Big Finish

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

UK TV

Review: Torchwood 2×10 – From Out of the Rain

20 March 2008 Rob Buckley 17 Comments

 

Oh bugger. And they were doing so well. Okay, last week‘s was a bit arse, although fine as comedy. But this week’s was a bit dull really and just a touch silly. 

Which is odd, because it was a PJ Hammond script. I remember coming out of last year’s PJ Hammond episode wondering how they managed to balls up what should have been a classic and it’s happened again.

I’ve worked it out though. I know what’s wrong. 

They haven’t got Shaun O’Riordan.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Cuddlesome

17 March 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Cuddlesome

Cross-promotion is one of those little ideas that publishers have from time to time. "Why don’t we include some kind of free gift with our next issue? That way, people who want the gift will buy the magazine and be introduced to our high quality editorial content and then buy every issue from now until the end of time? And the free gift maker will get their product in the hands of our readers, who’ll then start buying their high quality merchandise. It’s a win-win situation."

Of course, it never quite works like that in practice. Apart from all the readers gradually becoming accustomed to getting free gifts and eventually refusing to buy a magazine that doesn’t include one, there’s the little issue of the quality of the free gift and whether the readers are the sort of people who’d end up buying more products from the free gift manufacturer. 

This month’s Doctor Who Magazine includes a brand new, exclusive Big Finish play, Cuddlesome. Starring Peter Davison, Roberta Taylor (off The Bill and EastEnders), Timothy West and David "Son of Patrick" Troughton, it’s the kind of play that makes you wonder exactly who it’s aimed at and whether you’d ever buy it.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Max Warp

4 March 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Max Warp It’s a cracking show, looking at the latest, fastest, sleekest models. There’s three guys who present it: an old, politically incorrect guy who’s well known for his outspoken nature and his support of the armed forces; there’s the younger, cooler one, named after a a furry rodent; and there’s the older, duller mechanical spod who likes talking about mechanics.

It’s all going so well right up until that young cool one goes and crashes an experimental vehicle and dies.

Hang on. Dies? That can’t be right.

Did you think I was talking about Top Gear?

No, of course you didn’t. I wrote Doctor Who at the top for one thing. No, this is the spaceship show ‘Max Warp’, starring the vocal talents of Graeme Garden, James Fleet and Duncan James (who used to be a pop star or something). And you can hear it in the latest, and possibly the most tasteless Big Finish Doctor Who play so far.

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Review: iTunes – the Life on Mars download experience

28 February 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

So downloads are all the rage now. Big Finish, which makes those Doctor Who audio plays, has set up a downloads service (they still haven’t got back to me about those missing extras, BTW, so I’m going to assume you don’t get the CD extras with the downloads, making them even less attractive).

The BBC, after doing ever so nicely with its iPlayer, has leapt onto the Apple bandwagon as well by putting various shows onto iTunes, including Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars, Torchwood and more. I’ve had little interest in the iTunes TV service until now – cos it’s mostly been shows that are rubbish or aimed at kids. But with Stu_N suggesting I was wearing rose-tinted glasses in my recall of Life on Mars, I decided to give iTunes a try and download the first series.

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Review: Big Finish downloads service

18 February 2008 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Fingers crossed, I’ll be giving both Bride of Peladon and Catalyst a listen this week, which might mean I review them as soon as… next week.

However, I thought I’d draw your attention to a couple of things first. Number one is that Big Finish now has a podcast. It’s a little bit cringeworthy, but it’s worth listening to since you do get advance information and behind-the-scenes explanation. Most notable in that is the first podcast, in which Nick Briggs explains the rationale behind the pricing structure of the downloads service. Did you realise, for example, that the US pricing of downloads is about $7.99? If you can follow Nick’s reasoning for that in comparison to the £12.99 charge for the UK (which appears to amount to “they’ve been paying over the odds for ages now, so now it’s the UK’s turn”), you’re a smarter person than I.

It’s also got a blog (of sorts. Guys, have you heard of comments? Permalinks?) which occasionally turfs up a bit of news, too.

I’m also producing the next run of Doctor Who Companion Chronicles, which has been a fantastic experience. I’ve chosen the companions and the writers and come up with eight (yes eight – you heard it here first) stories that I hope will please others as much as they please me. Oooh, I wish I could reveal more. I wish I could tell you who is flying into the country in May to return as a character that was such a pivotal part of my childhood but, sadly, for now you have to guess. Likewise I can’t reveal which one star from the last series is coming back this year.

Let the guessing on that one begin.

Over the weekend, I decided to give the downloads service a try, just to let you all know what it’s like. Here were my experiences…

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