Big Finish

Review: Doctor Who – The Grey Man Of The Mountain

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Review by Michael Goleniewski

Big Finish’s Christmas release for 2020 sees the Seventh Doctor and Ace hoping to land in Edinburgh for the holidays but instead coming to the small village of Coylumbridge which is eerily quiet and empty. They soon meet an old friend in the area, retired Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, who is looking into a rather ominous presence on the nearby mountain of Ben MacDui that’s causing hikers to go missing and/or be hospitalised from paranoia and delusion. Naturally while Ace immediately takes the initiative in climbing the peak with a new friend, the Doctor and the Brig stay behind in the comfort of the nearby inn to learn more and wait for backup support. But soon, everyone will be up on the mountain navigating the trials of the summit while searching for answers surrounding the mysterious presence waiting for them on the windy plateau….. Continue reading →

Review: Bernice Summerfield – The Christmas Collection

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Celebrating Christmas, and any other winter holiday, in 2020 is going to be one of those weirder experiences to avoid the further spread of an already taxing pandemic. So leave it to Big Finish Productions to come along and bring Lisa Bowerman in to record a Bernice Summerfield anthology celebrating the season with the ‘First Lady’ of Big Finish. New listeners should know going in that this is an anthology showcasing Benny throughout her life (after her travels with the Seventh Doctor), and is written without heavily relying on the continuity of the adventures and can be enjoyed separately. This is something that I am grateful for, especially as until very recently the single releases of the Bernice Summerfield range have only been available on CD (and Series 7-11 still are as of writing this review). It means that you can just listen to this rather affordable audiobook and enjoy 10 very different stories of the season from 10 very different authors. Continue reading →

Review: The Tenth Doctor & River Song

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

There is a saying that every cloud has a silver lining, and for Doctor Who fans, especially those invested in the expanded universe, the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns has created a big silver lining. The devastating shutdowns of the arts has made the entertainment industry turn to other methods for creating content, and Big Finish Productions made no delay in taking advantage of many actors who were now available to record remotely due to the pandemic. One such actor is David Tennant who had already worked with Big Finish as the Tenth Doctor in three individual volumes, plus a myriad of cameos, and with lockdown meaning he was available, Big Finish commissioned a special fourth box set featuring the Doctor’s future wife, River Song. The Tenth Doctor and River Song is essentially the fourth volume of The Tenth Doctor Adventures range, and was wholly conceived during the pandemic due to availability. Three stories were produced and released in late November 2020 in a box set and as three individual stories, all set after Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead for the Doctor and at various points in River’s life, picking up on the implication that the Tenth Doctor would have met her again in this incarnation from that story. The overarching theme of these stories is exploring how that relationship is different from the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors’ dynamics with River. The Tenth Doctor through all three stories treats River like a mystery to be solved, and becomes more and more annoyed at her constant evasions. Continue reading →

Eric Roberts’ Master will face the Daleks in his own audio spin-off next year!

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More than two decades on from his clash with Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor, Eric Roberts’ malevolent incarnation of the Master gets his own full-cast audio series in March 2021.

Today the cover art for this upcoming release was unveiled.

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Review: Doctor Who – Wicked Sisters

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Review by Michael Goleniewski

The Doctor is recruited by Leela for a vital mission on behalf of the Time Lords. Together, they must track down and destroy two god-like beings whose extraordinary powers now threaten all of space and time. Their names are Abby and Zara…

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Review: Doctor Who – The Enemy of my Enemy (Time Lord Victorious)

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The Enemy of My Enemy
 is a perfect title for a Doctor Who story where the Doctor has to team up with the Daleks, and this installment of the Time Lord Victorious multimedia event puts the Eighth Doctor in a situation where there is no other option.  

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Review: Doctor Who – Shadow of the Daleks 2

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Review by Jacob Licklider

“Shadow of the Daleks is an interesting idea for a Doctor Who Big Finish release, at least for the Main Range. Instead of a single release, this is a story arc crossing two releases made up of eight individual episodes from different writers, all with the conceit of the Time War breaking into the life of the Fifth Doctor and a collection of people.”

This is how I opened my review of Shadow of the Daleks 1 last month here at IndieMacUser, and sitting here about a month later having finished Shadow of the Daleks 2, I realised just how apt that description is of these two releases.

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Review: The War Master – Hearts of Darkness

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The War Master since its inception in 2017, has become one of Big Finish Productions’ most consistent ranges, with three of the four previous sets being released to critical acclaim with only one falling short. The range has been characterised by an exploration of darker themes throughout the Time War, giving Derek Jacobi one of the darkest incarnations of the Master to portray and explore. War is the prominent theme and how war changes people and planets, the hopelessness associated with a war to end all wars such as the Time War, and the atrocities which arise from two societies being pushed to their limit. The audio format is perfect for this type of story as it allows the cast and crew to go as dark as possible, using the power of suggestion to depict such atrocities and the listener’s mind is responsible for the gruesome images, all the while never having to restrict themselves to an adult only audience. These types of stories were best explored by the first, third, and fourth sets, while the fifth sets, Hearts of Darkness, instead decides to focus in on how the war is most effecting the two Time Lords set to survive the Time War, the Doctor, here played by Paul McGann, and, of course, the Master. Keeping the established format of four stories written by two authors, in this case David Llewellyn and Lisa McMullin, telling a linked tale over the four-hour period. Unlike previous sets, Hearts of Darkness employs several plot twists which recontextualises what has come before in the set, making it near impossible to separate each episode from one another. Things change, and like any good story, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Continue reading →

Review: The Paternoster Gang – Heritage 4

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The Paternoster Gang as a spin-off has suffered from a bit of an identity crisis through its first three volumes. It doesn’t know if it wants to be a spiritual successor to Jago and Litefoot or a straight out character driven comedy or a serious Victorian drama and examination of Victorian culture. The subtitle of the first four sets being ‘Heritage’ implies the later, but the first two sets don’t really examine the idea of heritage or the theme.

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Audio Review: Children of the Stones

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Review by Ian McArdell

Children of the Stones is a new podcast audio drama, produced by BaffleGab for BBC Radio 4, and based on a story first presented in the 1977 HTV television series, which starred a pre-Blakes’s 7 Gareth Thomas. Famously terrifying, it follows the story of the Brake family, a father and son who move to Milbury; a village famous for its prominent circle of standing stones. This new interpretation, from writers AK Benedict and Guy Adams, comprises ten episodes which vary in length from twelve to twenty-one minutes, and runs to just over two and a half hours. The bones of the tale remain as before; although the writers have shifted a few of the pieces around to suit more modern ears.


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