Audio and radio plays

An archive of entries about audio and radio plays, including reviews

Review: I, Davros – Innocence

25 October 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

I, Davros - InnocenceOnce Big Finish get an idea into their collective noggin, they really like to mine it for all it’s worth. A while back (2003), Big Finish put out a few plays that delved into the motivations of famous Doctor Who villains: Omega, The Master and Davros. Davros proved popular enough that Big Finish went a bit deeper in Terror Firma and The Juggernauts.

Apparently, though, that wasn’t enough, because now we have a series of four plays, released under the monicker I, Davros, that will delve into Davros’ early life. Again.

The first, Innocence, is out now. Is it worth your hard-earned cash?

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Review: I, Davros – Innocence

25 October 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

I, Davros - InnocenceOnce Big Finish get an idea into their collective noggin, they really like to mine it for all it’s worth. A while back (2003), Big Finish put out a few plays that delved into the motivations of famous Doctor Who villains: Omega, The Master and Davros. Davros proved popular enough that Big Finish went a bit deeper in Terror Firma and The Juggernauts.

Apparently, though, that wasn’t enough, because now we have a series of four plays, released under the monicker I, Davros, that will delve into Davros’ early life. Again.

The first, Innocence, is out now. Is it worth your hard-earned cash?

Continue reading “Review: I, Davros – Innocence”

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Sapphire and Steel – The Surest Poison

19 October 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Surest PoisonThere was always something about Sapphire and Steel‘s on-screen adventures: a je ne sais quoi in the same vein as MR James’s ghost stories. It was a feeling that something very scary and dark was out there. You wouldn’t have the vaguest idea what it wanted, why it wanted it, what it could do, or how it could do it. But you knew that if it got what it wanted, there’d be nothing but disaster.

Only the equally inexplicable “time agents”, Sapphire and Steel, would be there to do anything about it. And they’d be just as likely to sacrifice you to stop the dark thingie as help you. It was a world where science had no meaning, where anything “old” could kill you and even the most human of these supernatural characters would have unfathomable, alien emotions.

Sapphire and Steel ended after just six stories, a victim of the regional franchise shake-ups at ITV in the early 80s. But Big Finish, purveyors of fine audio plays for almost a decade, have been putting out new, original S&S stories for over a year now.

Starring David Warner and Susannah Harker rather than the original Steel and Sapphire – David McCallum and Joanna Lumley – the new stories have somehow always lacked that necessary je ne sais quoi: S&S have been too human, too vulnerable, the enemy has been too explicable and the morals of the stories have been too obvious and predictable. Where S&S would simply have snuffed out the existence of anyone who was bringing “time” into our world, they’ve agonised about whether the decision is right and resorted to other measures instead.

But here’s The Surest Poison, the most Sapphire and Steel-esque of all the stories so far. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a whole lot better than its predecessors.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Gathering

5 October 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The GatheringIf you’re a fan of the fifth Doctor Who and, in particular, of Tegan, you’ll want to listen to The Gathering, since it’s likely to be Janet Fielding’s only return to the role. Set in present-day Brisbane, it catches up with the Doctor’s only Australian companion and discovers what she’s been up to in the last 20 years.

There’s a problem though. There was another Big Finish release in September: The Reaping, also by Joseph Lidster. It turns out that The Gathering is a sequel to The Reaping. But because we’re dealing with time travel, The Reaping is also a sequel to The Gathering.

Curses.

The good news, though, is that it’s perfectly possible to listen to The Reaping without then listening to The Gathering. If anything, you’re better off not listening to The Gathering since it only muddies the waters. The other way round? Not so easy…

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Reaping

27 September 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

The ReapingAh. Peri….

Sorry. Got a bit distracted there.

Peri’s one of those Doctor Who companions that could have been good but never got the chance. The Doctor’s first American companion, she could have been a good foil for the Doctor and asked questions about things we’d always taken for granted (screw “If you’re an alien, why do you sound like you’re from the North?” How about “Why is the entire universe populated by people with English accents?”). Unfortunately, bar one episode where she gets to make a potion using her knowledge of botany, she had bugger all to do except scream and look good.

Ah. Peri…

Sorry, got distracted again.

So far, Peri has appeared in a substantial number of Big Finish audios, usually with the fifth Doctor but occasionally with the sixth. Her fifth Doctor appearances have done little to rectify the “Peri as cypher” problem, since most of the allotted characterisation time has been given over to new companion, Egyptian pharoah Erimen.

And despite being more of a sixth Doctor companion anyway, only having an intro story plus one other with the fifth compared with a bit over a season and a half with the sixth, she’s had little by way of characterisation in those plays, too, with perhaps only Her Final Flight offering anything by way of variety to the character (and that one didn’t even count. Listen to it and you’ll know what I mean).

But, ta da! Here it is. Finally. The story where Peri gets something to do. More than that: it’s an entirely Peri-centric story, set in her home-town and home-age of Baltimore, 1984.

Ooh. And it’s got cybermen, too (it’s on the cover: I can’t be spoiling it for you if it’s on the cover).

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