In the UK: Wednesday 1st July, 2.15pm, Radio 4. Available for download until 7th July. Also available from Amazon.co.uk

I feel violated. Violated and stupid. Don't I learn? Am I no better than invertebrates or small yappy dogs? Couldn't I tell that another Torchwood Radio 4 play was going to make the last one look like a work of art?

Apparently not, because I actually sat down and listened, live, to Torchwood - Asylum.

Well that's 45 minutes I'm not getting back.

Continue reading "Review: Torchwood - Asylum"

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Apologies for the delay in reviewing this one: I simply couldn't face listening to the first of two Sylvester McCoy stories after having to sit through the Key 2 Time season.

In fact, the thought of listening to the new Eighth Doctor and Lucie season was so horrific I've decided to give those a complete miss, so sorry if you've been hoping for reviews of those – I doubt you have.

But, just for yous guys, I forced myself to get back on track. I steeled myself last week, gave The Magic Mousetrap a whirl – as well as the first episode of The Three Companions – and now I'm ready to report.

It's not that bad actually, although it would have been so much better with practically any other Doctor/companion combination.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - 120 - The Magic Mousetrap"

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Well, it's all over. I'd say, "Thank God for that," if it weren't for the fact that it's Sylvester McCoy stories for the next three releases. I might just sit those out.

Anyway, brief recap: in a poorly acted, poorly scripted sequel to the Tom Baker Key to Time season, Peter Davison's Doctor now has to go looking for the segments to the Key to Time for no well explored reason other than because there wouldn't be any stories without it. To help him is a 'human tracer' who can't act and is only human because it helps the plot of an audio play to move better.

So far, he's nearly got Ace killed (but failed unfortunately), messed up Mars, and met up with the inept Black and White Guardians. Now he's got to find the Chaos Pool while some giant slugs slug it out.

Oh God, surely there's more to life than this?

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who: Key 2 Time - The Chaos Pool"

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We're building up quite a collection of writers and publishers here at the blog, so in what has become a tradition here, it's time to pimp one of their books.

Stuart Douglas – who hasn't been around here much of late. Bah! – is publishing a collection of Iris Wildthyme stories by the likes of Paul Magrs, Steve Cole, Mark Wright, Cavan Scott and Mags Haliday next month so why not head on over to Obverse Books and place an order? It's only £10.99 and it's a hardback.

In case you don't know who Iris is, she's a Time Lady who travels the universe in a TARDIS disguised as a Double Decker bus. According to el Wikipedia:

Her stories are in the New Wave mold, characterised by nonlinear, sometimes stream of consciousness narrative, intertextual references to the rest of Doctor Who and popular culture, and themes of unreliable narration. She has a playful, mischievous personality, delighting in baiting the Doctor and getting into trouble.

Although she started off in the BBC Books Doctor Who novels, she's gone on to have a range of audio adventures, care of Big Finish, in which she's played by former Who companion Katy Manning, so you might want to nip over to Amazon to buy them, too.

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Polly. Everyone remember Polly?

Chances are the answer to that question is either no or "Oh yes, I remember her. I'd forgotten she was there."

Back when Doctor Who was just a kiddies show (ie the Hartnell era), Polly - together with fellow companions Ben and Dodo - were the producers' attempts to upgrade it to a family show by introducing modern, vibrant companions that the youth of today could identify with.

Yes, Polly was the Rose Tyler of her day.

A swinging 60s kind of girl, into mini skirts, screaming a lot, using nail polisher remover to kill monsters and indulging in mildly flirtatious dialogue with cockney sailors, blonde bombshell Polly managed to survive the Hartnell era and ended up accompanying Pat Troughton on his journeys through time and space, along with new arrival Jamie McCrimmon, who joined in what was the show's penultimate, purely historical, alien-free story.

And it's not long after that that we join her for this surprisingly good historical set during World War 2.

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x9 - Resistance"

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The 'Doctor Who Unbound' range of Big Finish audio plays is probably its most interesting. Essentially, each asks a 'What if?' question and then, with the assistance of a brand new Doctor and usually one of the TV companions, answers it. Sometimes the questions have been quite simple ones about events having taken a different path, while others have been more philosophical.

So we've had Geoffrey Catweazle Bayldon and Carole Anne Ford answer the questions, "What if the Doctor and Susan never left Gallifrey?" and "What if the Doctor changed history?"; David Collings, in possibly the most interesting play, tackled "What if the Doctor believed the end justified the means?"; controversially, Arabella Weir's Doctor escapes the Time Lords - in the shape of David Tennant in a medallion - by getting a job in a supermarket; Derek Jacobi may or may not have been the Doctor but he was certainly the writer of some of the worst Juliet Bravo scripts ever made and might have been famous if his TV show, Doctor Who, had ever been made; while Michael Jayston reprised his TV role of an evil version of the Doctor to answer the question "What if the Valeyard had beaten the Doctor?" - well, only Bonnie Langford would be able to challenge him, apparently.

The most conventional of the plays was probably David Warner's appearance as an alternative version of Jon Pertwee's Doctor, exiled to Earth a few decades or so after all those alien invasions that UNIT faced, thus answering the question "What if the Doctor turned up late?" with the short response "Not much, thanks to Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier, and the Master would have regenerated into Mark Gatiss."

Now, here he is again, partnered with his new companion The Brigadier (still played by Nicholas Courtney), answering the valuable and vital question, "What if the Daleks were, erm, reasonable?"

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who Unbound - Masters of War"

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On, then, to adventure two in the three-part (or is it four-part if we include that Companion Chronicle?) Key 2 Time series, an only slightly painful affair in which the Fifth Doctor has to travel around the universe looking for the segments of the Key to Time. Again.

Part two carries on directly from part one with the arrival of the Black Guardian, played by David "son of Patrick" Troughton. But all is not as it seems and pretty soon we're (literally) in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves territory for a historical with more than a few sci-fi overtones - and that nasty vampire from Being Human.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who: Key 2 Time - Destroyer of Delights"

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Brace yourself. This is the first of a three-part season (that's already had a prequel) called the Key 2 Time.  

Ouch.

Its slightly unpleasant name comes from the fact it's a sequel to the Tom Baker season-long story the Key to Time, in which Tombo and new companion Romana (Mary Tamm) went searching for something called the Key to Time, said object having the power to stop all of time if reassembled from its six component segments - just enough no-time, in fact, for the White Guardian, a universal force of goodness (or should that be order), to readjust the balance of the cosmos to stop his opposite number, the Black Guardian, from getting too powerful.

Unfortunately, each segment was disguised as something else, ranging from a rock to a human being (Lalla Ward), and the only way to find the segments, scattered all through space and time, was with a magic Geiger-countery wand called a Tracer.

With me so far?

Okay, the Key 2 Time (urgh) sees the Fifth Doctor (who got to meet the Guardians again for a trilogy of stories during the 20th season) once more having to go looking for the segments of the Key to Time, this time with the help of a living Tracer called Amy - and the hindrance of her sister Zara.

First port of call: Mars and the Ice Warriors.

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who: Key 2 Time - The Judgement of Isskar"

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This particular Companion Chronicle from Big Finish marks the start of two things: first, it's the first to really start mixing up the idea of the Companion Chronicles and the range's two-handers; the second is that it's the prelude to the Key To Time 2 (aka Key 2 Time. Aargh) season that's going to dominate the Big Finish Doctor Who range for the next five months or so.

Yey?

Based on the exciting game theory problem The Prisoner's Dilemma, The Prisoner's Dilemma has Ace and evil "living tracer" Zara stuck in jail together on some random planet or other and they have to get out somehow. The question is, will you care if they do or don't?

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x8 - The Prisoner's Dilemma"

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It seems that if you want to listen to a guaranteed decent Companion Chronicle, you have to stick with the Hartnells. Whether it's because the Hartnell years tended towards greater innovation and harder sci-fi, or whether it's because the better Big Finish writers prefer it, the quality on the Hartnell releases have tended to be far better than those for other Doctors. Certainly, the very worst of the range is still head and shoulders above most of the rest.

Here, for example, we have The Transit of Venus, read by original Hartnell companion Ian Chesterton (aka William Russell). While not absolutely brilliant, it is a very Hartnellian piece, in which Ian and the Doctor are stuck on board the The Endeavour under the command of Captain Cook as it travels to Australia.

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x7 - Transit of Venus"

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