Doctor Who Robophobia review

Sequels are sometimes a tricky thing, depending on what you are writing a sequel to. If it is something that wasn’t particularly brilliant or remembered with a lot of affection – I would suggest that The Claws of Axos may fall into this category – then it may be a bit easier than picking something that is well loved and may even considered to be a Classic.

I wonder what the reaction was when James Cameron went into a meeting and said he wanted to do a sequel to Alien? To me, trying to do a sequel to The Robots of Death is almost the same sort of thing.

And just like Cameron, Nicholas Briggs, the writer of this story, manages to pull it off by doing something totally different while at the same time riffing on and being respectful to what has gone before.

It is one of these nods to the past that provides the story with its strongest scenes. In episode three, the listener is left in no doubt as to what is going on because of the knowledge they have carried over from The Robots of Death.

The cast are, as is usual, wonderful. McCoy is at his mysterious best as the Seventh Doctor as he does his I-know-what’s-going-on-but-I’m-not-telling-or-maybe-I-don’t-know-but-I’m-pretending-I-do thing.

Nicola Walker is beyond good in her supporting role- she does some amazingly subtle things with her voice acting here, managing to convey complex emotions with the slightest inflection. In this Ace-less adventure, she makes a more than worthy replacement, and I for one would not be averse to seeing her return- that’s not a spoiler, merely my opinion!

Great stuff as usual from Big Finish. Actually, writing this review has got me in the mood to listen to this one again…

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 Death in the Family review

Up until the advent of Matt Smith, Pat Troughton had been my favourite Doctor, but I have always had a soft spot for McCoy’s regeneration. I think he is underestimated (among non-Who fans at least). His Doctor became a much darker and manipulative figure than pervious incarnations, and with it became a much more interesting one.

I've dipped in and out of the previous Big Finish McCoy Whos, so only have a limited knowledge of the back story leading up to A Death In the Family. I’ve met the companion Hex on one other occasion, but the villain of the story was a new one on me. This was not a problem though, as he is introduced and explained perfectly as things unfold.
So, we begin in the usual Who fashion, with much running about and impending threat. But this is not your normal Who tale.
Episode one contains everything you’d normally expect from a four part adventure and really is plotted to the hilt by Steven Hall. It also ends on a pretty surprising cliff-hanger, which leads into the real story.
Now, obviously I can’t go into details without spoiling the plot, so I’ll try to limit my comments to things I can mention.
The writing for example. As I said of Deimos, this really is crammed full of plot.
I love my Who as much as the next man, but sometimes on TV, it can be plotted a bit… thinly. Not so here, where the producers cannot rely on visual spectacle to distract you from storytelling shortcomings. Here, if each scene doesn’t hit the mark, then things will quickly fall apart. But honestly, as a writer, I am very impressed by the standard of writing on this.
Acting next. McCoy knows his Doctor inside out and is as excellent as you would expect. Philip Oliver as Hex is also superb and gets some splendidly meaty scenes to sink his teeth into. I could go through them all and say all the cast are pretty much pitch perfect.
But I really want to single out Sophie Aldred. One of the episodes focuses on Ace and her part of the story. The performance she gives is incredible and really, it’s worth getting this story for this episode alone.
And yes, reading back on this it does sound like hyperbole, but it’s not. I really enjoyed this tale- and there have been some of the Big Finish range that have not impressed me at all- so I don’t feel bad about my rather positive review!