Doctor Who Prisoner of the Sun review

Following on from the rollercoaster ride that was the first part of this season, this self contained story feels a bit… small.

As the title suggests, it sees the Doctor imprisoned in the heart of a sun… or is he?

It deals with the old questions of conscience and duty and examines what it is that makes a prison, and it does these things well. Plotting is very good, and the sense of excitement builds well throughout.

There is also a brilliant and unexpected role for one of the regular cast members in which they get to really shine. And Paul McGann is as excellent as you would expect him to be.

And you’re all waiting for the ‘but’ now…

But (see what I did there?) there isn’t one- not really. As I said, everything in place for an excellent tale and the actors deliver splendidly. I did have a bit of a problem with the twisty nature of the final act in that I wasn’t really sure if it was a twist or not- which will not make sense to you until you listen to the story.

But as I said at the beginning, because of the massive, widescreen scale of the stories that have preceded this one, Prisoner of the Sun feels a bit underwhelming. And considering this is about an alien who travels in time and is imprisoned in a couple of rooms in the heart of a star, that should give you an idea of just how damned good the rest of the season has been!

Available from Big Finish.

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 Relative Dimensions review

The previous Big Finish adventure, Resurrection of Mars, was very much the widescreen, big budget climax of this particular Eighth Doctor story arc.  It tidied up a lot of the hanging storylines very nicely, while leaving enough in the air to keep the listener wanting more.

Relative Dimensions though, while not following on from Resurrection as such, provides a lovely epilogue for the series, and also (something I only tumbled to halfway though listening) is a superb bookend to this run set, as it is, at Christmas, as was Death in Blackpool.

And like Death in Blackpool, and being set at Christmas, this one also deals with the same sort of subject matter: family.

This time round though, it is the Doctor in the spotlight, as his grand-daughter Susan comes round for Christmas dinner….

It was brilliant to hear Carole Anne Ford as Susan again, and it’s amazing to me that she is 70 years old! She sounds exactly like she did all those many years ago (not that I was around, of course…), and Jake McGann, Paul’s own son, as his great-grandson is also very good, sparking nicely off his father playing his grandfather… you know what I mean!

McGann’s Doctor gets some nice character stuff here. I always enjoy the tiny peeks we get into the Doctor’s mind and the brief glimpses we get of his motivations and the guilt and loneliness that drives his actions. There are some scenes of genuine poignancy, and I’m pleased to say that the rather bittersweet ending is not the one I thought I saw coming.

That’s not to say that this is a maudlin piece full of angst and misery- anything that features the Doctor riding the back of a giant multi-dimensional space fish cannot be described as dull!

The Switching

This short story is one of the extras that subscribers to the Big Finish Who series are lucky enough to get.

Written by Simon Guerrier, this is a nice little character piece that sheds some more light on the strange hate/respect/hate relationship between the Third Doctor and the Master.  It’s set (unless I’ve missed my guess really badly) between The Curse of Peladon and The Sea Devils, and fills the gap between the two adventures in a clever, exciting and very satisfying way.

Museum Peace

Like The Switching, this is another subscriber extra. Written by James Swallow, this one acts as a kind of epilogue to the Third Doctor adventure Planet of the Daleks (or at least, that’s what it seems like to me!). Here we see the Eighth Doctor visiting survivors of the Dalek war that began (does this count as a spoiler?) at the end of the Planet of the Daleks. As with The Switching, this is a lovely, in places subtle piece of writing with some nice 'Doctory' touches, not to mention some brilliantly written scenes from the point of view of a most unexpected character...

Paul Trailer

Yahoo movies have posted a full trailer for the next Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie, Paul. You can watch it HERE.
We weren't quite convinced by the teaser trailer released a few weeks ago, but this looks like great fun, and that last joke in the trailer is brilliant.

Doctor Who The Resurrection of Mars review

And so, everything that has been bubbling under in the previous adventures in this series comes to a head here.

If George Bernard Shaw hadn’t chrono-stolen the title, this could have been called The Doctor’s Dilemma, because the heart of this tale, and indeed  the heart of this series so far, has been the terrible burden that the Doctor has taken on himself.

Not only the burden- to decide who lives and who dies- but also the affect that the impossible decisions he makes have on both those around him and the universe at large.

As the Ninth Doctor said, his life is about ‘Standing up and making a decision because nobody else will.’

In The Resurrection of Mars, we get to see just where doing this leads the Doctor, as we are shown the possible consequences to an innocent planet if the Doctor succeeds in stopping the Ice Warriors in their scheme to create a new Mars.

Oh yeah- the Ice Warriors… this is the second half of the adventure begun in Deimos, which itself ended in a tremendous cliff-hanger.

I don’t want you reading this review and thinking it’s nothing but angst and introversion. These things are present, but they are interspersed with some rollicking action sequences, witting dialogue and genuinely exciting and unexpected twists and turns- one of which, towards the end of episode one actually had me shouting at the mp3 player. 

Alone. 

In the car.

This is a very well realised culmination (or at least apparent culmination) of plot threads the writers have woven through this season to date. It ends on a note that manages to be both hopeful and slightly dark at the same time, and leaves the listener hungry for the next episode- so, job done, I say!

Dammit! I’ve done it again… one of these Big Finish audios will get a bad review in the end…

Doctor Who: The Book of Kells review

While the previous Big Finish adventure, Nevermore, was a literary one, this is that other Who classic- the historical.

And, being Irish, it is one that had me worrying a bit beforehand. I was prepared for a load of ‘Begorrah’ ‘Top of the mornin’ to ye’ ginger leprechauns- but thankfully this is not American TV.

The story has a good historical feel to it, which is, I suspect, not easy to do in audio alone.

So, as the title suggests, this story revolves around the Book of Kells and (is it a spoiler to mention something that is of historical record [I know people, for example, who got annoyed when told the end of 300… do you ever read a book?]) its mysterious disappearance and the equally mysterious circumstances it was found again in…

Reviewing this one is difficult, because while the first half of the adventure is pretty so-so and made be think I was getting my first duffer of the season, the second half lifts things considerably and in ways that make it impossible to say anything at all for fear of spoilering.

So I’ll limit myself to saying that I fell hook line and sinker for a rather spectacular red herring in there.

And I’ll mention the cast. Nick Brimble and the national treasure that is Graeme Garden are as brilliant as you would expect. But the one and only Jim Carter steals the show with his amazing presence and distinctive vocals.

And… gahh! There I go again, trying to talk about the plot… I can’t, but it’s brilliant and stick around until after the end theme.

Doctor Who: Nevermore review

One of the things Who has always done well is play about in other worlds and tropes. The Brain of Morbius was Shelly’s Frankenstein, Weng Chiang the Phantom of the Opera etc.

Who has flirted with Gothic Horror many times before, so it was surprising to realise, while listening to this, that Who had never played in the world of Edgar Allen Poe before.

On the face of it, this is a trip through a number of Poe’s most famous creations. So we get a Black Cat, a Big Gothic House.

And Ravens. The Ravens here are wonderful creations- massive mechanical prison guards in a very peculiar prison.

Again we get the classic Who stuff- the aforementioned big robot creatures, mistaken identity, escapes into danger and the Doctor doing some furious name-dropping.

But beneath all this familiar stuff, there runs a darker theme that seems to be informing this whole series, and it’s something I’ll mention further in later reviews.

In the meantime though, Nevermore is great fun, and probably more so if you’re a Poe fan. It is always a treat to hear his wonderful prose being read aloud (he’s one of those writers that you can only really appreciate when it’s recited, I think), particularly when it’s a voice as distinctive as Paul McGann’s doing so.

Doctor Who: Situation Vacant review

If there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s an 'hilarious' send up of a popular television series. I’ve read a number of Master Chef send up comic strips in the past few weeks, and the idea- for what it is- is tired and, in my opinion, more or less done to death.

I say more or less, because sometimes you encounter a send up, and for one reason or another, don’t click that’s what it is. Which is what happened with Situation Vacant. It was only when listening to the extras that I realised (well, I didn't realise- I was flat out told) that this had an Apprentice riff running through it. Perhaps I don’t watch enough television?

So, what we have here is an idea I’m surprised hasn’t been thought of before. The Doctor advertises for a new assistant, and sets the four applicants a series of tasks to perform, eliminating failures along the way…

See, now I’ve written that description, I feel a bit stupid at not spotting the reference!

Of course, the Doctor holds the interview/test in a hotel where there happens to be a convention of big brained scientists also meeting, so you know things will get serious soon. And they do.

What I really liked were the characters of the four prospective candidates. Each genuinely has something that an assistant needs- courage, intelligence, common sense etc, so any one would, in an ideal world, have made a great companion. And the fact that the one we get in the end is so unexpected speaks volumes for both the quality of writing and acting throughout.

But seriously... part of me is hoping that one of these will eventually end up to be a dud. Nothing yet though, I am, as I have said before, genuinely surprised by the consistent high standard of the Big Finish Who’s I have listened to so far.

Doctor Who: Death in Blackpool review

Now in a Lost style flashback, we’re going back a few episodes for the previously reviewed Deimos to the start of this particular season of Eighth Doctor adventures…

So, just imagine that sshhhooom! noise they do in Lost and read on!

Like it our hate it, but one of the most remarkable things that RTD Who has introduced to things is the Christmas special. It’s hard to believe that a series that was merely a fondly remembered childhood show for most people (and by that, I mean your normal man or woman on the street, not sci-fi fans!) is now a mainstay of Christmas Day television, up there with Eastenders and The Queen’s Speech.

And so it came to pass that the tradition has leaked over into the Big Finish range, with this Christmas set tale.

And a heart warming one it is too- full of festive cheer that will warm the cockles of your cold, miserly heart.

Well, actually, that is a lie. This is very much in the great tradition of the British TV Christmas special. You need to think Eastenders or Holby City (which gets name checked in the story) to get where this is coming from.

It’s pretty grim, to tell you the truth. But this grimness brings out the best in the actors, as we see one or two of the Doctor’s many chickens coming home to roost, along with a splendid red herring or two thrown in for good measure.

Doctor Who Deimos Review

I have to make a confession before continuing with this review. When Big Finish started their series of original Who adventures starring Paul McGann, I followed them for the first season or so and then, for various reasons, tuned out- apart from the occasional dip of the toes back into them, so it was interesting to return for this to see how things were progressing.
I’m glad to report that they are progressing quite well!
When I read the title of this adventure, the know-it-all nerd in me got excited, as it could only mean one Who villain, and that same know-it-all nerd was delighted to be proved correct.
The Seeds of Death is one of my all time favourite Who adventures, so I was delighted to see the return of the Ice Warriors in this story.
It sees the Doctor and his companion, Tamsin, arrive just in time (as they always seem to do) to see the Ice Warriors unleash a nefarious plan to regain control of their home planet of Mars.
First things first- the acting. It is terrific throughout, and it’s wonderful to see names like David Warner in there. There are also a well realised pair of tourists, who are caught up in it all, and they could only be improved if they were played by Terry Scott and June Whitfield (which is not to say that the actors do not make a sterling job of things!).
The other that struck me was the pacing, particularly of the first episode. There is a hell of a lot of plot crammed in there. We’ve got double crossing and action and two or three cliff-hangers in there, and there’s even time to do some running down corridors!
But… Only two episodes!?
In my day, there were four episodes in an adventure- but I see that this one leads directly on into the next in the series… it’s almost like Big Finish planned it that way or something!
Overall, this is great stuff, I really don’t know why all the Who fans out there don’t listen to these, as they provide an ideal fix until he’s back on the TV again, but it was over far too quickly. I want the next one!