Maggie Stables : A Tribute

A lot of Doctor Who fans won't know who Maggie Stables was, which is a shame. She played Evelyn Smythe, companion to The Sixth Doctor for Big Finish.

Evelyn Smythe is almost unique in Doctor Who terms. She's not young. She's a University lecturer. A Doctor. Of Philosophy. And she dovetails beautifully with the Sixth Doctor. To the extent that she might actually be THE companion of the Sixth Doctor.

Introduced in The Marian Conspiracy, Evelyn was a spirited, clever and strong woman. She never let the Doctor browbeat her. She lived a good life.

Now I never met Maggie Stables but it seems - reading the tributes to her elsewhere - that she was a woman who enjoyed life and lived it well. Apparently she started acting after a career as a French teacher. She certainly had that tone that teacher's seem to develop that made her ideal casting for Evelyn Smythe.

If you get a chance and you haven't done so already dip into Big Finish's Evelyn Smythe series to see what you missed. You should start at the beginning with The Marian Conspiracy but I'd really recommend The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, which puts the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn in Cornwall. With the Brigadier. It's a lovely story, well-acted and with the comfort of the known in the Brigadier.

But seriously don't miss out.

So RIP Maggie Stables. RIP Evelyn Smythe. You'll be missed.

Project : Twilight [Sixth Doctor + Evelyn Smythe]

Wow Project : Twilight. That was damn good that. Dark. Violent. Sinister. Packed full of nasty characters doing nasty things and with the Doctor and Evelyn caught up in events and, perhaps, making them worse. Then there's poor Cassie (Rosie Cavaliero) but more about her later.

This story starts off with things going wrong in an experimental facility. As is often the case in Doctor Who scientists are conducting rather unpleasant experiments in the name of creating super-soldiers. Once again the end justifies the means. It's one of Doctor Who's most common themes. The experiment, of course, goes wrong. Or at least they get free.

Which brings us to Bermondsey in the present-ish day. And a trip to a takeaway restaurant for the Doctor and Evelyn that leads to them into trouble. Big trouble. And a casino.

The casino run by the rather unpleasant Reggie Mead (Rob Dixon) and the less - at least on the surface - unpleasant Amelia Doory (Holly de Jong). Reggie in particularly is one of the most unpleasant characters in Doctor Who. A thug. A psychopath. Mad, bad and dangerous to know. In some respects he's not a Doctor Who character at all being anchored in the sort of character that we know from British gangster films (and real life gangsters).

In comparison, even though she's played with style by Holly de Jong, Amelia is a standard Doctor Who villain, although in her way more sympathetic perhaps than most. But, for me, it's Reggie who haunts this story. His torture - and there's no other word for it - of Cassie, even though we only hear its start and its end, is more unpleasant than anything Daleks, Cybermen or Sontarans might have done.

I suppose the word you might use is 'adult'. This is adult drama. This isn't the same as televised Doctor Who at all. You would never be able to broadcast this on television. The BBC wouldn't let you.

And The Doctor's all at sea in this story for a bit too. He's manipulated by Amelia and by Nimrod (a chillingly sinister Rupert Booth). His good nature is taken advantage of and he pushes Evelyn away. She wants to know why he's so concerned about what she sees as a pair of two-bit gangsters but The Doctor knows what they really are and won't - can't - tell her. There's a powerful scene between the two of them as they hammer it out. It's startlingly good stuff from both Colin Baker and Maggie Stables. But it always feels like the Doctor is out of step throughout. It's as if he knows he's not in Doctor Who but has stumbled into sf tinged version of The Krays.

Nimrod's another dark and horrid little bastard. He's hard to separate from the theoretical villains of this story. In fact you might argue that he is the villain. There's so many shades of grey here that he's almost a shadow.

Then there's poor Cassie. God, is there a character in any other Doctor Who story that is put through it quite as much as her. Tortured, wounded and caught in the middle of events she has no understanding of and yet she keeps herself from becoming something dark. She's not safe. Never that but she does have a strong moral centre. It's absolutely heart-breaking to hear her journey.

And at the centre of this we come back to questions of responsibility. Whose fault is all this? How much of it is the Doctor's fault? He's certainly slow on the uptake here. Tricked perhaps, but too slow to see what's going on. It's a bad night for the Doctor, even if there is a kind of victory at the end. The worst consequences are avoided but a price has to be paid. And the Doctor certainly seems to feel responsible. Unusually he even finds to for apologies.

Then this story ends but you get the feeling that this is just the beginning of something. There are too many loose ends. Too much left to do.

This is dark stuff. But its good. It makes Torchwood's pretensions of 'adult' themes look the adolescent fantasies they (mostly) were.

Brilliant.

Bloodtide [Sixth Doctor + Evelyn Smythe]

Bloodtide is set on the Galapagos Islands. The Doctor has bought Evelyn along to meet Charles Darwin (Miles Richardson) whilst he is visiting aboard The Beagle. Of course whilst that would be nice it would probably make for a less than exciting Doctor Who story. And what do we see here? Ah, Silurians. Look out, look out there's a Lizardman about.

It's a small group, led by maverick Silurian scientist Tulok (Daniel Hogarth). Tulok, as we discover at the beginning of this story, is a 'man' with ideas that his fellow Silurians disapprove of. He's on trial when we first meet him. Sentenced to be exiled to the dying surface of the Earth along with his 'blasphemous' creations.

Of course dodgy scientists in Doctor Who - human, Kaled or Silurian - are never that easy to get rid of.

The Doctor stumbles upon all of this via Greta (Jane Goddard) whose brother has been sentenced to death by Governor Lawson (Julian Harries). Governor Lawson is an unpleasant bugger and may or may not be up to no good. He's certainly a petty and vindictive little man.

One thing leads to another. The Doctor gets captured, escapes and then has to escape a fate worse than pantomime horses as The Beagle comes under attack by the dreaded Myrka. I'll say this for the Myrka. It is the perfect monster for audio. Meanwhile Evelyn and Charles Darwin go looking for the Doctor and get captured. The Doctor goes to look for Evelyn and Charles Darwin with Captain Fitzroy (George Telfer) and gets captured. Again.

There's a lot of time in cells here. A lot of time being overheard by various people. The Silurians get to push people around using their Third Eye, which actually functions as a psychic weapon this time as opposed to a nonsensical conversational light. Obviously. Because a conversational light would be idiotic on audio. So I'm not sure why I made such a big deal out of this.

Moving on.

I like the Silurians. Always have. They're one of those Doctor Who monsters that actually feel like a proper culture, although 'New' Doctor Who has taken away some of there uniqueness by changing their appearance to something more streamlined. Even if it has given us Madam Vastra. Big Finish have stuck with the odd electronic voices too that came with the original Silurian story back in the Third Doctor's era. It works really well to make them seem more disconcerting.

And one of things that makes the Silurians great is the fact that they make humans instinctively uncomfortable as a result of a long forgotten race memory. It drives some people mad. Or not.

This story gives a couple of twists to their story here though. One about their diet. One about why they never woke up from their cryogenic sleep. I won't spoil either. Although you might be able to make a guess.

I often go on about how good the performances are in Big Finish stories. So much so that its almost a given. Everyone in this story seems pretty good, even if there's a couple of odd accents going on. Particularly fab is Miles Richardson as Darwin though. His angry thinking allowed responses to realizing what the Silurian's existence means for his world view is so well-played. It's a man moving through a crisis of faith and through to a whole new 'faith'.

I'm aware that this is one of my quibbles with Big Finish stories. That they sometimes undermine a historical figures achievements by making them look like they were fed to them by the Doctor or their adventures with the Doctor. Actually this starts with Timelash where every one of H.G. Wells's ideas seems to come c/o that story rather than from Wells's own imagination. Big Finish do it a bit with Mary Wollstonecraft in her stories with the Eighth Doctor. There's a little of that here but actually the best thing about it is that you can here Charles Darwin thinking through his ideas and taking them to their logical conclusion.

Indeed Darwin is the counter to Tulok. One is human being realizing their might not be a divine creator. The other a Silurian who wants to be God.

My other quibble is the ending. There's a lot of luck and convenience involved. It's still enjoyable, which I suppose is the best thing, but it borders on the unbelievable. But this is a problem with the ending of a lot of Doctor Who. After all if you've set up an unbeatable, terrifying foe then finding a way to defeat them that doesn't involve a McGuffin, a big red re-set button or just plain dumb stupidity on behalf of the villain. It's tough to do an ending in a Doctor story that holds up to nit-picking analysis.

Actually I think I might be a tad harsh about the ending. It's set up well enough but there's one or two too many of those inexplicable reasons for not killing everyone or delaying departures long enough for the good guys to put their plan into effect.

However taken to its logical extent that kind of argument undermines the whole premise of Doctor Who. After all any bad guy with a brain would just kill him. If not the first time. Definitely the second time.

Oh and Colin Baker and Maggie Stables are wonderful again. The Sixth Doctor flies on Big Finish in a way he hardly ever gets a chance to do on the television series. Plus Maggie Stables gives Evelyn a fine line in chilled sarcasm that makes her rather delightful.

To cut a long blog short: listen to Bloodtide. It's great. Atmospheric, fun and with a bit of depth to it.

There.

We're done.

Dust Breeding [The Seventh Doctor + Ace]

Dust Breeding is almost a story about an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force, but not quite. It's has a suitably barmy premise involving sentient weaponry, art and unstoppable killer monsters, which makes it quite endearing.

We begin and end with Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'. We then find ourselves on Duchamp 331 a planetary dustbowl that's home to some fuel supply dumps and an artists colony. And that's pretty much it. A planet which allegedly once swallowed a Dalek saucer and its occupants. But is there something alive in the dust? And what has it got to do with the impending arrival of art dealer Madam Salvadori and her mysterious 'surprise' cruise and what is the artwork that Damien Pierson is creating to surprise her guests? What's it go to do with Mr. Seta and why has a crew member been murdered in a pretty baroque style?

All these questions will be answered. Some more quickly than others. Some more obviously than others. It won't end well for some people. Alas.

Listening to this also reminded me of the 'dangers' inherent in listening to a lot of stories in a quick run. There are a couple of scenes, involving the Seventh Doctor in a mental battle with an enemy, which seemed a bit similar to those in The Shadow of the Scourge but that probably wouldn't have mattered if I were doing these on release dates because in that time line there's seven months between the stories. For me there's about a week. So that has to be taken into consideration, which is easier said than done sometimes.

Oh and we get to meet Bev Tarrant (Louise Faulkner) again after The Genocide Machine, which would have been released over a year before this in 'real time' so the return might have a little less impact this time. Bev gets to be the second assistant to the Doctor in this story, filling in for Ace when she's indisposed and you do wonder on occasions whether Big Finish were considering making her a permanent addition to the TARDIS crew or not. But perhaps, having already created Evelyn Smythe, they decided to hold off for a bit. Louise Faulkner does a fine job too. Again. I'm guessing here but I'm wondering whether this will be the last time we see Bev.

There's some great performances here. I'm a particular fan of Ian Ricketts's Guthrie, who shows how to bare a grudge. An ordinary bloke who weirdly reminded me of Griffin The Chef from The Enemy of the World. Still ordinary people in Doctor Who can achieve extraordinary things, which Guthrie certainly does.

Caroline John plays Madam Salvadori with a delightfully extravagant accent whose carefully structured plans fall apart quickly and horribly in the face of a rather unpleasant villain. Her loyal assistant Klemp (Mark Donovan) struggles to cope with what he finds himself involved in. They remind me as a slightly less arch version of Kara and Vogel from Resurrection of the Daleks. 

Johnson Willis does a fine job of portraying Damien Pierson's descent into artistic madness and beyond.

Sophie Aldred gets to do a lot more shouting than usual as Ace in this story, being driven close to the edge on a couple of occasions but she still *is* Ace, which is remarkable really considering how much time has passed since Survival. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are one of my favourite companion-Doctor relationships in the series history and Big Finish does a fine job of reminding me why.

Which brings me neatly onto Sylvester's performance. He's so good on audio, especially when doing the quiet-powerful bits.

WARNING MAJOR SPOILER FOLLOWS

It's also nice work from Geoffrey Beevers as Mr. Seta. Aka The Master. This is the Master's first Big Finish appearance and they've gone with him as the stripped down skeletal version from The Deadly Assassin, which is definitely the more terrifying version. He was the Ainley version but the creature that may or may not be the main threat here strips him back to that version as a punishment - of sorts. Beevers's Master is perfect for Big Finish as the vocal performance is liquid malevolence.

SPOILER OVER

So another excellent Big Finish adventure concludes. Again it isn't mind-blowingly amazing but it definitely has its moments, especially in the final episodes as everything seems to spiral towards doom.

Worth a listen.

Loups-Garoux [Fifth Doctor + Turlough]

Loups-Garoux is rather good. It's atmospheric. There's some thought gone into the setting and the 'monsters' and its got the Fifth Doctor and Turlough in Brazil. All fine things separately but when combined together something rather excellent pops out of the mix.

It begins in 16th century Cologne where a man is on trial. A man who has stalked and killed in the guise of a wolf. He's a creature of the devil. He's Pieter Stubbe. He will be the Grey One.

Then we are introduced, slowly, to other characters. To Rosa Caiman, the girl with the forest in her head; to Ileana de Santos, the wealthy wife and head of her tribe; to Doctor Hayashi, the man trying to 'save' Ileana's son, Victor and to the Doctor and Turlough who are visiting Rio. This isn't contemporary Rio, this is Rio in 2080. A Rio surround not by rain forest but by desert. It's a world that's changed and that might not have space for the Loups-Garoux anymore. There's an air of a lost world about this whole story. A lost world that might just be savable.

The Loup-Garoux are werewolves. Not the werewolves of Hollywood myth but a race of creatures, of which Pieter Stubbe was the first and oldest. Their origins aren't exactly explained but the Doctor at one point says that mankind didn't exist when Pieter Stubbe stepped out of the mud. He's old is Stubbe. Old, hungry and looking for his mate, who was Illeana de Santos. They met in the snows of Russia in 1812 but she left him. Fled to South America and settled down with a human. They had a son, Victor, but Victor is turning into a wolf and Illeana has hired Doctor Hayashi to help her. But Hayashi has plans of his own. Mainly because he's the kind of idiotic scientist that fills many a-Doctor Who story. Too clever for his own good. And probably doomed to meet a horrible end.

Into this the Doctor steps. Along with Turlough. As usual Turlough is much less keen to get involved and finds himself surprisingly terrified and out of his depth, which is great because if there's something that Mark Strickson can do brilliantly it is Turlough losing it out of shear terror - see Frontios for a fab example of this.

The Doctor's very Fifth Doctor in this. Standing up to everyone. Refusing to judge the Loup-Garoux or condone their destruction, although he finds himself committed to something without realizing quite what he is committing himself to.

There's a streak of romance in this story. The Doctor and Turlough find themselves involved. Not necessarily committed but involved and the final conversation between The Doctor and Ileana is actually rather beautifully written by Marc Platt. It's also performed beautifully by Peter Davison and Eleanor Bron.

Eleanor Bron is the best thing in this. Her Ileana has real weight. Actually weight isn't the right word. Gravitas. She isn't a minor character in a Doctor Who story. This is a character who had a long life before the Doctor turned up and will have one now he's gone. She got an inner life. Or seems to. Which isn't always the case with characters in Doctor Who.

The other character that really shines is Rosa (Sarah Gale) whose the last of her tribe. It's another lovely performance. Full of life. Full of secrets.

Applause should also go to Nicky Henson as Pieter Stubbe, David Hankinson as Anton Lichfuss, Jane Burke as Inez.

The only slight disappointment is the legendary Burt Kwouk as Doctor Hayashi. Not because the performance isn't good but because he's the one character than approaches the bog standard Doctor Who character in the whole story. Everyone else seems so unique that he just appears a bit flat in comparison.

But that's really just a quibble. This is excellent stuff. Give it a listen.

A Minuet in Hell [Eighth Doctor + Charlotte Pollard]

Hello there. I'm back. It has been a while.

So 'Minuet in Hell', starring Paul McGann as the Doctor and India Fisher as Charley Pollard. Set in the fictional, soon-to-be US state of Malebolgia it features The Doctor's lost memory; devious politicians with diabolical machines; dirty old men; the reincarnation of the Hellfire Club; demons that turn out not to be demons (or Daemons) but Psionovores & Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewert (Retired...sort of).

The first thing that needs to be said is that it is far, far too long and takes a reasonably straightforward plot & stretches it until (almost) breaking point. It's as if the producers fell in love with the idea of the Doctor in an asylum but couldn't or wouldn't use it as a story on its own so tacked it on to a bog standard Doctor Who adventure.

And the stuff in the asylum is fun. It's atmospheric, if you like your atmosphere a wee bit creepy. The idea that the Doctor can't remember who he is & that his identity might be taken by someone else - in this case Nicholas Brigg's Gideon Crane - is nicely played. We, of course, know who is the true Doctor as we know it is Paul McGann. But inside the fiction the Doctor's uncertainty is disturbing. Especially as Gideon Crane - convinced that he is the Doctor - undertakes an taunting run through the Doctor's long term memory. Who is the most deluded? Why does Gideon Crane think he is the Doctor in the first place?

That story runs parallel to the 'bad guy trying to take over the world' storyline. In this case our main bad guy is Dashwood (Robert Jezek) , a preacher-politician trying to win the Governorship of Malebolgia. He's aided by Dr Dale Pargeter (Maureen Oakley), another in Doctor Who's long line of scientists who believe the ends justify the means. In this case experiments with a machine that transfer minds from person to machine allowing Dashwood to replace human minds with those of his demon allies. Dashwood thinks they're Lucifer's minions but...well appearances can be deceptive.

Dashwood is opposed by Senator Waldo Pickering (Morgan Deare) for political reasons. I'm afraid that there's so many Southern US accents being thrown around at this point that there's a danger of this sounding like an am-dram version of Gone With the Wind. Waldo is probably the most annoying character in this story & every time he appears (well almost) the pace of the story seems to slow down to sludge. Waldo has a grand-daughter - Becky Lee (Helen Goldwyn) - who is a kind of Big Finish version of Buffy. Sort of. Becky Lee and Charley have a lot of scenes together, which err on the side of the comedic.

That brings me on to why this story doesn't quite work. It is effectively two stories with two different tones welded together & as a result it is too long and too slow. There's one excellent horror story here & one rather bog standard Doctor Who run around. Join them together and neither of them works well.

Oh I should say that none of this has any impact on how brilliant Nicholas Courtney is as the Brigadier. He's older, wiser but still one of the best characters to emerge from Doctor Who. In the hands of a lesser actor the Brigadier could so easily have been a cardboard stereotype but there's a fine dusting of sardonic wit & sharp intelligence that makes the Brigadier so much more. This is as much a Brigadier story as it is the Doctor's.

So this has its positives but in the end it doesn't quite work for me & it felt at points like a real struggle to get through the thing. I suppose trying to do too much isn't such a bad crime. Better that than doing too little.

There's too much happening for this to be anything that a qualified success. The performances are all reasonably OK. McGann's great actually, especially during the scenes when he's not sure who he is or what's happening.

16/09/2014 note. This blog ends rather suddenly. I wonder why. Anyway it was written in April 2012 so make of that what you will.

The Stones of Venice [Eighth Doctor + Charlotte Pollard]

Well, that was bizarre but entertaining stuff. I'm not sure whether Gothic or Baroque is the right word to use to describe 'The Stones of Venice' but it is certainly a little odd.

Venice is dying and a Duke Orsino (Michael Sheard) who has not aged for one hundred years is expecting it to sink beneath the sea as the result of a rather nasty curse inflicting upon him by his lost beloved, Estella. Estella it seems reacted to being lost in a game of cards rather sharply. She cursed the Duke and Venice. Then died. There's a Cult in her memory, of course, led by Vincezo (Mark Gatiss). This Cult expects Estella to rise from her tomb and bring an end to the curse. Alas, things turn out to be much more complicated than that.

Add Venice's aquatic and rebellious underclass, the Gondoliers represented for the most part by Pietro (Barnaby Edwards) and some sound effects; an art collection with one or two odd paintings in it looked after by Churchwell (Nick Scovell), the Duke's curator and the sudden arrival of the Doctor and Charley and things get complicated.

The odd atmosphere is reflected in the guest performances. Michael Sheard does a great job as Duke Orsino, a man who has lived too long and lost too much. He might even be a little mad. This was Michael Sheard's last performance in Doctor Who before his death and it is an excellent final bow. Then there's the oddly intonated Elaine Ives-Cameron as Ms Lavish, an elderly woman who turns out to have something of an interesting tale to tell. [SPOILER, I suppose] Ms Lavish it turns out is Estella and she's become a rather bitter and judgemental old thing. She's also an alien. I might hazard a guess and say that Miss Haversham from 'Great Expectations' might be an influence (based partly on the names, partly on her bitterness) but then again I could be making two and two equal five.

Mark Gatiss's Vincenzo is portentous and rather arch. It veers dangerously towards the hammy but then if this were one of those odder horror films with Vincent Price in - like the Masque of the Red Death - you'd expect a little of that. He may also be channelling Hieronymous from 'The Masque of Mandragora'. His disappointment at the end is palpable and his dashing off, probably to form another catacomb head officed cult, is nicely done.

In fact the final episode, although incredibly wordy is quite wonderful. There's a lot of ideas bantered about, a lot of issues resolved and interesting points made about love, faith, class and what can be done to make a difference. The Doctor's line '...there's always something we can do' is made an item of faith for the 8th Doctor, which is ironic considering he's a bit sniffy about humanity's desire to mythologise everything.

India Fisher as Charley is good. She's got a bit more to do in this story as she gets separated from the Doctor and caught up in a rather bizarre plan of Pietro's, who might be the 23rd century Venetian cousin of Baldrick. Charley doesn't put up with being bullied - verbally or physically - and she gets to a nice scene towards the end when she tells Orsino off when he tells her off. She's fun to and nicely mocking of some of the Doctor's pretensions.

Paul McGann is excellent in this again. Doing a wonderful job of getting other people into trouble, especially Churchwell and Charley, before putting all the pieces back together at the end and enabling the Duke and Estella to save the day. In this the Doctor is more a catalyst than the main driver of the plot. Stuff happens. Occasionally the Doctor turns up to reduce the damage that results from that stuff.

History, someone once said, is just one damned thing after another, which is a nice way of summing up this story in my opinion. One damned thing after another. But in a good way.

Sword of Orion [Eighth Doctor + Charlotte Pollard]

There is no point beating around the bush. This is brilliant stuff. It's a old school base under siege story done to perfection. In fact, just as 'The Caves of Androzani' is 'The Power of the Kroll' but done much, much better this is 'The Wheel in Space' but a new, improved version.

In fact I'd go as far as to say this is almost the best Cyberman story in Doctor Who's history (as I have covered it in the blog up until now) with perhaps only 'The Invasion' and 'Earthshock' to match it. It has the right atmosphere, which is hard to articulate but you know it when it is there. These are Cybermen who feel like a genuine threat.

Whoever decided to go back to a more electronic voice for the Cybermen and to step away from the David Banks school of fist thumping 'Excellent' type should take several bows. These Cybermen are old school and they have Cybermats to, which is always a pleasure. More importantly they seem genuinely terrifying and here audio really helps. There is no way the television series could have a rogue Cyberman tear somewhere to pieces but on audio you can and then you can have the actors react to that. This story makes it clear that Cybermen are a genuine threat and that Cyber Conversion is a horrible process.

Paul McGann is wonderful to. He's given a chance to show what he can do and grabs it with both hands. He's pretty subdued but partial to the occasional moment of smart arse sarcasm. The Doctor's gradual drawing out of Deeva Jansen's (Michelle Livingstone) plan is nicely done and his discussion with her as the story comes towards an end is nicely played by both actors.

India Fisher's does a fine job as companion Charley Pollard too. She's smart, sharp and pugnacious. I like the way they make her struggle to fit sf concepts into the vocabulary of the 1930s: all that talk of 'deathrays'. [If they somehow squeeze the 8th Doctor into the 50th Anniversary it would be nice if he was accompanied by Charley, even if it would probably throw some kind of continuity spanner into the works. But then The Moff does not really believe in continuity as such. It's all canon so why the hell not.]

The guest cast - limited in number - do a good job. Michelle Livingstone's Deeva Jansen is posh and obviously up to something from the off and the way the layers of her character are gradually unpeeled is nicely done. Secrets beneath secrets.

There is a nice pre-credit sequence featuring Mark Gatiss (Whatever happened to him?) as Thinnes and Barnaby Edwards (Whatever etc?) as Digly which sets up the atmosphere of the story pretty darn well. Someone seems to have made a decision to make the non-officers in the crew northern, which I quite like. My favour is Ian Marr's Ike who almost...well I will not spell it out.

Actually I'm a bit confused about what to do about spoilers with the Big Finish audios. I know a lot of these have been out for ages but they are less well known than the Classic TV ones. Should I avoid them? Or just carry on regardless. Answers on a postcard to the usual etc.

Bruce Montague's Grash is pretty good to. The dodgiest and least untrustworthy member of the crew his suspicisions about the Doctor and Charley last almost too long but then you realise that Grash is the type of man who is forced to be suspicious. He'd be in trouble if he was not.

So I'd recommend to those of you who haven't listened to a Big Finish that you give this a spin. It doesn't really require you to have listened to 'Storm Warning' - which introduces Charley - to enjoy it (although there's a couple of references, particularly to Ramsay, that might nip over your head a tad but nothing too drastic) but it is really very very good.

Storm Warning [Eight Doctor + Charlotte Pollard]

So we begin the Eighth Doctor's Big Finish run with 'Storm Warning', released in 2001.

A tale of aliens and an airship. Specifically the ill-fated R-101. In the real world the R-101 crashed into a French hillside on the 5 October 1930 killing 48 of the 54 people on board. It effectively bought an end to British airship development. In the Big Finish universe the crash still happens but everyone dies. Well, not quite everyone. One, Lord Tamworth (played with a fine stentorian air by Gareth Thomas) who is off to travel the stars. The other, Charley Pollard (India Fisher) leaves to travel with the Doctor. Except she's a paradox. She should have died on the R-101.

It's a nice gentle adventure. Not brilliant, not bad. In fact it does have the feel of a first story for a new Doctor. The story itself is less relevant that the introduction of a new incarnation. So even though the television movie introduced us to Paul McGann's Doctor this seems like his first proper adventure, even if it is audio only and lots of Doctor Who fans will never have heard it.

McGann is good again. There are similarities to David Tennant's portrayal in that he seems - at least here - to be a more human version of the Time Lord. He's certainly open about himself, spilling his secrets to Charley within minutes. It's early days yet so let's see how this pans out.

India Fisher does an excellent job with Charley Pollard as well. She's a couple of steps away from being jolly hockey sticks posh but combines brains and enthusiasm with a fine sense of adventure. She and the Eighth Doctor seem to work well together here.

The supporting cast does a good job to. I like Gareth Thomas's Lord Tamworth who is less of a pompous fool than his initial appearance leads you to suggest, although the idea of the Tamworth fighting with the Triskele's Uncreator Prime is as spectacularly odd as the fight between Patrick Moore and one of the aliens that takes place in the Independence Day UK and I'm not sure it would work in a television story but this is audio so things can be got away with.

Barnaby Edwards with South African accent makes Rathbone, the British Intelligence agent and key human bastard of the piece, pleasantly nasty but I think the script overdoes the 'in my country...' lion stories a bit. There's a hint towards the end that Rathbone is under the influence of the Uncreator Prime to explain his ruthless execution of the Triskele Lawgiver and he's given enough shades of grey to make him realistic enough. He's another in Doctor Who's long line of people who thinks the end justifies the means.

Nicholas Pegg as Frayling, the mild-mannered slightly put upon engineer and military officer doesn't have to stretch himself too much in a part that is as thin as the membrane of the airship itself.

I like the idea of the Trikele themselves. A species split into instinct and logic taking instruction from one single Lawgiver. A species that has passed beyond the 'let's invade and kill everyone stage' and is trying to be something else. A race whose nastier side is still pretty rubbish because they're a new generation who've not had much practice with this killing stuff and whose leader, the Uncreator Prime, gets beaten up by an old-ish member of the British aristocracy.

So this does a reasonable job. We meet our new Doctor and his new companion and sow seeds for future problems by the very fact that Charley is a paradox.

The Mutant Phase [Fifth Doctor + Nyssa]

The Mutant Phase begins with Thals. Thals examining the wreckage of planet after planet. Then, out of the nothingness comes a swarm of somethings, travelling at tremendous speed and with not a moments interest in the Thal ship. However in its wake the Thals are dragged through space and they end up drifting above a planet. A planet they should know well : Skaro.

And so it begins.

The Mutant Phase is a story about time, about biology and about The Doctor's relationship with the Daleks.

The Doctor and Nyssa's story begins with a bump in the time vortex, a Time Corridor and their arrival in a Kansas field. It's not long before things start to get complicated. They discover a body, Nyssa gets stung by a wasp and it dawns on the Doctor that he might have turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their attempts to flee just drag them back into the time corridor. The Doctor, having escaped it once, tries again.

But all roads lead to Skaro where the Daleks have a tale to tell and an offer to make to the Doctor. An offer the Doctor might not be able to refuse, although being the Daleks there are plans within plans within plans. The Daleks are never more devious than in Big Finish stories, if you exclude Power of the Daleks for the sake of argument.

I enjoyed The Mutant Phase, which I thought had an interesting premise at its heart, some fine performances, particularly Christopher Blake as Professor Ptolem and Jared Morgan as Commander Ganatus, the two Thals who find themselves working with the Doctor to deal with a problem that might end everything, everywhere.

There's also a rather wierd bunker where a handful of human survivors lurk on a Earth wrecked by 'the things'. Earth is important in this story. Very important. But we meet Albert (Andrew Ryan), Delores (Sara Wakefield) and Professor Karl Hendryk (Mark Gatiss) who all seem rather nice. Odd. But nice. This being Doctor Who, of course, nothing is as simple as that. Things are complicated.

The best thing about this story is that the Doctor is teamed up with just Nyssa again, which gives them both a chance to shine. Nyssa is - alongside Turlough - the companion that best works with the Fifth Doctor - despite all the material shipped out there involving Tegan and the Fifth Doctor. In some respects her smartness reflects that of Elizabeth Shaw and you wonder if that is a reason she gets shoved to the back of stories so often. Or just because The Fifth Doctor had so many companions.

Whatever the reason Sarah Sutton does a great job with Nyssa in this story. Refusing to be fobbed off by the Doctor's attempts to explain the issue of paradoxes and how to avoid them, getting involved with Professor Ptolem in getting to the bottom of the biological issues they're dealing with and just doing the basic companion job of asking questions in a way that doesn't sound too dull. Lovely stuff.

Peter Davison's good in this too. There's something about the Fifth Doctor. He's so calm most of the time. So respectable that when he eventually realises what might be about to happen and tries to get other people to understand he almost appears to be raving like a madman. You see it brilliantly in Snakedance and there are moments here to when he's struggling to get people to understand when it seems to be a similar situation. People don't want to believe him.

I should also pause to acknowledge the wonderful Dalek work by Nicholas Briggs and Alistair Lock. There's a lovely scene involving a Dalek and a Roboman attempting to explain what they had just seen - without spoiling it - that is fantastically well-played and almost makes you feel sorry for one particular Dalek.

So I enjoyed it. Like I almost always do. But I'm not sure it'll go down as a favourite.

The Holy Terror [The Sixth Doctor + Frobisher]

The Holy Terror is an odd story. Just as The Shadow of the Scourge took non-BBC television continuity from the Virgin New Adventures so The Holy Terror takes itself from the Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip, which is why it features The Sixth Doctor accompanied by Frobisher. 

Now if you're not aware of Frobisher - and really you should be - he's a shapeshifting private detective. Now, for reasons I can't quite remember, he's now generally 'stuck' in the shape of a penguin: a talking penguin. Obviously in the comic strip you had no idea what his accent was. And after all who knows how talking penguin mesomorph private detectives would actually speak. In The Holy Terror he's got an American accent. He's a gumshoe. It's not quite the cynical Humphrey Bogart type of gumshoe but a film noir gumshoe nonetheless. Which actually now my memory has clicked in properly is kind of how his comic strip introduction would make you think he would speak.*

Having the Doctor paired up with a large talking bird is always going to be a strange experience. Putting them into a story as strange as this makes for an interesting experience. The TARDIS, which is effectively on strike, lands inside a strange castle where a new God-King is about to take the throne. The society is bizarrely ritualistic. People have roles and they are expected to play them without question. Whether that role is God-King, High Priest, Nasty and conspiratorial hump backed brother to the God-King or Chief Guard. Things are expected of you. These are part character traits, part rituals. And the God-King's every move is written about by the Scribe. These are all titles. There are people with these titles but they're expected to follow that ritual without question. Even unto death.

It's all very strange. 

It's made even stranger by the fact that new God-King, Pepin VII doesn't want to be a God-King. He wants to abdicate. And that his brother Childeric might have gone entirely mad. 

The first two episodes in particular are quite a challenge. This isn't 'normal' Big Finish Doctor Who and it seems to be balancing precariously on the line between strange and silly but by the end this is something really dark and surprisingly moving. It's a compliment to Robert Shearman's writing that he can take it so far out there and then bring it back to being about something so human. So individual. It's hard to talk about the ending without spoiling it but I did actually find myself genuinely moved by it even as it comes at the end of horror after horror. 

I can see why you might get frustrated by it at points. The whole idea of Frobisher, the weirdness of everyone's behaviour to the point at which they're almost all like cliches and just the oddity of it makes it one of those stories I imagine illicits a marmite style reaction. I liked it a lot in the end, although I wasn't sure about it until I got to the end when the reasons for people's behaviours becomes much more clear. 

The performances are great. First and foremost Colin Baker is wonderful, especially in the final episode and the final scenes. They actually sound surprisingly Fifth Doctor-ish at points. Then Robert Jezack's Frobisher is fine. Frobisher's placed in an impossible position at points in this story and my only criticism is that he's a bit flat at points. The supporting cast is great, as usual, in Big Finish too. 

Dan Hogarth as Captain Sejanus, Helen Punt as Livilla, Stefan Atkinson as Pepin, Peter Sowerbutts as Clovis, Bruce Mann as Arnulf and various authors in small roles : Gary Russell (Guard), Jacqueline Rayner (Woman) and Mr. Shearman himself as Sculptor.

But the three standout for me. 

Peter Guinness as the mad, bad and dangerous to know Childeric. He's got the perfect voice to pitch a perfect performance for that kind of role. Then there's Roberta Taylor's Berengaria who manages to be brilliant throughout but particularly in her final scenes with her son Pepin. 

However the biggest applause go to Sam Kelly. He's got a lot to do throughout but in the final episode he manages to bring depth to a final confrontation where he's genuinely creepy and moving. If he hadn't been as good then the final scenes would not have been as emotional. 

So, for all its strangeness, I did really enjoy this. If you're listening and having doubts then stick with it until the end I think you'll find it worthwhile.

SEE BELOW FOR ADDITIONAL MASSIVELY SPOILERY BIT IF YOU'VE NOT HEARD THIS. PLEASE DON'T READ IT BEFORE LISTENING TO THE STORY AS I WOULDN'T WANT TO GIVE TOO MUCH AWAY. YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD.

The themes of free will and fiction reminded me a lot of Castrovalva. In fact, as I kind of mentioned above, this does in many respects feel like a Fifth Doctor story but that's my personal feeling. Probably. 

THERE. DONE.

Enjoy.







*I recommend getting hold of the collected Voyager Comic Strips if you want to know more about where Frobisher comes from. You should really read them anyway as they're some of the best Doctor Who Comic strips to come from DWM. 

The Shadow of the Scourge [The Seventh Doctor, Ace + Bernice Summerfield]

Well, that was rather good. The Shadow of the Scourge is a bit different to other stories I've listened to so far in that it sits in the Virgin New Adventures continuity and not the Television series continuity. If you believe the two are separate in the first place obviously, which I don't. Me, I'm a fan of everything being canon. 

Even if that makes for hard work justifying how, say, The Doctor is in Pompeii on Volcano Day twice and the Tenth Doctor doesn't comment on that fact. Not that he needs to. After all he's got things on his mind. I like to think that maybe the TARDIS bought him back because 'she' felt there was unfinished business from The Fires of Vulcan. But I digress. Drastically. Basically this story has Ace in her 'warrior' phase and Bernice Summerfield. 

If you are unfamiliar with Bernice Summerfield then I suggest you become familiar with her as soon as possible. She was created by Paul Cornell, who wrote The Shadow of the Scourge, as a new companion for the Virgin New Adventures. Based personality-wise, if memory serves, on Emma Thompson's character from The Tall Guy* she was a Professor of Archaeology with a fine line in dry sarcasm and intelligence. She appears in a Big Finish series of her own, which had begun in 1999. This is - I think - her first appearance in the Doctor Who Main Range. She's played - with fine style and panache - by Lisa Bowerman. 

The Ace - Bernice pairing makes an interesting combination. The New Adventures had put a lot of history behind that relationship - see the book/Big Finish Audio of Love and War for their first meeting. None of that is really felt in this story but Ace is a much more martial figure than she was the last time we saw her on the television (or in The Fearmonger). I always liked Ace - television version - but found the more angsty and angry New Adventures Ace a bit much. Here we don't get much of the latter even though that's who she is. She's more like the television version, just with her fighting abilities improved and wearing a much more fetching outfit. If the terrible cover is any guide. 

Yes, I'm sorry Big Finish but that cover is awful. There. Said it. Sorry. 

This story is thematically not dissimilar to Remembrance of the Daleks/Silver Nemesis. The Doctor has put a cunning plan together in order to trick a set of villains into destroying themselves. In this case the villains are The Scourge. They are pan-dimensional insects with a penchant for torture. They thrive on human fear and despair. They've been hunting humans down since there have been humans. They're basically not very nice. 

The first two episodes are basically setting up the Doctor's cunning plan and then the second two are how everyone manages to survive the Doctor's plan not quite going to...er...plan. The cliffhanger for episode two is rather wonderful.

This being a Paul Cornell story there's a lot of action inside the Doctor's head. No, really. If you've read Timewyrm: Revelation you'll know what I mean. If you haven't go and read it. Probably after you've read the first three in the Timewyrm series though, which might be a while. It's alright though. I'll wait....

Excellent. That Timewyrm: Revelation stuff was good wasn't it. Bernice even mentions it in passing whilst everything is kicking off. There's also a mention of owls, which I think is the law when it comes to Paul Cornell Doctor Who Seventh Doctor stuff. 

Anyway I digress. Again.

The Scourge can make humans do whatever they're told, which leads to some rather unpleasant moments and to enter our dimension they have to take over humans. This is also an unpleasant procedure. Painful.

It definitely has the New Adventures feel to it. The Doctor's devious as hell and punished for being so silly. It takes his friends to save him from himself, basically. Sylvester's brilliant throughout. From his smart-arse chess playing Doctor through to his full of doubt, almost broken, Doctor and back again. 


The final scenes when the tables are turned on the Scourge are a victory for friendship, love, hope and faith. For humanity. 

It's all rather good. Once more too the main cast get great support from other cast members : Michael Piccarilli, Holly King, Caroline Burns-Cook, Lennox Greaves, Nigel Fairs and Peter Trapani. Special kudos to Holly King though for a fantastic performance as Annie Carpenter who I think was my favourite 'guest' character in the story.

Anyway...well worth a listen. Especially - but not only - if you've read the New Adventures stories. 


 




*An under-rated film if you ask me with. Go watch it and see if you agree with me. 

The Fires of Vulcan [The Seventh Doctor + Mel Bush]

The Fires of Vulcan is rather good, if a little frustrating. Mainly because the Doctor's in an oddly hopeless mood for the first two episodes. It's un-Doctor-ish. It's a bit similar to his mood at the beginning of The Vengeance of Varos and you want to grab hold of him and tell him to buck up his ideas.

It's a good job Mel is here trying to give him the boot up the backside he so richly deserves. Yes, it is Mel Bush. It is Bonnie Langford. The woman whose casting a number of people declare is the reason for the final collapse of Classic Doctor Who. Here's the thing. I think Bonnie Langford got the raw end of a particular unpleasant stick.

Now, don't get me wrong. Mel Bush is not the best or most three dimensional companion we've ever seen in Doctor Who. She's not really much of a character at all except that she's enthusiastic, theatrical and rather too fond of carrot juice.

I don't blame Bonnie Langford for any of that. I blame whoever decided that once they'd cast Bonnie Langford they weren't going to bother to give her anything like a proper character. They'd just get her to be Bonnie Langford the 'showbiz trooper'. Or at least the cliched over-the-top version of Bonnie Langford that everyone seems to accept is the real thing. Perhaps if they'd given the same level of thought to who Mel Bush was that Andrew Cartmel later gave to Ace things would have been a little better.

And to prove that point Bonnie Langford is rather good here. Yes, Mel Bush is still a similar character to the television version but she's toned down a bit, which makes a surprising difference. Indeed in the first two episodes of this story you feel more sympathetic to Mel than to The Doctor. It's rather a surprising thing, based on history.

So hurrah for Bonnie Langford I say.

Sylvester's good in this too. Even when the Doctor's being hopeless. Indeed McCoy does the melancholic Doctor rather beautifully. He'd have made a fine fist of moping about after the Time War had the need arisen.

Oh and I've just realised. I've not said a word about the story. Tut. Tut. This really isn't the best way to run a review based blog is it? But then these really aren't reviews are they. Or not proper English Literature-Critical Theory way.

So where have the Doctor and Mel found themselves. The answer is Pompeii. The day before Volcano Day. It's rather unfortunate timing. Especially as he'll do almost exactly the same thing when in The Fires of Pompeii. In fact I like the idea that on the second day there's another Doctor racing around doing all those Tenth Doctor and Donna things whilst his Seventh incarnation is struggling about already trying to deal with one kind of temporal problem, which I won't spoil. Suffice it to say that said problem is the cause of the Doctor's melancholic temperament.

The Doctor and Mel get involved with various characters throughout. The Doctor offends gladiator Murranus (Steven Wickham) and then spends time avoiding and not avoiding him. Murranus is gruff, grumpy and rather pushy. I suspect being a successful Gladiator does that to a man. He's also not the brightest spark. The Doctor does that offending in the 'bar' of Valeria Hedone (Nicky Goldie), who ends up caught up in the whole Doctor-Murranus 'feud'.

Then there's the fact that the Doctor and Mel's arrival is witnessed by a slave. The Doctor's attempt to blag his way out of it by pretending to be a messenger of the Gods, specifically of Isis aggravates the 'traditional' Roman matriarch Eumachia (Lisa Hollander) who thinks Isis is a base, foreign Goddess that no right-minded Roman should be seen dead in support of. She's determined to prove the Doctor and Mel as fakes, which isn't hard. And she then takes in out on Mel, which leads to her getting imprisoned. As well as involved with the slave girl Aglae (Gemma Bissix), whose trust in and fear of the Gods reminded me a little of Katarina (of The Myth Makers and The Dalek Master Plan fame.) Both Hollander and Bissix put in good performances. Their both examples of the faithful. And of the social set-up of the slave owning Romans.

Mel also attracts the attention of Popidus Celsinus (Andy Coleman). Partly for reasons of Isis - he is a believer in Isis - and partly because he's taken a liking to her. Popidus comes across initially as a bit of an arse, especially as Eumachia runs rings around him, but in the end turns out to be a man of some character and courage.

The Doctor - and Mel - make more of an attempt to save people in this story than the Tenth Doctor does in The Fires of Pompeii, which is nice. Admittedly he doesn't sweep them off in the TARDIS but he does try and get them out of Pompeii, which I like.

The stories ending is almost anti-climatic but actually feels just about right.

Plus there's an appearance by UNIT's Murial Frost, previously of the DWM Comic Strip, which is also rather nice.

To conclude a review rather more rambling than usual this is good and might make you be nice about Bonnie Langford again. Or not.

Winter For The Adept [Fifth Doctor + Nyssa]

Winter For The Adept is odd. It's a tale 'told' by Alison Spears (Liz Sutherland) who found herself trapped in an Alpine finishing school with her friend Peril (India Fisher) and two teachers, Mlle Maupassant (Hannah Dickinson) and the verging on the barmy Scottish headmistress and Bible basher Miss Tremayne (Sally Faulker). There's strange things occuring at the school. 

Into which, of course, The Doctor and Nyssa stumble in. But not necessarily in that order. We find Nyssa first of all stuck in the snow having been dumped there by a gadget the Doctor was testing (and a gadget about which Nyssa has a strong dislike of as we see as the story unfolds). She's rescued by Lt Peter Sandoz (Peter Jurasik) who was on his way to check on the school for reasons that are both professional and personal.

By this point Alison and Peril have tried to escape the school so that Peril can 'elope' with her love. Who turns out to be Sandoz. Much to the shock and disgust of Miss Tremayne.

However that turns out to be the least of their worries. There's something a-hauntin' the school. A poltergeist. Furniture gets moved about. Windows shut mysteriously. Fundamentalist Christians get made mentally unbalanced. It's a creepy experience. 

Then the Doctor turns up in the TARDIS. At which point Miss Tremayne faints and we get the first of three rather odd cliffhangers. None of which actually feels like a cliffhanger. They're all slightly casual and half-baked. I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not. It's certainly...different.

Being Doctor Who the poltergeist can't just be a poltergeist. There has to be more too it than that, which there is. There's is a poltergeist. He's about two steps removed from being an escapee from Rentaghost. In fact this story comes dangerously close to feeling like a very serious episode of Rentaghost at some points.

Then it turns out that the poltergeist isn't quite the end of their problems. There are aliens about. Watch out, watch out. There is a fine running joke through about involving these aliens, the Doctor's gadget and his refusal to explain to Nyssa what they are. The Doctor does however see a chance to get one over on them. 

The final episode is a bit rubbish I'm afraid. The ending is so convenient as to be utterly unbelievable. We know the Doctor's got the luck of the devil aka the luck of a central characters in a television series but this time its ridiculous. There's a stand-off, a shooting and an avalanche but somehow the Doctor wins out. Even though...well...even though...stuff. Sorry, but I don't want to utterly ruin the ending. 

Being the Davison era we get strangers invited into the TARDIS like it is a garden shed and actually there's a space there for Alison and Peril to get into a series of scraps with the Doctor should anyone feel the need to write it. But perhaps they have. Or at least Peril's adventures with the Doctor. Because Peril is nothing if not a dry run at Charlotte Pollard. Not just because she's played by the same actress, although with a degree or two less poshness, but also because Peril's personality isn't a million miles away from Charlie's. You can see why they picked India Fisher for Charlotte Pollard here. She's full of naive energy and a desire for adventure. Alison is rather dull in comparison. 

The villains aren't particularly memorable, although the end implies they've met the Doctor before or are aware of him. They're just the usual pan-dimensional murderous invaders. With a penchant for dressing up.

I'm aware, re-reading what I've written, that I might sound a little harsh. It isn't a terrible story. It's got a thickly odd atmosphere at points. Miss Tremayne has a certain Miss Jean Brodieness about her but over-dosed with religion. Sally Faulkner's accent is a tad wobbly but I don't mind that too much. Peter Davison is great. He manages to deliver a line about being chased by a piano without making it sound utterly silly. Sarah Sutton's good as Nyssa too. She's got a big more about her in this story than she sometimes does in the television series, certainly nipping at the Doctor a few times about his gadget. 

So it's not a bad story, just not the best. Which I suppose not every story can be really. But not a personal favourite.  For me it, The Sirens of Time and The Marian Conspiracy have been the Big Finish stories I've enjoyed least from the first ten. I think they did the creepy and weird building Fifth Doctor and Nyssa story better with The Land of the Dead with which this story has a certain similarity of tone. At least in the early episodes. 

It kept me entertained on a long journey into work though so I really shouldn't be too churlish.

The Spectre of Lanyon Moor [Sixth Doctor + Evelyn Smythe]

The Spectre of Lanyon Moor is the Big Finish story I have probably heard the most. I bought it on cassette tape - Google it young people - a long, long time ago and must have listened to it ten or twelve times since then. And it is as fresh and entertaining now as it was the first time.

That's not because the plot is drastically original. In fact it bares a resemblance to both The Daemons and Quatermass and the Pit. There's a thing lurking on the Moors - actually that sounds like The Hound of the Baskervilles now I think about it - and it has been there for a long time. It wants out. And its appearance has a touch of the mythological about it.

We're in Cornwall. The forgotten Celtic bit of Britain. The one with the Pixies and Goblins, of tin mines and fougous.

Ah fougous, mysterious stone-age structures whose purpose has been lost in the mists of time. They're either shelters, storage units or places of religious significance. No one is quite sure. The fact they align with the prevailing winds makes me think that they weren't built for comfort. Anyway this is a Doctor Who blog, not a site for archaeological musings so let us move on.

The best thing about a fougou though is that it is central to this story and there is something immensely pleasurable about the word fougou, especially when spoken allowed. More especially when spoken by Colin Baker who gives the word all the oomph it deserves. I wish I could find an excuse to feature it more regularly in conversation. Even writing 'fougou' has a certain pleasure. Fougou. Fougou.

Which is one of the reasons I like this story so much: the performances. Colin Baker is majestic in this. Big Finish seem to 'get' the Sixth Doctor. They make you realize how good a Doctor Colin could have been. And this story you could quite easily see fitting into the 80's Doctor Who. Although the monster de jour would almost certainly have been disappointingly realized.

Colin Baker apparently had a cold when recording this story, which is referred to in passing by Evelyn in the story. You'd never know. His voice and delivery seem undiminished. It's a bravaro performance.

As is Maggie Stables's Evelyn Smythe. She and the Sixth Doctor make a fine pair and she's not slow in getting involved in the heart of the mystery. She does investigating, escaping and taunting of villains with panache. Her interactions with Sir (Archibald Flint are almost Doctoresque.

The other highlight in this story is that we get a chance to fix one of Classic Doctor Who's unfortunate lapses. The Sixth Doctor gets to meet the Brigadier. Hurrah. (And no I am not counting Dimensions in Time, which I refuse to even acknowledge the existence of. 3D or no 3D.)

Nicholas Courtney is fab. As usual. The Brigadier is retired. But old soldiers never die and it turns out he's been working undercover. This is actually a brilliant story for the Brigadier. He gets to react to a new Doctor's arrival with magnificent coolness and really it is the Brigadier that save the day here. It that respect it reminded me of Battlefield, which is nice.

So three reasons to like this story.

There a number of 'villains' in this story. Each of whom is acting out of a kind of revenge fantasy. Sir Archibald Flint (James Bolam in fine aristocratic fettle) has delusions of aristocratic grandeur fueled by a belief in his mystical destiny. Mrs Moynihan (Susan Jameson) wants revenge on all those who she perceives have slighted her stoked by her husband fleeing with his secretary. The combination of Nicholas Pegg's writing and Susan Jameson's performances makes Mrs Moynihan a Joyce Grenville creation gone poisonous. Well, gone humourless. Unjolly hockeysticks if you like.

Finally there is the creature itself : The Tregannon - which is a nicely Cornish name for an alien species - whose name is Sancreda. He's angry at his brother for abandoning him, at Sir Achibald for leeching off of his power and Mrs Moynihan for exploiting him for her petty revenge. Then he's angry at the entire planet Earth, which is a tad unnecessary. His malevolence is given life by an excellent performance by Toby Longworth who also plays grumpy Welsh archaeologist Professor Morgan. The nasty little giggle that Sancreda gives before getting up to mischief is a rather lovely touch.

There's a lot of unfortunate and unpleasant deaths. One in particular borders of the genuinely uncomfortable to listen too.

So listen to this not for massively original plots or spectacularly nuanced characterization but revel in the performances. If there's isn't a perfect Sixth Doctor story out there then this will do in the meantime.

Give it a listen.

Go on. It's only £2.99 to download it from the Big Finish website at the moment - right here

FOUGOU

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Red Dawn [Fifth Doctor + Peri]

Red Dawn is rather good. It take a while to heat up.* The first episode in particularly being packed full of talking and exposition a-go-go as we find ourselves following two stories: The Doctor and Peri have landed in a mysterious building and have no idea where they are. Meanwhile we are aboard the Ares, containing man's first mission to Mars.

The crew are Pilot Susan Roberts (Maureen Oakley), Commander Lee Forbes (Robert Jezek), Paul Webster (Stephen Fewell) and Tanya Webster (Georgia Moffat). Two NASA astronauts and the Websters. The Websters are the money. Or at least Paul's father is. This Mars landing is a private-public initiative. And, of course, that makes things a little complicated. Or it will do. The scenes aboard the Mars lander sound spectacularly realistic by the standards of Apollo 13 etc. It's rather well done.

Everyone meets up eventually. The Doctor and Peri from inside out and Forbes and Roberts from outside in. I hope that makes sense. Then they stumble upon the central part of the structure, which it turns out is a Tomb. An Ice Warrior tomb. The Doctor is surprisingly slow on the uptake this time as it takes almost until the Ice Warriors are standing on his feet for him to realise what's going on. Bad Doctor.

The Ice Warriors are brilliantly portrayed in this story, especially Matthew Brenher's Lord Zzaal. They're not stupid. They're clever, honourable and very, very dangerous. These are the kind of Ice Warriors I'd like to see in the television series.

This story is definitely about honour. The honour of the Ice Warriors against the honour of humanity (and the Doctor). It's about how honour isn't just an abstract code written down on stone tablets but a living, breathing way of life. It's also about how mankind might deal with first contact. There's reference to the real-life Brookings Report, which outlines how NASA missions should deal with evidence of alien existence and much talk towards the end of maturity and diplomacy.

It is quite wordy. There's a limited amount of action. Not much in the way of chases. There's an idiotic man with a plan, which in the way of all these things he continues to pursue in the face of mounting evidence that he's going to end up dead. There comes a point with these people where you have to just assume they're barking mad because there is no other explanation for their baffling refusal to face up to their inability to deal with the real world. Or the real Mars should I say. I found myself getting genuinely quite frustrated with the insane muppet. I was really, really looking forward to his comeuppance.

The fact that this comeuppance came as the result of an act of marvelous courage was even more glorious. I was actually genuinely quite moved as it became clear what was about to happen, which as I was walking along the Cricklewood Broadway at the time is a little embarrassing.

There's lots of good performances throughout but applause are particularly due to Matthew Brenher's Lord Zzaal and Hylton Collins as Sub-Commander Sstast: the teacher and the pupil as they might be called. Georgia Moffat does a fine job too with her part, which requires her to be slightly confused and annoyed by most of what's going on. She does that well.

Stephen Fewell is rather good too, especially as he gets progressively more annoying.

Peter Davison's Doctor is very much in Caves of Androzani mode here. His anger, indignation and sarcasm putting the villain's back up on a semi-regular basis. He's lucky not to get killed. Really lucky. But then that's the Doctor all over isn't it.

Nicola Bryant does Peri to perfection too, which reminds you of how short the Fifth Doctor's time with Peri was, which is a shame because they get on so well. Especially in comparison with how the Sixth Doctor and Peri were forced to behave. Ah, what could have been. It's nice to hear them working together again. Peri's brave without being too foolhardy, which is nice. There's even mention of her interest in botany here. Something which was oft forgot by the television series.

So I'd recommend this for the realism - which is an odd word to use when talking about Doctor Who - but most especially for the Ice Warriors.

Sssssssssssssssuper ssssssssssstuff.  

The Genocide Machine [The Seventh Doctor + Ace]

Warning: this review contains spoilers. Mainly because this is the fourth blog I've written this evening and frankly I've lost any kind of subtlety of expression or coherence.

This is rather good stuff. Indeed it makes an interesting partner to Saturday's Into The Dalek as they raise similar-ish questions about what happens if a Dalek opens its mind to new experiences. For The Genocide Machine involves the Doctor v the Daleks in a library. Well, sort of a library.

It's the kind of library you'd only find in Doctor Who really. It's packed full of the whole knowledge of the universe, which they've decided to hide away on an obscure planet tucked behind a time barrier. The Time Lords helped. It's a library no one really knows about, which makes it a tad pointless as Ace bluntly points out.

But its an attractive target for the Daleks as part of a bigger, longer-term plan they've been working on for a while. They want all that knowledge to help them conquer the Universe. The Daleks have taken that phrase about piss poor preparation to an extreme degree. Why just pile in their exterminating everything if you can study the universe and find the weakness of every world? This is the Daleks at their most patient and high reaching. They're not going about this in a half-arsed fashioned and that's admirable.

Thing go gang a'glay for the Daleks because obviously they've failed to prepare properly for the Doctor. Even though they're constantly boasting about how they've prepared for the Doctor. Sometimes you wonder how the Daleks managed to get out of their tunnel on Skaro so over-confident can they be. There's a particularly unfortunate Dalek in charge of the whole project whose role is reminiscent of the SpAD that always gets sacked when a politician has done something terrible but manages to avoid the blame. Unfortunately Dalek's don't get to spend more time with their families.

There's a rather amusing joke Chief Librarian Elgin (Bruce Montague) and his 'colleague' Cataloger Prink (Nick Briggs) involving the latters inability to get a word in edge-ways, which gets a rather impressive pay off late in the story.

I like Sylvester in this too, especially as he gets to do righteous indignation. I like a bit of Doctor righteous indignation. They tend to do it well. Especially the Scottish ones.*

Sophie Aldred is fab doing a very blunt and belligerent Ace. She doesn't take any crap does Ace. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are one of my favourite Doctor-Companion partnerships and this story remind me why. They genuinely sound like friends, which is probably influenced by Sophie and Sylvester's actual friendship these days. It's all rather nice.

Being a Dalek story Big Finish have decided to throw in an additional traditional touch: the 'invisible' creature already occupying the planet. With a grudge.

There's also the unfortunate Bev Tarrant (Louise Faulkner) who arrives with friends and leaves on her own. The name is very Terry Nation, which is rather lovely. Bev Tarrant could walk into Blake's 7 and no one would have blinked an eye.

And finally - and why there's a connection with Into The Dalek - there's a Dalek that gets its mind expanded and suddenly starts behaving in an unusually non-Dalek way. There's hope in this story that Daleks aren't just bad - which also reminds me of some rather lovely work in Dark Eyes - and that given access to the write experience and information they can change.

Alas it isn't meant to be.

So to conclude. I like this. It kept my attention on the bus to and from work without me ever wanting to look around for something to distract me, although I'm no idea what my eyes were looking at. I think I was happily inside my own head. Unusually.

Give it a listen.

 

The Marian Conspiracy [Sixth Doctor + Evelyn Smythe]

Here's a thing...I thought I'd love The Marian Conspiracy. It's an historical themed story, it's the Sixth Doctor and it's Big Finish.

But...but...I found it a little dull. Sorry.

It's not a terrible story. It's just not my cup of tea.

Let's take the positives first. Colin Baker's brilliant. Big Finish have really bought out the best in the Sixth Doctor showing what could have been done if the BBC hadn't all but given up on Doctor Who in the mid-eighties. He's particularly good both in the first episode when he goes head-to-head with Evelyn Smythe and in the later episodes when he's so patient and (surprisingly) kind to Mary.

That nicely segues into the next good thing: Evelyn Smythe. Evelyn is a fifty-five year old history professor - or lecturer - and the Doctor is drawn to her as the centre of a temporal problem, which turns out to be related to events back in 1554. The first episode that basically revolves around Evelyn and the Doctor meeting up. The Doctor is in one of his lightly confrontational moods and appears to be a borderline lunatic to Evelyn to begin with. After all his talk of temporal nexus points and time travel plus his arrogance isn't the best way to introduce yourself to a stranger.

Maggie Stables plays Evelyn and she's magnificent. Her unwillingness to be verbally pushed about by the Doctor, her intelligence and wit make her an endearing addition to the Big Finish repertoire. It'll be fun to see how she and the Doctor work out together. And it is nice for the Doctor to have a companion outside the usual 18-25 female demographic.

Evelyn's also rather good when she first finds herself mingling with the genuine citizens of 1554 England, even if she blunders in to political trouble (and genuine danger) almost immediately. Her compassion for and interest in some of the minor characters is lovely too. Those people who are forgotten in the warp and weft of History with a capital H. Those people that professional History tends to lose because they leave almost nothing in their wake.

You might think that one of the themes of this story is how history writes the past from the top down. Often. And how little we can know - or do know - about how ordinary people felt about the great religious questions of Tudor England. As their religion changed and changed again and changed again. These were difficult times.

Actually now I've got to this point I'm beginning to feel like I enjoyed this more than I thought I did. There's some meaty stuff in here: on religious freedom, on fear and on power. It's political and domestic. Although the domestic affairs of Queens are also the political affairs of state.

Hmmmm, it's weird this re-writing of my feelings about this story as I go.

I still felt a little distracted by the end as if my attention wasn't fully on the story, which means I was probably a bit bored at points. I'm going to blame myself and say it's too much exposure to Tudor-Stuart history at University.

The performances are all pretty good. I like Anah Roudin as The Queen and Jo Castleton as Lady Sarah in particular.

So after all that perhaps I can be more positive in general. It was never a story I thought was terrible, just not one that I got grabbed by and even with all the equivocating above it is still not a story I'd be eager to listen to again.

At least not for a bit.

Dark Eyes 2

I am reviewing Dark Eyes 2 the same way I reviewed Dark Eyes, which is as if they are one story. This makes even more sense with Dark Eyes 2 in a way as the stories almost form a perfect circle. In the beginning is our end as the poet once said. I shall say no more about this.

The first story The Traitor is a nice feint. It makes you think that the villains of Dark Eyes 2 will be the same villains as Dark but there's more going on here than meets the eye. The planet Nixyce VII is under Dalek control, which means death, Robomen and - at best - slavery. But there is also rebellion. Or collaboration. And we're introduced to Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker) who as a medic seems to be doing the latter. But her life gets much more complicated as she gets dragged into other people's plots: first the resistance and then The Doctor. The Doctor's plan is a bit different to the usual one and as things play out we realise that he is playing a complicated game for big stakes. The story builds to a pleasantly shocking ending.

The White Room is the next story and is probably the weakest of the four. It's got its moments. There's some genuinely creepy stuff and Master Zachery (Adrian Mackinder) is one of the more matter-of-fact unpleasant characters we've met in Doctor Who. A genuinely nasty man and he isn't even the main villain. The story re-introduces Molly (Ruth Bradley) who has been living in the Doctor's house on Baker Street. It's almost the place-holder in the four stories. It's not terrible but by the standards of Dark Eyes 2 it is a little weak.

Time's Horizon is great. Molly and The Doctor arrive on a spaceship that's hovering on the edge of the Universe at the wrong time. But then when does the Doctor ever arrive anywhere NOT at the wrong time. He's astonished to meet Liv Chenka again, although the circumstances are slightly unusual. This story introduces us another set of villains. Another unpleasant species bent on universal conquest. This is one of these stories where we get to see the Doctor as less than trustworthy. Possibly a raving madman. Weirdly it reminded me of Snakedance in that respect. That's not an obvious comparison I know but I quite like it.

Finally in Eyes of the Master we finish Dark Eyes 2 on a high note. It's not a spoiler to say that the Master is involved. [IF YOU'VE NOT LISTENED TO UNIT DOMINION WHAT FOLLOWS IS A WHACKING GREAT SPOILER BTW. IF YOU HAVE OR YOU DON'T CARE PLEASE READ ON] He's in a new incarnation and played by with panache by Alex McQueen. Again The Master might not be quite what you expect. Is he the bad guy? He's aided in his work by Dr Sally Armstrong - who we met briefly in Dark Eyes - who seems to be his 'willing' assistant. Giving the bad boy Time Lords Companions seems to be a thing these days. First the Meddling Monk, now the Master. It's like they all want to be the Doctor. It's a rather good little story this but when you get to the end you are kind of given the impression that this isn't quite as stand alone as it first appears. This is definitely a step along the road to Dark Eyes 3 and Dark Eyes 4. There's a big heffelumping arc going on here that makes The Moff look like a dilettante.

I liked Dark Eyes 2 more than Dark Eyes (for what my opinion is worth) with the exception of The White Room, which was a tad disappointing. I found the way the stories linked together - through The Doctor, Molly, Liv Chenka and the various villains - rather satisfying.

Once more there's a series of excellent performances from various actors of the Big Finish company who play the smaller parts. Sometimes more than one part across the four stories. I feel a bit guilty that I'm not going to list them all, especially as that's just plain laziness but if you want to take a look the cast list can be found here.

Ruth Bradley does a fine job with Molly again but my vote for the two best performances across the quadrilogy - horrible word but it serves - are from Paul McGann and Nicola Walker.

I have praised McGann a lot in this column and he definitely deserves it here. His Doctor gets to be and do pretty much everything you need him to do here. Get the Eighth Doctor back on the telly. Do it now. Although make sure the writer's are Big Finish writers please. They know the Eighth Doctor better than anyone.

Nicola Walker's brilliant as Liv Chenka. The character is strong - and first appeared in Robophobia which is release 149 in the Main Range with the Seventh Doctor at his most manipulative and is well-worth a listen in and of itself - and Walker manages to make her both bitingly sarcastic and exhausted by her responsibilities and experiences. Liv Chenka is one of Doctor Who's more emotionally beaten up characters and I found myself wanting her to join the Doctor as a proper companion. I prefered her to Molly. In fact Molly and Liv are almost precise opposites to each other. Molly is hope and Liv is experience.

So to cut a long blog short(er) I really, really quite enjoyed this. It builds on Dark Eyes and sows the seeds for Dark Eyes 3, which I definitely want to listen to. It's out in November I think. Can't wait.

Dark Eyes

I chose to blog - I'm not sure 'review' is the right word to pick to describe what I do on this blog, which is more of a aimless ramble around the thing I've heard or seen - Dark Eyes as one blog. The four stories are so intertwined it is more like The Trial Of A Time Lord than a set of stand alone stories. I'm not sure you could listen to these individual tales without listening to the others. The threads come together gradually, characters emerge from the shadows and the plot twists one way and then the other.

The first story, The Great War, introduces us to Molly O'Sullivan (Ruth Bradley), who is a former household servant now VAD on the front line in World War One. She's also Irish, which is a nice change. She doesn't respond well to the Doctor initially, referring to him quite sarcastically from the off as 'The Doctor'. Not 'Doctor'. Her arrival in the Doctor's life - via devious Time Lord shenanigans - is not dissimilar to the arrival of Lucie Miller all the way back in Blood of the Daleks. Ruth Bradley is bloody brilliant all the way through. Molly gets added to the list of Big Finish companions that I'd like to see in the actual television version.

The Great War ends with the Doctor and Molly on the run from their enemies and leads into Fugitives, which is best described as The Chase, but good. Throughout these stories innocent bystanders seem to die as the Doctor's enemies seem totally unbothered about collateral damages or the timelines.

I should stop here to praise the non-main performers throughout these stories. There's a number of actors playing multiple or small parts and none of them sounds a bum note. So credit to Beth Chalmers, John Banks, Alex Mallinson, Tim Treloar, Natalie Burt, Jonathan Forbes and Ian Cullen. Cullen actually has the biggest individual part, Nadeyan, in the final part of Dark Eyes: "X" and the Daleks and the most heroic possibly. And Welsh.

Then there's the next level of supporting performance. These are Straxus (Peter Egan) and Kotris (Toby Jones). Straxus is the Time Lord who brings the Doctor into this whole story and being a Time Lord is obviously devious above and beyond the call of duty. Toby Jones's voice drifts in and out of all the stories and we gradually find out more about who he is and what he's up to as the story progresses, although the final revelation about who he actually is comes as something of a surprise even if there are clues sown throughout. Both Egan and Jones are brilliant. Egan's voice is stentorian. If that's actually the correct word and Jones gives Kotris a fine bitter edge. Without these two solid performances this might not be so good.

Really though Dark Eyes is almost a two-hander. Paul McGann and Ruth Bradley get most of the words and most of the action. I've already commented on how brilliant Ruth Bradley is but there's no harm in saying it again. I like Molly O'Sullivan. Her matter-of-fact way of dealing with the baffling things going on around her - expressed well in a scene with Nadeyan in "X" and the Daleks - is wonderful. And she has a solid moral centre too, which in a story where duplicity is everywhere is rather refreshing.

McGann is magnificent to. This is the Eighth Doctor's finest hour and once again you find yourself raging that he never got the proper chance to show us what he could do on television. There's so much depth to the Eighth Doctor. He's suffered but survived. It makes the Ninth-Tenth-Eleventh Doctor's post-Gallifrey soul-searching look light-hearted in comparison. The reason for that is that we've seen the individual cost of recent events to The Doctor. It's felt personal. The destruction of Gallifrey feels epic. The difference illustrates Stalin's statement "One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is just a statistic" perfectly. Yes, the Ninth-Tenth-Eleventh Doctors have their moments but the Eighth Doctors loss feels so much more real. But perhaps that just me.

Molly and the Doctor's relationship seems 'real' as they don't hit it off from the beginning. It takes time for them to bond but in the end they work well together. The Doctor begins Dark Eyes in a - sorry - dark place. He's almost lost all hope after the events of To The Death-Lucie Miller and Straxus offers him some. Then another death almost makes him give up all hope.

You could argue that Dark Eyes is all about hope and how the Doctor gives hope to others. We ask 'who watches the watchman', we can almost ask 'who gives hope to the hope giver', but that doesn't sound as good or look as tidy. Molly gives the Doctor hope when he most needs it and the Doctor gives Molly hope to. And others.

The third story, Tangled Web, begins to explain some of what is going on and why but not everything before the final story, "X" and the Daleks pulls everything together and concludes in a way that - as is traditional in Doctor Who - leaves us in the position for a follow-up. The truth of who Molly is emerges and why everyone seems so keen to get their hands on her. Timelines are adjusted. People do heroic things. There are deaths. There are survivors. Most of all there is hope.

I should also add here that I've said - often - that I think Big Finish do Cybermen better than the BBC do (and if you doubt me compare The Silver Turk with The Nightmare in Silver) but they also do the Daleks better. I think that's partly because Nick Briggs is so heavily involved - as writer, producer, actor and Dalek - and partly because Big Finish can allow the Daleks to be the ruthless and devious little pepperpots the television series can't. Because it lets in too much darkness. There can be hints of it but I don't think the BBC could get away with anything as bleak as To The Death-Lucie.

One of the reason I think I like Big Finish so much is that tonally it fits with how I would like to make Doctor Who but sometimes I think that would be too dark for a prime time Saturday afternoon tea-time audience.

I can't praise Dark Eyes enough. It's a fantastic series. It's as good as anything Big Finish have ever done, which makes it as good as anything Doctor Who has ever produced. In any format.

It's also a great introduction to Big Finish. If you've not listened to Big Finish before - and if that's the case I'm surprised you're reading this - then this is a good place to start. It stands alone, it's fantastically done but it has references to other Big Finish stories. You can listen to this and then go out into the wider Big Finish universe.

Seriously recommended. Seriously enjoyable.