Dan Starkey

Review: Doctor Who- Sontarans vs Rutans – In Name Only

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The Sontarans vs. Rutans miniseries is the first of many releases from Big Finish Productions this year that was clearly meant to be released as a box set and shifted to a single release structure, see also the Dark Gallifrey releases being three-hour long stories released in single hour installments.  Unlike Dark Gallifrey, however, Sontarans vs. Rutans is a series where the actual arc is largely in the background for each of the releases so they can be enjoyed as individual stories.  In Name Only is the concluding installment and the one closest to relying on the three previous installments for its resolution: it’s a story where the actual explanation as to why the previous three releases occurred becomes integral.  John Dorney is responsible for writing the conclusion, and as a Big Finish veteran it’s far from the only conclusion to a miniseries he has written, but In Name Only works because Dorney knows how to strike the balance between making the three previous releases be that integral piece to the puzzle and new listener friendly.  This does lead to an issue where there is perhaps too much exposition for the single hour of the story due to a tendency from Dorney as a writer to over explain the connections instead of just letting the listeners pick up on them by paying attention.  This does mean that this becomes a script where Jonathan Carley has to do a lot of expositing about the past three adventures.

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Review: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Into The Stars

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Written by Cavan Gilbey

It’s that time of the year again where Eccleston and Big Finish bring us a fresh batch of adventures with the Ninth Doctor, a fact which still feels miraculous to this day. In previous sets we’ve had the Ninth Doctor face off against familiar foes, namely the Cybermen in a Dalek to Parting of the Ways style of progression, so here we have the Sontarans who feel like a natural fit for this Doctor given his Time War guilt. However where we deviate from those previous sets is in theming; in the first series of four sets in this range we saw thematic boxsets with three stories that represented the primary settings for RTD era narratives. But with series two we get boxsets, that while still thematically linked in their stories, focus on just story setting and explore as many avenues with it as possible. Back To Earth gave us three story set across Earth’s history so to contrast that Into The Stars sends beyond Earth to see life beyond the stars.

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Review: Doctor Who – Emancipation Of The Daleks

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The Audio Novels have released their third installment and instead of continuing to stay in the classic series it adds to the rather low number of Twelfth Doctor novels with Emancipation of the Daleks by Jonathan Morris, a book set in the middle of Series 10. Jonathan Morris was brought on to write the novel and depart from the previous two instalment’s format of six, one-hour episodes. The length is the same with approximately six hours of an audiobook, but it is shifted to three, two-hour episodes roughly the same word count as a televised episode according to the behind the scenes interviews. I’m bringing this up so early since the format of this novel is one of the releases biggest issues, the length of the episodes make it so that a lot of it drags and doesn’t feel like a book. This has been a slight problem with the previous two releases but as Scourge of the Cybermen and Watchers have double the chapters and double the points where the narrative stops and listeners can take a break. And with Jonathan Morris treating each part of Emancipation of the Daleks as it’s own episode, it’s paced as if it is supposed to be a full-cast episode and not an audiobook which makes everything throughout drag. Morris structures the book as three distinct ideas each following a distinct version of Bill Potts, with the inciting incident of the story being Bill Potts from 20 years in the future showing up on her own doorstep in the present before a Dalek spaceship crashes into St. Luke’s University.

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Review: Doctor Who – Silver & Ice

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Review by Jacob Licklider

18 months. It has been 18 months since Big Finish Productions has released a solo Seventh Doctor audio with Sylvester McCoy in the role. The Grey Man of the Mountain was released in December 2020. It is now June 2022 and in between we had one small cameo in The End of the Beginning and a Short Trip read by Sophie Aldred, but that has finally changed. Silver and Ice has been released after a long time coming and it’s honestly not entirely what I expected. While every other Doctor’s set has been tied around some theme with Forty, Water Worlds, and Beyond War Games all work around a theme with The Annihilators and The Outlaws featuring central stories. Silver and Ice is odd as the two stories it contains, Bad Day in Tinseltown and The Ribos Inheritance really have no connection outside of being two stories featuring the Seventh Doctor and Mel. They almost feel as if there was an intention for them to make up a Main Range trilogy, especially if the second set, announced to be Sullivan and Cross – AWOL, continues the format. This disconnect makes me feel a bit odd about giving the set as a whole a rating as these are essentially two stand alone stories and perhaps would have been more effective had they been released as two single releases.

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Review: The Ninth Doctor Adventures – Ravagers

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Raise your hand if you weren’t expecting Christopher Eccleston to come back to Doctor Who? Okay, whoever doesn’t have your hand up is clearly lying, because it was one of those things that nobody ever thought would happen, and even more so, would happen so soon, but here we are, May 2021, and the first of four Ninth Doctor Box sets from Big Finish Productions are out in the world. Ravagers was written and directed by Nicholas Briggs showing just how much enthusiasm he had for the first Doctor he worked with on television when Doctor Who came back, and structured like a three part miniseries. This format is actually really good for Doctor Who, as single hour long stories which aren’t connected in any way becomes incredibly difficult to properly develop a new setting and new characters all in a single episode. While each episode has its own title (Sphere of Freedom, Cataclysm, and Food Fight) as this is a miniseries, this review will be looking as Ravagers as one continuous story, which is the best way to look at this box set anyway as each episode ends in a cliffhanger before the final episode opens up the series of box sets to what is clearly going to become a new era of Ninth Doctor adventures.

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BBC Studios to release K9 audio annual

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BBC Studios have today announced a brand new audio in their Doctor Who audio range K9 Audio Annual.

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The Twelfth Doctor first series is to be released as a Blu-ray steelbook

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Meet the Time Lord with the attack eyebrows, with series 8 the next series to be given the steelbook treatment! The Blu-ray steelbook of series 8 will be released 19th April 2021, featuring new and exclusive artwork.

Series 8 is the first full series of adventures with Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor and Jenna Coleman returning as Clara Oswald. This series also featured Samuel Anderson as Danny Pink and Michelle Gomez as Missy, a very different incarnation of the Master.

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Review: Doctor Who – Wicked Sisters

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Review by Michael Goleniewski

The Doctor is recruited by Leela for a vital mission on behalf of the Time Lords. Together, they must track down and destroy two god-like beings whose extraordinary powers now threaten all of space and time. Their names are Abby and Zara…

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The Eleventh Doctor’s final series to be released as Blu-ray steelbook

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Meet the Impossible girl and say goodbye to the Ponds! The Blu-ray steelbook of Doctor Who series 7 will be released Monday 14th December, featuring new and exclusive artwork.

Series 7 is the final full series of adventures with Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor. This series also said farewell to Amy Pond and Rory Williams, played by Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, and introduced Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman.

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Review: Doctor Who – Shadow of the Daleks 1

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Shadow of the Daleks is an interesting idea for a Doctor Who Big Finish release, at least for the Main Range. Instead of a single release, this is a story arc crossing two releases made up of eight individual episodes from different writers, all with the conceit of the Time War breaking into the life of the Fifth Doctor and a collection of people. This review is of only the first release, as it serves as the October Main Range release, Shadow of the Daleks 1, as the second installment has not been released and the story has not been concluded. As a series of four individual stories that have an overarching narrative, I will be foregoing any sort of format and just talking about what strikes me as this is a very different type of story. Listeners going in should expect that the title Shadow of the Daleks is apt as while the Daleks appear, and Nicholas Briggs is always excellent, they are not the focal point, staying in the literal shadows of each of the four episodes. The implication is that they are fighting the Time War, and possibly dragging earlier Doctors into events in a gambit to win, but as it stands there isn’t much to know of what they are. They are even referred to only as the Enemy in one of the stories which brings back images of the Eighth Doctor Adventures and Virgin New Adventures where the Terry Nation estate did not allow their use in the novels.

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