The Doom’s Day event is a weird one. The last time we have a multimedia event like this was Time Lord Victorious, a story which didn’t do much to separate itself a lot of the Time War media which had come out around the event. But some of the stories stood out as being pretty good on their own, namely those two Master starringShort Trips and Genetics of the Daleks which worked because of how standalone they were. Dying Hours feels like it really needs the prior hours of the story to fully appreciate what was going one, especially in the final story. The problem is most people will do what I do and listen to this in isolation because these multimedia events always have a high buy in price. It’s a lot easier to just buy this one boxset than all the linking comics, DWM strips, novels and BBC Audio releases. So I want you to keep that in mind, I haven’t heard anything else from Doom’s Day. It might shock you to hear that this boxset is actually quite good.
The general thoughts going through the Big Finish side of the Doctor Who fandom when it was announced Ruth Madeley would be included as a new character in the 60th Anniversary Specials, is that Hebe Harrison would be written out of the audio series.This has happened before with audio companions’ arcs being altered due to what was going on on television, C’rizz being the foremost example.The expectation going into Purity Unbound was that Hebe would have to leave, but surprisingly that doesn’t happen in the final story, there are still more adventures to tel with this TARDIS Team and honestly the set is all the better for it.The four box set story arc has been something in my eyes with its ups and downs, the second installment being the rockiest and the wait between sets not often helping matters.Purity Unbound is the high point of the arc, mainly because the writers have found their way to a consistent theme and conclusion to this saga, using each story as a way to explore the aberrations to the timeline (and further aberrations) in different and interesting ways.Jacqueline Rayner and Robert Valentine are joined by Mark Wright in scripting this final installment, all three writers keying in on the character journeys in particular, especially when concluding this story.It should be noted that this is a story arc about a dictator heavily enforcing a eugenics program based on disability which is most explicit in this set so this review may be discussing themes that could be triggering for some.For context, I am coming to this review from the perspective of someone who is physically disabled.Continue reading →
The second installment of the third series of Ninth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish Productions is continuing the idea of these sets being three stories wrapped around a theme.This set has the Ninth Doctor traveling alone once again, but with the wraparound title of Travel in Hope giving the audience an immediate understanding of the overarching theme of the set.This theme is the Doctor bringing some sort of hope, or causing some sort of hope for the future to come around, something that allows each of the three stories to really hammer home the idea of the hope that the Doctor himself is lacking, and the need for a companion.This need for a companion was briefly solved in the previous set, Pioneers, but sadly that Doctor/companion relationship was limited to one story.The continual use of the Ninth Doctor without Rose is becoming a clear issue and that issue is hanging over each episode of Travel in Hope, almost enough that it feels as if writers Lauren Mooney, Stewart Pringle, James Moran, and Robert Valentine are screaming at Big Finish to schedule some dates where Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper can get together and record some stories so these turning wheels don’t just keep turning.This is the tenth set for the Ninth Doctor Adventures and there are most likely two more where this issue will present itself, both being released in 2024.The other solution would be to give the Ninth Doctor a second, pre-Rose companion, which may come with its own set of problems, but they would be a different set of problems with a different set of solutions as potentially interesting storytelling avenues to explore a la the forced gap Big Finish made work with the Fifth Doctor and Peri in the early monthly range.
I ask, dear reader, to indulge me a moment before we get into this review proper for just a moment with a few pieces of context for this review.First and foremost, I am of the firm belief that the first series of Ninth Doctor Adventures should have ended as subtly implied with the Ninth Doctor going into the events of the television story Rose and the beginning of those adventures.Second, I am also of the belief that the Ninth Doctor especially is a character who works best when there is a companion or companion figure to be attached too.Finally, the third story of this set deals with the historical establishment of football leagues and I am an American, so take any of my takes on the history of that third episode with the largest pinch of salt you possibly can.Pioneers opens the third series of Ninth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish Productions and marks the first set in this range to not be released on vinyl as well as CD and download.This marks a very important shift for the style of these three episodes, mainly because they are not bound by the vinyl format of strictly being 45 minutes in total due to technical limitations, so these three episodes are expanded to an hour.While I personally prefer my Doctor Who stories to be generally longer than that, this jump in runtime really helps this set feel like each episode is expanded just enough to provide greater depth than previous releases had allowed.
Water Worlds and Purity Undreamed comprised the start of a brand new story arc for the Sixth Doctor and Mel, ushering in the new era of box sets for the characters under the helm of producer Jacqueline Rayner and script editor Robert Valentine.Purity Undreamed ended with the “reveal” of the story arc’s villain through slightly messy means, more importantly new companion Hebe Harrison being written out of time as if she has never existed and the implication of a rewritten future timeline where a eugenics regime has deleted any sense of disability.This implication is dark and executed at least a little messily, simplifying disability quite a bit to physical disabilities.The third set, Purity Unleashed, creates an interesting setup, it’s the Doctor and Mel searching for the infraction in history that led to Hebe’s disappearance and the further development of Patricia McBride, played by Imogen Stubbs, as Purity.While the three episodes in this set only work in the confines of this being the third set in this story arc, the timing of this set actually helps lessen some of the issues I had in particular with the previous set.Purity Undreamed was a set that as the title states is the character of Purity becoming real and not just the biases, conscious and subconscious, of Patricia McBride, yet it ends without much of a sense of the character’s villainy.Purity Unleashed is quick to rectify that in the two appearances of the character in the back to stories included, making it quite the shame that this wasn’t released soon after Purity Undreamed, the nine month wait not so much keeping tension as just questioning what exactly was going on.
Let’s take a moment to discuss integrating a theme into a story and how an author’s intent may perhaps become muddled by a production. Once and Future is the overarching name given to Big Finish Productions’ 60th Anniversary miniseries, planning to release monthly installments until the anniversary month and a coda in 2024. Like all anniversary specials the announcement came with a slew of guest stars and returning characters, with the premise being some incarnation of the Doctor has been attacked and is degenerating into previous incarnations of themself. This is the overarching plot of the miniseries, established at the start of Past Lives, Robert Valentine’s introductory story.
With the title and behind the scenes interviews, Valentine lays out this idea about anti-nostalgia and the pain of nostalgia, which is a laudable idea to inject into an anniversary story, especially one for a franchise that has been going for 60 years and shows no signs of stopping. It is especially prescient for an audio drama which is supplemental to the main show and whose company has had criticisms for an over reliance on nostalgia in recent years to stay in business.
This could have been an interesting examination of the need to keep referencing things and drawing people in as Valentine clearly intended, however, Past Lives just doesn’t do anything to explore those themes in its hour-long runtime. There are hints, Sarah Jane, played by Sadie Miller, is brought in right at the end of The Hand of Fear and the UNIT characters of Kate Stewart and Petronella Osgood, played by Jemma Redgrave and Ingrid Oliver respectively, right before The Day of the Doctor, is a clear choice to parallel characters from after and before their involvement with the Doctor proper (though Kate had appeared in The Power of Three). The Meddling Monk being the antagonist of the story, played by Rufus Hound, also could have been a larger presence of preserving some sense of nostalgia but the script never crystalizes any of its ideas. As it stands, the plot of Past Lives is actually quite condensed, the opening and conclusion being dedicated to introducing the central idea and mystery box of Once and Future’s arc which means that Valentine only gets about 40 minutes to actually tell his story from front to back. A lot of the introduction feels incredibly rushed, with points where it feels as if Helen Goldwyn in the director’s seat has realized how tight the script needs to be to fit in the CD time limit and has some scenes just move quick. The recreation of the end of The Hand of Fear is perhaps the biggest example of this, Sadie Miller almost rushing through her lines before she is brought into the story. The conclusion is also just a lead in to the fact that the Doctor, played by Tom Baker here, is changing his appearance again and going off to find his daughter.
When the story is actually dealing with the Meddling Monk and the Hyreth invaders, crocodilian invaders whose leader is voiced by Ewan Bailey with aplomb, there’s a pretty fun story to be had there. Okay so it’s a bit standard but it genuinely feels like Valentine had a much bigger scope story to tell, but having only an hour means that a of the five major players of the Doctor, Sarah Jane, the Monk, Kate, and Osgood are competing for time in the spotlight while also exploring a new species of alien invaders and setting up a mystery box. The resolution of the story is great, with the Hyreth turning themselves into UNIT which indicates maybe there’s hope for peaceful existence with aliens which is nice. The downfall of the Hyreth feels like the point where Valentine meant to explore the idea of holding onto the past, but it just doesn’t get enough time to shine. Past Lives as a story is a perfectly fine story on its own, but as the beginning of a story arc it strays far too much into just setting up a basic premise, when more time should have been given to Valentine to actually tell the story he wanted to tell and expand on the themes that suffer from only being a small thread in the corner of the story. 5/10.
Perhaps the saddest thing about UNIT: Brave New World is that it is only two box sets long and is currently the only thing announced to use this particular UNIT team.Seabird Onewas already an excellent set and start to the miniseries bringing back Angela Bruce’s Winifred Bambera, but it’s up to Visitants, the second set, to take all the open threads and tie them up.The miniseries is one that genuinely feels different from the other Big Finish ranges, taking what Battlefield started bringing in a new cast of characters that through the great script editing from Robert Valentine and brilliant direction from Scott Handcock.Producer Emily Cook has also really gotten to come into her own in her role as this is a range that is essentially all her own.
The Eric Roberts incarnation of the Master has entered his renaissance period; a new series of solo stories, reunions with the Eighth Doctor and other Masters, and even a face off against River Song. Seeing this particular portrayal of the Master become so quickly beloved and reappraised is a real joy for me as I’ve always loved the deep levels of camp, pomp and Vincent Price energy that Roberts brought to the role back in 1996. A couple of years ago he got a chance to shine in his own solo set where he was pitted against Big Finish original creation Vienna Salvatori as well as a brief face-off with the Daleks, and that set is genuinely a stoke of genuine in reinventing just how the Master can be characterised and how he works as a villain. So I was eager to listen to Nemesis Express; another three hours with a personal favourite Master.
Let’s cut to the chase, Purity Undreamedis a set with a very weird starting point as an audio drama. Following on from Water Worlds and continuing on the development of Hebe Harrison it sets out to introduce several side characters who are attempting to recur, a new villain for the series, and end by setting up next year’s box sets for the Sixth Doctor and Mel (or at least that’s the assumption since they have not been formally announced yet to feature Mel). It’s a three-hour box set that is almost entirely setup from three different writers: Paul Magrs, Jonathan Morris, and Robert Valentine. Valentine is also serving as script editor with producer Jacqueline Rayner, both contributing as guides for the overarching story arcs. The biggest issue with Purity Undreamed comes from something that happens in the third story, setting up the villain which will be spoiled in this review, if you want non-spoiler thoughts then listen to this if you enjoyed Water Worlds as it maintains a lot of what went really well with that set although is a bit inconsistent. The behind the scenes for the second story, Reverse Engineering, reveals that Jonathan Morris had less time to complete the story, implying that another story may have fallen through. Because of this there is a disconnect between how the character of Patricia McBride, played by Imogen Stubbs, is characterised. This is not an issue of action, but of the character’s beliefs as the third story, Robert Valentine’s Chronomancer is a character piece meant to reveal that Patricia McBride is a woman harbouring bigotry going so far as to advocating for eugenics so the future is “better” and without disability.Continue reading →
Brigadier Winifred Bambera is a Doctor Who character who is interesting. Appearing on television in Battlefield played by the wonderful Angela Bruce and created by Ben Aaronovitch, had the show lasted past Season 26 there was a good chance she would reappear especially since Andrew Cartmel had what would become the ‘lost story’ Animal in his head as a story at the time. So it became puzzling that in the Virgin New Adventures, while UNIT featured heavily especially in books like Blood Heat,No Future, and Eternity Weeps, Bambera herself would only appear twice, in Head Games and The Dying Days as cameos. The UNIT stories of the New Adventures were more concerned with deconstructing the UNIT family and the Pertwee era as it was the era many of the writers grew up with and were fond of. She had a similar cameo in the novelisation of Downtime by Marc Platt, but after that didn’t appear in any of the novels by BBC Books. Then in 1999 Big Finish acquired the Doctor Who license and begun their takeover of Doctor Who dominating the early 2000s until the revival, yet Bambera only appeared in Animal released in 2011. So it became a surprise with the success of the UNIT spin-off, Angela Bruce was brought back in the second set of UNIT: Nemesis as a backdoor pilot for UNIT: Brave New World, a currently two set release giving Bambera her own UNIT team in the late 1990s post-Battlefield, focusing on incursions from Earth itself and not the standard alien invasions.
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