Gallifrey

Weapon of Choice: Fronting a series with Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson is so intimidating to the other spin offs I’m not sure why they bothered! This is a very strong start for the Gallifrey series, it takes no time in establishing its own identity and it juggles some really juicy ideas about. Plus unlike the Excelis series it leaves a lot of intriguing threads dangling to be followed up later; what happened to Andred, who tried to set up Romana, what will be the result of the forthcoming judicial enquiry…? It’s a sharp, intelligent piece of writing by Alan Barnes and the chosen regular cast share fantastic chemistry. Witty lines and characters keep the piece even and the overall effect is a series that you want to follow with some enthusiasm: 8/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2010/09/gallifrey-weapon-of-choice-written-by.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/11-Gallifrey-Weapon-of-Choice

Square One: A thoroughly enjoyable second instalment, one which establishes time as a dangerous and malleable force. Steve Cole is an extremely undervalued author and his best work (Ten Little Aliens, Plague Herds of Excelis, Timeless) has proven to be thoroughly entertaining. Square One is one of his best scripts, taking Gallifrey’s role in the universe and suggesting there are far more secrets in the planets history that we haven’t yet discovered and that perhaps even Gallifrey itself has been privy to a little temporal nip and tuck. One thing Cole always captures well is dialogue so he is perfectly suited to the audio format and his handling of Leela is especially strong, the noble savage developing a very welcome presence in the series. The plotting is rock solid and dazzles with some clever twists and once again we are left with the impression that these stories will have consequences: 8/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2010/09/square-one-written-by-stephen-cole-and.html
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The Inquiry: A superb script, extremely wordy and almost flat for its first half but coming to life with a vengeance in its conclusion. Justin Richards is the perfect writer for the Gallifrey series, like its inhabitants his prose is often cold and clinical, he wields high concepts like a weapon and his plotting is tighter than a gnat’s ass. Here he manages to run with the threads of the series (the TFD, Romana’s political nightmare, Leela’s search for Andred), bridge a gap in continuity for a much loved character he created (Brax’s Collection), add some weight and juicy disclosure on a much derided story (Underworld) and provide a classy analogy of Oppenheimer’s nuclear detonation. It’s a class act and the performances are superb, although there is little in the way of atmospherics. Very clever stuff. With Romana furious that someone attempted to hold the Time Lords to ransom and rewrite their history I am eager to see what happens next: 9/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2010/09/inquiry-written-by-justin-richards-and.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/13-Gallifrey-The-Inquiry

A Blind Eye: How could Alan Barnes and Gary Russell be responsible for perhaps the greatest travesty in the Doctor Who canon (yeah you know I’m talking about) and then follow it up with something as intelligent, clever, twisted and heartbreakingly climatic as this? It beggars belief! A Blind Eye ends a nourishing first year of Gallifrey on a real high dishing out brilliant twists that prove how intricately this season has been plotted. What’s more it gives Lalla Ward, Louise Jameson and India Fisher the chance to really impress with some top dramatic material. I’ve always thought there was a great story waiting to be told in the Doctor Who universe set on a moving train and it proves to be as atmospheric as I imagined. I loved the spoilt bitch fascist Sissy Pollard. I loved the timey wimey madness with the two Torvald’s. I loved Romana’s bossy, angry tirade. And I really loved the truth about Andred. I was gripped from the first moment to the last: 10/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2010/09/gallifrey-blind-eye-written-by-alan.html
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Gallifrey Reborn: Sometimes the departure from the norm is refreshing (for me Bernice Summerfield: Epoch worked in that respect) and all series four of Gallifrey had to do was prove that this was the case. I’ve gone into the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative universe concept above (erring on the side of the weaknesses unfortunately). The idea of the ‘Two Romanas’ is so delicious it deserved another airing and its handled with far more sensitivity than the last attempt. Continuity junkies will be delighted because they will be showered in fanwank (Draconians, the Galyari, the Killorans and the Monan Host are all referenced in the same scene) but those who prefer original ideas are going to be left feeling short-changed (the alternative idea is such old hat it might be in fashion again). This must be Gary Russell’s dream come true, a chance to not only cherry pick all manner of Doctor Who mythology but to deconstruct it as well and reshape it into something very different. His twisted vision for series four is controversial but for once continuity is being used not for its own sake but to offer a skewed vision of a Gallifrey that never came to be. I have often complained about his reliance on past elements rather than championing original storytelling but let’s give him this season long diversion to get it all out of his system. There are some grand ideas in Reborn (regenerations as party poppers, TARDISes mass marketed) and the premise of box set has great potential if it leads Gallifrey somewhere important but this initial story does come across as feeling inconsequential. Which probably isn’t the right tone for a comeback. Next week we aren’t going to give two hoots about the Gallifrey we have visited this week and going from a serialised narrative to cotton candy standalones is quite a big ask: 6/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/gallifrey-reborn-written-by-gary.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-4-box-set-389

Gallifrey Disassembled:  At first I was nonplussed at Justin Richards’ opening gambit because it didn’t seem to be at all different from the Gallifrey that our regular characters spring from Although that did get me excited that they might be home for a moment. Then I realised that this was the devious shield, keeping us from the appearance of the alternative versions of Leela and the Doctor and that is where this tale scores its big win. Dissembled works better than any of the other stories in this set because it takes the dodgy central premise and lets the regulars learn something interesting (Romana discovers the Brax was her Burner and what Richards dares to suggest about the pre-Unearthly Child Doctor makes the set worth buying alone). Ultimately its little more than a run-around (the characters always seemed to be on the move) but with such outstanding performances and the chance to explore the darker side of some of the best characters in the Doctor Who universe it is practically unmissable. Richards gives this story a dramatic force that the others are lacking, generating excitement not only from the contrast of characters but also the claustrophobic world they have found themselves on. The only thing that mars this is the muddying of the Bernice/Brax continuity although I’ve heard that this might be resolved at some point in the future. Oh and the agonisingly long and nonsensical prelude to the next adventure that feels like it goes on for the length of a bible. That aside, this is vintage stuff: 8/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/gallifrey-disassembled-written-by.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-4-box-set-389

Gallifrey Annihilation:  Annihilation shows the massive gulf between Gary Russell’s talent ‘behind the microphone’ and his talent ‘behind the typewriter.’ With the former he is practically unbeatable; assembling an impressive cast and encouraging extraordinary performances, generating a potent audio atmosphere and working his ass off to make sure that the story is marketed to the hilt and the audience are there licking their lips with anticipation. With the latter he is flogging a dead horse; amassing a paceless bore, packed with uninteresting characters and tedious pontificating, injected with needless continuity and poisoned by a tired premise. I don’t know where Scott Handcock came into this but it is so packed full of Russell’s trademarks faults as a scriptwriter I can only imagine any creative worth he injected into the story was completely swamped. Gallifrey Annihilation feels like we are coming in at the end of the season of a show that we haven’t seen and missed all the best bits. The insidious vampiric conversion of Gallifrey (Spare Parts style) would have been a much more exciting prospect than its demise and since we are only dropping in to see this wrapped up it (once again) feels as if we haven’t been invited to the right party. I don’t really want to say anything more about this story because I feel as though I have twisted the knife in enough already but needless to say I had something of an allergic reaction to this story. Not since my days of reviewing Star Trek Voyager (check them out if you have the stomach for it) have I been so baffled that a story which has so much talent at it (some lovely direction, an intimidatingly good cast) could be so unravelled by its defective script. My least favourite Big Finish story in some time: 2/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/gallifrey-annihilation-written-by-scott.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-4-box-set-389

Gallifrey Forever: Its better than Annihilation but considering my allergic reaction to the previous story don’t take that as a indictment that Forever is any good. I realised going into this story that we have lost the two most impressive aspects of the first half of the Gallifrey IV box set and that that might be another factor in my growing disillusionment; Leela’s blindness and Brax. But things that are missing are hardly the only faults on display here; the script is garrulously verbose to the point of not making any sense during the technobabble scenes, Romana’s character has perversely been twisted into a immoral time meddler, Narvin continues to make no impact whatsoever (even when there are two of him around) and the story blunders along from one lengthly dialogue scene to another refusing to gel into a narrative with any momentum. Its telling that the final story of this box set fails to cohere any of the ideas or themes that have been explored throughout the season and instead it just brings things to a jarring halt with no sign that things will be any different next year. It feels as though this has all been made up as it went along and that so much effort has gone into ensuring that the mammoth cast were available at the same time that nobody charted out the narrative or knew where the story was heading. Was there any point to introducing the threat from another dimension at the climax? Will we ever see Braxiatel again? Was there any point in blinding Leela only to wave a magic wand and cure her again? Will Romana ever pay for her misdemeanours? So many unanswered questions and what bothers me more than anything is that if I have to endure another season like this I don’t even know if I am interested in learning the answers. Forever feels like an amateurish first draft of a story that needs several revisions before it is bashed into any kind of recordable shape and it closes a disappointing season on a real bum note: 3/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/gallifrey-forever-written-by-david-wise.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-4-box-set-389

Emancipation: ‘If I’m right we could save our Gallifrey!’ Either Gary Russell is brave for sticking to his guns and letting this story play out as he originally intended (ie not returning to Gallifrey Prime at the first available opportunity) or that he is stubborn for refusing to admit that the least series went down like a cup of cold sick and trying to steer things in a more popular direction. For the time being at least Gallifrey is staying on the alternative world set up in last season’s Forever and that’s just how it is. The fact that the series is clinging onto one location is a massive plus because at least if this reality does prove to be another pointless deviation from the main plotline it at least has the time to be set up and explored in some depth. Last season there was a stronger feeling of getting the gang back together for a good laugh over creating an enduring four chapters of the Gallifrey legacy (seriously, go and listen to the special features disc of Gallifrey IV which is the most self congratulatory thing you will ever experience) and what was needed here was a back to basics approach to show a doubtful audience they should see this story through. This is hardly a return to form for the simple fact that it takes ages for anything to happen (there’s eventually an assassination attempt on Leela) and the consequence is merely more incessant squabbling and bickering. The series seems to have lost its engaging penchant for politicking, replacing it with people standing in rooms bitching at each other instead (and no they are not one and the same thing). There’s a slight thread running through this story that suggests that long overdue plot resolutions are on their way (talk of the Dogma virus being cured and a return to the Axis) but I don’t think a range should dine out on the positive hints that the current situation will soon to be tossed away. You can’t exist on an empty promise. Most of the positives in Emancipation are characterisation of Romana and Narvin but Leela is awkwardly written, and none of the new characters make much of an impression (remember the golden days of super-bitch Darkel?). I remember a time when each chapter of a series was a self contained story in its own right (to be fair to Gallifrey IV that was the case even there) but this latest box set seems to be playing a long game, laying down seeds here but playing out as one, long, three part story. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it was an interesting three-part story. I used to love this series and I want to love it again, it frustrates me that I don’t. A shame, I was hoping a fresh writer would bring a fresh perspective: 4/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/gallifrey-v-emancipation-written-by.html

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-5-box-set-784

Evolution: At one point throughout this adventure Romana uttered the immortal words ‘let us hope that this is genuinely interesting…’ You should never tempt fate like that. Evolution is not so much uninteresting but irrelevant. Its so hard to be engaged by the events that are taking place on this world not only because they are unfolding at a glacial pace, feature inadequately drawn characters and fail to provide any significant surprises but also because we’re constantly reminded that this isn’t where any of the main characters want to be. How can we get involved in the action if Romana is on the verge of a complete borderm (she mentions it about three times in this story), Leela is just killing time with a cause until she can go home and the populace of this planet are so gullible that they cannot see that they are being used in order to expedite their return to Gallifrey Prime. Is this what comes of digging your heels in and sticking around on an alternative Gallifrey when even the regulars point out that it is tedious to do so? Where nothing significant happens over three hours of storytelling? Who are these people on this planet? Do they have lives beyond the plot mechanics of these stories? Does anybody have a sense of humour? Why should we care? If an author as strong as Una McCormack can be strangled by the irrelevances of this arc there is something very seriously going wrong with this range. Once again nothing seems to have happened (check out episode one of Brotherhood of the Daleks where triple the amount of events and surprises occur in half an hour than has been achieved in Gallifrey V over four times that running time) but people standing around pontificating. Trust me, that really isn’t as interesting as it might seem if they aren’t talking about anything worth listen to. This never once feels like McCormack’s work or at least not the engaging fantasy tie-in writer that I am accustomed to. She’s much better than this. Evolution is an offensively bad audio, impenetrable to newcomers and an extreme distortion of anything that made this range great to its following. Even Louise Jameson sounds uninterested: 1/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/gallifrey-v-evolution-written-by-una.html

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-5-box-set-784

Arbitration: Thank goodness that is over. I had to force myself to listen to the concluding part of Gallifrey V this morning because I knew if I left any reasonable amount of time nothing would compel me to return to this particular series. Given my allergic reaction to Llewellyn’s contribution to the previous series I didn’t hold out much hope and whilst there is nothing particularly abhorrent going on in this story its still nothing but lifeless running on the spot until the surprise cliffhanger. Leela is shown the error of taking on somebody else’s cause without thinking out her actions. Romana is exposed as an imposter. And Narvin…well he’s there but he doesn’t seem to be doing anything but telling everybody else how wrong they are all the time. These developments should have taken place in last seasons climax and there really hasn’t been a good reason to defer until now. It feels like this series has been a deviation from the storyline that Gary Russell has wanted to tell. As far as I can see nothing of worth has occurred across this entire box set in until the final five minutes of this installment and it genuinely feels as though this is where the producers wanted to take the series from the word go but an extended visit to this dreariest of Gallifrey’s has been foisted upon them. The Daleks were always going to be the major threat to this series given what the future has to offer (the Time War) and pretending that anything on this alternative Gallifrey has any relevance is nothing but self delusion and prevarication. Basically what I am saying is that if you have forced yourself to listen to Forever from Gallifrey IV then forget about listening to the first two hours and fifty-five minutes of Gallifrey V and just stick the last couple of tracks on. On my oath you wont have missed anything vital. None of the dwindling regular cast are developed in a significant way. There are no running plot threads that capture the imagination. And there is an extreme dearth of incident which instead is filled with endless dialogue scenes discussing dead end ideas that are going nowhere. Think of putting your fingers in your ears and going ‘lalalalalalalala…’ for over three hours before having a surprise sprung on your at the last minute. That’s what Gallifrey V feels like. I’ve just spent three hours in this universe and I sill have no proper understanding of the place and given its sparse sound design I haven’t even had a sense it aurally (its nothing but sliding doors and bleeping consoles…how boring). A crushing disappointment, not just for me but for the likes of Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson who deserve far stronger material than this. Let’s hope this new direction will provide some kind of fitting closure to the series. This two season diversion has long outstayed its welcome: 2/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/gallifrey-v-arbitration-written-by.html

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-5-box-set-784

Extermination: That was…good. To say I had my reservations about Gallifrey Series VI is an understatement but despite my allergic reaction to the last two seasons I was still excited to learn that the final trilogy of stories had been released. Obviously a lot of my earlier love for the range hasn’t dissipated as I thought. I harped on about the Daleks being dragged out by Big Finish once again in my recent review of The Final Phase and my witterings about the conclusion of series V of Gallifrey. Whilst I do think they have been overused to the point of exhaustion, this is clearly the sort of dramatic threat that Gallifrey has needed for some time now to pull all the characters together, make them forget their differences and curtail the bizarre character development the regulars have been forced to endure (Romana – the destroyer of worlds?) and get on with telling some stories with a punch. And that’s what Extermination (great title, I wonder why it hasn’t been used before?) has in spades – energy, drama and conviction. As mentioned, another huge plus in it’s favour is the characterisation of the regulars who have gone from a disparate bunch of barely recognisable anti-heroes from the previous year to a beautifully formed unit of characters working together to fight a common enemy. Leela and Romana are the best of friends again, Narvin surprises at every turn, Braxiatel is back and even some of the original guest characters from Gallifrey V are starting to emerge as ones to watch. Handcock has a terrific grasp on all of them, it feels as though he has taken on board a lot of the complaints from the previous year (not necessarily mine before you think I’ve got a God complex) and decided to wipe the slate clean and return the characters to their (previously successful) factory settings. Or maybe things were always heading this way. Whatever, it is such a leap in the right direction I could kiss the man. Topping off a nourishing first part to this trilogy is the larger development within the series that sees the adopted Gallifrey (which never took off for me) fall to the Daleks before rising high and the series return to its proper time and place. Extermination isn’t the best Gallifrey has ever been (it is still is set on the one of the alternative Gallifrey’s) but it is the best it has been in a long while, a massive return to form for a range that I thought had lost the plot and offers a lot of hope for the rest of the concluding trilogy: 8/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/gallifrey-vi-extermination-written-by.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-6-box-set-785

Renaissance: A fascinating listen and pretty much everything I have wanted since the end of series three. Renaissance provides a foothold back onto Gallifrey Prime in a way that keeps everybody happy; those who wanted the series to pick up after series three can pretend that series four and five never happened because that is pretty much what this story does. And yet those who did like the two interim seasons have their faith justified because we witness the devastation on Gallifrey Prime and see that it was absolutely necessary to leave for a time to escape a terrifying fate. Win/win. James Goss is rapidly becoming one of my favourite of the current Big Finish contributors because he seems to understand the audio medium perfectly, that this is a world of dialogue (of which he has a good ear for memorable lines) and ideas (his imagination seems to be boundless). These were always Gallifrey’s strengths as well so handing him this assignment seems to have been the perfect union of series and author. Justin Richards is the other perfect Gallifrey writer, a man whose creative juices have been flowing in the Whoniverse for nearly two decades and guess who is writing the finale? Goss also understands that we cannot have an emotional connection to the concepts without relationships that appeal, excite and frustrate and characterisation is tops too. Leela and Romana haven’t been written this well in many years. Renaissance is the first opportunity to experience the new Romana that Big Finish are introducing and I am pleased to report she is a delight. Freshly played by Juliet Landau and hugely different from her predecessors, Romana III is a tactile and slightly kooky incarnation and all the more intriguing for it. With kisses to An Unearthly Child, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Three Doctors, The Face of Evil and Logopolis and daring to look forward to the Time War, this is both nostalgic and innovative. It builds to a climax that gave me goosebumps in a move that promises to change the fate of one character forever. What is so sad is that after flouncing around for two season that Gallifrey is coming to end in the next story just when the range has really found it’s groove again. Still at least they can say they went out on a high. Finally the events mean something again: 9/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/renaissance-written-by-james-goss-and_18.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-6-box-set-785

Ascension: Hang on…what the hell is this? All the events of Annihilation wiped away as though they never happened? Trey was never real but a Matrix projection? The entirety of season four and five took place in the Matrix (possibly, it’s never entirely sure about the fact)? What the hell is going on? This is exactly the sort of story Justin Richards wrote for the first three seasons of Gallifrey, one which opens slowly and builds up it’s requisite ideas before exploding with twists and turns in the second half and generating a great deal of excitement from his mind-busting notions. It’s not his fault the ideas are so nonsensical, rendering the events of the second (and superior) story of this set worthless. It seems entirely appropriate to me that Richards should be brought on board to finish the Gallifrey range because to my mind he was the most consistent writer to contribute to the series and the only one to make create anything of worth during the wilderness seasons (Disassembled was the one beacon of light in series four and five). A shame then that this is easily his weakest story of the six seasons, purely because the ideas in play are all vying for prominence and none them get a chance to breathe. It is confusing as an individual story but also manages to muddy what was shaping up to be a pretty straightforward and fascinating final series. It’s a story that is trying to be too clever by half…and I rather like too clever but there has to be some kind of internal logic to hang the narrative on. Which Gallifrey is real and which is an illusion? Are we still in the Matrix? Are the Daleks the be all and end of this series all along? Did they really create the Dogma virus? Is Narvin responsible for the Time War? I don’t think it matters very much anymore. And so what looked like it was going to be a renaissance for Gallifrey turns stumbles at the last hurdle. To my mind Annihilation would have made a much more impressive series finale with the explosive cliffhanger of the previous story a much more attention grabbing final twist than the open ended climax to this story. It breaks my heart to see a range that I once loved almost get the stunning ending it deserved and plunge over a precipice into madness during its climax. The fact that the Gallifrey rises… tagline is all down to the push of a massive reset button disguised as a quirk of technobabble means that the whole of series four, five and six (aside from this one tale) has effectively been an irrelevant distraction. They should have just jumped out of the Matrix and punched the reset and we could have gotten everything back to normal in record time. And worse, the first step on the road to the Time War was made to excuse a godawful joke at the tail end of this range. It’s time to put this old dog down: 2/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/ascension-written-by-justin-richards.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/gallifrey-series-6-box-set-785

Gallifrey: Intervention Earth written by Scott Handcock & David Llewellyn and directed by Scott Handock

Result: In some ways a chance to re-invigorate the Gallifrey line and give it a chance to move on from the tangled web of the last three seasons and in other ways a disappointment that doesn't quite live up to its promise. The former is so rewarding that it almost renders the latter moot. On this occasion, but I am expecting a much more rousing follow up to Intervention Earth. If you were expecting Romana III, Narvin and Ace to team up and face the wrath of Omega in an epic spectacular full of action you will be heartily underwhelmed. They only come together in the last fifteen minutes. And Omega barely features if I am brutally honest. The story seems to dodge dramatic situations rather than embrace them and ruminate rather than engage. It is only in the last third that it even remotely becomes the story that it suggests on the cover. As a chance to recreate Gallifrey the setting and introduce some new characters as a stage setter for what comes next, however, it gets a thumbs up from me. Bizarrely (despite all my gripes about her overuse) Ace works rather well in this setting and I still want to hear more from Landau's Romana because I don't think we have had the best of her yet. Outstanding sound design deserves recognition after so many Big Finish releases and the aural atmosphere brewed up in Intervention Earth deserves a huge round of applause. Scott Handcock directs with much more vigour than he writes on this occasion. This isn't the Gallifrey of the first three seasons, political machinations and complex scientific ideas. Or the Gallifrey of the Axis seasons, alternative universes and character perversions. This a new cerebral Gallifrey that wants to think about things but one that can build to a rousing finale (as is the case here). And the closing scene promises great things for the future with the return of an old, old friend (my favourite character in two ranges no less). Overall, a prologue to something more substantial next time around but with a job to do that it performs admirably. Looking at the cast list for the next box set I am at a loss to see how the two stories will tie up: 7/10

Full Review Here - http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/gallifrey-intervention-earth-written-by.html

Test of Nerve written by David Bishop and directed by Gary Russell

What’s it about: Sarah Jane Smith receives a mysterious gift with a cryptic message. The London Underground will suffer an horrific terrorist attack during rush hour unless Sarah can find and stop those responsible. As rush hour draws closer, the terrifying reality of the threat becomes all too apparent. One friend is murdered and another abducted. Sarah must be willing to sacrifice everyone and everything she holds dear to save the city. This is one deadline she cannot miss…

Until Next Time…Miss Smith: When Josh suggests the dead rat must have been sent by somebody who has a grudge against SJ that hardly narrows the field because she’s made a fair few enemies over the years. Listen to her asking Claudia for help, she sounds desperate and snappy, a far cry from the easy going companion who used to travel with the Doctor. This might be ludicrous characterisation if the set up for this series hadn’t been so good and Lis Sladen wasn’t so damn compelling in the role and as a result it is a fascinating, rabbit in the headlights new take on the character. There is some real tension between the three regulars in this story and the uncomfortable thing is that Josh is right and Sarah’s behaviour is slightly erratic. She demands that they are secretive to the point of paranoia and then hands over their evidence against a terrorist attack to the authorities. She really is pricklier than ever, furious when Nat phones the police to protect them from Carver. There’s a feeling that something has to break in her life in order for her to find the fun again and the terror she faces in this story surely qualifies. Harris tells Nat that wherever Sarah had run and no matter how many times she changes her identity they know exactly where and who she is. Trapped in a nightmare Sarah has to make the decision to save her friends or thousands of lives and as tough as it might be she chooses the latter. Sarah apologetically has to face her friends once the danger is over and admits a few years ago she would have tried to have saved her no matter what but she has now realised that the world savers have gone and she has a responsibility to fill that role.

Jubilant Josh: Josh pretends to be a reporter working for Metropolitan infiltrating BioGuard and he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for Harris greeting him at the door! Sick of being pushed around and getting involved in dangerous business Josh walks out on Sarah in a childish rant but Nat knows he will be back. Even Josh cannot wisecrack his way through this story and he tries to gently persuade Carver to give up his insane terrorist attack. Sarah is used to this kind of crap but he and Nat are scared, especially after this escapade. He tells Sarah that he isn’t going anywhere but she needs to remember that they don’t have her experience.

Natty: ‘My employers want Sarah Jane to suffer. They don’t give a damn about her pet cripple…’ I don’t recall Nat’s disability being mentioned in either of the first two stories (and why should it? Its not as if disabled people go around talking about their disability all of the time!) but that could just be me missing the obvious but it is an essential ingredient to the climax of this story so Bishop slips that little necessity in early. When Sarah refuses to call the police after Carver’s terrorist threats Nat wonders if she has lost her grip on reality. I love Nat facing off against Harris, she’s got nerves of steel this one and shows astonishing strength by crawling from a building that is about to be destroyed despite her disability. She understands that Sarah left her to die for all the right reasons but she just can’t get over the fact and needs some space to work it out in her head. She’s not quitting but she does need a sabbatical.

Standout Performance: Now this was a casting coup that surprised me in several ways and taught me not to be so judgemental in the future. When I first saw that Roy Skelton was going to be one of the principals in this story I was expecting lots of silly voices like his Daleks/Cybermen/Kraals/Zippy from Rainbow days. What I was forgetting was to make those voices work you have to be a bloody good actor – you might just hear a Dalek shrieking ‘Exterminate!’ but without any passion and bloodlust behind the voice it would sound pathetic and with Skelton on board it never, ever did. Here all the modulation is peeled away and he gives a genuinely phenomenal performance as James Carver, a man who is campaigning for the rights of soldiers who were used as unauthorised guinea pigs to test biological weapons. He gives a heartbreaking turn as a man whose life has been destroyed by a campaign that has gotten him nowhere but he has to keep trying because he knows what he is doing is right. It was enough to make me take a look online to see what other work Skelton has done away from the voice modulator but I couldn’t find anything and judging by this performance that is a real shame. He’s so completely convincing during the scene where he reveals the Sarin gas pellet and suggests using it on the Tube at rush hour I had goosebumps. Massive kudos to Elisabeth Sladen, Sadie Miller and Jeremy Carver whose performances at the climax never fail to give me goosebumps all over.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The people I work for have a score to settle with Miss Smith. They’re playing a game with her. Humiliation, betrayal and then murder.’

Great Ideas: David Bishop understands exactly how this series needs to feel and opening the show on a new report not only highlights Sarah’s previous career but gets straight to the heart of the story with absolute economy. No wonder Russell T Davies used this method time and again in the new series. Only our Sarah would receive a gift wrapped rat in a cage of nerve gas as a present and it is a great hook into the story. A note is attached saying that Sarah has one day to find out the truth otherwise all of London will suffer the same fate – unlike the first two stories that made me sit up and pay attention. A security was beaten during a security leak at BioGuard where bio weapons are tested. Harris seems to be everywhere in this story, manipulating Sarah’s contact Claudia at C19 and using James Carver as a weapon against Sarah. Tests took place in 1963 where scientist dropped a light bulb filled with an inert bacteria out of the window of a Northern line train near Tooting. Within days the bacteria was found ten miles north near Camden, all the trains and tunnels heavily contaminated. BioGuard have been continuing the tests ever since, cooking up Sarin, Anthrax and all manner of other nasties. The break in was a cover for Harris to steal the Sarin gas and set up his trap for Sarah. Claudia is shot to death by Harris’ cronies, now Sarah has no contact inside C19 and she has lost a good friend. Shockingly Carver throws himself in front of the train rather than the nerve gas pellets.

Audio Landscape: Gas seeping into a cage and killing a squeaking rat, phone ringing, there is a protest heard in the back of one scene, police siren, gunshot, coins going into a phone box, gun shots, window smashing, bomb counting down, I love the way Harris voice booms from the Underground with a little bing-bong, because of the build up the sound of the approaching train is one of the scariest sound effects ever, the explosion at Sarah’s house.

Musical Cues: I haven’t mentioned the series theme tune yet which is quite remiss of me three stories in but I rather like it and find it infinitely preferable to the Sunday afternoon adventure serial they slapped on the Sarah Jane Adventures. Like the Doctor Who theme tune at its best it has an air of mystery to it and doesn’t really tell what the range is about other than the fact that it is going to be contemporary and rather scary. The score for Test of Nerve is far superior to the first two stories, focussing less on the 70s porn stings and more on creating an atmosphere of fear. I love the quiet choral music as Carver reveals his Sarin gas pellet and Darlington has to be commended for keeping the ten minute climax moving with his furiously exciting music.

Standout Scene: Bishop sets up a three way conclusion that is audacious in its torture of the regulars. Firstly you have Josh and Nat in the Underground inside a glass box with lethal Sarin gas about to pour inside. Nat is at Sarah’s house with an explosive device primed and counting down to detonation. And James Carver is on the Underground platform at rush hour and willing to poison the commuters for his cause. Sarah has to choose whether to save the life of one of her friends or to save the lives of thousands of Londoners. Its an impossible, agonising sequence and the way Bishop cuts to each of the scenarios shows a gift for building a momentum of tension through the conclusion until you are left panting with shock.

Notes: The mysterious villain behind Sarah’s recent humiliation and terror is none other than Miss Winters, the sinister Nazi-esque head of the Think Tank organisation in the fourth Doctor’s debut story, Robot. What an awesome feat to bring back such a memorable character and to get back Patricia Maynard to play her. But more on her involvement in Mirror Signal Manoeuvre.

Result: This is exactly what the series should have been like from the off but I don’t know if I would have been able to handle a series with the tension cranked up to the nth degree like Test of Nerve! Terrorism is such an obscenely simple idea but it is one that can strike the fear of God into all of us so using that as a starting to point for a story is automatically raising the stakes high. What you also get here though is a triple jeopardy plot at the conclusion with a tight fist closing around Sarah and her friends and a real feeling that any one of them could be for the chop. After the general laxity of the last two stories the extended tension of the climax really winds you into recognising that Sarah’s paranoia might not be unjustified. A great plot is driven by great characters and they are all at their best here with some real anxiety causing tension between Sarah, Nat and Josh and there are times when the story seems to suggest our leading lady is growing slightly unhinged as her life is stage-managed into a hellish situation. All this plus a stunning turn by Roy Skelton as the obsessed war veteran Carver, a stirring score, lots more of Harris who is becoming one of my favourite Big Finish baddies (the way he sadistically enjoys tossing Nat out of her wheelchair is horrible) and a blinding revelation at the close that links this series with the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who in a very satisfying way. No wonder David Bishop was chosen to write the entire second season, if this is an example of how exciting it will be then count me in: 10/10

The TAO Connection written by Barry Letts and directed by Gary Russell

What’s it about: The body of an old man is found floating in the Thames although the DNA of the corpse corresponds to an 18-year old friend of Josh and Ellie. Sarah Jane heads towards West Yorkshire in a bid to discover what killed the man, why someone is kidnapping homeless teenage boys and whether there is a link between that and the retreat of philanthropist Will Butley which hosts The Huang Ti Clinic. Sarah discovers that there is more to ancient Dark Sorcery than she may have otherwise believed.

Until Next Time…Miss Smith: Sarah used to earn her living by ‘finding out’ and still has a notebook full of contacts. One of those is Claudia from the C19 who is lucky to still have her job because Sarah kept her mouth shut about their association before she was discredited. Once they are north of London Sarah puts on the most horrendous upper class accent to gain entrance to a shin dig and then an then deepest mummerset to pose as a cleaner at the clinic. Unfortunately her face is simply too high profile to go undercover and she has to pretend that she is always been mistaken for ‘that Sarah Jane.’ Tripe night was the highlight of the week when Sarah was a lass! Josh describes her as caring about things they investigate but also oddly detached and she remarks she probably picked it up from somebody she once knew and if he had seen the things that she had seen he would be too. She’s a dab hand at Venusian Akido now so the Doctor must have spent some time during season eleven teaching her the skill. Sarah dishes out the only punishment that is worthy of Butley and that is to finally force him to grow old and die – if he remained alive her would exploit more young men for their bodies and their life force and she cannot allow that to happen.

Jubilant Josh: There is a very natural chemistry between SJ and Josh already, mocking each other, sharing lunch and joking about. Rather wonderfully when Sarah is trying to secrete Josh into the clinic and they are caught she orders him to kiss her so it looks like she is using her break to get up to some rumpy pumpy!

Standout Performance: Moray Treadwell’s turn as Will Butley was a revelation as the effete gay billionaire trapped in the clinic, flirting with the guards and trying to escape. There is a gorgeously performed scene between him and his bodyguard (played by Robert Curbishley) where you think he will get a beating for suggesting sexual favours but Read admits he has obliged men of his persuasion before for the right price. Its an odd, uncomfortable moment and the story could have used more of them.

Great Ideas: The Huang-Tai clinic chucked Lotus out for being a right pain in the butt, a fact that Sarah can testify having tangled with her professionally once or twice over the years. Huang-Tai was otherwise known as the Yellow Emperor and was the first Sage of the Chinese religion of Taoism which is like alchemy – trying to find the secret to physical and spiritual immortality. Chi is the secret of their long life, its exploitation through acupuncture. When Sarah discovers the therapy rooms in the clinic she finds that blood is being pumped into their bodies and not out of it. Butley is over 300 years old, born in 1697, the Chi not stopping the ageing process but slowing it down. The secret incantation is ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’ told backwards which Letts seems to love using (The Daemons).

Audio Landscape: Big Ben, car honking, traffic, wading through water, growling car engine, dog barking, pouring tea, crockery, washing up.

Isn’t it Odd: To find a Barry Letts script full of swearing, cutting edge science and a strained gay romance beggars belief! The biggest problem with this story and for the majority of the first series of SJS audios is that the what should have been a hard hitting drama series is far too concerned with the small scale to make much of an impact. Comeback heads to a country village, The TAO Connection to a rural retreat and Ghost Town to a remote Romanian village. Whilst the Sarah Jane Adventures puts itself on a worldwide scale every other week (its one of Russell T Davies’ favourite clichés) it does at least stress the importance of the series and the lead characters role. With so many visits to forgotten towns off the beaten track the audios stutter for a while by suggesting Sarah is good for little more than solving Scooby Doo-esque minor mysteries. Fortunately David Bishop would be around soon to change all that, to force the series into metropolitan London and to kick start an epic story arc that winds up with Sarah heading back into space. But that’s in the future. The double punch of Comeback and TAO seeing Sarah Jane mixing with yokels with country accents suggests that as much as Terry Dicks and Barry Letts want to suggest that they have moved on (you know the swearing and whatnot) they are very much writers of their generation. What’s really odd about The TAO Connection is that there isn’t any supernatural element besides the extended ageing process which would be fine as long as there was some kind of real world threat or stake to the adventure but what transpires is a tale about an old man who enjoys winding people up with his longevity and little more.

Result: The TAO Connection is badly timed, being another low key charmer with little incident and action coming straight after the same thing in the opening story. Barry Letts is the ideal person to write for Sarah and its no great shock that she is characterised very well in this story but Nat disappears for the length of a bible and Josh is sidelined as comic relief. Letts juggles Taoism and homosexuality and it does seem as though he is trying to bring a modern touch to the range but his storytelling is off his time, slackly paced and focussing far more on character then plot. Saying that there are some nice comic diversions and I thought Will Butley was a wonderful sleazy character to hiss at. Its worth a listen because of the nice performances (its great to see Maggie Stables making a cameo as the deadly chef, Mrs Lythe) but its only once you have heard David Bishop’s fast paced and contemporary thriller Test of Nerve that is next in the schedule that you compare the differences and see which approach is more engaging. A flawed piece but adequate: 5/10

Comeback written by Terrance Dicks and directed by Gary Russell

What’s it about: Six months after the last part of her undercover investigative TV series for Planet 3 Broadcasting went out, Sarah Jane Smith is running scared. Living under false names, her true identity compromised, she has few friends and fewer clues as to her pursuers. Enter three people who will change her life the mysterious Mr Harris, old friend Ellie Martin and a guardian angel in the shape of the rougish Josh. Now, all roads lead to the village of Cloots Coombe in Wiltshire but will she find answers she needs there?

Until Next Time…Miss Smith: It seems that we fans just cannot get enough of Sarah Jane Smith and whilst her involvement with the show is fairly spaced out, there is plenty of Elisabeth Sladen goodness to revel throughout the shows gestation. Her three and half years on the show are an absolute highlight for the series, the aborted spin off for her own show K9 and Company, featuring in The Five Doctors and Downtime, taking part in some splendid novels, her return to the series in School Reunion and the resulting spin off show The Sarah Jane Adventures and of course the audio series from Big Finish. That’s a wealth of material to appreciate the character and I still wanted more simply because the character was so compelling and Lis herself brought so much charm and realism to the role. Its very interesting to see that the tone of the series here is very different to that of the CBBC show – Sarah is a colder character, paranoid because she has upset too many people in her career and constantly living on the run through various aliases. It’s a fascinating take on the character and Sladen really convinces you that the world is out to get our favourite reporter. At the beginning of the Sarah Jane Adventures our heroine is paranoid, secretive and doesn’t want to involve others into her lifestyle and I consider that a result of her experiences in her audio series. Whilst her audio series second season ends on a cliffhanger I definitely feel that was resolved and she wound up moving to Bannerman Road in Ealing after he experiences here. The tone of the two series might be vastly different but in my head I can completely justify that one follows the other and the character leaps from one to the other as though it was made as a seagueway between The Five Doctors and School Reunion. To me it is all one timeline for the character.

The story opens with her Aunt Lavinia’s funeral and says that in a place like Morton Harwood you don’t get slip away quietly which links this nicely to K.9 and Company. She is going to miss her Aunt and all the adventures that they never had and has been bequeath all of her money and worldly goods and she promises to be slightly frivolous as Lavinia would have wanted. Sarah used to work for Planet Three and made documentaries exposing dodgy organisations and Sarah talks of working hard to creating a new life for herself out of the limelight. Her last report with Scottish Fisheries, Hautacore and Sarah believed that researches into fish born diseases was being abused. She followed a trail, got the story and broadcast it. Planet Three had the asses sued off them because everything that Sarah had researched was a lie. She was fired for false allegations, Planet Three coughed up a lot of dough which Hautacore donated to cancer charities. Nobody would touch her anymore. She had no bank balance, no job, no identity, a complete nobody in society. Sarah ceased to exist because someone, somewhere went to great pains to frame her and destroy her life. Listening to Sarah manipulate Hedges on the phone into co-operating with her goes to show just what a good journalist she is. She dresses it up as trying to find out who is messing with her life but I think that Sarah loves all this cloak and dagger stuff and when she says she has to act I feel its more that she wants to. There’s something appealingly reckless about her in this audio series that I like. She has a battered old red Volkswagen beetle called Ethel and its interesting to note that when she gives her car to Luke in The Nightmare Man that it is an spruced up resprayed VW Beetle – even though it is torched here! Perhaps she bought another? Ellie warns Sarah that she is getting a little uneasy in her paranoia and it’s a trait that will become more apparent as the series continues.

Jubilant Josh: I’m so glad to see Jeremy James earning a regular status on this show because he is a staple of the early Big Finish adventures often playing the sort of roles that go unnoticed like monsters. He brings a great deal of real world charm to this series and it would seem that whatever the medium whenever Sarah gets her own series she is always surrounded by likable friends. Josh joins up with Sarah after saving her life during an investigation of a bank and describes himself as a have-a-go hero! He nabs the nickname that Ellie Martin called Sarah – ‘SJ’. His parents run a ski resort near the Alps and are loaded but he is (as Nat describes him) their ‘delinquent only child fending for himself and refusing their help.’ After wasting time hanging out with some fringe loonies he spent eight months in Felton, then worked at various High Street retailers before falling into a dead end job at a builders merchants. Nat rather cruelly lists his failiure of a life and it only serves to make you like him even more. Rather than admitting that he wants to protect her Josh spouts some naff Chinese philosophy about saving someone’s life and being responsible for them thereafter. Josh destroys the MOD facility and mentions it is what he does best – arson. Now we know why he was locked away for eight months.

Natty: I really like Nat because she doesn’t take any of Sarah’s shit – at times our plucky hero can be remarkably cold and put her friends in real danger but Nat has the strength to fight her own corner and tell Sarah when she has gone too far. Played by Elisabeth Sladen’s daughter Sadie Miller, Nat is straight talking and intelligent and her hacking skills are legendary. She probably tried to fight against it but at times Sladen’s natural affection for her daughter shines through but that isn’t necessarily a problem because Nat is often invaluable and deserves the praise Sarah heaps on her. Sarah is suspicious of the slightest co-incidence but Nat quite rightly says that the whole doesn’t revolve around her.

Standout Performance: SJS has a terrific cast and it all starts at the top – the unmistakably talent Elisabeth Sladen. She’s back to give a whole new spin on the character and heads the series with absolute conviction. Her sidekicks are played by Jeremy James who is a laugh a minute in the role and quickly develops a natural chemistry with Sladen and Sadie Miller, Sladen’s daughter and just as convincing as her mother in a difficult expository role. Its Robin Bowerman that I really want to praise however because his delicious throaty voice really sells the menace of the iniquitous Mr Harris and I’m pleased that he turns up in many other stories because he brings a great deal of that old school Who villainy with him. Just wait until we reach Test of Nerve where he becomes even more sinister.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘One day I just might get to unpack.’
‘Its time for you to investigate the newest scientific breakthrough!’

Great Ideas: Showing how well thought through this series is the principal villains of the piece turn up in the pre-titles sequence and whilst manipulating their way throughout the season wont reveal their hand until the very last tale, Mirror Signal Manoeuvre. Harris and his employers hacking into the bank that Sarah is investigating simply because they had the misfortune to give her a job – admitting they have spent a lot of time and energy trying to destroy her. Small village, weird locals, dodgy squire and dead bodies decomposed and carrying the days newspaper found in shallow graves – usual stuff for the likes of Sarah! The thing in the well devours the life force and leaves its victim a decaying unrecognisable corpse. Eighteen years ago the MOD were experimenting with chemical warfare and accidentally contaminated the local area with a leakage of radiation. It left the MOD facility by the church and seeped into the village well which was used for May Day celebrations and other traditions. The village became sterile and Richofet agreed to clone the villagers to give them a new generation. It was just a cover to see if the procedure could work – to grow an army that would have no families so casualties wouldn’t matter and with no payouts for the government. The experiments failed and they created a mutant, a creature that lives of the life force of those whose DNA created it. An army of such genetic trash would be invincible.

Audio Landscape: Car starting, Big Ben ringing, whistling wind, rain whipping at the car, footsteps, chatter in the bank, sawn off shotguns in the bank, alarm, doorbell, caller withheld, keyboard tapping in an internet café, Ethel going up in flames, an owl hooting, crackling fire, crows, the facility exploding, the creature screaming.

Musical Cues: This was a time when David Darlington was responsible for a lot of the Big Finish spin off series music and he does a fine job in giving the series an up to date (I hate to use the word hip) feel. However it does alarm me that at points the music that bridges the scenes can (if your mind can wander that way) sound alarmingly like the stripping off music of a 70s porn film. Not that I have ever watched anything of the kind. No sir J

Isn’t it Odd: I know the producers wanted Sarah to move into a grittier world but reading the name Terrance Dicks and hearing ‘You smug bitch!’ just don’t go together in my eyes. Because the story has spent so much time introducing us to the regulars there is little time to expand on the actual Cloots Coombe plot and so as soon as Sarah meets with the villain of the piece he immediately drops his façade and reveals his plans. There simply isn’t time for any kind of subterfuge.

Standout Scene: The opening monologue shows Elisabeth Sladen at her emotive best and after the tragic news of her death it was very appropriate for Big Finish to use this moment, a reflection on death from Sarah Jane herself, to show just how wonderful the actress was in the role in one of their pod casts.

Result: Comeback is a great introduction to the Sarah Jane Smith audio series but unfortunately it is not such a brilliant story in its own right. Since it spends so much time setting up the regulars and their claustrophobic world it’s the one instance where the story doesn’t have to be too much cop because everything about Sarah, Josh and Nat and the foes that are influencing their lives feels fresh and exciting. The producers desperately want to bring Sarah bang up to date and for the first half of Comeback Uncle Terry is writing a paranoia thriller but he cannot resist moving the action to a country village and churning out ‘same old’ (as one of the characters calls the mysterious happenings in Cloots Coombe). Terrance Dicks is an old hand at this and introduces some lovely ideas at the conclusion and it’s a shame that there just isn’t the time to develop them further but at least there are hints the cloning operation is part of a much larger operation. I went into this re-listen thinking that the opening couple of stories were dreadful and everything that came later justified the series but this was a lot more polished than I remember with some strong central performances and an intriguing set up for the series. I wont say this was the best pilot for a spin off range but it was entertaining and attention grabbing enough to make me want to see where Sarah heads next: 7/10

Return of the Daleks written by Nicholas Briggs and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: No one could ever know. We had to erase the past. Change everything. Start again. But even though it's been centuries now… In our hearts, none of us feels truly… Safe. I think, even if our people were to survive until the end of time itself, we would still fear… The return of the Daleks.

The Real McCoy: The Doctor mentions Mel, Ace and Hex so this story is set quite near the end of his seventh life. He wistfully mentions that time passes and history moves on…and if the sickness has gone so it seems clear that after all his companions choose to leave him some catastrophe will befall him. The story very cleverly leads up to that first scene, explaining what has happened to him and how he wound up believing he might have regenerated. Considering this was released along with The Year of the Pig it is right on the cusp of the Russell/Briggs handover and it shows precisely the direction that the latter wants to take McCoy in. He’s travelling alone, quiet and melancholic, a man who has seen it all and is waiting for his next life to catch up with him. I love the way the Doctor slips into this situation unnoticed until he opens his mouth, making cryptic statements and being more of an observer than a participant for the most part. There is something genuinely sorrowful and almost Godlike about him and its amazing the gravitas he has when he doesn’t have companions around to screech at. I love the way that the Doctor is the only person powerful enough to walk from show to show – people enter Doctor Who (Jack, Sarah Jane) and its still about the Doctor but as soon as the Doctor steps into Torchwood, SJA or Dalek Empire it becomes all about him. The Doctor thought his role here was to make sure that nothing went wrong but he realises he has to interfere otherwise the Daleks will have a terrifying advantage in their war against humanity if they succeed in freeing their army. He wonders if this is his penance for not doing the job properly the first time. He knows that Karlendorf is vital to bringing down the Daleks and offers to work for them, to give them the power of invisibility, in order to ensure his survival and that is enough for Karl to brand the Doctor a traitor to humanity. To ensure the timeline stays on track the Doctor works for the Daleks for years. He’s at his most menacing when he reveals that he has been keeping them happy in order for Karl and Suze to bring down their Empire and gleefully watches them die around him. Brrr…I don’t want to get this guy mad. He genuinely thought he was going to regenerate at the end of this story, his body bombarded with radiation but its almost as if he knows he is supposed to survive until he reaches San Francisco in 1999.

Angel of Mercy: I love Suze’s steel when she confronts the Daleks, she knows that they need her and that she can push them and when she points those facts out they are impotent to simply get rid of her because she is right. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that when Rob Shearman was asked to bring back a single, simple Dalek in the New Series that he cited the psychology of the scenes between Suze and the Dalek Supreme from Dalek Empire as the level of intensity they should be aspiring to. She thinks she can mouth off to anybody and gives the Ogrons an earful, resisting their brute tactics and they simply break her arm to prevent her trying to escape. It’s a healthy reminder that whilst she is useful, she is also vulnerable.

Knight of Velyshaa: Gareth Thomas has a marvellous, gravelly voice for audio and he injected a great deal of charm and gravitas into the Dalek Empire series. No matter how melodramatic the storyline became Thomas was there to add subtleties and give the story its heart. Karl thinks Suze sounds almost proud when she admits that Solaria have a reputation of full co-operation – he is definitely there as her moral compass when she starts to sound too much like a Dalek. The Doctor sums up Karl in about 30 seconds reminding him that he was on a secret peace mission to make a defence pact with the Earth alliance when he got caught up in the Dalek invasion of the galaxy. The Doctor describes him as a force of nature and is clearly here to make a difference in his life, stating he has to make sure that he fulfils his potential.

Standout Performance: McCoy is at his most sinister here, appearing to turn rogue during the finale and practically salivating at the sound of Daleks dying.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘They’re beginning to suspect they’ve got it right and they’re about to unleash the most powerful Dalek army ever created.’
‘I’m working for the Daleks now and I really must get started…’
‘History is saved…’

Great Ideas: For anybody foolish enough not to have tried the Dalek Empire series (stop reading this and get to it!) this is a wonderful way to introduce them to the main players, main premise and tone of the series whilst still remaining firmly a Doctor Who story. The Daleks are back and spreading their hate amongst the universe but they are doing it in such a way that might make their tyranny seem more acceptable – by choosing a poster child for their subjugation in Susan Mendez. They head around the Dalek Empire and she makes rousing speeches to the slaves to keep them focussed and working and in return for their loyalty they receive more food and rest. The situation isn’t great but the Daleks get what they want and so the encouragement to kill to keep the workforce moving is removed. Susan has regular chats with the Dalek Supreme who tries to get inside her mind and enjoys mind fucking her. At her side is an ex Knight of Velyshaa (The Sirens of Time), Karlendorf, who tries to remind Suze that she is a Dalek puppet and is actually aiding their suppression of the universe and between them they are seeking planning to overthrow the Dalek Empire. I had a real childish thrill when the Daleks mentioned the Ogrons. Briggs has been quite keen to forge his own Dalek continuity whilst effortlessly slipping in the odd mention of their Doctor Who continuity but he usually sticks to elements from the Hartnell Dalekmania period. To have an element of Pertwee slapped into this story and something as bold as the Ogrons gave me a fanboy thrill. There is a massive Dalek army underneath Solaria that they are hoping to unearth – it is the planet Spiridon which has changed its name to Solaria in order to shield this terrifying army from the Daleks. With experiments they are hoping to unlock the key to becoming invisible. The Daleks are already winning this war and with an invisible thousand strong killing force their victory is assured.

Audio Landscape: Dalek alarm, a sauce descending, Ogrons marching, birdsong, an explosion in the distance wobbling crockery, the screams of the victims as the light wave projectors fire, a humming wind, the snap of Suze’s breaking arm, ice vaporising.

Musical Cues: Its such a shame that Nick Briggs doesn’t score his own directed works anymore because listening to the atmospheric music to Return of the Daleks reminded me of how good he was once he had found his groove. He tinkles on the piano to create a real mood and has these wonderful melodramatic stings that highlight moments of drama. There’s a wonderful moment during the climax where Briggs uses the Dalek Empire theme music to underscore the climactic events and you realise it isn’t just a dynamic theme tune but also a great piece of incidental music in its own right.

Standout Scene: I knew it! As soon as I caught wind of a Dalek army buried beneath a planet I had an inkling that it might be Spiridon from Planet of the Daleks. Briggs then mentions they are encased in ice and my suspicions grew but he still held back from revealing the truth. When he does it is a real punch the air moment and this seamless dovetailing of Doctor Who continuity and the Dalek Empire series makes for a very exciting conclusion. How wonderful to revisit this planet and for the Daleks to take advantage of a resource we thought long forgotten.

Result: Listening to Return of the Daleks should be all the excuse you need to go out and buy all four series of Dalek Empire. It’s not exact a story in its own right but another chapter of Briggs’ signature series but because the Doctor is present it feels definitively like a Doctor Who story. It’s an intoxicating brew of the two ranges featuring the best of both with Suze squaring up to the Daleks in dramatic fashion and Karlendorf learning that he is far too important to be allowed to sacrifice himself on the one hand and the seventh Doctor rarely characterised better as he has jettisoned his companions and is now a force of nature ducking into historical events and ensuring their continuity. There’s a brilliant moment when the location is revealed and a forgotten loose end is brought spectacularly into the new Dalek war and I love the ending that sees the Doctor sacrificing his freedom, matching the fatalistic tone that the Dalek Empire series often adopts. Whilst you can purchase this story now it was a massive thank you to the audience at the time that you could receive a freebie of this quality and it confidently spells out all the reasons that Dalek Empire has been such a hit: 8/10

  
Artwork by Simon Hodges @ http://hisi79.deviantart.com/

Blue Forgotten Planet written and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: 'So, this is the blue planet you’ve forgotten about. But take another look. You helped us once. I know you can help us again.' On Earth, civilization has ended and time is running out for the Doctor and Charlotte Pollard. Will the mysterious Viyrans really help? 'Without you, the human race will die out. And Planet Earth will surely be our tomb.’

Softer Six: We open on a melancholic Doctor sitting by the shoreline on a beautiful planet and wistfully thinking about a friend he has recently lost – could this be the final parting between the Doctor and Charley Pollard? It would appear that the Doctor and Mila (disguised as Charley) have had many adventures together, getting to know each other and drinking in each others company. They skip back into the TARDIS at the beginning of Blue Forgotten Planet giggling, poking fun at each other and talking of mad nights drinking (non alcoholic) cocktails. He talks about it being an ‘extremely long way round’ trip back to Earth for Charley but the tone of his voice suggests that he hasn’t minded one bit. I was literally screaming at the injustice of having Charley frozen by the Viyrans just as the Doctor materialises the TARDIS – the sound of his arrival is such a joyous one and you genuinely think they will be reunited only to have it snatched away. The Doctor scoffs at the Viyrans ridiculous scheme to chase around the universe sniffing out every single virus that was scattered amongst time and space. Astonishingly given how much time has been spent with Charley hiding the truth from the Doctor over past dozen stories when she finally gets to admit that she is from his personal future it is blurted out in the middle of a climactic moment and gets promptly ignored as the story dramatically interrupts! There is simply no time for him to digest it at this point when the fate of the human race is at stake. He can only ever do his best but luckily his best is rather better than average. I really like the way that people who have been pushed to the limit thanks to an impossible situation believe that the Doctor on his strength of conviction can save them without any real proof. Once the cat is out of the bag the Doctor is still trying to protect Charley even when he cannot trust her an inch. Its lovely to see him trying to find excuses to continue his time together with Charley but he knows that he cannot remember her come his future self. Their parting as one of the most successful Big Finish pairings probably came too soon for my liking but golly it has been one heck of a ride.

Edwardian Adventuress: How far has Charley come since she first stepped into the TARDIS in Storm Warning? She has well and truly grown up to the point where she had outgrown the eighth Doctor and decided to leave him and after her tense relationship with one of his predecessors and an unfortunate encounter with a malevolent girl that wanted to steal her life she has wound up working for a robotic race chasing viruses around the universe! Whilst this might sound like a ridiculous path for a character to forge it is only since things have gotten extremely complicated for the character (so around The Girl Who Never Was) that she has really become one to capture the attention in a very captivating way. Charley is now a fighting girl, hanging on by the tips of her fingers and tumbling into one unfortunate situation that she has talk her way out of after another with Time itself unsure what to do with her. This desperate Charley has been a much more attractive character and it is a relief that at this point where she has reached her zenith she is written out leaving people desperately wanting more. Its always best to go out that way – had she gone at the end of The Girl Who Never Was it would have been a case of they’ve finally let go of Charley but the reality is at the end of Blue Forgotten Planet I was thinking I would have loved to spend more time with the Sixie/Charley dynamic. Given how bored I was with the character during the latter McGann era this is nothing short of a miracle. I can’t think of a single instance where a companion has felt so tired and with a single revolutionary step finding myself falling in love with them again but in a whole new way. What’s even more interesting is how India Fisher’s performance adapted with this new evasive Charley and she went on to give her strongest turns against Colin Baker. In all respects this has been a barmy experiment that has paid off. Charley had a phenomenal two seasons with McGann, an inconsistent run in the Divergent Universe and onwards with C’rizz before catapulting into sixth Doctor’s life where she went out at her peak. It’s a shame about the middle section of her time in the audios but taken as a whole Charley has been the poster child for Big Finish companions. A complicated companion whose very presence in the TARDIS is an issue, who declared her love for the Doctor and who broke a vital rule leaping into his past. Ladies and gents please raise your glass for Charlotte Pollard!

Charley has been working for the Viyrans because they promised to wake her when they track down the Doctor. When the Viyrans make Charley aware there is an exact duplicate of her wandering around out there she knows it is Mila and that was when things started to get really interesting. The end of episode one is exactly how the cliffhangers can be drafted in to make the trilogies a more dramatic experience. Patient Zero saw the dramatic events of Mila taking Charley’s place and with Paper Cuts wedged between them we have had a bit of a breather so the impact of the first cliffhanger where a fuming Charley comes face to face with her tormentor and it is a real spine tingler. Mila had absolutely everything she wanted and by bungling on her adventure with the Doctor Charley is about to ruin everything for the pair of them. The Doctor is about to discover that he has been duped twice over (by both Charley and Mila) and this faux companionship is going to be brought to a dramatic end. That first cliffhanger though is superb and almost on its own justifies the Charley/Mila shenanigans. Charley doesn’t have anything like a formal contract with the Viyrans, more of an understanding that they can help each other out. She feels she has some sway with them though because she knows that they wouldn’t have completed some of their missions had it not been for her. When she finally gets to speak to the Doctor Charley tells him how much she has missed him but she understands the situation better than he does – a simple explanation for a very complicated situation that she is going to have to untangle for him once the fireworks are over. The Doctor describes the two Charley’s as an intrusion in time and the cause of a corruption in it. When Charley calls Mila by her name it is as though she has physically struck her – she spits back that that isn’t who she is anymore. Charley admits that she has made hash out of everything – even her pretend existence with the sixth Doctor has been usurped. The last thing I expected was the Charley and Mila working together for the man they both love but it certainly gave the conclusion a burst of sentiment that overwhelmed me. We experience the Doctor’s parting with Mila, promising to look in on her from time to time but it is in reality a fiction placed in his head by Charley who has to finally wrap up her time with the Doctor and make it so he never remembers her. Its an oddly poignant moment because unbeknownst to him he has genuinely been having adventures with Mila. Charley is clever enough to know that if she spells out his future to him the Doctor himself will be forced to forget his time with her. We leave her as an unwilling traveller with the Viyrans, ready to forge a future without the Doctor.

Standout Performance: This one belongs to India Fisher who has grown so much as performer throughout her time with Big Finish to the point where she is playing two completely separate characters in her last story with absolute confidence. Go and listen to her final scene with Colin if you want to know how good Fisher is at her very best – its understated and beautiful and the perfect point to say goodbye to the character.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I think the Viyrans are going to wipe out the human race…’
‘Let me tell you a story. You meet a girl on the R-101 airship. She’s meant to die in the crash’ ‘If this is something from my future I don’t think…’ ‘But you save her and that tears at the fabric of time itself – the Web of Time but in a way you don’t care because you’re in love with her’ ‘Sounds like I became reckless in my old age…’ ‘Isn’t that what old age is for?’ ‘Perhaps’ ‘The one day you and this girl, this woman, decide to go your separate ways. But before this happens she sees you die’ ‘Charlotte! I don’t want’ ‘And you don’t regenerate!’ Why are you’ ‘You die!’ ‘Why are you telling me this?’ ‘I think the only way the Viyrans can erase your memory without killing you is if you really want to forget. And now you know when you meet Charlotte Pollard your life will nearly be over!’ ‘Everyone dies, Charley. Even me. I’m prepared for that’ – this is so beautifully performed by Fisher and Baker its everything I could have hoped it would be.

Great Ideas: The best parties in the galaxy are on Grelistor or so they say. There is a very funny moment just after the title music that features a character giving what appears to be a dramatic monologue but in true Armageddon Factor style it is actually a propaganda piece being recorded – an advert for the ‘Save Planet Earth’ campaign. A crater several miles across caused by a chemical explosive device. Without the Viyrans all human life would have died out years ago, sending medication that wipes out the madness. Without the meds you begin to forget everything you have ever known until you are left as a shivering vegetable, afraid of your own shadow. No one knew how to cure diseases, build things or grow things. There were epidemics, catastrophes and the human population was cut by over 2 billion in a decade. Utter chaos ensued with wars breaking out and mass murder with nobody understanding the technology anymore. Viyran ships landed all over the world but it was too little too late. They set up small survivor groups and gave a temporary vaccine to a privileged few. In return they were asked to make documentaries, charity appeals to the Viyrans. Only Charley realises that the Viyrans aren’t medical missionaries but the ones who caused all this madness in the first place. Their mission is to wipe out the Amethyst viruses (that were released in Patient Zero) and the madness disease was their attempt at a cure that went horribly wrong. The Mison particle disseminator that was launched at the beginning of the story was to destroy the minute quantity of Amethyst virus that was detected on the planet but they did not foresee the side effect of the madness. The radiation caused a massive chemical imbalance and somehow the human race had civilisation wiped clean from their collective brains. I just love the idea of the human race being practically wiped out by what is little more than a statistical error especially since the surviving humans have given the mass extinction the feeling of a tangible threat against the planet. The way they so calmly state that in their search for the viruses it has only been necessary to wipe out five races of the millions they have encountered thus far. Only five! The Viyrans have beings in cryosleep from all over the universe that they use in their experiments to find cures for these diseases – I bet that would be a wonderful place to explore aliens from across the universe. The virus is present as one dormant particle in every human being and there is a 1 in 5.4billion chance that sometime in the next 7000 millennia a human may contract the virus! Unbelievably the virus isn’t really dangerous at all, it could only turn deadly against infinitesimal odds! Chronon particles that get released in the time vortex are the cure for the virus so the Doctor extends the time field of the TARDIS around the entire planet and within the sphere reverts the Earth’s timeline to a point before the Viyrans fired their first disseminator. Shifting the entire human race back in time and curing them all of the virus breaks every single rule in the book.

Audio Landscape: Waves lapping against the shore, a Mison disseminator being fired at the Earth – you can hear it screaming through the atmosphere, applause, helicopters tearing across the landscape, blades whirring, the wibbly wobbly TARDIS landing, the Doctor’s echoing voice as he emerges into a canyon, boots marching, what sounds like a crowd in a scrap with machine guns being fired into the melee, a dog snarling, the Viyran ship landing, the landing ramp hydraulics hissing, I love the metallic whirring that signifies a light moving across the Viyrans monitors (very Cylon), siren, guns cocking, madness breaks out with bullets flying, people screaming and being cut to pieces, Charley freezing, levitating the cryopods, the Viyran intruder alert horn, explosions, Big Ben.

Musical Cues: Is this the first main range story that Jamie Robertson scored? If so we are in for an absolute treat from this point onwards since his music is some of the finest that has ever featured in a Doctor Who production as far as I am concerned. I am so glad that the producers decided to add musical tracks as an extra feature on the discs and downloads because you get to experience the scope and emotional drive of some of scores without the dialogue and sound effects distracting you. The horns are very much in evident which pre-empts that this is going to be one of Jamie Robertson’s cinematic scores. Everything about the Viyrans approach is dynamic, loud and proud.

Isn’t it Odd: This is less of a criticism of the play itself and more of fan expectation because I remember there being quite a lot of talk about the Viyrans on forums and in DWM and a lot of people thought they were going to be the next Big Finish Big Bad. When the truth of the matter was they were a fairly mundane robot race that work really well because they have been included in some operatic stories that heighten their status and were memorably brought to life by Nick Briggs. So they did work just not in the way that they were expected to.

Standout Scene: The final goodbye between the Doctor and Charley (and I love the fact that they don’t actually confirm that it is Charley) is everything it should have been. With the truth she has been hiding exposed they can finally talk frankly with each other – Charley knows that his memory has to be erased and she insists to the Viyrans that she has to be the one to convince him that it needs to be done too. Colin Baker and India Fisher are remarkable in this scene and by the end I was grabbing at the tissues. Stick around after the final titles because there is a hint that this might not quite be the very end for Charlotte Pollard who is still out there somewhere working with the Viyrans.

Notes: There was a moment that really made me smile with a ‘Doctor’ ‘You were expecting someone else?’ exchange in episode four which took me way back to the regeneration scene in The Caves of Androzani and reminded just how far we have come with this character thanks to Big Finish.

Result: An aid mission gone fatally wrong leaving the Earth a post apocalyptic wasteland – that’s a fantastic setting for a Doctor Who story. Its used to stage a cinematic extravaganza that paves the way for a final goodbye to Charley Pollard from the main range. It is a testament to how they revolutionised her character since she joined the sixth Doctor that after so many years and releases that it still feels as though we are letting go of the character too soon. Nick Briggs is so underrated as a writer and this is a fantastic example of how well he can craft a Doctor Who story and here has been able to shape a trilogy to ensure that Blue Forgotten Planet is a very satisfying finale. The Viyrans are back for the blockbusting story they were promised and the Charley/Mila storyline is given appropriate focus and tension. Just look at the way he uses the cliffhangers to grab hold of the listen and catapult you into the next instalment – so many writers forget the true effectiveness a good cliffhanger can have and here we have three humdingers. The story holds the attention throughout thanks to a lavish production courtesy of Briggs (the sound effects are so effective that if you close your eyes you are actually taking part) and a Jamie Robertson score that ups the excitement levels at all the right moments. What this story is really about though is separating the Doctor and Charley and on that score it does so with real aplomb. The lies are abolished and they get to say goodbye to each other as they really are and it’s an emotional high for both Colin Baker and India Fisher. Blue Forgotten Planet has so much to do – rounding off a trilogy, telling a dynamic story in its own right and giving Charley a decent hurrah – and Briggsy ticks these three off with such swagger it is a real testament to his talent behind the scenes: 9/10

Paper Cuts written by Marc Platt and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: The Empire is lost. The Deathless Emperors are dead. The future may never happen. An urgent summons returns the noble Doctor to a planet he saved from disaster long ago. But Draconia, so elegant and so savage, is in worse turmoil than ever. Who will be next Emperor? The highest Prince? The lowest peasant? The soldier with no name? Or the Doctor himself – his life at their command? Who controls the army of deadly origami warriors? And is the truth about Charley painted on paper walls in the Emperor’s tomb? History is taking revenge on the Doctor.

Softer Six: ‘The Doctor. The serpent who poisoned the Empire…’ Caught in a temporal disaster, the Doctor’s life is stretched out before him and other faces stretch out before Mila who recognises them from her time hanging around in the TARDIS all these years. The Doctor ponders on whether he has had lots of different lives or one big life and decides he prefers the latter and concludes that it has mostly been fun. When you are a traveller of the temporal highways and byways being late is never an issue (or so you would think!). Lateness is irrelevant because you can still respond to a distress call early and urgency becomes a thing of the past. That explains an awful lot about his irreverent attitude! His summons to Draconia has been in his in tray for over 150 years and he suggests that now a response might be in order. He once beat the 15th Emperor at Sazoo (a kind of Draconian chess), forgetting that you are supposed to lose with as much skill and as humbly as possible to make the Emperor look extremely skilful in beating you – the only thing that stopped him from getting his head lopped off was the fact that he had just saved the planet from a horrific space plague. The Doctor slips into Lord Salisbury’s dinner jacket feeling that this visit requires subtle elegance! He expects the Emperor to ascend to a happy hunting ground or a hall of heroes and finds that the reality of a solid manifestation of a metaphysical concept leaves a lot to be desired. Remembering his first incarnations adventures on Draconia induces a sense of wistful nostalgia in him, you can imagine the sixth Doctor staring into space grinning as he talks poetically of games with the Emperor and courtly politics. You feel the weight of the Doctor’s relationship with the Emperor when he uncovers the living hell he is being trapped in and asks him if he was genuinely ill or if he was forced out of power and into near death. When asked by the many Emperors being held in this pathetic state for the release of death the Doctor violently refuses, he cannot commit murder. It almost sounds like a reaction to his homicidal tendencies at the beginning of his regeneration.

(Faux)Edwardian Adventuress: I’m not sure how to write up this section because the character that appears to be Charley throughout Paper Cuts is in fact Mila, a disembodied spirit of a woman who was experimented on by the Daleks and left a ghostly shell floating about the TARDIS until Charley came along to give her a home. Our Charley has taken her place in the TARDIS, screaming for the Doctor to realise that she isn’t herself. Its nice to hear somebody assume that Charley is a mans name because over the myriad of adventures everybody has happily accepted she is a woman without question. The Doctor figures that Charlotte’s genius must be his influence rubbing off on her! Mila thinks back to being a Dalek prisoner, to finding her way to the TARDIS and quickly changes her story so her past is one of an Edwardian adventuress travelling through time and space with the Doctor. But the paper reveals her real past, cold, white, emotionless walls of the TARDIS. A life of solitude and pain. There’s a dangerous moment at the end of the story where Mila is desperate to get rid of Gomori because she has been waiting for her turn in the TARDIS with the Doctor for so long. She’s willing to leave him to face the music, lies to the Doctor about him wanting to stay behind for her own selfish needs.

Standout Performance: Whatever you might want from a performer in Doctor Who, Paper Cuts has it. There’ Colin Baker’s blissfully charismatic and elegiac Doctor, India Fisher on form playing a resourceful companion who has secrets of her own, a wonderfully villainous turn from Sara Crowe as the Queen Mother, melodrama personified in Anthony Glennon’s wonderful power hungry Prince, down to Earth charm from Paul Thornley’s Gomori and a sympathetic from Nick Briggs himself as he brings the Red Emperor to life. A stellar cast and no mistake.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I shall wrap myself in such clouds of despair that the skies shall weep!’
‘Draconian culture is very formal. Austerely elegant to the point of minimalist. Masked priests, ferocious warriors, the contemplation of a single white blossom. That sort of thing.’
‘The eager dog is always the first to stumble over the cliff…’
‘A Doctor in a celestial tomb? Aint that a bit late?’
‘Condemning fifteen wizened Emperors to eternity like a set of mouldering books on a forgotten shelf!’
‘What’s a sacrifice if we don’t lose something we value?’

Great Ideas: The temporal explosion that the Daleks threw at the TARDIS did blow them apart but because he had put the ship in regenerative mode they were only fragmented throughout the infinity of time for a moment. In this mode she is able to regenerate every single molecular link. On Draconia every death, even an Imperial murder needs the correct ritual but the Emperor’s son is too late since he is already dead. When an Emperor passes on his doting consort accompanies him to heaven with the rest of his possessions. The TARDIS in tray currently holds 31,684 unanswered messages most of which the Doctor considers to be irrelevant spam and the rest is private. The Emperor that the Doctor knew was always a bit of a wild card, upsetting his court with his radical new ideas. Draconians have palaces and tombs floating in space, a necropolis of edifices with one for each Emperor like the Pyramids of Giza. I love the way the tone of the piece suddenly changes after the first cliffhanger, the discovery of the body leaves the Doctor and the Prince alone, unguarded in a tomb and at the mercy of the assassin. 50 years ago there were honourable warm blooded ambassadors from all over the Draconian Empire. The wall screens of the tomb can paint themselves with memories, the paper treated to respond to thoughts. I love the idea of the highest and the lowest holding vigil over the Emperor as he ascends to the heavens – a chance for both walks of life to show their respect for the departed leader. Origami warriors with paper swords, each figure folded out of a single sheet of red paper. The Prince is certain the origami army is a final trap set for him by his late father, to prevent him from ever claiming the throne. He literally throttles his mother and questions his fathers sanity in marrying her – why is it in fiction that the higher the status of family, the more bloodthirsty and traitorous they are? Marc Platt always had an eye for memorable imagery and ideas and the thought of paper game pieces coming to life and being orchestrated by an unknown force is an extremely appealing one. Each Emperor flies through space in their own tomb with a set of Sazoo pieces in their own Imperial colours. Their ideas cannot be lost so they are kept on the brink of life in Imperial heaven, trapped alive in embalming fluid forever with the paper bringing their memories to life and the Sazoo pieces to play against each other. After desperately trying to find out who the Emperor has chosen as his successor and the story has spent an age convincing us that it wont be the Prince we are as surprised as he is that he is the chosen one. The Doctor realises that the Emperors are being held at the brink of life, trapped in some living version of hell and they want the Doctor for what he did to their Empire. The temple of the spilling sun at the heart of the necropolis powers the tombs. I love how the story positions the Prince as an abdicator for a break from tradition whereas the Empress has manipulated events to keep the planet strangled by the past – its an old debate in Doctor Who (it reared its head in the Peladon stories) but it has never been dealt with as poetically and as succinctly through two strong willed characters as it is here. I love the pomp and poetry of the conclusion as the Doctor walks through an army of Sazoo paper warriors in a myriad of gorgeous colours before setting eyes on the power source, one single stemmed bloom in an elegant vase – sun in a bottle. The Emperors want an end to their deathless suffering, a coup de grace since none of them where actually dying when they were suspended in their tombs.

Audio Landscape: Opening with the sound of the TARDIS shattering into millions of tiny pieces, Nick Briggs sure knows how to give a story an entrance! Jumping into water and bubbles breaking and floating to the surface, wading through the water, birdsong, horses galloping, water flowing down stream, polite laughter and applause, astonishingly Briggs manages to convince that an army of paper warriors is attacking, slashing their flammable swords that could slice right through you, pouring tea, screaming babies, scribbling, heavy breathing, slashing through a paper door, birds screaming, the Sazoo armies slicing each other to pieces, the screaming demands of angry Emperors.

Musical Cues: The early episodes benefit from a quieter, more sedate score to give the actors a chance to feel their way into the story and make their mark – it really does feel like the emphasis is on the cast rather than the production. But as the paper soldiers march forth in the last episode I was impressed at how insistent and pacy the story had become thanks to a driving musical score.

Isn’t it Odd: It might have been wiser to have had this story open the season so Charley could have enjoyed an adventure on Draconia before succumbing to the control of Mila in Patient Zero (which in itself has far more links with Blue Forgotten Planet and could have seamed into each other beautifully). I can completely understand why they would want to open this trilogy with a wham bang Dalek spectacular full of incident and twists because it would get people talking about the range…and it worked too. But for the sakes of the running story it harms it slightly because the Mila narrative is completely unnecessary in Paper Cuts but it is understandable that Briggs chose not to open Charley’s final hurrah trilogy with a story this relaxed.

Standout Scene: Its extremely satisfying to see that neither the scheming Queen Mother and her stress on tradition nor her son who wanted to shrug of the shackles of the past and forge his own dictatorship succeed in earning the throne. One is murdered brutally in typical royal fashion and the other has to face the angry demands of more than one vicious Emperor that have been cut off at their height.

Notes: There is a bleed over of Patient Zero’s plot as the Doctor reveals that the Daleks have succeeding in releasing the Amathustra viruses or as Charley puts it ‘they really did beat you this time?’ Unfortunately his unwillingness to tidy up the loose ends of his adventures means the Daleks bide their time gathering up the viruses and create a literal hell on Earth for the Doctor in the staggeringly dramatic Lucie Miller/To The Death. Perhaps he will be a little more tidy next time. The Doctor even states that living as long as he does that past events come back to bite you – ouch! Either this is a stunningly obvious moment of foreshadowing or a thoughtful moment tossed in by Marc Platt.

Result: The idea of the 15th Emperor assembling together four vigilants like Poirot pulling together his suspects in a good Agatha Christie mystery is really appealing, a fascinating approach to a traditional genre. A power hungry heir, his scheming mother, a fallen warrior, a mistaken peasant, a faux Charley and a bluff Doctor make an intriguing cast, all with secrets to reveal as the plot unfolds. It would have been so easy to set this story on Draconia and mundanely introduce us to the day to day life of one of the most elusive Doctor Who planets but Marc Platt never goes for the traditional options and chooses instead to explore the culture through the turbulent change of the death of an Emperor, setting the entire story inside a tomb. As you would expect from this author the dialogue is memorable and paints pictures and the characterisation goes beyond what you would expect from the stereotypes that these characters embody. My one complaint is that by telling a story with an economic cast of characters in one location means that the piece unfolds at a sedate pace but this is such a refreshingly different type of audio story for Big Finish I just relaxed into the story regardless. It’s a shame that this is a Mila story rather than a Charley one but interestingly she makes a decent match with Colin Baker’s championship audio Doctor. Nick Briggs often surprises me as a director because I always peg him as the audio action man (especially after his superlative handling of his Dalek Empire series) but when he gets an opportunity to coax strong performances out of a small cast of actors he often ends up with a very powerful result (Creatures of Beauty is another example). I’m sure this isn’t what the audience wanted at the time when the fate of Charley was about to be revealed but denying people what they want is often the best approach and taken as a story in its own right Paper Cuts is an engaging character drama that looks at an old race in a fresh way: 8/10