5th Doctor

Review: Doctor Who – In The Night

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Review by Jacob Licklider

In the Night is the second of the Fifth Doctor sets with 2023 being the first year that the Fifth Doctor Adventures have decided to avoid doing a year-long story arc, meaning that this set is another standalone without prerequisites, released in the same month as the very prerequisite heavy Purity Unbound.  In the Night has an interesting premise, both stories essentially take place over the course of one night, though the first plays around with the time scale in general, and have themes of discovery of historical pasts in some very different ways.  This is balanced with the first story, the four-part Pursuit of the Nightjar being an example of “future” history concerning itself with a myth the Doctor is familiar with from their childhood, while Resistor is more concerned with the past of the Earth, though a past that would have been contemporary had it been a televised story.  It’s a set that like Conflicts of Interest before it, despite eschewing perhaps the better format, creates two incredibly complementary stories that allow some very interesting introspection and exploration.

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

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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 Fifth Doctor Adventures – Forty 2

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Review by Jacob Licklider

*Spoilers ahead*

There is something interesting about having the Fifth Doctor taken after Four to Doomsday slid down his timeline going back and forth to each of his TARDIS teams in mysterious circumstances, meaning that authors have to be aware of the Fifth Doctor being a very young Doctor put in circumstances at different points of his arc. Forty 1 included the Fifth Doctor learning of Adric’s death and having to then have an adventure with Adric before being flung forward to the point where he is traveling with Tegan and Turlough, specifically after the events of Frontios which is where Forty 2 picks things up.

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Review: Doctor Who – Forty

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic making time feel incredibly compressed, it is now 2022, and with 2022 comes Big Finish Productions’ new format for release, something that had been slowly introduced throughout 2021. Everything’s a three-disc box set and the first release of the year, like the first release of 2021, is a celebratory anniversary set, this time celebrating Peter Davison’s 40th anniversary as the Fifth Doctor with the first of two box sets under the umbrella label Forty. The premise of what is essentially the Fifth Doctor’s consciousness being catapulted across his timeline in no particular order, both forwards and backwards from his second story, Four to Doomsday, to Season 20, and as the brief for the second set implies, Season 21. Unlike last year’s Masterful, Forty isn’t a single story, but a series of interconnected stories with this volume containing the four-part Secrets of Telos and the two-part God of War with the second not currently having all of its story details announced (only one story has a title, The Auton Infinity). The story arc of the sets doesn’t actually get close to an explanation, ending with the Doctor still being catapulted around his timeline. There is a nice thematic through-line for the first set with the Doctor being taken in the first story to a time after Earthshock where he finds out Adric’s fate while going back in the second story to several stories below the young companion’s demise meaning the Doctor has to face the fact that he knows where Adric is going and actively has to move him towards that fate. Continue reading →

Review: Doctor Who – The Lost Resort and Other Stories

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The 2020 Monthly Range releases from July to October were initially announced as the yearly anthology release Time Apart, followed by a trilogy of Fifth Doctor stories: Thin Time/Madquake, The Lost Resort, and Perils and Nightmares. These releases were recorded, edited, and ready for release until the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down and Big Finish Productions decided that one of these releases would not be suitable as it came too close to real world issues, so The Lost Resort and its follow up Perils and Nightmares were pulled from the release schedule, the other prepared main range releases The Flying Dutchman/Displaced was pulled ahead and plans were changed. So here we are, a year later and the pandemic while still ravaging the world, has an endpoint in sight with the development of the vaccines, Big Finish have released these three stories as a box set, capitalising on the idea of it as a continuation of the early 1980s era of Doctor Who in the wonderful video trailer as The Lost Resort and Other Stories. Continue reading →

More Doctors announced to cameo in Time Fracture

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More Doctors will feature in pre-recorded cameo appearances for the immersive show Time Fracture!

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BBC Re-Releases Doctor Who The Collection Season 12 & 19

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The Collection range of Doctor Who will begin re-issued in standard packaging!

The first titles to join this range will be Season 12 and Season 19, which are available to pre-order now.

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Review: Doctor Who – The End Of The Beginning

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Review by Jacob Licklider

So here we are. March 2021 and the end of The Monthly Range of Doctor Who. Over 20 years and 275 releases, and Big Finish Productions have decided to give their flagship range on final multi-Doctor send-off adventure. Relative newcomer Robert Valentine was given the task of writing The End of the Beginning, a story which harkens back to the very first release in the range, The Sirens of Time, telling three connected adventures for three Doctors before bringing them together for the final episode in one big overarching plan. Each episode adds to the drama and ends with the Doctor (and this time companion) in some sort of danger while everything builds towards some universe breaking danger. The production of The End of the Beginning is put in the hands of Ken Bentley, one of the range’s most prolific directors, and the sound design and music by Wilfredo Acosta. This is an entire story based on making an homage to the range; including appearances from range exclusive characters for one last hurrah before Big Finish moves into a new era of box-sets and new adventures with different Doctors and companions. There is at least one Monthly Range release which is still coming as it was delayed, but this truly is the end of an era for Big Finish Productions.

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Review: Doctor Who – The Blazing Hour

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Review by Jacob Licklider

As February continues on, Big Finish’s monthly range reaches its penultimate installment, and it becomes clear that the end of the range is meant to parallel its beginning. As the second story was a Fifth Doctor and Turlough adventure, so is The Blazing Hour, making the total number of adventures to feature this specific TARDIS team in the Monthly Range to reach the large number of five. It makes The Blazing Hour one of those rare opportunities to see a rare all-alien TARDIS teams; placing the Doctor and Turlough in a story that reflects on the absolute worst of humanity. This is a story where one should not judge the release by it’s cover. The cover from Tom Webster is strikingly surreal; boasting Turlough in a wheelchair, the Fifth Doctor barely standing, a disfigured figure, and flames in the background. While all of these things occur in The Blazing Hour, instead of telling a story of surrealism, James Kettle provides a story all about the greed that humanity succumbs to and how that can corrupt genuinely good ideas and advancements in technology. The first episode of this story spends quite a bit of time on speaking against the idea of nuclear power in a manner close to sounding like a Luddit;, as Kettle focuses on the ease at which nuclear energy could go awry. While Kettle intends it to be cautionary and foreshadowing, it isn’t as clear here that he is speaking on what happens when negligence and greed become the main point of running a power station.

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