Big Finish

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

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Review: Doctor Who – Grand Theft Cosmos

4 June 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Is it my imagination or has the Eighth Doctor series of Big Finish Doctor Who audio plays been rapidly turning into a comedy strand?

Maybe Skull of Sobek wasn’t supposed to be funny, but it was. Brave New Town, despite not actually being funny, had Derek Griffiths in it. Max Warp was supposed to be funny, but wasn’t. And Dead London had a cast mostly playing it for yucks.

Now here comes Grand Theft Cosmos, featuring the return of The Headhunter and Karen. Were you on the edge of your seat waiting for that particular reunion? Have you?

Thought not.

With a good cast (Michael Maloney, Christopher Benjamin, Colin Spaull) and a 19th century jewel heist theme, Grand Theft Cosmos is yet another comedy for the eighth Doctor.

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Monday’s villainous news

12 May 2008 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Haunting of Thomas Brewster

8 May 2008 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

The Haunting of Thomas Brewster

I’m sitting here wondering how this Big Finish downloads ‘taster’ service is going to work. In essence, it’s simple. Pay 99p and you can download the first episode of any play. Like it and you can download the rest for £12.

All well and good, you might think. But the trouble with most Big Finish plays is that the first episode usually isn’t that good. Either it’s terminally dull set-up for a story that only later turns out to be intriguing, or it’s all a complicated set-up for a story that only explains itself in the fourth act.

Case in point: The Haunting of Thomas Brewster. This comes across in the first episode as a cross between a piece of Oliver Twist fan fiction and a standard twisty turny time-travel story in which everyone starts popping up and laying down plans before events have caused them to happen – or they’ve even arrived.

Yet, if you miss out on it, you’ll be missing out on a new (and possibly interesting?) series of fifth Doctor adventures.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Sapphire and Steel – Second Sight

30 April 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Second SightBig Finish producer Nigel Fairs and co painted themselves into something of a corner with their last Sapphire and Steel audio play. They really thought it was going to be the last one, since the sales figures had been somewhat lacking, so they essentially killed off Sapphire and Steel.

Trouble was, Big Finish supremo Jason Haigh-Ellery decided he wanted more episodes, commissioned a third series of stories and Fairs and co had to come up with a way out for our heroes. Several glasses of red wine later, they came up with the idea of recasting Sapphire and Steel.

So here’s Second Sight, answering a question no one had previously asked before and never really wanted an answer to either: what if Sapphire and Steel were played by young Australian soap stars?

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Skull of Sobek

30 April 2008 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The Skull of SobekZzzzz. Zzzzz.

Oh hello. I didn’t see you there. Was I asleep? Sorry.

Right. A review of the new Big Finish eighth Doctor/Lucie Miller play, The Skull of Sobek.

The Skull of Sobek is set…

Zzzz. Zzzz. Zzzz.

Oh, I’m sorry. Did I fall asleep just then? How rude. Let’s try again.

The Skull of Sobek is set…

Zzzz. Zzzz. Zzzz.

Oh dear. I did it again, didn’t I? Right. Back in a minute after I’ve knocked back a pack of Pro Plus. I can see this is the only way I’m going to be able to get through it.

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