor lives - even at the cost of Grun’s life - he will celebrate and worship Aggedor. All this is overheard by Hepesh. It really adds another dimension to the cliffhanger of the episode where the traitors are revealed - almost as if Peladon’s declaration, forces their hand.

Overall, it was quite enjoyable.  I tend to dismiss the novelisations nowadays, despite them being my meat and drink in my burgeoning fandom when every single story being available at the touch of a button was a sci-fi marvel worthy of the show itself. The ending is a bit different and even skips the kiss between Jo and Peladon.

The Snowmen is possibly my favourite of the Christmas specials.  I certainly remember getting to the end of its original airing with an immense feeling of satisfaction.  It has a lot of great elements; Matt Smith on form as always; the Paternoster Gang; a return of an old enemy; scary monsters and a great debut (or re-debut) of the new companion (sort-of).

When I settled down to watch this for my marathon, though, I don’t think I’ve been in the right frame of mind.  I got about halfway through my first watch and decided I wasn’t giving it my full attention so stopped and tried again a few nights later.  The second time I made it to the end, but found myself rewinding various sections because my attention had wandered.  I’m not blaming the story at all.  I purely think my brain wanted to be doing things other than watching Doctor Who.

So, a third attempt was made.

There is a lot I like about this story but the main thing is probably Jenna Coleman (or Jenna-Louise, as she was then).  She is wonderful as Clara.  Her first appearance in full-on Nancy from Oliver mode sets a high bar which she manages to maintain throughout the episode.   Clara’s determination to get mixed up in the Doctor’s world, whether he wants her to or not, is fun.  I like when she transforms into the governess and throws on the airs and graces.  Her interaction throughout the episode with all the different characters from Vastra to the maid, from  the children to the Doctor himself, is spot on and really well-scripted by Moffat.  I know some fans don’t like her because she is too knowing; too meta – but DWM did a similar sort of thing yonks ago with Izzy S in the comic strips – a character who would say things like  ‘Cool!  Robot Monsters!’ when confronted with the Daleks for the first time.  This is what Clara is like – in all her various incarnations.  To be honest, with my dislike for Capaldi in the earlier part of the season, it was my affection for Clara that helped me engage in the stories.  I prefer her to Amy (although not to Rory – never to Rory).

One of Clara’s best scenes in atop the house being pursued by the Ice Governess when she works out that the Doctor has a plan and she cooly pulls down the TARDIS’ ladder with the umbrella and later realises that the Doctor meant her to follow him because only she would have needed the umbrella, being much shorter than the Doctor himself.

Matt Smith continues to delight me.  Potentially this is a version of the Doctor I wouldn’t like – the grumpiness and detachment which has been turned up to the nth degree for Capaldi is here in the first scenes.  However, it doesn’t last long and the scenes with Strax quickly dispense any doubts that this is a long term situation.  By the time of the Punch and Judy sonic scene, the 11th Doctor is back and twirling around.  I love it!  I also really like the way the Doctor is introduced out of focus and walking through the shot.  It is a complete contrast to the usual arrival in the TARDIS, arms flung open, breathing in a new atmosphere (particularly from the 11th Doctor).

The Paternoster Gang are also on top form.  It’s quite difficult to remember that this was their first full appearance as a trio after being introduced in A Good Man Goes to War.  Doing the marathon in the way I have means I have already had their relationships and modus operandi established in The Crystal Throne and The Devil in the Smoke (as well as the two prequels to this story).  All three are confident and feel like they’ve been part of the Doctor’s world forever.  My personal favourite will always be Strax.  Dan Starkey is a genius and the memory worm scene is a Doctor Who comedy classic.  I know a section of fandom doesn’t like how Strax has lead to Sontarans being written as a comedy race of aliens (Big Finish have picked up on it a little in some of their releases, notably Heroes of Sontar) but I really like his character and I think its good to show a bit of diversity within alien races rather than some homegenous mass of terrifying killers.  The groundwork was laid for Strax’s character in A Good Man Goes to War so everything has followed fairly naturally (aside from his surprise resurrection which is obliquely referred to here (the minisode ‘explaining’ it wasn’t actually released until after this episode had aired).

To be honest, I’m not a massive fan of Vastra – I find her arrogance a little off-putting; but at least her relationship with Jenny, in this story, isn’t written as badly as it is by the time of Deep Breath.  I can’t remember how it is portrayed in the gang’s next outing, The Crimson Horror, but as that’s next up in my marathon, I’ll soon be able to comment.

It’s also fun having an old enemy back in the fold for a Christmas special.  A return for the Great Intelligence was something I don’t think many were expecting and it’s perfect for the new series.  There isn’t a need to appease fans with the creature design (like with the Ice Warriors or Zygons) because it’s a disembodied intelligence.  The instruments of its plans can be whatever the scriptwriter decides.  Yes, in previous encounters (including the Reeltime spin-off Downtime) they are ‘Yeti’ but they look different each time anyway and wouldn’t fit into the Victorian setting of this story at all.  The Snowmen are a natural extrapolation of the original stories (even though this is technically a prequel).

Ian McKellen is wonderful as the voice – it’s a shame he isn’t actually on screen because I imagine he would be phenomenal.  Richard E Grant does really well too as Dr Simeon, the Padmasambhava/Sergeant Arnold of this story.  He is chilling and restrained and when he finally goes full-on possessed at the end he must have been having a huge amount of fun.  I was never particularly enamoured by Grant’s ‘Shalka’ Doctor performance, but Dr Simeon is the perfect role for him.

There are a whole host of beautiful images and set pieces in this story.  The Ice Governess is a good piece of CGI and I adore the spiral staircase leading to the cloud (including the cheeky ‘taller on the inside’ line).  I love the idea of the Doctor isolating himself on a cloud.  The Great Intelligence’s sphere is a great creation (and looks good close-up too; I’ve seen it at the Cardiff exhibition).  The whole concept of alien snow is great and fits into the ‘traditional’ Victorian idyll which has already been referenced visually in The Next Doctor and The Unquiet Dead.

Historically we are still firmly entrenched in the cobbled, snow-laden streets and foggy, gaslit alleys of a filmic Victorian world.  Real historical characters are not required in this sort of world and there are just the references to Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.  Fan lore would have it that this story states that Vastra is the real Sherlock Holmes but, actually, the dialogue is much less definite than that.  Dr Simeon tells Vastra that Doyle is ‘almost certainly’ basing the exploits of Holmes on a woman (he avoids commenting on her reptilian features).  Simeon is taunting Vastra; pointing out the absurdity of her life.  He is suggesting that her efforts are so ridiculous that an author is using them as a starting point for fanciful detective stories.  I think we can reasonably assume that Conan Doyle is not basing his stories on Vastra and that the potential issues this throws up for whether Holmes is real or not (as per All-Consuming Fire; Happy Ending; Jago and Litefoot) are not really a problem.

Despite a number of false starts on this story (which were more to do with my mental attitude at the moment to my marathon rather than any failings in the episode) I really do like this one and think it is one of the strongest Christmas specials.  The ending is a little abrupt with the Doctor dashing off to find ‘the impossible girl’ and I’m not entirely sure the ‘tears at Christmas Eve’ resolution is convincing (although it definitely fits into the magical/fairy tale world Moffat prefers for his version of Doctor Who; one which I am mostly on board with as I’ve always seen Doctor Who as science fantasy rather than science fiction (a debate for another time, methinks).  However, I remember enjoying this immensely on first broadcast and it didn’t disappoint this time round.