Review: Doctor Who – Once and Future – The Union

Posted on May 12, 2024 by indiemacuser

Spoiler Warning!!! Review contains spoilers of The Union!!!

Big Finish’s diamond anniversary has finally come to an end, except for the coda story next year but I don’t think anyone is going to count that as a true end to the narrative. It has been a bumpy ride across these seven episodes, with wildly varying quality on show with some scripts such as The Martian Invasion of Planetoid 50 or Genius For War being quite good hour long excursions and other’s (looking at you Two’s Company) being the exact opposite. The plot threads, well those that have been half built up anyway, finally come to their conclusion here in The Union and Matt Fitton has done a brilliant job. Possibly bringing us the strongest story of the run so far, although that might because it is one of the few that feels like a full story with a beginning, middle and end as opposed to just a beginning and middle.

Continue reading →

Doctor Who Season 15 ‘The Collection’ BluRay announced

Posted on January 11, 2024January 11, 2024 by indiemacuser

Tom Baker‘s fourth season as the Fourth Doctor is the next release to come to Blu-ray when The Collection – Season 15 releases later this year.

Doctor Who fans can continue to build their own home archive on Blu-ray with a SEVEN DISC box set of the 15th Season from 1977, starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Containing six classic stories, this limited-edition set is packed with hours of new and exclusive material.

Continue reading →

‘Doctor Who’ actor Richard Franklin passes away aged 87

Posted on December 25, 2023December 26, 2023 by indiemacuser

Doctor Who actor Richard Franklin has passed away aged 87. The news was shared on the actors social media accounts today. See the statement below.

Continue reading →

Fourth Doctor Tom Baker says he avoids other Doctor Who stars out of ‘contempt’

Posted on November 21, 2023November 21, 2023 by indiemacuser

Former Doctor Who actor Tom Baker has spoken about openly avoiding other Doctor Who stars.

The British actor, 89, played the fourth Time Lord from 1974 to 1981, and is considered by many to be one of the best incarnations of the Doctor.

Continue reading →

Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Angels And Demons

Posted on July 8, 2023 by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

New Frontiers began the twelfth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures wonderfully with two four-part adventures that introduced the character of Margaret Hopwood, played by Nerys Hughes, to the Doctor’s world as second companion with Louise Jameson’s Leela. Angels and Demons is the second half of the series, once again with a fifth bonus story CD, concluding the series and Margaret Hopwood’s travels, making another Big Finish Companion to have a limited run of only six stories. Angels and Demons is also the return of two-part stories to the Fourth Doctor Adventures in a significant way with three of the four stories in that format, something we hadn’t seen since 2019 with The Syndicate Master Plan, and something Series 13 will be continuing in 2024. Bringing the travels of Margaret Hopwood to a close so soon is a bit of a double-edged sword, since it’s a shorter run the stories have to be exceptionally good if the character is to be remembered unlike other Big Finish original companions with short runs (Hannah Bartholomew comes to mind as one that has fallen into obscurity while Raine Creevey is quite well remembered among Seventh Doctor fans). It does give the character the opportunity for a definitive beginning, middle, and an end which means Margaret won’t become a character like Flip or Constance who have had their travels extended indefinitely due to actor availability and illness.

Continue reading →

Big Finish announce eight-part multi-Doctor audio drama series celebrating the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who

Posted on November 23, 2022November 23, 2022 by indiemacuser

Big Finish marks 60 years of Doctor Who with a mammoth eight-part full-cast audio drama series beginning in May 2023.

Continue reading →

Review: Classic Doctors New Monsters 3: The Stuff of Nightmares

Posted on August 3, 2022 by indiemacuser

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.

Continue reading →

Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures – The Nine

Posted on June 26, 2022 by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The Fourth Doctor Adventures: The Nine has a weird title. Originally announced years back as simply The Fourth Doctor Adventures: Series 11: Volume 2 following the naming scheme of Series 7-10, but with the transition of the greater Big Finish output going to box set releases with their own individual subtitles is given the title The Nine because the character of the Nine appears in the first story, The Dreams of Avarice, alone. The other two stories, Shellshock and Peake Season, are completely unrelated adventures for the Fourth Doctor, Peake Season not even meant to be released in this series as it was added later and recorded in 2020 and not in 2017-2018. A more fitting subtitle would have been Solo Volume 2 since this is a set which contains three stories where the Fourth Doctor is travelling alone after The Deadly Assassin and a friend of mine suggested on Twitter that this series was similar to the run of Virgin New Adventures which in the span of four books would pitch a potential companion, with Bernice Summerfield being the companion chosen. For this series it would be Margaret in the winning role but The Dreams of Avarice, Shellshock, and Peake Season have characters who feel as if they are meant to be companion candidates which would have enhanced the set had this been called Solo Volume 2.

Continue reading →

Review: Doctor Of War – Genesis

Posted on April 15, 2022April 15, 2022 by indiemacuser

Review by Jacob Licklider

The Unbound range essentially started as a way to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who by introducing six alternate universe takes on the Doctor and Doctor Who based around questions like “What if the Doctor never left Gallifrey?” or “What if the Doctor was exiled to Earth in the 1990s?”. This allowed different actors and actresses to take on the role of the Doctor, but after the initial six release run there weren’t any new Unbound Doctors introduced, two more releases in 2005 and 2008 before the David Warner Doctor was paired with Bernice Summerfield. So, imagine the surprise when it was announced that the range would be revived for two box sets using a new Unbound Doctor, the Doctor of War, played by Colin Baker, in a timeline that diverges during Genesis of the Daleks for two box sets, Genesis and Destiny (named after the Tom Baker Dalek serials). full