john dorney

Review: Doctor Who – Deathworld

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

The Three Doctors is a beloved story from one of Pertwee’s most popular seasons, debatably one of the most popular seasons for the classic in general; it’s certainly one of mine. As much as I love Season 10, I had never really read any of the production history behind the season, so it was something of a surprise to discover this alternate take on that iconic first multi-Doctor story. Deathworld, originally penned by Bob Baker and Dave Martin and adapted for this new audio release by John Dorney. If you expected this to resemble to that original TV  serial then think again, because this is a very different beast. I’m not entirely sure if this the equivalent of fandom sacrilege but this is way more interesting than The Three Doctors for me, although it is so clearly un-filmable on the 70s era budget.

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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 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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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: Seventh Doctor Adventures – Sullivan And Cross – AWOL

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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.

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Review: The Eighth Doctor Adventures – What Lies Inside?

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Review by Jacob Licklider

So what happens when your production company switches to a box set structure but doesn’t necessarily have themes for every set?  Well that has been something that the past ten months of Big Finish Productions’ output has been, switching away from numbering their sets as to not overboard potential new listeners with so much content they would have to catch up on.  It is with this in mind that the Eighth Doctor Adventures range was changed from the four box set arc model to integrate it with the other releases which had some interesting side effects.  This meant that this year Big Finish have scheduled four sets featuring the Eighth Doctor, the conclusion to Stranded, the two now standard 3-disc Eighth Doctor Adventures, and a special fourth set featuring Charley Pollard.  The two standard sets were scheduled for the last two months of the year, most likely to have a gap for actual production of the sets, the first being What Lies Inside? released this month while the second, Connections, is out in December.  What’s especially intriguing is that while there isn’t any sort of story arc, Rafe Wallbank crafted connected covers almost reminiscent of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels covers (Interference in particular comes to mind).  What Lies Inside? is the first set that falls into the category of 2022 sets where each of the stories has been completely standalone, following Silver and Ice and The Outlaws, and like those sets the structure is a two hour adventure and a one hour adventure, though here each episode is an hour long.

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Review: Tenth Doctor – Classic Companions

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Review by Cavan Gilbey

Companions become just as much of a friend to the audience as they do to the Doctor, so seeing them return by having them reunited with Doctor after ages can be really refreshing and rewarding. However this concept is only going to really work if we have actually spent some time away from those characters, which with Big Finish is nigh on impossible because every companion is omnipresent there and you can find a new Peri audio just as much as you can a new Jamie story. Tegan and Ace returning to TV feels significant since they’ve not been seen for ages, but we have heard so many extended adventures with them so having them meet a later Doctor on audio doesn’t hit that spot. This is where we come to the main issue with Tenth Doctor, Classic Companions; it’s too much of a gimmick. Sure Classic Doctors, New Monsters is a gimmick but you can understand it more with the monsters than you can with the companions. This set feels like it exists solely to give Ten some stories with older companions as opposed to crafting interesting stories based around the way their relationships have changed, which doesn’t exactly make this an enticing listen.
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Review: Classic Doctors New Monsters 3: The Stuff of Nightmares

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Written by Cavan Gilbey

‘Classic Doctors, New Monsters’ has been a novel concept for a range, both previous boxsets have been inventive with their match ups and often taken their chosen monsters into new and exciting territories; Judoon in Chains being the easy stand-out from those first sets with how it creatively uses it’s monster of choice. Weeping Angels, Sycorax, Racnoss and Carrionites are all obvious choices for the range but this third volume does plumb the depths a little bit; I mean who is really asking for Balhoon or Tivolian stories? Although I must admit a two parter involving the Dream Crabs is pretty inspired as you have the potential to create some truly surreal audio landscapes. But that aside, the four stories we get are all great fun thus making this a set that really is more the ‘Stuff of Dreams’ rather than Nightmares.

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Review: Doctor Who – Stranded 4

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Review by Jacob Licklider

Just over one year ago, in March 2021, the Main Range ended from Big Finish Productions as the box set format took root before being firmly established for 2022. Now, one other long running institution from Big Finish Productions is at an end, the 16 part, four disc set, Eighth Doctor miniseries which has been the format of Eighth Doctor releases for nearly a decade. Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition, Ravenous, and Stranded have all been released to acclaim and here we are with Stranded 4, the final set in this style.

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Review: Doctor Who – The 8th Of March: Protectors of Time

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Review by Jacob Licklider

The Eighth of March was a special release on International Women’s Day 2019 to celebrate the female characters of Doctor Who, essentially serving as example episodes for various series from (mostly new) female writers: The Paternoster Gang, The Diary of River Song, UNIT, and a story set in the Virgin New Adventures. Here we are, three years later and for International Women’s Day 2022, a three disc follow up has been released in the form of The Eighth of March: Prisoners of Time, exploring Lady Christina, Jenny: The Doctor’s Daughter, a Romana spin-off, and a tribute to The Sarah Jane Adventures with two new writers, Abigail Burdess and Nina Millns and an opening story from Lizbeth Myles (who has been contributing to Big Finish since 2014). Like the previous box set, this is an incredibly versatile set as the only real brief is that there is a female lead and it is set in the Doctor Who universe, giving the writers free rein on what they wish to play with. There also are two female directors assigned to this release, Louise Jameson tackling the first episode while Helen Goldwyn directs the other two, both bringing their distinct style to give each story its own flair.

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