The Curse of Davros written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Nicholas Briggs

SPOILERS...BE WARNED!

What’s it about: It's been a year since Philippa 'Flip' Jackson found herself transported by Tube train to battle robot mosquitoes on a bizarre alien planet in the company of a Time Lord known only as 'the Doctor'. Lightning never strikes twice, they say. Only now there's a flying saucer whooshing over the top of the night bus taking her home. Inside: the Doctor, with another extraterrestrial menace on his tail – the Daleks, and their twisted creator Davros! But while Flip and the fugitive Doctor struggle to beat back the Daleks' incursion into 21st century London, Davros's real plan is taking shape nearly 200 years in the past, on the other side of the English Channel. At the battle of Waterloo…

Softer Six: Doesn’t he just love making a big entrance, crashing into the Earth and emerging from an escape pod with amnesia! The Doctor is being hunted down by the Daleks who would have exterminated him already had he not been able to steal one of their ships and leg it. The Doctor talks with the oddest of speech patterns – he isn’t using contractions which is usually a massive sign that something is up in science fiction and he seems to know a bit too much about fooling the Daleks and nabbing their ship for my liking – he must be Davros! Even his concern for the Earth seems to be more artificial than usual. The way he doesn’t seem to mind that hostages are killed because they will die no matter what they do is callous even for Sixie – its Davros I tell you! When the Doctor says the Daleks consider him their greatest enemy that is a very clever line because it could mean him or Davros. When we finally meet the Doctor (ala Davros) he tells Flip about Evelyn meeting Rossiter and being very happy with him. He’s currently travelling alone. He knows now what it is like to be Davros, to have the mind of a genius trapped inside the mind of a corpse. If he knew he would be trapped in this desiccated body permanently he wouldn’t be able to endure it the way Davros does. If there was a switch to the life support that would bring an end to the agony he would have no qualms about flicking it. That’s a massive statement coming from the Doctor – he would kill himself if he were disabled and in constant pain. He wouldn’t have the willpower to resist it. He thought the mind swap was worth it even if he lost his body because it would rid the universe of Davros’ scourge. After describing the torment of being inside Davros’ body I felt something that I never thought I would ever feel for Davros when he is returned to his correct place – remorse. Chalk up another historical event that the Doctor is responsible for – the Battle of Waterloo! All thanks to shoving Napoleon in the cupboard. Sabotage comes naturally to him, he admits gleefully before enjoying another little tinker. Davros knows that the Doctor might win this battle but he will never win their war because to win you have to make sacrifices and that has always been his greatest weakness. The Doctor now considers killing Davros as an act of mercy for him rather than the universe. Astonishing stuff.

Flippin’ Marvellous: Perfect companion material, Flip is bored of the same old routine of clubbing late and catching the night bus home. When a spaceship crashes in front of them she wants to get out and explore whereas her fella Jared wants to take a picture of it on his mobile. That’s why she’ll get to travel in the TARDIS and he wont. She’s willing to protect the Doctor from the authorities simply because she thinks that is the best thing to do. Flip has perfected the ‘I’m really ill…’ voice when phoning in sick that takes years to master! She has no car because she never passed her test…and now she has no flat since Jared blew it up! Flip suddenly realises she has lost everything and she might have move back in with her mum and creepy Nigel. She works on the tills in a supermarket – no wonder she wants a change of pace! Her massively racist faux pas to the French had me in stitches (plus she considers it the mark of a good Frenchman to flirt first and interrogate later). She thinks that being able to walk into history and talk to people is marvellous. It’s a shame that Flip never finished that French GCSE because she might be able to recognise Napoleon Bonaparte when she sees him! Flip realises with some concern that she was never the Doctor’s assistant but actually Davros’ hostage. This battle marks the point where the future of mankind hangs in the balance – Davros wants to change things so the human race go from being an enemy to a potential ally of the Daleks. ‘You really have serious issue, you know that right?’ says Flip when Davros condemns her to a place in the Doctor’s cell where she will age and die before his eyes. Its not until she starts threatening Davros that he considers her a ‘charming girl.’ Flip was in counselling for a while after he previous encounter with the Doctor and thinks that she and Jared are only together because neither on them wants to be the one to split them up. Flip says she feels sorry for Davros because his hatred has brought him nothing but more pain. Thanks to the Daleks she doesn’t have a home or a job to go to. Making a brave decision she tosses Jared back into their time and chooses to try and find the Doctor. This is the change she desperately needs.

Standout Performance: Colin Baker and Terry Molloy deserve massive credit for trying to pull off the insane idea of playing each others roles. Baker’s mannered speech is more of a giveaway than Molloy’s beautifully judged Doctor but kudos to the pair of them for picking up on each others quirks. As soon as the twist is revealed I don’t think I have ever seen an actor take so much relish from playing a villain as Colin Baker and it was delightful to listen to. And can I say I was utterly spellbound by Terry Molloy’s turn as the Doctor. The things I love about Lisa Greenwood’s Flip is both the TV series and Big Finish have tried to employ the services of actors that sound as though they are just the every person on the street whisked up in the Doctor’s adventures. Usually this goes wrong because they wind up sounding like actors trying to act like cockney youths (Sophie Aldred but also Billie Piper to an extent). Greenwood’s ability to sound like a real person who has found herself in an impossible situation is astonishing – its almost as if they dragged her in from the streets and actually made her experience these things. Its great because with Flip you ca actually put yourself in her place – a pretty average life – and join the Doctor and have some great adventures. When Flip leaves with him at the end (with no special qualifications, no great experience behind her and no special powers) it could be you and that is a wonderful feeling. Molloy’s Davros on audio is still one of the scariest things ever…when that gurgling laughter screams in my ears he is without doubt the best Davros.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘He blew up my cooker!’
I love how Flip calls the Daleks ‘dodgem things from space!’
‘I know that at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender’ ‘And how told you that may I ask?’ ‘ABBA’ ‘UBBER?’ ‘They made a song about it! About you coming second!’ – Flip hasn’t quite got the hang of this ‘not revealing future events to ruthless dictators’ business yet.
‘The Doctor rescued by the Daleks. Yes, there is a first time for everything…’
‘Such naiveté! To imagine he could reform the Daleks!’
‘I am Davros!’ – never has that line been so funny!

Great Ideas: You would wonder if you were the one that was cursed when a spaceship crashes on your way home, you rescue a survivor and take him home and then you boyfriend comes home and tries to kill him! The Daleks have developed the technology to swap their minds with other sentient beings – as soon as that was revealed I was certain that Colin Baker’s mannered performance meant that Davros was hiding inside his head! I love the idea of the Daleks murdering a bunch of shoppers in a supermarket – its so deliciously mundane it feels even more murderous than their usual activity. The Dalek making an announcement on the bing bong system is absolute genius – who but Jonathan Morris could ever think up such an insanely brilliant idea? ‘We have brought the human captives to the area known designated ‘Deli Counter!’ Even weirder is the humans transplanted into Dalek mutants and all talking like normal people but with Dalek modulation – its so nutty I love it! Ha – I knew it! I bloody knew it! When Davros has the chance to kill the Doctor and Flip he chooses not to! Because it’s the Doctor! They’ve swapped minds. Go on Morris…prove me wrong! The Daleks are determined to change the course of history by ensuring that Napoleon wins Waterloo – another of their typically madcap schemes to take over the universe. Napoleon Bonaparte controlled by Daleks learning that he will surrender at Waterloo – has Jonathan Morris taken all of his happy pills on one day. I have absolutely no idea where all this madness is going but this kneading and stretching of Doctor Who’s malleable formula is proving a delight. A French châteaux that has been constructed around a Dalek mothership, wouldn’t you just love to see that realised on screen? Davros considers his own body a withered husk of rotting flesh and never wants to return to it. He is quite happy inside the Doctor’s body, a fierce brain in an active body and for the first time he has no pain. The Daleks are so paranoid about the Doctor that they treat him suspiciously even when he claims to be Davros. I felt really sorry for the Dalek who realises he has been duped by the Doctor and is scolded by Davros for humiliating him – he asks if Davros wants to punish him, poor dear! He gets one to self destruct and the Supreme Dalek to torture itself, what a psychopath! We learn that was his hatred and desire for revenge that sustained Davros in his torturous body for so many years. The Doctor tells the story of how he swapped minds with Davros; he detected the Dalek mothership in this time period and managed to break inside and conceal himself. Davros chose this place because he wanted to test the mind exchange in the field of battle where he didn’t care who lived or died. Davros admires Bonaparte because he has a one track mind and he has a genius for war and when the war is won he will take that genius and plant it into every Dalek battle computer. The Doctor was skulking in the shadows that whole time all this malarkey is being discussed. He chose to exchange minds with Davros so the Daleks would obey him now and exterminate Davros in his body. The Doctor plans to use the technology to wipe the Daleks minds and to make them a force for good in the universe. Davros’ grand mistake is not killing the Doctor when he has the opportunity, instead he want him to suffer as he has over the years…forgotten in a cell and trapped in a withered, decaying body. Dalek mutants swimming screaming to be killed, filled with the minds of British and French soldiers. The Doctor’s plan to turn Davros into a Dalek in order for them to escape is so simple but makes perfect sense. I was giggling with glee as the Doctor and Davros both tried to convince the Daleks they were each other…and even the audience don’t know! Baffling brilliance! Napoleon agrees to lose the battle for the glory of France because he knows what will happen when the Daleks take over. Davros is pitiless in his revenge and kills all the Dalek infected soldiers so there are no bodies for the minds to be returned to. The Doctor manages to wipe the minds of all the Daleks on the mothership which leaves Davros the opportunity to teach them to hate all over again…

Oh yeah…I can still remember some years I ago when I was fresh to Doctor Who fandom and Outpost Gallifrey and I suggest on a Doctor Who forum that there should be a story where the Doctor and an important villain have mind swap and I remember being summarily executed by a barrage of insults and abuse by other fans. It was almost enough to make me never want to go back! Poor, terrified little Joe. To all of you who took the time to have a go this audio is a massive finger in the eye! Cheers Jonny!

Audio Landscape: Squeaking bus turning up, a flying saucer flying overhead, crashing and exploding, police radios, extermination noise, police siren, the echoing Dalek voices inside their operatives heads is harsh and glorious, the screams of the hostages as they are all gunned down, pursuit ship descending, rain lashing, landing in mud, explosions, birdsong, the echoing corridors of the châteaux, Dalek heartbeat, ugh – Dalek self destruction, a bubbling Dalek hatchery.

Musical Cues: Wilfredo Acosta is not a name I have read before but he certainly makes a strong first impression with a dramatic soundscape and musical score. Nicholas Briggs always manages to cherry pick the best of the sound designers for his stories and it’s a great thing he does because coupled with his strong direction these stories come to life with dazzling panache. I loved the music at the beginning of episode three especially – strong drum beats accompanying the sudden turn of events. Listen out for the fantastic score when Davros and Napoleon discuss the war as it plays out before them in episode four.

Standout Scene: Love, love, love the cliffhanger to episode two. Although I had guessed early on it was still glorious to hear Colin Baker reveal his true identity as he threatens to kill Flip. Cue chilling mad laughter and boastful Davros reveal! Awesome – who can say they get to introduce Davros to a story and then get to knockout the audience with a twist like that?

Notes: Morris brilliantly subverts the Doctor and Davros’ parting from Revelation of the Daleks ‘I shall return!’ ‘And I shall be waiting for you…’ with the same words coming from the wrong mouths.

Result: A playful Dalek story…who would have ever thought? It’s a great compliment to Jonathan Morris to admit that this is the sort of story I would have expected Douglas Adams to have written for the Daleks instead of bumf like Destiny of the Daleks (which was a tug of war between him and Nation). It manages to take a reasonably whacky premise and have real fun with it whilst telling us something very personal about the Doctor (lonely and trapped) and Davros (who exists in a world of pain). Along the way Morris tosses out so many creative notions (all of which would generate an entire story in other hands) its like a Catherine wheel of imagination is fizzing off in all directions and I was chuckling away with the madness of the scenario come episode four. I especially loved the fact that when the humdinger of a twist was revealed in episode two things did not revert back to normal and the story allowed both Colin Baker and Terry Molloy to stretch themselves far more than their roles would usually allow them to. I wasn’t sure what to think when they announced Phillipa Greenwood’s return as a new companion because she had a very minor part to play in The Crimes of Thomas Brewster but as written by Morris she is given a super introduction with plenty of witty and wonderful lines and Greenwood proves a absolute win. I can’t wait to hear more from her. You’ve got some history, original Dalek action (bing bong!), a fascinating role reversal, a new companion, character development (you’ll never feel such pity for Davros again), Jonathan Morris at his ingenious best (conjuring up a superb reason for this most unusual of settings) and an excellently realised production with great music and effects. What more could you possibly ask for? Wonderfully, blissfully brilliant: 10/10

The Children of Seth written by Marc Platt (from a story by Christopher Bailey) and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: During one of Nyssa’s experiments, the TARDIS’s temporal scanner picks up a message: ‘Idra’. Just one word, but enough to draw the Doctor to the Archipelago of Sirius. There, the Autarch is about to announce a new crusade. A mighty war against Seth, Prince of the Dark... But who is Seth? What is the secret of Queen Anahita, Mistress of the Poisons? And what terror awaits on Level 14?

An English Gentleman: Its been 43 years since the Doctor last saw Idra and since then her face has been scarred by an accident on Ragnarok and imperfectly patched. He gets younger everyday and finds it quite alarming. The Doctor meant to get around to reading the book that Idra gave her – it was banned and would have explained a great deal about what is going on now had he taken the time. Here’s your chance to hear the Doctor being broken down into the binary language of numbers – I bet the director was horrified to learn that he had to try and actualise that on audio! Its fascinating to see that when the Doctor wants to find Nyssa so badly the numbers converge and bring the image of her before him, its almost as if they have read his subconscious and given him what he most desires. As the system dissects the Doctor so he exploits the system and before long he has mastered this new way of looking at things and can access the defence systems. He walks the streets with wanted posters bearing his image as the Prince of Evil! He still gets funny looks even after the android rebellion is over and he wonders if he was that convincing as the Prince of Darkness.

Alien Orphan: Nyssa has always loved probability with lines of chance crossing and diverging but theory is as far as she ever got. Unfortunately Tegan doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about and it highlights that these two whilst good friends would never be able to spend a great deal of social time together! When she makes a joke (Tegan is shocked!) the Doctor wonders what the odds are on that. Upon hearing that they have landed in war zone Nyssa cries ‘another war?’ – to be fair the wonders of the universe that she has explored thus far all seem to be tearing lumps out of each other. After being brainwashed in The Elite and put up for a mind wipe in this it’s a surprise that Nyssa can remember anything of her past! Imagine if she did lose her memory altogether, she is the last surviving remnant of Traken and that would be lost forever. Nyssa is held captive on level 14 or what people around here call Hell and as she wonders about the demonic environment she has lost all sense of who she is. As her mind slips away she giggles and talks in a sing song voice as though she is drunk – its quite frightening to see the normally composed Nyssa so out of control. Nyssa did think about leaving the Doctor after Florana but she considered one planet or the whole universe and found that the choice was made for her,.

Mouth of Legs: Like the most irritating kid in the car you just know that Tegan would be the one to moan ‘are we there yet?’ There’s a lovely moment where the Doctor is trying integrate into this society and Tegan just bustles up to the first person they meet and asks them about the distress call in the TARDIS. ‘Why does she always do this?’ asks the Doctor but you’ve got to admit her sledgehammer approach gets results! Tegan is no monarchist, she’s a fully paid up Aussie republican and she doesn’t think spirited is enough to describe her, the word she goes for is bolshie! Listen to Janet Fielding’s cheeky performance as she flirts with the guard to get information about the Doctor and tries to free him. I would have loved her to have had this kind of material during the eighties because it reveals a frivolous side to the character that is very appealing. Mind you a lot of the audios with Tegan lately are revealing that the character would have been far more attractive had they injected a little humour into her. Even the Doctor has to admit he is astonished that Tegan could be so resourceful (I think he’s shocked because he’s never seen that flirty side of her before). Nudging is too subtle for Tegan, she would rather shout to get noticed! The Doctor describes her as a bit mouthy he considers her one of his most resourceful companions because when she puts her mind to something she will damn well get it done. She’s so gentle in the last episode, calming people, helping the sick – this is the Tegan we deserved on the telly.

Standout Performance: The top drawer casts Big Finish manage to assemble never ceases to amaze me and returning to Doctor Who here is Honor Blackman who is as good an actress as the show is ever likely to attract. Naturally she sounds a lot older than when she last appeared but that is an advantage, he gorgeous, throaty voice oozes class as she brings the role of the Queen Consort to life. David Warner has played a number of roles in Big Finish Productions over the years and has always been 100% committed to making each character a fully realised person. Here he tackles a pampered ruler who is trading off the reputation of past glories and as ever Warner can make the simplest of put downs sound like ego crushing insults (‘I’m the Doctor…’ ‘I had a check up last week!’). Thje relationship between these two characters is fascinating, often seen as a marriage of convenience but when her life is in danger he suddenly drops away all the domestic anger and shows that he really cares. Their parting scene is beautiful, the two of them back together but still winding each other up. I could have happily have spent more time with both of them.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The only question left will be who inherits the ruins?’
‘Numbers. Like an endless cascading grid, shifting, bombarding me with information. Here or there they cluster or thin out and I think I see shapes but I can’t reads or making sense of them yet! But I’m still here in the other world, our world, I can still smell it and touch it. I’m still here’ – poetry as written by Christopher H Bidmead! Kudos to Marc Platt for taking on such an imaginative idea and trying to verbalise it.
‘Seth is the demon that every government needs.’
‘The enemy was within not without!’ – that’s a great moral and one we should be reminded of.
‘I am the World Breaker! The Soul Eater! I raise up the Dead!’
‘If there had to be a deus ex machina it might as well be us.’

Great Ideas: One of the great strengths of the Christopher Bailey scripts was that he managed to make both Deva Loka and Manussa feel like real places before the Doctor arrived. So often in stories it feels like the Doctor is the catalyst of events wherever they visit and not a lot happened before or after they visited. The Children of Seth opens in a similar way to Bailey’s previous stories with real characters going about their lives before the Doctor shows up. A low level intelligence drone infiltrates the TARDIS as part of a defence system to analyse their defences as a threat and the TARDISes infinite co-ordinates fry its tiny brain! This is far more exciting than a dull old console room scene! Was it just me or did episode one have a real sense of momentum to it? Like we were skating down a precipice to a very important event. The scene setting is almost irrelevant (as strong as it is) compared to the impetus of the piece. The fanatics of Seth are a canker infesting the Empire and now they are planning to strike at this cause of evil – the Fortress of the Dark lord Seth which has been located in the worlds beyond the Rim. The palace is built on the spoils of war, its civic level a warren of cut throats and intriguers. Warriors stood together on the plains of Ragnarok and fought for glory and honour but there is precious little left of it now. The Queen Consort is Idra and she directed the message at the TARDIS because she knows that without the Doctor the whole Empire from its hub to its shattered rim will fall into ruin. There is such an emphasis on the glorious Empire that once ruled that I felt I could see that as vividly as the decaying civilisation that it has become. I didn’t have a clue what was going on at the end of episode two once the Doctor had plugged himself into the net but it was bloody exciting and realised in a similar way to the cliffhanger of The Face of Evil episode three – absolute surreal madness! It is a mark of their decadence that Byzan has been allowed to rise so high and of Idra’s blindness that she saw it too late. Hell is populated by enemies of Byzan, purged of their memories and left to rot – it’s a whole derelict city of the damned. Scaring the people witless is how to take control and they use the Doctor’s face to represent Seth and become the peoples new bogeyman. Byzan is building up a private army of androids under Albis, the autonomous logical binary intelligence system that has outgrown its master. The androids have been planning their coup of a while and talk of a culling of those humanoids that resist them. They want a world wiped clean of humans, a simple mechanical world. Idra invented Seth in her book, the bogeyman that every administration needs to scare children and adults alike, to keep them in order. Byzan stole her idea and didn’t even change the name – they have been living in fear of a lie. The real enemy, the children of Seth are the androids. When they are stopped they freeze like statues and all over the city random people just stopped, guards, businessmen and workers…they will never know how deep the android infiltration went. I love the little mention that Byzan was poisoned in his cell and Idra only visited him the evening before…

Audio Landscape: The TARDIS bleeps and boinks like she is singing a song, the drone cutting through the console, screams in hell, the Doctor broken down by numbers and put back together again, a binary world of zeros and ones, a frothing fountain.

Musical Cues: Fox and Yason can always be relied on to conjure up some impressive music and here they channel Paddy Kingsland at his best but also managed to give the story a sense of gravity. The last two episodes feature an insistent score which gives the story an astonishing sense of drama – you are never in any doubt that serious things are happening. The simple percussion instruments that sound in the last episode remind us of the clashing steel of the androids as they make their move.

Isn’t it Odd: I couldn’t quite figure out why Nyssa thought that she was the Doctor, it made little sense in story terms.

Standout Scene: The image of the Doctor stumbling blinding through a derelict city of the walking dead, falling to his knees and drawing in the sand is a very powerful one. Follow this up with the cliffhanging trick of the Doctor is taking over the reins of government and you have a very strong showing for the fifth Doctor.

Result: Not your typical Big Finish story, The Children of Seth will probably take you two or three listens to fully understand it and appreciate all of its riches. Like Kinda and Snakedance the scripts are extremely wordy, full of juicy dialogue, excellent world building and intriguing characters. As an audio experience this is far more denser than we are used to, rather than an action adventure this is an exploration of ideas and concepts in a very mythical way but like Bailey’s TV stories if you are willing to put the effort in and look at its roots you will get a lot out of it. The main difference between this and the other Lost Stories is that it is that creates worlds out of ideas rather than visuals and as such it is most like classic Doctor on television that I recognise. Ken Bentley deserves a lot of credit for making this marbled story come to life so hypnotically, the actors are extremely good (any story being played by actors with the calibre of Honor Blackman and David Warner deserves your attention) and there is a real pace and momentum to the piece, aided no end by Yason and Fox’s blissful musical score. Whilst there are some nice moments for Tegan and Nyssa it’s a story that puts the Doctor centre stage which is a relief because since his TARDIS became overcrowded in the main range again the fifth Doctor has felt a little sidelined. Here Davison gets the chance to take centre stage again and engage with some truly bizarre science fiction concepts. On a basic level this is Doctor Who exploring a society and sifting through its layers until it exposes the rotten core at its heart but with Marc Platt fleshing out the characters and the culture it is much more than that. The scant explanations and sophisticated layering might leave you a little bemused but take care unwrapping this one and you might be surprised at what lies inside. Beguiling: 9/10

Destination Nerva written and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: After saying their goodbyes to Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago, the Doctor and Leela respond to an alien distress call beamed direct from Victorian England. It is the beginning of a journey that will take them to the newly built Space Dock Nerva… where a long overdue homecoming is expected. A homecoming that could bring about the end of the human race.

Teeth and Curls: I had to be the only curmudgeon in the pack but I really wasn’t terribly excited about Tom Baker joining the fold of audio Doctor’s a getting a range all of his own. When he threw scripts back in Gary Russell’s face and savagely took the piss out of being asked to do some Big Finish adventures and then had to be charmed by Nick Briggs and David Richardson into coming into the fold where the others were happy to do it without such ego stroking my respect for the man went right out the window. Not only that but with the advent of the Paul Magrs BBC audios that were available it didn’t even feel like a special event because the fourth Doctor had already been brought to life on audio. I have to say I went into Destination Nerva with a heavy heart and whilst I would say he captures the spirit of his era with far more success here than in the Hornets/Serpent/etc series’ that the fourth Doctor has never been one of my favourite Doctor’s anyway so even the thought of just having the character back I greeted with little more than a shrug. So whilst I’m sure I will get over my initial disdain for the actor (watching him swearing and bullying everybody in the behind the scenes snippets of his last couple of season of Who didn’t help) I hope the rest of you get far more out of having him back than I do. I am far more excited about Colin Baker’s return with a new companion and Davros this month. Saying all this I’m not actually sure that Tom Baker is a natural audio performer in the same way that Davison, Baker and McGann are anyway…there is something a little stilted about his performance here where he tries to annunciate a word to the nth degree in every sentence. You might say that the Doctor isn’t supposed to be naturalistic and the fourth is the most alien of the lot but I counter that by saying the dialogue has to at least flow – what else have you got on audio? I was also a little confused by how kindly he seemed to be to Leela because the fourth Doctor I remember at this point (and certainly Tom Baker’s performance) was quite vicious towards the character whereas here they really seem to be a team in progress. Are Big Finish going for a ‘this is 1977’ feel or like Colin Baker’s Doctor are they offering us a ‘this is what it could have been like…’

I’m not sure I like the idea of this picking up directly where Talons of Weng-Chiang left off either. Big Finish seems to be determined to fill in any gap in continuity even to the point now of finishing sentences that started at the end of televised adventures! He’s always had a soft spot for Butlers…in fact he once knew a Butler whose name was Butler – the dialogue needs to be smarter than that to capture the 4th Doctor’s acid tongue wit from the 70s. He often finds the mark of a good theory is that it doesn’t make sense. Can you ever imagine this incarnation of the Doctor walking in on an authority figure and saying ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your day…’ No, me neither. He’s said it before but human beings are quite his favourite species…yawn. It was interesting for the Doctor to see Nerva again for the first time so at least somebody enjoyed the story. He could travel in the TARDIS for a billion, billion years and still scratch the surface of eternity.

Noble Savage: Now Louise Jameson on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. She’s a fascinating actress who always has me mesmerised whether she is playing a part (go and listen to her in Pulling Faces, she’s magnificent) or talking about her craft and always seems very humble when discussing her career and glad to have been a part of such a television phenomenon. Louise picked up the character of Leela in the Gallifrey series (and now the Jago & Litefoot series) and ran with it and provided some of the best moments of drama for that spin off and increased the range of the character tenfold (her reaction to the fact that Andred is not dead and has tricked her is still one of my favourite ever audio scenes). Whilst I would have given my right arm to hear Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen back together again (but fate has a cruel way of getting in the way) Jameson’s Leela was probably the most interesting companion to have travelled with him so it is a fair compromise.

Leela understands that her words might sound strange but points to the Doctor as the man with the explanations because he is the ‘man of wisdom.’ Leela gets to experience space walking for the first time and her head cannot tell which way is up or down. It’s always nice to see Leela whipping up a revolution and she is determined to take on the entire planet with one ship if she has to. She wants to know why the TARDIS travels through time as well as space and nobody has ever asked that question before.

Great Ideas: The transformation scenes are pretty nasty and are easy to visualise despite this being on audio.

Audio Landscape: Cocking weapons, kudos for getting the TARDIS console noises so spot on, lightning cracking the sky, rain falling and slapping an umbrella, sonic screwdriver, crackly radio, the Nerva Beacon scanning noises are peerlessly genuine, walking on the hull.

Musical Cues: Massive kudos to Jamie Robertson for ditching his usual cinematic style of music and going for something that sounds authentically Dudley Simpson. I have heard people try and pull off his style of music before with disastrous results (remember that dreadful Keff McCulloch score for Shada that was supposed to be aping Simpson?) but this is an orchestral delight with some lovely melodramatic stings. Its enough to make you feel as if you have been transported back to the seventies and are watching this tale in your front room whilst your mam is pouring gravy over your mash and the rain is lashing outside. I could have sworn I heard a xylophone in there somewhere – woohoo! All we needed was a glockenspiel and it would been the perfect synthesis of The Ark in Space and Revenge of the Cybermen! Love the up beat piano theme at the conclusion.

Isn’t it Odd: So let me see…the Doctor and Leela walk into a house where they meet a Butler and can see the carnage of a pitched battle between people and aliens and a star drive suddenly activates and almost disintegrates them and then find themselves on Nerva Beacon. No I’m sorry but I’m not following this at all. Is this being made up as it goes along? It bugs me that we are supposed to understand what Nerva Beacon is without any real explanation from the Doctor or the guest characters – anybody new to classic Doctor Who would come to this story thoroughly confused as to the setting. Is Nick Briggs expecting the audience to be entirely Who fanboys? Possession of a character, space station Nerva and a base under siege – this is more like a greatest hits of the Tom Baker years than a story in its own right. I would have rather they had trusted their audience and gone with something completely revolutionary for their first story rather than all this easing the audience in gently nonsense. What Big Finish should remember is that its the bold, intelligent, unusual stories such as The Holy Terror, The Kingmaker, A Death in the Family and Chimes of Midnight that score highly in the popularity polls and certainly far more than workmanlike stories that are spliced together from elements of classic stories like Destination: Nerva. Episode two progresses and soon you have both Tom Baker and Louise Jameson screaming hysterically – this really isn’t drama you know, its just shouting. What ever happened to the exploration of ideas on audio? There is a fantastic story waiting to be written about the effects of possession (or it might already be called Spare Parts) but in this case it all about reacting rather then discussing and that is the least intelligent approach you can take. Is it simply the case that nobody else wants to write for the fourth Doctor because the first line up seems to consist entirely of the producer and the script editor of the main range and new golden boy John Dorney and BBC Books creative editor Justin Richards? Is this just playing it safe again or did they all want a couple of goes first before letting anybody else play with him? Aside from Dorney whose name always excites me in the schedules it’s a pretty predictable line up. I would have liked to see some new names in there to re-energise the company on this new venture.

Standout Scene: There was a moment at the end of the story where the Doctor and Leela banter for a moment and he promises to teach her some more and leap off into a universe of unpredictable adventures. It’s optimistic and full of potential and almost succeeded in whipping me up in a frenzy. After the workmanlike adventure that has played out it offers a glimmer of hope for The Renaissance Man.

Result: I was shocked at what a non event this was. After a decade of bringing us top-notch audio adventures I was appalled that Big Finish could introduce their supposedly greatest coup (stroking Tom Baker’s ego enough to get him to agree to make a trip to the studios) in such a slapdash story. Destination Nerva fails on practically every count as far as I can see – it’s a confused narrative that is spliced together from other, better stories, the guest characters are one dimensional and vacant, the dialogue lacks sparkle and the jeopardy angle lacks any excitement. Even worse the one reason people will pick this story up so eagerly is the reason it bombs so spectacularly – Tom Baker gives the least convincing performance I have ever heard from him. People might bemoan that the Hornet’s Nest Doctor is a far cry from what we saw on the television but at least that was Baker giving a hearty, menacing performance. The way that Tom Baker inflects some of his dialogue you would think that he was the one that was possessed at the end of part one – some lines fast, some lines slow, some injected with madness, some deep and menacing. It is literally all over the place and needs a much stricter director to whip him into shape. I don’t think even McCoy who was until now the most inconsistent performer has ever been this incoherently schizophrenic in a story. When your main man can’t even say ‘Run!’ convincingly at the cliffhanger you are in trouble. He does settle down a bit in the second episode and at the conclusion seems a lot calmer so lets hope this is first story jitters. Louise Jameson tries gamely to salvage something and she is the one person who escapes this madness with her dignity intact. I think the advent of fourth Doctor’s return will be enough for everybody to give this a pass but if anybody can objectively say this is to the usual standards of Big Finish…well I would say they were wrong: 3/10

Legend of the Cybermen written by Mike Maddox and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: The Cybermen are on the march through the Hundred Realms, killing and converting as they go. Resistance is useless. Trapped on the outermost fringes of the battle, the Doctor and Jamie are astonished to encounter an old friend: astrophysicist Zoe Heriot. It's the happiest of reunions. But what hope is there of a happy ending against the unstoppable Cybermen?

Softer Six: He keeps forgetting that Jamie and he have technically just met and the Highlander doesn’t understand what he means when he says run… He’s not a what he’s a Who! He is a Time Lord and he doesn’t need to be lectured on temporal solecisms by some penny dreadful pedant! Zoe asks the Doctor how he came to look so different and the Doctor begins his explanation by saying it all happened the day they last saw him – if he’s going to tell the entire story of Doctor Who from 1969 through to 1985 I think there should be the audio equivalent of asterisks to show that some time has past! Or better still you can use this as a Wheel in Space style thought scanner excuse to watch all the stories between The War Games and The Twin Dilemma! Getting into the fictional spirit the Doctor says his life is an open book of the Prydonian Chapter. Because he is usually so charming it is easy to forget how one track minded the Doctor can be and he develops an instant dislike of Dracula based on no more than the words that Bram Stoker wrote. There is a history between the Time Lords and Vampires – bad blood you might say but you would think he might be able to put all that aside for what is essentially a fictional creation! Jamie calls the Doctor on how they got the original Master of the Land of Fiction home and he cannot give a satisfactory answer – I’m really glad they didn’t explain that because its ambiguity was what made that story such a fascinating tale. I cannot believe the story tries to sell that the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe had never escaped the Land of Fiction and that everything since has been a dream. Its such an alarming, absurd idea that had they tried to suggest it was real I wouldn’t have known what to think but as it is it is a one minute moment of glorious madness before an even bigger twist crowbars its way in. The Doctor admits that he is no longer running away from the Time Lords, these days it is borderm mostly. Jamie asks what Sarah asked in School Reunion and Jo asked in Death of the Doctor…why did the Doctor not return for him and Zoe? Jamie wonders if the Doctor moves on and forgets about those who have travelled with him but he denies that vehemently. He tries to say sorry but words aren’t appropriate for how the real Jamie McCrimmon was violated.

Who’s the Yahoos: The Doctor tells Jamie that this world is made out of the imagination but not their imaginations but that doesn’t stop Jamie trying to conjure up a bottle of whiskey and a lassie with a cheeky smile! Zoe tries to unlock his memories by given him a data retrieval node but he initially refuses saying that he has read the bible and knows all about young men being tempted by lassies with apples. This whole trilogy has been leading up to the point where Jamie gets his memories back and learns about his previous life with the Doctor and the sequence doesn’t disappoint. The listener is assaulted with a barrage of spine tingling sounds effects from Jamie’s adventures in the TARDIS – Quarks, White Robots firing, the Yeti activation noise… It’s a nostalgia fest! He remembers the horrors but also that he had good friends…Sailor Ben, bean poll Polly, Victoria who was precious like china and Zoe, the clever one. The Doctor was small and scruffy with a funny little gleam in his eye. Its only been a month for Zoe but he has lived a full and fruitful life since they last saw each other and it has been a good life. Making Jamie a fictional character was probably not an result that any of us wanted but its still a hell of a shock. All of a sudden you have to question everything that has happened since this trilogy began and of course Jamie first met the Doctor in Scotland which was part of the Land of Fiction so it all makes perfect sense. But I so wanted them to go off travelling together again at the end. Still even a fictional Jamie is still a great character and he has developed a fine chemistry with the Doctor in this run of stories and it has been great to catch up with Frazer Hines again who gives his all whether the character is real or not. Jamie is violently angry about this revelation because he is finding it hard to accept so many different version of his life – firstly his life with the Doctor and then the fact that he isn’t real. It is rather a lot to take in to be fair. Zoe created this version of Jamie and took away his memories so the Doctor had a mystery to solve so he would stick with him. All those pieces are coming together nicely. The Doctor offers him the post as the Laird of the Land of Fiction but Jamie knows that all he is good for is fighting. They embrace warmly and even though he knows he isn’t the Jamie he knew there is still a connection there.

Brainy Beauty: I got crazy excited when Zoe turned up to save Jamie – listening to this pair together again, one of my personal favourites of the classic series, is an absolute joy. I loved the reference that Jamie has gotten old when its clear that Wendy Padbury’s voice has…matured too. She’s appalled that Jamie thinks he has conjured her up out of his imagination and she certainly doesn’t have any Whiskey secreted about her person thank you very much! Zoe confuses the Doctor for the Artful Dodger and gives him a massive hug. The second big twist is the unshrouding of the Mistress – its Zoe, our Zoe and the one we have been travelling with is an avatar. She has been trying to hold the Cybermen off with stories from her childhood and waiting for the Doctor to find her. It was years later on the Wheel and Zoe was remembering how they had fought the Cybermen together and she went for a medical scan and learnt that she was a two years older than she was a few days ago. She worked it out for herself that she had travelled with the Doctor and had her memories wiped. The Cybermen captured her and decided she would make a good Cyberplanner and when they probed her mind something snapped the mental blocks the Time Lords imposed fell away. With her super brain Zoe conquered the Cybercomputer and brought them somewhere she knew they could do no harm – the Land of Fiction. She plugged her subconscious into the Master Brain and she has been fighting the Cybermen ever since. She gave the characters freewill, made them cunning and unpredictable. The Doctor knows that as soon as she leaves The Land of Fiction Zoe’s memories will shut down again and he lays her back on the Wheel.

Standout Performance: It’s the sort of story where you have to commend actors for throwing themselves wholeheartedly into something truly out of the ordinary and there is no better example than Ian Gelder’s superb Count Dracula. As well as making the speeches about his backstory sound like poetry he also manages to play the part with a great deal of pathos and by the end you are cheering his character on. Listen the way he says Cybermen – its delicious. His conversion is a tragic end for his character but his strength of will invades the Cyberplanners consciousness.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘How did you do that?’ ‘Magic, obviously.’
‘I’m sure its much easier to send your troops to their deaths when they look like toys!’
‘You’re standing in an enchanted forest looking through a magic window made of fairy dust and you’re telling me something’s odd!’
‘Remember when Grendel’s mother attacked the Cyber Controller…?’
‘None of this is real. It’s all a wonderful children’s adventure which adults adore.’
‘The Cybermen have converted mermaids!’ ‘Oh, that’s just wrong’ – thanks for saying it for me!
‘I think you’ve complicated your plot quite enough!’
‘You’ll never beat McCrimmon yet,
Jamie bellowed at the silver threat,
And once more with battle met,
And vigour undefeated his muscles stretched, his sinews keen,
He slew the half man-half machine!’
‘And I was lost to her again…’

Great Ideas: The White Robots are look a bit more sophisticated since the Doctor last met them and he suspects that the Master of the Land of Fiction has been upgraded too. Odd that because they are exactly the same as The Mind Robber on the inside sleeve! There are some kisses to The Mind Robber as you would expect such scenes of the Doctor and Jamie wandering around the void, lost, and screaming out each others names. It’s a chance for the writer to enjoy bringing to life some of the best fictional characters ever written and the first one the Doctor stumbles across is the Artful Dodger! The Doctor has read Oliver Twist half a dozen times but he doesn’t recall the Dodger saying ‘We may be following a by and large linear narrative but out here continuity is distinctly malleable!’ There’s a magic forest where the fairies live which they use a safe hiding place where you can find the land of Camelot. How awesome is it that the Cyberplanner is located at Dracula’s castle? Every time we cut back to him there is a gothic organ playing and lightning striking like he is some mad scientist plotting for the Cybermen! Apparently Sherlock Holmes was a General but he had his own demons to face. The Cybermen don’t want control of the Land of Fiction, they want the power of the Master Brain which can adjust the thoughts of all mankind and make them like them. At first I wondered how on Earth Mike Maddox was going to pull off such an insane concept as the Cybermen in this imaginative realm but that is actually a rock sold motive to back up all this madness. Bravo! They seek to destroy the human imagination because once that is destroyed humanity itself is destroyed. They would be robbing humanity of the ability to tell stories, to lie or even to exaggerate. The Cybermen had the fortune to convert werewolves…what a horrifying idea! This opened their minds to new kinds of Cyber conversion and they started with the fairies. Oh this is great stuff, absolutely barking.The catacombs have been turned into refinery to extract the blood of the land, ink. Just like the factories in the Scottish landscape and the hold of the Nautilus. The ink is being collected and used the way it would be on the page, to create more fictional characters – bloody genius! Cheekily the Doctor hums Ride of the Valkeries as spirit maidens but the Cybermen have converted their wings and turned them into jet engines. Giant behemoth Cybermen stomp forward to attack. Characters in the Land of Fiction literally bleed blood. It couldn’t have been long before the great white whale Moby Dick reared its head except it has been fitted with portholes and torpedo tubes by the Cybermen! The Nautilus makes a spectacular return with Nemo and Rob Roy on board tying the three stories together even tighter. Zoe describes the Doctor’s adventure to her as ‘psuedo historical to base under siege!’ Cyber fairies attack! The space leeches from City of Spires were the Karkus’ enemies from the Hourly Telepress brought to life. Zoe tried to bring the Doctor to life fictionally by novelising all of their adventures together and she shows the real Doctor her library featuring Doctor Who and the Dominators and Doctor Who and the Krotons. If this story parodies anything else I know to be true I’m going to start wondering if I am real. I love how Jamie and Rob Roy vanquishing the Cybermen is narrated in the form of a good old fashioned Scottish poem and joyfully reality shifts halfway through a stanza and Jamie is left without a rhyme to finish! All the fictional Cybermen are made to disappear when Dracula convinces the Cyberplanner that they never existed in the first place. With the stain of the Cybermen wiped from its pages the Land of Fiction began to grow again becoming something quite different – a wonderland with Alice as its mistress.

Audio Landscape: Prepare yourselves for the audio experience of a lifetime as Nicholas Briggs and Jamie Robertson take you on a surreal adventure through The Land of Fiction! The mechanical grinding of the White Robots, that fantastic alien hum of the void, clockwork ticking, squeaky door, Jamie falling a great height lured on by Zoe’s voice, dripping tap, mechanical Cyber footsteps, the White Robot firing noise, thunder rumbling, the bubbling voice of the Cyber planner, birdsong, fairies tinkling around Jamie, dog barking, unicorn whinnying, trees swaying, bubbling ink making a person, siren, Dracula vanishing in a puff of smoke, bombing raids, spitting, crackling flames, Zoe trapped under rubble, bomb whistling to the ground, explosions, flintlock going off, a spindle radio dish, wolves baying in the distance, running water, crossing a rope bridge, a Cyberman falling down a chasm, ooh an old fashioned internet connection noise, storybook noise, biting wind, knocking on a glass booth, a sea shanty, Karkus teleportation noise, the gigglingly childish Cyber fairies, Cyber mermaids squeaking on the hull of the Nautilus.

Musical Cues: The clockwork soldiers are accompanied by a jaunty marching band tune this time around, a handy audio sign that they are close by. Once all the cards are on the table we are treated to some fantastic music in the second episode – exciting beats when the Cybermen attack, a rousingly heroic theme in Camelot and a dashing fun as Jamie heads on a horse!

Standout Scene: Only Doctor Who could get away with something as utterly bizarre and chilling as the end of episode one. Putting aside the fact that we are walking around in a world where fictional characters can come to life there is the additional threat of the Cybermen who are revealed here as Oliver Twist steps from the mist half converted asking in an electronic buzz ‘please sir, I want some more…’ Its funny, macabre and shocking. I love it.

The story takes a wonderful diversion into bedtime storytelling as each of the characters narrates a little piece of the action in a unique way. Dracula reads the spine chilling words of Bram Stoker’s classic, intersped with scenes of magic fantasy read by Alice – the two stories colliding with the young girl almost murdered when the white rabbit (the Doctor) pops up to tell them both that the Cybermen are playing with their perception of reality! Zoe reads The Secret Fairies, asking if you have a responsible adult to make you a nice glass of synthymilk and giving you the special noise to indicate when to turn the page. Jamie winds up in a audio recording booth at Big Finish Productions with director Nick Briggs giving him instructions on how to proceed with his reading. The Doctor starts talking from the very next booth and prevents Jamie from being taken over by Briggs/the Cyberman! All of this goes somewhere beyond epistemological post modernism and meta fiction into a spiralling descent of unreality but I love it. Its such an imaginative and clever way to tell the story, I was grinning gleefully throughout.

Result: Prepare yourself for the greatest mindfuck fan fiction experience of the century! Every time I thought Legend of the Cybermen couldn’t throw anything more insane at me it always managed to find some other little creative titbit in the darkest recesses of its twisted imagination. Where else will you find Dracula telling to Little Lord Fauntleroy to try and hold Atlantis back from Cyberman invasion? We’ve got gothic Cyberplanners, Moby Dick with torpedo tubes, bedtime storytelling, fictional characters bleeding ink, Cyber converted fairies, and even Nick Briggs making a cameo as himself! Underneath all the creative bluster there is a touching character tale taking place dealing with the aftermath of The War Games and the tragic circumstances surrounding Jamie and Zoe’s departure. We learn that Jamie isn’t real but that isn’t enough, Zoe is revealed as the Mistress of the Land of Fiction and that isn’t enough, characters from the first two stories of the trilogy join the fight and that still isn’t enough…this is a story that keeps giving, twisting, evolving, subverting until I was left tied up in fictional knots and laughing manically all the way. For the chance to hear Colin Baker, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury working together it is a treasurable on its own but Legend of the Cybermen also features a cinematic array of audio landscapes, moments that will make you laugh and cry at the same time and a stirring musical score. Its everything this climatic final instalment needed to be and it answers the stack of mysteries very satisfactorily and has a tearjerking final scene. Its completely, mind bogglingly, escaped from an asylum madness and I loved every second of it: 10/10

The Wreck of the Titan written and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: 'It's the biggest ship the world has known – and in just twenty minutes' time it's going to hit an iceberg the size of Ben Nevis!' The North Atlantic is a treacherous place at the best of times. 14 April 1912 is the very worst of times. The Doctor and Jamie find themselves trapped aboard the RMS Titanic, 400 miles off Newfoundland and heading towards a conclusive appointment with destiny. But the iceberg isn't their only problem. Down in the inky depths, something is hunting: something huge, hostile and hungry. This should certainly be A Night To Remember

Softer Six: How sweet that when the Doctor takes Jamie for what appears to be his first proper trip in the TARDIS he wants to make an event out of it and blindfolds him. The Doctor declares that in this time America is quite civilised (and then I’m sure he thinks of Peri when he says ‘for the most part…’). He’s quick to realise that this Titanic is a fake and is quite acidic about assigning the blame. I love how much fastidious detail he can conjour up to blow the charade, he is clearly and extremely well read Time Lord. When his theme park ride theory goes out the window the Doctor admits he is out of ideas. Its rare to hear him say that and even rarer for the sixth Doctor to admit it! The Doctor is convinced that Jamie is resourceful enough to escape the sinking of the Titan but comes to realise that he must be dead. Its uncomfortable to see the sixth Doctor so distraught as he quietly admits that this was supposed to be a treat for him. His admittance that he wanted it to be like the good old days is heartbreaking and in a moment that mixes grief and beauty to profound effect he quotes Hie Away by Sir Walter Scott for his dead friend. Things look bleak as he is hunted by polar bears but the Doctor insists that where there is beauty (the stunning ice landscape) there is hope. His dialogue really is superb in this adventure; he thinks there is no point in being a homo sapient if you aren’t going to exercise the sapient bit! When facing two hungry polar bears the Doctor tries to confuse them with a blood soaked hanky and a jacket. There’s another touching reunion between the Doctor and Jamie where he laughs heartily at the sight of his friend – there is real dramatic mileage in this pairing and it’s a shame it will be over with in the next story. The Doctor claims that TARDIS is impervious to attack by giant squid and says he came close to proving it on one of the moons of Delta Magna. He starts reading some rather florid prose but has to stop before his stomach turned (‘When was this banausic drivel published?’).

Who’s the Yahoos: Jamie wont believe that the TARDIS can travel through time and space until he can see it with his own eyes. With no pretty wee lassie in the TARDIS for Jamie to protect it doesn’t take him five minutes to team up with the prettiest girl around. His Jamieisms are getting better – he mistakes a metaphor for a metal floor and calls the Nautilus a naughty lass! He’s clearly been taking notes from the Doctor in the circumstance of weak women refusing to push themselves hard enough to survive because he goads Myra saying she is a pathetic young girl in order to give her the anger and strength to survive the sinking ship. ‘Oh my goodness! A big sea beastie!’ he cries when he sees the Nautilus.

Standout Performance: I didn’t realise that Tess was being played by Miranda Raison until she transformed into Myra and adopted the same American accent as she used for Tallulah in Daleks in Manhattan! Fortunately I loved her in that story and she is similarly charming and funny in this. Its probably the only instance where I have enjoyed a fake accent more than a real one! I’m a massive fan of Star Trek Deep Space Nine so when I heard that Alexander Siddig was going to take part in this story it only whetted my appetite further. He's quietly menacing and I'm glad we get to hear more of him in the next story.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Jamie this is the Titanic. Forty six thousand tons of steel, wood and glass, nine storeys of art noveau splendour, nearly nine hundred feet long and ninety feet wide with a capacity for three and a half thousand passengers and crew! It’s the biggest ship the world has ever known and in just twenty minutes time its going to hit an iceberg the size of Ben Nevis and sink!’ – Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor is made for rousingly descriptive speeches like that.
‘I don’t know how Father Christmas manages it!’ says the Doctor as he shoves derriere up and out of an ice chimney!
‘This is rapidly turning into an episode of The Waltons!’

Great Ideas: The Doctor thinks he has landed on the Queen Mary in May 1946 (indeed he is delighted to inform Jamie of the fact) but his companion can see with his own eyes that it is April 1912 and they are on the Titanic. I’ve always fancied a Doctor Who version of the Titanic tale and this is the closest we are ever going to get. The Doctor thinks this must be some kind of tragedy tourists style of entertainment, re-enactments of famous disasters for paying customers to witness. The first episode works a treat because everything is a little bit askew – you aren’t sure what is going on, who is who or even where the Doctor and Jamie have arrived. Nothing is fixed and that is quite an exciting feeling to have. Barnaby Edwards cleverly shifts the cliffhanger to the first episode from the point of view of a completely different character at the beginning of the second – its so seamlessly done you might not even notice it but it is gorgeous little touch. The Doctor’s next big guess is that they are stuck in a time fissure where time divides into two distinct paths – that would explain the existence of the two ships and their similar fates. You’ve got to give the man a round of applause for trying to give this a plausible explanation – the real one is just out of his grasp and back in his long history. The beginning of episode three sees another neat narrative trick, popping back in time to show how we reach the end of episode two from Jamie’s point of view. That’s really neat. I would love to be able to look out of the observation bubble of the Nautilus and see the underwater world lit up in all its marine glory. The Doctor’s third attempt at a guess is that they are in some kind of mad computer game! Credit for persistent theories, Doc! But then considering the wealth of insane genres he has tiptoed through in his adventures anything is possible!

Audio Landscape: We open with a trumpeting horn from a ship and a stirring score – a sure sign that this is going to be one of the most immersive Big Finish productions. Squeaky doors, the swaying ocean, the party atmosphere aboard the ship, polite clapping, screaming. The ship undergoing a metamorphosis sounds like panel breaking free, wood snapping, glass breaking…absolute chaos. Did they literally cause an iceberg to hit a ship because it sounds absolutely authentic – you can hear the hull of the ship scraping along the ice, windows smashing and huge chunks of ice breaking free and the mast hitting the deck. The ship groans terribly as it turns on its side, Jamie and Myra sliding down the deck, the portholes blowing up, the engine room exploding, the echoing emptiness of the hold, the freezing wind screaming, screaming polar bears, snowy footsteps, an echoing ice chimney. There’s a glorious moment that works so well on audio where John realises that there are two sets of footprints and they stop talking to hear the padding of polar bear footprints very close to them. The bears can be heard growling in your ears as their padded feet run at the travellers. A submarine breaks the water sounding its fog horn and you can hear the ship grinding under the water, causing showers of bubbles. Sonar, wading through water, a champagne cork popping from a bottle, water trickling from the ceiling, banging morse code, sparks spitting from metal as the wall is cut down, bubbling test tubes in the laboratory. You hear the Professor’s escape craft being crushed by the giant squid as he has made off with the ink. Pages flapping in the wind lead to the reveal of where the Doctor has always been. The final terrifying sound is the grinding of the White Robots coming out of the mist!

Musical Cues: Howard Carter is on fire with so many wonderful audio landscapes to score and it might just be the most epic, cinematic soundtrack yet. I love the crashing drama as the Doctor describes the beauty and the fate of the Titanic. As the Doctor scales a mountain of ice you could be forgiven for thinking you are listening to a biblical epic as the music suggests a sweeping ariel shot of his struggles. Nemo couldn’t have asked for a more dramatic entrance, playing some mad gothic theme on a church organ.

Standout Scene: I was riveted throughout the entire sequence with the attacking squid which was twice the size of the Nautilus. As the begin to surface one of squid tentacles can be heard penetrating the hull and flailing wildly in the submarine. Even worse you can hear its tentacles sliding and sucking against the glass in the viewing port before it cracks like an egg and worms its way into the ship. The last scene is fantastic too – it gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it and gave me goosebumps today.

Clues: For part two of this trilogy there are even more clues to lead up the final revelation that kick starts the concluding story. The story opens with a great deal of factual confusion – the Doctor believes they are on board the Queen Mary but they are in fact on the Titanic before a sudden shift in circumstances and then they are on the Titan! Clearly somebody in the Land of Fiction has got their maritime disaster stories jumbled up! Even small details such as the First Officer is wrong at least until the ships change. All the doors on the lower deck open on to nothing almost as if whoever imagined this world didn’t think they would need them. The music and the audience reactions to it plays over and over again as if one song would be enough to convince there were passengers on board. The Nautilus from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea shows up to rescue the Doctor and that is another whopping great clue as to where they are. Nemo speaks to an unnamed person about ‘the target’ which we know to be the Doctor (as he was rescued by Nemo at the end of episode two) – he must be talking to Zoe, the Mistress of the Land of Fiction. He is intrigued to get a glimpse at the ‘great Doctor’ so Zoe must have spoken very fondly of him. It takes Jamie to ponder whether somebody has read some books and built their own copies of the things in them. That’s one up for the Highlander! Nemo doesn’t want the Doctor to get suspicious as his First Mate has spilt some black ink on his tunic – if the Doctor sees that he would be able to link together that the Highlands from City of Spires and everything that has occurred in this story are taking place in the same location. The Doctor learns that the black liquid is ink milked from the Architeuthidae squid. Come on Doc, put it all together…what could they possibly need all this ink for? The Professor chooses to betray Nemo and his mysterious masters for their enemies who have offered him his freedom – the Cybermen have offered him a way out of the Land of Fiction. Its very satisfying to see the Doctor put everything together – novels that mirror the events that have taken place, anachronistic characters from books…everything that has taken place has been fictional. The Doctor is considered their only hope for survival in this conflict and Jamie is expendable and that gives you a massive clue as to the reality of the Highlander that is revealed in the next story. Interlopers, outsiders who wish to control and own their world – that is how the enemies are described here. Books and ink…the Doctor declares with some horror that they are once again trapped in the Land of Fiction!

Result: Barnaby Edwards has always been an extremely intelligent writer and a cinematic director for Big Finish and here he combines the two to dazzling effect. There are set pieces in this story that are so convincing you don’t even have to shut your eyes to imagine you are there – ships are hitting icebergs and sinking beneath the waves, polar bears are attacking and giant squids are wrapping their oily tentacles around you. To call his direction polished is to do it a disservice, it is avant garde. The script is a powerhouse of literary and factual detail but it also plays some quirky narrative tricks to keep the audience alert and I really like how the story takes time to explore its nautical theme both through intelligent detail and via the senses. Looking at this story in hindsight it takes the hints and whispers from City of Spires and starts playing about with its own unique style of clues and guides you in the right direction ready for the knockout final ten minutes where their location is finally revealed. The Doctor is beautifully characterised throughout with some marvellous dialogue - I didn’t need to hear in the extras that Colin Baker enjoyed this loquacious script because it shines from every word he utters. The Doctor spouts so many theories you can tell he is a seasoned adventurer until the truth finally dawns on him. Its one of those stories I suggest you listen to cuddled up in bed with the lights out and let Edwards take you on a fully immersive adventure on dangerous seas. There are lots of questions to be answered but for now this is an exciting, unpredictable tale with an ending that will leave you desperate to hear the conclusion: 9/10

City of Spires written by Simon Bovey and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: Arriving in a hail of musket fire, the Doctor unexpectedly finds himself in the highlands of Scotland, where the ruthless Black Donald and his band of rebels are fighting the Redcoats. But the highland warriors no longer fight for the Jacobite cause and the English officers answer only to the mysterious Overlord. What has happened to Scotland and why are its moors littered with advanced, oil-pumping technology? Reunited with his faithful companion Jamie McCrimmon, the Doctor must venture into the sinister City of Spires to find the answers. But standing in his way is the deadly Red Cap…

Softer Six: Its rare for the sixth Doctor to be travelling without an assistant, unlike the seventh he seems to only be alone during adventures when he eventually picks up an assistants (The Marian Conspiracy, The Girl Who Waited). Of all the Doctor’s he is the one that needs company the most and enjoys boasting about his many talents! Lonely forays are rare and see him at his most subdued (The Wormery, Davros). Will Guthrie describes him as a French dandy with an English accent! This Doctor calls a spade a spade and when a Jacobite guns down an Englishman in cold blood he reacts angrily to his murder. The Doctor is rather like a Doctor Who companion twofold when he first claps eyes on Jamie. Not only does he remember that the Time Lords stole away his memory and that he has regenerated several times since they last met but he is also giddily excited to see his old friend again. There was a special connection that the Doctor had with Jamie where they knew exactly how the other would react and embraced their companionship – I’m sure the Doctor has missed that. He drinks in the Scottish sunset, having forgotten how beautiful the landscape was. I love how the Doctor claims that the assembled Hordes of Genghis Khan couldn’t breach the TARDIS just as the ninth Doctor does in Rose – I like to think that he keeps that description on standby for every occasion the TARDIS is threatened. He’s become something of a gentleman on audio and leaps to Alice’s defence like a Jane Austen hero but still has time to taunt Redcap as though he is a playground bully. Jamie has a life to lead here now and the Doctor understands that and when he thinks the danger is too great he sends him on his way in a very selfless act. Jamie seriously thinks that the Doctor has a death wish the way he continually throws himself into danger. His hokey northern accent that seems to shift from region to region is great fun – his Geordie is especially gigglesome because I thought I had been transported back to The Mark of the Rani!

Who’s the Yahoos: Isn’t it lovely to hear Frazer Hines’ dulcet tones back in Doctor Who? His faux Scottish accent has a gentle lilt that makes him an easy listen and the return of this incredibly popular character from sixties Who was always going to be a cause for celebration. Re-introducing him as the villainous Black Donald is a fascinating new development since who is to say without the Doctor’s friendship he wouldn’t have gone on to become an infamous murderer. He was certainly quite feral and violent in their first encounter, a loyal protector of Colin McClaren at Culloden. The Doctor remembers his friend as being one of the most alive people he had ever met, full hope and now, despite his protestations, Jamie does trust the Doctor. It seems no matter how much time passes Jamie will always be afraid of the Phantom Piper! Alice suggests that kinship such as that expressed by the Doctor and Jamie takes more than a few days to develop. Giving his track record at falling into trouble Jamie is surprised that they ever managed to get out dangerous situations in the past. He decided a long time ago that he was ready to die for Scotland. It looks like Frazer Hines had the chance to add some of his famous Jamieisms throughout the course of the story – its usually Jamie trying to pronounce the name of something anachronistic very badly. When the Doctor is shot Jamie clucks after him like a mother hen. He had always hoped that when his time came he would go out with a claymore in one hand and a jar of whiskey in the other! I had no doubt that Jamie would jump into the TARDIS at the end of the story. After he had been given so many hints and whispers about his old life with the Doctor how could he resist?

Wee Lassie: Not such a gentle lassie after all as she tackles Will Guthrie after he insults her and aids the Doctor and Jamie’s escape. Jamie tries to be chivalrous when heading back to the Doctor and insists that Alice stays behind but showing her real teeth she refuses to be left behind like some useless girl. She has a journey of her own take as we learn that her husband is a collaborator, an engineer working for the Overlord. The Doctor touchingly suggests the fact the Scotland has become such an industrial landscape proves his love for his wife because their very existence is what keeps her alive.

Standout Performance: I was distinctly unimpressed by Georgia Moffatt’s turn in The Doctor’s Daughter because I was hoping for something a bit more intellectual and sophisticated and instead we got GI Jane, Time Lord style and frankly I think Moffatt would have played the former with much more aplomb. There was something very stiff about her performance there which is strange because her turn as Alice in City of Spires is really rather wonderful. She develops a fantastic rapport with Colin Baker and Frazer Hines and the character is extremely appealing. As the story progressed I kept secretly hoping she would climb into the TARDIS with the two of them even though I knew that wasn’t the case. I just thought my willpower could stretch back through time and influence Bovey and have a run of adventure with this three. Go back and listen to this story again and really focus on the chemistry between the three leads – it could have been great. Kudos to Moffatt for tossing away any resentment I had about The Doctor’s Daughter and giving a genuinely sunny performance.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Hello? Whom do I have the dubious pleasure of addressing?’ ‘Oh please don’t say it is going to be one of those sort of calls!’
‘Well well, we meet again, Doctor!’ ‘Oh Major Haywood forced bonhomie I can live with but please spare me that cliché!’

Great Ideas: The villainous Overlord lives in a castle over yonder and has Redcoats and English soldiers as sentries. The Doctor mistakenly thinks that he is an oil baron and sucking the substance from the land. Its like Texas with pump jacks as far you can see and factories greedily guzzling up the black water of the land. The City of Spires is like a future nightmare version of New York, an industrial compound the size of a minor metropolis. Putting aside the consequences for the environment, the damage to the timeline on such a scale is precedented.

Audio Landscape: Horses whinnying, wagons overturned, a screaming crowd, a piercing gunshot, screaming highland winds, it literally sounds like Nicholas Briggs has placed a microphone next to a pitched battle and sneaked away with the recording – its that convincing, a cockerel crowing, screaming cavalry, Redcoat drums sounding as Redcaps soldiers march past, the squeaking pump jacks, Redcaps clomping footsteps, dripping water, Redcap falling over a cliff, fighting in the distance, horse and cart, crackling fire, the bubbling filtration plant, coughing, rebellious cries, the leeches swarming from their host into the Major, the sibilant alien voice of the Hiridin, the Doctor jumping into the black water and swimming away, the Doctor washed down into the overflow pipe, pump jacks burning in the distance.

Musical Cues: The opening cues are highly atmospheric and Andy Hardwick makes gorgeous use of the violin throughout. Playing out on the Scottish Highlands there is a chance for some rowdy bagpipe playing too and the enter the fray poignantly as the Doctor tries to remind Jamie of their first encounter.

Isn’t it Odd: It’s a good thing that the performances, characterisation and direction are so good because not a great deal happens in the first two episodes between the Doctor, Jamie and Alice meeting and the three of them discover the factories. The end of episode tries to relive the first Androzani cliffhanger but doesn’t quite have the same ring of doom to it.

Standout Scene: I’m a soppy sod for nostalgia at times and when the Doctor and Jamie are reunited in episode four and he gave him a massive bear hug I felt as if somebody was giving me a massive fanboy cuddle.

Notes: The Doctor names checks Polly and Ben.

Clues: I’m looking at these adventures in hindsight, having already listened to all three (four if you include Nights Black Agents) and so this time I am on the lookout for the clues that suggest the Doctor has stumbled back into the Land of Fiction. I’ll save the actual discussion of the return to that most illusory of lands for the story in which it is most relevant – Legend of the Cybermen. The Doctor is shocked to discover that he has found himself in the time of the Highlanders because he didn’t think he was anywhere near this time or place. The Doctor mentions the Cybermen which links in with the final story. Redcaps machines suck the blood from the land, the black water which Jamie thinks is the blood of Scotland but rather wonderfully turns out to be ink (the life blood of the Land of Fiction). ‘The Redcoats have finished all of my kind. The blood, the essence, the wellspring of all things is being drained. All we are. All we have become…’ Fake mythic monsters, fake spooks and also Rob Roy! The Doctor’s reaction to what appears to be the perversion of the timeline makes for good drama and the writers doesn’t even need to ‘get out of that one’ because we simply aren’t where the Doctor thinks we are. Anything could happen here, as will be explored in The Wreck of the Titan. Its 1784 in the Highlands but 1884 where the factories, sky scrapers and monorails are. The Doctor slowly starts to figure out how this place works – just as he was seeking to discover what sort of species might want to suck the mineral blood of worlds and the alien reveals that he is working for the Hiridin Corporation. It’s a world that appears to throw together anachronistic elements but will give you a explanation when you try and seek one. Hirudinea are a type of blood sucking leech which the Doctor has heard of and their agent declares that he is well read. Almost as if they had extracted that information from a book and brought it to life. Once he has jumped into the black water the Doctor is perturbed that it doesn’t taste, feel or smell like oil… Jamie wonders where Alice has got to and she turns up immediately – which the Doctor suspiciously thinks is an uncanny co-incidence. They had the Doctor pegged as one of the heroes that had sabotaged many of their corporate divisions in the past – heroes such as we would meet in Legend of the Cybermen. ‘Did she send you?’ asks the corporate leech, suggesting that the Doctor knows who he is talking about because he arrived beyond this land just like her (he’s talking about Zoe, the Mistress of the Land of Fiction). As the salt burns through the leeches the Doctor is still asking questions about the black water, what is in it and who buys it. All in good time, Doc.

Result: An odd story for sure because not a lot seems to take place and yet in hindsight there is an awful lot of building up of the central arc of this trilogy. Which makes this the rarest of stories, one that might seem inconsequential and even a little dull on your first listen but becomes more enjoyable once you know where this story leads. Colin Baker seems more gentle than ever in the title role but I think that has more to do with the return of one of his best friends rather than a weakening of the character itself and I was always very pleased that the Doctor doesn’t know what is going on until very late in the day and even then he doesn’t have all the answers. Mysteries can be held in check as long as satisfying answers turn up eventually. Frazer Hines excels as an older and gruffer Jamie but he still has that touch of Highland charm that made him such a joy in the sixties and he is ably supported by Georgia Moffatt’s marvellous turn as Alice. I really wish she had gone with them at the end. It’s a story that scores highly on atmosphere and the chemistry between the actors but you might find yourself drifting off somewhere in the middle episodes because the story doesn’t want to spill its secrets until episode four which means a great deal of running on the spot (otherwise known as escape/capture/escape). City of Spires is a entertaining piece but perhaps better listened as the first part of a trilogy rather than a story in its own right. Because each story relies on what follows if you take the fourteen parts of the ‘Jamie trilogy’ as a whole Trial of a Time Lord style epic it is far more satisfying than judging the individual elements. As such its probably the best trilogy because it tells a truly ambitious novel with the weakest individual chapters. If that makes sense: 7/10