The Dark Husband written by David Quantick and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: "This whole wedding is like making a nuclear bomb with half the instructions missing!" A week-long respite from a prolonged and bloody war, the Festival of the Twin Moons of Tuin makes Glastonbury look like a church fete... or so the brochure says. The Doctor and Ace are looking for rest and recreation. Hex is looking for the beer tent. But eternal enemies the ginger-haired Ri and the coot-bald Ir are plotting to turn their Festival truce to their own advantage. Only the Dark Husband might stop the celebrations turning to horror... but who is the Dark Husband? And what terror awaits him on his wedding night? If anyone knows any just cause or impediment... speak now. The lives of billions depend on it.

The Real McCoy: You can usually tell within a scene or two whether McCoy is having an on or an off day with his stories and it took me about 30 seconds to realise that this was having an extreme off day when this was recorded. He sounds distracted, unrehearsed and tonally all over the place. There are very few lines that he delivers with any hint of believability and I find it inexplicable because we know that he can deliver when he wants to (Master, Valhalla). The script is full of humorous wordplay that needs a quick performer to reel the lines out and score the jokes but McCoy’s delivery is so slack and robotic it pretty much kills every gag. There are only so many times I can hear the Doctor say sor-ry in that singsong voice of his before I want to gouge his eyes out with the sonic screwdriver set to high frequency burn. The Doctor came here to end the war, not to party and his method of which is marriage. Thank goodness the Doctor is due to marry a woman – I don’t think I could handle the thought of the seventh Doctor bedding another man. I would probably have to start batting for the other team.

Oh Wicked: Ace wants a break, a day off or even a week. Hex thinks she is very attractive when she gets angry. After Ace is tricked into becoming the Doctor’s intended she actually says ‘That’s another fine mess I’ve got myself into!’ without a hint of irony. That’s the level of characterisation on display here. I don’t want to go into any detail about how dreadful Aldred is here because I’m pretty much bored of hearing myself say it. Just take it as read.

Sexy Scouse: Since when did Hex become a raging, jealous, chav of an alcoholic? I was always so happy that he was written as a sensitive sort of lad and found him to be a positive role model for young men. I take it all back. Now he just wants to knock ‘em back and get pissed and regale the Doctor and Ace with tales of his misspent youth spreading graffiti on the walls where he used to live. David Quantick clearly hasn’t listened to a single Hex story or been given a clue how to write for him and this is the one and only time he is portrayed as a loutish, unthinking thug with lines like ‘I snogged your mum and she was rubbish!’ and ‘Oh no the ginger mingers back!’ Thank goodness. It would appear that Hex means something naughty in Ri (obviously in a tale so obsessed with crudeness). ‘I thought I’d come out on the interplanetary lash!’ – shut up Hex! The script gets so desperate it resorts to having Hex acting up because he is jealous of Ace who is getting married to the Doctor. I would understand if this was played in jest but Olivier sounds deadly earnest and as such Hex feels completely out of character. How awkward does he sound when putting himself forward for the wedding at the end of the third episode? You can hear in Olivier’s voice that he is mentally contacting his agent and screaming blue murder about having to perform this horrific script. Argh, Hex actually says to Ace: ‘You were all for it when you were going to get married to the Doctor’ in a jealous tone. I’m reaching my limit… What is the next Hex story? The Magic Mousetrap? He’s back to being a sensible young man again in that one so I can only imagine the TARDIS must have picked up some chavvy space plagued that unhinged his mind throughout the course of this adventure.

Standout Performance: Danny Webb is clearly having a ball playing three parts and whilst you would find it hard to distinguish his voice in any of the three characters I didn’t find any of them especially memorable. Well the Brian Blessed impersonation was but not in a good way. There’s only one Brian Blessed (‘His name is Dorff and you are scum!’). In a few desperate moments Webb sounds panic stricken as he has to play two characters talking to each other and you can hear him getting out of breath.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘There’s a war on and it wouldn’t be much of a war if we didn’t kill anyone, would it?’

Great Ideas: Brochures without a screaming face on the front are the more humanoid friendly. The Doctor is coerced into taken his friends to a weeklong party on the planet Tuin to celebrate all that is great about their culture – the planet that has been coined the brewery of the galaxy. Unfortunately it turns out to be a planet of gravestones, the churchyard and only common ground between two warring factions. The Ri and the Ir have been at war forever but they share the same religious belief system and one day every few centuries they all come together for a wedding. Tuin is the planet and it gave birth to the Ir and the Ri.

Audio Landscape: Even the sound effects so as though they are from Big Finish’s stock library. The party atmosphere, gong, thunder rumbling, crackling flames, lightning, rain.

Isn’t it Odd:
· I should have been forewarned when the story opened with Ace screaming her head off (Aldred’s hysterics cut through my brain like cheese wire), Hex being covered in snot and crying ‘that’s another fine mess you got me into!’
· The humour lacks any subtlety even when the actors aren’t killing it – the sequence where the Doctor suggests that the war probably started over something trivial that turns out to be a plague missile stinks like a bad fart.
· Groan – the Doctor, Ace and Hex are saved from death by a ceasefire as the festive of the twin suns begins. Saved by a party?
· The Dark Husband has the worst first episode ever. You’ve got a clichéd situation weighed down with dismal humour, rabid attempts to be funny that fall flat on their face, mischaracterized regulars who bore the pants of you and the scarcest of sound effects conjuring up zero atmosphere whatsoever. I think I was more impressed with Dreamtime’s opening episode than this. If I weren’t reviewing the story I would happily have turned it off at this point and go and do something worthwhile.
· How long did it take for Quantick to think up names as exciting and innovative as the Ri and the Ir?
· Having one actor play three parts is fine by me but why go to the trouble of disguising it with such ridiculous pseudonyms?
· Quantick seems to think there is a great deal of humour to be had in repeating the same plot contrivances over and over and so we have Ace learning about the Shining Wife and that nobody knows how the wedding is to be conducted, then Hex, then the Doctor. It all gets a bit tedious if I’m honest. More tedious.
· The stone made chroniclers of Tuin might have been worth a chuckle had the multiple-choice gag not been played so often and so nonchalantly.
· The plot twists are banal too…they are looking for a Shining Wife – a brave woman without fear and terror who will save the Dark Husband. Can you guess who it is? Make the pain stoooooop.
· How much funnier (or possibly more awful) would it have been if the Doctor had to marry Hex?
· Episode three is dragged down to further depths by listening to the riveting stories of how Ir and Ri came to be…twice.
· ‘Step forward Hox!’ Everybody: ‘Hex!’
· Just when you think this story cannot get any worse the Doctor screams out (mock Battlefield) ‘There will be no wedding here!’ Even McCoy sounds embarrassed.
· Head on desk. Head on desk. Head on desk. I couldn’t bear the scenes between Ori and Irit (more imaginative names) resolving their differences. ‘You speak with wisdom!’ ‘I doooooo?’ ‘And I, Irit of Ir, I can show courage!’ ‘You caaaaaaan?’ I’ve never heard anything this retarded in my life before!
· The ‘Is that a clinical diagnostic Master Hex?’ is repeated again and again…
· Ace and Hex are turned into zombies and in both cases it sounds like a blessed improvement! Seriously, if it were a choice between the bolshie screaming harridan and the drunken coarse prick or a pair of robotic nomads I would take the second pair any day of the week.
· ‘Tuuuuuinnnnn! Yoooou are eviiiiiiillllll!’
· War ended, harmony restored, job done – just read this line and save putting yourself through the story.

Standout Scene: My favourite moment came when the Doctor was gagged (as far as the seventh Doctor is concerned that is a blessing) and he is tied to the stake and set on fire. Its like David Quantick was providing wish fulfilment for me…

Result: Can you imagine listening to anything more tiresome than a pair of stock Doctor Who species being forced to reconcile their differences through a wedding that has a list of tiresome comic customs attached to it? I’m not sure what the writer and script editor were thinking when they were putting The Dark Husband together but if it was supposed to be a witty farce it has lost its sense of humour somewhere in its realisation and the resulting tale is a car crash of hideously embarrassing moments. Move over Lakertyans, push off Trogs, stand aside Dulcians…we have a new winner for the most tedious alien race in Doctor Who. The Ri and the Ir aren’t even bad enough to annoy me - they are just insipid, tasteless caricatures and their ridiculously bland approach to marriage and war and well everything left me desperately wanting to the turn the story off each time an episode ended, But I knew if I did that I would never put it back on again. Any story that even suggests the seventh Doctor being chained to a lamppost in his boxer shorts is an affront to humanity and every copy must be tracked down and destroyed. Sylvester McCoy gives potentially his worst ever turn as the Doctor (I’m not sure if this was worse than his ‘Dorotheeeee! Mcshaaaaaannee! Hacccceeeee!’ delights from The Rapture but its pretty close), Sophie Aldred gets to shout a lot which is as stomach churning as ever and when these two have frequently let us down in the past we can usually we can rely on Philip Olivier to salvage something. But even Hex is badly characterised (as the ultimate happy slapping bling boy - what was Quantick thinking) and even Olivier surrenders to the appalling tone of the script and delivers an awkward performance. I would have thought it an impossibility but Big Finish have delivered a seventh Doctor story that is even worse than The Rapture and Dreamtime. Without merit: 0.5/10 (I lied, half a point for a nice score in places)

The Condemned written by Eddie Robson and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: "Dr John Smith – you’re under arrest. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court..." Manchester, 2008. The TARDIS lands inside a run-down tower block, beside a dead body – which leads to some awkward questions when the Doctor is found there by the police. Made the prime suspect, how can the Doctor prove to the no-nonsense DI Patricia Menzies that this is not the open-and-shut case it seems, and that she’s actually investigating the death of an alien? Higher up in Ackley House, a girl named Maxine watches the Doctor being taken away in a squad car. Someone wants her to find out what happened in that room, and isn’t going to be happy if she doesn’t come up with the goods. But she’s got hold of someone who knows – someone very important to the Doctor. A deadly conspiracy is at work – one whose effects will be felt far beyond the walls of Ackley House

Softer Six: You would imagine that the similarly pitched, middle class tones of Colin Baker and India Fisher would grate as they join forces but nothing could be further from the truth. Put simply they are a superb team with instant chemistry and a massive unresolved plot device fuelling every moment together and making them far more interesting a combination than any other Big Finish Doctor/companion pairing. Another thing that really works and shouldn’t is how easily the colourful and gaudy sixth Doctor slips into CSI Manchester mode and fits into the world of the criminal underground and police investigations. With his acerbic wit on full power and his deductive reasoning shining he proves more than a match for Manchester’s finest. The relationship between the Doctor and DI Menzies is another one of those chance encounters that clicks into place instantly and she is booked in for a return appearance (yay!) as soon as possible.

He hadn’t realised that dimensionally transcendental time machines disguised as police boxes were quite so commonplace. He is trying to gather up as much intelligence about Charley as possibly and he notices her slips of the tongue, her period dialect and her clear knowledge of the TARDIS. The Doctor has a way with cats…or cats have a way with him (the latter is probably far more accurate). He should take this as a note to himself, when there are armed police surrounding a tower block don’t go out on the balcony waving your arms screaming ‘HELLO!’ He genuinely believes he can bluff his way out of anything but when faced with the stony face of DI Menzies he realises that his appearance at the crime does look highly suspicious and so leaks her the information that her corpse is in fact an alien. Menzies believes him simply on the evidence that he is assured when he talks about the extraterrestrial. In a moment of wonderful insanity the Doctor uses the DNA splicer to become the murder victim and puts on a horrendous northern accent (‘I think I must have misjudged me medication!’). He always likes to work in an unofficial capacity. The Doctor’s embarrassed cough when Aldrich says he is as human as they are is lovely. We finally see the effect if the Doctor takes aspirin and he scoffs a whole chocolate bar to counteract the effects (well he does like the hazelnuts). Clearly a man of the eighties, when asked if he has a mobile the Doctor replies ‘good grief, no!’ When Charley asks him to trust her he steps back and lets her do her thing. There’s no weapon he enjoys more than one that destroys itself! One way or another Charlotte presents a mystery to be solved…

Edwardian Adventuress: The greatest strength that breeds from Charley hopping Doctor’s is that she is her own person now with far too much experience at this time travel lark to be holding onto his arm and going ‘what’s that Doctor?’ She can think on her feet, she’s brave and inquisitive…she’s a kick ass character that has finally been let off the leash. I love the sense of desperation in her character from now on as she tries to give the Doctor enough titbits to keep him happy but not enough to force her to tell him the truth and have him kick her out. Imagine being so happy to find the Doctor alive after watching him die but not be able to tell him and poor old Charley has to feign ignorance that (gosh wow) she’s been rescued by a time machine! She has been travelling with the Doctor for so long now she knows the TARDIS inside out no matter what it looks like and she has to stop herself from doing things that come naturally to her like turning on the scanner and opening the doors. It’s a wonderful new take on her character that is going to be great fun to explore. When she was a girl she had to go to London or make her own Indian but nowadays you can just pop down the shops at night. Charley saw the Doctor die and she knows that if he survived he would never stop looking for her (not knowing that he found her note that said she wanted to leave him). It’s an insanely cruel twist of fate for the character. Charley believes she is talking with a fellow prisoner in the tower block over the phone and gets all of her problems off her chest in an extended therapy session. When asked why she doesn’t just tell the Doctor the truth she answers ‘to say its not that simple is a colossal understatement.’ Charley, held hostage, hears the TARDIS dematerialise and thinks that the Doctor has left her behind and rather than overreact she figures she will just have to look after herself. Wey-hey, when her handcuffs crumble Charley kicks the crap out of Maxine and locks her up! She’s had enough time to think up a cover story that skips over awkward questions…amnesia! Oh Charley that’s the oldest trick in the book!

DI Awesome: Anna Hope returns to Doctor Who in a completely different role to the one she played in the New Series (Novice Hame from New Earth and Gridlock) and aces the cynical, hard-hitting role of DI Patricia Menzies. Her wit is so dry you will need a drink before the story is over. Ugh, that line even made me groan. She has an answer to every one of the Doctor’s excuses (my favourite being ‘You don’t exactly look like a cat burglar!’) and is so pleased that this is the one week the security cameras weren’t bricked in. We’ve had tough female authority figures before in Doctor Who but Menzies is the first gritty salt-of-the-Earth police Inspector that feels like the real thing. Any other Inspector would be accused of having an overactive imagination but Menzies doesn’t have an imagination. Even when the Doctor embarrasses the hell out of her she still wants to work with him to find out what is going on. She finds it worrying easy to get used to all this talk of aliens. At the end of this eye opening adventure she wearily states that although this has changed her whole perspective on life she still has to go back to the station and fill out all the paperwork and find adequate explanations!

Standout Performance: Colin Baker. India Fisher. Anna Hope. All on top form. Despite some strong attempts the stories around this don’t have a hope.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘They should just come out here! There’s lots of things going on!’ – Charley sums the story up very well.
‘Don’t leave me down here in the dark!’
‘Ghosts have reconnected your phone?’
‘He is the darkness.’
‘I killed someone for you. You don’t know how that changes you. Kill someone for me and we’re even.’

Great Ideas: Hilariously the Doctor mentions it is a relief to not hear the usual ‘its bigger on the inside than the outside’ spiel but of course Charley is used to a TARDIS that is much larger and says so. The Doctor picked up her distress call. A DNA patch rewrites and stabilises your DNA and can make you look like whatever you want. Aldrich helped patch up one alien and after a good recommendation from his client soon became the Doctor of choice on Earth for all visiting aliens. Aliens that breathe water that have been drowned in air! The scene where Charley is inside the broken lift where Sam suggests he might be able to…and then it starts working again says everything you need to know about his character. Antonia was having an affair with Sam who went into the building to murder her husband but he never came out again. When Sam opened the briefcase he was absorbed into the building. It’s a form radiation that changes the state of whoever comes into contact with it and allows them to permeate their environment. He has been causing the murders ever since, as the darkness. Greg was never involved in any abductions, Antonia lied about that because they don’t do divorce where they come from and she wanted Sam to put her husband out of the way. Nobody wants to work the high-risk planets like Earth and one of the incentives is that the government will arrange a huge insurance pay out if there are any accidents – Antonia wanted to pocket the dosh after Greg was killed. An invasion of Earth by inhabiting its architecture – imagine the possibilities! The process isn’t reversible and Vorath plans on reducing the tower block to dust before Sam can learn how to use his new sentience against his invasion plans.

Audio Landscape: Never before has the TARDIS console room sound been so important as we try and work out which Doctor has picked Charley up, morse code, the TARDIS engines grind in the distance, a hissing cat, purring, squeaking doors, an echoey tower block, phone ringing, police sirens, police scouring through the flat, the melting transformation of the victim, people typing and talking in the police station, Charley in the rickety lift, sopping wet blokes in the shower room.

Musical Cues: David Darlington’s creepy as hell music cuts in as soon the Doctor and Charley notice a body on the scanner and leave the TARDIS.

Standout Scene: Basically any scene that has the Doctor and Menzies working together. The end of episode three has some really chilling build up with Charley stumbling around trying to find Sam in the basement that eats the light. The scene with all the phones going off at once is one of the most effective audio scenes for sometime, creepy, weird and mad as hell. The end of episode three is chillingly well done.

Notes: The whole timey wimey idea of Charley jumping from the eighth Doctor to the sixth was a pretty inspired one on Big Finish’s part and proof that other people were doing this sort of thing long before the inspired River Song – Time Travellers Wife madness began in the New Series. What’s so good about the idea besides the nagging feeling of discomfort behind the whole situation (especially when we come to really enjoy spending time in the company of these two) is that it gives both Sixie and Charley a whole new dimension to play about with. Suddenly she is a shifty, crafty sort of character who doesn’t want to lose her ride around the universe despite the fact that he cannot remember her when they meet again in the future. And Sixie is always one step behind for a change and whilst he grows ever fond of Charlotte it sees the return of his more abrasive side as he gets frustrated with her evasiveness. Its an awesome combination that powers an incredible run of stories, so good that people were chomping at the bit for the next release with them which was exactly what Big Finish needed at this stage.

When the Doctor first meets Menzies (her arresting him, naturally) he simple says ‘typical’ with an air of predictability and which turns out to be a very important line. The timey wimey nature of these stories gets even more insane when the Doctor meets Menzies in his personal timeline before this story when he was still travelling with Evelyn in The Crimes of Thomas Brewster. So the Doctor goes through this apparent first adventure with Menzies having already had an adventure with her previously but knowing that he knows he has to keep his gob shut about it! There are so many people lying through their teeth in this story it’s hard to know who is telling the truth!

Result: The Condemned comes as a bolt from the blue with its gritty down to Earth storytelling and the sense of quiet menace that chills the blood throughout. You’ve got two terrific innovations for Big Finish to play around with - the dazzling new sixth Doctor /Charley combo and a bright spark of a character in the shape of DI Menzies. Colin Baker’s Doctor fits snugly into the world of crime and killers and India Fisher gives another very strong performance. Eddie Robson provides a gripping story to hang these accessories on with an impressive guest cast of characters all of which are more than meets the eye and tied up with the murder at the beginning of the story in some way. It is superbly brought to life by Nick Briggs who manages to push his impressive actors to the forefront whilst never once compromising the forbidding tone of the piece. Sam manages to be both a tragic victim and a brilliant ally and the revelation of what has happened to him is beautifully realised. The potentially catastrophic idea of Charley swapping Doctors was make or break for Big Finish because it could so easily be the point where people said that Big Finish had jumped the shark but what actually happened was something of a renaissance for a company that took a risk and won and they are still reaping the rewards of that shot of awesomeness this story gave them today: 9/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/105-Doctor-Who-The-Condemned

The Bride of Peladon written and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: Peladon will bathe in oceans of blood! A mysterious voice, a missing girl and a murdered queen. The Royal House of Peladon is once more plunged into intrigue, terror and death. The Doctor, Peri and Erimem must find their way through a treacherous labyrinth of lies if they are to distinguish friend from foe before it is too late. For deep beneath the Citadel of Peladon, something infinitely ancient and immeasurably powerful is stirring…

An English Gentleman: The Doctor, Peri and Erimem are working together very well at this stage – go and listen to their interaction as they save Zixlyr from his burning ship and then try and steer the crashing ship into an area of the planet that will soften their sudden landing. It’s a dazzling mixture of intelligence, guts and pizzazz! Unfortunately the fifth Doctor isn’t quite the showman that his third incarnation was and whereas Pertwee sang his heart out when taming the Great Beast of Peladon Davison sounds a little embarrassed and apologetic as he mumbles the words. He has a quotation for every occasion apparently. He objects to the redecoration of the throne room into something bright, modern and utterly soulless and uses the fact that he once kept the same console room for nearly 300 years as an example of staying power. A shame that his argument is lacking weight considering that his very own console room is the most bright, modern and utterly soulless room to step out of the eighties! It’s very cute when the Doctor tells Peri that he worries about her and she returns the compliment. Science not superstition has always been his motto and it has seen him through so far (touch wood). He happily gives Erimem his consent to leave and says she is making the right choice. Now he will have even more reason to visit Peladon. The Doctor running after Peri exasperated into the TARDIS could happily lead to the beginning of Caves of Androzani. Whilst this run of stories has been unrealistically crow barred between two televised stories (with the latter hinging on the fact that the Doctor has just met Peri to give it emotional weight) I think the experiment was more the justified by the strong run of stories and the fact that this trio brought the best out in each other.

Busty Babe: The girl guides have nothing on her! There is a nice reminder of the events of Red Dawn when the Doctor took Peri to Mars. Peri completely understands her role in this story and as soon a guard is knocked unconscious she takes up the mantle of Nancy Drew and starts investigating. She even starts a sentence ‘My curiosity was piqued as soon as…’ Peri has a strong dislike of thieves and an even stronger set of lungs – don’t get this broad unhappy or she will scream the citadel down! When Peri pushes Zixlyr too far with her gobby racism he claps her around the face and prepares to kill her to get things sorted. Somehow Nicola Bryant manages to make the line ‘you are a petty ignoble criminal! The lowest of the low!’ sound like the most disgusting insult she has ever hurled. Death, destruction and tragedy, Peri wonders why they never see the wonderful things in the universe (the Doctor says they do but they never notice them). The symbols on the walls match the symbol on Erimem’s ring – the sign of Sekmet. Peri’s relationship with Zixlyr turns out to be one of the highlights of this adventure; it is one that is built on suspicion that turns into trust and then respect.

Dusky Queen: Erimem’s departure has been foreshadowed since Three’s a Crowd and more recently was brought up in both Son of the Dragon and The Mind’s Eye. She was brought up amongst sandstone and marble and she finds the citadel on Peladon comforting. Even the highest amongst the people need reminding that they are ultimately nothing but a breath in the wind of time. The Doctor has taught her that history is like a great tree and you may snap of a twig here or cut off a branch there but the tree keeps growing. From a distance it is the same tree despite all their efforts. Erimem finds the surface of Peladon wild, savage and beautiful and she has never seen a suns set like it. With all the bravery of her ancestors behind her Erimem stands up to the awesome power of Sekmet and tells her proudly that she comes from the people who defeated her. Erimem is the last royal female needed to free Sekmet from her prison, a Pharaoh out of time brought to Peladon by the Doctor. She offers herself to Sekmet and the Last of the Pharaoh’s sacrificing herself for the Last of the Osirans has a gleeful ring of irony to the murderous Goddess. She poisoned her own blood with distilled Mandrake root to kill the murderess. She has loved travelling with the Doctor and Peri but all the time she has been evading her true destiny to rule. She understands Peladon’s society, its traditions and politics. It is a world that needs a strong ruler and she feels she can show Pelleas how to be a good ruler as his mentor and wife. It’s basically the Leela departure done right with Erimem staying in character.

Standout Performance: Its another very strong cast assembled by director supremo Barnaby Edwards and this is one story where the performances have to be pitch perfect to magic up the atmosphere of those Peladon stories from the seventies. For once we have a role for squeaky voiced Jane Goddard that perfectly suits her shrill delivery and she does a very good take on Ysanne Churchman in bringing alive the uber-cute Alpha Centuri. Much criticised Nicholas Briggs is wonderful as the Ice Lord Zixlyr, imbuing the character with the right sense of honour and menace. I cannot fail to spot the quality of Phyllida Law’s rich voice in the role of Belldonia, she was a revelation in the SJA story Eye of the Gorgon and she is just as impressive here. I was very pleased that she wasn’t written as stubbornly as Hepesh in Curse of Peladon (for she plays the same role) and Law gives the character a sense of decency even when she is acting against our heroes best interests. Jenny Agutter is billed as ‘the voice’ to keep the surprise about the nature of her character and she is a seducing disembodied spirit for the most part before unleashing all the laughter and madness of hell upon Peladon.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘There is a dark secret at the heart of Peladon. A secret that kills…’
‘Revenge isn’t justice, Zixlyr! If you truly wanted to put right your sisters death you’d find out for certain who killed her and expose the villains! That way you come out a hero and not just some maniac with a bomb!’ – Wowza, this is another brilliant performance from Nicola Bryant. She has been fiery before but she is sublimely ranging with fury in this tale.
‘The raging lioness had developed a taste for blood and began slaughtering every living thing in an orgy of killing!’
‘The universe will be my plaything once more.’
‘I think you can beat anyone, Doctor.’
‘When I leave Doctor I promise…it wont be because I am going to marry some alien King!’ – agreat last line.

Great Ideas: The witching hour is when the people of Peladon are said to have pledged themselves to the dark beast. The TARDIS has picked up a distress signal and rushed to the rescue, an Ice Lord was enroute to take up his new post on Peladon when the ship was attacked and the pilot killed as they passed close to the border of Arcturus. Peladon and Earth are about to be uniting once again by a royal marriage (of convenience). The awkward scenes between Pelleas and Pandora feel very natural as the two halves of an arranged marriage try and feel each other out (she is brutally honest about being in love with somebody else and I really admired the admission). The item that Zixlyr stole was not merely a necklace but a memory hub from the Martian warrior that he has replaced. Zixlyr carried a volatiser from the crash (pretending it was a survival kit) to avenge the death of his sister who has died on Peladon. He detonated a device that was enough to cripple but not destroy his ship because he needed to reach Peladon without going through the standard security steps. Elkin is such a gloriously deceptive character you cannot help but cheer him on – he doesn’t want to split the trisillicate profits 50/50 with Arctos but take them all for himself and nab his spaceship off of Peladon while he is there. He gets murdered by his cohort for his troubles! Pandora manages to score points with her new mother in law by pushing her out of the way of the tumbling statue of Aggedor when the explosion rips through the citadel. Jars holding the viscera of female leaders guarded over by Sekmet who has been imprisoned in a crystal tomb for countless millennia. Only the blood of four royal females can unlock her prison and Pandora is the third after Pelleas’ mother and Alixyr. Sekmet was an Osiran, a member of a noble race of super beings who ruled the universe millions of years ago. Trisillicate is the hardest form of salt in the galaxy and it made up Sekmet’s prison ship, which crash-landed on Peladon thousands of years before the citadel was even built.

Audio Landscape: After the cinematic The Girl Who Never Was, the first episode of Bride of Peladon is similarly immersive with some fantastically visual action and a real sense of gothic mood created within a science fiction setting. Footsteps, church bell ringing, Ice Warrior hissing over the crackling intercom, drilling into Mount Megashra, stone falling and breaking, Peri and her fire extinguisher, a hull breach, the raising pitch of the engines as the spacecraft enters the atmosphere, the awesome level of destruction as they crash into the planet, sizzling blood in the fire, the burning ship buckling and then exploding, the cries of Aggedor, the charging beast, purring after being seduced by the Venusian lullaby, squeaky wooden doors to Peladon’s system of caves, crackling flames, the wind drifting down the tunnels, the bomb exploding, stabbings and blood flowing, the juice of pomegranates flowing, encased in a tomb of salt, Aggedor bashing through a wooden door.

Musical Cues: Another decent ERS score with some pleasing vocals that enhance the evocation of religion on Peladon. The dramatic score at the end of episode is particularly good.

Standout Scene: Part three sees all of the plot threads dovetailing together with precision with bridges made between characters, double crosses exposed and characters murdered. My favourite moment came when Arctos had killed his co-conspirator and escaped to his ship with the trisillicate only to be confronted by a silent assailant. He screams ‘you!’ in shock before he is shot and suddenly the whole piece is an Agatha Christie style mystery to discover who is behind this whole crazy affair. It turns out to be…Alpha Centuri! Hahaha! I love Erimem’s dramatic telling of the rise and fall of Sekmet at the beginning of episode four.

Notes: Within the first fifteen minutes we have heard Ice Warriors, an Arcturan and Alpha Centuri and it is amazing how quickly the atmosphere of the Peladon stories is conjured up with the delightful voices of the various alien races involved. Since this is the end of the road for the team of the fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem (we wont even have any adventures for the fifth Doctor and Peri after this aside from Mission of the Viyrans) it is worth noting their last handful of stories are The Council of Nicaea (9/10), The Kingmaker (10/10), Son of the Dragon (10/10) and The Mind’s Eye (8/10. An incredible run of stories for this trio to go out on.

Result: Barnaby Edwards’ first script for the main range is an exciting reminiscence of past adventures on Peladon but with a darkly intelligent new take on the planet. The script is remarkably clear and full of incident and Edwards matches the quality of the dialogue and plotting with a futuristic gothic atmosphere that pervades the entire production. There is plenty here that will remind you of the seventies Peladon adventures but this is not simply a nostalgia fest because it continues the legacy of those tales by bringing it bang up to date and marrying it to some fascinating mythology from Earth. Of course this is where we wave goodbye to Erimem and it feels like it is too soon to say goodbye to such a strong character but at least she goes out on a high with her fans wanting more. Her decision to leave is perfectly understandable (and well built up in a number of her previous adventures) but that doesn’t mean that saying goodbye is any less upsetting. Another very strong story in what is turning into a splendid run of adventures: 9/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/104-Doctor-Who-The-Bride-of-Peladon

The Girl Who Never Was written by Alan Barnes and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: 'Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. Someone's listening. Somewhere.' A ghost ship. A girl with no memory, adrift in time. An old enemy. This could be Charlotte Pollard's finest hour - or her last. Set course for Singapore, 1931. Journey's end.

Breathless Romantic: Alan Barnes is clearly very fond of holding up the very thing we fell in love with about the Doctor and his companion before ripping them apart – he does it here with Charley when they leap back into the TARDIS after this mind boggling adventure ready for some more jolly adventures together and he did exactly the same thing with Lucie in Death in Blackpool by allowing us one last joyful adventure with her before splitting the pair up. The Doctor has a permanent suite at the Singapore Hilton since 1872. Its one part sweet and another part sad that the Doctor cannot let Charley go and literally chases after her taxi trying to tempt her with more adventures. Does he witter at people or despite them? Hilariously the Doctor marches in on the Cybermen in 1931 all bluster and whispers his escape plan in Charley’s ear…not realising that she has been turned into their leader! It was the Doctor who through some temporal trickery stopped the torpedoes from striking – he delayed their advance but thought he might need a little distraction and so.... INCOMING! Sometimes you just gotta love this guy! Once again the Doctor enthuses about Mary Shelley – considering he is the most romantic of Doctor’s that is understandable but it is awesome that there were so many references before she actually became his companion.

Edwardian Adventuress: Well bugger me backwards with a pool cue…C’rizz leaves and suddenly the eighth Doctor and Charley are a combo that works a charm again! It’s like the entire nasty-taste-in-your-mouth Divergent universe never happened and everything that followed has been wiped away! This is the beginning of the end for Charlotte Pollard but it is also the beginning of the renaissance for a character who has been cruising along shamelessly for a number of years. From The Girl Who Never Was right though to Blue Forgotten Planet we get to experience and fascinating new take on the character and also her strongest run of adventures since she joined the Doctor. The big development at the end of this story will be discussed in The Condemned but needless to say suddenly that exciting, revolutionary character that thrilled and enchanted her audience back in the day (or at least from Storm Warning through to Neverland) is back and she’s better than ever. I love the idea of Charley heading off in a taxi to who knows where and relishing the thought of it, flirting with guys and running her own life for a change.

There is simply too much backstory for Charley that interesting things simply self-perpetuate from her very existence. Practical be blowed, Charley will get by on her own and she refuses to talk about the situation anymore with the Doctor. She’s stubborn but then she always has been and the Doctor’s heartless behaviour in the last story (especially in comparison with his agonised reaction when he thought he might lose her in Neverland) has knocked her for six. She promises with some venom that she wont do anything to damage the precious Web of Time that has caused so many problems on their adventures. It’s rather beautiful that Charley will see the Doctor off with a hug and then close her eyes, count to ten and he will be gone. As soon as she realises that she is in 2008 rather than her own time she accuses the Doctor of not trusting her with the responsibility of not going home to her family after she was announced dead. Charley has a Chopsticks moment with a piano. Clearly Charley has acquired a wealth of technical and futuristic know-how on her adventures and has a plan to get the telegraph working again using the lightning of an approaching storm. There are so many hints at the seaman being a woman in disguise which would have been irritating anywhere else but this story is constantly making the point of where Charley came from and how she might have ended up. You’ve got to love how Charley whips up Madeleine’s story by telling her own in a very blasé fashion – she has almost become a mouthpiece for the listener at this point. She thought she was rubbish but Madeleine’s story is even more tragic. It comes to Charley having to forget all of her adventures with the Doctor but as much as he tries to hypnotise her those wonderful, frightening, funny and joyous memories refuse to be deleted. Her fake Cyber-accent is hilariously awful! Proving what a tough bitch Charley has become she walks away from Byron as he is eaten away screaming by the temporal fungus saying ‘It hasn’t been fun!’ What a kick ass babe. In her note to the Doctor she tells him he was the best man she has ever known but they have chanced their luck a little too often. She can go anywhere and be anyone she wants and she asks him not to look for her. Charley will always remember him.

Standout Performance: As Barnaby Edwards says in the extras it is definitely one of the best casts assembled for a Big Finish Production with the likes of Danny Webb and Anna Massey both making the most of this trippy script. However the performer who stood out for me in this was India Fisher who gave her best ever performance as Charley - topping probably even her career best in Neverland. It must have been nigh on impossible to play out those early scenes where Charley has to thump home that she doesn’t want to travel with the Doctor anymore and somehow Fisher manages to make these scenes both likable and draw the audience into her excitement at what they future might bring. She’s an authorative presence with her own narrative strand and her scarce scenes with the Doctor reveal those sparks of chemistry that wowed us in the first steps of Big Finish’s main range. What’s more she is about to be paired up with my personal favourite Doctor and who knows what magic they will create together.

Sparkling Dialogue: Alan Barnes conjures up Singapore Harbour beautifully: ‘The Harbour has hardly changed since the East India Company set up shop. Steamers up from Jakarta bringing spices and teak. Junk boats defying the South China seas. Smells of coffee and cuttlefish over the water. And firecrackers on New Years Eve making dragons tails in the air.’
‘In the absence of a cleverer idea…leg it!’
‘Tin cans with squashed people!’ – sums up the Cybermen quite nicely.
‘Cybermen do not discriminate by gender’ – whilst I am not suggesting for a second that we should turns ourselves over for conversion for enlightenment I found this line particularly chilling because it shows a side to their uniformity that is preferable to our individuality.
‘Careful they’re made of iron but they don’t do irony.’
‘Charlotte Pollard fell through the Web of Time. Charlotte Pollard died and still lived. The future can always be changed.’
‘You’re the Doctor! You might just be the oddest man I’ve ever met!’
‘I’m sorry…I was expecting someone else.’

Great Ideas: Oh dear, the Doctor got the time wrong and landed Charley in 2008 rather than the 1930s. Temporal corrosion is a fungus that lives in the vortex (Charley brilliantly says ‘I didn’t bring it here!’). The fungus eating through a ship and chasing them to the TARDIS is an awesome moment of drama; it is one of the few things that can eat through the Doctor’s ship. The first cliffhanger is exactly the sort of (I was going to say game changing but that word gets everywhere and I really don’t like it so lets change it to…) narrative hinging (which isn’t much better) moment that made Son of the Dragon so effective – suddenly we are introduced to Charlotte Pollard senior, an older woman with a son which is a perfectly reasonable situation considering the TARDIS has just taken Charley back in time. The older Charley smacks him in the mouth when he is impolite, just the sort of tough old bird you would expect her to become! It is wonderful to have Charley as the cause in one time zone and the Doctor witnessing and figuring out the effect in another – she is the cause of the Batavia vanishing every time a storm blows up. They discover bullet ricochets in 2008, which begs the questions what in 1931 made them open fire? The HADS operate and Charley loses the TARDIS, which means the ship has detected a fatal event and upon hearing the Cybermen the older Charley remembers their approach in the earlier time period – this is some fine build up to a cliffhanger and no mistake. Rusty, rotting Cybermen who have gone slightly insane but still remember their one purpose in life to convert others like them. Cybermen swimming through the ocean towards the ship (mistaken for submarines) is a dazzling idea. They were forced to leave the vortex in a hurry and could not communicate with their spearhead (‘They’ve taken the phone off the hook!’). So naturally they planned to continue their and convert away and create a Cyber Conversion Facility in 1942. The Cyber Planner consciousness is injected into Charley when its frame is infected with the temporal rust. Madeleine has to escape because the Web of Time says so and as such she has to get into the escape vessel and not dive overboard with everyone else. She will lose her memory and meet up with the Doctor again in 2008. Ooh I’ve gone boss eyed. Charley’s consciousness gets poured into Madeleine’s head so that the timeline is beautifully, pitch perfectly restored. Byron is such a sleaze he tries to stowaway aboard the TARDIS and force the Doctor to take them to 5002 and loot a Cyber Spaceship. Awesomely the infected Cyber planner passes on his temporal fungus to the rest of the ship and Byron and they are all destroyed. The HADS have been prevalent throughout the story so what could have been a convenient plot device to sweep away the TARDIS at the conclusion becomes a moment of brilliant inevitability and Charley is left to her own fate as the ship is about to be destroyed.

Audio Landscape: Busy Singapore Harbour, a clock chiming, phone ringing, cars whizzing by, seagulls screaming, rotting wood snapping, an aircraft screaming through the air spraying bullets, a rumbling storm, the rain lashed deck and whistling wind, the door squeaking open and the Cybermen marching, sonar beeping, oooh it’s the fabulous Cyber Planner (!!!), lovely clumpy Cyber footsteps, scenes of Cybermen succumbing to the temporal rust and literally crumbling to metallic dust, the Doctor diving into the water and dripping over the deck, the ship blowing up with insane destructiveness, the rust cutting through the Cybership,

Musical Cues: The most Zagreus score since The Next Life. I guess I should explain that statement. If you go and listen to the soundtrack of Zagreus (if you can bear to put yourself through Doctor Who’s very own more irritating than pubic lice story) and then each of the stories that ERS scored afterwards without many exceptions you will find a general copy and paste nature to the music. Certainly The Next Life sounds exactly the same. Like the new series it feels like they are trying to create character scores that run through the stories which does work to a degree and at least the music from Zagreus was pretty much the best thing about it. As well as those familiar stings, the music here is bold, cinematic, tuneful and highly atmospheric. It’s probably the best job from ERS yet.

Isn’t it Odd: What a shame that the Cybermen appear on the cover (it’s a great cover by the way) because their inclusion is a complete surprise.

Standout Scene: The Girl Who Never Was is packed to the gills with standout moments but what really struck me where the number of well hidden surprises. The twist that the older woman isn’t Charley but Madeleine is expertly hidden by the wealth of distracting and brilliant stuff that is going on elsewhere. Charley witnessing the Doctor’s death and hearing his silenced heartbeats will haunt her for the rest of her travels. The ending makes it appear that Charley is dead and the Doctor has been duped her note into thinking that she is living her life away from him and then the real shock comes…the TARDIS lands to whisk Charley away but it clearly isn’t the man she was expecting. And Sixie’s theme music starts playing…

Notes: There are some fabulous old-fashioned Cyberman voices in use that whips you back to the 1960s effortlessly.

Result: Take Gary Russell and his poison pen out of the equation and suddenly Alan Barnes delivers a peerless script. Go figure. The Girl Who Never Was has a wealth of goodies to offer and is more evidence that the main range is pretty much back on track. You’ve got some gorgeous exploration and finishing touches to Charley’s long running story, a dual plot that by its very nature ramps up the tension, a dramatic and welcome return of an old foe and a number of exciting and beautifully directed action set pieces. There’s even time for a jolly old singsong! The story is plotted with all the expertise of an orchestra coming together, the first episode setting up the two disparate time zones, the second exploring the nature of cause and effect from one year to another, the third featuring the bold and unforgettable return of the Cybermen before the final episode splits up our long running team with brave and format-breaking certainty. The ideas juggled up in this story are worth the admission price alone, the character work is Barnes back on Neverland form and Barnaby Edwards continues to excel in the directors chair making this a truly cinematic and evocative audio experience. I was gripped throughout and didn’t know where this story was going…its really pleasing to have a story that promises big changes and has lots of fun with it along the way and delivers. When the time comes the parting of the eighth Doctor and Charley is tragic because both are under a misapprehension (she thinks he is dead and he thinks she is happily living her life somewhere away from him) and both characters are about to take an extremely positive step into new territory. Sixie and Lucie here we come! Tremendous: 10/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/103-Doctor-Who-The-Girl-Who-Never-Was

The Mind’s Eye written by Colin Brake and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: This is a warning to all space farers. You must keep away from this planet. It’s hostile, repeat, hostile. On a planet with no name, the Doctor finds himself confronted by a faulty memory and some killer plants. In a distant galaxy, Erimem leads a troubled empire. Back on Earth, Peri tells her son about the good old days when she used to travel with a man called The Doctor.

An English Gentleman: Is there no end to his genius and has a pearl of wisdom for every occasion. Ever the hero the Doctor agrees to be Hayton’s guinea pig and step into Peri and Erimem’s dreams. The Doctor has name dropped Harry Houdini so many times now over various incarnations I think we are due a first Doctor companion chronicles where they meet and get caught up in an alien invasion that requires some expert escapism. I think the first instance of his name is in Planet of the Spiders but I am willing to be corrected on that. The Doctor starts to figure how this world works and conjures up doors to escape through. In the world of dreams would a formidable foe; his imagination could probably see a way out of any situation.

Busty Babe: Peri is living on Earth again with a loving husband and troublesome son. In Kyle’s eyes Peri is a the wicked stepmother and she is having to put up with all the tantrums and door slamming that comes with it. When it comes to discipline at home it is Peri who wears the trousers. As Peri’s dream starts to break down Kyle suffers from Meningitis, she catches her boyfriend in bed with her best friend and running away from them she gets hit by a car. Then her dream twists that around and becomes her ultimate fantasy; she barely has a scratch from her accident, Kyle is healthy again and there was never a question of an affair…Peri’s best friend was simply trying on a dress that Alex was going to surprise her with on an engagement hinging cruise. When the Doctor tries to step in and convince her that her life with Alex and Kyle is a lie she asks him to leave and her fantasy family turn on him. Her subconscious does everything it can to keep her within the dream and a petrol tanker crashes into A&E. Erimem is not certain if she wants to stop travelling with them or not, she is not sure if her dreams were telling her it was time to go.

Dusky Queen: New Cairo was built by the ancestors of Queen Erimem and she has taken up the mantle of power in the 25th Century. One thing she always learnt from the Doctor is that you should never fail to look you opponents in the eye. She has ruled since the colony was founded 25 years ago. Erimem has encased the Pyramids in plastic so that the people will never forget their heritage, where they came from. When she is woken from her dreams she is told that she must have an extremely well developed ego to have conjured up such an important role for herself within the dream and she laughs in affirmation. She sighs that polite soldiers do not exist when she is held hostage.

Standout Performance: Barnaby Edwards never fails to impress with his ability to draw in some fantastic names to his casts and Thomas Brodie Sangster is just about the dream casting of the role of Kyle. Owen Teale always gives 100% in every role I have seen him in (he was perfectly chilling when asked to play an inbred cannibal in Torchwood and he even managed to make the thankless role of a guard impressive in Vengeance on Varos).

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Peri this isn’t real, its like some bad soap opera concocted by your imagination!’ – what else do you expect from the most melodramatic of Americans?

Great Ideas: Wrong footing the audience from the off, The Mind’s Eye offers three entire plausible narratives that show the Doctor, Peri and Erimem no longer travelling together and leaving the audience wondering what could have happened to have split them up. Jekylls are creatures with a split personality. The military believe that the cairopytes have potential as a weapon because they can anethesise their victims and feed on the neural waves of their victims – mind parasites. They send you into a coma, a deep sleep that they plants share with you whilst they are sucking all the goodness from your imagination. A machine based on alien technology that can allow humanity to read and explore people’s dreams. Peri and Erimem are trapped in complex neurological dreamscapes conjured by the plants. If people die in the dream they die in reality too. Interesting how the plants draw on you subconscious desires and give you the chance to work at something you desire – in Erimem’s case it is to create a monument to her Empire and in Peri’s case it is to have a family but in both it is not something that is handed down on a plate. These dreams are more insidious by adding a rebellion and a wayward step son so the dreamer is completely absorbed into working through these problems and making their dreams a reality. I really like the idea of a planet where the animal and plant life work in sync, the Jekylls attacking the survey mission and sharing their bounty with the plants.

Audio Landscape: This story is brought to life with exceptional clarity considering the insane nature of the script and I was never once lost about which time period I was in or what was going on. That on its own is a minor miracle but to add to that the sound design of Steve Foxon is a thing of beauty and there are scenes in this story where if you shut your eyes you are within the story with planes roaring overhead, spaceships exploding and enjoying a good old singsong. Birds chittering, insects humming in the undergrowth, the Doctor shot, door slamming, tape rewinding, running water, door knocking, cutting through undergrowth, hospital atmosphere conjured up with intercoms, coughing and trolleys being pushed, the car screeching and smacking into Peri, explosions, glass breaking, rubble falling, the savage plant life attacking.

Isn’t it Odd: I would never want to take the mickey out of anything that tries to break with the format as much as The Mind’s Eye does and opening with three disparate and mysterious plot threads for each of the regulars sees this story trying its damdest to draw the listener in. What’s a shame is that by the end of the first episode we know precisely that Peri and Erimem are in dreamscapes and how and can start guessing plot twists well ahead of their time. Its far too soon to be in the loop and would have made a far more interesting story had the mystery of their new lives been dragged out until the end of episode two. As soon as there is talk of people dying within the dreams that is followed up with a scene of Erimem being threatened with murder in a crushingly predictable cliffhanger – its precisely that sort of logical, linear storytelling a dream story should be avoiding. What is the most predictable plot twist this story could have taken…Hayton the scientist is as bent as a straw and wants to exploit the commercially viable mind control properties of the plants. The Doctor even says the (so far beyond cliché its almost done a sling back and become innovative) line ‘I thought you were a scientist!’

Standout Scene: The end of episode two came out of nowhere and whilst we had been warned of potential deaths in the dreams I never thought that Brake would go so far as to have Peri being mown down by a car. The ending for Ukarme is awesomely powerful as he finds his way back to the TARDIS with his sister and they join the crew and set sail into space…in reality his greatest dreams are a fiction being dreamed up whilst the plants slowly and insidiously consume his body. Sick and brilliant, taking one of Doctor Who’s most joyous clichés and turning into something sinister.

Result: With the news of Erimem’s impending departure how clever to open a story with her already having left the Doctor and setting up shop on a colony in the future. Maybe it is cutting him down an episode and forcing a tighter script or perhaps the writer has learnt from past mistakes but The Mind’s Eye is hugely superior to Colin Brake’s previous audio - Three’s a Crowd. He throws so many ideas into the script that the audience doesn’t have time to get bored and whereas the regulars were handled dreadfully in his debut script all the Doctor, Peri & Erimem get some superb material here that once proves that it is one of the finest TARDIS teams Big Finish have produced. Several things stop this from being a complete success however; Brake’s plotting is too linear for its own good (simplistically so) and he fails to play about with the nature of reality in a way that is usually a given in these stories preferring instead to ultimately tell a far more traditional Doctor Who story. However there is a pace and sense of drama about this story that keeps it interesting and the direction has a drive and atmosphere to it that makes this story well worth a listen. Whilst this is a good story I honestly think Barnaby Edwards could direct the ass of anything (a shopping list) and make it work: 8/10

Mission of the Viyrans written by Nicholas Briggs and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: The Doctor and Peri take a holiday on the planet Gralista Social, but soon discover they aren't the only time-travelling aliens in town.

An English Gentleman: The Doctor is distracted which Peri puts down to old age and intoxication.

Busty Babe: Peri is not in the mood for socialising, she’s been through a lot lately. Dreams are private and she doesn’t like sharing. . You have to earn her trust and wont get anywhere by threatening her. She feels sad about losing Erimem.

Great Ideas: Peri being interrogated by herself is quite alarming. Peri has told her story 307 times previous to this one in the course of her treatment. The Viyrans find language difficult to understand but can assimilate languages. They cure races by finding patient zero, healing them and expunging the memory of the whole incident.

Audio Landscape: Heavy breathing, water flowing, crickets humming, snoring, I really liked the sequence where Peri was infected and all the sounds around her started to blur away until all we had was her voice and even that was muffled, flying glass coffins shooting past, an owl hooting,

Isn’t it Odd: For the first ten minutes of this story I might have well have created a line of cocaine on my desk and sniffed it all up for all the sense that it made. Its all very well telling stories that jump about the narrative but you have lay down a few ground rules before you start having fun otherwise it is just random weirdness. Every time we seem to be within reach of an explanation the director press the fast forward button on the dialogue or cuts to another scene!

Notes: Whilst this isn’t the most auspicious start for the Viyrans its nice to see that they were well thought through from start with throwaway lines in this story such as memory erasure (Blue Forgotten Planet) and patient zero (umm…Patient Zero) proving to be important lynchpins to future stories.

Result: Mission of the Viyrans is like one of those specially written scenes you get for comic relief which bridges the gap between stories like The Parting of the Ways and The Christmas Invasion. It is in no way a satisfying story within its own right but more a teaser for what is to come. It scores points over 100 Days of the Doctor for not looking to the past for its inspiration but the future and hints of the Viyrans abilities and Erimem’s departure would both bear fruit before long. There’s some nice technical jiggery pokery and Nicola Bryant (as ever) gives it her all but there is nothing especially memorable about this interlude and it is the first one parter that doesn’t feel like a story in its own right: 5/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/102-Doctor-Who-The-Minds-Eye

Absolution written by Scott Alan Woodard and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: The TARDIS breaks down in a forbidden sector of space. Ghostly voices cry out for salvation and only C'rizz, the Doctor's Eutermesan companion, can answer their call - for only he knows the secret of the Absolver. But will he use it to rescue his friends or save the universe? The Doctor's sins are catching up with him and the infernal beast Borarus is hungry. Time is running out and Judgement Day is at hand. Welcome to Hell…

Breathless Romantic: Given the events at the end of this story and their tragic goodbyes in their next story together it seems almost cruel to have the Doctor and Charley getting on so well in this story. No mushy romance, no evil anti time energies, just two friends working together and enjoying each other’s company. If you listened to this story after Neverland you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between their interaction there and here. The Doctor calls C’rizz his own deus ex machina! As soon as the Doctor tries to jump back in the TARDIS and merrily skip over C’rizz’s death and move on to the next destination I was holding my breath waiting for Charley to burst. Whilst he objects, Charley tries to force the Doctor to admit that he never really cared for him and everything about his behaviour (especially his tone) suggests that she is right. People come and go, its not that he doesn’t care but ultimately everybody leaves and its just the TARDIS and him.

Edwardian Adventuress: Do you know I can remember a single domestic scene in the TARDIS between C’rizz and Charley before this story? Correct me if I’m wrong but the most we have had is console room scenes that are more plot than character oriented. Maybe that’s why this threesome never gelled like some of the others (Peri & Erimem, Ace & Hex). When the Doctor talked about jump-starting the TARDIS I had a sudden rush of nostalgia for the TV Movie which feels like such a distance from this story. Charley starts ranting about how the Doctor preferred it all before the Divergent Universe (didn’t we all) with the Doctor hopping around the universe with sweet, naïve Charlotte Pollard. Hooray – Charley tells the Doctor to take her home which no longer means the TARDIS.

Chameleonic Rogue: I would like to say that C’rizz gets a decent ending in this story but all I can say is that it is dramatic. He dies. That’s no great secret years after this story was released and his death scene is pretty well executed and even better the fallout from his dispatch has a damning effect on the Doctor and Charley’s relationship that gives them the only positive boost they have had since Neverland. The trouble I had with Absolution was its handling of C’rizz for the rest of the story – he is basically written out of the main plot and has a handful of scenes where he learns to channel the powers of the Dark Side before turning up at the end as an all-conquering anti God and threatens to slaughter everything. You realise with a sudden crushing inevitability that he has to die, not only because his secret is out but because this is a last ditch effort to do something memorable with the character and its as camp as Christmas and fails to work. He considers the TARDIS his home now and the Doctor and Charley his family. With C’rizz and Charley getting on so well (they are almost flirting in his room) you should figure that something horrendous is going to happen to one of them. The voices of C’rizz’s victims are reaching out to haunt him again and considering the revelation of his murderous, soul saving appetite was served up 37 releases ago you might have thought that this would have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion by now. Shoehorning C’rizz into the role of the leader of hell seems to be a desperate last attempt to do something interesting with the character and whilst it has some appeal (mainly because he is used to talking to desperate souls) his speech to the denizens of the underworld feels painfully forced. He starts to be intoxicated by the power that Aboresh coaxes from him. C’rizz genuinely believes he absolved the people he killed but it is driven into him that he damned them. C’rizz was a vessel that was created to hold the thoughts and essences of the Eutermesans after their deaths, preserving them in the hope that one day future generations would solve the problem of eternal life. Aboresh said the Doctor interfered in C’rizz’s development but he feels the Time Lord taught him that he can forge his own destiny and brought him the gift of Time. He misses L’da so much and he wants to be with her now.

Standout Performance: Its so refreshing to see Paul McGann and India Fisher being giving some decent material and in Absolution we get to enjoy them firstly with their chemistry at its best and then in the final devastating scene with fireworks exploding between them. Who knew there was still mileage amongst this pair?

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I am not an Angel of Death!’
‘All you care about…is this wretched machine!’

Great ideas: The TARDIS is buffeted by psychic interference, confused by a good brain scrambling! I know it has been done before but there is something extremely evocative about a graveyard of spaceships. A forbidden area of space with no trespass beacons. Hellions are parasites, transdimensional creatures that home in on chaotic eddies in the improbabilities scheme. They feed on improbabilities and so the larger the likelihood of something not happening that does, the more they feast. Nice to see that there are other console rooms dotted about other than the McGann, season 14 and the white washed walled one. The Doctor has never seen anything like this with its pillars of flames, skeletal figures and airborne figures – he describes it as infernal. Probing other dimensions looking for minerals and so forth but when they saw the potential of transporting materials from dimension to another exploration was out the window and conquest was in. Transporting an army in the wink of an eye, arrive and conquer. In this dimension you live for thousands of years, everything is as it was on the day the world ended. Nobody can die or change, bodies repair themselves. Children are impossibility, everything resets and nothing evolves. Why Aboresh was fired he sabotaged the machinery that left them stuck here as souls in torment. C’rizz absorbs the power of the genetic assimilator which breaks down his genome and kills him.

Audio Landscape: Barnaby Edwards has a fair old stab at bringing hell to life on audio and there are a number of scenes that crawl under the skin with the atmosphere of horror and depravity. Screaming torments of hell, high pitched screaming creature, bashing at the exterior of the TARDIS, terrifying alien chanting, a heartbeat in the control room, the squeaky voiced Hellions, the Doctor and Charley smashing open a door, crackling fire, an almighty crack of thunder, C’rizz shattering to nothing.

Musical Cues: Deep male vocals add weight to some of the more dramatic scenes. There is the oddest of sound effects that plays between scenes, it sounds like somebody tuning a high-pitched radio and it’s exactly the sort of thing they use on the Big Finish extras. It’s really unusual but kind of effective because of it, driving home the discordant feel of the story. The drums come out in the last episode to add even more noise to all angst and screaming.

Isn’t it Odd: Whilst opening with a moody location I found the characters a little tricky to discern in the first episode and there wasn’t a great deal that distinguished them. The cliffhangers are oddly muted and considering there are scenes such as the TARDIS console exploding with blood (which would have been an tremendous ending to an episode) the moments chosen are quiet and undramatic. There seems to be some in fighting in the hell dimension but you’ll not give a damn about this subplot. Oddly for his last story C’rizz vanishes for the better part of episodes two and three. At the heart of all this bluster is a story about a family torn apart by greed and a love affair that turned sour but both revelations come from no where and lack any kind of emotional weight.

Standout Scene: The TARDIS console gorged with blood and bursting open is a sickeningly potent image, the ship trying to tell the Doctor that she is in pain as she plunges into hell.

Result: I am so conflicted over this release, moreso than any other I have listened to in the main range. It has such a wealth of good and bad elements that I should be aiming for an average mark but overall I came away with a positive feeling. In the red corner we have a fantastic hellish atmosphere brewed up by Barnaby Edwards, a long overdue conclusion to the running joke that is C’rizz, some lovely interaction between the Doctor and Charley and an ending that will take your breath away with its intensity. And in the blue corner we have a dull and unengaging plot, tedious and unmemorable guest characters and a general feeling that the idea of a trip to hell has been squandered by a writer who fails to brew up a remotely interesting framework with his fairly imaginative concepts. I don’t want to be so facetious to suggest that my good will is entirely because C’rizz has finally departed (and in a wonderfully permanent sort of way…if anybody deserved to go the same way as Adric) but I really liked the feelings it brought to the surface in the Doctor and Charley. Things are not going to be smooth for these two and finally, violently, the Eight Doctor Adventures are ripping apart a team that never worked and fling its two best characters in fascinating new directions: 7/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/101-Doctor-Who-Absolution

100 written by Jacqueline Rayner, Robert Shearman, Joseph Lidster & Paul Cornell and directed by Nicholas Briggs

100BC by Jacqueline Rayner

What’s it about: The Doctor and Evelyn arrive in Rome, 101 BC, approximately, October. They meet a young lady of 19, Aurelia. She mentions her husband - Julius Caesar. Evelyn is excited, but her excitement soon turns to confusion. Surely you can't heal a wound in time with just a bit of sticking plaster?

Softer Six: The Doctor takes Evelyn to the height of the Roman Empire, which he considers the birthplace of civilisation! Evelyn’s insane theory about the Doctor saving the life of Orelia and delivering Caeser is one of those left-the-iron moments of OCD for the Doctor. He knows its ridiculous but he just has to pop back just in case she is right. The Doctor proves to be a superb musician (clearly he’s had a lesson or two since The Romans) and rustles up a Roman menu that would have had him earning X points on the Come Dine With Me Roman special!

Learned Lecturer: Whilst she mocks the Doctor getting his toga in a twist for visiting the time of Caesar and Nero it is another historical period that she does find rather exciting to visit. She fancies visiting Cicero and chatting about politics and philosophy until she realises he would be about five. Her Queen of Hearts impression is hilariously awful! Rome is smellier, noisier and grottier than she remembered but it doesn’t matter because stepping into the pages of history is always special to her. Usually they expect the best and get the worst but this time they suspected the worst and everything has gone tickety-boo! Whoops – the Doctor suggests the horror of the most important Roman of all time being a female to which Evelyn takes great umbrage which leads to her determined to ensure that this version of history they have created remains to prove that it could work. Misguided and insane, but quite a fun idea (and anybody who takes this too seriously should get their knickers out of a twist and go and listen to Bang Bang a Boom as penance). . She never had children and she never will and she seems quietly devastated that there is nothing of her going on into the future. Suddenly our lovable Evelyn is replaced by an insane dictator who thinks that she is with the Doctor for a reason, to ensure that women take over history and rewrite it for the better! It’s the craziest leap of character logic we have ever seen from the woman (although her assertion of there being no wars, no poverty and no size zero models making the world a better place is an appealing one). Maybe it is something to do with the execution but people seem to have no problem at all with Barbara’s mad scheme to salvage the Aztec Empire and radically change history and yet when Evelyn suggests the same thing it is suddenly the work of a deranged psychotic. And trust me both Barbara and Evelyn’s plans would have had similarly drastic changes to the timeline. Maybe it is because Evelyn feels dictatorial whereas Barbara took a gentler approach to her schemes and yet I know which of them is posing as an Aztec God to get her way! We get to see a touch of the insidious, pig headed Evelyn that probably drove her husband insane. She does genuinely believe that the future would be better with women in charge but comes to understand that children aren’t about the future but the present.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Its as if the Queen had given birth to Charles in Hackney!’
‘Are you suggesting I deliver Julius Caeser?’

Great Ideas: In the oddest of circumstances Oreilia, mother of Julius Caesar, seems to recognise the Doctor and Evelyn! She is all in favour of watching history being made but gate crashing the night when Mr and Mrs Caeser decide to get jiggy with it and begin the stirrings of an Emperor in her womb is perhaps a little too intimate even for them! The birth Julia Caeser, a baby girl, comes as much of a shock to the audience as the Doctor and Evelyn. The Doctor and Evelyn know each other a little too well to be able to outsmart each other – she preys on the Doctor’s chivalry to get him gone whilst she has her wicked way with history and he (seeing through her charade) tries to convince her that he is from their personal future, one where history is changed permanently for the worst (which she sees through!). By throwing out the Doctor and Evelyn in an incredibly manly way Orelia suddenly gets the horn in a big way and we realise that Julia Caeser was the great mans younger sister and this is the day he was conceived – whoops! So all this fuss and nonsense is for nothing!

Audio Landscape: Marketplace bawdiness, dogs barking, carts being wheeled past, crackling fire, the painful screams of the birth of Julius Caeser, the baby crying, the Doctor playing a musical instrument.

Isn’t it Odd: When I first listened to 100 I was obscenely excited to hear another audio release from the sixth Doctor and Evelyn and hoped two towns along to the nearest BBC Shop to nab it as soon as it was released. I was too on the edge of my seat to wait until I got home and I put the first CD on in the car and I remember vividly sinking into my seat with horror at this tale unfolding before me. Jac Rayner, writer of two of the most perfect Doctor Who audios featuring this duo, delivering a story where the two of them weren’t getting along and literally fighting each other to alter history. I was appalled. What an extreme overreaction that was. After just listening to this adventure and aside from some stirrings of discontent between my favourite Doctor/companion team this was quirky, format breaking and pretty audacious (especially after just listening to Heroes of Sontar and Kiss of Death which are the latest Doctor Who releases and seem to go out of their way to be as traditional and vanilla as possible). Why does the music bleed into the last scene when the Doctor and Evelyn are finally getting along?

Standout Scene: The Doctor trying to make an atmosphere conducive to the Caeser’s sliding beneath the sheets with music whilst Evelyn comes crashing in with a party noisemaker and ruining the mood made me howl with laughter!

Result: The only story to have Evelyn inadvertently and deliberately change the sex of an important historical figure! I understand what Jac Rayner was trying to do with this story, its her own little touch of the Romans (comedy misunderstandings, bawdiness and all) with a dash of female emancipation. Evelyn’s sudden history altering tirade does seem massively out of character but its just supposed to be a bit of enjoyment and not taken too seriously and I think had the director toned down Maggie Stables Hitleresque performance a tad this story would be much better thought upon. Really what she is suggesting is no less devastating than Barbara salvaging the Aztecs and Vicki poisoning Nero and those acts of stupidity are happily skipped over. Like Renaissance of the Daleks before it, 100BC is no-where near as bad as its reputation and with a few tweaks could have made a very funny piece indeed. As it is I enjoyed it far more this time round than on my first listening and found premise reasonably thought provoking and the easy resolution quite a charmer. Flawed but fun: 7/10

My Own Private Wolfgang by Rob Shearman

What’s it about: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Born in 1756, a veritable wunderkind - playing music for the crowned heads of Europe as an infant, composing by the time he was five years old. But it's tempting to wonder whether his amazing longevity has overshadowed his creative genius - would Mozart's music be better respected, maybe, if he'd died as a young man? Would he be a legend of music, rather than of scientific curiosity, if he'd never lived to compose the film score for the remake of The Italian Job?

Softer Six: The Doctor offers Mozart a scone that he has baked himself (Mozart that is, not the Doctor), which he has ‘nibbled around the edges.’

Learned Lecturer: Evelyn always thought there never was a Mozart, that it was just a name people hid behind when they didn’t want to own up to the fact that they had written something really, really bad. Her suggesting that with immortality being a rather permanent fixture why doesn’t he try something other than writing music? Poor Evelyn spends the entire week washing up! After her affirmation of female emancipation in the last story this must feel like the most appalling lapse in her lifestyle!

Standout Performance: Even the fact that the back cover ruins all the twists in this little slice of brilliance couldn’t take away from the joy of hearing John Sessions working his way through a succession of different Mozart’s.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I especially liked the diddly dum bit in the middle!’
‘If you’ve had a genius for something its very hard at putting up with being just alright at something else.’
‘Tell him you’ve changed your mind!’ ‘Yes I can really see the Devil buying that!’
‘I’ve heard of artists being self obsessed but employing yourself as your own butler is taking things too far!’
‘Every home with a Mozart of its own!’
‘A man who’s me is telling me I mustn’t trust another man…who’s me?’
‘My future music…will it be like this pastry?’ ‘Oh even worse once you discover hip hop!’
‘There will always be fans and fans never know when enough is enough.’
‘Nobody likes anything that comes to an abrupt en –‘

Great Ideas: Visiting a masked ball at Mozart’s 100th birthday party is an enchanting idea to build a little story around. Poor Mozart comes out with a theatrical flourish and performs his final symphony – shooting himself in the head several times and failing to die. This is exactly the sort of sick wit I love in Rob Shearman’s work and why I miss him so much in the audio series. Well-bred butlers don’t shoot people, good grief! The Doctor asks how Mozart is feeling after firing three bullets into his temple and he replies ‘rather sore.’ He’s tried stabbing himself, hanging and now bullets. Mozart was told he could live forever if he wrote a new symphony on every birthday and he made the deal. To hear Mozart talking about his attempts at pottery and baking (cheesy twists and scones are specialty, you know) made me howl with laughter! A mysterious villain who dresses in black and chuckles and the Doctor greets with an astonished gasp of ‘You!?’ But it turns out to be another Mozart rather than the Master! Thousands of years after his death a corporation time travelled back to Salzburg and scraped Mozart’s fingerprints from his long rusted harpsichords and from the DNA created him anew! So far 800,000 Mozart’s have been created, doing the washing up, the ironing…even the babysitting! The audience at the concert are all Mozart’s! So…to sum up Mozart popped back and cured himself of Tuberculosis and set himself writing new symphonies! The very idea that the people who are famous for dying at the height of their powers, for perfecting their talent and being snatched away from us before we had a chance to see their downfall is an extremely potent one that struck a chord with me. It made me start to think through all the famous people from the arts that have had their day but might have been considered visionaries had they died in their heyday…and people who died as legends but might have vanished into obscurity had they lived a longer, less piquant lifestyle. That’s the beauty of a good Rob Shearman script; he gets under your skin and makes you think.

Audio Landscape: Polite chatter at the party, bullets spitting out of his body as it heals, Evelyn popping through time, scrubbing the pans, a ticking grandfather clock,

Musical Cues: There is an appropriately grandiose score to this episode that is imbued with faux Mozart pieces – quite appropriate for a story about fakes Mozart’s!

Standout Scene: The closing scene that sees a temporal intervention, a blatant disregard of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, a paradox and the nibbling of a scone that changes the future forever. The last line is gorgeous.

Result: The only story to feature Evelyn and Mozart doing the washing up together (‘I’m not drying up this saucepan’ she tells him ‘it still has marks all over it!’). Rob Shearman you twisted genius how I have missed you unique brand of storytelling! To put it simply, Circular Time & Son of the Dragon aside, this is the best thing to be produced since Briggs took over from Russell at Big Finish. It reminds me of the audio series when it was at its height; witty, clever, thoughtful, impeccably performed (John Sessions is clearly having a blast) and a delight to listen to. The tragedy at the heart of this comedy, the romantic climax to Mozarts life blunted by the fact that he survived and his genius turned into a symbol of mockery simply by living adds a whole new dimension to events. Throw in the two best regulars the audios have produced and you have an absolute belter, an inspired piece of farce with a delicious edge to it. This should have opened the collection: 10/10

Bedtime Story by Joseph Lidster

What’s it about: Once upon a time... Jacob Williams is going to tell the tale of Sleeping Beauty but he realises he has told that one too many times so, instead, tells of how he once met this man called the Doctor... It's a tale of love and death and a family with a terrifying secret…

Softer Six: He loves a good scone. The Doctor has the ability of instantly managing to question things. He is creeped out by the death of Mary because from his perspective she is both dead and alive. The Doctor knows that Evelyn was responsible for the poisoning because she hasn’t displayed her zest for a good mystery and has simply stood in the background saying ‘what’s going on Doctor’ which isn’t her style at all. The Doctor has never known the responsibility of love

Learned Lecturer: Turning up on the doorstep of one of her students (again) doesn’t seem to bother him too much and apparently Evelyn wasn’t just famous for her disappearing act but also her ability to down a pint of Guinness! She’s a one, isn’t she? Evelyn was the best tutor he ever had. They aren’t like that, her and the Doctor…he’s far too old for her! Evelyn has changed since she has been travelling with the Doctor, nowadays it is all ‘yes, dear’ where she used to be a right party animal.

Standout Performance: Maggie Stables seems to enjoy the chance to ham it up as the monster of the piece, giving a bravura performance of delicious, camp villainy.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘All of them, buried alive, lying in the coffin. Awake. Presumably until their mind breaks.’
‘Time for beddy-byes, Doctor!’

Great Ideas: Joe Lidster has a handle on touches of realism in his Doctor Who stories that at their best rival no other. Just go and listen to the first scene of this story featuring a mother who happily gives her opinion to her son and his girlfriend (I mean, fiancé) and somehow manages to compliment the former exponentially whilst insulting the latter and providing a general air of she’s not good enough. If you don’t recognise at least some of that in your own family you haven’t lived. The idea of death on cue at a predetermined time and the occupants of this house being aware of it is skin crawling enough but to follow that up with Frank being conscious as he was placed in a coffin and buried should strike a note of horror in everybody. Every time a boy is born the grandparents die. Someone long lived, vindictive and full of hate who wants to blend in and watch this family suffer. As soon as the Doctor reveals that the alien is a shape shifter there is a real touch of the killer among us and nobody is above suspicion. Lost to the darkness for so many years and drawn to the Earth by its wealth of emotion, the alien took human form and fell in love with Tobias Williams. On their wedding day the creature was spurned when it revealed its true self to Tobias. Burnt at the stake and burning inside with hatred, the true form escaped the fire and the creature swore that he would never be happy. The creatures enjoys boasting about its monstrous curse on the family that the older generation should when the younger generation are born but rather than risk the secret being revealed it poisons those it tells afterwards, forcing them to sleep for 100 years as their families mourn them and dispose of their bodies. The curse is broken when it is revealed that the baby isn’t Jacob’s and he murders himself – the whole family is asleep and silenced and there is no one left to torture. The twist ending that sees the creature outwitting the Doctor and continuing the curse is awesome.

Audio Landscape: Ticking clock, doorbell, the computer booting up, the juxtaposition of listening to a woman choke to death followed by the crying gurgling of a baby is really uncomfortable, Evelyn melts away to nothing with a death scream.

Musical Cues: The most atmospheric score of the piece with stirrings of piano and string work, which combine to create something chilling to wrap around you on cold winter nights.

Standout Scene: The Doctor’s gift of taking those sleeping for 100 years away and showing them the universe and then bringing them back to their lives when they wake up is a lovely ghoulish fairytale touch. A happy ending that is paused for a century of nothing. Which is then completely crushed in the awesome final scene.

Notes: There is more than a little touch of Trevor Baxendale’s The Deadstone Memorial and Matthew Graham’s Fear about the Doctor and Evelyn turning up on someone’s doorstep at night and involving themselves in domestic cum horrific affairs.

Result: The only story where Evelyn murders her way through an entire family. Listening to Wolfgang and Bedtime Story back to back you realise how boundary pushing both Shearman and Joe Lidster are in very different ways. They both have a touch of uncomfortable touch of the macabre to their writing and they enjoy twisting the knife into reality and giving it a good wrench. Where Shearman plumps for a comic angle, Lidster likes taking you down the realism approach and offering a glimpse of your own life that is just out of reach skewed by a sense of horror. This story has a double twist ending that just keeps getting better and constantly wrong foots the listener and denies them a happy ending. Creepy and fun, it was a delight to be scared: 9/10


100 Days of the Doctor by Paul Cornell


What’s it about: Someone has assassinated the Doctor. And he only has 100 days to find out who did it…

Softer Six: If he has one defining characteristic it is that he different from everyone, even his other selves! Evelyn could never hurt his feelings. Sixie on Five: ‘I don’t want to speak ill of him, he’s interested in sports, terrible dress sense.’ In his fifth incarnation he entirely platonically used to put his arm around his pretty female assistants and everyone seems to like this gentler persona much to old Sixie’s annoyance! Being liked isn’t the be all and end all…what’s right is usually the opposite of what the majority would agree with. He admits that being his former self was like being on a wonderful holiday but he didn’t like the way the universe treated him. He’s often when he’s happiest when he has created a family for himself, he concludes as he sees his future regeneration with Ace and Hex. Braxiatel was always the sensible one…and the condescending one. One of his favourite days was flying kites with Evelyn.

Learned Lecturer: A few weeks ago when Evelyn’s back was giving her gib the Doctor didn’t complain at all so now she will return the favour and not point out his every wince and twinge. She thinks the fifth Doctor is dashing and thin and hangs around with such pretty girls (Peri & Erimem). She cheekily suggests that the Doctor wouldn’t have remembered her amongst all the pretty girls but he assures her that wouldn’t be the case at all. Evelyn gets to see the seventh Doctor before her first actually meeting with him in Thicker than Water and her in depth conversation with him in A Death in the Family. She calls Hex a dashing young man, completely unaware that he is Cassie’s son but this will all be dealt with in some considerable depth later. Evelyn found Bernice to be great company and she drinks like a fish!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘We now return the control of the Doctor’s body and we will set off towards…his kidneys!’

Great Ideas: The Texineurons, am intelligent virus which has infected the Doctor and multiplied enough times to control him. The Tharsis Acumen is a technocracy, a society run by scientists and when the Doctor heard they were experimenting on prisoners and so the Doctor set a plan into motion. He as thrown into jail, formed a small theatre group, performed a play for the governors, excelled as Mother Courage, had drinks with the Commandant, did a little fiddling with his computer and freed the political prisoners. In revenge they hired an assassin was drafted to fire a dart of the virus under the Doctor’s skin. Erimem made such a friend to Peri and changed her entire perspective on their travelling. They sparkled in each other’s company. They were a ship of bright young things.

Audio Landscape: A jungle planet, party atmosphere, explosion, rain lashing down, a rowdy saloon bar in the American West, strong wind, a cheering crowd, a choking cloud of volcano ash.

Isn’t it Odd: I find it extremely unusual that Briggs should want Paul Cornell to write something this self congratulatory regarding characters such as Erimem and C’rizz when he is jut about to have them removed from the range. There is something of a kick-start to the main range with this production; the 100th release feels as though it is a new chapter of Big Finish adventures. This is a good jumping on point for new listeners to the range and this mini adventure in particular introduces them to all manner of new assistants and so it’s very odd to see companions being celebrated who wont make it past their next story. The scene where the Doctor starts discussing his aggressive persona from the point of view of the audience, the people listening this tale turned far too self referential for its own good. Cornell is no longer exploring the Doctor’s mythology but making digs and it’s quite insulting for the audience and the characters. He’s talking about the Time Lords watching is adventures on the Time/Space Visualisers…but in fact he’s discussing fandom in a critical way from within the story. Not good. ‘Why is it never you first four selves we run into?’ ‘Sheer co-incidence. There are a lot of other stories to be told you know…with the rest of us’ – Cornell beats us over the head with a mallet into the point is made. Considering the coming together of actors in Zagreus and Gallifrey Series IV which upset people no end because they weren’t playing the characters they were famous for…why the hell is this story merely narrated from afar than actually having the actors who play the various Doctors and companions we ‘meet’ taking part? The reaction to the episode would have been completely different if they had. Parallel realities with the third Doctor shacking up with the Brigadier and defeating the Krynoids…make it stop! ‘They’ll all keep going, their continuing stories, they don’t need me…’ – I was getting angry at this point.

Result: The only story where Evelyn gets to walk through the Doctor’s lives. The performances, music, production and direction are all sound and there are moments of charming characterisation for Evelyn. That’s the good. The overall complaint that this is less of a story and more of an extended advert for Big Finish is genuinely valid and I do wonder if this couldn’t have been released as a freebie as they tended to do in the past (ala the third disc on The Settling release) and made way for a more interesting story instead. Worse, Paul Cornell starts getting irritatingly self referential and opinionated in the same way he did in the worst of his New Adventure novels and it feels at times like we are being brow beaten with his taste in Doctors and companions. I was really looking forward to hearing his take on the sixth Doctor within the context of a story but instead this just seems to be an excuse to say how wonderful the fifth and seventh Doctors are at the expense of old Sixie. And don’t the audience out there think that he is an aggressive fellow? Very clever I don’t think. Unfortunately what starts out as having an intriguing premise soon gets mired in continuity and judgment and the overall piece lacks sincerity. Did Cornell learn nothing from the TNG episode Shades of Grey? Disposable, irritating and a disappointing way to end the collection: 3/10
It’s a shame that 100 had to be book ended by the two weakest stories because you go into the story thinking its going to be underwhelming and you leave it with a bad taste in your mouth. The two middle stories are very strong and amongst the best material to be released since Gary Russell gave up the mantle of Big Finish with some deliciously strong ideas and atmosphere. 100 Days of the Doctor is one of the few Doctor Who adventures that promises so much and delivers so little and it is such a shame that people should walk away from this release not thinking that the future is bright but that Big Finish is on a downward spiral of quality. A flawed anniversary release, not everything I would have hoped for but with one above average story and two excellent ones it is no where near as bad as you have heard: 7/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/100-Doctor-Who-100