Big Finish

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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James Bond and Doctor Who actress dies aged 80.

Posted on by indiemacuser

British film and television actress Pamela Salem has died at the age of  80.

Her long career in stage, television, and film included multiple roles in touring plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Pinter and Ayckbourn, as well as starring alongside Sean Connery in two films, The First Great Train Robbery and Never Say Never Again.

A move to Los Angeles in the 1990s, then Miami, led to a number of guest appearances in popular US drama series, such as ER and The West Wing, and a new career as a co-writer and producer of radio and theatre productions with her husband Michael O’Hagan.

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‘Doctor Who’ actor Richard Franklin passes away aged 87

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Doctor Who actor Richard Franklin has passed away aged 87.  The news was shared on the actors social media accounts today. See the statement below.

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Review: The Sixth Doctor Adventures – Purity Unbound

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The general thoughts going through the Big Finish side of the Doctor Who fandom when it was announced Ruth Madeley would be included as a new character in the 60th Anniversary Specials, is that Hebe Harrison would be written out of the audio series.  This has happened before with audio companions’ arcs being altered due to what was going on on television, C’rizz being the foremost example.  The expectation going into Purity Unbound was that Hebe would have to leave, but surprisingly that doesn’t happen in the final story, there are still more adventures to tel with this TARDIS Team and honestly the set is all the better for it.  The four box set story arc has been something in my eyes with its ups and downs, the second installment being the rockiest and the wait between sets not often helping matters.  Purity Unbound is the high point of the arc, mainly because the writers have found their way to a consistent theme and conclusion to this saga, using each story as a way to explore the aberrations to the timeline (and further aberrations) in different and interesting ways.  Jacqueline Rayner and Robert Valentine are joined by Mark Wright in scripting this final installment, all three writers keying in on the character journeys in particular, especially when concluding this story.  It should be noted that this is a story arc about a dictator heavily enforcing a eugenics program based on disability which is most explicit in this set so this review may be discussing themes that could be triggering for some.  For context, I am coming to this review from the perspective of someone who is physically disabled. Continue reading →

Review: Torchwood – Doghop

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Cavan Gilbey

*contains spoilers*

I’ve slowly come to realise why I like the PC Andy focused Torchwood episodes, its all down to how human and borderline slice-of-life they feel. Sure you could argue that the Ianto episodes are equally full of humanity due to how emotionally driven that character is, but the emotional stakes are always relatively high in a Ianto centric story. Whereas with Andy there’s the sense that nothing feels too dangerous, with the exception of his double-act stories with Owen that it is. This brings us to Dog Hop by Stewart Pringle, the latest outing for the beloved Cardiff copper. This time he’s on the case following a string of missing persons and rapidly appearing dogs, with some help the regulars of the Red Lion pub it is up-to Andy to solve this strange canine case. 

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Review: Doctor Who – Once And Future – Two’s Company

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

Once and Future continues, or rather plods along, with Two’s Company and return to a Sixth Doctor driven story, the second in this very series. However even Colin Baker can’t save this one as Two’s Company strikes out as the weakest of the stories we’ve had so far, which is saying something given the overall response to Once and Future so far can be summed up with the phrase ‘meh.’ The phrase ‘Dartboard Plotting’ has been coined recently to describe elements of Big Finish’s current output, and I feel it was this story which catalysed the recent surge of that phrase’s use. When looking at this story, which contains two companions from the modern era paired with the Sixth Doctor and an older Harry who team up to fight a fan favourite Big Finish original baddie, it is hard to not simply say this is epitome of randomised idea generation.

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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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