Big Finish

Review: The War Master – Escape From Reality

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

The War Master range has easily become one of Big Finish’s finest spin-offs, certainly one the most popular at any rate. But it may shock you to hear that prior to this boxset I had never heard any of Jacobi’s audio boxsets. I had listened to the War Master’s adventure in River Song’s audio series, and really loved it and the characterisation of this particular incarnation of the character but I never went on to get any of his solo outings. But that all changed with Escape From Reality, which I absolutely had to hear due to it being a spiritual successor to The Mind Robber from Troughton’s era of the TV show which happens to be my favourite all time Doctor Who television story. Getting to see the Land of Fiction become corrupted by an evil presence was always going to be interesting, the fact that it got to be Jacobi’s Master is an added bonus. 

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Review: Unit – Brave New World 2 – Visitants

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Perhaps the saddest thing about UNIT: Brave New World is that it is only two box sets long and is currently the only thing announced to use this particular UNIT team.  Seabird One was already an excellent set and start to the miniseries bringing back Angela Bruce’s Winifred Bambera, but it’s up to Visitants, the second set, to take all the open threads and tie them up.  The miniseries is one that genuinely feels different from the other Big Finish ranges, taking what Battlefield started bringing in a new cast of characters that through the great script editing from Robert Valentine and brilliant direction from Scott Handcock.  Producer Emily Cook has also really gotten to come into her own in her role as this is a range that is essentially all her own.

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Review: Torchwood – The Empire Man

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

If Chimes of Midnight has taught us anything it’s that Big Finish fans love a good ghost story over the Christmas period. Nothing quite gets you in the festive spirit that a good fright, and Torchwood audios over the past couple of years have treated us to sci-fi scare for tide us over until the next holiday season. This year’s entry into that collection is from veteran of the Sherlock Holmes audio stories Jonathan Barnes, slipping into his comfort zone of the Victorian period to give us a series of short horror vignettes with Queen Victoria. But this story ultimately ended up leaving me more frustrated than frightened. 

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Review: The War Doctor Begins – He Who Fights With Monsters

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

The War Doctor, and this was very much unexpected I would like to add, has very quickly become a personal favourite audio-centric incarnation. This Time War era Doctor had fascinated me for a long time and I have only recently bought into the John Hurt fronted boxsets, of which I have heard and loves volumes 2 and 3. But He Who Fights With Monsters, bit of a mouthful, is the first time I have delved into this new prequel era where Jonathon Carley takes on the role. I think this is a great place for me to have started with The War Doctor Begins as this set forms one long story which lasts roughly 3 hours, telling a grand space opera tale which I think does some of the strongest emotional work and character development for this particular regeneration. In terms of the non spin-off material released this year, He Who Fights With Monsters is my favourite Doctor Who release of this year hands down. So expect a 10/10 at the end of this.

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Review: The Eighth Doctor Adventures – Connections

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Connections is the final classic Doctor Who release this year, bringing the Eighth Doctor’s many box sets of the year to a close with three one hour stories and interestingly a focus on companion Helen Sinclair after the ending of Stranded 4 heavily implied her exit (as well as establishing the exit of Liv Chenka). Despite having a cover that connects directly to What Lies Inside?, Connections is a set that doesn’t actually connect in terms of developing a story arc for the Eighth Doctor, continuing the move away from multi-box set story arcs specifically for this Doctor as well as diminishing them in terms of Big Finish’s story arcs output.  This does not mean that there isn’t a focus, like What Lies Inside? there is a general overarching theme to each of the episodes, but not as explicit as other sets.  The three episodes all have a fairly tight focus on exploring the characters in various ways but each straddles very different tones from a farcical heist, to romantic drama, ending with an intense piece of character drama that manages to take a place amongst the best of Big Finish’s audio output, not just of 2022, but of all time.

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Audio Review: The Worlds of Blake’s 7 – After the War

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Review by Ian McArdell

Of the many iconic moments across the four-year run of Blake’s 7, the closing moments of the Series B finale ‘Star One’ ranks high. Finally tracking down the heart of the Federation’s control system, a series-long quest, the rebels achieve their objective… only to find that they are opening the door to a larger, interstellar threat. After Travis ultimately betrays humanity, the episode ends with Avon ordering Liberator into the breach against a flotilla of alien invaders.

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Review: Thunderbirds – Fire and Fury

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

Thunderbirds has been a long standing television love of mine, it was something introduced to me in my childhood and ever since and I the artistry of the show has always stuck with me. Great puppet and model work ensured that the show would stick in the mind, plus the Barry Gray music and vocal performances lend a further level of perfection. Last year Big Finish began to produce full cast adaptations of the novels by John Theydon, much in the same style as the excellent Spectrum Files which were done to bring Captain Scarlet to audio life. But Big Finish, in collaboration with Anderson Entertainment, this year started to produce full cast audio drama adaptation of the comic strips that would appear in the likes of TV Century 21. The first set, Thunderbirds vs The Hood came out earlier this year and was such a fun time for me because it took me back to watching episodes like City of Fire and Vault of Death on DVD. Now this new set, Fire and Fury, continues the quality of the previous set and makes me itch to want more stories in this style. 

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Review: Torchwood – The Lincolnshire Poacher

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

Back in the early days of the Doctor Who Monthly Range we would get a bunch of audios that experimented with the medium of audio itself; Whispers of Terror, Scherzo, Special Features and You Are The Doctor to name but a few. Now that same lovingly daring spirit has been revived in the Torchwood monthly range and are often some of my favourite stories done by the company full stop, especially Cascade and Made You Look. A few months ago we got to see Ianto star in one such experimental stories and here he is again in a spooky story exploring one of the most interesting audio phenomena, the number station. Naturally for a release like this one I really think everyone should go in blind so I am going to attempt to speak as vaguely as I can so I don’t ruin the experience for those on the fence about picking up the story.

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Review: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Hidden Depths

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Review by Jacob Licklider

If you were to have come to me at the beginning of 2021 and told me that within the next two years Big Finish Productions would have released not one, but seven total box sets with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, I would never have believed you. Yet here we are, over halfway through the second series of Ninth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish Productions and with each passing day I am surprised they keep coming. Hidden Depths is the third set of the second series and like the first two of this series the title is a reference to the major theme of things under the surface both literal and metaphorical that each episode explores in some way. While Back to Earth and Into the Stars were more geographic in their themes, Hidden Depths outside of the first story leans into the lives of their characters which kind of leads to the overarching theme of the set ironically more surface level and not as the previous five sets have felt as sequential adventures under a theme.

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Review: Unit Nemesis – Objective: Earth

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Review by Jacob Licklider

As Big Finish retired their 16 episode miniseries for the Eighth Doctor, late 2021 saw the start of UNIT: Nemesis, a revival of their New Series UNIT range specifically chronicling an escalating threat to the planet Earth in the present day. Between Two Worlds began the miniseries by setting up the threat of the Eleven and the arches, Agents of the Vulpreen chronicled the first bouts of violence between Earth and the Vulpreen, and now we have Objective: Earth setting up the conflict for a final resolution in the fourth set.

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