Thursday 18 February 2016

Ranking the Hartnell stories in order...


1) The Daleks' Masterplan - Everything that is wonderful about the era encapsulted in an epic adventure


2) The Romans - I don't care what you think of it...I LOVE it


3) The Massacre - A stunning historical, with a terrific central performance from Purves

To be reviewed...

4) Marco Polo - A genuine classic, nuanced, educational and dramatic

To be reviewed...

5) The Crusade - Why are the historicals so much better than the SF tales?


6) The Gunfighters - Jokes, great performances, fantastic direction, a song...


7) The Daleks - One of the first forays into SF...and one of the best


8) The Aztecs - A thrilling moral dilemma and great role for Barbara


9) The Myth Makers - Intelligent and hilarious and beautifully acted

To be reviewed...

10) The Chase - It's absolute guff but it never fails to raise a thousand smiles


11) The Tenth Planet - A story that gets better with each subsequent rewatch


12) The Smugglers - Terrific fun, bolstered by great performances from the regulars


13) Mission to the Unknown - Butch as Rambo but damn exciting


14) The War Machines - Surprisingly stylish direction and Ben and Polly are great


15) The Savages - More complex than I had been led to believe and with a great score


16) The Reign of Terror - Great fun with a top notch TARDIS crew


17) The Ark - Melodramatic and silly but also very stylish and imaginative


18) An Unearthly Child - A top notch first episode and a real atmosphere to the rest

To be reviewed...

19) The Web Planet - Crazy ambitious but worth a watch to see how far they would go


20) The Time Meddler - Ropey history but a great character in the Monk

To be reviewed...

21) The Dalek Invasion of Earth - Terrible direction but it's trying very hard to be epic


22) The Sensorites - It has a great message but it's overlong and seriously theatrical

http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/the-sensorites-written-by-peter-r.html

23) The Celestial Toymaker - Fun but trying a little too hard and not as dark as it could be

To be reviewed...

24) The Keys of Marinus - Some dodgy production work but I love the pace of it


25) Planet of Giants - A very boring narrative enlivened by great sets

To be reviewed...

26) The Space Museum - A fascinating first episode followed by some very trite politics


Sunday 14 February 2016

The Yes Men written by Simon Guerrier and directed by Lisa Bowerman

What's it about: The Doctor, Jamie, Polly and Ben arrive on New Houston, an Earth colony in the Fourth Sector, which the Doctor previously saved from an alien invasion. He wishes to pay his respects to his late friend Meg Carvossa, but something is not quite right with New Houston’s subservient robots...

Giddy Aunt: The Doctor is attempting to show his young friends how to operate the TARDIS in the case of an emergency but he knows it is only basic manoeuvres. Can the Doctor be described as any old riffraff? Polly considers the Doctor to be quite a gentleman. It's unusual for the second Doctor to begin an adventure looking to catch up with an old friend. He always felt like such a cosmic hippy, tripping from one adventure to another that actively seeking out old friends feels like an anathema. The death of his friend gives him a fine excuse to engage with the story though, pulling up his chequered trousers and playing the role of detective. And I enjoyed the idea of Meg being an old friend of the first Doctor and not being able to recognise the second. He suggests he wouldn't know how to cause trouble whilst his eyes glitter with mischief. The idea of him trying to stand tall and imposing with the army of robots around him is amusing, it's something that Troughton's Doctor could never aspire to. Ben and Jamie expect the Doctor to join the Yes Men revolution but he was never one to behave in a predictable way. His young male companions way is 'you're with us or against us' but the Doctor is far more complex than that.

Able Seaman: I've discussed Elliot Chapman elsewhere but since this is his debut it is worth mentioning again just how vivid he is as Ben Jackson, a very strong re-casting. Ben is happy to take advantage of the Yes Men and to enjoy the sort of luxuries they are willing to bestow on humanity.

Dolly Bird: Polly knows better than to ask if they have landed somewhere safe because that never happens. Can you think of anything more sixties than Polly getting her groove on in a hover car? Polly is never short of ideas in her adventures but they are rarely described as brilliant. Polly Cocktail, eat your heart out.

Yahoos: Subverting the usual robot/human relationships, Jamie is forced to live the life of a slave in the underground artificial world.

Sparkling Dialogue: 'What's a Mim?' 'Very clever, very cross alien sponges' 'What's a sponge?'
'Governments don't win elections, they lose them.'
'Tell them to eat their nuts and bolts so they grow up big and strong.'

Great Ideas: Simon Guerrier is world building from the off, creating a vivid world in relatively little time. Central information bank, electronic eyes watching everything, rules regulating everything, yes men catering to your every whim. The parallel to the Voc robots in the season fourteen classic are there to see, especially the calm, calculating voices. Our sympathies are instantly with the Yes Men because they are treated with such casual violence by Harriet just to prove a point. A hidden city under the ground, buildings stretching as far as the eye can see but encapsulated by a roof that happens to be street level. An automated city populated by Yes Men. There are even families, the young developed automatically by technology so they have the appearance of growing up. It has a parody of a class structure, copied but not quite understood. Only one thousandth of the population is being recorded...because only one thousandth of the population exists. That's why the streets are so empty. After what happened in the war with the Mim they had so little left but they had hope, they were going to rebuild the world. The Earth Empire was going to send supplies but it wasn't enough, not with the resources already stretched. So they faked the numbers to feed the people, to rebuild the city. That's how it started anyway.

Audio Landscape: The TARDIS buffering through space, footsteps, ticking clock, trudging through water, rainfall, the Battle of Culloden.

Isn't it Odd: Whilst the first episode is by no means boring, there is a lackadaisical pace to how it unfolds that means that it is hard to get too worked up over it. Perhaps it is because we are dealing with a mechanical city populated by mechanical men but there is a sense of artificiality about the environment that is hard to feel any great passion for. The intention of the Yes Men here isn't to conquer but to be allowed a society of their own. It's an interesting, less exciting approach to the same ideals as The Robots of Death but with nobody being in danger equals a narrative that never dices with death. And that makes it entirely intellectual and worthy. Meg Carvossa's downfall comes at her own hands, it's satisfying that she is responsible for her own downfall but she was stupid to reveal quite so much of her plans in a world that records everything.

Standout Scene: I shall have to call Simon Guerrier the Surprise King. Of all the writers for Big Finish I believe he has the most talent for sneaking up behind you with a shock and presenting it in a way that genuinely thrills. I didn't see the end of episode two coming a mile off and it certainly had me eager to start the next episode to discover the fallout of the surprise unveiling. And despite not being delivered in a particularly dramatic fashion, the cliffhanger at the climax of episode three is deliciously surreal (at least in conception). 

Result: 'The robots don't want to fight you! They just want you to be nicer!' And therein lies the problem... An unusual tale, both for the season four crew and because it comes from the pen of Simon Guerrier. The Yes Men flaunts an interesting premise and an intriguing location...a far cry from the comic strip fun that this crew experienced throughout much of their time together. And yet it fails to do anything particularly interesting with these ideas, despite some arresting imagery and that does surprise me because if there is an author that can get to the heart of a good idea and explore it in surprising ways then Guerrier is usually your man. It feels like the extended length of the Early Adventures is working against him rather than for him, the extra time taken up with extended dialogue scenes that fail to be about anything. Sometimes brevity forces a writer to get to the nub of the matter with much greater clarity. As a murder mystery it fails to grip (although there is one great surprise in the middle of the tale) because there is relatively little human interest. Agatha Christie understood that only too well...to tell a riveting murder mystery you have to put psychology at the heart of the story and that is a difficult thing to do in a tale populated by automatons. Compensating for some faults are the season four TARDIS crew, entertaining by their very nature and well captured by Guerrier. Ultimately there are two forms of revolution in this story (a political one and a class one) but they are both done with such politeness that the excitement levels are somewhere around a lecture on plumbing or advanced paint drying. It isn't a massacre that caused mass population control, it was really good accountancy. That sort of thing. Lisa Bowerman directs but if her name wasn't on the cover I would question that fact because it lacks the urgency I have come to expect from her. The Yes Men isn't appalling, it passes the time but I can't pretend at any point (except at the midway point) that I was eager to continue. Sad but true, this would have made an excellent companion chronicle told from Ben's point of view but the extended length and full cast nature affords too much scope. Scope it does not fulfil: 5/10

Saturday 13 February 2016

Ranking the Troughton stories in order...


1) The War Games - Climaxing on one of the most thrilling, more epic stories ever


2) Power of the Daleks - Kick starting on a peerless note


3) The Mind Robber - Surreal, literate, funny, terrifying and constantly surprising

To be reviewed...

4) Evil of the Daleks - Implausible but one classic scene after another

To be reviewed...

5) The Invasion - Season six gets some stick but there are three absolute classics


6) The Enemy of the World - I loved this BEFORE it was discovered


7) Fury from the Deep - Genuinely disturbing and some excellent characterisation

To be reviewed...

8) The Web of Fear - Haunting and exciting, if overlong


9) Tomb of the Cybermen - Stylish and foreboding and occasionally quite ropey


10) The Ice Warriors - A fantastic character tale

To be reviewed...

11) The Macra Terror - Really different and it stands out because of it


12) The Seeds of Death - Brilliant entertainment, I love the score and Troughton excels


13) The Abominable Snowmen - Unusual and disquieting, there's nothing else quite like this

To be reviewed...

14) The Highlanders - Comical and dramatic but not a patch on the historicals of the past

To be reviewed...

15) The Underwater Menace - Rubbish, but strangely hypnotic and engaging


16) The Faceless Ones - Far too long but it feels fresh and contemporary


17) The Krotons - Mercifully short but compact and rather lovely for it


18) The Moonbase - Formulaic, but with a lot of style


19) The Wheel in Space - Pretty dull with only the regulars enlivening things


20) The Space Pirates - Occasionally fun but mostly flat and uninteresting

To be reviewed...

21) The Dominators - I find it hard to commend this, it's so dreadfully dull




Ranking the third Doctor adventures in order...


1) Inferno - Dramatically speaking, the strongest Doctor Who of all time

Not reviewed yet...

2) Carnival of Monsters - So different from the story above, but just as strong


3) Day of the Daleks - Plotting wise, this just about perfect


4) Invasion of the Dinosaurs - No I'm not crazy, I love this


5) Spearhead from Space - A gripping opening for Pertwee


6) The Daemons - A classic, with a great role for everyone


7) Frontier in Space - Ridiculously entertaining for a story that is just escape/capture


8) Dr Who & the Silurians - Powerful drama and a great moral dilemma


9) Ambassadors of Death - A fine thriller with terrific direction


10) The Mind of Evil - Drama, action, scares...


11) The Time Warrior - Pertwee in history just feels right


12) The Green Death - A great moral and a fine character tale for the Doctor and Jo


13) The Sea Devils - Forget the terrible score, this is exciting stuff


14) Planet of the Spiders - Pertwee's swansong is a lot stronger than people think


15) The Curse of Peladon - Terrific alien characters and a fine plot


16) Terror of the Autons - Crazy, colourful fun with the Master making a striking debut


17) Death to the Daleks - A zippy adventure with lots of memorable scenes


18) The Claws of Axos - Doctor Who as influenced by mind altering drugs


19) Colony in Space - Overlong but not without its charms


20) The Monster of Peladon - See above, overlong but not without its charms


21) Planet of the Daleks - A fun, tradition adventure that is never once innovative


22) The Three Doctors - Aside from the titular Doctors, mostly embarrassing


23) The Time Monster - An rich amount of embarrassments


24) The Mutants - Claustrophobic, confused and terribly boring




Friday 12 February 2016

Ranking the Hinchcliffe era in order...


1) The Talons of Weng-Chiang - Sublime, colourful, dark and beautifully directed

Not reviewed yet...

2) The Seeds of Doom - One of the scariest Who's of all time


3) Pyramids of Mars - Three outstanding episodes, one slightly disappointing climax

Not reviewed yet...

4) Genesis of the Daleks - As good as everybody says it is...


5) The Robots of Death - Psychologically disturbing, expert world building


6) The Brain of Morbius - Playful and sick, I adore this naughty slice of Who


7) Terror of the Zygons - Traditional but realised within an inch of its life


8) The Ark in Space - Clinical horror, scripted by a master and superbly played


9) The Deadly Assassin - Gallifrey as we have never seen before or since


10) The Masque of Mandragora - Beautifully produced with great characters


11) Robot - A crazy fun story, Terrance producing some awesome character material


12) Planet of Evil - Surprisingly atmospheric for SF horror, not an area this show always excels in


13) The Hand of Fear - I appreciate this one more than most, especially for loopy Lis Sladen


14) The Face of Evil - Chris Boucher is a great writer but this is his weakest story for me

Not reviewed yet...

15) The Sontaran Experiment - For such a short story it is packed with lovely moments


16) The Android Invasion - Great first episode but goes downhill from there...


17) Revenge of the Cybermen - Pants



Thursday 11 February 2016

The Black Hole written by Simon Guerrier and directed by Lisa Bowerman

What's it about: On a research station near a black hole, time keeps standing still. Investigating the phenomenon, the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria discover a power far greater than any of the monsters that have challenged them on their travels... The Doctor's own people. With the safety of thousands balancing out the need to flee, and a policeman from his home planet working at his side, the Doctor reluctantly finds himself involved in a race against time. But nothing is ever as simple as it appears. And if you can use the Doctor's compassion against him, you have the makings of a perfect trap…

Giddy Aunt: The Doctor's two approaches to getting some attention; making a fuss or getting them arrested or asking nicely. The Doctor is terrified of the kind of people that can control the TARDIS...because they are his own people. He knows that if the Time Lords are close by and they catch up with him it will be the end of his adventures with Jamie and Victoria. The success of saving these people is dependent on a precision flight and the Doctor can barely control the TARDIS. Even his friends don't have faith that he has the piloting skills. The idea of a battle of wits between Troughton's Doctor and the Monk is delightful, they are both impish and quick witted. The plotting of the last episode is like constant one-upmanship between the two characters. The only thing that will stop the Doctor meddling in the Monk's meddling is when peoples lives are in danger as a result.

Yahoos: This isn't a substantial role for Jamie but that doesn't mean that Frazer Hines isn't working his nuts off to make this work.

Shrieking Violet: The Doctor tells Victoria that she has a very 19th Century way of thinking, a somewhat unfair criticism given that is precisely where she comes from. Victoria experiences what it is like to not exist and to know about it. She needs some respite from this latest adventure because of it. Intriguingly, Guerrier leaves Victoria as the focus of the tale as the Doctor and Jamie head off to the Third Zone for an adventure with the sixth Doctor, Peri and the Sontarans. How nice to see what she was up to whilst they had their little romp around Spain. Victoria learnt from her father than science aspires to be objective. She is clever enough to figure it is Pavo who has created the black hole and is directing it for his own purposes. How nice to see the character removed from her usual snivelling screamer status and treated this intelligently. Simon Guerrier acknowledges that he doesn't get the opportunity to explore the ramifications of Victoria being erased from time in the same way that he would in the companion chronicles because the Early Adventures don't afford the luxury of first person narration to really get inside its characters heads. 

Standout Performance: Narrated by David Warner? The Black Hole has a huge advantage over all the other Early Adventures before it has even begun. A sublime narrator, draining every last nuance from the script. Thank goodness for that because once again Deborah Watling sounds like that drunken aunt that you are always wary to invite to the party because she'll make a spectacle of herself. Her voice has not aged kindly and she sounds nothing at all like the young slip of a thing that she did in the sixties (and why should she?).

Sparkling Dialogue: 'Fixing time isn't without it's costs, you see. I do have overheads.'

Great Ideas: The TARDIS passed through a massive spatial phenomena in space which caused the crew a bumpy ride. The people that control such a phenomenon and can influence the TARDIS must be very powerful indeed. It shouldn't take a fan of the show long to figure out who that race might be. More of a habitat than a spaceship, a small city in space. A spatial anomaly that freezes time in an instant, leaving the Doctor, Jamie and Victoria feeling they are caught inside a photograph. The Doctor is baffled at the very idea of a facility in the wake of a Black Hole, an impossible position to be in. No star, no supernova but the black hole cannot have appeared out of nowhere. It was created artificially. The idea that time is fucked because of the nearby black hole gives Guerrier the chance to offer the travellers snapshots of the future, a bleak peek into the horrors to come. The Black Hole isn't afraid to tamper with continuity a little to tell a good story, an approach I wholeheartedly approve of. Whilst it sticks to The Two Doctors approach that the second Doctor had dealings with the Time Lords during his tenure, it rather ignores the fact that they were originally introduced in The War Games. It's a fresh approach and the Doctor's sense of foreboding about the presence of the Time Lords makes for some wonderful scenes. Somebody is creating a tunnel through time and space with the black hole at one end and the facility at the other. The description of a TARDIS being twisted inside out is just gorgeous, amongst some hypnotic, hallucinatory imagery as the black hole swallows. If you have a symbiotic link with a TARDIS and you sacrifice your ship, is that like committing suicide? How this story ties in directly with The Two Doctors is smartly done, just a few references and a damn good reason to remove Victoria from the action. Apparently Jamie and the Doctor had several stops after their adventure with the Sontarans that we knew nothing about. A chance for some solo Doctor/Jamie stories in the future, that's Big Finish making their only gap between stories to fill at a later date. Who else wants to visit the City of Owls? Episode three initially has something of a Wheel in Space vibe to it, the Doctor and Jamie exploring a facility that feels abandoned and disquieting. The Analogue Wars saw the worlds of this system ravaged by mankind and the Monk wants to change things and teach humanity a lesson. The Doctor and Jamie get to experience the gravity well at the centre of a black hole. Where no human has gone before.

Audio Landscape: A crowded scene, a tree toppling into a fountain, the hum of the Monk's TARDIS, alarms, the screaming swarm of the Seeth, laughter, broken glass, a hurricane whipping up.

Isn't it Odd: Because of the complex nature of the story and the ideas that are being explored, we never get much time to study the Seeth in any great detail.

Standout Scene: The climax of episode two comes as a complete shock. The Monk is a character that has appeared in a fair few Big Finish stories of late and each time his appearances has managed to be a surprise. He's not a well known villain like the Master so his presence on the cover isn't going to rake in the sales. A good thing too because each time he steps out of the shadows it proves to be a great moment. This is no exception. And the moment when a character regenerates within the story into another character that we have already met...well my mind was well and truly boggled. And tempted by the prospect. It's the 'first' example of a Time Lord regenerating and changing sex. Although we have been heading in hat direction for some time. It made me want to go back and listen to the first two episodes again to look out for clues that Pavo and Flail are one and the same person at different points in their time stream.

Result: Given the great engine of storytelling that Big Finish has generated there is naturally a selection of sub genres that have emerged in Doctor Who audio drama. And naturally there are some that I am drawn to and others that I aren't. I adore historical adventures that immerse you in the setting but I'm less keen on shallow action adventure stories that feel like soundtracks of adventures rather than adventures that were created for audio in the first place. One sub genre I am very keen in is the high concept stories, the science fiction tales that deal with complex ideas that get my mind racing. Stories such as Brotherhood of the Daleks. The Black Hole is another successful high concept tale that revels in the chance to promote big ideas ahead of your typical run-around. The less substantial stories require an immersive soundscape to prop up the narrative and fill in the gaps of interest but the more abundant stories take my mind for a walk and I barely notice the sound design. It's a continuity lovers dream too but it just goes to show that revelling in the shows history doesn't have to be to the detriment of the story (check out Last of the Cybermen to see how that sort of thing can go very wrong). In partiuclar is the return of a popular character, that gives the latter half of the story a real boost at exactly the point where a story of this length would begin to lag. It might not be entirely realistic in historical terms but I really like how Jamie and Victoria are not represented as being unable to grasp the sophisticated notions in play, that they have a grasp of the discipline once it is explained to them and they ask intelligent questions. Just because they are scientifically ignorant it doesn't mean they aren't creative or bright. I thought the narration worked extremely well with this release, too. There is no reason why an actor who isn't playing a part in the story shouldn't guide us through the story and when that person is David Warner the light he shines on the detail of the narrative is very bright indeed. I often praise Jonny Morris and John Dorney to the high heavens (and justifiably so, their work is excellent) but it is often to the detriment of Simon Guerrier who I genuinely believe to be one of the most consistently excellent Big Finish writers. He's written countless scripts now, bursting with interest, great dialogue, an exceptional understanding of character and with an eye for wrapping up his stories satisfactorily. The Black Hole is another notch on his belt. He's an awesome talent. This is intelligent and constantly developing itself, a very giving release: 8/10

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Ranking the Williams era in order


1) City of Death - Simply one of the most sublime pieces of television ever

To be reviewed...

2) The Ribos Operation - Completely charming, characterful and exploding with great lines


3) Image of the Fendhal - Perhaps the ultimate expression of horror in Doctor Who


4) The Pirate Planet - Too many tasty ideas for one story, it's drowning in creativity


5) Horror of Fang Rock - Atmospheric, brooding and terrifying

To be reviewed...

6) The Stones of Blood - Few stories give me quite this much pleasure


7) The Sun Makers - Witty as hell, sadistic as torture and with an acidic message


8) The Androids of Tara - Summery in every sense of the term, a delight

To be reviewed...

9) The Nightmare of Eden - Sod the production, this is brimming with creativity


10) The Horns of Nimon - It might be a pantomime but it's a bloody good one


11) Shada - Incomplete but still full of riches


12) The Armageddon Factor - I'm terribly fond of this, it's overlong but packed with solid concepts


13) The Invasion of Time - More production problems but a very brave script


14) Creature from the Pit - Each time I watch this I enjoy it more


15) Destiny of the Daleks - Stylish but occasionally flat and silly


16) The Power of Kroll - The final episode is quite gripping but its a long slog to get there


17) The Invisible Enemy - Some embarrassments but like so much of this era it is so imaginative


18) Underworld - The only real dud of the era, this dreadfully boring



Ranking season 18 in order...


1) Warriors' Gate - Visually and conceptually stunning with great characters too


2) Full Circle - A truly intelligent script, bolstered even more by stylish direction


3) State of Decay - A fusion of Hinchcliffe, Williams ad JNT


4) The Keeper of Traken - Beautiful design, nice ideas, insanely theatrical

Not reviewed yet...

5) The Leisure Hive - A bold new era of style, if not fun...


6) Logopolis - A bizarre mish mash of the very good and the very poor


7) Meglos - Bidmead stops all this silliness...by bringing forth a really silly story



Tuesday 9 February 2016

Ranking the Davison era in order...


1) The Caves of Androzani - Predictable but so stunningly good in every way


2) Enlightenment - Practically perfect Who, atmospheric and fascinating


3) Frontios - One of the strongest conceptual stories, packed with strong moments


4) Snakedance - A stunning culture conjured up and great characters too


5) Earthshock - Dramatic and action packed, terrific direction and moments


6) Castrovalva - Unlike anything else in Doctor Who, beautiful and lyrical


7) The Five Doctors - Hugely nostalgic, it's a miracle this is as good as it is


8) Resurrection of the Daleks - Meaty and stylish if utterly incoherent


9) Black Orchid - Understated and quaint, gorgeous location work and characters


10) Mawdryn  Undead - Time travel, moral dilemmas, top notch concepts


11) Terminus - Far higher on the list than it would have been five years ago


12) Planet of Fire - A stylish affair, packed full of embarrassing moments


13) The Visitation - Bog standard history, occasionally exciting


14) The Awakening - Needs an extra episode and far more explanation


15) Warriors of the Deep - The trashy Davison stories start here...


16) Four to Doomsday - A tragic first step into the Davison era


17) Time-Flight - An manifold of embarrassments


18) The Kings Demons - Just the pits, I can't imagine Who sinking much lower


Sunday 7 February 2016

Ranking the Colin Baker era in order...


1) Revelation of the Daleks - Still a truly unique experience, sick and insanely stylish


2) The Two Doctors - One of the most entertaining Doctor Who's ever for me


3) Vengeance on Varos - More important to watch than ever given entertainment is heading in this direction


4) The Mysterious Planet - Colin Baker on razor sharp form and fantastic dialogue


5) The Mark of the Rani - A marvellous Time Lord bitch fight


6) Terror of the Vervoids - A deliriously enjoyable Agatha Christie tale in space


7) Mindwarp - For that shockingly good final episode


8) Attack of the Cybermen - Noisy and crass but packed with great moments


9) The Ultimate Foe - Atmospheric, dramatic but a little anti-climatic


10) The Twin Dilemma - Four great performances, one leaden plot


11) Timelash - Hideously enjoyable to watch for all the wrong reasons


The Forsaken written by Justin Richards and directed by Lisa Bowerman

What's it about: The TARDIS lands on an island off Singapore during the Japanese invasion of 1942. The travellers are found by some British soldiers - among them a certain Private James Jackson, who just happens to be Ben’s father. But they're not the only visitors to the island...

Giddy Aunt: I've heard complaints about Frazer Hines' interpretation of the Doctor during the second season of Early Adventures, comments that he doesn't sound bona fide enough. Get a grip guys, Frazer Hines is not trying to portray Patrick Troughton as the Doctor, he is offering his own take on the character. An interpretation that springs from real affection for their time together. If there are bumpy moments when Hines doesn't quite get the inflection right I can easily forgive that because I know he is acting his heart off out of a place of pure love for both the character and the actor who played him. If it's enough to take you out of the story, I feel for you. But for me Hines' efforts are greatly appreciated.  The Doctor doesn't mind what he gets to eat during wartime...but states specifically what he desires. I love how the Doctor can suddenly turn on a sixpence from a bumbling buffoon who gets entangled in a trap of pots and pans to a quietly menacing figure facing down an alien interloper. It's those shades of grey that make him such a fascinating incarnation. Richards has always had a good grasp on the most indefinable of Doctors, as far back as his novel Dreams of Empire. The Doctor manages to prove he is who he says he is because he bamboozles everybody in trying to prove it. His playfulness in the face of a creature that feeds on fear is his greatest strength. He has no fear of dying, which is a bit of a problem for a foe that uses that thought as a method of dispatch.

Able Seaman: I truly appreciate the chance to explore Ben more as a character because we have already enjoyed a wealth of adventures that have fleshed out Jamie and Polly. Ben is more of an enigma and with a strong actor in the role it is a great chance to puzzle him out. Having him feature in a grim historical featuring a family member brings this a little close in style to Resistance (which had the same modus operandi but for Polly) but since that was such a success I can completely understand why they have repeated the formula. Ben knew there was a possibly of touching upon aspects of his life when travelling in time but he never expected it to become so personal.

Dolly Bird: Polly enjoys a huge imagination which can run away with itself. She informs Ben in a very curt way that he cannot coddle her all the time, no matter how much he might want to. Her ability to talk to people, to comfort them, is a real art. Amongst two testosterone fuelled young men and an awkward Time Lord, she is the personable link to the real world. A feisty lady who isn't going to be frightened to death by their foe, Polly gets seriously angry when the alien tries it's party trick on her. She's smart too, managing to escape its clutches and survive against the odds.

Yahoos: Whilst there might have been some underlying tension between Michael Craze and Frazer Hines that manifested itself on screen at times during the early Troughton era (the scene where they brawl in The Moonbase feels bourne of real feelings to me), I always had the sense that a bromance could emerge between these two characters if the writers had wanted to explore that. Or maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part. There were moments during The Forsaken where I felt a brotherly association between the two, a laddish connection. I would love to see that explored some more because it would be a really fresh approach to both characters. He's not a tactical genius but he knows how to set up an early warning system with pots and pans...at least in order to ensnare the Doctor!

Standout Performance: I'm truly on the fence when it comes to recasting but not because I object to the idea, more because Big Finish already have an ideal way to cover for the missing actors (the companion chronicles) in a format that I really miss. But even I have to admit they have gotten it spot on with Elliot Chapman as Ben. Chapman sounds really authentic; chrirpy, charming, cocky and moody. All the things that Ben brought to the series. And adding a real cockney accent to this foursome makes the stories themselves sound more genuine.

Sparkling Dialogue: 'If you're fighting for a better world then you need people to live in it.'

Great Ideas: When a character states that there are worse places to be stuck waiting for evacuation than Singapore during this period, he clearly isn't too aware of the tidal wave approaching the country. Jimmy Jackson is Ben's father. He's come face to face with his father nine months before he was born. If he isn't careful, he could change things for himself in a pretty permanent way. Richards manages to brew up a familiar base under siege environment thanks to the appearance of a roomful of bodies. Who is responsible and are they still among us? An alien creature that feeds on fear, that can generate it and use it to its advantage. That's simultaneously a terrifying prospect and an awesome natural protection.  Killing some of them makes the survivors even more afraid. It drains its victims of terror, devours it, killing them outright. Another survival technique, a shape shifting ability. Not just the killer among us but the killer is one of us. The Doctor thought the Forsaken were a legend. They land somewhere off the beaten track where they don't attract attention to themselves. The Doctor realises that whilst the Forsaken are relishing in the death of others, they are terrified of their own end.

Audio Landscape: Birdsong, seagulls which feel so evocative to me living on the South Coast and being woken up by the buggers every morning, planes roaring overhead, rasping breathing, creatures whistling and screaming in the jungle, heavy breathing, a squeaking door, gunshots.

Musical Cues: The music was instantly memorable; instrumental, chilling and exotic. After a time it becomes a little familiar but that doesn't take away from the fact that it is beautifully composed.

Isn't it Odd: How very bizarre to flaunt the concept of Ben having to protect the life of his father in order to preserve his life and then do so little with it. It's not an original idea but I was at least expecting some touching moments between Ben and his father and some kind of complications to the story that might suggest that Ben might pop out of existence. Otherwise why bring the idea up in the first place?

Result: 'It's only a matter of time...' I have been doing volunteer work with various organisation for the past five years. One of those was Age Concern Eastbourne and in their befriending programme I found myself in the company of a fascinating man called Jack who was a Japanese prisoner of war in Singapore in the Second World War. If I had a strong reaction to this tale it is because Jack recounted in some detail the horrors that he suffered during that period, even giving me his autobiography to read. It is a rich and emotional historical furrow for Doctor Who to mine. It was a genuinely horrific time and to set a Troughton adventure during that period is quite a brave affair - his era was far more interested in entertaining than educating and this is the kind of raw reminder of human history that was contained to the Hartnell era. Whilst this story doesn't go into graphic detail about the atrocities that occurred (it is still Doctor Who after all), I listened on edge in a way that somebody who hasn't experienced the torture of the experience through another might not. Richards does something surprising with the regulars, he keeps them together for a great deal of the story. That impressed me because it must be much more tempting to split them up and handle their own thread in the story. It reminds me of just how engaging this foursome are. Lisa Bowerman is such a strong director with acres of experience at bringing historical adventures to life (Jago & Litefoot) and this had a touch of one of my favourite audios stories about it, A Thousand Tiny Wings (also directed by Bowerman). There is an air of disquiet to the story, a feeling that the enemy could set upon the characters at any minute. That enemy turned out to be a science fiction concept rather than an historical one but it was a creepy, if derivative, threat all the same. I enjoyed the shorter episodes too, very in keeping with the Troughton era. The atmospherics and character compensate for the fact that the story is actually rather thin and barely justifies half the length. But this is hardly the only story from 60s and 70s Who that commits this crime and the realisation and strong cast truly pick up the slack. The whole dilemma of Ben's father being present is bafflingly ignored...I'm not entirely sure why it was included given it's irrelevance to the story. A shame as whilst this is a strong story for Ben anyway (Elliot Chapman is superb), it could have been a lot more personal. But I wont quibble because if you compare this to Richards other recent contribution (The Wave of Destruction) The Forsaken is loaded with riches. I listened to this story on a Sunday afternoon and it feels like the perfect time to enjoy an atmospheric and enjoyable slice of Who: 7/10

Saturday 6 February 2016

Ranking the McCoy era in order...



1) Ghost Light - The classic eras last gasp is one of its best


2) The Greatest Show in the Galaxy - Fantastic production value, gloriously entertaining


3) Remembrance of the Daleks - Proof that late 80s Who could still surprise


4) Delta and the Bannermen - No I'm not insane


5) Time and the Rani - It's atrocious but I can't help but LOVE it because of it


6) The Curse of Fenric - Very good, but the plotting is horrendous


7) Survival - Sensual and attention grabbing characterisation


8) Paradise Towers - An innovative script realised as a pantomime


9) The Happiness Patrol - Excellent moments rubbing shoulders with humiliating ones


10) Dragonfire - More dreadful panto with some fine performances


11) Battlefield - Exactly what the show needed to be doing, realised in just about the worst possible way


12) Silver Nemesis - Practically the nadir of classic Who, it's just the pits