Big Finish

News about and reviews of plays produced by production company Big Finish

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Sapphire and Steel – Zero

29 July 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Sapphire and Steel - ZeroIf you’ve spent enough time reviewing the Big Finish plays as I have, sooner or later you begin to ask yourself the question "What’s the point?" To put it bluntly, there’s more than a few that have been complete rubbish. There are entire ranges that are almost pure rubbish, such as the Eighth Doctor/Lucie Miller plays and the Sapphire and Steel range. So what’s the point in spending time listening to them and reviewing them if all you’re going to end up doing is variants on "Oh my God, why?" There are more constructive things to do with your life.

The answer is simple. As well as regularly turning up plays that can be described as not bad, sooner or later, you hit upon ones that can only be described as excellent. And then I get to tell you about them.

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here: it’s the first excellent Big Finish Sapphire and Steel play, Zero. Except it’s Gold and Silver who have been assigned this time.

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Review: Doctor Who – Sisters of the Flame

17 July 2008 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Sisters of the Flame

You always know you’re in safe hands with Nicholas Briggs. He’s been doing Doctor Who audio plays for 20 years or more – writing them, directing them, acting in them – so he’s pretty much got them down pat.

If he has an area of expertise, it’s the Doctor Who continuity piece. Above all other Big Finish writers, he’s the one most inclined to use an old enemy and reference continuity, all within the realms of a reasonably traditional story, albeit one unrestricted by special effects and design budget.

Guess whether Sisters of the Flame is a continuity fest (older fans may already spot the reference).

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Review: Sapphire and Steel – Remember Me

4 July 2008 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Remember Me (Sapphire and Steel)

What is it about Big Finish and piers? Every time they want to do somewhere creepy, they send the cast off to a pier to get tormented by comedians and Punch and Judy. Piers are the sandpits of the modern audio horror age, apparently.

This time, though, it’s Sapphire and Steel who have been assigned to the sea-front, rather than the usual Doctor Who crowd. In the company of Sam Kelly from ‘Allo, ‘Allo and plenty of other Big Finish plays (The Holy Terror, Return to the Web Planet), Joannah Tincey and David Horovitch, our heroes, David Warner and Susannah Harker, manage to wend their way through an above-average S&S tale that for once, contains an interesting idea or two.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Zygon Who Fell to Earth

2 July 2008 Rob Buckley 2 Comments


The Zygon Who Fell To Earth

The Zygons are one of those Doctor Who monsters that are a firm fan favourite yet only ever appeared on-screen once.

Stars of the Tom Baker story The Terror of the Zygons, they scared, mainly thanks to the superb direction of blog god Douglas Camfield but also because of their shape-changing abilities, biological technology and weird lifestyle – they need to feed off the milk of the Loch Ness monster to survive.

They also amused, mainly because it was really hard to do convincing blue-screen work back in 1975. Still, who knows? Maybe the Loch Ness monster really does look like it’s made of rubber and has a very stiff jaw.

Since then, they’ve popped up in all manner of unofficial and official tie-ins: Tenth Doctor novels, comic strips, New Adventures and videos.

So it seems appropriate that Big Finish have brought them back for an Eighth Doctor and Lucie adventure that is both silly and creepy.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Assassin in the Limelight

23 June 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Big Finish - Assassin in the Limelight

It’s a bit hard to know what to say about this one other than, "Ho, hum, another Sixth Doctor and Evelyn story."

To a certain extent, that’s because the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn stories seem to have fallen into a rut of late. The Doctor and Evelyn (who’s a history professor, you know) land in the past somewhere. They find something oddly out of sync with local history. They discover a boogly woogly thing is responsible. They fix it in a non-threatening, slightly slow and old manner while bickering in an old people "out on a day trip from a rest home" sort of way. The end.

Come on guys. Get your verve back. You had it once.

Unfortunately, Assassin in the Limelight follows closely in this rut since it employs a previous rut co-habittee’s villain (or is it villains?) – Leslie Phillips’s Dr Robert Knox, last seen being mean to the slow-witted David Tennant in Medicinal Purposes. The Doctor and Evelyn’s mission this time: stop John Wilkes Booth from being assassinated. (Ed: shurley shome mishtake?)

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