Subterranea written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: The TARDIS is going underground. When the Doctor and Romana find themselves buried beneath the surface of an alien world, they're soon swallowed up by a giant burrowing machine. This is where the inhabitants of this planet live - in huge, constantly moving, Drill-towns, chewing up the fuel and resources of the planet in order to survive. But something else lurks in the earth. Something that feeds on the Drill-towns. Something that is relentless and will not stop. The Silex are hunting.

Teeth and Curls: The Doctor is described as ‘pink face’ by one of the mole-like miners. It’s kinda cute. Out of the two of them, Romana is the least conspicuous. I’m not suggesting that every Doctor Who story should shed revealing new light on his character or probe deeply into his thought processes, but I do think that each adventure should at least offer more of a take on the character than a handful of witty lines and a few intelligent observations. It’s called Doctor Who, he should dominate proceedings and contribute a huge amount of personality. These 4DAs seem to reduce the character to a handful of quirks and let Tom Baker do the rest. When he’s given a big role in proceedings he usually makes the material very palatable but in the case of a story like Subterrenea, that is trying to tell quite a large-scale story in a short space of time, his input gets swallowed up just like the TARDIS at the beginning of this story. As a result the story feels as though the Doctor is a guest in his own series, which is strange given that Tom Baker can be such a dominating presence.

Aristocratic Adventurer: Is Lalla Ward mis-remembering Romana as some kind of outer space inner time bully who sulks her way around the universe giving people hell for no reason? Somebody have a word with her, would you? She’s not quite as grumpy in this piece as she has been but Ward does still have a tendency to stress her dialogue in a negative fashion like she has gotten out of the wrong side of bed. It’s a bizarre phenomenon because Ward has been playing the part prolifically for many, many years now and aside from this season, she’s been playing it accurately and authentically. Even in her first season with Tom Baker (and the novel adaptations) she was light of mood and great fun to be around. I feel as though it needs to be addressed now, with perhaps some motive for Ward’s caustic portrayal.

Great Ideas: K.9 is busy reading human philosophy, probably not very smart for the Doctor to allow him to do that because he will be more prissy than usual! I really like the idea of the TARDIS being swallowed whole by a great underground excavating machine, it’s the sort of arresting opening that these 4DAs could do with more of. Steam engines that gather their fuel by digging through mineral deposits, with the owe being extracted. There used to be hundreds of drill towns ploughing the strata. The Silex take down whole ships, dismantle them, take what they need, and turn them into more like themselves. Have we reached a point now where Doctor Who is in such short supply of new monsters that we have to start inventing ones that are similar to ones from the past? What’s next? The Doctor and Romana visit a planet caught in a deadly warfare where the mutated remains of the species is placed inside robotic shells and those super beings are elected as the rulers of that world? The Silex were created in the last war to turn feeble men into machines who could fight. But they were betrayed by their creators who attempted to deactivate them and so the destroyed them and poisoned the surface of the planet.

Audio Landscape: I fail to see the logic in introducing a great stompy, heavily modulated villain in an audio story. This is the sort of monster that would make an impact rendered in CGI on television (think of the Pyrovilles) but just becomes a cacophony of horrible noise on audio. It’s hard to make out the dialogue and it’s quite unpleasant on the ear. Sometimes on audio less is more and these Cybermen wanabees are terrifically lacking in menace.

Isn’t It Odd: When asked why they moved underground the answer given is that there was a war ‘or something’ and the surface was poisoned. Even the character saying the words acts as though she can hardly believe it and I was just waiting for the moment in the climax where the populace is taken up to the surface to discover that it is perfectly habitable. I’ve seen this tick played too many times in science fiction. I’d like to say that Miss Wagstaff’s defection to the Silex and betrayal of everybody was a shocking revelation but in a story where she has pretty much just been introduced it is hard to have a reaction to such a speedy twist about her character. And given we haven’t explored the horror of the Silex yet, it’s hard to get enthusiastic about the cliff-hanger where they are (apparently) all about to swallowed into certain death. Had this been a four-part story we could have spent more time getting to know Miss Wagstaff and give her treachery more weight and spent a little time behind enemy lines too so we could witness just how nasty the Silex are and what awaits our heroes as they are dragged to their doom. These condensed stories really are their own worst enemy sometimes.

Result: There’s definitely some merit in trying to capture the spirit of Dickens in a space opera set underground on an alien planet and if I were to point at a writer to tackle that brief Jonathan Morris would be my first port of call. He employs a lightness of touch, is capable of turning his hand to both fruity dialogue and social commentary and is adept at creating a vivid population of characters. Add in some retro technology, ridiculous names and a sense of the underdog pushing against their oppressors and you have Subterranea, a story with more than a touch of Dickens about it. However, something is sorely lacking from this story that means the Dickens allusion can only go so far, and that is a dense, protracted plot. This is a Fourth Doctor Adventure, which means it’s only two episodes long and has to skip along, setting up the world, the plot and the characters in a few scenes and resolve everything in an hour. Dickens would have barely gotten past describing the first scene in that time. It’s an intriguing setting, and well realised for the most part and the opening few scenes suggest something that is going to be quite heavy on ideas and truly in the spirit of season 18 but the whole piece is reduced to the stock Doctor Who scenario of a slave species bringing down their oppressors, and is fraught with the humour that this period of the show lacked. The second episode tosses out any literary pretentions and devolves into your bog-standard Doctor Who versus the Cybermen adventure (without the Cybermen). I’m at a loss at how throwaway so many of these 4DAs are, very rarely aspiring to be more than a decent listen rather than something enduring. It’s not even as though Morris isn’t trying here, he’s put a lot of work in getting the details right (the setting, the characters) but the story is so run-of-the-mill that it leaves a frustrating taste in the mouth anyway. You could stick this on and convince yourself that you have listened to a perfectly reasonable Doctor Who story, as on a scene-by-scene basis it is amusing and exciting, thanks to the actors and the director. But in narrative terms it is cruising from a to b to c without any stimulating diversions along the way. Subterranea plays out like so many of this range, formulaically and this season has been particularly guilty of that. The sausage machine of undemanding, nostalgia fests continues to churn. A major rethink is needed, and with the box sets coming let’s hope there will be something a little more substantial in the offing: 5/10

The Silurian Candidate written by Matthew J Elliot and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: The year is 2085, and planet Earth remains on the edge of a nuclear precipice. At any moment, either of two vast rival power blocs, to the West and the East, might unleash a torrent of missiles, bringing about the terrible certainty of Mutual Assured Destruction. But there is another way - or so Professor Ruth Drexler believes. Hence her secret mission deep in Eastern bloc territory, to uncover a hidden city, never before glimpsed by human eyes: the Parliament of the Silurians, the lizard people who ruled the Earth before humankind. There, she’ll encounter a time-travelling Doctor, who knows the Silurians well. A Doctor on a secret mission of his own.

The Real McCoy: Mel sticks up for the Doctor, pointing out to Ace that if you had lived for 900 years that you would probably have a few loose ends dangling that needed tying up. Perhaps he should be commended for being the first Doctor to bother actually attempting to tidy them up? The Doctor’s loose ends mostly seem to be old battles unfought. He’s a lot more secretive these days, says Ace, which highlights that this is a long time after Mel left him the first time around. So why oh why haven’t these stories capitalised on that fact before? I do appreciate the writer seemingly attempting to do something with the idea that time has passed and the Doctor isn’t the same man that Mel recognises from before, but this manifests itself in a very bizarre scene in the console room where she is insidiously attempting to extract their destination out of him in an insidious way and he remains frustratingly and pointlessly vague. It’s very awkwardly handled because both of them feel out of character. The Doctor was all about brooking peace between the Silurians and the humans. Why now is he so invested in handing over the planet to the reptiles out of some moral duty because they never officially surrendered it when they went in to hibernation? And when the Silurians have shown little but contempt for humanity in the past, why would he fall on their side so completely? Is it just because this the seventh Doctor and he’s supposed to behave controversially? He’s his usual amiable self until the story calls for him to behave outrageously, claiming the Earth as his own and

Oh Wicked: Remember Ace, when attempting to manufacture a moment of danger at the cliff-hanger, you’re not supposed to punch the air with delight and project positive exclamations. Her reaction to being menaced by a T-Rex? To dance with delight! Mel ponders what this unfeeling Doctor has done Ace. Made her a bit stupid by the looks of it. Bizarrely she does it at the first and second cliff-hanger (‘Cavemen! Brilliant!’). After all this time, she still doesn’t trust the Doctor.

Aieeeeeeee: Mel wonders if all she is to the Doctor is a big heart, a way for him to experience his adventures emotionally. When did he stop being able to do that himself? This is an interesting idea, and again it is nice that Elliot remembers to ditch the faux season 25-ness of these stories and try and engage with the regulars in a dynamic way and AGAIN it is fudged by bringing up the idea and failing to apply it to the story in any meaningful way. How does Mel have the right to be so angry with the Doctor for somebody being shot at the climax when it is precisely what she did previously in the story?

Dreadful Dialogue: ‘Better safe than mown down by a firing squad.’
‘You’re not going to tell me that resistance is futile, are you?’ ‘No…but it is.’
‘I was hoping the Silurians would have some wifi based equivalent…’
‘Willy Wonka! Finally, I’ve realised who you remind me of, Doctor!’ is a very odd line in the middle of an exposition scene.
‘The Doctor says I’m as honest as the day is long, and we’ve been to some planets with some really long days!’
‘Spunky! I love it!’

Great Ideas: I remember seeing the beautiful cover for The Silurian Candidate and thinking that this was going to be the renaissance seventh Doctor story to drag this run out of the mire. Big Finish covers have become much more artistic and striking in the past couple of years and this is one of the best. Reading the blurb, my expectations only grew. I think stirring memories of the seventh Doctor Silurian comic strip from the Doctor Who magazine were mixed in somewhere too. There’s rather a lovely moment where we appear to have come in at the end of one of the Doctor’s tales of the past and have missed the bulk of the story when it fact he has only been thinking to himself and muttered the climax to his story to Ace and mentions it is a shame that she wasn’t telepathic because she could have heard the rest (and given that story is The Key to Time it would have been a damn sight more riveting than this). It’s that kind of smartness that this story needed a lot more of if it was going to tackle the sort of weighty themes that it does. Unfortunately, the next scene plays the same trick and attempts to make us laugh at it, thus gutting the original elegance of the idea. Ruth is heading down into the hibernation chamber to obtain the technology to send the human race up in to deep space – that’s a tricky proposition because it suggests fucking up the planet and then abandoning it for pastures new. Which makes Ruth seem a little selfish and defeatist. At least she is looking to hand the data over to both sides of the conflict, rather than ensure survival for just her people. But surely in a war to be handed a loaded gun like the hibernation technology, it would just escalate the conflict? The first side to launch, the first side to conquer the stars, the first side to abandon the planet and send down a devastating series of missiles to wipe the other side out?

Audio Landscape: I’m trying to accentuate the positives in a generally abysmal tale but even the soundscape fails to ignite in The Silurian Candidate, at that is usually something you can rely on with Big Finish. It’s surprising how effective action sequences can be on audio when they are well paced, well described and authentic sound effects are utilised. The action in this tale struggles a lot, inoffensive sounding dinosaurs and limp guns providing little tension that is made up with the actors barking hysterically to stress the peril they are in. They sound like actors in a studio trying to convince you really hard that they are in desperate circumstances, a sure sign that the writing and direction isn’t up to scratch.

Isn’t it Odd: The Matthew J Elliot continuity machine is back in session: Daleks, Cybermen, Fenric, The Fires of Vulcan, Gallifrey, the Hand of Omega, the Key to Time (specifically the climax and The Androids of Tara), Bloodtide (but given this is a Silurian story, it’s predecessor on audio should be mentioned), two hearts, the plots of Dr Who & the Silurians and Warriors are regurgitated and plot points from The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment set up. Let’s optimistically suggest that Elliot is attempting to provoke potential new converts to Doctor Who that have stumbled across Doctor Who thanks to The Silurian Candidate to explore the rich annals of its history. Or pessimistically suggest that he’s an over-enthusiastic fan that cannot resist having his characters spew up continuity references as though they are a gaggle of Doctor Who fans waiting in line at a convention signing. Elliot truly struggles to write realistic dialogue between people without laying on too much exposition, over stressed politics (be it gender or social based) and awkward jokes that fail to hit their target. Dramatically, there doesn’t seem to be much point to the first episode, which fails as a scene setter because there is no substantial information given about the setting or the characters. It winds up being a lot of wandering about searching for some kind of plot that has failed to show up yet. It’s where a classic Doctor Who story would normally be in part three of six, padding rather than development. And there’s something very strange about experiencing the city of the Silurians with the Doctor casually explaining everything rather than the companions experiencing it (and the wonder that comes with that). It turns this into an intellectual exercise (without much intellect) rather than an emotional one, which is distancing. In fact both the Doctor and Ruth chat away about their intentions so nonchalantly, it is as though Elliot has no clue how to dramatise a story. Ruth talks about the Earth being a lost cause before we witness it. The Doctor talks about handing over the planet to the Silurians without any context that would make this revelation…well a revelation! Show, don’t tell is the key to good drama but The Silurian Candidate never stops yammering on about it’s intents. What about a little atmosphere in the Silurian Parliament? The characters walk about as if they are taking a stroll around the supermarket. Remember Bloodtide and how it so expertly built up suspense around the horror of the Silurians reveal? When did the main range become this neutered of tension? Bloody hell, by the end of episode two there have been two separate, long winded explanations about who the Silurians are for the benefit of both Ace and Mel. Get on with telling the bloody story, Elliot! You shouldn’t be vomiting up explanations before the story has even engaged in first gear! You have to question a script that drops a revelation about the Doctor wanting to hand the Earth to the Silurians and then fails to mention it again for half an hour. When Ace brings it up, the idea has been drained of any dramatic worth. It’s more like ‘oh yeah…that.’ It’s seriously damaging that no serious emotional connection is made to the setting, the scenario or the characters. The revelation that he is the Silurian candidate fails to inject life in to the story because, even at the climax to episode three, the implication of this is incomprehensible. ‘When I go up…everyone goes up!’ The story essentially boils down to a Donald Trump wannabe being so full of hot air that he takes out the heads of both sides in the conflict. How very subtle. The Doctor’s solution is to put both the Silurians and the humans to sleep with an alarm clock that will wake them up at the same time, essentially pausing the story and allowing somebody else to deal with the hard choices. What an odd thing for him to do, exempting himself of responsibility and letting the tension play out at a later date.

Result: The Silurian Candidate has already earned itself something of a reputation…so my primary thought when sticking it on was ‘can it possibly be as bad as people say?’ Technically the first two episodes are the better half of the story because they innocuously feature the Doctor explaining gallop loads of continuity to his companions as they wander about the Silurian Parliament. The dialogue is frequently troublesome, there is no sense of pace or tension and the set pieces there are to break up the waffle fail to hit their mark…but there is nothing outright offensive (simply inept) about the first half of the story. It is the model of a story struggling to gain any kind of momentum, however. Episode two ends with the threat of nuclear war but since I haven’t spent any time exploring either side of the conflict, we should I give a damn? The Silurian Candidate flaunts themes of racism, devastating war and dangerous scientific developments but there is no attempt to engage with those ideas dramatically or thoughtfully. It’s a story that plays out with such sledgehammer incompetence that it’s quite painful to witness the potentially dramatic notions squandered so wastefully. Truthfully, the story could begin with episode three because that is precisely where the narrative starts. The story takes a huge lurch into the world above for its latter half and you might think, given the slovenly nature of the first two episodes, that this would be for the better. Enter Chairman Bart Falco, the first true allusion to Donald Trump in the world of Doctor Who. There was a throwaway line in a new series story, but that was just a sly dig. This is an out and out parody of the man; tactless, bullish, impolite, ruthless, racist and entirely one-note. I couldn’t believe in this man taking a central role in a dangerous conflict for one second…and before anyone says it no, I can’t believe Donald Trump has been handed that lofty authority either. The Trump comparisons are obvious; his blameless behaviour and how he points the finger at everybody else, his obsession with his own self-image, his ego that is so vast the only piece of literature he has deemed to read is his autobiography. And as for the accent…it brings up the question of why the director would allow such an offensively poor Australian accent to be used when the actor is British and the character would have been just as belligerent had he used his own accent. Bart Falco reduces the story to a cartoon, because he behaves in such a boorish and over the top way. Any attempt to study politics in wartime are corrupted by this most unconvincing of characters. The whole story becomes a reaction against him, rather than the scenario that is playing out. Warriors of the Deep might have had a manifest of problems, production wise, but at least it had a dramatic backbone inherent in the script. The Silurian Candidate fails to ignite as drama because it fundamentally fails to understand what drama is, instead of allowing the audience to experience he story, it instead chooses to explain everything, often before anything has even occurred. I genuinely appreciate that Big Finish are pumping some fresh blood into their output instead of the same names cropping up time and again, in terms of writing and direction. With that you also have to examine their output critically and find out whether a particular talent is worth sticking with. Maybe there is a wealth of praise for Matthew J. Elliot’s stories out there but I haven’t found it. However, I have read plenty of intelligent criticism of his output. Like Frank Cotterell-Boyce in the new series, I just don’t think this is a writer that is suited to realising Doctor Who. All the script editors over the years have stated that it is a very hard show to get right and not everybody can do it, not even highly respected writers away from the world of Doctor Who. I would suggest that Elliot is one such writer and script that is this tensionless, obvious, repetitive, exaggerated, unfocused and wasteful is all the evidence that you need. This is his third crack at the whip, and that talent should be refining, not regressing. I’m actually a little distressed to see a fourth story published in the upcoming schedules. I want to give a shout out to Bonnie Langford, who gives the best performance in this ghastly mess and is really trying to put some weight behind the appalling characterisation she is given. To her credit, at moments she almost succeeds. What’s astonishing is that there was a time when people said Doctor Who was too good for Bonnie. That’s reversed now, with scripts of the quality she has been handed of late she is far too good for Doctor Who. Please somebody recognise that you have a relatively untapped performer who is willing to go the extra mile and give her a vehicle akin to The Fires of Vulcan or The Juggernauts. My final point is what is the point of calling this story The Silurian Candidate when they barely feature? It would be more accurate to call this story Bart Falco Go Boom. Incomprehensively maladroit, I couldn’t connect with a story that held me at such an emotional distance from the main action and instead only offered me two hours of explanations: 1/10

The Blood Furnace written by Eddie Robson and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ace and Mel to a recently reopened shipyard in Merseyside. It's 1991, the hardest of times - but now they're shipbuilding once again, thanks to the yard's new owners, the Dark Alloy Corporation. A miracle of job creation - but is it too good to be true? While the Doctor and Ace go in search of an alien assassin at loose in the yard, Stuart Dale, discoverer of the near-magical Dark Alloy material, has an extraordinary proposition to make to his old college friend, Mel. But who is the Corporation’s mysterious client? Who does she really represent? And what's the secret of the Blood Furnace? Seeking answers, the Doctor and friends are about to find themselves in very deep water…

The Real McCoy: Ace’s Uncle and a bit of a shipping enthusiast, according to Mel and the way McCoy is playing the Doctor (like a drunken old uncle who bumbles from one scenario to another) these days he might as well be! Listen to the scene at the end of episode one where the Doctor explains what has happened to Ace – McCoy literally sounds as if he has just been handed the script and has had one Scotch Whiskey too many. It’s inexcusably bad. The Doctor gets off a sly dig at the Dominators that made me chuckle, so I suppose he isn’t all bad. He’s never heard of the Orgium though and wonders if their boast to conquer half the galaxy is just hyperbole.

Oh Wicked: Ace discovers they are in Merseyside and sates categorically that nothing interesting is going to happen here. One, that’s not the way a decent companion should behave – I remember when she used to bounce out of the TARDIS looking for danger in every shadow. Has she become the latest version of Tegan? Two, this is where Hex was from. You would think that this would warrant some conversation about their former companion who, in the day, claimed to have a massive impact on their lives. The last time they were here was Afterlife, where they picked up Thomas, Hex’s alter ego. This all seems to have been flushed down the tube to create the ‘season 25’ vibe that these stories with Mel have been aiming for.

Aieeeeeeee: Finally after five stories with this team somebody has decided to shine the spotlight on Mel. You have to question the logic of bringing this team together if not to reveal new facets of their character or to highlight them against one another. Instead it seems to have been an amusing ‘what if Mel and Ace had kept travelling together?’ exercise with very little thought behind why that would be entertaining, amusing or revealing. It’s proven to be none of the above, just a little stale. Ace has regressed to being a child, the Doctor seems to have lost his chess playing skills and Mel, whilst good with a computer, is about as bland as she was during her time in the TV series. They aren’t complimenting each other and it is very frustrating because all three characters have proven to work very well on audio. So it’s nice to see a little character building take place. If it’s riveting enough it might begin to justify this wonky set up. Mel meets up with her old boyfriend from college who has done rather well for himself since they split up, creating a new steel alloy and making a ton of money. It’s a promising start that looks set to tell us a little about Mel before she met the Doctor. Trouble is, there isn’t very much chemistry between Bonnie Langford and Todd Heppenstall, they play the scenes like two people who have never met before. I realise that meeting an ex can be awkward, but there has to be some of that spark there that proves this was a couple in the first place. Stuart was offered a job in the Middle East after he graduated and Mel was happy in Pease Pottage…and long-distance relationships are awkward. When Mel decides to take Stuart’s offer of a job and stay on Earth it feels very sloppily written and played, not a patch on her original leaving scene in Dragonfire. It’s almost as if the story is willing us to believe she will be back in the TARDIS at the end of the story. It fails to be touching or revelatory, just something that happened. I realise that Mel is supposed to be a computer whizz and a bit square, but she has also always been portrayed as being highly emotional, occasionally hysterical (especially on TV). So why is her interaction with Stuart so cold and unfeeling? Why does she sound less than impressed when offered a great job? Has she had an unmade story between her TV stint and now where she met the Cybermen and had an emotional inhibitor inserted in her heart? And how about the reason why Mel chooses not to stay behind at the end? 'I'm happy doing what I do.' Wow, that's probing stuff.

Standout Performance: Julie Graham is a formidable talent and brings all the gusto and gumption that she can to the role of Carolyn. It’s not her fault that she is saddled with an unconvincing and underwritten character. Remember when she got to eat the scenery (and practically everything else) as Ruby White in The Sarah Jane Adventures? That was how to write a really tasty part for this charismatic actress.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I once met a Sontaran called Harold!’

Great Ideas: The Orgium have control over matter that no other race has ever achieved. The conquered half a galaxy. They’re an old, old civilisation, geared towards war. Yadda yadda yadda. There’s so many old, old civilisations geared towards war out there I’m surprised there are any inhabitable worlds left in the universe. Their technology isn’t anything that we would recognise as technology. Stuart and his company have been building a spaceship all this time, which is news to him. The Orgium want to conquer races that develop in ways that offend their culture – it’s an overly simplistic view of xenophobia but at least they do have a reasonable motive. With the Orgium virus, every piece of equipment with an electronic circuit could be destroyed. Imagine if the story had started with that happening and dealt with the fallout of a world without technology?

Isn’t it Odd: Nothing much else is happening in The Blood Furnace so an exploding console will have to do. It is linked to the plot, but as a secondary jeopardy that is explained much later, which means this feels like a very arbitrary moment of peril. After all we need a moment of false jeopardy, don’t we? I really love the idea of a race of beings that can manipulate space time with language, it’s an intriguing notion and one that has potential for some imaginative scripting. A shame then that Doctor Who has already explored the concept as well as it is every going to be in The Shakespeare Code with the Carrionites and that the ability manifests itself here with poor Julie Graham being forced to get her tongue around some bizarre alien language which fails to have any impact on me intellectually. The English language is a beautiful thing and this was a chance to indulge in some witty and imaginative wordplay…instead Robson opts for making the villain sound like she is making up a bizarre language. The Orgium’s attempt to conquer the Earth is over before it even began because the development of digital technology so fast that the planet will be intolerable to them within a matter of years. Hence the destruction of the worlds technology. But since we know that the digital age raced onwards because of stories set in the future (I very much doubt that The Blood Furnace will be responsible for wiping from existence every Doctor Who story set post 1990s on Earth…if it was, how embarrassing for those stories), this entire invasion tale has been a big fat waste of time. Technically the Doctor didn’t have to do anything at all.

Seriously, who is listening to these stories from the production team after they are complete? This is the second trilogy featuring this trio and a third has been commissioned already. Sometimes it is time to cut your losses and admit that something isn’t working out. I’m sure Sylv, Bonnie and Aldred all enjoy working together but that’s not really a reason enough when these plodding, characterless stories are the result. For me I’ve rated this run of stories since A Life of Crime 4, 5, 2, 5, 4…so unless The Silurian Candidate turns out to be an absolute masterpiece of epic proportions (reviews have suggested otherwise, but you never know) it will be my least enjoyed consecutive run of stories for one set of regulars since the trilogies began. I realise this is entirely subjective and that there may be a wealth of people out there loving this stuff, but the reviews from reviewers I trust (not the ones that are plastered all over the Big Finish pages, the entries chosen from sources who seem to think every release is a masterpiece) suggest I am not alone in my criticism.

Result: After a cosmic heist in space, a historical, a quirky SF sequel and an oddball drama, this was a chance for the seventh Doctor, Mel and Ace to enjoy an urban setting and a touch of realism. After the New Adventures and some of the better 7th Doctor audios (the Fearmonger, the Harvest, Damaged Goods) you would expect that he would take to a down to Earth setting like a duck to water, a chance to get personal with the guest cast and indulge in some gritty storytelling. The Blood Furnace delivers none of this, and my expectations went sadly unmet. I’m having a love/hate relationship with Ken Bentley at the moment, and it’s possibly because he is now the most prolific Big Finish director of them all (with well over 50 stories under his belt). I find his work varies depending on the quality of the script, so in the recent Doom Coalition series which he tackled he was handed a huge epic, full of incredible set pieces and really winning individual stories. He directed the life out of them, and the result was a polished, engaging, exciting must listen. In the same breath he has directed the first six 7/Mel/Ace stories and with scripts that have been a little half-hearted, the resulting direction has been too. It doesn’t seem to be a problem with Barnaby Edwards or newbies Jamie Anderson and Helen Goldwyn. They all have the ability to inject life into even the most underwhelming of scripts. The Blood Furnace feels tired from the outset, like the director knows he’s seen all this before. The setting is reasonably well developed in the script but I don’t think that was translated with any vitality in the final piece. The soundscape is adequate, but I never felt as though I could shut my eyes and whisk myself away into this story because it was struggle to visualise what was happening. I struggled with the casting of Todd Heppenstall too, playing an old flame of Mel’s but lacking any of that spark with Bonnie Langford that would have made this work (check out The Waters of Amsterdam to see how this thing can be made to sing). Ace is given a reasonable role, but she’s the only one of the regulars I could really believe in. The aliens are a cheap Carrionite rip off, with nothing to differentiate them from a handful of other Doctor Who aliens and the only truly distinguishing feature is Julie Graham, who struggles gamely with an blandly written villainous role. Worst of all is Sylvester McCoy, the most dangerous of the Big Finish Doctor’s because he can swing anywhere between purring menace and toe-curling hysterics. This is clearly a script that he hasn’t studied in any great depth and he wanders through the story sounding a little lost and a little drunk, despite the Doctor supposedly putting lots of little plans in place. He sounds at sea in his own series. It’s the ambivalence that a story like The Blood Furnace drives out of me that reminds me why I struggled to return to main range to get reviewing again. It serves no real purpose, it’s a story that is just there: 4/10

Static written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Jamie Anderson

What’s it about: Deep in the heart of nowhere, near a place called Abbey Marston, there’s a caravan site. The perfect place to get away from it all. Close by, there’s a stone circle they used for human sacrifice in olden times. A little further afield, there’s an old RAF research station, where they did hushhush things in the War. There’s only one rule: the use of radios, cassette recorders and portable televisions is strictly forbidden. People come here to get away from it all, you see. No-one wants to hear the noise. No-one wants to hear the voices in the static… No-one wants to hear the ghosts.

Softer Six: Much of interest to discuss about the sixth Doctor in this story, how his character has developed and where he could go after the events of this story. It seems Colin Baker cannot really get a break, either he’s too acerbic and violent on television or he’s too cuddly and toothless on audio. I don’t think either is especially true – he could certainly be very charming on television (remember him brandishing flowers for Janet in Terror of the Vervoids) and I can recall many times where he has been far from amiable on audio (his rant about the Seriphia galaxy in The Apocalypse Element, his tension with Charley, the return of his spikier persona in The Wrong Doctors, his lack of any remorse in murdering the Valeyard in The Last Adventure). But even Colin Baker admits there is a gulf between his television persona and his Big Finish one. It’s a swing very much in his favour in my book but there have been some occasions lately where it seems he has lost that dangerous edge that made him so exciting a character in the first place in favour of becoming an old smoothy-pants with the ladies he keeps company lately. The Behemoth put that Doctor left of centre, but The Middle then saw a welcome return of the morally righteous and confrontational sixth Doctor of old, and now Static introduces something quite different, quite unlike a sixth Doctor we have ever seen before. One who is a little cold, a little calculating and a little desperate. After being such a sociable fellow, it’s like a cup of ice water being thrown in your face. Percy recognises the Doctor immediately, setting in motion this journey for the sixth Doctor. When the Doctor sees danger signs, it is practically a welcome mat for him. I love how he pieces together the mystery so concisely, taking each element of the story (the mist, the stone circle, the manor, the return of the dead, the Static) and piecing it all together (with a few false but plausible guesses along the way). His anger at the Static is palpable, disgusted that they are hijacking the bodies of the dead being returned to life. It isn’t a moral objection (like The Unquiet Dead) but more a simple abhorrence of the idea itself. He’s rarely had to face anything this ghoulish. Morris puts the Doctor in the horrible position of arriving on the scene just a few seconds too late to save Constance. This isn’t like Adric’s death which was set up so the Doctor couldn’t interfere, the sixth Doctor is simply too late to save his companion by a handful of heartbeats. She’s in this situation because he brought her in the TARDIS and he sent her to destroy the radios. She’s complicit, but he’s responsible. What an awful burden. And we get see this play out in real time with Constance still alive and struggling to breathe, die, and then a moment later the Doctor bursts in. It’s horrible. He’s angry at Percy for leaving her but he knows that this is his fault because she didn’t want to let him down. It transpires that the Doctor is responsible for Marston Manor being hushed up, and he’s also responsible for Percy’s unbearable situation. The Doctor orders him to stay, puts the weight of the Static’s possible return on his shoulders, informs him that he cannot see his family ever again. We know Percy is in this position because he is an old man when the Doctor meets him, we know he has to be put in this position to ensure everything stays that way. But it doesn’t make what the Doctor is commanding him to do any less callous or calculating. It’s an abominable ask of anybody, if anything the Doctor should have agreed to do it himself. Instead he turns a promising young officer into a twisted and frightened old man, trapped in a hellish void. It might be life after death, but it might as well be his own personal hell. The most disturbing thing? The Doctor’s insistence that he will contact Percy’s friends and family and tell them that he is dead. When they could go to the stone circle and spend time with him, he denies the man that comfort. Colin Baker plays the scene gently, but that somehow that makes it worse. The Doctor is responsible for Constance’s ID being on Percy in the future…did he do that because he simply couldn’t bear the idea of losing her like this? Because he knew Flip would remember her and bring her back? Would he put her through the horror of having to host the Static simply because her death isn’t something he wants on his conscience? So many interesting questions. If the Doctor was in control of his faculties when hosting the Static then he puts Flip through an emotional nightmare, the thought of sending Constance back to her death, to save the day. That’s almost seventh Doctor in approach. He gets off a little lightly at the climax given all the above. Because he manages to save the day and defeat the Static that seems to be enough to skip over all the choices he made along the way. The Static is still inside his mind, buzzing away. If we never hear about this again can we assume that it is there throughout all of his subsequent regenerations lives? Perhaps that is why his next incarnation is such a manipulative little beggar, why the 8th Doctor becomes the War Doctor, why the 9th Doctor was so condemning, the 10th so arrogant… There’s a suggestion that Percy thanked the Doctor for those extra years of life. Colin Baker doesn’t even sound convinced when he says the lines and part of me thinks that the Doctor made this up to smooth over his actions. Why would he thank him for such a terrible existence?

Constant Companion: It’s been on the cards for a while now that Constance has wanted to leave the Doctor, and she’s not making any secret of it anymore when they land and it isn’t where she belongs. Static toys with that idea in the cruellest possible way, the companion wanting to leave, getting within a hairs breath of achieving it and then when satisfied that she is as close as she will ever be, Constance dies in horrific circumstances. Jonathan Morris toys with that old trope spectacularly, and I was quite aghast at how punishing the story is on Constance. I’ve always liked her, ever since her Mel-like appearance out of order in The Last Adventure. Miranda Raison has always been very much in charge of the character, refusing to make her too cute and cuddly, always respecting the Doctor and being a very practical presence in her stories. At times Constance has been icier than the Doctor, but it’s true she has thawed a little, especially since the revelations about her husband. With the introduction of Flip, there’s been a feeling of the three characters locking into place in a very satisfying way and chance would have it the stories have all been of a superior nature too. How can we let go of this character now she has matured into such a strong presence in the audios?

Meeting Percy is also an unnerving experience for Constance, it’s the first step in the road to her death. He knows what happens to her and looks at her as if she has no right to exist. She respects the Doctor’s advice and thinks Flip should too. She wishes he would stop finding excuses for not taking them home, though. It feels like her life is on hold and she wants to resume it. Flip thinks he just finds it hard saying goodbye and so takes the scenic route home. Constance coming through the fog, recovering from smoke inhalation, is a truly frightening moment. We know how she is going to die, now we have to endure the agony of waiting for it to happen. She’s very straight with the Doctor about wanting to stay now she is as close to her time as he has ever managed to take her, but much gentler than, say Tegan, who used to simply berate the man for failing to get her exactly where she wanted to be. She considers lying low and getting a job and waiting to pick up things when she reaches the moment she left with the Doctor. It’s an understandable dilemma. Life with the Doctor is exciting but it isn’t stable and you can’t grow roots. It’s just chasing from one location to another. If you want a life, stability, loved ones, a family, it simply isn’t an option (as proven by Amy and Rory who were the closest to having a domestic life in the TARDIS but simply couldn’t enjoy it because of the nature of their life with the Doctor). Constance isn’t cruel in wanting to leave, she just wants to return to a life she was perfectly happy with and there is nothing wrong with that. She won’t hear that woman aren’t capable of a little action and sends Percy away to get the job done herself. It’s her downfall as the Static know that she is trying to prevent their arrival and take action against her. The Doctor sends Constance’s original body back to the fire to die with the Static inside her. The Constance we know and love has died. The duplicate might have her mind placed inside her, but this is not the woman who left with the Doctor in Bletchley Park. It’s remarkably similar to what happened with Fitz in the EDAs. Let’s see if the idea is dealt with in a similar way (mostly ignored, occasionally potently brought up) or if it will become a focus of their next trilogy of adventures.

Flippin’ Heck: I’m so pleased that so many of her detractors seem to have come around with Flip. I’ve always liked her and have considered her perfect companion fodder for the sixth Doctor (the reckless teen to his cautious old man) and Lisa Greenwood has always (despite some calling her accent irksome) delivered sparkling, enthusiastic performances. It’s her ability to talk to talk to people that is her greatest strength, to get close to the ‘little’ people in these adventures and give them some heart. That’s a vitally important role, one which is much underrated, because it takes these science fiction stories to a new a level where you genuinely care about the characters. Flip dives in head first and has a wild charm, thrusting out a hand to say hello regardless of who she is addressing. It’s true that the writers are treating the character more responsibly these days, which could be down to Constance’s presence, and they are giving her a more active presence in the stories. Morris created the character and so I would expect good things from him and he doesn’t disappoint, this is possibly her best story yet. Not because she exhibits any great knowledge or ingenuity, but because she smartly, humanely uncovers important elements of the mystery and because she has a personal stake in the story by the end that sees her protective streak emerge. When Joanna is clearly upset Flip tells the Doctor and Constance to leave it to her, that’s her strength. She doesn’t say anything she doesn’t mean and is glad to volunteer to stay whilst the Doctor and Constance head back in time to the RAF base at its height and investigate. Brave, as well as impulsive. Flip did a first aid course with St Johns Ambulance…I bet she never thought it would be applied to a comatose victim covered in biological glue. I loved how funny Flip can be, even in a desperate, dangerous situation. Her desperation to save Constance from being returned to her death is palpable, desperate. It’s an emotional high for Lisa Greenwood.

Standout Performance: Doctor Who always used to offer guest artists a reason to chomp at the bit for a part in the show, a chance to play something completely different to the norm on television and audio. Static hands David Graham a superb character in the form of Percy Till, who goes on the same journey as David Suchet’s character in Knock Knock, from a scary old man to a much more sympathetic figure. I would say this is handled much more effectively because there is a much riskier story behind the character. Graham gets to scare the pants off you before tearing your heart out and he does it all with absolute conviction. It’s a great part.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘There’s something about this place that means the dead don’t stay dead…’
‘You’re deliberately sending them back to their deaths!’ ‘That’s war. They’ve been granted a stay of execution. An hour’s living on borrowed time.’
‘Anyone who is brought back carries us within them.’
‘That gives you no right to use human beings as living lifeboats!’
‘We are also armed. And the dead outnumber the living.’
‘Oh Constance. Never giving up. Never giving in. Never give in.’
‘I did as you said, Doctor. I stayed.’

Great Ideas: The cover and teaser are the best in an age, both fantastically scary. The opening teaser is unforgettable, with Constance screaming for help in the ever present static. I can’t think of a main range story that has opened on such an arresting moment of drama in quite some years. The script makes it very clear and the story reaffirms this at the climax, Static opens with a companion’s death taking place. Talk about throwing you in the deep end. Congratulations to Jonathan Morris for creating the creepiest location in a Doctor Who story for a while, the desolate caravan park shrouded in mist, cut off from the world. It’s the last place in the universe that anybody would want to end up, especially with the owner, the sadistically creepy Percy Till to watch over you. The rule of no communications devices or radios disturbing the other guests is a classic horror movie motif…and I was just waiting for the first time that rule was broken to see what the consequences would be. Morris employs the Russell T Davies rule of introducing characters but not giving you their entire story, but merely a hint of their backstory that opens up a world of possibility for them beyond this story (Joanna and Andy are here to ‘work things out’ but it is never explained why). We know that Joanna’s sister is dead, but not the exact details around it and there is reference to a year of her hating herself and giving him hell that we can only imagine after the event. Abbey Marston Manor was the position of a top-secret RAF project that nobody knew about except the high ups in the war office. Television static isn’t just static but cosmic noise, the afterglow of the Big Bang. People being plucked out of time at the exact moment of their death. Within the perimeter of the caravan park, time is at a standstill. There is no past or future, only the here and now and the return of the dead. Can you imagine if this place went public? The chance for people to bring back their dead relatives. It would be a media circus, a religious nightmare and a chance for the very rich to exploit a service with devastating consequences. But that’s a story for another day. The mist is a psychological barrier, to stop people from leaving, a quarantine barrier. The stone circle was constructed to harness the properties of the area, to bring back the dead. The source of the effect is ancient, buried in the Earth since before the dawn of mankind. The stones are just a marker. If the dead can’t go anywhere, can’t walk out of the perimeter, what is the point of bringing them back beyond the act of being with them again? Until the dead are sent back to the point of their death, the nowhere place that returns the dead remains outside time. What an ask…for someone to have to choose to return to the moment of their death. At RAF Marston, the WRENS pick up calls from the dead in their radio receivers and then harnessing the power in the area to bring them back from the dead. It seems very plausible to me that the military would exploit such a power to talk dead soldiers and try and learn from their mistakes. Anything for a tactical advantage. The cocoons in the trees are embryos and the liquid is amniotic fluid, clones. Exact duplicates. The purpose of this place is to bring people back from the dead, to give them a new body and then to return them back to their correct time and place to die. A way of cheating death itself, the original dying (meaning no temporal disturbances) but a duplicate created with all their living memories. For what purpose? The Static have no bodies of their own and they need to use others to gain entry to the world. When the dead return to life they travel through their domain and they hitch a ride. The altars are a resurrection machine, the minds of the dead planted into the clone bodies grown. Once the duplicate body is destroyed, the original is sent back to where it came from, and the Static dies with them.

Audio Landscape: Now this is a story where you can very much discuss the audio landscape because writer Jonathan Morris, director Jamie Anderson and sound designers Joe Kraemer & Josh Arakelian are all working beautifully in sync to haunt you from the opening scene. Static is a disturbing noise that I’m surprised Big Finish haven’t exploited before, it fills your ears with an unpleasant scratchy whine and it’s easy to imagine an alien presence lurking inside. The rain is ever present in the first few scenes, trapping the characters in the location that seals their fate. After two hours in a strange, dreamlike setting, the shift to the RAF base is welcome and makes for a vivid shift in atmosphere. Suddenly its marching boots, planes roaring overhead and orders being shouted. A good sound designer can instantly conjure up images of the setting and this works perfectly. As depicted on the cover, the cocoons hold the dead in a nasty, viscous liquid. Listen as they slither out and slop to the floor. The sizzle of the live wires as Constance destroys the radios is disturbingly apparent, and my heart was in my mouth because I knew that her death was approaching.

Musical Cues: It feels like a while since I have spoken about music in a Doctor Who release because I take it as a given that it is going to be competent in every release. It’s only when it is particularly good or bad that I feel the need to comment. Count this very much in the former category, with Joe Kraemer providing a highly atmospheric, ever present but not dominating horror score. I especially liked the vocals when Andy showed Joanna the TV screen, that was remarkably effective.

Standout Scene: Never before has a ringing phone had such consequence in Doctor Who, or been such a foreboding presence. Not even when the Brigadier was waiting for a call back on the missile strike in The invasion of the Doctor receiving the call from the empty child on the TARDIS phone. Not even the calls from the dead in Absent Friends, which is the nearest comparison. The ringing phone in Static is literally a call from somebody who has died, and somebody who will stumble through the mist from the point of their death if you pick up. Dare you see which of your nearest and dearest has died…and face them seconds after their death? When Flip gets a call from Constance, we know this story cannot end well. The end of episode two gave me goose bumps, I wasn’t sure entirely what was happening at this point but the return of over 20 men from the dead being greeted with military efficiency just felt completely wrong in the best of dramatic ways. I was rivetted. That, and Constance’s death and the Doctor’s reaction, which is simply the most disturbing the main range has dared to be in such a long time.

Result: Genuinely disturbing to listen to, Static features Jonathan Morris at his riskiest and most dramatic. I wasn’t sure how I would take to a story that is trying to be as ‘scary as The Chimes of Midnight’ because that seems like a ridiculous claim and no place for a writer to start, asking for immediate comparisons with a Doctor Who classic. Kudos to Jonathan Morris then for brewing up a story that really set my teeth on edge, a story that deals with the thorny subject of people dying and being brought back to life in a horrific way. Death is a regular occurrence in Doctor Who, it’s tenapenny, but the best stories are those that make you feel those murders and the emotional impact on the other characters. Static seizes your throat in that respect and doesn’t release it until you are gasping for air. Starting with the guest characters but spreading to the regulars, death is like a shadow that cloaks the story and whilst the idea of undoing those murders might seem like a cop-out, that proves to be even more disturbing option. When it’s the better option that you died I agony, that’s terrifying. I really like how the process of people returning from the dead is built so firmly into the story, that it is so well established and shown as something to fear. It feels in no way a cheat, but the point of the story. Morris really could have taught Moffat a thing or two. Episodes one, two and three are pure atmosphere and set up and masterfully done. If episode four takes a dive into more conventional Doctor Who territory (because the first three are anything but, there has never been a Doctor Who story that has felt quite this disquieting before) then it saves some the biggest twists and most frightening moments to level things out. Something has to be said for Jonathan Morris, who has been churning out fantastic Big Finish scripts for many years and is showing zero signs of a lack of imagination or coasting. Static is one of his most vivid adventures. Kudos as well to the director and sound designers for making this such a nightmarish experience. It's a story that throws an unflattering light on the amiable sixth Doctor, that does unspeakable things to one of his companions and a story that leaves you with much to discuss in its aftermath, moreso than any main range adventure for years. Packed with nightmarish images, creepy concepts and a disquieting atmosphere of death, Static continues the excellent work for this team of regulars. This made me think, it made me feel, it frightened me and it left me buzzing with excitement in the way only the best of Doctor Who can. A terrific trilogy of adventures, the sixth Doctor adventures are once again the trail blazers for this range: 10/10

The Middle written by Chris Chapman and directed by Jamie Anderson

What’s it about: It’s L/Wren Mrs Constance Clarke’s birthday - and Flip is determined to make it an anniversary to remember. The futuristic colony of Formicia, where the pampered populace pass their days in endless leisure, seems the perfect place for a ‘Wren Party’. But all is not as it seems. Looking down from the Middle, the skyscraping tower that ascends as far as the colony ceiling, Formicia’s overseers can see that the Doctor doesn’t fit in - and it’s not just his coat that makes him conspicuous... “The End is the Beginning,” say the propaganda-like posters all over Formicia. Because to be part of this perfect society comes at a price. And the Doctor's already in arrears.

Softer Six: Quite inadvertently, the Doctor has a small family around him again. If there is something that the first two stories in this trilogy have promoted it is how well these three characters work when they are in the vicinity of each other. The Doctor has a smart 30 something to bounce off and a street wise teenager to tame, Constance benefits from the Doctor’s attention and respect and Flip brings out both admiration and frustration for her energy and riskiness. The two women indulge in a sisterly relationship, the type we haven’t seen work since Peri and Erimem, and that comes with a lot of affection and more than a little culture clash. A bit of an Earth-spotter, this one. Flip makes a good joke at the Doctor’s age, that he decides how old he is on a daily basis. That would explain the discrepancies over the years. He’s lived nearly a millennium, fought innumerable intergalactic tyrants, liberated countless worlds and civilisations – and he’s never once felt the slightest inclination to receive a robot massage. Finally, something completely original said by the Doctor! A man of staggering exhibitionism, the Doctor’s coat consists of no less than seventy-sex individual colour tones. The Doctor is too old for system calibrations, apparently, so ‘over seventy’ will, have to do. He’s all for the empowerment of the elderly. The inside of the Doctor’s head is not the sort of place a machine should pry for stimulus because there are very few straight lines in there. The fate of being turned into a mechanised weapon is the last thing the Doctor would want. As a contentious objector to violence, the Doctor accepts his label as a coward. The Doctor makes the statement that the elderly population of Formicia’s lives are worth just as much as everybody else’s. He might as well be pointing out of the audio to those listening about the elderly people in their lives. I hope one day we meet the mountain mauler of Montana since the Doctor name drops him so much. Flip knows that the Doctor would be a rubbish soldier.

Flippin’ Heck: Flip seems to be high on the idea of travelling with the Doctor again and enters this story with bundles of enthusiasm. Flip has so much energy that she makes Constance feel old, and the Doctor wholeheartedly agrees. She thinks the Doctor is a lot of things (including ‘obvious’, which you can take to mean whatever you want) but he is definitely not a coward. Flip is described as having a voice that goes right through you…I’m sure there are a few listeners out there who feel that way! She gets a glorious monologue in the last episode where she gets to recount the various adventures she has had with the Doctor and you realise just how long she has touched his life for and how many memorable moments there have been. Crashing microlights, Daleks at Waterloo, being killed by a Porcian, jumping into orbit towards the Earth…Chapman even manages to retroactively alter Flip’s first step into the TARDIS and explain why she was so nonchalant about it. They’ve really taken a lot of time to get this character right lately and the results are paying off in spades. She’s still Flip at heart; exasperating, enthusiastic and risky but she’s well motivated, very likable and resourceful with it. As a part of this trio, she’s shining.

Constant Companion: Constance prefers not to make a fuss about her birthday, and she doesn’t expect her 35th to be any different. Even a spot of deadly peril would be better than celebrating her birthday, Flip style. The Middle reminds Constance of Bletchley, all the busy worker bees milling about. It’s almost like she has come home. When Constance cried ‘your daughter…and my Phillipa!’ you get a real the sense of parental care that Constance feels for her. I love how Constance can affect elements from the Beginning and the End from the Middle, sending a message to the Doctor and saving Flip from the Drone. She’s in the position that most Doctor Who companions can only dream of, with an overview of the whole adventure and a position to have a positive influence on events. She puts York in a compromising position so he has to help her, I like that occasionally callous streak in her that comes out when the situation calls for it (remember when she stabbed a Dalek mutant with a screwdriver?). Having already heard Static and being well aware of Constance’s fate in that story I found her admission that she was looking forward to her later years, being looked after after having done her bit, all the more touching.

Standout Performance: The Middleman is such a marvellously nasty and officious character I found it practically impossible to reconcile with the fact that he is being played by Brian from Spaced. Mark Heap is an extremely versatile performer and I’ve seen him crop up in all kinds of shows and films in scene stealing bit parts but his turn in The Middle genuinely impressed me. Had you simply told me it was him, I wouldn’t have believed you. Such was the gravitas and brutality he brought to his voice. The Middleman is the most memorably nasty villain I recall in a Doctor Who audio for some time, and he butts heads gloriously with Colin Baker. Also take note of Sheila Reid’s incredible performance, especially when Janayia is doing everything in her power to stop herself from shooting her daughter. Looked at objectively it is a blatantly absurd situation for somebody to find themselves in but Reid makes the moment so painful to listen to.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Happy Birthday and welcome to the End!’
‘I’ve never seen such public debauchery!’ ‘Just you wait for VE DAY…’
‘Is this what I think it is? Some kind of euthanasia program? Murdering the elders, so the young can visit the spa?’ – this line cuts to the heart of the story and opens a lot of questions for discussion.
'Growing old does not make you expendable. But somebody round here obviously sees it that way.’
‘The war to end all wars’ ‘That type of war rarely keeps its word.’
‘It’s like Dad’s Army meets the Terminator!’
‘Death is coming to you…’

Great Ideas: Formicia has a heavily recycled atmosphere, but it’s been flavoured with lemon sherbets to make it that little more tolerable. An Earth colony, judging by the architecture, with a roof, making this place subterranean. There’s an element of Bad Wolf to this story with the promise that people are dying in horrible ways when in fact they are being transported elsewhere and put to a different purpose. I won’t criticise The Middle for that though because it takes that idea and plants it right into the heart of the story and keeps developing and evolving it. The drones remind the Doctor of an oculoid tracker. I have no reason to bring that up aside from the fact that I happen to love the oculoid tracker from Planet of Evil. When you turn 35 you end up in the Middle, the glass tower that overlooks all the fun, the centre of government where all the jobs are performed that keep Formicia going. The End isn’t a euthanasia programme but a recruitment one, building an army of mech-suited geriatrics! It’s rather wonderful how the elderly of this world, once feeling useless and forgotten by society, are excited and energised about being put to good use again, suited up and sent to war. It’s utterly surreal how they live a regular existence inside the suits, including romance. The suits draw power from experiences and so the elderly are the best candidates. As a way of ensuring that the young aren’t sent to war and perpetuate the next generation, it kind of works. The more you’ve lived, the stronger you are. Our whole civilisation looks up to you with unfathomable respect, says the Middleman of the elderly. The Middle holds up a mirror to a society that prefers to quietly forget about the elderly, to shunt them off to one side when they are physically and mentally infirmed. I did a two-year volunteer stint befriending with Age Concern and it appalled me how little contact the families of the people I looked after had with them, how these people with wonderful life experiences and terrific tall tales had to say but nobody was willing to listen to them or give them the time to feel valued. Everybody was too busy getting on with their own lives to notice them. I’m not going to turn this into an anti-ageist diatribe, Esther Ranzen has already done that for me. But I was impressed with how penetrating the dialogue in this story was, by pointing out how much the elderly can offer in experience and knowledge, it highlights how much British society neglects to capitalise on such a commodity. If you refuse to fight in the End, an execution drone is sent out to kill a loved one in your portfolio. There’s an incentive for you. Three generations back, the Kronvos invasion force gathered on the surface and attacked and a million young men and women were enlisted, fought and died. A bomb was considered the final solution and it left the surface of Formicia uninhabitable, which is what drove them underground. They almost curled up and died there and then because the population of young people had all but been wiped out…until a solution was found to allow the elderly to fight the battles of the young. It’s a warped solution, but it meant survival. The experiment that the Middleman was running began with the question ‘what use are the old?’ There never was a war, the Kronvos never existed, the people of Formicia just needed to think they had lost a generation for motivational reasons. Formicia is one of forty research spheres buried in the crust of the planet. Forty new model worlds. We live in an expanding universe, with an expanding population. But sooner or later every civilisation comes to the same crunch: more and more people, sharing ever-fewer resources… shortages that can bring about total societal collapse, if you doesn’t manage your affairs with care. Create the right conditions, and you can remake society any way you want. Democratic, autocratic, oligarchic, gerontocratic. The possibilities are endless. In the case of Formicia, the experiment was to see if they could create a totally expendable, but totally willing warrior class. It’s a last-minute explanation that makes perfect sense of everything we have seen so far, without making a fallacy of the twists that have unfolded throughout the story. The trade off with having the truth revealed so late is that there isn’t time for the Doctor to solve all of this planets problems and so he leaves it in the hands of Janaiya, with enough force behind her to make the management board listen to her demands. Whether she manages to liberate the other 39 spheres is left to your imagination. I imagine the fight goes on…

Audio Landscape: It’s a story where the sound effects are used to drive fear into the listener. We’ve heard a heart monitor many times in Doctor Who audios (there’s probably a fan out there who can tell you just how many times) but rarely has it come with such suspense, once we’ve clocked on to the idea that death is arranged and every beep is counting down towards a deliberate death. The flatlining whine that comes next could be heard competing with my heartbeat. The wind blows to show the Doctor, Constance and Flip have landed at a great height. Whatever does happen to the old men and women who are bumped off, it sounds remarkably painful. The execution drone spitting out bullets reminded me of one of the better elements of Dark Angel. I remember thinking that the mech-suits sounded a little comical when they were first introduced but by the last episode when they have become instruments of death they really come into their own.

Isn’t it Odd: The implication that these mechanised geriatrics are somehow performing sexual acts with their suits simply does not bear thinking about! I would have ended episode two one scene earlier: having Mark Heap end an episode by declaring ‘the End!’ would have been perfect.

Standout Scene: The end of episode three pivots the plot once again, with the Doctor proving that the war that the elderly have been fighting has been a massive con and they have, in fact, been fighting holograms. It was an experiment, to see if the perfect society could be structured. The Doctor, by blundering in and exposing all the lies; the euthanasia and the war, has rendered the entire exercise pointless. And thus the Middleman wants the entire slate wiped clean to try once again, but first he has to wipe everyone out…and he has a mechanised army under his control that can do just that. It’s a wonderful cliff-hanger, dramatic and terrifying and Heap plays his angry indifference to perfection.

Result: A story that keeps on giving, The Middle is the most substantial main range adventure in some considerable years. It takes its premise and continues to twist and evolve it until the final episode; offering surprises, laughs, scares and a refreshing dollop of moral outrage along the way. The first episode is a terrific instalment in its own right, an ideal scene setter that dumps the Doctor, Flip and Constance in an environment where they are instantly in danger because of their age – something they cannot talk their way out of. It’s a perfect way of separating the three characters and allowing them to explore different aspects of this society, when the setting is structured to isolate them. There’s an emotional heart to all of this that raises it above simply being a good science fiction story (which it is); the discussion of the elderly and the desperation to stave off obsolescence, the fear of being euthanised for the good of society, the idea of being permanently cut off from your family with only one heartfelt communication a year, the anger of the exploitation of this society for capital gain, the agony of trying resist killing somebody you love…and more importantly the strength of the relationship between the Doctor, Flip and Constance and what this story has to say about their bond. The plot has been thought through in painstaking detail and it unfolds like an onion, with each episode giving more insight into the situation and ensuring that the unusual premise makes perfect sense. I wouldn’t call 2017 a renaissance year for the main range because we have had to suffer a dreadful Seven/Mel/Ace trilogy and an average fifth Doctor trilogy, but with some gems littered in the experimental two-part adventures, Time in Office and a sterling sixth Doctor trilogy, it has certainly seen a marked improvement on the past couple of years. The Middle proves there is serious life in this format yet, fresh stories to be told and the sort of clever and involving plot to be reached for that can reach two hours without flagging. If you’re looking for cool ideas this one has a terrifying Orwellian society, assassin drones, horned monsters on the rampage and mechanised suits that dish out death at your every negative thought. If you want standout performances, Jamie Anderson has compiled an impressive cast featuring Mark Heap and Sheila Reid delivering nourishing goods. If you’re looking for an immersive tale then close your eyes and let Jamie Robertson whisk you off to a frighteningly convincing Earth colony that is slowly torn apart. And if you’re looking for an audio that delivers amusing, incisive and intelligent dialogue then you won’t walk away short changed. And to top it all off you’ve got a fantastic regular team all exploited to their fullest, too. I’m more than happy to doll out full marks when the story justifies it, and The Middle proves a surprising hit (the cover, title and trailer didn’t inspire much confidence) that delivers everything I want from an exceptional Doctor Who story: 10/10

The Haunting of Malkin Place written by Phil Mulryne and directed by Nicholas Briggs

What’s it about: Whilst on the way to visit the town where Henry James lived, a chance encounter with a spiritualist on a train sends the Doctor and Romana on the trail of a ghost. It's the most convincing case of haunting he's ever heard of, he tells them. And so, on their arrival, does it appear to be. Things go bump in the night at Malkin Place. The voice of a crying child. Birds bursting into flight. Strange movements in a seance. The Doctor is determined there must be a rational explanation. But is science always the answer to everything?

Teeth and Curls: He loves the chill up the spine of a horror story and Tom Baker has the sort of voice that would bring a ghost story to life with fervent ghoulishness. Bumping along in the time vortex is fun enough but there’s nothing like roaring along in a steam train. A man after my own heart! He’s insulted! The Doctor has been called many things in his life…but never neat! The Doctor wrongly assumes that Talbot is a fraudster, taking money from the victims of his psychic powers but he’s given a reminder that not everybody in the universe is out for themselves. When Talbot calls him a very rude man, I giggled. One can only be right nearly all the time.

Aristocratic Adventurer: Romana is reading Henry James in a venerable old Victorian town house…a wonderful position to be in. So why does she sound so crabby? Somebody needs to remind Lalla Ward that she doesn’t have to let her disdain for working with Tom Baker spill over into her performances because Romana has gone from being one of the most vivid companions on audio to being the least enjoyable to spend time with. I jest, of course, because Ward has delivered some beautiful performances alongside (or edited into) Baker in the Missing Adventures range (and even The Paradox Planet and Legacy of Death in this range) but it is true that she just sounds so disinterested and fed up all the time. It’s a remarkably unlikable turn in what was an extremely amiable era when it came to the regulars. Romana hates the inexplicable nature of a horror story, she prefers the inexplicable being explained. Because she likes the idea of a rational theory behind everything, Romana is mistaken for a psychic de-bunker!

Great Ideas: Talk about cutting to the chase…there’s the announcement of a death and a haunting in the first scene! If there’s one person the Doctor trusts absolutely, it’s himself and having left a note in Tarzan telling him to not go up into the attic, he insists that that is what they do. Maurice came forward in time from 1917 making the future press back on to the house. A time vacuum in 1917 trying to suck Maurice back. The spirits aren’t ghosts from the past but from the future, normal children pulled back from the future. Out of place, pulled into a secondary time zone. Maurice opened the vortex by accident, a combination of his psychic terror and a damaged temporal device and possibly chancing upon a weak point in time. Maurice came to Malkin Place because of his connection with his twin, arriving just as she suffered the loss of their father.

Audio Landscape: I haven’t bothered with the audio landscape part of my reviews for the past handful because it does seem rather redundant, in hindsight, to list a bunch of noises that feature in a story. It only took me several hundred releases to catch on to the fact (that’s pretty good going for me) and so I’ve decided to only use it where necessary, when the story is placing a particular emphasis on sound or atmosphere. Malkin Place is for all intents and purposes a ghost story (as the title suggests) and so efforts are made here to get under the listeners skin and provide some scares. Let’s see how successful they were… There’s a heart in mouth moment when the Doctor suggests that where they are going is going to be peaceful and we cut to violently loud war scenes. That made me jump. There are the usual goings on you would expect in a ghost story; a child laughing, a sinister voice, a cold wind running through a séance, knocking on the table, a ticking clock, the house tearing itself apart, a demonic hat stand…and truth be told it’s all very well done. I would expect it to be well done, Big Finish must have a vast catalogue of sounds in their prolific range of stories and the experience to get it just right now. Jamie Robertson raises the game of Malkin Place considerably, taking a bog-standard horror story and turning it into something that goes bump in the night. I’d suggest for extra enjoyment you listen in the dark with headphones on.

Musical Cues: When the sting of the seasons 18 title music cuts in at the cliff-hanger, it just feels wrong. Rarely has the title music been so discordant with the style of story that is being played out. Season 18 has a definitive feel to it and it has nothing to do with trad Doctor Who haunted house mysteries.

Isn’t It Odd: Can you imagine a season eighteen story starting with the Doctor and Romana having set up in Baker street and enjoying the thrills of Victorian England by steam train? It sounds delightful, but we’re in completely the wrong era of the show. Whilst the explanation behind the haunting is vaguely imaginative, you have to jump through a number of loopholes for it to be plausible (‘possibly chancing upon a weak point in time’). Why do explanations in horror stories always dispel the tension so? I think some ambiguity might be in order but then it wouldn’t be much of a Doctor Who story. It’s like Hide in the new series, tense until you realise a love story is playing out. Listen got it right, refusing to give you the explanations and thus maintaining the suspense.

Standout Scene: The twist about Maurice is touchingly played, but in reality there had to be some emotional beat in the story eventually. Until that point Malkin Place lacks anything but basic characterisation. It’s this revelation that pushes the story above average, there is usually a twist of sorts in a good horror. A man out of time is still a haunting, I guess.

Result: The Doctor and Romana heading to a haunted house in Romney Marsh; him looking forward to some good old-fashioned spooks and her ready to find a rational explanation for everything. Sounds rather fun! A shame then that there’s nothing here that you haven’t seen in supernatural movies before; creepy noises, unnatural happenings, a séance, characters in deadly danger…and since this is Doctor Who it explains everything with a scientific rationale that makes repeated listenings unfortunate. It’s pretty tricky to criticise something for providing what the genre expects, but I could predict, beat for beat, where this story was going. Not the details, but the structure and where the twists would be placed. I’m not sure why it is the fourth Doctor adventures that seem to get stuck with these basic premises and inoffensive action, I would put it down to the length of the tale but it has never been the case of the eighth Doctor range. Perhaps ‘traditional’ leads the creators of these particular tales to mean ‘simple’, which doesn’t have to be the case. The Haunting of Malkin Place benefits from some very slick direction from Nick Briggs and atmospheric sound design from Jamie Robertson but in reality there isn’t much more here than a handful of pleasant characters pulling apart a Scooby Doo mystery. I would have enjoyed something a little more graphic or psychologically disturbing, Static in the main range has proven that audio Who still has the balls to truly disquiet its audience but this was all parlour tricks and no real horror. It’s enjoyable, and the performances (Lalla Ward aside, who is a right grumpy puss throughout) help but this isn’t one of those 4DAs that proves the exception to the (shallow) norm. Inessential, but a smooth listen: 6/10

Ship in a Bottle written by John Dorney and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: The Doctor, Liv and Helen are hurtling into a future that has been utterly destroyed, trapped inside a shuttle with no possible means of escape. But with the lives of everyone in the universe in the balance, they've got to find one. And soon. When the stakes are this high, you can't just give up. Or can you?

Physician, Heal Thyself: There’s been many a time when his survival has been dependant on a piece of fruit. He’s usually very good at spotting psychopaths so he’s astonished that he has missed all the signs in Padrac. The counters Helen and Liv’s accusations of abandonment with being insulted that they would run off with the Eleven, and how they could ever think that it was him. He is extremely rude to Helen when she was only trying to help and I feel that his apology is completely justified. The Doctor is in guilt mode once again, feeling as though everything is his fault. Ever since the Eleven escaped from Gallifrey he has been trying to hold back the tide of events but can see now that everything he has done since that day has helped Padrac with his plans. He looks back it his previous incarnation and sees nothing but hubris, the great manipulator and the master of chess but nowadays he feels as though he could barely win a game of snakes and ladders with his opponents. Just because he has managed to muddle through everything so far it doesn’t mean he always will. What he needs is for Liv and Helen to give a bloody good slap (metaphorical, of course) and to give him something to fight for again. The last time the Doctor was this without hope was when he lost Lucie and Alex at the end of series four. Live calls him fatalistic, and she’s not wrong. The Doctor is trying to prepare his companions for the worst, that there maybe nothing they can do to prevent the future dying, that they might not be able to save anybody this time. He’s prepared to go forward with only keeping the memory of those people they met in the future (when it still existed) alive, saving them in hat small way.

Liv Chenka: Liv finally gets the chance to tell the Doctor how angry she is that he abandoned them to swan off with River, despite the urgency of the situation. Since he abandoned her she has been attacked, knocked unconscious and now she is hurtling into a future that doesn’t exist. She very much holds him accountable for what has happened to her. She makes him insist that he will never do it again, and to admit that they are a team and they work better that way. It’s an astonishing scene that really drives home the connection between these people and how much it hurts when that connection is broken. I loved Liv’s sheer determination in refusing to give up and accept the situation. When even the Doctor is without hope, she fights and fights. She considers it is her duty to go back and save the future and everybody that was once alive, there isn’t a choice. As a Med-Tec, she’s seen people die, told grieving relative that there is nothing that can be done…she’s had plenty of life experience before she met the Doctor. She doesn’t give up until every option is exhausted…and the she keeps on trying.

Helen Sinclair: Helen is written very smartly in this adventure, asking some very pertinent questions and trying to remain positive in an impossible situation. It’s one of her best ever showings. Sometimes she feels redundant next to the Doctor and Liv, but Liv tells her she has more than proven herself already. The Doctor is the best man that Helen has ever known and she knows he will get them out of this, it might be blind faith but she has no doubt in her mind. There’s a beautiful moment when Helen comforts Liv with the knowledge that sometimes it is okay to let go of hope, recalling the death of her grandmother. It’s terribly sweet for her to use such a personal memory to make things easier for her friend.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘We’re still travelling into a murdered future, only now we’re travelling into it gently.’
‘The universe is destroyed and its because of me.’
‘Believing is the first step in healing. Moving on.’

Great Ideas: I’m a bit on the fence about bottle episodes; sometimes they are beautifully done and give the regulars characters a real chance to shine without any outside interference from guest characters or moving to new locations beyond the normal sets. I particularly like bottle shows that primarily feature two characters and the time is used to explore that relationship in some depth (DS9’s Duet and Waltz are great examples). Other times they can be the most remarkably contrived situations in order for the show to save money. Clip shows are particularly loathsome (check out TNG’s Shades of Grey). To do a bottle show on audio is a ballsy thing given that there is an unlimited budget in the imagination and that the only justifiable reason to cut back so much is to give the characters a chance to breathe. Which Dorney succeeds in doing admirably here, given the regulars were somewhat at sea in the previous box set in such a violent and all-consuming narrative. This reminds me a little of the Stargate episode Unending, which also had the regulars in an impossible situation out of time and dealt with how they coped with the idea of never being able to escape. Except for Doctor Who a bottle show (well referenced in the title) is a rarity, and thus should be enjoyed as a novelty too. Outside the shuttle is dead space, Padrac has destroyed the future of the universe. Every single creature for the end of time has been destroyed. The Doctor, Live and Helen are trapped nowhere for an eternity. Let’s give John Dorney and Matt Fitton a round of applause for manipulating events so the fourth Doom Coalition set starts on such an ominous and memorable note. Padrac has been working with the Sonomancer and the Eleven and the Clocksmith…he’s been a busy boy. Helen asks a very good question; if the universe has been destroyed and the Doctor always says they cannot change what has happened…doesn’t mean that there is nothing to be done? The Doctor counters with the argument that since they have already been to the future and know it exists it suggests that this is the aberrant timeline. If you’re stuck in the middle of an ocean (the non-future) how do you get back to shore? You ride a wave (time winds in the vortex). Riding a shockwave back in time through the vortex. There is only one way to do that…blowing up the boat.

Isn’t it Odd: You do have to wonder why Padrac went to all the length of trapping the Doctor and his companions in the non-future when he could have just killed them. I guess that’s a Time Lord justice for you, shove them aside somewhere alive rather than getting his hands bloody.

Standout Scene: ‘Doctor, we’ve made our choice…’ After all the tension in this story you might think that things have been damaged beyond repair for this team. When it comes to the Doctor’s insane plan of escape, his two companions don’t doubt him for a moment. Ship in a Bottle has strengthened the faith they have in each other, not weakened it.

Result: Like the beginning of the previous set, this is an intimate character drama that kicks things off in memorable style. The one thing the Doctor, Liv and Helen have plenty of now is time and it is a chance for the three of them to have it out. After the tidal wave of plot from the previous three stories it is a huge relief to cut things back to just the three regulars and to deal with their reactions to everything that has been going on. John Dorney is scripting, and he isn’t afraid to push these characters into asking tough questions. What I found interesting was how much it exposed about the strength of the eighth Doctor, Liv and Helen as individual characters because this was the sort of economic storytelling that would reveal whether they were hollow or fully rounded people. A lesser set of regulars would flag in this type of story. Pleasingly, they all have solid reasons for being angry and frustrated with one another and it never once feels as though the tension is manufactured. Not only that it shines a new light on how much they need each other and how effective they work together. Doom Coalition might ultimately be another Doctor Who epic to end all epics, but it has brought together a wonderful TARDIS team. I’m so pleased that the personal consequences of this story are being dealt with (because they are so often ignored in Doctor Who) and that meaty acting opportunities are being handed out to the performers. The ‘escape the non-future’ plot is reasonable, but it’s the dialogue and performances that shine here. I felt this was getting back to what audio drama can really achieve; intimacy, emotion and meaning. The last ten minutes in particular are hugely uplifting and exciting, with a memorably ambiguous final scene. A huge thumbs up to Paul McGann, Nicola Walker and Hattie Morahan for tackling such a challenging script so skilfully. What a team: 9/10