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.