Doctor Who The Twin Dilemma audiobook review

You will all (well, all the Who nerds reading this at least) know that this is the first broadcast story that starred Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor.
Now, as I have said here before many times, there were a lot of things wrong with Who during Baker’s run, but he was not numbered among them.
One of the major problems, in fact let’s be honest, the major problem, was the standard of storylines. It was as if nobody was trying sometimes. Or if they were trying, they were trying to produce the poorest piece of work they possibly could.
And to give them credit, they started as they meant to go on with The Twin Dilemma!
Now, here is a confession of sorts. I don’t think I have seen this story since it was originally broadcast, but I still have a lasting impression of how poor it seemed to be.

It was either this or a picture of The Doctor strangling Peri

I was also puzzled when listening to this audiobook, because it was quite unlike the story I remembered watching on television all those decades ago. And then, upon reading the liner notes, I discovered that the author of the book, Who script editor Eric Saward, had rewritten the original story extensively for this adaptation.
However, while the book is, in places, very good, it also falls flat a number of times. Saward seems to have a love for ludicrous similes. “With the vitality of a lecherous stallion” is one that sticks in the mind (well, it would!).
There are also lots of examples of poorly turned phrases that should not have made it passed the editing stage. “Moribund carcass” for example.
Having said that though, there are flashes of wit and cleverness. Saward is clearly going for a Douglas Adams vibe in this book, with his frequent digressions as he pauses the story to explain some piece of background information, usually with an impressive degree of imagination and skill.
The book is read by Colin Baker, who attacks the often purple prose with great gusto.
Yes, I know I bang on about it all the time, but Baker really is a very fine actor, and arguably he is worth the money for this audiobook alone.

The Twin Dilemma is released by AudioGo.

Doctor Who The BBC Radio Episodes pt3

Over the years, the BBC have produced a number of their own Doctor Who audio adventures.Audio Go have just released them in a box set, and we’ll be reviewing the stories included in the collection individually.

Next up is Slipback

While the series on the television was being ill served by the then powers-that-be at the BBC and forced into a year and a half long hiatus, the Sixth Doctor and Peri turned up on the radio in this adventure.

As with The Ghosts of N-Space, I can remember this one being on the radio, but didn’t catch any of it at the time.

What we have here are six short episodes, which isn’t a problem in itself, but the arrangement of the Who theme during this era was particularly bad, and having to listen to it so many times in such a short time did not do wonders for my ears!

But on to the adventure itself. It is a bit of a mixed bag, truth be told. There are some good ideas in there, but they never seem to gel together into one whole story. Some of the stranger plot ideas- like the captain who produces exotic diseases through his skin to threaten his crew- don’t actually make much sense.

The ending too, is one I’m not too sure about. Partly because it only seems to be there because it is a cool idea, and partly because it flatly contradicts something that happened in an earlier Who story. Sorry for that piece of continuity Nazism… sometimes I can’t help myself!

As always though, Baker is great. Even with the poorest of material on the screen, he gave it his absolute all, and the same is true here.

Doctor Who Industrial Evolution review

This is the third in the recent series of Thomas Brewster tales, and sees the Doctor and his companions in 19th Century England in the middle of the Industrial Revolution.

I’d be very surprised if the Doctor hasn’t visited this era before, but I cannot think of any examples off the top of my head. It is a wonderful time in history and absolutely ripe for just the kind of sci-fi adventure that the Doctor loves.

And boy do they go for it here. This was one of those rare times when I listened to a Big Finish Who and wished it was on the screen. I fear, however, that the SFX budget required to recreate the incredible steampunk monsters here would be beyond James Cameron, never mind BBC Wales!

Plot wise, this cracks along at a lovely pace. There is, or seems to be, an enormous amount of action going on in this adventure, but it is never at the expense of storytelling. And the story is a good one, and provides another interesting addition to what could probably be called ‘The Chronicles of Thomas Brewster’. What I liked most though, was that the ending I had assumed from the first episode was not anywhere near the one we got.

I really like Brewster- he’s a great character, and the relationship he has with the Doctor is excellently portrayed by the actors in question.

As usual, the acting is excellent and while I’d usually at this point in the proceedings point out who great Colin Baker is (and he is), I would have to highlight Paul Chahidi in the role of Townsend as a particular standout here. Also- the sound design in this story is some of the best I have ever heard in a Big Finish audio.

So, another good one from Big Finish.

Doctor Who The Feast of Axos review

Revisiting old Who monsters can be a bit of a hit and miss affair. A lot of the time the story can end up just being a tired retread of what had gone before or- arguably worse- is a missed opportunity that ends up wasting the effort.

The best thing to do, of course, is to not use them at all… unless the writer can think of something new to do with them. Thankfully, this is the case in this latest Big Finish Sixth Doctor adventure, and as you can work out using your considerable detective skills, this features the return of the Axons!

An Axon yesterday

Following on from the end of the previous Sixth Doctor tale The Crimes of Thomas Brewster, this story could rightly be subtitled The Temptation of Thomas Brewster, as the character gets some meaty stuff to do throughout the tale.

And as with the best of the Big Finish range, this one keeps the listener guessing, as plot points that are set up early play out in unexpected ways. One of the many cool scenes and ideas here comes in the cliffhanger at the end of episode three. It is simply a brilliant piece of writing. It leaves the listener genuinely wondering how the character is going to survive (indeed, I honestly thought that they were a goner), but the resolution of it in episode four is ingenious. Ingenious because it not only a clever idea, but also because it is something that had been mentioned a number of times in previous episodes, and so I really should have worked it out- all the clues were there, dammit!

As good as John Pickard is as Thomas Brewster- and as good as the rest of the cast are- this is really (more so than other adventures) the Colin Baker show. He gets to do something a bit different here- and does it brilliantly. I’ll probably repeat this again many times, but it is a delight to hear him as the Doctor- a role he so obviously loves and the relish with which he plays it is almost palpable.

 

The Crimes of Thomas Brewster

The Big Finish audios have done a lot of good things for Doctor Who. Keeping the series alive during the prolonged period off air was just one of their major contributions to the show. The other is the rehabilitation of the Sixth Doctor.

As any Who fans out there will know, the show was not served well during this era, with massive budget cuts, being shifted around the schedules by a company who (then) had no interest in it and culminating in the ignominious dumping of Colin Baker as the Doctor.

But Baker’s Doctor, who showed flashes of potential on screen, has been allowed to flourish in the Big Finish audios, and this one is no exception.

This story, set on contemporary Earth, also features one of the most interesting companions the Doctor has ever had- Evelyn Smythe. She is a middle aged history teacher and a world away from the screaming teenagers that this ancient alien usually hangs around with. Yes, yes, I know he hangs around with them for audience demographic reasons, but let’s just ignore that, eh?

Anyway- I’ve talked a lot here and not yet said much about the story.
Well, it’s a very clever one- in that it is both a sequel and a prequel to a number of audio adventures that have gone before. Such is the joy of time travel.

The cast are excellent- I didn’t recognise David Troughton at all and only knew it was him when listening to the extras.

As I have said about many of these before, this is absolutely crammed with plot. And by that I don’t mean it is overly complicated , slow and hard to follow, I mean that every second is given over to something important. There is no flab in this tale at all and it covers a hell of a lot of ground from when it literally hits the ground running in the opening scene to the unexpected final one.

Doctor Who The Four Doctors review

As you all know, I’m sure, The Doctor has met himself in the past (or future?) a number of times, and I think it’s fair to say that the results have been mixed.

The Two Doctors was a bit of a mess. The Five Doctors (which at least does have the Raston Robot!)  I have a considerable soft spot for, despite the many failings. Best of the lot (I’m not including the New Adventures novels or previous Big Finish here) is of course The Three Doctors, which succeeded in not only having a decent story, but also added a hefty amount to the mythos.

Which brings us to The Four Doctors.

The title is a wee bit misleading- not in a Five Doctors way (were thanks to either a huff or scheduling, depending on which story you believe, there were only four Doctors)- as the Doctors here don’t actually meet, apart from one short by utterly gloriously written scene.

Here we have a tale that is told along the Doctor’s time stream, with him encountering various characters and, it has to be mentioned, Daleks at various times in his past.

As an aside- for a guy who travels in time, the Doctor has had very few adventures that use time travel as part of the plot. One of the nice things about the new Moffat junta is the use of time travel, as seen brilliantly in the season finale adventure The Big Bang and the Christmas special.

And the nice thing about this story is that it is non-linear, so we have earlier Doctors meeting characters who have already been with him as a later incarnation. This should be a mess of confusing and hole-ridden plotting. Indeed, I thought I’d figured out a few mistakes in there, but on another listen, I was annoyed to discover that all of my questions had been answered in there. An awful lot of thought and planning has went into this story, and it’s a testament to the writer and editors that it not only holds together so well, but makes perfect sense and is easy to follow, some astounding techno-babble from the Fifth Doctor notwithstanding! I’d love to see the flowchart for this story, I suspect it would look like the average season of Lost, but have the added bonus of actually making sense

That sentence seemed like a weird way to end this review, so I’ll add another paragraph.

I keep talking about atmosphere in these reviews, and this one has it again, but the thing that struck me the most about is was, yet again, just how well and how effortlessly the four lead actors inhabit the role of The Doctor.

Yet another brilliant production from Big Finish.

By the way- I was amazed to discover, upon listening to the extras, that this adventure is not released for general sale, but is a subscriber only extra! I have to say that as 'free gifts' go, this is pretty brilliant.

Little Drummer Boy

This is another of the sort stories (Short Trips, as they are known) that Big Finish stick on to subscriptions.

This one features the First Doctor, Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom and  and seems to be set just after The Daleks Master Plan.

It’s a fun tale, at least to begin with. It’s another Christmas set adventure which sees the characters skipping through various years, including a nice section at the Western Front in 1914.

I say to begin with, because the ending is an altogether darker affair. For me, the First Doctor has always been among the darkest of his incarnations and the conclusion of this tale, while logical and in a way inevitable, does nothing to convince me otherwise.

Doctor Who: A Town Called Fortune review

This is one of the series of Companion Chronicles as opposed to a full cast drama, where a companion (obviously) recounts an adventure with the Doctor.

In this, it is actor Maggie Stables, as the Sixth Doctor’s companion Evelyn Smythe who takes the spotlight, ably assisted by Richard Cordery as Sam.

As the Doctor himself is missing from the cast, and the domineering presence of the respective actors who play him is not there to carry things along if and when they start to flag, everything stands or falls on the ability of the actor playing the narrator. And in this respect, Stables is very good. She provides a distinctive voice for each character, and while her Doctor doesn’t sound like Colin Baker (and if it did it would be too weird), she captures his bluster and arrogance perfectly, but on more than one occasion I found myself wishing I’d heard him deliver a particular line or withering put-down.

As for the story itself- I love westerns, so they had a head start already in that respect. The story itself is good fun, although one of the twists is rather obvious from the outset.

As with the best Big Finish releases though, they have managed to capture the atmosphere of the old west very well and the tale rollicks along at a tidy pace- and the distinctly ‘normal’ threat that our protagonists face here is a welcome change from intergalactic terrors. In fact, I’d like to see more Who adventures that deal with ‘simple’ (for want of a better word) threats to real people

While this doesn’t have the epic feel of a full cast audio, and it’s hard to adjust to this change of pace to begin with, it is a well crafted tale and well told.