James Goss

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: 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: Torchwood – Among Us 3

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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 – 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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Review: The War Master – Solitary Confinement

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Review by Jacob Licklider

When this ninth series of The War Master was announced, it was also announced as the first of three final sets to be produced under Scott Handcock, all made as he was preparing to transfer to Doctor Who on television as script editor, though as is tradition with the range it is still a while before that final set is released (it is currently slated for a June 2024 release).  Solitary Confinement is the first of these three sets and while there isn’t an intent to make a trilogy of series, the listener can’t help but notice that the final two sets have titles of Rogue Encounters and Future Phantoms, while Solitary Confinement seems like the odd one out.  As a set there are moments where it feels like a greatest hits of the style of stories The War Master as a range does, building up to a final twist which in and of itself has similarities to some of the other final twists of the range (Hearts of Darkness in particular comes to mind especially).  For the purposes of this review, I only listened to the set through once to analyse it on initial impressions, but I have a feeling that the recontextualisation, something that becomes quite obvious in hindsight, might explain some of the issues I found myself having with the set, mainly with how derivative it is.  There is a general theme of the Master being imprisoned in an intergalactic insane asylum which is such an evocative image, yet for much of the set it is sadly used as a framing device for the middle two stories with the opening and closing episodes being the main thrust of the asylum stories, for better and for worse.  Because of these issues, I have decided to forgo the usual individual episode scores as all four have highs and lows with things that work and don’t work for me not necessarily being the same for you as a listener.

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Review: Torchwood – Among Us 1

Posted on by indiemacuser

Review by Cavan Gilbey

Torchwood is back with a brand new seventh series, following from the Aliens Among Us and God Among Us series previously released. Now considering that I had not heard either of those two series before this point I thought I would be hopelessly lost but rest assured that this boxset feels like a good enough jumping on point since the writers do a good job at getting you up to speed quickly. The four stories here all have a strong linking theme of prejudice, and the set takes the themes to some interesting places. As a continuation of what we have seen on television, this is a worthy successor to the four series we got on our screens.

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Review: The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles – All of Time and Space

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The second installment in The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles final hurrah for Jacob Dudman’s time portraying the character, All of Time and Space, continues the generic titling while the sets themselves are anything but generic.  This marks the halfway point for the series, with the final two sets coming in late 2023 and early 2024 respectively, and if you’re going in expecting some big revelation as to where the arc is going you may be disappointed.  All of Time and Space instead focuses on exploring the character dynamics between the Eleventh Doctor and Valarie as they continue their travels and come across something that will break that relationship down to an interesting point.  While I will be avoiding larger plot spoilers for this review, as much of the set works if you go in knowing little of the big character defining moments, All of Time and Space is a set that will work at its best if you are listening to it without preconceptions and having heard Geronimo! recently.  If you’ve come to this review to know if it is worth it, it is definitely worth it, it is one of the few recent releases from Big Finish to genuinely return to experimental storytelling with its heaviest focus on character development.

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Review: The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield – Blood & Steel (Vol. 7)

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Review by Jacob Licklider

This review was always going to be a difficult review to write. As announced The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield: Blood & Steel is set in Weimar Germany during the rise of the Nazis and as such this review will be discussing fascism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism due to the historical setting. This is also discussing the last time David Warner will be playing the Doctor due to his passing this year, though not the last Big Finish release (or even Doctor Who release) to feature Warner. While there is no word yet from Big Finish, it would not be a surprise if this was the end of The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield as a range, ending as a fitting tribute to the Doctor who came to define the range, appearing as the secondary lead in five of the seven box sets released. As a range, it became a wonderful opportunity for new talent while continuing the legacy of perhaps the most important character to Doctor Who’s continued life during the Wilderness Years. Bernice Summerfield is what gave the Virgin New Adventures their longevity and is where Big Finish Productions got their start. If this is the end for the range and possibly the character, it is a brilliant set to go out on, but since there have already been two Bernice Summerfield ranges before this, Benny may not be truly gone. At least, not yet.

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Review: The Year of Martha Jones

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Review byJacob Licklider

 

The Year of Martha Jones is the third Big Finish Box Set spin-off featuring a companion from Russell T. Davies’ run as Doctor Who’s showrunner. Recorded in February 2020, but not released until December 2021, this release was a long time coming, having been leaked on performer’s online CVs, but it was only announced in 2021. While certain forums have speculated what kept this release on the back-burner for so long (only Tom Baker’s banked releases, which have been kept back for a number of years, and the missing Fifth Doctor/Marc Monthly Range stories, which were pulled due to the pandemic, have had this kind of a delay in even being announced), yet the only concrete development can be gained from the behind the scenes mentioning that it was originally planned to be a four disc set, reduced to three, and that the same month that this was being recorded, Freema Agyeman reprised her role as Martha Jones in Torchwood: Dissected.

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