Big Finish

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”

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 3×8 – The Prisoner’s Dilemma”

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 3×7 – Transit of Venus”