Big Finish

Review: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Travel In Hope

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The second installment of the third series of Ninth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish Productions is continuing the idea of these sets being three stories wrapped around a theme.  This set has the Ninth Doctor traveling alone once again, but with the wraparound title of Travel in Hope giving the audience an immediate understanding of the overarching theme of the set.  This theme is the Doctor bringing some sort of hope, or causing some sort of hope for the future to come around, something that allows each of the three stories to really hammer home the idea of the hope that the Doctor himself is lacking, and the need for a companion.  This need for a companion was briefly solved in the previous set, Pioneers, but sadly that Doctor/companion relationship was limited to one story.  The continual use of the Ninth Doctor without Rose is becoming a clear issue and that issue is hanging over each episode of Travel in Hope, almost enough that it feels as if writers Lauren Mooney, Stewart Pringle, James Moran, and Robert Valentine are screaming at Big Finish to schedule some dates where Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper can get together and record some stories so these turning wheels don’t just keep turning.  This is the tenth set for the Ninth Doctor Adventures and there are most likely two more where this issue will present itself, both being released in 2024.  The other solution would be to give the Ninth Doctor a second, pre-Rose companion, which may come with its own set of problems, but they would be a different set of problems with a different set of solutions as potentially interesting storytelling avenues to explore a la the forced gap Big Finish made work with the Fifth Doctor and Peri in the early monthly range.full

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Review: Unit Nemesis – Masters of Time

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The UNIT range from Big Finish Productions’ latest story arc UNIT Nemesis has become the latest four box set miniseries to come to a close with UNIT: Nemesis: Masters of Time, a set that to properly review without beating around the bush, feels as if production issues and rescheduling caused the recording dates to be moved around and actor availability to cause rewrites, especially to the first three scripts.  UNIT: Nemesis: Objective – Earth ended with the big reveal that Missy is behind everything and working with the Vulpreen to take over the Earth, a great cliffhanger but sadly UNIT: Nemesis: Masters of Time takes until the final episode for Missy to actually appear, having several mentions through the first three episodes.  This is an issue that could be lessened by the use of the Vulpreen, who have been a major secondary threat throughout the miniseries, paired with the Eleven who was written out completely for Masters of Time.  The issues here is that the Vulpreen never actually come together in this set as a credible threat to take over the Earth, the first three of the stories instead focusing on the UNIT characters and then the final episode being focused on Missy.

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Review: Doctor Who – Once and Future – A Genius For War

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

Big Finish Productions’ third installment of their 60th anniversary celebratory series, Once and Future, has been released and puts degenerating Doctor into his Seventh incarnation, played by Sylvester McCoy for A Genius for War.  A Genius for War is interesting because the TARDIS is intercepted so the Doctor can go on a mission for the Time Lords led by the General and Veklin, played by Ken Bones and Beth Chalmers respectively, as Davros, played by Terry Molloy, has an offer for the Time Lords.  The TARDIS being taken by the Time Lords means that this is an episode that feels more like a side step for the series, and as such Jonathan Morris is allowed to tell a complete Time War story in one hour, however, there is some oddities with the characterisation of the Doctor.  Past Lives characterised the Fourth Doctor as not the Fourth Doctor due to the Doctor being a future Doctor in the body of the Fourth Doctor, but The Artist at the End of Time altered the characterisation so the Fifth Doctor acted as the Fifth Doctor.  Jonathan Morris doesn’t quite take either approach, A Genius for War blending the portrayal to play to McCoy’s strengths but also feel as if it was rewritten for a different Doctor.  This is certainly a possibility as Morris could easily have pitched this as a War Doctor story, the War Doctor on Big Finish is at least similar in the types of stories he has to the Seventh Doctor, so the rewrites while extensive wouldn’t have been as complicated as say rewriting the story for the Fifth Doctor or Eighth Doctor for instance.  Morris’ script makes the Doctor take charge of the mission to find Davros and then blends several past and future stories into a single hour.

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Review: Torchwood – Sigil

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Cavan Gilbey

 

I’ve sort of been holding off doing this review for one central reason; this is the last time we will ever hear Murray Melvin as Billis Manger. I assumed that Cuckoo in the second Among Us set would have been the last time but Big Finish surprised us with the reveal of Sigil by Ash Darby, who has been a really strong recent writer that Big Finish has brought into the Torchwood range. So I went into this knowing it would be a bittersweet story, and I honestly think the ending is as good as you can get in terms of celebrating Melvin as a performer and everything he brought to the character of Billis.  Continue reading →

Review: Torchwood – Among Us 2

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Cavan Gilbey

Among Us is back for another set, exploring Torchwood’s battle with the idea of altered perceptions and false knowledge. Much like the previous set we’ve got a story about the modern problem of fake news, but also a look at influencer culture, memory implants and finally a story focusing on racial profiling and targeted hate. I’m a big fan of this more social commentary focused approach to Torchwood but this set is really giving the themes room to breathe and are giving us more conceptually experimental stories for those thematic studies. I sincerely hope that the next, and final, set in this series is as good as these previous two because we are currently dealing with the best Torchwood series yet on audio.

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Review: Doctor Who – Prisoners of London

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

There honestly wasn’t a surprise when Matthew Waterhouse was revealed to be writing a second Doctor Who Audio Novel for Big Finish Productions.  Watchers was a wonderful examination of the character of Adric and Season 18 on the whole, reflecting on Waterhouse’s time on the show through the program.  What is surprising is that Waterhouse does not attempt to strike lightning in a bottle a second time with Prisoners of London, instead crafting a story that very easily could have slotted in the middle of Season 19.  The premise feels like a standard idea that could have come from a pitch by John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward in the best way, the TARDIS lands in London, 1982 leading Tegan to believe that the Doctor has finally gotten her home even if it isn’t Heathrow Airport as she was expecting.  This London, however, is not the London that we know, it is ruled by Emperor Geoffrey Chaucer, there are police boxes on every corner ready to arrest those breaking laws, and there are far too many Tower Bridges down practically every street.  Now Prisoners of London is presented in the now typical format for the Audio Novels of multiple parts and not the typical chapter structure of a novel, however, this one suffers slightly from that format.  Waterhouse clearly has experience as a novelist and as such is writing Prisoners of London in that format, especially apparent in the final moments of the production which jump ahead in the life of the Doctor significantly for a sequence that in a normal novel would be an epilogue, but here is just presented as the final scenes which make it stand out as odd.

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Review: Seventh Doctor Adventures – Far From Home

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The Seventh Doctor Adventures of 2022 were split between two TARDIS teams and it seems 2023 will be following this format, the second set being the first installment of The Last Day which was announced in the original pitch announcement for Big Finish Productions’ move to the box set model, but the first of the year continues the companion threads of Sullivan and Cross – AWOL with Far from Home.  Now, social media has made several Spider-Man jokes but I actually haven’t kept up with the MCU so insert topical Spider-Man reference here, but Far from Home is the set that wants to take Harry and Naomi away from their second status quo of 21st century London and into a past that is a very prominent shadow for both of them and into the far-flung future.  The structure of the set follows Conflicts of Interest by giving the listener two three-part stories to enjoy and once again I cannot praise Big Finish enough for going with this model, it’s a far more sustainable model for storytelling than a reliance on one hour Doctor Who stories as the short runtime often leads to overstuffing and an underbaked exploration of the idea.  With three-part stories, especially on audio where the standard length of an episode is 30 minutes instead of just the classic 25 minute format, writers can push their one-hour ideas to what they need to be without needing tot do a larger story that would suit the four-part format.

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Review: Doctor Who – Once and Future – The Artist At The End Of Time

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Cavan Gilbey

Past Lives was a bit of a damp squib of an opening for Once and Future. While I didn’t review the story for this site I do think a lot my personal criticisms are echoed by the review that was posted. So going in to The Artist at The End of Time I was more optimistic, after all the only way is up isn’t it. James Goss I think did a good job at getting me back into being optimistic for the stories yet to come as this simple story about art’s impact, its ability to destroy as well as create, and the social economy that has formed around the idea of an art marketplace. Goss is known for his often satirical stories, and this entry into the 60th Anniversary range is pretty characteristic of his social commentary. However the hour long run time does hold this story back in really expanding and exploring the relationships between the central trio of The Doctor, Jenny and The Curator. 

I shall warn you know this review will contain SPOILERS!.

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Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Angels And Demons

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

New Frontiers began the twelfth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures wonderfully with two four-part adventures that introduced the character of Margaret Hopwood, played by Nerys Hughes, to the Doctor’s world as second companion with Louise Jameson’s Leela.  Angels and Demons is the second half of the series, once again with a fifth bonus story CD, concluding the series and Margaret Hopwood’s travels, making another Big Finish Companion to have a limited run of only six stories.  Angels and Demons is also the return of two-part stories to the Fourth Doctor Adventures in a significant way with three of the four stories in that format, something we hadn’t seen since 2019 with The Syndicate Master Plan, and something Series 13 will be continuing in 2024.  Bringing the travels of Margaret Hopwood to a close so soon is a bit of a double-edged sword, since it’s a shorter run the stories have to be exceptionally good if the character is to be remembered unlike other Big Finish original companions with short runs (Hannah Bartholomew comes to mind as one that has fallen into obscurity while Raine Creevey is quite well remembered among Seventh Doctor fans).  It does give the character the opportunity for a definitive beginning, middle, and an end which means Margaret won’t become a character like Flip or Constance who have had their travels extended indefinitely due to actor availability and illness.

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Review: The War Master – Solitary Confinement

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

When this ninth series of The War Master was announced, it was also announced as the first of three final sets to be produced under Scott Handcock, all made as he was preparing to transfer to Doctor Who on television as script editor, though as is tradition with the range it is still a while before that final set is released (it is currently slated for a June 2024 release).  Solitary Confinement is the first of these three sets and while there isn’t an intent to make a trilogy of series, the listener can’t help but notice that the final two sets have titles of Rogue Encounters and Future Phantoms, while Solitary Confinement seems like the odd one out.  As a set there are moments where it feels like a greatest hits of the style of stories The War Master as a range does, building up to a final twist which in and of itself has similarities to some of the other final twists of the range (Hearts of Darkness in particular comes to mind especially).  For the purposes of this review, I only listened to the set through once to analyse it on initial impressions, but I have a feeling that the recontextualisation, something that becomes quite obvious in hindsight, might explain some of the issues I found myself having with the set, mainly with how derivative it is.  There is a general theme of the Master being imprisoned in an intergalactic insane asylum which is such an evocative image, yet for much of the set it is sadly used as a framing device for the middle two stories with the opening and closing episodes being the main thrust of the asylum stories, for better and for worse.  Because of these issues, I have decided to forgo the usual individual episode scores as all four have highs and lows with things that work and don’t work for me not necessarily being the same for you as a listener.

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