Big Finish Audio

Review: The Diary of River Song – The Orphan Quartet

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

I think we all knew that this series couldn’t last forever but seeing it come to an end still feels a bit surreal. The Diary of River Song has been one of my favourite Big Finish spin-off series, actually doing the impossible job of getting me to really like River Song; a character I ended up loathing on television by the time she was playing a prominent role in the Matt Smith era. But the The Orphan Quartet feels like an appropriate end, especially with how each writer uses the theme of grief and acceptance to explore River finally coming to terms with losing her husband and parents. I don’t think this is by any means the most consistent, or even best boxset in the series, but it certainly feels like the most appropriate way to send of River Song’s solo series. I expect we’ll see her again in the future, but for now this is the end.

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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

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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

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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 3

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Cavan Gilbey

 

Among Us comes to a close with this third and final volume and it may just be the strongest of the trio. It always had the hard task of wrapping up all the plot threads in a neat bow and it sticks the landing, although that is mostly helped by the concept behind the narrative being small in scope but able to maintain a really high set of stakes. The themes of social corruption, media influence and technological fascism all comes to great conclusion with particular praise for the first story in the set which offers us a glimpse into one of Torchwood’s strongest and most interesting adversaries yet.

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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

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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

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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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