Review: Doctor Who – Prisoners of London

Posted on July 23, 2023 by indiemacuser

There honestly wasn’t a surprise when Matthew Waterhouse was revealed to be writing a second Doctor Who Audio Novel for Big Finish Productions. Watchers was a wonderful examination of the character of Adric and Season 18 on the whole, reflecting on Waterhouse’s time on the show through the program. What is surprising is that Waterhouse does not attempt to strike lightning in a bottle a second time with Prisoners of London, instead crafting a story that very easily could have slotted in the middle of Season 19. The premise feels like a standard idea that could have come from a pitch by John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward in the best way, the TARDIS lands in London, 1982 leading Tegan to believe that the Doctor has finally gotten her home even if it isn’t Heathrow Airport as she was expecting. This London, however, is not the London that we know, it is ruled by Emperor Geoffrey Chaucer, there are police boxes on every corner ready to arrest those breaking laws, and there are far too many Tower Bridges down practically every street. Now Prisoners of London is presented in the now typical format for the Audio Novels of multiple parts and not the typical chapter structure of a novel, however, this one suffers slightly from that format. Waterhouse clearly has experience as a novelist and as such is writing Prisoners of London in that format, especially apparent in the final moments of the production which jump ahead in the life of the Doctor significantly for a sequence that in a normal novel would be an epilogue, but here is just presented as the final scenes which make it stand out as odd.

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Review: Doctor Who – Watchers

Posted on January 13, 2022 by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The Audio Novels range is the newest Doctor Who range from Big Finish Productions, essentially taking over from their original printed short story collections which ran until 2009 when they lost the license to print Doctor Who books. Several of the short stories would find their way as Subscriber Short Trips, four released a year, but with the ending of The Monthly Range and the normal Short Trips range being moved to box sets 2021 saw the introduction of The Audio Novels with Scourge of the Cybermen, essentially released every six months in January and July. The second installment is also an interesting contribution as it isn’t from an established writer, but an actor. Matthew Waterhouse wrote Watchers, a seven-hour audiobook set after The Keeper of Traken and exploring the final days of the Fourth Doctor, in universe, bridging the gap to Logopolis. It is an interesting look at the end of the Tom Baker era from a meta-textual standpoint as Waterhouse uses it to ultimately comment on how each of the three producers during the run produced the show, and especially how stark a contrast Season 18 was in respect to the end of the Graham Williams era. Gone was the previous era’s characteristic humour, brought into stark contract as Season 17 was script edited by Douglas Adams and was an out and out comedy.

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Review: Doctor Who – Forty

Posted on January 6, 2022 by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic making time feel incredibly compressed, it is now 2022, and with 2022 comes Big Finish Productions’ new format for release, something that had been slowly introduced throughout 2021. Everything’s a three-disc box set and the first release of the year, like the first release of 2021, is a celebratory anniversary set, this time celebrating Peter Davison’s 40th anniversary as the Fifth Doctor with the first of two box sets under the umbrella label Forty. The premise of what is essentially the Fifth Doctor’s consciousness being catapulted across his timeline in no particular order, both forwards and backwards from his second story, Four to Doomsday, to Season 20, and as the brief for the second set implies, Season 21. Unlike last year’s Masterful, Forty isn’t a single story, but a series of interconnected stories with this volume containing the four-part Secrets of Telos and the two-part God of War with the second not currently having all of its story details announced (only one story has a title, The Auton Infinity). The story arc of the sets doesn’t actually get close to an explanation, ending with the Doctor still being catapulted around his timeline. There is a nice thematic through-line for the first set with the Doctor being taken in the first story to a time after Earthshock where he finds out Adric’s fate while going back in the second story to several stories below the young companion’s demise meaning the Doctor has to face the fact that he knows where Adric is going and actively has to move him towards that fate. Continue reading →

Review: Doctor Who – The Lost Resort and Other Stories

Posted on September 16, 2021 by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The 2020 Monthly Range releases from July to October were initially announced as the yearly anthology release Time Apart, followed by a trilogy of Fifth Doctor stories: Thin Time/Madquake, The Lost Resort, and Perils and Nightmares. These releases were recorded, edited, and ready for release until the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down and Big Finish Productions decided that one of these releases would not be suitable as it came too close to real world issues, so The Lost Resort and its follow up Perils and Nightmares were pulled from the release schedule, the other prepared main range releases The Flying Dutchman/Displaced was pulled ahead and plans were changed. So here we are, a year later and the pandemic while still ravaging the world, has an endpoint in sight with the development of the vaccines, Big Finish have released these three stories as a box set, capitalising on the idea of it as a continuation of the early 1980s era of Doctor Who in the wonderful video trailer as The Lost Resort and Other Stories. Continue reading →

BBC Re-Releases Doctor Who The Collection Season 10 & 18

Posted on May 27, 2021May 27, 2021 by indiemacuser

Seasons 10 and 18 of Doctor Who: The Collection are the next two Blu-ray titles to be re-issued in standard packaging after Season 12 and 19.

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BBC Re-Releases Doctor Who The Collection Season 12 & 19

Posted on March 24, 2021 by indiemacuser

The Collection range of Doctor Who will begin re-issued in standard packaging!

The first titles to join this range will be Season 12 and Season 19, which are available to pre-order now.

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DVD Review: The Doctors – Heroes and Villians (Koch Media)

Posted on November 30, 2020 by indiemacuser

THE DOCTORS: HEROES AND VILLAINS is a newly filmed DVD release set of interviews with the team of actors who brought the heroes and villains in Doctor Who to life and sent you ‘behind the sofa’! This production is distributed Koch Media; the company behind Doctor Who spin-offs such as Wartime (starring John Levene) and the Mindgame Saga (starring Sophie Aldred).

“For all Doctor Who fans, this 2-disc special collector’s edition is 5 hours of pure nostalgia, which will give you a whole new insight into the making of your favourite science fiction series!”

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Review: Fourth Doctor Adventures – Series 9 (Vol 1)

Posted on January 29, 2020February 1, 2020 by indiemacuser

Review by Michael Goleniewski

The ninth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures takes several different directions in terms of structure and tone. Rather than being eight hour-long stories comprised of two parts, the series is now jumping to longer adventures with four two-hour-long stories instead. It also represents a significant time jump moving into the Fourth Doctor’s time in E-Space with Romana, K-9, and Adric rather than during his time with Leela or either of the Romanas individually. It’s an interesting jump considering most of the series are going to shorter formats nowadays but it could yield some intriguing results if done well.

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Review: Doctor Who – Serpent In The Silver Mask

Posted on March 21, 2018March 21, 2018 by indiemacuser

Review by Christian Basel

First off, very happy to be joining Doctor Squee on a new adventure not only talking Doctor WHO on his podcast, Gallifrey Stands Podcast, but enjoying the new adventures of the Doctor in Big Finish audios. This is not my first time listening and enjoying the extended life spans of all the Big Finish audios, but now, you get to hear my take on them. Having said that, here’s my first go with the Fifth Doctor’s audio, ‘Serpent in the Silver Mask’.