This review is based on the CD release from AudioGo and may contain minor spoilers.

“Yes- I dare say he had a good reason. I usually do...”

Satirical productions are everywhere these days, with recent Doctor Who episodes like The Bells Of Saint John proving shining examples of modern writers’ takes on current social trends and technology. For the Fourth Doctor instalment in their Destiny Of The Doctor audio range, AudioGo have taken it upon themselves to echo these growing commentaries on our reliance on knowledge and communication. Babblesphere marks a shining highlight in the franchise so far, and with any luck should set a precedent for the remaining seven adventures still to come.

Set on a human colony inhabited by a seemingly omniscient and omnipotent technological matrix, Babblesphere once again perfectly encapsulates the vast science-fiction and inherently interplanetary tales of Tom Baker’s Doctor and Lalla Ward’s Romana. Although Baker isn’t present on recording duties for this script, Lalla does an exemplary job of reviving her companion character and indeed mimicking her former co-star throughout the story. Roger Parrott provides superb support too, taking on the role of a bewildered user of the Babble network who finds himself in the middle of a growing catastrophe.

What’s perhaps most reminiscent of the rather defining 1974-1981 era of Doctor Who here is the sense of an inherent investigation of the human condition even in the context of a distinctly alien society in comparison to our own. Yes, there’s plenty of satire on offer to link the Babblesphere to Sol 3, yet undoubtedly we’re in extraterrestrial territory, so it’s testament to the sound creative vision of writer Jonathan Morris that he can make the entire narrative experience feel just as grounded as the legendary Who works of classic writers such as Douglas Adams did back in the good ol’ days.

Of course, no entry in the Destiny audio range would be complete without an allusion to an ominous future to come for the Eleventh Doctor in the franchise’s finale. As we’ve previously mentioned, the Fall of the Eleventh and the Fields of Trenzalore will no doubt be dealt with on screen in The Name Of The Doctor, yet whatever the various references to events that have to be preserved to help the Time Lord’s current incarnation in a battle to come are building to, we can be sure that November’s The Time Machine will provide a pay off in a satisfying fashion. It’s sadly the only real weakness of Babblesphere that this month’s arc reference feels a tad shoehorned in for the sake of it, yet for dedicated fans of the range the reference will at least provide further interest for the evolving story in the months ahead.

Whereas past instalments in the Destiny range - particularly last month’s Vengeance Of The Stones - have presented numerous shortcomings of note, it’s a pleasure for this reviewer to confirm that that particular franchise story arc niggle is the only real gripe to be found this time around. Beyond that, Babblesphere is easily the most confident, audacious and compelling instalment in the range yet. Lalla Ward is an incredible narrator both in-character and of the events surrounding the story’s constructs, the atmosphere of the world and its inhabitants is palpable, and more than ever there’s a sense of true dedication to this release’s chosen era of the show’s fifty-year history. Doctor Who has produced its fair share of groundbreaking and memorable satirical stories in the past, and without a doubt this reviewer can add Destiny Of The Doctor’s Babblesphere to the widening list of the finest examples of this budding new genre.

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode. 

The thing about ghost stories is they’re full of rules: mysterious noises, flashes of lightning, cold spots, psychics, detecting equipment replete with oscilloscopes and toggles (noun), plus photographs revealing the impossible. And there are contemporary film conventions too: a burst of light illuminating something right next to our protagonists; a dark, menacing shape flitting across camera (a trick used back in ‘The Eleventh Hour’). ‘Hide’ throws itself into this maelstrom of whirling tropes with gusto and sincerity. And being set in the seventies, it almost feels like a classic BBC TV ‘Ghost Story for Christmas’ reanimated at the wrong time via anachronistic technology: it’s as if the theatrical-yet-brilliant Stone Tape has been worked over for high-def, high-style TV.

Despite the opening “ghostbusters” reference, we’re treated to a greatest hits’ collection of spooky goings-on that are played pleasingly straight. Jessica Raine is outstanding as the emotionally suppressed and confused empath Emma Grayling, radiating fragile luminosity and stern verity as she warns Clara off the Doctor, instantly reading him as a “liar”. Professor Alec Palmer is also well realized, with Dougray Scott putting in a strong performance as the guilt-ridden researcher unable to shake off  revenants of his past.

You can see why Neil Cross was asked back to contribute ‘The Rings of Akhaten’. This is a fantastic script; a blend of believable, character-led emotional moments (rather in the vein of Russell T. Davies’s writing on the series) and Moffat-style inversion and tricksiness as we get around to the final genre-shifting kicker. There’s also a clever, parable-like challenge to our interpretation of monstrosity:
what we’ve assumed to be grotesque and terrifying (the half-glimpsed, gnarled stuff of nightmare) is simply a form of life and love we’ve been unable to recognize. Cross handles it all with skill, making me suspect possible problems with ‘Akhaten’ may have been far more to do with budgeting and production issues.

Although the sequence where the Doctor disappears off to monitor Earth's planetary life-cycle seems to puncture the episode’s rhythm and atmosphere, it rapidly gives rise to two great pay-offs – not just the Sapphire and Steel-type explanation of what’s going on, but more importantly Clara’s realisation that “we’re all ghosts to you”. Time travel will do that, jumping from birth to death, hurtling from joyous presence to jaded memory. And of course the Clara-Doctor exchange isn’t just a mirror of its surrounding ghost tale, but also neatly harks back to ‘The Snowmen’ and the Doctor’s graveside visit there.

Cross’s paralleling of the Doctor and Clara with the Professor and his “companion” also draws attention to the different genres that the two couples occupy – while Alec and Emma are part of a love story, the Doctor and Clara are instead tied together by a “mystery” that needs solving. For all their banter, and the Doctor’s exaggerated discomfort with talk of love, this Doctor-companion pairing is perhaps overly dominated by ongoing arc stuff, not quite giving Clara the space to really come alive as a three-dimensional, flesh and blood character. Her ghostliness is partly a product of the need to keep the ‘Oswin’ Oswald puzzle flickering away in the background.

And while I know the Doctor has to get used to new teeth with each incarnation, “Metebelis” seems to be pronounced strangely. Surely a DVD of ‘Planet of the Spiders’ could have been sent to Matt Smith or director Jamie Payne as additional homework? Otherwise, though, Payne plays an absolute blinder: the scary, mist-wreathed forest visuals are especially gorgeous, reminding me of Adam Smith’s work on series five. Echoing laughter and sweeping, dream-like camera work also somehow put me in mind of ‘The Deadly Assassin’, placing this episode’s flashes of surrealism in very good company indeed. As for the stillness and silence immediately following in the wake of Emma’s furious bid to retrieve the Doctor, this was an inspired, chilling instant. I’d expected “boo!” moments from ‘Hide’, a perfectly unimaginative expectation which sure enough the pre-credits sequence promptly answered, but I hadn’t expected such a startling soundtrack punctuation. Not since Graeme Harper’s outer space silence in ‘42’ have separation and absence been so well calibrated. In short, more Payne, please: this was smartly directed, making impeccable use of guest actors and capturing a visceral sense of the Doctor’s fear.

‘Hide’ sells itself as one kind of story, turning all its ghostly paraphernalia up to eleven before sharply sidestepping into a whole different pocket genre where the rules are different. Crammed with quotable dialogue (the “I’m not holding your hand” business even felt like Moffat pastiche, unless it was an uncredited showrunner contribution), its ending – “jump!” – had the sort of vitality and irreverence that perhaps only a newcomer to the fold would attempt. Hiding its twist in plain sight, ‘Hide’ nevertheless represents the most audacious and spirited genre switch in Who’s recent memory as it toggles (verb) between love and monsters.

This review is based on the bonus subscriber release and contains mild spoilers

On a remote island a group of scientists have been observing the stars. But when the shadows start moving and people start dying, it seems that something might have been looking back at them. Something that has decided to pay them a visit...

“It’s teatime 1977 all over again” proclaimed the ubiquitous advertising for Big Finish’s first season of audios starring Tom Baker, clearly positioning nostalgia as one of their primary objectives.

Despite the fact that Tom Baker hadn’t appeared in Big Finish until last year, the Phillip Hinchcliffe produced series of Doctor Who have often tacitly positioned as the ‘golden era’ of the programme and have cast a long shadow across the company’s output. For example, when Big Finish first started releasing Doctor Who plays featuring Doctors five to seven they used the Hinchcliffe era version of the theme tune and when choosing villains for the high profile Eighth Doctor series it was Wirrn, Zygons and Krynoids who were brought out of retirement.

Yet, when the man himself returned, and this ‘golden era’ was finally unlocked to Big Finish, there was something missing. It was the Doctor himself. Tom Baker’s performance as the Doctor shifted incrementally during his seven years in the show and when he finally returned to the role, perhaps unsurprisingly he played the part differently. In the Hornet’s Nest series produced by the BBC, Baker perfected a bombastic, whimsical version of his Doctor, very different from what had gone before, and rather suited to the excessive campy tone of that series. It was a slightly muted version of this Doctor which Baker brought to his first series with Big Finish, meaning that in spite of what the scripts, producers and audiences wanted, the tone they were trying to recapture was just out of their grasp.

Night of the Stormcrow marks the return of the Hinchcliffe era Doctor. Baker has chosen to reign in his performance and give us the alien, moody and at times portentous Doctor familiar from fan favorites Pyramids of Mars and The Ark in Space. It feels like the first time all the elements have come together in a Fourth Doctor play, with the cast and writers and production all singing from the same hymn sheet. This is very much helped by the tense, claustrophobic feel of the story and the wonderfully evocative speeches Marc Platt gives the Doctor. A highlight comes when the Doctor declares to the scientists that “Something found you here, something from the darkest corner of the night”, invoking memories of similarly tense moments from his early years as the Doctor.

Louise Jameson is equally well served by the script, and delivers a superbly written monologue for Leela in Episode Two. Throughout her appearances in various Big Finish productions she has proved herself to be one of their most adaptable and hard working performers. She has given subtly different performances as Leela over the course of the character’s life in Gallifrey, The Companion Chronicles and The Fourth Doctor Adventures, and here she once again skilfully recreates the cadences of 1970s Leela’s voice. My appetite has been thoroughly whetted for what the second series of plays starring Baker and Jameson will bring.

The story is a spooky, scientific haunting in the style of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape (or in Doctor Who terms, Image of the Fendahl), with many standout creepy moments. While some may feel that the hour running time may work against the nostalgic aims of the Fourth Doctor series, here it works in the play’s favour. It means that the emphasis can be on building atmosphere rather than the denouement, which is often where sci-fi haunting stories fall down, when they struggle to explain the events away in rational terms.

If there is a fault in the play it would be that Platt’s decision to introduce two monsters, the eponymous Stormcrow and the ‘no-thing’ creatures, make things a little harder to follow in the second half, and perhaps he should have stuck with one or the other.

For fans who may have felt slightly disappointed by the first series of Fourth Doctor Adventures this play will be a welcome nostalgic trip to one of the most enduring, influential and popular eras of Doctor Who. Night of the Stormcrow is currently only available as a Big Finish subscriber exclusive, but will be available to buy separately from December 2013, when it will hopefully gain the wider audience it deserves.

This review contains plot spoilers and is based on the UK broadcast of the episode. 

In the promotional build-up to this episode it seemingly became compulsory to make jokessssssss about the Ice Warrior’s sibilant speech patternssssssssss. So, now that’s out of the way, how successfully did this week's Who reimagine the Martian race? Mark Gatiss’s script was determined to depict them as a terrifying and plausible threat. As Clara says at one point, “it’s all got very... real”, and that could almost have been the mission statement of 'Cold War', where monstrous realism was the order of the day.

Instead of clunky design, the Ice Warrior’s “shellsuit” is shown to be body armour with an extremely useful line in sonic remote control. And we get the same Alien-style trick used all the way back in 'Resurrection of the Daleks' – the not-quite-seen entity out of its housing and busy stalking its prey. It’s unsurprising that ‘Dalek’ has instantly become a reference point for this adventure – the lone, reimagined creature in a lock-down situation makes comparisons too tempting to resist. But however many similarities can be drawn between ‘Dalek’ and this ‘sub-under-siege’ scenario, there is one vital difference: Rob Shearman’s much-redrafted magnum opus never punctures its sense of reality.

By contrast, ‘Cold War’ unwittingly stresses its artificiality right from the outset. The decision to depict a Russian submarine’s crew speaking English from the word go emphasizes a profound tension between narrative reality and production anxiety – clearly it was felt that Russian voices and subtitles would frighten off the early Saturday evening audience. We get a production decision which assumes the worst of its audience, rather than crediting them with curiosity and intelligence, because the English-speaking opening sadly can’t be rationalized through any TARDIS intervention. It’s a production choice, pure and simple, indicative of how weirdly mixed-up and inconsistent this episode becomes. Text is given in Russian-style lettering in the submarine, as if to remind audiences of the setting (in case they’d forgotten), yet this doesn’t clearly correspond with previously established TARDIS continuity either. It’s all a bit of a linguistic tangle, where playing-it-safe production decisions are constantly screamed out, puncturing the sense of immersive reality that a base-under-siege story absolutely calls for. Given how brilliantly TARDIS translation was handled in, say, ‘The Christmas Invasion’, where a sudden shift into English corresponds with a punch-the-air moment and a vital plot point, this episode sadly missed its chance to show us the TARDIS translation matrix kicking in, in what could have been a truly startling, stunning instance of the Doctor’s Time Lord powers. Imagine if suddenly, just as the order to launch a nuclear missile was given, we’d shifted from subtitles into spoken English. What could have been a stone-cold classic Who moment, transforming Russian characters from exotic, stereotyped others into our trustworthy protagonists, remains something that can only be imagined on Saturday night telly.

For me, the 1980’s music references were also clumsier than a 1960’s Ice Warrior costume. Despite David Warner’s strong performance, and he even made the query about Ultravox’s break-up work brilliantly, his character was lumbered with a habit designed to reinforce the eighties’ setting. I think this patronized the audience yet again – can’t we recall that it’s the eighties from an on-screen caption, talk of nukes, M.A.D. and mention of shoulder pads? Do we really need ‘relatable’ pop references to ram the time-frame home? Professor Grisenko was certainly an eccentric, but he felt too much like a designed creation rather than a flesh-and-blood character: blatantly there so that the “song” theme could get its pay-off via Clara’s Duran Duran rendition. Pop music was crow-barred into Chris Chibnall’s ‘42’ (hardly a fan favourite), but its inclusion here is no more convincing, I’d wager. Again, the reality effect worked so strongly around Skaldak is undermined by some of these surrounding decisions.

And if the Ice Warrior out of its shell is a scarifying highlight of the story, helping to ramp up the tension by playing to Gatiss’s formidable strengths as a writer, whilst also benefiting from sympathetic direction and lighting, then the choice to reveal Skaldak’s face feels a little misguided. It slavishly emulates a horror genre template: the big reveal of the bravura monster effect, after a lot of tantalizing and audience anticipation. But in this case, the effect wasn’t spectacular enough to warrant the reveal, and I think the mystique of the Ice Warriors, as well as Skaldak’s presence, would have been better served by refusing to give the audience this visual FX reverse shot. If we’d only seen the Doctor through the Martian’s eyes, without ever glimpsing what turned out to be Skaldak’s rather generic appearance, then that very absence would have been infinitely more thrilling and unsettling. By following the established plot beats of a literal face-off (even seeming to playfully reference Moffat’s “don’t blink” via a contest of wills) Skaldak and the Ice Warriors were diminished a little, when previous events had industriously set out to achieve the exact opposite.

There’s much fan-friendly stuff to welcome here: impeccable model FX work on the sub; HADS gets a mention (though wouldn’t that have been better explained earlier in the story rather than at the very end?); and (this) Clara treats her first historical outing as a test of her own performance, in a rather touching and well-played device where she constantly seeks reassurance. ‘Cold War’ has atmosphere in abundance, and is consistently well acted by all of its cast, with Liam Cunningham deserving just as many plaudits as David Warner. It also has a cleverly integrated bit of business about Skaldak’s singing – paralleled with Ice Warrior sonic technology – and his own family relationships. He has a daughter, so in the sentimental codings of family entertainment, we know right away he can’t be an irredeemable monster. And given that Skaldak doesn’t definitively leave until immediately after Clara’s singing, I interpreted her effort as reminding him of his daughter’s songs (indeed, Clara had already emphasized the link to “daughters” in dialogue). The new romantics save “Planet Earth” (why couldn’t that have been Grisenko’s favourite? “looking at planet earth… this is planet earth”). Clara’s emotional intelligence and resourcefulness are neatly reinforced here.

But the Doctor appears to rather strangely teach Skaldak, and by implication us, that nuclear deterrence is basically A Good Thing, and that mutually assured destruction handily works to keep the peace. I can’t help but feel that these aren’t unquestionably Doctorish ideologies, and I wonder if this section of the script underwent many revisions or generated much in the way of contention across the production process. It wouldn’t have been like this in the days of the Virgin New Adventures, I suspect. Further back in time, in 1984, Doctor Who mounted a version of this story as science fiction allegory (‘Warriors of the Deep’). The intervening years mean that ‘classic’ allegory can now be safely tackled as ‘new’ popular memory, swapping one kind of distancing shell for another.

‘Cold War’ is an incessant conflict between two power blocs where neither can entirely triumph. Intended realism fights against (unintended) displays of production artifice, and what is very nearly a chilling classic finds itself marred, though not sunk, by specific production decisions. The Ice Warriors are now a more complex and convincing on-screen race than ever before, but this particular Ice Warrior hero finds himself encased by narrative techniques (especially the language issue and the pop song gimmick) that threaten to jolt audiences out of Gatiss’s finest sub-under-siege storytelling, despite all its dripping, dripping water and its damp, desperate physicality.

This review is based on the MP3 download from Big Finish, and contains spoilers.

At long last, Henry Gordon Jago (Christopher Benjamin) and Professor George Litefoot (Trevor Baxter) are reunited with Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor. And there are more than a few nods to ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ – that opiate of the fan masses – in John Dorney’s script, despite this otherwise being a stand-alone story rather than a definite ‘Talons’ sequel. The Doctor spends some time digging out his deerstalker and ensemble, much to Romana’s consternation; thanks to their ensuing dialogue this audio gets its visuals just right in the mind's eye. And there are even some familiar bread products available to toast a satisfactory outcome at story’s end. It’s a nostalgic wallow in 1970’s BBC Victoriana – the ideal backdrop for an adventure all about acquiring anachronistic artefacts, as Jago might say.

That the Doctor is accompanied this time by Romana rather than Leela does prevent this from being an all-round reunion, and in some senses it’s a shame that the basic story idea wasn’t held over by Big Finish, or pursued earlier, so that Louise Jameson as well as Tom Baker would’ve had the opportunity to revisit this milieu. However, the change in companion is marked by some lovely moments as Jago and Litefoot are suitably charmed by Romana, though having another character refer to her as an “ice maiden” does seem to hinge too strongly on fan knowledge and production/publicity cliché from back in the day, rather than being drawn out of actual story events and characterisations. Mary Tamm puts in another fine performance, engaging in plenty of banter with Baker, while the verbose alliterative tendencies of Jago (and Litefoot) are repeatedly pushed for their comedic value.

The story itself is rather predictable, and there’s little to relish in the way of Filipino armies advancing on Reykjavik. Whereas ‘Talons’ excelled at sketching in breathtakingly vast and genuinely surprising vistas in just a line or two of dialogue, The Justice of Jalxar doesn’t make such flowing use of what Piers Britton, in his book TARDISbound, refers to as the “epic vignette”. Jalxar's narrative plays out without huge surprises, featuring alien justice-serving technology that's been appropriated by a vigilante dubbed ‘the pugilist’. Although the overall narrative template isn’t earth-shattering, Dorney nevertheless has a lot of fun with its details, giving a very funny superhero gag to Romana, and rewriting one of Conan Doyle’s most famous lines from the Sherlock Holmes canon, as well as riffing on a plot point from A Study in Scarlet, not to mention 'A Study in Pink' more recently.

Jago and Litefoot are as delightful as ever, both as a double act and, separately, as foils to the Doctor and Romana. Part one builds to a precisely engineered, satisfying cliffhanger, though as this is only a two-part story we’re sadly deprived of any further cliffhanging action. If the measure of success is to leave your audience wanting more, then this is a resounding hit. Appearing right after The Sands of Life and War Against the Laan effectively formed a four-part story, I could happily have listened to another two episodes of Henry Gordon and Professor George getting lost in pea-soupers, exclaiming “lawks!” or “crumbs”, and generally offering a lot of mannered, pastiched fun. For true neatness, this could even have paralleled its TV counterpart by stretching to a box set release of three discs and six parts. But perhaps trying to directly emulate the form and reputation of its Hinchliffe-Holmes' model was deemed too high-risk, and what could have been Big Finish Baker gold is instead crafted as a less consequential two-parter. Beyond Jago and Litefoot, the guest cast are all excellent – particularly Mark Goldthorp as Bobby Stamford, who doesn’t have a tremendous amount to do, but sells key parts of the storyline very well.

There’s a startling instant where the fourth Doctor ponders his own guilty feelings, abruptly sounding more like his ninth or tenth incarnations. Baker’s performance modulates between deadly serious and gentle self-mockery, as if neither he nor director Ken Bentley are quite sure how to sell the gambit. If Jalxar technology detects the guilt people feel in their own innermost thoughts, then just how guilty would the Doctor seem to its detectors? Personally, I would’ve liked a deeper exploration of this and slightly less of the “passing wind in a built-up area” whimsy (hailing from the Doctor’s discussion of what people might feel a sense of guilt about). The story deflates any powerful focus on the Doctor’s character, but a new series-style tackling of the fourth Doctor’s woes, all that blood potentially caked on his scarf and his psyche, could have been darkly compelling in Baker’s more than capable hands, even if it might not have taken listeners comfortably back to a fabled 1970’s teatime. Whilst I like my Who to be as Proustian as the next fan, sometimes twenty-first century dramatic intensity is sadly passed over here in favour of better serving the talismanic 'Weng-Chiang'.

In essence, I simultaneously wanted this to be more like ‘Talons’ (a six-part blockbuster with greater implied scope) and less like ‘Talons’ (delving into the Doctor’s unearthly psyche). But in each case, I should confess my own guilt: it was still that rollicking great Bob Holmesian template which dominated my thoughts and responses. And therein lies the greatest injustice afflicting The Justice of Jalxar – it’ll probably always lurk in the giant rat-shaped shadow of a TV classic.

Adapted by Jac Rayner from Paul Cornell’s 1992 novel, this audio version of Love and War was produced to celebrate 20 years of Bernice Summerfield. Since her debut barely a month has gone by without an original novel or audio drama featuring her, quite an astonishing feat for a spin-off character. However, the New Adventures novels have greater significance to Doctor Who than simply giving us Benny. The novels fundamentally changed the types of stories Doctor Who told. Building on the foundations laid in the McCoy era the New Adventures focused on strong-character led stories and ‘adult’ themes in a way which the TV show had never really attempted (or could in its family orientated slot). As such the New Adventures are a key stepping to Russell T Davies’ resurrection of Doctor Who, which would have a far greater focus the characters emotional arcs and everyday lives than the classic series. It is no coincidence that Paul Cornell was among the first batch of writers to work on the show when it returned and that Davies himself penned a novel for the line.

Love and War is one of the New Adventures’ key texts. Along with introducing Bernice it also (temporarily) writes out Ace and takes the concept of the ‘dark, manipulative’ Seventh Doctor to its absolute limit. Despite being Benny’s first adventure the focus of Love and War is squarely on Ace. Her past, her relationship with the Doctor and her new lover Jan are all fundamentally important to the story. This version marks the first time that Sophie Aldred has been able to perform Ace’s departure, an opportunity she clearly relishes and she puts in a very strong performance. Aldred very noticeably ‘ages down’ her vocal performance and mannerisms making this a very different Ace to the one we’re used to hearing in her ongoing Big Finish adventures. It’s great to see Big Finish’s regular actors stretched like this, and it would be good to see more of it in future.

Sylvester McCoy and Lisa Bowerman (as the Doctor and Bernice) also put in very good performances, and have excellent chemistry together. Over the years McCoy has perfected a quiet, contemplative version of his Doctor and puts it to good use here. It’s a shame that Bernice doesn’t have more to do in the first half of the play, but her scenes with to Doctor at the end of the play go some way to addressing this, establishing a relationship very different to the one between him and Ace. These scenes also put forward the idea that the Doctor needs a companion to give him something to fight for, and keep him grounded, a concept which has been hugely influential on the new series, most recently in The Snowmen where Clara lures the Doctor out of retirement.

On the whole Rayner does an excellent job of condensing the action but at times things can feel rushed and confusing. It’s a play that rewards multiple listens, with some of the details becoming clearer the second time around.

Wisely, Jac Rayner’s script doesn’t attempt to update the source material, meaning the early 90s feel of the story remains intact (for example the cyberpunk influenced ‘Puterspace’ scenes and the way that the villains, the Hoothi could be read as a metaphor for AIDS). Consequently the adaptation does an excellent job at giving the listener an insight into this period of Doctor Who’s development.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that it is an attempt to recreate a past era of Doctor Who, this adaptation is reminiscent of Big Finish’s Lost Stories series. However, while the Lost Stories focus on recreating scripts which are interesting as historical curios but of little importance to Doctor Who as a whole, Love and War is representative of a significant time in the series’ history. With the TV show dead writers like Cornell were working out new and interesting ways to take the show forward. Now that Doctor Who is back on our screens and in excellent health, this audio gives an excellent insight into the transition it took to get there.