Audio and radio plays

The ‘Doctor Who Unbound’ range of Big Finish audio plays is probably its most interesting. Essentially, each asks a ‘What if?’ question and then, with the assistance of a brand new Doctor and usually one of the TV companions, answers it. Sometimes the questions have been quite simple ones about events having taken a different path, while others have been more philosophical.

So we’ve had Geoffrey Catweazle Bayldon and Carole Anne Ford answer the questions, "What if the Doctor and Susan never left Gallifrey?" and "What if the Doctor changed history?"; David Collings, in possibly the most interesting play, tackled "What if the Doctor believed the end justified the means?"; controversially, Arabella Weir’s Doctor escapes the Time Lords – in the shape of David Tennant in a medallion – by getting a job in a supermarket; Derek Jacobi may or may not have been the Doctor but he was certainly the writer of some of the worst Juliet Bravo scripts ever made and might have been famous if his TV show, Doctor Who, had ever been made; while Michael Jayston reprised his TV role of an evil version of the Doctor to answer the question "What if the Valeyard had beaten the Doctor?" – well, only Bonnie Langford would be able to challenge him, apparently.

The most conventional of the plays was probably David Warner’s appearance as an alternative version of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor, exiled to Earth a few decades or so after all those alien invasions that UNIT faced, thus answering the question "What if the Doctor turned up late?" with the short response "Not much, thanks to Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier, and the Master would have regenerated into Mark Gatiss."

Now, here he is again, partnered with his new companion The Brigadier (still played by Nicholas Courtney), answering the valuable and vital question, "What if the Daleks were, erm, reasonable?"

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who Unbound – Masters of War”

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”