I found this to be one of the best of this very patchy series. The characterisation of the Second Doctor and Jamie felt right, and the descriptions echoed the more stylised monochrome settings of the era. It was especially fun for an author to remember that Jamie is a piper, and even use that as a key part of the tale.

A straight 11th Doctor story which reads like fan fiction. Standard Doctor Who props such as the sonic screwdriver are introduced as if the main character already recognises them.

In some ways this follows whet has become the standard Class formula. It concentrates on one of the main characters (Quill) with some minor support from Charlie, and introduces a new, mysterious, character who will be gone by the end of the episode. That description, however, would more closely describe the previous story Sweet Nothings. This one is different in style from those previous stories, though, and because of that I enjoyed it a lot more. Quill is not as naive as the teenagers and doesn't take things at face value, so it is clear that something is wrong when Quill begins to hear voices while invigilating an otherwise uninteresting mock exam. There's also a teacher character who we get to learn a bit more about and who does not vanish at the end of the episode!

There are a lot of clever things about this story which have not been around much in previous Class audios. We get to learn more backstory of the Quill people, their rivalry with the Rhodians, and the reason why Quill became the "terrorist" that she did. There are clear parallels with persecution stories from our own world. This story is not just a dry history lesson, though. As the mystery intensifies we get scenes reminiscent of both Midnight and The Land of Fiction as Quill has to make some tough choices about what she wants from her life.

Along with the drama we also get sparks of comedy. Quill's sarcastic delivery is always fun, but this time she has a hapless teacher to deal with as well as the students she despises. By the end of the story, the mock exam used as a set-up for the story is revealed as being as pointless as the claimed it would be at the start of the story.

What Class needs is to keep pushing the boundaries each time, with more standout stories such as Life Experience, In Remembrance, and this one.

Some spinoffs seem obvious (The Paternoster Gang, Counter-Measures), others are demanded by fans (Jago & Litefoot), and some just seem unexpected. This set falls into the final category. I don't know if anyone was clamouring for a Donna Noble spin-off series, and if they were it seems odd to set it after Forest of the Dead rather than between The Runaway Bride and Partners in Crime.

Having said all that, I actually rather enjoyed this story. The prickly relationship between Donna and her mum Sylvia is here, and we get a bit more insight into what the young Donna got up to during her schooldays when she meets up with her old friend Natalie. We also get to listen to Donna making up nonsense backstories for herself when forced by Sylvia into attending a speed-dating session. Of course, in the world of Doctor Who, nothing is ever as simple as that, and soon Donna and Natalie are hot on the trail of a series of mysterious disappearances, and tangle with vivisectionists, aliens, and a speed-dating organiser who won't take no for an answer.

For me, this shows that, when written well, Donna Noble is one of the stronger companions in the history of the show, and well worth her own series.

This is an odd little thing. Donna comes home after some harrowing experiences with the Doctor. Her mum, Sylvia, is as acidic as always. Then it stops.

I was somewhat irritated that this was stuck on Twitter/X as a "social media exclusive" and not included with the Donna Noble: Kidnapped! box set. I can only guess that the first episode was a bit too long so they had to cut something, and this is one of the spare bits which the Big Finish team decided to re-purpose.

I had been holding off listening to the second series of Winston Churchill after having mixed feelings about the first series. Finally, I had a long-ish car journey to myself so I had a listen to this first story of the second series, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

This story is part-way between an audio book and an audio drama. It's essentially a two-hander with alternate narration from Winston Churchill and Silurian detective Madame Vastra. It leans in to the fan-service aspects of such a cross-over. We get casual mentions of Sherlock Holmes and Jagp and Litefoot (both Big Finish ranges) and a description-only cameo by the 11th Doctor.

The narration is told mostly in flashback, with the conceit that we are hearing readings of both Churchill's diary and the Casebook of Madame Vastra. This flipping back and forth could become confusing, but all it does in this case is add some padding to what is essentially a very simple story with a relatively underwhelming ending.

Despite all that, I still enjoyed it. I guess I am a sucker for crossovers.

Another Class story which largely sticks to the formula I described in my review of Catfish. I have rated this one a bit higher as it concentrates on Quill which is always enjoyable. Listening to her character change and develop through the story is fun. Sadly, as with all these "in between TV episode" stories, things have to return to the status quo at the end. This incident will no doubt never be mentioned again.

The Class audio series seems to be settling in to a kind of formula. Each story picks out one or two of the main TV characters, then introduces a new character who is not what they seem. The main characters go along with it but then things end up getting a bit weird. That pretty much sums up this episode.

All in all, not the most memorable of stories. If Big Finish don't do something to break out of this formula, then I don't see much future for the Class series. They managed it with Torchwood, and there is no end in sight for that series.

An episode of class which actually feels a bit more like and episode of Doctor Who than Class.

The two couples in the series: Charlie / Mateusz, and April / Ram are trying to have a bit of fun at a local bowling alley when Charlie upsets Ram and they all end up walking home. Somehow, on the way they find themselves in a kind of pocket world populated by green skinned aliens. Unlike most Class stories, this seems to be nothing to do with the "tears in reality" which seem to infest Coal Hill Academy, but instead some sort of reference to the history of the Shoreditch area where the school is located. Of course, nothing is ever simple, and they have to deal with not only finding a way home, but also surviving a kind of deadly maze.

This was easy enough to listen to but somehow lacked the edge of the TV episodes or even some of the earlier Class audios. The emphasis was clearly on the social dynamic between the couples, to the extent that for much of the story the two pairs are separated on two sides of a competition. To avoid the need to duplicate all the exposition, the point of view hops, skips, and jumps between the two sides, sometimes mid sentence but this can't disguise the fact that there is a lot of exposition in this story. To my mind the story also lacks jeopardy. Somehow it never really felt as if there was any danger of anything changing. This is a shame, as one of the things which I enjoyed about the Class TV series was that, like Torchwood in its turn, the writers were not afraid to make big changes which affect the nature of future episodes and this added a real feeling of risk and danger.

Ultimately, I don't think anyone in the Class world would notice if this story had never happened.

Well, I guess it had to happen for Class, just as it has happened for all the Doctor Who spin-offs. The "fan service" episode which wallows in memories of a beloved historical episode. In this case the historical episode in question is the 7th Doctor and Ace TV story "Remembrance of the Daleks". That's not really a spoiler given the title of this one, though. To add extra nostalgic gooeyness, that TV episode was itself a  chunk of fan-service, bringing back the Daleks and the iconic Coal Hill School setting of the very first episode. Given that Class is set in a twenty-first century version of that same school, the connection was pretty inevitable.

Having said all that, this episode is not done too badly. Wisely they chose not to involve any of the Doctors. I think that would have overshadowed the joy of the story, which is the interaction between Dorothy "Ace" McShane and Miss Quill. They are similar in so many ways, but with very different attitudes, and their bickering is great fun. Sure, there's some stuff for Charlie to do while Ace and Quill stomp around the school disagreeing with each other, and a few 'meeting out of order' gags, but it all feels like it's only there to give Quill and Ace a reason to meet.

If you're a Nick Briggs fan then you get plenty of him in this story. He does the Daleks, obviously, but also has a slightly cringey turn as a baffled soldier. That soldier does get to give Charlie a clip round the ear for being smug and entitled. though, something I reckon many in the audience will think was long overdue ;)

In summary, one of the best of this run of Class audio stories so far, which doesn't take itself too seriously and leans in to the nostalgia.

I find it intriguing how this audio series is taking the opportunity to explore in more detail the relationships between characters who never got much time together in the original TV series. This one spends a lot of time with Mateusz and Tanya, two characters who followed completely different storylines on TV. In this story, Tanya is more than just the "tin dog" who knows science stuff and can hack into computers. Mateusz is more than just Charlie's love interest. Together they make an interesting investigative team. I particularly liked the awkwardness of these two essentially nice characters trying to be angry and violent towards each other in order to provoke the "monster of the week".

As far as the story goes it was another easily guessable mystery, but that's not really what it was about. It's more an exploration of an ugly side of school life, with a sprinkling of the alien rift stuff, because it's Class.

So this is effectively the Class take on Adam from Torchwood. With added teenage angst. I enjoyed it but there really wasn't anything surprising about the story. Once the setup was introduced, the rest of it followed as if on rails. Even the final resolution was foreshadowed pretty heavily. This story is set during season 1 of Class, so anyone who has seen that series could tell that April would not suddenly go to Switzerland.

It's still a solid story which does well with the Class characters, but I felt it lacked some of the emotional punch of the TV episodes.

it's been a long time since I have listened to an audio drama which plays into the audio medium as much as this. Although it is set in and around Coal Hill School, it could really be anywhere. The story is all in the dialogue, which co-incidentally digs into the connected relationships between Charlie, Matteusz, and Quill. I felt echoes of "Whispers of Terror" and "Midnight".

It was nice to listen to an episode of Class which felt a bit more like a classic story from the Doctor Who universe. Realistically this story could have worked just as well with almost any of the Doctor Who universe teams, but the central conceit of "work experience" was fun.

I have knocked my score down a little because I did get a bit confused as to who was who and who was still alive by the end.

This was the first of the Big Finish Class audios that I have listened to. I had held off getting these, as I was in two minds about the original Class TV series, but I am glad I did. This first story steps away from the Rhodian and Shadowkin storylines which took over so much of the TV series and explores some of the characters as they get involved in a more local mystery, this time with echoes of the fay. I enjoyed it and I am now looking forward to working though the rest of the series.

The presentation of this short trip is good, with a strong feel of the era of 4 and Leela, but unfortunately I did not find the story itself very satisfying. It sets up a mystery, presents a diversion with an interesting twist, but then never properly resolves the original mystery. I was left feeling that there were many things that the Doctor could have done to better deal with both the historical diversion and the outer mystery. All in all a story which never quite got going.

A lot of people seem to be dismissive of this version of the original Big Finish Doctor Who audio story "Sirens of Time", but I found that I liked it a lot. The structure is much more dynamic and a lot of the murky sound landscape has been cleaned up and it feels overall much more like the modern Big Finish output. The retrospective interviews are fun, too.

These interludes are such a mixed bunch. This one attempts to embroil 6 and Mel into a series of imaginary death-traps based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe but ultimately only provided a pale pastiche with none of the depth of the original writing.

There were one or two mildly clever gags in it (Edgar Alien Poe, for example) , but they were largely wasted.

Ultimately, I was left disappointed and with the feeling that somewhere in the universe there must be a much better tale of Poe's mysterious final days.

I have listened to a lot of Big Finish Audio stories and enjoyed almost all of them. This one, however, I really struggled with.

In writing there is an adage - show, don't tell. This story seemed to turn that recommendation completely on its head. It was full of tedious explanations of a dull world and its inhabitants, and no characterisation to speak of. I won't be listening again.

A short trip set in a really interesting world where it costs money for every word you speak, so only the rich can say what they like. Clearly it's an allegory, but it is handled well, with the Doctor mainly in the background and the focus on a character who is short of cash and so has to choose his words wisely. The choice of the famously talkative 10th Doctor is a good one, as his rambling contrasts sharply to the short, to-the-point, speaking style of the main characters.

It will come as no surprise, given the title, that the story resolves around the desire for free speech, and this aspect of the story works well. There is also a kind of clumsy romance sub-plot which obviously exists to highlight the difference in speech patterns of the wealthy and the poor, but felt unnecessary otherwise. My biggest issue was that the speech patterns of the poor people were not short enough. Several times the main character added an expression, a phrase, or a few extra words which were simply not necessary. A life of counting every word would likely have taught everyone how to say the absolute minimum words in any situation.

Overall, a fun story in a very clever world which made good use of the 10th Doctor and did not include a spurious alien invasion.

I enjoyed this more than I was expecting. Nyssa can be hard to write for, as her role in the TV series was often little more than eye candy or a calm voice to contrast with outbursts from Tegan, Turlough, or Adric. I'm also not generally a fan of second-person narrative, which can feel like the author is telling the reader what to think. In this story, however, Nyssa's passivity and optimism work well with the psychological nature of the challenge, and the use of second-person is cleverly justified by the end of the tale.

There's an alien threat. It's Doctor Who, so the presence of some sort of alien is not really a spoiler. However, while listening to the story, I kept wondering whether the alien threat was really necessary. Either way, this was a pleasant listen.

A novella which purports to be about the First Doctor encountering some aliens in Victorian London, but is largely an excuse to claim the inspiration for the story of Peter Pan.

This kind of 'it was the Doctor all along' story is hardly rare, but in this case I found it to be very forced. I also found the characterisations to be a bit off, with the famously distant and grumpy First Doctor getting all soppy about the thought of losing his granddaughter. What follows is a lot of running, jumping, and sword-play, which almost seems as if it was originally written for a 21st Century Doctor. While all this is going on, Susan herself does practically nothing except get immediately captured and spend the rest of the story asleep.

Overall, I feel that this is a bit of a missed opportunity. The story of Peter Pan is already strange enough that it would fit a much more engaging Doctor Who story, and this tale seemed an odd choice for a First Doctor story. I'm tempted to think that this story was written for another pairing, such as 10 and Rose, then hastily converted when the publisher realised they needed a First Doctor story.