Big Finish

Dearie me. It’s getting harder and harder to find the time to listen to these things, what with the main range and the Lost Stories to listen to as well. Even with the judicious skipping of the obvious ringers (4×6 – Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code – being an obvious one, since SHE HAS HER OWN RANGE. SHE DOESN’T NEED A COMPANION CHRONICLE AND SHE’S NOT EVEN A PROPER COMPANION ANYWAY SINCE SHE’S ONLY IN THE BOOKS), I’ve had to skip 4×7 (The Suffering) as well, even though it looks quite interesting, since it’s a double CD so takes twice as long. I’m sure I’ll get back to it in due course, but until then, here’s 4×8 The Emperor of Eternity.

This is a purely historical story set in BC China, with the second Doctor, Victoria and Jamie having close encounters with the emperor of China and swords. Like The Suffering, it’s a double-companion piece, with both Deborah Watling and Frazer Hines reprising their roles.

Sort of.

Continue reading “Review: The Companion Chronicles 4×8 – The Emperor of Eternity”

When people (by which I mean Doctor Who fans) think of ‘lost stories’ and Colin Baker, they generally think of those stories from the original season 23, such as The Nightmare Fair and Mission Magnus, that got replaced with Trial of a Timelord thanks to Michael Grade and his ‘hiatus’.

However, those stories weren’t the only Colin Baker stories that fell by the wayside. Here we have Leviathan, a story written by the late veteran TV writer Brian Finch for season 22. Despite getting as far as a rehearsal script, the story never got made, probably because it would have been too damn expensive to make.

In the story, the Doctor and Peri land in a medieval forest near a castle. They come across some villagers who are being pursued by Herne the Hunter.

Cue the Celtic charms of Clannad and the theme to Robin of Sherwood? No, because this Herne is mean and he’s out for blood…

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – The Lost Stories – 03 – Leviathan”

You know, when Steven Moffat sat down to work out how the next series of Doctor Who was going to work, I’m sure he had many, many things to consider. Not least of these was the kind of companion who was going to accompany the Doctor.

Now Big Finish can be a little off the wall sometimes, but usually they’re quite conventional. However, this time – for three plays only – they’ve done something that I bet Steven Moffat never, ever considered: they’ve given him a racist, fascist, time-travelling Nazi scientist as an assistant. Yeah, beat that Stevie, you no-talent hack.

For those of you who haven’t been listening to the Big Finish plays for the last decade or so, Colditz has probably slipped under your radar, especially since it’s a Seventh Doctor/Ace play, so likely to be languishing at the bottom of any collection/bargain bin. Just to jog your memory, it’s the one with David Tennant doing the bad German accent.

You probably won’t recall the actual plot, however, so let me remind you: the Doctor and Ace land in/near Colditz; they do lots of dumb things; the Nazis capture them and the TARDIS; a Nazi scientist called Klein takes the TARDIS into the future where the Third Reich have won the Second World War; through timey-wimey machinations the alternative future gets undone, Herr David Tennant gets killed off, and Klein is left lurking around somewhere in the world, possessing knowledge of science and the alternative future that she shouldn’t have.

A Thousand Tiny Wings picks up where Colditz left off by plopping the companionless Seventh Doctor down into 1950s Kenya at the time of the Mau Mau uprising. Here he comes across a bunch of posh English people stuck in a house and slowly being killed off by a mysterious poison. And Dr Elizabeth Klein.

Sounding good yet? No? Thought not.

Yet, despite sounding extremely bad on paper, it’s actually a pretty decent play in practice.

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – 130 – A Thousand Tiny Wings”

Typically, the Big Finish Companion Chronicles try to fit in with the writing style of the Doctor Who era in which they’re set. So the Hartnell stories tend to be (waves hands a bit, since it’s a bit more complicated than this) a bit hardcore sci-fi or historical, the Troughton ones have veered towards daft sci-fi and historicals, the Pertwee ones to monster stories and so on.

Set during the reign of the Fifth Doctor, Ringpullworld in no way attempts to fit in. It doesn’t feel like Doctor Who at all, at times. However, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because if you squint a bit, you could actually imagine this was written by Douglas Adams, since it’s probably the cleverest and most entertaining of all the Companion Chronicles so far. It really is that good.

Funny that it’s about Turlough, mind.

Continue reading “Review: The Companion Chronicles 4×5 – Ringpullworld”