Christopher Naylor

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

Posted on by indiemacuser

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.

Continue reading →

Review: Unit Nemesis – Masters of Time

Posted on by indiemacuser

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

Review: Seventh Doctor Adventures – Sullivan And Cross – AWOL

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

Harry Sullivan and Naomi Cross have been interesting characters. Harry was a companion of the Fourth Doctor played by the late Ian Marter in Season 12, leaving in Terror of the Zygons with a brief reappearance in The Android Invasion and despite being a companion of one of the more popular Doctors, he only appeared as a companion in a handful of Missing Adventures and Past Doctor Adventures partially due to Marter’s passing in 1986. Big Finish Productions has recently used Harry in stories like Return of the Cybermen and Kaleidoscope casting the wonderful Christopher Naylor in the part. Naomi Cross on the other hand is a Big Finish original companion played by Eleanor Crooks, who also travelled with the Fourth Doctor and Harry Sullivan at some point. I say at some point as the characters haven’t had their technical debut as companions with the Fourth Doctor yet and are not set to release until 2024. Further complicating the characters, they have had appearances in the spin-off UNIT Nemesis in both sets with Naomi to appear in the third set later this month. So, it comes as a complete surprise that the second Seventh Doctor set to be released this year is exploring the Doctor finding Harry and Naomi again in Sullivan and Cross – AWOL. This is set either during or after UNIT Nemesis, the writers aren’t exactly clear on how everything fits together in terms of continuity but this set spends much of its first episode focusing on Harry and Naomi in 21st century London.

Continue reading →

Review: Doctor Who Third Doctor Adventures – Kaleidoscope

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

Six-part Doctor Who serials are often particular favourites of mine, simply because in storytelling there is quite a lot you can do in six episodes.  The 1970s revolutionised the six-parter by essentially dividing them into a four part story and a two part story which I have discussed at length on the Internet before because it allows for more exploration of characters and a plot that needs to be able to go through the length with at least one big twist at a point in the story to send things off in a different direction.  Big Finish Productions have done six-part stories before, ‘The Next Life‘ and ‘The Game‘ were the earliest, and several of the Lost Stories range were allotted six episodes as that is how those scripts were pitched and often written which worked especially well for stories like ‘Farewell, Great Macedon‘ and ‘Lords of the Red Planet‘.  This year they’ve dipped their toes into a single seven part story with The Annihilators which I enjoyed and reviewed, but as the rest of the Doctors got two box sets, the second set for the Third Doctor continues the trend of longer stories with a single six part adventure set during the middle of Season 11 dealing with some of that season’s major themes written with a more modern sensibility from Alan Barnes.  Kaleidoscope at one point directly references similarities to ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs‘ and while there isn’t Malcolm Hulke’s ecological message, it does deal heavily with governmental conspiracy and how the 1970s Cold War mixed with pop culture.

Continue reading →

Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – The Nine

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The Fourth Doctor Adventures: The Nine has a weird title. Originally announced years back as simply The Fourth Doctor Adventures: Series 11: Volume 2 following the naming scheme of Series 7-10, but with the transition of the greater Big Finish output going to box set releases with their own individual subtitles is given the title The Nine because the character of the Nine appears in the first story, The Dreams of Avarice, alone. The other two stories, Shellshock and Peake Season, are completely unrelated adventures for the Fourth Doctor, Peake Season not even meant to be released in this series as it was added later and recorded in 2020 and not in 2017-2018. A more fitting subtitle would have been Solo Volume 2 since this is a set which contains three stories where the Fourth Doctor is travelling alone after The Deadly Assassin and a friend of mine suggested on Twitter that this series was similar to the run of Virgin New Adventures which in the span of four books would pitch a potential companion, with Bernice Summerfield being the companion chosen. For this series it would be Margaret in the winning role but The Dreams of Avarice, Shellshock, and Peake Season have characters who feel as if they are meant to be companion candidates which would have enhanced the set had this been called Solo Volume 2.

Continue reading →

Review: Doctor Of War – Genesis

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The Unbound range essentially started as a way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who by introducing six alternate universe takes on the Doctor and Doctor Who based around questions like “What if the Doctor never left Gallifrey?” or “What if the Doctor was exiled to Earth in the 1990s?”. This allowed different actors and actresses to take on the role of the Doctor, but after the initial six release run there weren’t any new Unbound Doctors introduced, two more releases in 2005 and 2008 before the David Warner Doctor was paired with Bernice Summerfield. So, imagine the surprise when it was announced that the range would be revived for two box sets using a new Unbound Doctor, the Doctor of War, played by Colin Baker, in a timeline that diverges during Genesis of the Daleks for two box sets, Genesis and Destiny (named after the Tom Baker Dalek serials).full

Continue reading →

Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Solo

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

Continue reading →

Review: UNIT Nemesis – Agents of the Vulpreen

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

There is something interesting about the way UNIT: Nemesis has been developing. The first set was quite a nice surprise with an introduction to the basic players and what makes them work. It was also good to see Kate and Osgood given more in depth characterisation than anything that Steven Moffat gave them. UNIT Nemesis: Agents of the Vulpreen moves beyond setting the stage and characters, giving us a look into what the four set miniseries is actually trying to accomplish and the story it is trying to tell. This is essentially UNIT’s chance to prove itself at thwarting a large alien conspiracy to invade the Earth, this set seeing the preliminary invasion being the main thrust of the story. It picks up from Between Two Worlds and explores what the ark is, what the Eleven was doing, and what happens to the captured Jacqui McGee who almost immediately returns in the first episode. It’s somehow a more focused set than Between Two Worlds as well, with only one episode feeling as if it is more of a diversion from what the set as a whole is attempting to accomplish for the furthering of the Nemesis story arc. The nemesis of the title is heavily implied to be the Eleven, who has his presence somehow increased here despite being in quite a lot of the first set.

Continue reading →

Review: UNIT Nemesis – Between Two Worlds

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The original UNIT mini-series from Big Finish Productions brought back Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, but only for its opening and closing instalments and is generally regarded as a weak miniseries.  It would be shelved and not picked up again bar UNIT: Dominion in 2012, but 2015 saw a long running revival bringing for the first time New Series elements were allowed to be used.  The series ran for eight box sets from 2015-2019, ending, but being revived this month just a week before Kate Stewart returned to televised Doctor Who, Big Finish released the first of a four set miniseries subtitled Nemesis, beginning with Between Two Worlds, where the UNIT has to contend with the Eleven, trapped on an alien planet and scheming to gain power on Earth.  He is the through line for these four stories and Mark Bonnar plays the role brilliantly throughout, the set using the time to flesh out the different personalities of the Eleven with many of them getting to shine throughout.  Bonnar is a constant undercurrent providing a clear and present alien danger for UNIT to face, moving away from an older perception of UNIT as only fit to deal with threats like the Bandrils. Continue reading →