Starring Paul McGann & Sheridan Smith
Written by Nicholas Briggs, Alice Cavender, Eddie Robson, & Alan Barnes
Directed by Nicholas Briggs

Released by Big Finish - July 2019

Once upon a time, it was not as accepted to be a nerd in the mainstream.  In college, I was slowly rediscovering my love for such nerdy things as Star Trek, when I discovered Doctor Who. Tennant was still the Doctor, just about to start his second series in the role, and I watched and rewatched his debut series and then the preceding one with Eccleston over and over again.  But because being a nerd was still not something that people proudly declared to the world, I would tell myself that I only liked the new series, I wasn't someone who would get sucked into that old show. Of course, I got sucked in and went back and watched the entire classic run as well. But I'd never be such a nerd that I'd listen to those audio stories.  

But Big Finish released the first adventures with Lucie Miller, and for whatever reason, I gave them a listen.  They were easily digestible, made in the style of the new series, and they had a Doctor that hadn't much of a TV run, so why not listen to these stories to see if maybe beyond his rather bad movie he could actually be good.  And McGann was great...and Lucie Miller was a fun companion to have along for the ride.  Eventually, I gave up trying to convince myself I wasn't "that big of a nerd" and just listened to the whole back catalogue of Eighth Doctor adventures, starting with Storm Warning on, and I became a massive fan of anything Eighth Doctor.  But every time a new series with Lucie Miller came out, I was always ready and excited.  As good as some of the early Charley stuff was, as good as epic boxsets that have come out since can be...nothing comes close to the Lucie Miller run in terms of consistent quality for me.  

Sheridan Smith has returned for this boxset, set in between her first and second series, and it sees her reunion with the McGann, eight years since Lucie departed in To the Death. In the set the get trapped in a black hole with some confused Daleks, take down an evil mega-corporation with Roller Derby, help some people trapped in a warped Downton Abbey nightmare planet, and finally take on the return of the evil Fendahl.  It's a fun set, and while all the stories are fun and well written, it is the return of Smith and McGann's rapport that is the star of the show.  They play off each other well, and they don't feel like they have missed much of a beat.

If you were a fan of the Lucie Miller era of the Eighth Doctor audio adventures, you no doubt want to get this already.  As a sampler for new fans looking to dip their toe in with the duo, it is decent.  I think it probably more fun for fans who already loved this team.  If you really want to see if you like them together, I suggest just starting with their first series.  Obviously, it is more cost-effective to buy this, and if you want a taste of this dynamic I can tell you that it does not rely heavily on continuity, and you won't be lost. 

Narrated by: Nocola Bryant;
Written by: Alice Cavender
Directed by: Helen Goldwyn  

Sad about your local market shutting down? Don’t worry about it! Come on down to ODIN Megastore, where we have everything you’ll ever need. Enjoy our Hygge atmosphere. Browse stylish new ODIN wardrobes. Relax with friends on our new ODIN sofas. Friends gone missing? Meet new ones at our food-hall, where you can chill out and live happily ever after.

Welcome to ODIN Megastore, where everything is for sale. Even your planet.

For me, at some point during the sixth Doctor's tenure, the show started to feel a bit embarrassing to watch. I would have been in my mid teens, and moving away from more 'childish' things. However revisiting the series years later, I have a fondness for Colin Baker's Doctor. 

In Alice Cavender's latest Big Finish entry, he is about as loud and abrasive as he got. Full of puffed up self importance and ego. Prime sixth Doctor then!

The Doctor takes Peri to what he remembers as a quiet, unspoilt little planet. Full of old fashioned markets, and friendly locals. When they arrive he sees that all of this has changed, thanks to the giant ODIN Megastore, somewhere that sells anything you could possibly want. As always things aren't quite what they seem, and there is of course an alien threat behind the new retail conglomerate.

Under ODIN's Eye is a thinly veiled swipe at consumer giants such as IKEA and Amazon. It's an enjoyable enough story, played out perfectly by the wonderful Nicola Bryant, who captures Peri and the blustering sixth Doctor perfectly.....however I did prefer Kablam!

Under ODIN's Eye is available from Big Finish HERE.

Narrator: Katy Manning
Written by: Julian Richards
Director: Nicholas Briggs

No one survives in politics on Samael. Felicity Morgan has learnt this the hard way, as she keeps being assassinated. However, she has a secret. A secret that has kept her alive. A secret that has propelled her to the top job. When the Doctor and Jo arrive on Samael, they learn the impossible truth.

One woman. One face. Many lives.

The story for The Same Face is a third Doctor classic template. An alien government in crisis - with the Doctor turning up just in the nick of time. I must admit to rolling my eyes a little when I started listening to the story unfold, thinking to myself how unoriginal it was.

Then something happened that gave the story a much-needed kick up the rear end, something that perhaps I should have seen coming, but didn't....and THEN well, the least said about that big second twist, the better!

In short, The Same Face takes a (very) well-worn plot and adds a lot of magic to it. What also helps is that Katy Manning is on ABSOLUTE top form, slipping back into Jo Grant with startling ease. I expected the character to sound different with age, but no, not at all.

Julian Richards has created a mini-masterpiece with this story. An absolute gift to fans of this era that was an absolute joy to listen to.

The Same Face is available from Big Finish HERE.

Writer: James Goss, John Dorney, Guy Adams, 

Matt Fitton, Jonathan Morris

Director: Ken Bentley

 

Featuring: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Paul McGann, Tim Treloar,

Sophie Aldred, Lisa Bowerman, India Fisher, 

Louise Jameson, Alex Kingston, Katy Manning,

Ingrid Oliver, Jemma Redgrave, Hugh Ross, Pamela Salem, Georgia Tennant, Lalla Ward, Simon Williams

 

Big Finish Release (United Kingdom)

 

Released July 2019

Running Time: 7 hours, 30 minutes

“Brave heart…….ermmmm……all of me…?”

The Legacy of Time is an epic six-part adventure, celebrating 20 years of Doctor Who at Big Finish!

Time is collapsing. Incidents of chaos and devastation are appearing throughout the lives of one Time Lord and his many friends – all fallout from one terrible disaster. From Earth’s past and present to timeless alien worlds, from the cloisters of Gallifrey into the Vortex itself….The Doctor must save universal history – and he needs all the help he can get.

Lies In Ruins by James Goss

At the opening of Lies in Ruins, we join River Song (Alex Kingston) and her team excavating some ruins, only to find that one Bernice Somerfield (Lisa Bowerman) had beaten her to it. It seems that the ruins lie on a mysterious planet, a planet that until very recently didn't exist. The planet is rich with ruined temples and towers…as well as ghosts from the past. 

Not being able to resist a mystery, the pair are joined by the eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) and new companion Ria (Alexandria Riley). Between the four of them, they discover the identity of the planet, while at the same time fending off a rather ruthless salvage attempt.

Lies in Ruins is a story that is jam-packed with action. It hits the ground running, and doesn't let up that rather frantic pace. I found the plot with its slow reveals quite intriguing, and was genuinely surprised with the final twist as to what the new planet actually was.

My one gripe would be Ria. She really grates, and yes, this is a part of the plot - but did they really need to make her quite so unlikeable?

The Split Infinitive by 17011

The Counter-Measures team are investigating a gangster who seems to be aging people to death. Without warning, they are visited by Ace (Sophie Aldred)  and the seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), who are investigating a very strange, temporal anomaly  The twist is that Ace is visiting them in the 1960's and the Doctor in the 1970's.

Once again, things unfold at breakneck speed. I'm beginning to wonder if it is because there is simply so much to cram into these stories!

The plot device of having the narrative split across two time zones is a great idea, especially when the story relating to the earlier time zone needs to play out in order to see how the later time zone will deal with any ramifications, which is probably the dictionary definition of timey-wimey.

What really stood out for me though was Howard Carter's music. It had a proper old school jazz vibe about it, quite unique, and something that went well with the story.

The Sacrifice Of Jo Grant by Guy Adams

In the present Jo Grant (Katy Manning), Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) are investigating a spate of wormholes, when Jo and Kate are inadvertently sucked into one and deposited in the middle of a UNIT adventure from the 1970’s (or is it the 1980’s). This lends itself to quite a touching reunion between the much older Jo Grant and the third Doctor (here voiced by Tim Treloar). We also find that Kate Stewart’s father is contactable on the other end of a radio link – will she take this opportunity to talk to him? 

Sadly, it is with Kate’s dilemma on whether to contact her father where the story falls down. I found the writing that shows Kate ‘agonising’ over whether to contact the Brigadier to be incredibly trite – it just seemed so out of character, and I just didn’t buy it.

Despite that, I think The Sacrifice of Jo Grant is my favourite of this collection. It is after all a classic Pertwee tale of holes in time and dinosaurs.

Let’s address the title of this segment. The story starts with a voiceover declaring Jo Grant dead and a hero, so we know straight away where this story is going – does it fulfil its promise – I’ll let you find out.

Relative by Matt Fitton

Relative is a rather light-hearted story (and a great play on words), with the fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) thrown together with his (future) daughter Jenny (Georgia Tennant). It's also the first story in the set to truly try to bring together some of the dangling plot threads that might prove a link to the previous entries. 

It seems that a TARDIS has exploded and is creating some sort of temporal event. The TARDIS is forced to materialise on a ship full of tourists…and a stowaway, Jenny. There’s a lot of humour to be mined from the situation especially when Jenny keeps referring to the fifth Doctor her “Great, great, great, great, great Gramps”, much to his obvious annoyance.

The Sirens are introduced to the story arc here (previously seen in Sirens of Time). These are creatures that feed on temporal energy and positively feast on a paradox…..and space tourists. The kleptomaniac Time Lord the Nine (John Heffernan) is also thrown into the mix to complicate the Doctor and Jenny’s rescue attempt.

Ultimately the story is quite throw away, but at least by the end of it, the listener starts to have a good idea of what might be going on.

The Avenues of Possibility by Jonathan Morris

When DI Patricia Menzies (Anna Hope) is called to a case where a man has seemingly stumbled out of the eighteenth century, things appear to be getting strange. When that man then asks for the Doctor, she knows something is very wrong.  Of course, the sixth Doctor (Colin Baker)  and Charlotte Pollard (India Fisher) are at hand to help. It appears that Earth is peppered with faults in time. There are wormholes that connect to possible futures and probable pasts everywhere.

Things are then further complicated when one possible future, where Britain is a dictatorship suddenly takes an interest in invading its own past, creating a huge paradox that attracts the attention of the Sirens, meaning that time itself could be torn apart.

Jonathan Morris has created an interesting take on a paradox with The Avenues of Possibility, which is another strong entry into this celebratory box set which really delivers the goods. The writing is slick and very clever, and well delivered by a very strong cast.

Collision Course by Guy Adams

Now we come to the grand finale. A fourth Doctor (Tom Baker), Leela (Louise Jameson) and Romana (Lalla Ward) adventure split across two time periods, and two versions of the same planet. A planet that is steeped in Time Lord legend, and where the first-ever TARDIS had it's very first test flight with rather disastrous results. It'll take at least six Time Lords to save the day (and maybe a couple of others just for good measure). Where ever could we find them?

I found Collision Course, for the most part to be the weakest of six stories included in this set. I think mainly because of the way the action is split (again) across two time periods, everything after a while blurs together. There is also a lot of technobabble, and some very earnest monologues, describing how dire the situation is, and how there can be no resolution.

Collision Course also features the money shot that we have all been waiting for, and that is the payoff of having multiple Doctors in the same room, bickering away about their own self-importance.

So, here is the thing with The Legacy Of Time, I was looking for a proper multi-Doctor story, and yes, I got it for about 10 minutes of the 480 plus minute run time. However, I wanted more. As a sum of it's parts the overall story is very enjoyable and included some iconic characters that were solely the creation of Big Finish......but  I felt as if I was a bit short-changed by the lack of Doctor on Doctor action. I understand that this is Big Finish's huge 20 year finale - and that is truly a wondrous milestone to hit. But there could have been a lot more interaction between the Doctors.

I appreciate that there is a lot of celebration going on. With odd pairings of companions past and present and some nice, unexpected cameos from others, but - this story is nearly forty quid! That’s a lot of money. Rest assured, The Legacy of Time is no Zagreus (thank goodness), but it could have been a better celebration, maybe by pairing some Doctors together with the companions?

Overall, a very good effort, all expertly directed by Ken Bentley, and as mentioned previously, as individual stories, very enjoyable. But as a multi-Doctor epic? Not quite so much.

Written By: Tim Foley & David Llewellyn

Directed By: Scott Handcock

Starring Derek Jacobi, Paul McGann, Mina Anwar, Taj Atwal, Paul Clayton, Lu Corfield, Su Douglas, Ryan Forde Iosco, Youssef Kerkour, James MacCallum, Shvorne Marks, Ricky Nixon, Katherine Pearce, Laura Riseborough, Anjela Lauren Smith, Liz Sutherland-Lim, Dominic Thorburn

Released by Big Finish - July 2019

 

 

As much as I have enjoyed Big Finish's exploration of the Time War the last few years, I don't think any series they have running explores this corner of the Doctor who universe better than The War Master. While the Gallifrey series has taken to exploring the political consequences on the Time Lord's homeworld in an interesting way, it is still exploring the earliest days of the conflict and is all about the political strife that comes with it. The War Doctor and Eighth Doctor series did/do a  good job of exploring the Time War and it's effects on the universe, but the Doctor as the lead character does limit how far they can take the concept.  Even the War Doctor has to be inherently good, otherwise the audience may turn on him.  They could only take the character too dark.  But that isn't the case with the War Master, you can take him as dark and deep as you want, as as such, you can really explore the cruelest aspects of the Time War.  

Throughout Rage of the Time Lords, the Master is collecting unique individuals for nefarious reasons (what else), and this plot begins with The Survivor.  He has infiltrated a small rural British town during World War II, posing as a Minister and has taken a particular liking to a young girl named Alice.  He tricks her into causing some trouble, culminating in her hurting another girl, and then he exploits this to turn the entire town against her, and then takes her away.

In The Coney Island Chameleon the Master chases down an Italian Strongman and a girl who can change her skin to match her surroundings (even taking on the properties of brick walls and velvet curtains), seemingly after the young girl and her powers.  Here the Master doesn't make any attempt to play a good guy, and is more of a sinister figure from the outset. First offering to buy the girl, then chasing them down until he gets what he wants.  

From there we travel off of Earth, to a facility where the Master has been keeping all of his specimens. We find that he is working on creating some kind of weapon from all these beings he has collected and caged.  The Master is searching for the very thing that will complete his project, the titular Missing Link, and finally he arrives:  The Doctor.  Obviously a big draw for this set is that we get to hear Derek Jacobi's Master face off with Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor.  And it's worth it.  The moment McGann shows up I perked right up....and I'd been loving the set up this point.  

The big finale for the set comes in Darkness and Light, and sees the Doctor forced to help the Master as his creation, The Rage, breaks loose in the facility.  It's a great ending to the set, fun to hear Jacobi and McGann spar...and the conclusion for the Doctor is painful and sad...but totally works. 

The set is excellent. Not a bad story in the bunch.  The build-up to the Mastyer's plan, the introduction of the Doctor in the back half, the reveal of the Master's scheme: it is all perfectly executed.  And the fact that the Master is a villain means that Big Finish can truly explore the most sinister aspects of the Time War.  Highly recommended. 

Writer: Jonathan Morris, Roy Gill, Paul Morris

Director: Ken Bentley

 

Featuring: Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart, Dan Starkey

Big Finish Release (United Kingdom)

Released June 2019

Running Time: 4 hours

The Paternoster Gang was originally introduced midway through the Sixth Series of Doctor Who's revival, with Madame Vastra and her assistant/wife Jenny being recruited to help the Doctor at Demon's Run, along with a Sontaran nurse named Strax who owed the Doctor a debt.  They then returned midway through the Seventh Series, where a few prequels set up that the duo became a trio when they brought Strax back with them, to act as their butler and in their investigations.  They made a few appearances during the rest of Series Seven, and also played a role in the Twelfth Doctor's debut story.  They were fairly popular with fans, and calls for a spin-off where not unheard at the time.  But showrunner Steven Moffat had enough on his plate with both Who and Sherlock, and his busy schedule meant spin-offs weren't really in the cards.  I also suspect that a period show that would require detailed sets and two of the leads to be in heavy prosthetic make-up was never really going to get the green-light when it mostly appealed to a niche fanbase.

But that is what Big Finish exists for!  They excel at giving every side character a spin-off of their own on audio.  They've certainly doubled down on that in recent years, particularly with the license for the new series opening up new avenues for them to explore.  Sure getting Eccleston, Smith and Capaldi is difficult, and even the game Tennant is so busy he can't really record as any sets as older Doctors...but if you can't get the new Doctors, why not give all of their friends a show! So we have River Song, Jenny, Missy, the War Master, Captain Jack, Lady Christina, Rose, UNIT, even Winston Churchill and new series of Torchwood and Class.  Now the Paternoster Gang gets in on the action, and their adventures are fairly fun. 

I was a little unsure how well they would fair as their own series if I am honest.  I remember when I first saw Deep Breath, that as much as I loved Strax, I was beginning to tire of the shtick of Vastra and Jenny.  They didn't really seem like a believable relationship to me.  So I went into this set a little unsure if the team could maintain my interest for a whole set.  Luckily the cast is quite likable in this.  Whether they are fighting early Electric Cars that turn into robots to wreak havoc on Victorian London, facing off with a Bizarro version of themselves (and zombies), or chasing down ghosts in Greenwich...they are a fun team to adventure with.  And this set is worth a listen.