The Eighth Doctor - Ravenous 1 (Big Finish)

Written By: John Dorney, Matt Fitton
Directed By: Ken Bentley

Cast

Paul McGann (The Doctor), Nicola Walker (Liv Chenka), Hattie Morahan (Helen Sinclair), Mark Bonnar (The Eleven), Ian McNeice (Sir Winston Churchill), Laurence Dobiesz (Wilhelm Rozycki), Gyuri Sarossy (Jan Ostowicz), Tracy Wiles (Secretary / Ground Control), Beth Chalmers (The Heliyon), Roger May (Cornelius Morningstar / Verdarn), Judith Roddy (Stralla Cushing), Sarah Lambie (Gorl), Jane Booker (Dron / Yetana), Christopher Ryan (Macy), Nicholas Rowe (The Kandyman), Amerjit Deu (Governor), Charlie Condou (Crabhead / System / Jarl), Pippa Bennett-Warner (Ruzalla), Beth Goddard (Ludina Braskell).  Other parts played by members of the cast.

 

Producer David Richardson
Script Editor Ken Bentley
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

Following on from the events of Doom Coalition, the Eighth Doctor and Liv Chenka are attempting to find the trail of their lost friend Helen Sinclair, and they begin a brand new set of adventures to stretch out over four boxsets, this time with the umbrella title Ravenous. It's a pretty exciting new beginning for this Eighth Doctor team, and bodes well for the Eighth Doctor adventures going forward.  

The set begins with Their Finest Hour, which has The Doctor and Liv answer a call from Winston Churchill, who hopes that the Doctor can solve the issue of an invisible ship that is wiping out his Air Force. It's a energetic start to this set, with Paul McGann in his regular fine form as the Eighth Doctor, and Nicola Walker far more settled into the role of Liv. I must admit that while I really enjoyed Doom Coalition, I have never been too excited by Liv as a companion.  She just seemed too low key, but I felt Helen picked up the energy where Liv seemed to drag.  Here, she seems far more comfortable in the role, she just has more energy and her sparring with the Doctor had a good flow to it. At any rate, the opener sets the tone nicely, with World War II and interferring Aliens, a good supporting cast (including Ian McNeice reprising the role of Winston Churchill), and a good mix of action adventure and character moments. 

The second story, titled How to Make a Killing in Time Travel, has the Doctor and Liv again diverted from finding Helen, and this time end up embroiled in a murder mystery and a prototype time machine. This is a pretty fun story, lots of humor and asort of madcap pace. These first two stories seemingly have little to do with the big new arc that will be the backdrop of the coming Eighth Doctor boxsets.  I've been fooled before, they may end up playing a bigger role than I realize...but even if they do not, they were a fun couple of stories that kept me engaged and reaquainted me to the Eighth Doctor and Liv...and they made me appreciate Liv more than I had in the past.  

Helen, along with the Eleven, make their return in World of Damnation. The two apparently crash landed in an asylum, and Helen wreaked some havoc when they arrived, apparently endowed with some powers from the Sonomancer (Listen to Doom Coalition 4).  But now she is just trying to calm the Eleven's psychopathic tendencies, and it is seemingly helping.  Also at the asylum is the Kandyman (making his audio debut), who is distributing sweets to the inmates, which somehow controls their behavior.  By the time The Doctor and Liv arive, the asylum is in chaos, and I rather liked that while the Helen and Eleven storiy is being told simultaneously as the Doctor and Liv arriving, it builds in a way that you only slowly come to relaize that the TARDIS arrival actually takes place some time after the rest of the episode, and that the chaos has been instigated by the Eleven and the Kandyman, who were secetly working together.

Despite having spent so much time searching for her, the Doctor is very suspicious of Helen once they have found her, and he is unsure of her motives throughout most of the finale of the set, Sweet Salvation.  In this episode we discover that hte Kandyman and the Eleven plan to rule over whole worlds by delivering the Kandyman's confections as a mind control device, and it is up to our TARDIS team to halt their plans.  This finale is a great conclusion to the set, as it while the titular Ravenous is only briefly heard and hinted at, I am intrigued about going forward.  

This set is a good start to the new set of adventures for the Eighth Doctor. It definitely helped me warm up to Liv, which is a definite plus, as I really never found her that interesting in previous boxsets. I do find it surprising that they brought the Kandyman back at all, as I don't think he actually worked in his lone TV appearance. But Big Finish manages to make him a more interesting character, with a brand new design on the covers, because I am pretty sure there was some copyright issues with the character design. I should also make special note of Mark Bonnar as the Eleven, who has been incredible in this role since the start of the Doom Coalition sets.

If I have a criticism of this new set, it is that it really cannot stand on it's own. You have to have listened to Doom Coalition to understand major plot points of this set.  Despite carrying on from Dark Eyes, you could have started fresh with Doom Coalition, that is not the case here.  Now, that previous series of boxsets is pretty entertaining, so it is kind of worth it, but those who are not fairly familiar with the ongoing adventures of the Eighth Doctor on Big Finish, you should probably catch up to start this new set of adventures.  Those who are fmailiar?  This seems like a fun new collection to add to a growing list of fun collections for Paul McGann and company.