Adam Martyn

Review by Jacob Licklider

I ask, dear reader, to indulge me a moment before we get into this review proper for just a moment with a few pieces of context for this review. First and foremost, I am of the firm belief that the first series of Ninth Doctor Adventures should have ended as subtly implied with the Ninth Doctor going into the events of the television story Rose and the beginning of those adventures. Second, I am also of the belief that the Ninth Doctor especially is a character who works best when there is a companion or companion figure to be attached too. Finally, the third story of this set deals with the historical establishment of football leagues and I am an American, so take any of my takes on the history of that third episode with the largest pinch of salt you possibly can. Pioneers opens the third series of Ninth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish Productions and marks the first set in this range to not be released on vinyl as well as CD and download. This marks a very important shift for the style of these three episodes, mainly because they are not bound by the vinyl format of strictly being 45 minutes in total due to technical limitations, so these three episodes are expanded to an hour. While I personally prefer my Doctor Who stories to be generally longer than that, this jump in runtime really helps this set feel like each episode is expanded just enough to provide greater depth than previous releases had allowed.

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

It feels like only yesterday when Eccleston joined the team at Big Finish to star in a batch of new adventures, 8 boxsets later and we have reached the end of what we know the company had planned for the Ninth Doctor Adventure range. It’s been a range with some genuinely spectacular stories, reuniting this Doctor with old friends and old enemies in ways that feel new and fresh. There have been some rough patches on the journey to Shades of Fear but with 24 new stories in this series that is only to be expected. This new boxset I think is the most emblematic of the ranges strongest and weakest elements, it has the characteristic inconsistent quality that has been a bit of a blight on the range but the spirit of the era is captured so vividly with the right themes hitting home and the atmosphere fitting really nicely into what RTD helped create back in 2005. Its not the best one we’ve had from the range, but still manages to keep the momentum from previous sets rolling and delivers an all around good experience with Eccleston at the helm.