The Doomsday Chronometer written by Matt Fitton and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: While River Song takes Helen on an archaeological expedition like no other, the Doctor finds himself enlisted by an alien Queen to save her people. Trapped and alone, Liv stares death in the face as she meets the enemy who’s been dogging the TARDIS travellers’ footsteps throughout Earth’s history. The Doomsday Chronometer has been protected for five centuries: secret cults and societies jealously guarding its mystery. But what is their real purpose? The Doctor is about to discover the truth…

Physician, Heal Thyself: The Doctor describes River as a stalker dogging his steps wherever he goes. That’s pretty on the nail. He has no idea what he means to people, he thinks he is just passing through giving people rides and a fun experience. Given Liv and Helen think he is dead and he isn’t telling them otherwise, I can imagine there will be some fallout. He loves them too, avoiding saying that reveals that.

Liv Chenka: Umm…

Helen Sinclair: Umm…

The Only Water in the Forest is the River: She considers herself a much better driver than the Doctor. River explains about the psychic wimpole, a device that allows him to see her with a different face so she doesn’t affect the timelines and her first meeting with him. It’s a really neat, simple idea that skips over any problems in continuity in a heartbeat and allows River to present with as many classic Doctors as Big Finish choose. Bravo. When she suggests that she will keep Leonardo Da Vinci busy I thought Fitton was taking a Moffat approach to over sexualising the character but amusingly he has her playing tiddlywinks with him instead. River suggests that she will train that high handedness out of him eventually. She would drop anything to save the universe with the Doctor and it does feel like the story has been geared to force the Doctor and River into a position where they do that alone together. It’s a positive way to end the story though, so I’m not complaining.

Standout Performance: I haven’t really commented much on Alex Kingston’s performance on audio. On the whole I think I prefer it to her work on the telly, although there were several River episodes that I enjoy a great deal. It’s interesting to see her in the hands on another writer and just how the smugness factor diminishes when Steven Moffat isn’t involved. During seasons six and seven she was creatively poisonous for the show (in my humble opinion) but in the Doom Coalition narrative her appearances are a highlight, which is quite a reversal of fate in this reviewer’s eyes. Kingston is a lot of fun on audio, and has a terrific rapport with all three of the regulars. River isn’t the be all and end all but a positive component in a larger story.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Honestly, Time Lords! You spend your whole life thinking that there is only one left and then they start turning up like buses!’
‘The question often asked of art! It is to provoke emotion! A response in those who gaze upon it. It will cause fear or terror!’

Great Ideas: The Clocksmith came to create a work of art so the universe will remember them. The religious sect believes the clock was broken apart in the 1400s, the pieces scattered throughout Europe. In 2016 someone is putting all the pieces back together again. All part from one, the eighth piece. I really enjoyed how the Doctor set up this entire mystery in the first place, it has a nice circular feel to the plotting to have the puzzle of the clock put together and then how the puzzle pieces came to be scattered explained. The clock is the Clocksmith’s small contribution to the cause, using a part of the first world demolished in their name (Syrah). Turning the ashes of a dead world into a souvenir. It’s a demonstration of everything the Coalition is out to achieve. The first mention of the Coalition…two thirds into the set! Talk about playing the long game. The clock forces co-ordinates into the Doctor’s head. There’s a secret group of Time Lords trying to harness a resonant power the like of which the cosmos has never seen. By calculating the time and place of the end of everything, the clock made it real. A trigger, a signal to the Coalition.

Isn’t it Odd: I’m reliably informed that reviewing this story and the previous one as two separate entities rather than taking them as a whole is pointless. So call me pointless. I did the same thing for Aliens of London and World War Three. My blog, my rules. Colour me pointless. There is a gripping Doctor Who story to be had featuring ThomasCromwell but swallowed up in the great Doom Coalition narrative, this is not it. He’s a useful plot device and has a few nice speeches, but as a historical figure he is chronically underserved because of the larger arc. In a moment of maddening obviousness, the revelation dawns on the Doctor that assembling the doomsday chronometer might not be the smartest of ideas. Given that its construction has been the focus of a pretty rum lot throughout history there is a remote chance that it might not be a product of benevolent design.

Standout Scene: Everything has been building to the clock being assembled and activated and so when that happens you start to hear the ticking, you cannot help but get excited at what could possibly be coming next. It measures Doomsday, what an exciting prospect. ‘I’ve never seen it…but this must be what happens when he regenerates!’ The cliff-hanger is as bold as it is nonsensical since we already know this isn’t the Doctor. Where on Earth do we go from here?

Result: Much more satisfying, but with the trade off once again being a weight of plot elements obscuring any chance of character development. The answers come thick and fast throughout and it’s possible to think of all this as entertaining exposition but given the denseness of the Doom Coalition arc it is a relief to see it starting to streamline and make sense. I really enjoyed how early instalments of the Doom Coalition series are brought up and have impact on the story. It feels less of a bunch of incoherent pieces but more like a slowly forming narrative. What The Doomsday Chronometer also has in spades is a snappy pace and a great sense of fun, I bounced from scene to scene enjoying the journey very much. You’ve got a likable cast of regulars bringing this story to life and whilst they aren’t being stretched in a great direction, they make the revelations that this story throws up an exciting experience. It’s huge ideas all the way from secret Time Lord groups up to nefarious activities to ashes of dead worlds being used to create a doomsday device; grandiose, exciting, and hugely over the top. Doctor Who melodrama at it’s most epic. The last fifteen minutes are desperately exciting as the clock is finally allowed to count down towards doomsday and everything leads towards an unforgettable cliff-hanger. I’m still very positive about this sixteen-part narrative, despite a few stumbles along the way. The batting average has been well above average and in parts, truly sublime. This instalment has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the character development of a stone but it’s hugely engaging despite that and promises big things for the future. This energetic adventure more than makes up for the previous hiccup: 8/10

The Eighth Piece written by Matt Fitton and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: 15th Century Prague: in the castle dungeons, a prisoner raves about the end of the world. Outside, Liv Chenka seeks out the workshop of a strange Clockmaker to see what he is creating. England, 1538: Lord Thomas Cromwell finds his duties interrupted by otherworldly forces – clockwork soldiers, an unusual nun, and a mysterious scholar calling himself ‘the Doctor’. Perhaps the truth can be extracted in the torture chamber of London’s Bloody Tower? Rome, 2016: Helen Sinclair has an appointment with an enigmatic Professor, whose greatest work is almost complete. Only the Eighth Piece is missing…

Physician, Heal Thyself: Freedom and equality are his watchwords. Not much more to say here. The Doctor meets Cromwell in this story but there isn’t much of a sense of occasion because there is so much happening elsewhere.

Liv Chenka: She enjoys early 15th Century Prague because it feels alive, and after the relative slumber and introspection of the previous adventure I can understand why. This is exactly the sort of place to go to take your mind off of family tragedies.

Helen Sinclair: Very British, she’s taken aback by a continental kiss. Yep, that’s about it aside from a mention of her disreputable past. But she shrugs that off and says it’s a disgruntled aunt in question.

Standout Performance: It’s now been established that Alex Kingston has pleasing chemistry with both Nicola Walker and Hattie Morahan. So can we please give them a chance to stop dashing about and just talk.

The Only Water in the Forest is the River: A member of the clergy that fancies her fellow clergymen? Yeah, that sounds like River. She suggests she will repent later at leisure but I doubt that will happen.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Threads in the Web of Time are being unpicked by whatever this is. But only in relation to one another’ – no it’s not a great line by any standards…but nine stories in, we’re finally working towards some kind of a coalescence of plot.

Great Ideas: A raving madman from the past screaming prophecy that the end is coming…I thought I had wandered in to The Pandorica Opens for a second. How fun to yomp through history in search of components of the Doomsday Chronometer, it’s a loose technobabble conceit to give the show the chance to do what it does best, explore all of time and space. Or in this case, time and Earth. Justin Richards was the master of this kind of thing, the Doctor and his companions all in different times and places (see Time Zero and Sometime Never… for just a few examples) but working towards the same goal of putting together a puzzle. It’s not original, but it’s often fun. The Doctor wants to reassemble all the pieces under controlled conditions. The Solvers are living puzzle boxes with a hive mind. A collection of time pieces covering six centuries of European history. A time piece that measures the time we have left, knowledge enough to send men mad. Over time the Chronometers was assembled from eight separate larger pieces, a revered piece of work. The eighth piece remains lost.

Audio Landscape: Footsteps, a squeaky door being forced open, the clock mechanism clicking and whirring, River’s screwdriver, a horse whinnying, a ticking clock.

Isn’t it Odd: I don’t pretend to be an expert in writing audio drama, but I have heard an awful lot of these now so I can only critique in relation to what works for me. Coherency is a vital consideration on audio because you are only working with sound. On television you have visual back up, but on audio if you have characters reacting to situations that aren’t adequately explained or characters in dialogue that you haven’t established well enough it is just audio waffle until the penny drops. Generally, in Doctor Who audios you have the Doctor there to provide a lot of the explanations and exposition or the companions asking the right questions to the guest characters to provide the answers the audience needs. The Eighth Piece commits the cardinal sin of setting up the story in the first five minutes and then spending ten minutes with characters we’ve never encountered before discussing and reacting to situations that have yet to be explained. As such my interest immediately started waning. I think if you are going to have a story which is set in several time zones with lots of events happening, immediately establish all three regulars in their appropriate time zones and have them reacting to the situations. When robots appeared, and started killing characters I hadn’t had the time to get to know or understand in a setting that hadn’t been adequately established, I was wondering why I was listening to this. When Helen and River showed up, I cheered but I think the appearance of companions should be celebrated because they are enjoyed in themselves rather than because the plot will finally make some sense. I guess the biggest comparison I can make is to Seasons of Fear in McGann’s second season, which also featured a waltz through history as the Doctor and his companion attempted to piece together a puzzle involving a man who is apparently immortal and some old monsters returning. Seasons had the Doctor and Charley visit each time period together, discuss the setting in some depth, make jokes, interact with characters, get into danger…it was all very engaging, informative and vividly described. I knew exactly where I was and it wasn’t at odds with telling a gripping puzzle piece. If the story is about the mystery of the eighth piece of the doomsday chronometer (as the title suggests), I would have gotten to the point a lot sooner. The entire story could have been about the Doctor, Liv, Helen and River hunting through time for the eighth piece…rather than spending an hour setting up the mystery that the eighth piece exists. There are essentially four regulars in this story (let’s include River even if it pains me to do so) who are all underserved (especially Helen) because the hour-long story is divided four ways.

Result: ‘Bumbling around time as though it’s a bric-a-brac shop!’ Diversity seems to be the keyword in the Doom Coalition set as an intimate, intense character drama is followed by a chaotic, sprawling time puzzle of a story. The Eighth Piece sets up an intriguing premise; hunting the pieces of an ominous time device through the earth’s timeline. But the emphasis is definitely on set up, with no resolutions and the debate rages on whether this should be considered a story in its own right or the first half of the story that concludes in The Doomsday Chronometer. Absent Friends essentially honed on the three regulars and studied them penetratingly, The Eighth Piece jettisons any hope of studying them in favour of dropping them off in separate time periods and swallowing them up in plot. I know which approach I prefer. I don’t mind plot heavy Doctor Who, but my method of surviving the rapids of the complex narrative is to grab the hand of the characters and experience it through their eyes. If the plot is simply a tidal wave that crashes into the regulars, I can’t keep hold of them and we’re both lost in its wake. The narrative is nowhere near as coherent as it needs to be, and it is still unclear how it fits into the overall Doom Coalition narrative. It’s starting to feel like The X-Files mythology, god knows what the overarching story is, but the individual elements are quite fun. Raving madmen, River Song nunning it up, living puzzle boxes, horsing about, a huge time piece collection, knowledge of the end of the world… Imagine each of these elements like rocks, constantly being added, but with nothing to carry them in. I was overwhelmed by ideas, incident and revelations, with no reason to care about them. Where is the Eleven? Why is River included if she has to be written out with magic wand technobabble? Who are the Doom Coalition? The narrative of the doomsday chronometer (the device, not this instalment) is assembled with great care, each piece given a story of its own. When a plot device is given such luxurious priority over any one of the characters that are trying to figure out it’s construction, I think the story needs a rethink: 4/10

Twice Upon a Time written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay

This story in a nutshell: Doctor Who holds off his regeneration in order to fill a Christmas Day slot in the schedule…

Indefinable: Peter Capaldi, the true survivor of the Steven Moffat. He’s survived Doctor Grumpy (‘Am I good man?’), Doctor Who Disco (‘Am I cool man?’) and Doctor Lecturer (‘Am I good Doctor?’), three completely different takes on the same character that might as well be different incarnations for all they have in common with one another. He’s survived sonic sunglasses, becoming the President of the Earth, electric guitars, moon eggs, irritating children, tedious found footage, and love conquers all again and again and again. He’s walked through this battlefield of madness, indulgence and continuity and walked out with his head held high. It’s no mean feat because some of the hoops that Capaldi has been asked to jump through would destroy other actors but he’s so determined to make a success of this role and is so talented himself that he has managed to hold onto his dignity and unearthed terrific nuggets of gold in an era that can, at best, be described as ‘diverting but uneven.’ And here in his final hour he is asked not to stretch his acting muscles at all (or certainly not in the way that he was during the few moments when he was really pushed out of his comfort zone: Heaven Sent, The Zygon Inversion) but to walk a line between embarrassment for the (misplaced) sexism of his former self, having to explain continuity points from three series back and mawkishly saying goodbye to all of his friends and finally letting go of himself in a speech so drained of meaning that I literally wanted to jump in the screen and give him a shove to bring forth Whittaker. The Doctor Falls was a much more impressive finale for the character and the actor, I genuinely feel sorry that he has to twiddle his thumbs for an hour to wait for the Time Lady to arrive. The moment when the twelfth Doctor puts sunglasses on the first in the TARDIS and says ‘I love it’ I realised it was time for Capaldi to go. He’s so far above this kind of material. This is the actor that Russell T Davies had shoot his wife and children in the climax of an alien invasion and now he is reduced to this kind of cheap frivolity. The one note of originality for him was his reaction to this not being an evil plan. The Doctor simply does not know what to do when there is no-one to fight.

Hmm: I want to give David Bradley a shake of the hand for attempting to take on such a brave part, one that was bound to be lambasted by Doctor Who fans no matter what direction he chose to take it. I’ve heard it all; he talks like a drunk robot, he clutches his lapels too much, he has no relevance to the story, he lacks that twinkle in the eye. Balderdash! Bradley isn’t playing William Hartnell playing the first Doctor this time, he is playing an interpretation of the character and I would say he has all the emphasis of the original incarnation – stern, twinkly, assured and full of bluff. For me, he was the major reason for sitting through the hour. The Doctor is very confused when his future self declares that the Earth is protected. He used to be a little subtler than that. And declares the inside of Capaldi’s TARDIS hideous, although to be fair that original model is the dream design. He looks quite haunted when the promise of a conversation with Susan fails to materialise. The twelfth Doctor giving the first Doctor the idea of a sonic screwdriver and just a few years before he creates one is cute. I like how the story points out how sharp the first Doctor is, just with his eyes and not with gadgets. He gets a disturbing peek into his personal future and cannot begin to imagine how he could get such a ridiculous reputation in the universe. I’m surprised he was happy to walk on into that busy, noisy, melodramatic future. I would have run away screaming. The first Doctor is afraid to regenerate, the sort of confession he wouldn’t usually admit to anybody. It’s something that has been questioned by critics but I think it is a perfectly valid response to a terrifying first in a lifetime regeneration that is about to occur. I adored the scene between him and Bill where they discuss why he left Gallifrey and the difference he can make in the universe. Not so much for the dialogue, but the stunning performances. Moffat needs to know how lucky he is having actors this talented speaking his retconning dialogue. 

Oh Brilliant: I’m trying to think how I felt during those little vignettes when each new Doctor was revealed before the credits rolled. I thought Tennant was a total goon, and he wound up being my favourite. I thought Matt Smith had great energy but looked bloody weird, and he wound up being my least favourite. I thought Capaldi was talking some real shite but had a playful score and Clara’s reaction was beautiful and promised great things, and he fulfilled his potential in some ways and missed the mark by a mile in others. Whitaker, the first female Doctor, is simply majestic from the outset. Her eyes give a performance of their own and then it’s straight into high energy action as the TARDIS decides no thank you very much. An intriguing development. What is my opinion of a female Doctor Who? Absolutely fucking fantastic. She’s a terrific actress and the series desperately needs this kick up the arse creatively. Whatever the standard of writing is, there is going to be a brand-new energy to the next series that is going to make it the first must watch season since series five. 

Sparkling Dialogue:
‘To be fair they cut out all the jokes.’
‘If I hear any more language like that from you, young lady, you’re in for a jolly good smacked bottom!’

The Good

· How to introduce David Bradley as the first Doctor without it seeming as though they are shitting all over continuity and shoehorning him into a story that technically should never have taken place? Create a mouth watering pre-titles sequence which lifts the most exciting moments of The Tenth Planet, gets fanboys creaming their knickers (myself included) and then seamlessly blend the old footage with freshly shot material. It’s a shame that they should have wasted Hartnell’s melding into Bradley on the trailer so as to spoil the surprise but in all honesty, it was the one thing about the trailer that truly got me excited for the episode. It’s an arresting opening, even if the recast Ben looks nothing like Michael Craze and the recast Polly is clearly wearing a dolly bird wig. I was more geared up for the special than ever a few seconds in…
· Capaldi’s hair deserves recognition of its own. He’s managed to out-bouffant both Barbara and Pertwee. It’s magnificent.
· One of the things I have noted about Rachel Talalay’s often spectacular direction for Doctor Who (for me the standout of the era) is that the production values step up a notch from their already very agreeable standards. Take a look at The Magician’s Apprentice or Heaven Sent again, this woman knows how to make the show veer towards cinematic. Oddly there were moments in Twice Upon a Time where the show literally seemed to be aping a sixties adventures with much of the story taking place either on the TARDIS or what is clearly a studio based alien planet. However, when the story reaches Ypres in 1914 Talalay really gets the chance to flaunt her stuff. It looks as authentic as I could imagine and there are some beautiful touches; the crow and the explosion that are caught mid-air when time freezes and the snow over the battlefield. Shooting through the clouds in an Ariel shot has become a signature move on Talalay’s part and it always looks impressive.
· The original console room is a beautifully recreated here as it was in Adventure in Space and Time and Hell Bent. It’s simply glorious, and I would make an argument for it being featured permanently if I didn’t already know it was too retro for a modern audience. All the scenes featured inside the first Doctor’s TARDIS simply made my heart sing. It even features the astral map.
· I rather liked the sets for the Villengard sequences, even if they clearly sets in a way that very few NuWho alien landscapes are. There is a nightmarish quality to them, especially with all those Dalek mutants scuttling about.

· Whereas The Empress of Mars felt like an opportunity for Mark Gatiss to exploit his friendship with Steven Moffat one last time with a thoroughly indulgent script, his star turn in this episode feels far less incestuous because the performance is so good. Maybe this role was written for Gatiss, but it plays to his strengths as an actor and it gives the piece real heart. Whilst it is another kiss to the past (and it isn’t as though Moffat hasn’t meddled with the Lethbridge-Stewart legacy enough, what with dragging him out of the grave and turning him into a Cyberman), his identity is one of the subtler elements of continuity and it is very believable that the Brigadier could spring from this lineage. Gatiss gives a thoughtful, credible turn at the eleventh hour playing a character in an uncommon situation.
· The two TARDISes side by side. The cutest thing ever.
· The 1914 Armistice is a moment in human history to be proud of and celebrated, a moment when men at war put down their arms and aside their differences and celebrated Christmas together. It’s refreshing to see Doctor Who shying away from it’s usual technique of explaining away important historical events through alien or Time Lord intervention. For once, the sentiment of the moment is worth celebrating alone. They could have just used footage from the Sainsburys advert.
· Unlike the Capaldi regeneration, the Bradley regeneration feels like the centrepiece of the finale. Talalay shoots this with absolute precision and the material feels as though it has been lifted from the original and colourised. Just beautifully done.
· It’s all an illusion build from memories but the few moments the Doctor, Bill and Nardole are together brought back the best of series 10. It was a strong reminder that there was a refreshing taste to Capaldi’s last season, the one where Moffat got the regulars right.
· Hurrah for the musical cues from The End of Time, Heaven Sent, The Husbands of River Song and Rose. The best of Murray Gold, shall we say. Was there any original music in this episode at all?

The Bad:
· Sharing his finale with the first Doctor robs the twelfth of the limelight in his finale. There, I said it. I might have mentioned it elsewhere in this review but Capaldi’s Doctor had a much better showing in The Doctor Falls (a story that seemed designed to push the actor and the character). This feels…anti-climactic. The focus is far more on what Bradley will do with a role five decades old than Capaldi going through the same old tired tricks.
· Two Doctors meeting smacks of a gimmick. Two Doctors meeting at the point where they are supposed to regenerate moves beyond gimmickry into wankery. And for an era that has redefined gimmickry and wankery for a whole new generation of Doctor Who fans this is perhaps the ultimate expression. It’s a clear sign of a show looking backwards, not forwards, a complaint I have levelled at the Capaldi era a little too often.
· Sexism was rife in the sixties, and An Adventure in Space and Time reflected that with painful honesty. However, thanks to the talents of Verity Lambert and William Hartnell that very rarely bled into the characterisation of the Doctor. Certainly not to the degree that is exhibited by Moffat’s script which seems to go all out to show how progressive the show is these days by highlighting how liberal minded the latest Doctor is. The irony being that Moffat who may just have featured the least appealing, most sexist interpretation of women in the shows entire run. I’ll let the smacked bottom line go by because it genuinely made me laugh out loud (and is lifted from a genuine Hartnell line) but all the wink wink nudge nudge the little women doing the dusting whilst I head off and have an adventure stuff is jarringly misplaced. It’s not even remotely accurate and the only defect in Bradley’s otherwise star turn. It did provide the one moment where I thought Bill pointing out her sexuality really felt like it belonged (unlike some gratuitous scenes in series 10), just to shock this chauvinistic Doctor. All this down the throat progressiveness. It’s enough to make me want to enlist Terrance Dicks and strap someone to the circular saw or the railway tracks and force them to scream.
· Why promise a visit from Susan and fail to deliver?
· Having Bill feature as a construct of her memories channelled through an avatar is either and pleasing chance to spend more time with Pearl Mackie (of course) or another ridiculous attempt for Moffat to duck out of his decision to kill off a character and bring them back for a last hurrah (also true). In this case he’s already used his get-out clause with drippy Heather so this is his back up get out clause. It’s a cute idea which leads to Capaldi having the chance to say ta ta to his old companions on his death march but ultimately it is gutting The World Enough and Time of its shocks and twists. Thank goodness Capaldi didn’t stick around any longer, or we might have had a third get out clause for Bill to appear again. Maybe this time as a ghost. Or a photo that comes to life. Or a building that remembers the people that walks through it’s halls and makes them flesh.
· The Two Doctors poking fun at each other’s foibles is basically a re-run of the last time Moffat did this in Day of the Doctor. Except not as funny or particularly necessary or very clever.
· Just saying ‘an error in the timeline’ isn’t an adequate explanation for the events of this story. It’s a lazy one.
· I wondered if we would see Rusty again after his ambiguous departure in Into the Dalek. It would have made more sense to have brought him back in series 8 though, not three years later when everybody had long forgotten about him or his reappearance was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘is that still relevant?’ It feels like Moffat had to fill up his running time with something and so he searched the last three years for a thread that was left dangling and tidied it up. It’s a massive step up from Time of the Doctor though, I suppose, which had to grapple all of the threads that were knotted and gnarled and hanging from the Eleventh Doctor’s era and attempt to sew them into some kind of conclusive narrative. This at least is simple, even if it is a little ‘so what?’
· ‘I know we have this whole professor/student thing going on…’ – will you stop being so damn self-referential! This is dialogue that isn’t even trying to rise above mediocrity but posing as being clever. It’s coming from a writer that used to be at the top of his game on this show but is now exhausted of wit.
· Forgive my language but why does every Doctor have to go out with a speech more fucking indulgent and lengthy than the last? I begin to see the merit in gunning the Doctor down (ala The TV Movie) and letting him gurn his way into his next life.

Result: An episode that ushers in a huge breath of fresh air for stuffy stale old Doctor Who, 12 years into it’s revival. A story mired in continuity and sentiment featuring two old men who are literally hanging around to die with nobody to fight anymore…it’s not exactly what the dynamic television that the family audience wants to watch in 2017, is it? Despite the tone of those opening words, I had a relatively positive time with Twice Upon a Time but like Time and the Rani kicking off season 24, this is exactly what the show doesn’t need to be doing right now. By bringing in a new female Doctor and potentially cutting her off from the TARDIS, Chris Chibnall is taking a defibrillator to an ailing series and pumping some expectation of life back into it. What I really enjoyed about this adventure was that it was actually a little different to anything that had come before, like an old fashioned sideways adventure from the Hartnell era (appropriately). Time freezes around our characters and it allows them the chance to interact in a drama-free zone for 60 minutes. There are no monsters (although both Testimony and Rusty are presented as such until the truth is revealed), there’s relatively little conflict (except for the promise of a jolly good smacked bottom if that language persists) and the story doesn’t even begin to gain momentum because there is no story. It is a narrative pause between The Doctor Falls and Whittaker’s debut and there is nothing here that couldn’t have been omitted had Capaldi regenerated in the previous tale as was the original intention. Who ever knew that Steven ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ Moffat (whose previous regeneration story was Time of the Doctor, for goodness sakes!) could hang dialogue on such a dearth of incident? Ah yes, what were those positives I was talking about? A sparkling turn from David Bradley, an intriguing new concept in Testimony, terrific production values, a worthwhile peek at a proud moment of history, a waltz around Murray Gold’s repertoire as he bows out and a general air of amiability throughout, helped along by actors who are clearly enjoying working together. And as I said for a man who trades in convoluted plots, the relative lack of complication makes this ideal post-Christmas dinner food coma fare. Anyone who was expecting a race to finish line for Capaldi and a dynamic new take on regeneration look elsewhere. You’ve just had that. This is the 60-minute sneeze that came afterwards, albeit with a few nice tickles. Twice Upon a Time shouldn’t exist and it feels that way. I want to say that it was Capaldi’s finest hour but he isn’t doing anything new here, it’s Bradley this story exists for and it’s for his valiant efforts that I award it an above average score. He’s simply a delight to watch, as I imagined he would be. As for the regeneration; it’s ponderous and preachy and by the end I wanted Capaldi gone just so he would stop self-aggrandising. Whittaker immediately offers hope for a cheeky future and the last two minutes elevate this even further. Why the hell did the TARDIS spit her out? Twice Upon a Time; I wanted to love it but I’ll have to settle for liking it and even then mostly for the acting: 7/10

The Higher Price of Parking written by John Dorney and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: The planet Dashrah is a world of exceptional beauty. Historical ruins; colourful skies; swirling sunsets… Unsurprisingly, it’s a major tourist trap. So if you want to visit Dashrah, first you’ll have to visit Parking, the artificial planetoid that Galactic Heritage built next door. Parking, as its name implies, is a spaceship park. A huge spaceship park. A huge, enormous spaceship park. When the TARDIS materialises in Parking’s Northern Hemisphere, the Doctor, Ace and Mel envisage a quick teleport trip to the surface of Dashrah. But they’ve reckoned without the superzealous Wardens, and their robotic servitors… the sect of the Free Parkers, who wage war against the Wardens… the spontaneously combusting spaceships… and the terrifying secret that lies at the lowest of Parking’s lower levels.

The Real McCoy: One thing I appreciated a lot was Dorney’s handling of the regulars in this story, not so much their individual characterisation which is still troublesome given when this story is supposed to be set but rather the feeling that they have been travelling together for some time now and are working together as an effective unit. The first trilogy featuring ‘older Mel’ (what is it with these ‘older companion’ stories?) really felt as though the three characters were fighting against one another, rather than working together to form an effective team. Dorney rectifies that by simply letting them get on well, discuss things in a reasonable manner and working together to extradite themselves from tricky situations. If there’s one thing the Doctor hates it’s cheating, those time travellers who have their thumbs in the back of the book on the answers page rather than unearthing a mystery for its own sakes. I do have to keep pinching myself to remember that this run of stories is set post-Hex because there is relatively little in the way of characterisation of the Doctor and Ace to make it believable. When Ace pokes fun at the Doctor’s scheming ways I suddenly became aware that this isn’t set in early days of season 25. The Doctor is reluctant to empty capacious pockets, maybe McCoy was scared that his script would make an appearance.

Oh Wicked: Is Ace really advocating negotiation over a violent solution? I usually praise John Dorney to the high heavens for his superlative characterisation but in this instance I have to wonder if he has spent any great amount of time with the character in questions, which I know he would have because he is a Doctor Who fan. As such I have to assume this was either written with a knowing wink, which has been completely lost in translation by the director who has Sophie Aldred deliver this anti-violence agenda with absolute seriousness. ‘Your best chance, your only chance to survive this is to drop the weapons and talk!’ Ace ‘cor wicked Professor let’s blow it up with some nitro’ spouting rhetoric like that is just an insane contradiction.

Aieeeeeeee: ‘Of course we are’ says Mel with a sigh as they are arrested not long after setting foot on the planet. She’s come to expect nothing less when travelling with the Doctor. Who needs a sonic screwdriver when you have a Mel? If you like your Mel smart, capable and autonomous then you’ll love John Dorney’s handling of the character.

Standout Performance: Aside from the regulars, all the performances are a little arch to say the least. Another reason to stamp this with the Paradise Towers badge of honour. Ace might be bizarrely characterised, but I thought this was one of Sophie Aldred’s better performances in recent years. Praise where it is due. At least she was forced to shout hysterically throughout.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Animal Kind, your day is over.’

Great Ideas: With it’s emphasis on driving and a dramatic incident that sees two people scared for their lives, the opening scene took me back to Gridlock, and I could only hope that this story would be as effective and as emotive as the series three standout. Even the TARDIS is registered and given a receipt when parking on Dashrah. Being a major tourist attraction, Dashrah has a lot of visitors but also a very delicate eco system that requires preservation and the entire planet is looked after by the Galactic heritage: a sort of militarised, spacefaring National Trust (Mel and Glitz ran in to them at one point). If you want to visit you park your spaceship on a special planetoid called Parking, a large artificial one due to Dashrah’s popularity. Parking is broken down into three sets of people; the Wardens (Caretakers) holding the placer together with their bureaucracy, the Free Parkers (Kangs) who are opposed to the law of the land and the Natives (Rezzies) who have acclimatised to the setting and, well, gone native. Most of the interesting ideas pop up towards the end of the story with the sentient virus that is revolutionising the spaceships wishing to take control of the TARDIS and fill its data banks with her expanded mind. That’s a rather tasty notion, the TARDIS roaming the universe with a destructive virus, infecting systems throughout all time and space and causing a catastrophic AI revolution.

Isn’t it Odd: In the second episode a potted history is laid out but it is told with such laconic disinterest it was hard to get involved with the mythology. The Free Parkers are after a Free Parking, sometimes science fiction goes for the simplest possible approach and you have to bury your head in your hands. It is a common problem in science fiction I find that it is hard to involve yourself in the complications of an alien world when you find yourself distanced because you never quite believed in that world in the first place. Parking never truly comes alive because I found the characters lacking, usually they are a window in the way a world works but the examples we have here of the natives, the free parkers and the wardens never gave me that insight into Parking that would have allowed me to recognise that this was a living, breathing place. As a result, when terrorist attacks start to occur, I found myself shrugging rather than tensing up in fear and support for these people. Why should I care if these people are killed, they were never truly alive for me in the first place? ‘If we don’t help each other now, the spaceships will kill us all!’ is the line that sees the different factions on Parking start working together to bring down their common enemy. It’s copied and pasted from the last episode of Paradise Towers and Maddy’s ‘we’re very sorry and we won’t do it again’ speech.

I’m at a loss to figure out what isn’t clicking about these Seven/Ace/Mel adventures; it seems to be a mixture of the characterisation of the regulars and overall quality of the scripts and stories. We’ve had a crime caper that simply wasn’t much fun, a historical that traded it’s interesting setting for tenapenny science fiction, a revenge story that is weighed down with hideous twists, melodrama and crushing dialogue and now a Paradise Towers rip off that fails to ignite any real passion or adventure. What we need is either a really powerful character tale that will cement this team as one to watch or just a knockout story that utilises them all very effectively. At the moment we’ve had four less than impressive tales that makes giving a damn about further adventures with them very hard to be concerned about.

Standout Scene: The concept of a heavily armed ship turning on people is fairly chilling one, and starting a spaceship revolution on a planet filled with spaceships is just bizarre enough to work. I’m not sure about the mad nod to The Invisible Enemy, mind (‘The Age of the Spaceship is here!’) and I would have liked for this to have been the premise of the entire story rather than a bolted-on threat at the climax. There’s far more to the premise of an AI revolution than is explored here.

Result: ‘What could possibly be worth all this?’ ‘Revolution, Doctor…’ I’ve heard comments that this story has the tone and type of schizophrenic content of season 24, but really it only shares strong similarities with Paradise Towers. The rule bound, dangerous location, comprised of three factions of people, the mystery at the heart of the oddball setting and the inconsistent tone. Like Paradise Towers it is a story with a fun premise (in this case a planetoid that is built around the concept of a car park) and the story is reasonably well constructed but I fail to comprehend why a writer would go out of their way so much to ape a story to this degree. Maybe John Dorney was hoping that people would turn around at the end and say it’s ‘just like Paradise Towers, but better’ when instead the general impression seems to be it’s ‘just like Paradise Towers, warts and all.’ I think Ken Bentley has done a lot of good work for Big Finish but he’s definitely a director who rises to the occasion depending on the quality of the script. Since The Higher Price of Parking walks an awkward line between comedy and drama, the production follows suit and I was unsure half the time whether I was supposed to be taking the material seriously or laughing at the sheer bizarreness of it all. It’s an odd feeling, and a firmer director might have take the story in one direction or the other. Although an out and out zany production might have sat a little weirdly with the story’s ultimately serious message…and yet a deadly serious tone wouldn’t have sat well with the oddball concepts. Tonally it’s a tricky one to get right. The characters fail to come alive and I didn’t feel like the actors ever believed in the people they were playing and so go for the panto approach by default. John Dorney’s first foray into the main range was the superlative The Fourth Wall, a dazzling high concept tale that had thoughtful things to say and featured the Doctor at his finest. Anybody hoping that Parking would follow suit might be bitterly disappointed. This is quirky, passable fun but as disposable as that sounds. Stop stretching your finest writers across so many ranges Big Finish, this kind of throwaway nonsense is what happens when a writer has had their talent pulled in too many directions. An extra point for eleventh hour excitement as the spaceships come to life and the revolution begins: 5/10

The Behemoth written by Marc Platt and directed by Jamie Anderson

What’s it about: Bath, 1756 – and a very dashing gentleman known only as the Doctor is newly arrived in town, accompanied by his lady friends Mrs Clarke and Mrs Ramon. He’s created a stir among the gentlefolk of Georgian high society – and a stir in the heart of merry widow Mrs Theodosia Middlemint, rumour has it. They are not the only strangers from abroad causing tongues to wag, however. The mysterious Lady Clara, come from Amsterdam in the company of the noble Captain Van Der Meer, has the whole of Bath agog. Who is she, really? What is she, really? But there’s something terrible beneath the veneer of Georgian gentility. As awful a horror as the Doctor has ever exposed, hidden inside Balsam’s Brassworks. Something that needs to be brought to light, for the sake of all humanity.

Softer Six: How wonderful that this mismatched team should be the most successful and anticipated of the Big Finish main range; a bombastic and colourful Time Lord, a stalwart and sensible WREN and a street wise cockney fresh from her wedding. There’s something extremely charming about the clash of personalities that is in play here, it’s a three-time culture clash that yields entertaining and engaging results. It’s nice to have Sixie at the top of the pecking order again after some time cruising the main range. He’s mistaken for Mrs Clarke’s footman with ideas above his station…and with a coat like a detonation in a woman’s wardrobe! He once danced a cotillion with Jane Austen, don’t you know. She was a very nifty mover. As you can see on the cover the Doctor has abandoned his hideous coat and is decked out in finery from the period. He manages to charm the local hob nobs and is quite graceful on the dance floor. A veritable parapet of invention, he performs a trick with a roast chicken that quite brings the house down. The Doctor takes hot chocolate with a lady, much like the first Doctor did with Cameca in The Aztecs. Since this is a similarly paced historical with dark undertones, it feels very apt. Life, even amongst friends can be a lonely business so he keeps busy to distract himself from that. He’s crestfallen because he can’t even enjoy one day off. Sarah being protected by the Doctor rather than owned by Balsam is a very important distinction, suddenly she is an individual seeking shelter rather than property running away. Can you imagine a Doctor more suited to damning the black slave trade? When he gets the chance to do so Colin Baker lets rip in the finest sixth Doctor defiance. I loved his shoulder shrugging reaction to Craven going overboard.

Constant Companion: Constance got married during wartime so it was in uniform with a bunch of wilting daffodils. Balsam calls her charming and thoughtful, which just about sums her up. She has enough of a modium of decorum not to want to get into a swimming bath with fully dressed people. Travel has opened her eyes. Constance’s father has land in Africa where he employs the local people, but as servants rather than slaves. She tries to convince Sarah that she is not property, that nobody belongs to anybody but themselves. She’s appalled that women are treated as property as much as the slaves. This is the second story on the trot where Constance has talked about leaving the Doctor. I hope she doesn’t too soon, they’ve touched upon something rather special here.

Flippin’ Heck: The Doctor despairs at Flip thinking that chlorine was invented. There’s a subtle gag that plays out where nobody can pronounce Flip’s foreign surname, much in keeping with the theme of the play. Flip’s affection towards Clara is palpable, underneath all those streets smarts she’s a big softy really. In reality the offer that Craven makes her to become the mistress of a plantation in Jamaica is a better life than anything Jared can offer her in her own time but she is true to herself and refuses to be seduced. Her reaction to his proposal is to kick him in the nuts and given the manner in which he has spoken to her and treated Clara, that is an understatement.

Standout Performance: Balsam is a truly loathsome character, brought to life with relish by Glyn Sweet.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The owner said the lady had to pay the bill’ ‘Oh, Doctor’ That really made me chuckle.
‘England should be ashamed. You belong in the same pit as all the other Fascists and Nazis of the Universe - everything I’ve fought against. And one day your filthy trade will be swept away!’
‘Human beings traded for pots and pans and weapons. Surely one of this world’s worst abominations.’

Great Ideas: The way this story tackles racism is very well done because the first episode plays out very like your typical Doctor Who meets the gentry (think Black Orchid) with the colourful and pampered upper classes taking a shine to the Doctor. The subtly dark undertones of racism are there from the beginning, a dismissal, a threat. It’s laced into what would otherwise be a genteel tale, giving it much more depth. You can trust the clergy to get to the heart of the matter; those of black stock are just treated as chattel, a possession, something to be bought and sold. I loved the gag of Lady Clara being a rhino. In a delightful moment it appears that the Doctor and Mrs Middlemint are indulging in a bit of rumpy pumpy when in fact it is revealed they are only playing cards. Mrs Middlemint’s tragedy is that she is just as trapped as Sarah, and that she accepts her fate just as easily. It’s brought home in a scene where Flip tries to point out that things can be different and she refuses to listen. I would LOVE to see the Doctor and Flip pushing a rhino inside the TARDIS. How delightful.

Audio Landscape: A horse whinnying, carriage clipping along a path, birds chirruping, a pug barking, the Doctor jumping into a pool, applause, the growl of a rhino, a clucking chicken, bells ringing, a packed tavern, seagulls crying, the chink of chains.

Musical Cues: I’m noticing a pleasing trend with the music of late that the scores are less wallpapered action soundtracks but instead more appropriate, subtle affairs. This is the rarest of things, a pure historical, and the music truly steps up to make this an occasion.

Isn’t it Odd: There’s an eleventh-hour action sequence that only served to remind me just how atypical this adventure had been in that respect. Bravo.

Standout Scene: There’s a glorious moment where Constance and Flip discuss how they feel about the Doctor going on a date. It’s everything I could have hoped for from this pair. There’s also a beautifully written scene set in the TARDIS where the slave trade is brought home to a very personal level by Sarah and condemned by the Doctor. He admits that he is powerless to stop it and that he is even part of the system that allows it to happen, purchasing hot chocolate earlier that day.

Result: ‘The slave trade is England’s dark heart…’ Time for something completely different and what a refreshing change of pace it turns out to be. The Behemoth is the rarest of things, a pure historical and one that is happy to build an atmosphere and let the characters take some of the weight rather than simply assaulting us with plot. Like The Waters of Amsterdam, Jamie Anderson is particularly adept at bringing these character driven tales to life and he does a masterful job here. The story felt unhurried but never slovenly, appropriately dramatic in parts and with plenty of scenes where the actors can prove their worth. Marc Platt throws a harsh light on the ugly truth of the slave trade, taking it as far as you can go in a Doctor Who story. I was impressed with how he handled the theme, the story kicking off light and breezy and get steadily more uncomfortable as we get closer to the characters who have been torn from their homes and treated as wretched property. I love the idea of a Doctor Who story that places it’s drama on the wellbeing of a rhinoceros and the tragedy of lovers torn apart by Western greed. On a purely superficial level it is very invigorating to hear some more exotic accents in a Doctor Who audio. I’m a big fan of Marc Platt’s work stretching right back to Ghost Light, through the original novels and finally celebrating his prolific audio stories. He’s a writer that has the occasional off day but when he is on form it is a synthesis of beautiful dialogue, strong characterisation and fantastic ideas. This is a step away from what I have come to expect from him, creative science fiction, and instead he has chosen to build a setting, a small group of characters and tackle a tricky but very worthy theme. Colour me impressed, it’s a combination that suits him very well. What’s more it’s a great showing for the Doctor, Flip and Constance. Anybody who was impressed with their merging in Quicksilver most certainly will not feel short changed. I can’t think of the last time I let a Big Finish tale play out quite so effortlessly: 9/10

The Maker of Demons by Matthew J. Elliot and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: Decades ago, the mysterious time-travelling Doctor and his cheerful companion Mel became the toast of the planet Prosper, when they brokered a peace between the native Mogera and humans from the colony ship The Duke of Milan. But when the TARDIS at last returns to Prosper, the Doctor, Mel and their associate Ace find only a warzone. The burrowing Mogera have become brutal monsters, dominated by their terrifying leader Caliban – and it's all the Doctor's fault!

The Real McCoy: This is the kind of story that should fit the seventh Doctor like a glove. He’s the Doctor that is willing to make genocidal moves in order to tidy up the universe and he’s exactly the guy that needs a wakeup call every now and again. Instead of using this as a chance to examine the most dangerous of Doctors, Elliot turns this into a revenge story where the Doctor is treated as the enemy without ever digging deep as to why. As far as he is concerned he did a good turn, until he realises the true consequences of his actions. Instead of dealing with that, what is his best solution? To go back in time and punch himself on the nose! Whilst I’m sure he meant that facetiously, he needs to deal with his problems instead of wiping them away. Mel is the voice of good reason when the Doctor wants to go back and rewrite an entire century of history on this planet just because things didn’t go how he wanted. That’s playing God. The argument that the Doctor is only interested in saving the day rather than ensuring that a planet is left in capable hands and its future is secure is nonsensical because it goes against everything that we know the Doctor is about. If the villain of piece had constructed an argument around a portrayal of the Doctor we could buy into (or one he could himself) then this might have been a hard-hitting examination. Instead it feels like a slack motivation of the villain and a waste of the Doctor.

Oh Wicked: Ace doesn’t enjoy stories when people don’t die and nothing explodes. I can’t see the point of Ace in these stories and certainly in this story where she is shunted off into her own pointless subplot that serves no purpose but to add to the running time. If it meant the pain of listening would be over sooner, I would have happily excised her completely. Seriously, this could have been set in season 24, which is probably where it belongs. She’s has enough of snorting with the Porcians.

Aieeeeeeee: Mel loves to stay around a celebrate and is willing to accept what she thinks he and the Doctor deserve, even if he would rather leave. It’s Mel who manages to unpuzzle this adventure, she’s the one who is taking note of the details and unmasks the villain. However, she has the right idea but the wrong person.

Standout Performance: Everybody is struggling with the dialogue in this adventure, especially Sylvester McCoy who is saddles with gems like ‘I’m being impatient being a patient!’

Terrible Dialogue: ‘And it seems I created those devils!’
‘You made them into monsters!’ ‘After you made us into monsters!’
‘There are seams in our territory but mining them are suicidally dangerous and we have a subterranean enemy…’ – every other line is of this ilk, exposition central.

Musical Cues: Nigel Fairs is a decent musician, I remember he scored some of the early companion chronicles and did a wonderful job. I even liked his lunge into melodrama recently when he provided the overdone (but appropriately sixties) music for Last of the Cybermen. This time, however, he is all over the place. At times I felt the Daleks were approaching as the music went all chorus of doom (but I guess we have Murray Gold to thank for that) and at other interludes something akin to a digeridoo was farting away in the background. Maybe Fairs was attempting to blind us to the stories faults.

Isn’t it Odd: When the opening speech contains the phrase ‘this day of days…’ I should have known I was in trouble. In fact just listen to the opening speech as a whole for a perfect lesson in how not to write science fiction, characters talking like cod Shakespearean characters and over emphasising every line. Even the comedy punchline before the credits fails. Gratuitous continuity references abound. So much so I thought Gary Russell might be using Matthew J. Elliot as a nickname; the plot of Underworld, Vardans, Dido, Polly, Tegan, Sharon, Dodo…is Elliot trying to remind us of the worst of Doctor Who? There’s an irritating tendency in these Mel and Ace stories to portray one as a complete goody two-shoes and the other as a teen space bitch and contrast the two. It lacks any subtlety. Mel is enthusing about how she wanted to cuddle an alien race to bits whilst Ace bangs on about explosions. I’d rather focus on the crueller side of Mel and the gentler side of Ace, that would be much more interesting. ‘It’s like some kind of armour plated ogre!’ – has Elliot ever written for audio before? I mean, I know he has but this is remarkably clumsy. And I fail to understand how Big Finish, who have been at this malarkey for 15 years now could let such blatantly awkward descriptive dialogue reach the final script. Russell T Davies said that he didn’t want to go down the route of having stories set on an alien world because it would be hard to connect with the events on a human level…he was probably referring to scenes like Ace and the mutant scrabbling around on the surface. It’s mind numbingly dull, overwritten and hackneyed (‘Humans all have funny names! I’m not even interested in whether or not you have a name!). I feel so sorry for Ewan Goddard, who has to try and convince as a mutation but winds up sounding like a dog chewing a caramel toffee. Seriously, go listen again. Slurp. Slurp. Plus, the voice of the actor and the (ahem) realisation of the creature on the cover don’t really marry up. Powered by Doctorium? A power source that has been named after the Doctor after his meddling in the first adventure. I bet Chris Boucher would listen to this and weep. Alonso being revealed as the villain of the piece is about as surprising as it would be if I wrote a Missing Adventure, squeezed it into season eight and made the Master the baddie behind it all.

Standout Scene: Go and listen to the end of episode two. Like right now. There have been some inept murder scenes in Doctor Who before (who could forget the Co-Pilot and his split trousers?) but this one must rank. ‘Oh hello, what are you doing back here? I’m afraid the kitchen’s closed…no wait…Mel get out of here…nooooooooo!’ Unbelievable.

Result: ‘Back off super furry animals!’ I think if I took off all my clothes and went to eat in a top-class restaurant I would feel less awkward than listening to this audio. A series of hideous SF clichés, served up with characters that talk in pure exposition, a plot that is explained rather than experienced, a noisy soundscape full of people shouting, continuity vomiting everywhere…it’s the sort of thing you would imagine a company producing if they were new to this medium. The idea of the Doctor revisiting a society that he has had an adventure in before and the consequences of said adventure and his involvement coming back to haunt him is a good one. It was a fresh approach when The Ark and Face of Evil played about with the notion. They took different approaches but they were both intelligent stories that used the idea to paint a picture of a society that has adapted to the Doctor’s interference. Evil in particular built an entire world around him. Demons adopts the approach without any of the intelligence. It’s so clumsily handled, it isn’t a story that staggers the revelations so we are engaged with the idea, it just dumps you in the middle of the scenario within 15 minutes and then becomes a run-around for remainder of the running time. The story is heavily influenced by The Tempest, but any serious comparison between the stories is like comparing the cuisine of the finest Michelin star restaurant and a Little Chef. If you’re going to ape Shakespeare, you need something a little more compelling than a bunch of slavering, slurping monsters and a Scooby Doo villain searching for a motive. Most Doctor Who stories you can find something nice to say. The music was pretty, or there was a decent idea thrown in the mix, or the soundscape brings the story alive. Maker of Demons is so lacking in positives I feel like I’m pointing a gun at a sick dog. Avoid this nonsense like the plague. I’m hoping for better in the second Seven/Ace/Mel trilogy: 2/10

The Fiesta of the Damned written by Guy Adams and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: In search of "a taste of the real Spain", the TARDIS transports the Doctor, Ace and rejoined crewmember Mel not to sizzling Fuerteventura, or the golden sands of the Costa Brava – but to 1938, amid the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Having fallen in with a rag-tag column of Republican soldiers, the time and space travellers seek shelter from Franco's bombers in the walled town of Farissa – only to discover themselves besieged by dead men returned to life...

The Real McCoy: Surely the Doctor (especially this Doctor) isn’t so stupid that he can mistake the hum of an approaching bomber for somebody mowing their lawn? I suppose he does always try and be the optimist.

Oh Wicked: I never thought we’d hear Ace say ‘boom!’ again, given the reaction to her infamous scene in Battlefield. A self confessed adrenaline junkie, that's about as deep as this story wants to delve into its characters during all the running around.

Aieeeeeeee: Mel is diplomatic enough to swallow down the casual sexism of the period, but Ace isn’t so easily subdued. It’s a pleasing disparity between them, in Mel’s favour I would say because she comes across as the seasoned traveller. She remembers how it used to be with the Doctor, that history hurts. Ace attempts to mock Mel’s do-goodedness is to suggest that she orders a smoothie made out of spinach and tears.

Standout Performance: I particularly liked McCoy’s quiet contemplation on war. The first two episodes capture the strongest elements of his Doctor, a conflict-weary Time Lord who has learnt to play tough and whose actions weigh heavily on his mind. Who would have guessed that quiet brooding would have been McCoy’s (a man who is famous for his comedy) forte? Sophie Aldred doesn’t scream her head off throughout, because I thought a story set during wartime meant we were in for aural torture.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘So the Republicans are the good guys?’ ‘In war there’s no such thing. They’ve both committed their share of atrocities.’
‘The rest of us just haven’t had the common sense to lie down and die yet.’

Great Ideas: The Club Type 40 holiday packages are…See the Universe and Run for your Life! I’m one of those people that chooses not to educate himself on history unless a show I am enjoying chooses to focus on a particular period. Once my interest is piqued, I then go the distance and learn everything I can. Doctor Who has been extremely useful to me in that respect. I went into this knowing next to nothing about the Spanish Civil War. The Doctor gives a handy potted history of the war in the first episode to anybody who is green (like me) and reveals that the Republicans are already wounded beyond repair and terrible losses are due until their surrender. It sounds like the perfect setting for a Hartnell historical, so it’s rather refreshing to step from the McCoy era. Apparently when it comes to history even the footnotes like Juan Romero are inspiring.

Audio Landscape: You have to wonder how an actor faces an audio challenge when the script says he has been ‘zombified’ without giving the character any dialogue. Low moaning, apparently. Mumbling voices, insects humming in the distance, bombs falling, masonry loose, someone screaming into a hole, flames crackling, walking on stones, a bell tolling, a squeaking door, Lynx’s screaming and scattering.

Isn’t it Odd: I think this series of adventures is serving more as a ‘what if Mel had stayed at the end of Dragonfire?’ than taking place years afterwards in the post Hex period of Big Finish. There’s simply no indication that Ace has changed at all in the intervening period and the stories feel like they belong on season 25. So, I guess in order to find some enjoyment in them I’m going to have to ignore what my ears are telling me and make up my own continuity (I can do that, it’s my show too). Otherwise this is another cynical marketing ploy on Big Finish’s part where they wanted to work with Slyv, Sophie and Bonnie just BECAUSE without any decent reason to do so. It’s certainly not to explore the characters, which I would have thought a given in the circumstances. So, let’s chalk this down to ‘what if…?’ It’s lucky there was an English reporter like Newman involved, who can explain the details of the conflict to Mel and Ace and thus, to us. I’m guessing the idea of The Walking Dead charging in on a Doctor Who historical set during the Spanish Civil War might have sounded like a good idea in theory (Horror on top of conflict) but the lengths the story goes to justify that these are zombies in science fiction terms renders them as scary as a church mouse. The story becomes mired in hideous fructuous, SF dialogue, a far cry from the sensitive portrayal of war in the first episode.

Standout Scene: The bombing in the first episode is spectacularly realistic. Massive credit to director Ken Bentley for making wonder if I should run for cover and hide.

Result: I thought the first episode was really rather good; dramatic, evocative and educational but that was ruined by the first cliff-hanger where the science fiction elements of the story collide with the historical ones and the recently smooth narrative veers off the rails. Even the dialogue, which has been informative and emotive suddenly lurches into awkwardness. Whether it’s Big Finish or the television series or the comic strip, nobody seems to trust to tell a pure historical when that would be the freshest approach any of those mediums could take. Instead aliens always barge in on the action and things become far less interesting. It’s a shame because the location is conjured up with real care and there were parts of Fiesta of the Damned where I could close my eyes and find myself back in Spain and truly see the action as it was unfolding. The music was a treat too, but I’ve come to expect nothing less from Jamie Robertson. The regulars, particularly Bonnie Langford, are given material that plays to their strengths too, which further compounds the unfortunate lacklustre nature of the narrative. There’s a distinct lack of character conflict that might have brought the story alive, this is one of those rare Doctor Who stories where everybody seems to get along…and it’s set during wartime! So, what you’re left with is a period of history that is potentially devastating to explore but with a story that fails to do so in favour of another bog-standard alien race. We’ll only visit the Spanish Civil War a few times in the lifetime of Doctor Who whereas we’ll be inundated with aliens until it expires. In this case, the wrong call was made. I guess the old adage is true; Doctor Who can survive anything except being boring. The fact that the production is so stellar (I can’t even fault Sophie Aldred) merely rubs salt in the wound. Trust that human history is riveting enough: 5/10