The Macros written by Ingrid Pitt & Tony Rudlin and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: The TARDIS materializes on the USS Eldridge, after the Philadelphia Experiment has gone disastrously wrong. Most of the crew are dead, the ship is disintegrating, and the Doctor soon realizes that the problem comes from another dimension… As they attempt to find a way to get the ship home, the Doctor and Peri visit the distant planet Capron and meet its tyrannical ruler Osloo. But the search for a possible solution only creates increasingly dire problems. Osloo's horizons have been widened – and space and time are hers for the taking…

Softer Six: What a shame that the last episode of the Lost Season sees the sixth Doctor at his most mundane, especially after the material he has been given this year. It’s not bad, per se, just a little traditional, a little normal. Any clue is important for the Doctor. Peri spars him the embarrassment of wasting a regeneration on a rusty staircase. He looks like an entertainer is his jacket. He mentions Planet of Giants but he’s more familiar with the TARDIS controls these days. Why does Peri always doubt him? ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve won them over…’ and completely fails to do so and needs Peri to help him out. He doesn’t carry passengers. Peri thinks he’s the best. The Doctor has no interest in weapons and finds them rather tedious. In his experience it is best to tell the truth, if they don’t believe you then it’s their fault.

Busty Babe: Oddly it feels far more climactic and conclusive season finale for Peri. The Doctor sometimes reminds her of her stepfather, he never knew where he was either. They are supposed to be going to Baltimore so Peri can let her family know she is okay after she disappeared from Lanzarote. After listening to her whistling the Doctor can see why Peri went into botany rather than taking to the stage and after listening to her sparkling rendition of ‘row row your boat’ you have to agree with him! How many scrapes has Peri helped the Doctor out of now? She is always in trouble with him and she’ll always look after the Doctor. Peri has been on Androgum lunch menus, escaped from Ice Warriors and Tractators and been in more prison cells than she can count. It’s never a peaceful life with the Doctor. Why doesn’t she return home? She’d be bored, this is the most exciting time of her life, travelling with the Doctor is just incredible. Different planets/species/times…what could ever compete with that? Peri sometimes thinks she will be travelling with the Doctor until she is old and grey. One lifetime is not long enough to see the whole universe. The Doctor is the brains and Peri is the low cunning! One day Peri will write a guide to the galaxies best prison cells and how to escape, she’ll be rich!

Sparkling Dialogue: There may have been some good lines but I was too busy drowning under the platitudinous garbage that spewed from Osloo’s mouth! I did quite like: ‘Its beautiful’ ‘Most beautiful things usually are…’

Great Ideas: The sailors going round and round like a stuck record on a ship and green rust is eating through the ship. The USS Eldridge was a destroyer that was subjected to invisibility experiments in Philadelphia Bay, 1943. The ship vanished and the government was blamed and the official explanation was that it was renamed and given to the Greek Navy. The Doctor, however, believes it is wedged between dimensions. He and Peri are repeatedly watching the events that happened just before the ship vanished. The ship is trapped between a large and small universe and the micro universe is drawing on their energy supplies as a power source. A world within a universe within a universe! The interface is an unstable rift that they have harnessed for their energy supplies and looks like the aurora borealis. The people of Capron were happy and prosperous until their leader met Osloo; she seduced him and their people and became very powerful. She wanted the Presidency and had her husband banished and her competitors for the position unexpectedly vanished. Peri starts to crumble away to nothing, a micro in the macro universe. If the ship reappears it will be in 2010 not 1943 and the story touches on what could have been a very interesting avenue here, their families assuming the crew was dead and them returning home – I would loved to have been able to have explored, you know real drama. Peri and the Doctor head back to Washington to put a stop to the experiment which temporarily perks the interest but this turns out to be another blind alley that goes nowhere (except back to Osloo and her camp theatrics). The Doctor gives Mrs Tessler the most important message her husband will ever have and prevent a major catastrophe. Osloo manages to get on board the TARDIS with her armed guards, a potentially gripping idea that lacks any tension.

Audio Landscape: The creaking, clanking hull of the Eldridge, the ocean heaving, chugging engines, crowd scenes, humming insects, squeaky prison doors, water dripping in the cell, hover craft, Peri’s ageing hands marching jackboots, the deck disintegrating, the ship finally meeting its maker.

Musical Cues: There’s an exciting countdown in episode one complimented by some exciting music and I really enjoyed Osloo’s grand fanfares – the music is far more pleasant than anything she has to say!


Isn’t it Odd:
· Not a fault of the story itself but The Macros has many similarities to other Doctor Who stories that made the clichéd plot feel even more familiar. Firstly the opening where Peri and the Doctor are not able to interact with the crew brings back memories of The Space Museum, the time loop and the mystery of the missing ship feels as though it is lifted straight from Carnival of Monsters and the conclusion that sees the tyrant become an infant so they can bring her up again properly feels awfully like both The Leisure Hive and Boom Town.
· There is a sudden, inexplicable change of location in episode one to the Micro universe which could have been quite exciting but the story makes no effort to explain where they are or what is going on so its more like a big questions mark amongst the Philadelphia material.
· Perhaps Ingrid Pitt remembers too much about her experience on The Time Monster, the fanfare and theatrical speeches on Capron are unpleasantly reminiscent of the Atlantian scenes of the former story.
· There are far too many unconvincing American accents…
· Why didn’t they take advantage of the fantastic opportunity of creating a miniaturisation soundscape on audio? Nothing at all is made of this potentially gripping idea.
· I honestly cannot remember a soporific, more prosaic character than Osloo in a Doctor Who audio for a long time. ‘If there is another world out there it must be found and conquered!’ – why? What is her motivation? Does she just want to conquer…because? ‘My glorious Empire is about to expand!’ – she has a dreadful line in trite science fiction dialogue. ‘Get them! Take the craft! You are no longer of use to me! I did not give the command!’ – oh ¤¤¤¤ off you one-dimensional non-entity! ‘I’d like to see the source of my power!’ she cried, like all nonsensical villains. ‘Get used to fighting the mighty Osloo or perish!’ ‘I’m taking over!’ she says of the Philadelphia Experiment…what the hell? She knows nothing about our world! ‘I have my men and they have their guns!’ – the cry of all cowards! ‘You will take them to this planet Earth Doctor and they will claim it in my glorious name!’ Turns out she will never have enough power…she will always want more! Turning her into a baby is a blessed relief because it means the ranting clichés end…
· Peri is such a silly ass rushing out of the TARDIS in a moment of character assassinating tension – it’s the first genuinely twattish thing she has done all season! Plus the solution feels far too easy making you wonder why they bothered for any over reason than that a cliffhanger was necessary.
· Osloo just happened to be waiting for the TARDIS when it came back to Capron, which is very fortunate otherwise she wouldn’t be able to hijack the ship and drive the (lack of) tension in the last episode!
· One of the characters is called Bundth which sounds awfully like ‘Bumf’ that leads to some hilarious moments in the second episode where Osloo orders him ‘Bumf! Torture him! Bumf! Show him what you’re made of!’
· ‘It has nothing to do with you!’ the Doctor tells Osloo of the Philadelphia Experiment and he’s perfectly right. The stories in the Micro and Macro universe completely fail to gel; they have nothing to do with each other and are linked very tenuously. Osloo heading to the Macro universe and barking orders sees these two worlds colliding unconvincingly and to undramatic effect.

Standout Scene: Despite the fact that it makes Peri look like the biggest US dunce until President Bush, the cliffhanger manages to be a gripping moment thanks to John Ainsworth’s strong direction and some great music.

Result: Listening to extras on this story it is really disappointing to hear that The Children of January was originally supposed to end this run because it would have made a far more impressive job of it! Much like the first season of Jago & Litefoot this is a disappointingly unclimactic ending to what has been a fantastic season of stories. What we have here is two disjointed plots that are brought together without finesse with the emphasis on the least interesting strand (the events on Capron). Irritatingly the story keeps offering potentially exciting avenues (heading to a micro world, the sailors returning from he dead, the Doctor and Peri trying to stop the experiment) but fails to follow up on them and all roads lead back to Osloo who is one of the most useless characters to ever turn up in a Big Finish story. She’s every crackpot villain the show has ever produced, every corny line, all the lack of motivation and craving power for its own sakes we have been subjected to over the years mushed into one cringeworthy, empty baddie. There are some lovely directional touches, the music is fine but the tension is sorely lacking in this uncomfortably plotted and ill-characterised finale: 4/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/108-Doctor-Who-The-Macros

The Song of Megaptera written by Pat Mills and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: Deep space in the distant future, and Captain Greeg and his crew are hunting mile-long Space Whales on a vast harvesting ship. By pure accident, they also capture the TARDIS. The Doctor and Peri must use all their wits to survive. But what is the creature running loose in the ship's bowels? And can the Doctor save Megaptera before its song is extinguished forever?

Softer Six: Considering they have been coined (on occasion) as the least likable duo in canon it is lovely to see them portrayed here fighting to keep the space whale alive, it’s a fantastic cause to fight and gives them a very amiable edge. You can sense his frustration as he admits the TARDIS helpless against a factory ship. The jury is still out on whether he is crazy or not. A Time Lord’s TARDIS is his castle and he is not just any Doctor but the Doctor. Its great how he can think up an alias on the spot and an inspector for the Wildlife Interstellar Life Federation (or WILF for short) he carries some clout! A typical Star Guardian reading eco-freak! Whale hugger! He takes the role to comical extremes to cause a distraction – ‘Be careful that fly could get sucked into an air vent!’ He insidiously inserts an eco friendly virus into the bloodthirsty computers personality. Constantly regenerating, can’t he pick one he likes and stick to it and besides his fashion sense is much worse in this incarnation (ooh harsh Peri!). In a moment where you realise just how much this Doctor cares he realises that they were the whales enemy all along and responsible for it not being able to dive and escape the whalers. He is appalled and doubles his efforts to save the magnificent beast. The TARDIS wanted to see the universe as much as the Doctor do and you would be hard pressed to make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. Is he chivalrous or sexist? Judging by his behaviour here definitely the former. The Doctor met Jonah once and he was a very nice fellow! I really enjoyed his Mexican standoff over the scanner with the Captain of the whaling ship (‘Lets see if your bleeding hearts are really willing to bleed?’). The framily seem to have him pegged instantly by asking him to turn the conversation down a notch, turn down the volume and change the record! With the right packaging and presentation he might even pass company quality control standards – as food! He annoys the Captain to such an extent that he goes after the Doctor with a harpoon gun (a thousand mini harpoons with explosive tips!). From peace neck to paranoid, his personality does get around. Peri makes some funny digs at his ample waistline ‘ ‘What about you? It’ll be even tighter!’ ‘Thank you Peri!’ Hahaha!

Busty Babe: Her botany is accentuated quite a bit during her television tenure so she is the perfect companion to remind the Doctor of his responsibilities to the space whale, what with her concern for protecting the environment (The Mark of the Rani). The whale is the most beautiful creature she has ever seen and begs for the Doctor to help when the factory ship goes in for the kill. She always worries when the Doctor tells her not worry! Peri’s spaced out delirium is genuinely rib tickling (‘Will you still be my friend, Doctor, even though I’m growing into a mushroom? I can still grow on you! I’m growing my own eco system! I’m not delirious…I’m an American!’). It’s very sweet that she tries to take the blame for disabling the whale but the Doctor refuses to let her take on that responsibility. The Doctor had no idea she was a head banger! You can tell that the Doctor’s ship has really becoming her home when she says ‘TARDIS…sweet TARDIS!’ Peri has a family she wants to get back to eventually; she is a city girl and the village life aint for her! Is she prepared to die for her beliefs? Her courage is only matched by her stupidity. Go listen to how she says ‘I’m Peri and this is the Doctor!’ as though she is so proud of the association – they are a hell of team by this point in the season. ‘MIND THE GAP!’ she says as they evacuate the whale, bless her, there’s a good job for her if she ever returns to Earth!

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The blood and rust gives a fabulous Jackson Pollock effect!’
‘I feel like I’ve been violated by flowers and sugar!’
‘Your company should adopt a greater cause. Save the spud or something…’
‘Parasites, protein, people…not much different on a molecular level.’
‘He’s gone Ahab!’
‘Your office will get smaller and smaller until one day they move your desk into the lift!’
‘This is what happens…’ ‘…When you don’t have Framily values, yeah, yeah…’
‘Here be space whales!’

Great Ideas: Whilst this story has quite a simplistic storyline in that it goes for its one theme with real gusto and not diverting into many subplots it manages to explore that theme with some real imagination. Read on… Dark matter is another way of describing the unknown. Galeen’s are space whales with solar scales that draw energy from the suns that they pass in their migration. They communicate over vast distances with their song and sustain themselves with an internal, self-sustaining eco system – pretty much a micro planet, almost a mile long. They are the only animals to exist in the dept
hs of space. The factory ships let of fake distress calls to lure the whales to them. They can dive beneath the event horizon of time. The Doctor sticks the TARDIS inside the tractor beam to free the whale and they get drawn into the ship themselves. Sawing Peri’s arm is considered a viable option for her fungoid infection! The Doctor introduces a pacifist virus into the ships systems. The Toothons are callers of the whales and the Captain orders the pipes to be filled with scalding steam to draw this one out of hiding. This particular Galeen is a pilot and without it the thousand strong whales in this sector don’t have a chance. The TARDIS has been interfering with the whale’s signals, impeding its ability to dive. The Captain plots to torpedo the whale and deploy the tractor beam to bring the remains inside including the frozen oils and blood – that’s horrible. Galeen’s have been known to provide safe environments for survivors of space wrecks. Neural torpedoes are fired at the TARDIS and as they hit the temporal buffers kick in with a soothing programmed to ease any post TARDIS explosion distress disorder (or as Peri puts it ‘supermarket muzak’) – all you will remember is a slight impact. The Galeen evolved time technology on their own, the time core like a pearl inside an oyster. Toothons called the Galeen’s to their world and ate them. The Framily are a community living inside the whale in a shantytown made of debris of spaceships. Peace or death, if you wont join the Framily you will have to be purged for your disbelief just as the Sontarans were. The Captain genuinely doesn’t care that the humanoids living inside Megaptera will end up in the whale products – if the public knew what went into the blubber buggers there would be a rash of vegetarianism overnight! He considers it an unexpected protein bonus! The Doctor and friends are attacked by giant bacteria, as the whale believes it is being invaded by germs, not people. He leads the Framily onto Megaptera’s back in a sci-fi eco protest. The Captain wanted to steal the time core that would attract the whales to take profits away from the corporation that has treated him so badly. An antidote to paranoia = a convincing explanation!

Audio Landscape: There are plenty of computer bleeps, squeaks and alarms to give the whaling ship a fully functioning feel. The song of the space whale is beautiful and its cries for help piteous. You’ve got a grabber, lasers, a submarine sonar that accelerates when the whale is nearby, a cheeky computer voice, scrabbling claws, spitting bullets, the spray can, the screaming burning Toothon in the steamed out pipe, a chainsaw, sonic lance attack, climbing through the slimy air holes, explosions and the glorious sound of the whales singing together.

Musical Cues: Plenty of exciting synth music in this story that once again mimics the feel of the mid eighties scores. I really liked the TARDIS lyre and flute during its soothing programme!

Isn’t that Odd: I’m not sure what all this hyperstitious nonsense is all about but it seems to come from no where and go no where. The computer voice really grates after a while.

Standout Scene: Several moments stood out as being especially potent. Firstly I loved the scene when the Doctor and Peri realised that by helping the whale they had caused its plight, you really got a sense of their hearts breaking as they come to terms with their foolishness. The cliffhanger to episode two was another awesome moment, when you realise the Doctor is going to take the TARDIS inside the whale. Save the best for last though, the joy of the space whales reunited with their pilot and singing their song is a heavenly way to end a story.

Result: Not quite as strong as the last two but a fine story nevertheless, The Song of Megaptera plants the Doctor and Peri in a desperate situation from the first scene and explores the nature of the Galeen and their industry with considerable panache. There are some amusing characters to keep the story ticking over and an awesome shift in location inside the whale halfway through the story. The Galeen are one of the most imaginative races we have encountered yet and it is wonderful that we got to see them televised last year. Coming after the subtle and terrifying Point of Entry this is a complete change of pace, lacking the atmosphere but far more exciting and considering the gestation period this story has had it is astonishing that the end result is this entertaining and thought provoking. It’s a story that sees the Doctor and Peri at their best and proves they are made for each other, and the show: 8/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/107-Doctor-Who-The-Song-of-Megaptera

Point of Entry written by Marc Platt (from a story by Barbara Clegg) and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: The 16th Century. Playwright Kit Marlowe is attempting to write Doctor Faustus when a darkness descends on his life, in the cadaverous form of a Spaniard called Velez. The monstrosity is in search of a stone blade that was brought from South America... After a near-disastrous collision with an asteroid in space, the TARDIS makes an emergency landing in Elizabethan England. These two events are connected. The Omnim are ready. And the point of entry approaches...

Softer Six: As we march through this lost season you can chart the progress of the sixth Doctor and see precisely how he became the more amiable fellow in Trial of a Timelord. Whilst this might have started out as quite a niche idea it has now formed a perfect bridging between the two seasons (and I think I might have to include it in all future Doctor Who marathons). What’s more with stories of this calibre it is turning out to be the finest ‘classic’ season Sixie had! Some of us can get more distracted than others, says Peri of the Doctor. He steps from the TARDIS into Elizabethan England and is wary, declaring culture may be on the up but everything else is far from ‘hey nonny nonny’ and pretty barbaric. He compares the tongue piercing torture to that of the Aztecs, which proves extremely prescient on his part. The Doctor always wanted to hear Tamburlaine and loves a good play! He doesn’t believe in phantasms. I loved Tom’s reaction to him – is his costume allegorical? Or does it present loud rumour or vanity? Or is he the Lord of Misrule out of a job until Yuletide? In a very funny moment of stealth (or rather lack of!) the Doctor gets stuck in the portcullis of the Tower of London (much to the amusement of the guard!). Walsingham thinks he is after the job as the Queen’s fool! He might seem crazy at first (okay most of the time) but he understands unusual happenings. When the Doctor is stretched out on the rack he asks for a cushion (such pluck!) and yawns as Walsingham attempts to intimidate him (‘I’m quite tall enough as it is thank you very much!’). The Doctor can manipulate the astral plane and turns the tables on the Omnim. His dress offends, he is a strutting peacock and his words roll like a serpent! Returning from the dead is a habit he cannot break. I loved the exchange: ‘Are you crazy?’ ‘Totally insane!’ He didn’t want his solution to be a death sentence for the Omnim. The ending is gorgeous, as the Doctor winds up in Faustus – ‘Where the philosopher ceases, the Doctor begins’ and he is delighted!

Busty Babe: Another fantastic showing in what is turning out to be a season that really brings her character to life. Nicola Bryant always brings plenty of pluck and vigour to the role but here she is especially good, sounding genuinely terrified at what Peri is being put through, giving a peaceful, ethereal performance when she is on the astral plane and then having the time of her life as Peri gets to posh it up as the Queen! What a shame Peri never had this sort of attention to detail on screen. Peri gets terribly excited rummaging through an Elizabethan wardrobe, the Doctor telling her she needs to cover herself up in this period. There was a great line that really brought home both how out of her time she is and her pop culture childhood, of the various Shakespearean Henry plays Peri asks ‘is that with advert breaks or sequels like Star Wars?’ Peri has travelled further than she ever imagined. Early on Peri thinks she is being chatted up by Marlowe’s young bit of fluff, Tom! The Doctor would be appalled to hear that Peri has introduced Americanisms to Elizabethan England (‘O…K?). When they are lost in the astral plane and Kit has no quill Peri promises to remember their dark experiences so he can incorporate them into his play. Poor Peri is really put through the wringer in this play, when she looks into the mirror she has to scream to herself that she isn’t dying such us the shock of the experience and then she is attacked by a swarm of Omnim (that sound disturbingly like flies). Brilliantly Peri gets to glam it up and play the Queen and I loved the exchange: ‘How’s my face?’ ‘Believe me, it would launch a thousand ships!’ Her posh accent is an absolute riot and with her comedy accent slip you have to wonder if Marc Platt is having a fun little dig at Nicola Bryant (‘Wow look at all that gold! Whoops! I mean… ‘sooo much wealth!’). Peri gets a little bit carried away in the role and starts handing out knighthoods (‘Arise Sir Anthony! You’ve done really well!’). I loved the fact that she managed to convince the commoners that she was the Queen!

Standout Performance: Matt Addis and Tam Williams are astonishingly good as Kit Marlowe and Tom; so good that Colin Baker said he had to up his game to keep up with them! Marlowe and Tom’s relationship is subtly handled, the opposite of the homosexual villainy in the last story but just as beguiling. Truth has darkness too and Marlowe needs to explore the shadows beyond – its fantastic characterisation of an often-ignored playwright and Addis brings an insane fervour to the part. ‘Was ever a writer so afire?’

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I have so much darkness to show you…’
‘A pox on the plague for closing down the Rose just when I’m on the boil!’
‘Dark days and shadows turn for England.’
‘A few droplets of spilt blood will no longer water the desert…’
‘’Lives spilling from the Tower until the whole Thames runs red!’
‘The Spaniard is dead!’ is not a great line in itself but the huge cheer that rose afterwards made me laugh my head off!

Great Ideas: Veleth is a man of dark knowledge who has been exiled from Spain. His glass of polished obsidian shows the unseen, glimpses round corners and unearths secrets better left buried. The TARDIS is rogue asteroid spotting when it picks up cries and replies with the rock as a go between communicator. The asteroid manages to stop in space and change direction towards the TARDIS! Elizabethan London is described as more of a farm than a city. Having your tongue ripped out and put in the stocks is considered appropriate punishment for the time! Scandal in the theatre equals full houses and Marlowe intends to tell the tale of Faustus selling his soul to the Devil. Plague walks the city gathering the dead in armfuls. Veleth’s dark library contains grimoires and magic tomes and he shed his skin like a snake on the road to Paris. He withers like an old prune as his masters wear him out but the flesh creeps back over his bones as he sacrifices another victim. The astral plane is described as a night world of dreams and shadows, London as a ghost town. The world of the Omnim is lost, destroyed by their own foolishness as they developed the power to create vibrations at will and make the world and sky the sing. The vibration shattered their planet to pieces and they projected their mind energies into a last fragment of their world, a rogue asteroid. Trapped for millennia, imprisoned in solid rock until they latched onto the TARDIS, the Doctor bringing the Omnim to the Earth. The Aztecs found a fragment of the rock and carved it into a blade and it transmitted energy back to the Omnim during the blood sacrifices. The energy-absorbing blade was split from its hilt, which Veleth found in Madrid and brought to London to reunite with its blade. The point of entry for the Omnim to invade is during a lunar eclipse. An alliance between Veleth and Walsingham, using weapons of torture to slaughter the populace of London, spill their blood and release the Omnim. The blade feeds on panic, the Omnim swarm and the first to escapes takes the form of the God Quetzalcoatl! Walsingham arranges for every bell tower to ring to drive the Omnim out (because as the Doctor says if you need a favour it is polite to ask rather than invade a planet!). Some lovely background given at the end, Kit dying young in some pointless brawl in a Deptford tavern but not before his plays achieved fame.

Audio Landscape: A very impressive and evocative tale, John Ainsworth is another Big Finish director who always gives 100% and this kind of mood piece is perfectly suited to his talents. Here he allows for moments of quiet tension, the performances coming to the fore and then winds you with moments of sudden drama and threat. Dogs barking, a quill scratching, watchman bellowing, cat screeching, flies, laughter, a sword fight, the asteroid shifting through space, Gracechurch street market in all its bawdiness, a cow, thunder, a scraping, chilling scream, chickens, bar side merriment, rainfall striking the mud, birdsong, a popping fire, the clanking rack, chains rattling, breaths of the spirits attacking, broken crockery, seagulls, the Omnim swarming around Peri, Aztec sacrifices, Veleth’s house on fire, Peri and the Doctor swooping back to London, the house collapsing, rowing on the Thames, waters lapping, the creaking deck of a ship, ringing a bell, churches coming to life and an almighty rain of destruction.

Musical Cues: A superb score, capturing the horror and the danger of events. The rising, terrifying music as Veleth convinces Marlowe to murder was exceptional as was the forceful cliffhanging theme. Loved the Aztec tribal music as well.

Standout Scene: Where shall I start? The awesome concept of the screaming asteroid tracking and pursuing the TARDIS, discovering the mute victim in the stocks, Marlowe seduced into killing in a breathtaking building of tension, the exotic Aztec flashbacks, Peri’s Royal theatrics…I could recount the whole story! However the cliffhanger was easily my favourite moment, it was genuinely frightening enough to give me goosebumps (and that hasn’t happened in a long time). Plus the very idea of bringing the Aztec blood sacrifices to London when the blade and hilt come together is truly haunting.

Result: Wow. Astonishingly mature storytelling and the pinnacle of the lost stories season; Point of Entry combines theatrics and devilry to create an unsettling, dark mood with moments of genuinely chilling horror. This is the story of Marlowe bewitched by the Devil, looking for a sinister muse to shape Faustus and bringing an alien menace to fruition that is laced into Earth’s bloody history. Marc Platt has written his best script yet, an ominous historical atmosphere of storms, screams and sacrifices and John Ainsworth direction offers moments of spine chilling terror. Barbara Clegg’s pitch was the perfect change of scene for this science fiction heavy season and gives Peri her best material yet. People have bemoaned that this story is too long but I wouldn’t lose one second of its brooding piquancy: 10/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/106-Doctor-Who-Point-of-Entry

Paradise Five written by Andy Lane (from a story by PJ Hammond) and directed by Barnaby Edwards

What’s it about: The Doctor and Peri visit the planet Targos Delta to check in on old friend Professor Albrecht Thompson, only to discover that he has vanished. He was last sighted taking a shuttle to the holiday resort of Paradise 5, then never seen again. The Doctor's curiosity is piqued. They must investigate, but they must do so stealthily... Peri will go undercover on Paradise 5, while the Doctor hides in the shadows. Because paradise holds a terrible secret beneath the white marble and golden trimmings. The mute Cherubs have a story to tell. And the Elohim are coming. Beware.

Softer Six: Being that this is the first story in the lost stories season that is being translated from an old script by a modern day writer it is perhaps unsurprising that it features top quality characterisation of old Sixie. Andy Lane writes for him brilliantly, allowing him to be funny and playful and yet still bitingly intelligent and thoughtful. As he says on the interviews you can tell that Colin Baker is really starting to relish these missing stories and whilst he always gives a cracking performance there is something of an extra sparkle in being able to bring these stories, denied to him through cancellation, behind the scenes squabbles and poor script choices, to life. He has had had hundreds of years experience piloting the TARDIS and refutes that he is an amateur fiddler (to which Peri suggests he is a professional fiddler!). When Peri complains that all they seem to do these days is visit old friends (she thinks its because he wants to show people how well he is doing these days!) he asks what precisely is wrong with catching up with people, especially when you have as many friends as he does. In a nice Sawardian touch the Doctor is still pondering on who was behind the Quantum Gravity Engine in the last adventure (there were always mentioning the last story in the 80s to provide some sort of narrative to the adventures). Peri scoffs when the Doctor suggests that they will have to be surreptitious and blend in and the Doctor decides to take a stealthy investigative approach from behind the scenes. The Doctor does not believe in luck, he prefers to put his faith in detailed planning and the occasional dramatic flourish! Does he look like a box of toilet rolls? He theatrically sings Gilbert and Sullivan and is hilarious as he tries to figure out what the cherub is saying to him (‘write me a volume in the dust, my diminutive friend!’). Always thinking of his stomach, he happily stuffs his face whilst Peri does all the hard work! He is renowned for making it, usually in the nick of time! In his pocket are smelling salts given to him by Pliny the Elder himself! He can’t help repeating what people have already said but in a more technical way so nobody understands him – it makes him feel important! I was laughing my head of at his hilarious foxing of Gabriel’s insistence that somebody must have purchased his Paradise Five experience (‘a gift from a grateful employee?’ ‘I’m self employed!’ ‘Or a loving spouse?’ ‘I’m not married!’ ‘Or a close friend perhaps?’ ‘I don’t have any friends!’). He always has had the ability to wind up authority figures. An intruder, interloper and busybody – ‘you’ve got me pegged fair and square!’ It’s against his nature to hit somebody the size of a child. He defeats people with slapstick! His sonic device causes an ‘unchaining melody!’ The Doctor’s attire is so last millennium – you wouldn’t wear it outside of a nightmare! A most perspicacious guest! He a very touching moment he ruminates on his life without Professor Thompson; no more quiet dinners by the sea, no more late night dinners about the state of the universe, his life is a bleaker place without him in it. After the decidedly irresolute conclusion to this adventure he craves something brash, bright and mindless to wash away the taste of the last few days from his mouth.

Busty Babe: Never mind what I said about Peri in Leviathan, this would have been a standout story for her character, she practically holds up the first two episodes on her own. Nicola Bryant acquits herself beautifully, giving the kind of thoughtful performance we all knew she was capable of given the right material. She could really do with a break because it has just been run, run, run since the Doctor’s regeneration. Just one idyllic holiday location of sand and sea would be nice. Peri is ecologically responsible and rants at those who aren’t! Hardly the stuff that exclusive guests are made of! Peri thought the human race would grow out of the sexist nonsense that forces women into leather boots and bikinis in holiday camps! Her bureaucratic nightmare with the autopilot of the shuttle shows Peri at her cheeky best (‘which drink would you like to start with?’ it sighs), outthinking the jobs worth computer. Peri gets to be a sea nymph guide at the space aquarium. Lets face it being an overly enthused American she is the perfect choice as a holiday representative! She has been told she looks good in a bikini and has done waitressing before. Do you ever go back and ask yourself what got you to a particular and what you might have done differently? She was a straight a student at high school, the top of her year in botany and wanted to head up the Amazon and discover new plant species. Now she feels like a dinosaur on an evolutionary dead end, she never got the choice about ending up here, things just happened and she never had the chance to say no or the chance to go another way. Wow, that is some very healthy development for Peri. The Doctor will always be the first stooge to Peri. She wants to take the Doctor to Manhattan, so she can take him somewhere she knows for a change.

Standout Performance: Alex McQueen and James D’arcy provide a very memorable double act as Gabriel and Michael, the campest queens we have ever seen in Doctor Who (‘You hoo! Doctor!’). I’m sure had this story been transmitted any hint that these two were a couple would have been stamped out by JNT (unlike RTD who would have them tonguing each other in every scene!) but as the first blatantly homosexual villainous couple in the series they are an absolute hoot! Gabriel loquaciously wraps his tongue around some very fruity language and Michael is a technical genius with a penchant for sadism! Their last scene together as the space station smashes into the planet is priceless – ‘What do we do now? G and T?’

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The whole planet will end up buried in ticker tape! And ‘I think we’re going to drown in information!’
‘There is no dirt in paradise.’
‘Torture devices don’t usually come with cushions.’
‘We’re in the leisure industry! Of course we’re criminals!’
‘What’s that?’ ‘Coming over the hill! Is it…a monster?’
‘I don’t want this job!’

Great Ideas: Machines listing the stock market over a thousand planets for anyone who wants to know, a whole planet built on financial information.
Rather than it feeling like a tacked on introduction to the story, Andy Lane’s first episode is an unusual approach to storytelling, not taking us straight to the action but building up the mystery of the missing Professor Thompson and following him. Paradise Five is an exclusive resort where only the finest food and drink is served, located on a space station around a barren world so you wont be disturbed. The Paradise Lounge contains the Paradise Machine, upholstery so soft you would think you were floating in the clouds and subsuming your mind. The cherubs are a slow, dimwitted slave race, superficially resembling chubby little children. Professor hasn’t returned home but is no longer at Paradise Five…where have he and the other guests gone? Not a single guest packs to leave. The Doctor ponders on whether the colleagues/spouses of the guests of Paradise Five have entered into a dark deal with Gabriel; a trip to Paradise Five will be a trip of a lifetime – their last trip! The Collection shuttle that takes the guests away is alien, Eloheim. Michael and Gabriel plan to put the station into a decaying orbit, the ultimate spring clean as it crashes into the lava field and then they can grab their dosh and build a life together. Paradise Five’s previous guests are chained in a dark pit with no hope of escape. In a brilliant moment of surprise Professor Thompson is revealed to be the cherub the Doctor has befriended! There is a civil war in the higher dimensions, a rebellion against the angels. The Eloheim want to get involved with the lower races (is, us) whilst their leaders want to devote themselves to more abstract pursuits. They need foot soldiers in the higher dimensions, unencumbered by the senses of the physical body. The Paradise Machine is a recruiting tool, test for those who are suitable or not. They recycle what is left into the cherubs. What a pair of psycho’s – Michael breaks the neck of the Professor cherub and Gabriel guns down Mr Tapp just for the hell of it! A multidimensional conflict of ideals, higher dimensions does not imply higher moral values and this is a war like any other. There is no cure for the cherubs, three quarters of their minds and bodies have been siphoned off.

Audio Landscape: Barnaby Edwards has always been one of my favourite directors and he manages the impressive feat of keeping this story quiet so the performances and the ideas shine through and provide an impressive number of evocative soundscapes. The console fizzles and phuts at the beginning, ticker tape printer, glittering waterfalls, bubbling rivers of lava, the tannoy at the terminus, retro rockets firing, service drones whizzing about, dripping, clanking pipes and a steam pump system, squeaky cherub voices, groaning air pumps, Peri pouring a drink and adding tinkling ice, hovering, Mr Tapp’s horrendous (but very funny) singing, whistling in the darkness, your thoughts echoing away in the Paradise Machine, the shuttle door hydraulics, bubbling aquarium, Michael’s blaster, prisoners screaming, Chinese water torture, whispery Eloheim voices, birdsong, trees swaying, klaxons, fireworks, sirens, bells, a horrid hissy serpent, the astonishingly violent crash into the planet, crackling flames, Reading back over that list it is an extremely impressive audio soundscape and yet you never feel overwhelmed by it. Very well done.

Musical Cues: Another apparent and atmospheric eighties score with lots of throbs, pops and whizzes with some almost scream like stings between scenes.

Standout Scene: Definitely the end of part three – who ever saw that coming? I also really liked Peri wangling refreshments from the autopilot, the Doctor’s hilarious singing and the trip into the Paradise Machine with fireworks and church bells going mad!

Result: Another impressive entry in the lost stories season, if we had had a season with stories like Leviathan and Paradise Five we would have been declaring the mid eighties as the renaissance of Doctor Who! This is a quietly menacing story that keeps the mystery of the Paradise Machine and what has happened to the previous guests at arms length leaving you desperate to know what has happened. The Doctor is more playfully commanding than ever and Peri gets the chance to take centre stage and question her direction in life and in both cases it is gorgeous characterisation. It takes the unusual approach of keeping the war in the higher dimensions anonymous and concludes with no easy answers for the cherubs and in both cases it is thoughtful and effective. PJ Hammond’s ideas are top notch, Andy Lane’s scripting is witty and perspicacious and Barnaby Edwards’ provides his usual stellar direction. A special mention for Gabriel and Michael; beautifully played gay villains who top the ‘I wish they could return’ list: 9/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/105-Doctor-Who-Paradise-5

The Third Zone Issue One Available Now!

http://www.the-third-zone.blogspot.com/

It’s the beginning...and the moment has been prepared for. For precisely a month – or at least that’s been the gestation period of issue 1! So here we are, our very first issue of The Third Zone and we have a wealth of wisdom to impart!

We have reviews both by myself and by my esteemed colleague Mr Joe Ford, covering all the latest releases in the worlds of DVD and audio.

We have ‘The Evelyn Escapades’, a look at the Big Finish audios in the manner of ‘The Time Team’, taking one character at a time. No prizes for guessing who’s first up!

There’s fiction in the form of The Shadow Makers, part 1 of a 3 part tale, this month featuring the First Doctor and written by yours truly.

‘A Matter of Perspective’ offers a new look at the world of Who in print, as I quiz Joe this month about Steve Lyons’ The Witch Hunters.

We have not one but two exclusive interviews this month with Big Finish producer David Richardson, and Bernice Summerfield actress and director of Big Finish audios Lisa Bowerman.

The Seventh Doctor’s era comes under the spotlight in our debate section this month, while ‘Who Online’ takes a look at ‘The History of the Doctor’.

There’s ‘Non-Who Opinion’, as both mine and Joe’s other half watch a Doctor Who story and share their thoughts. Be warned, there may be some colourful language!

Last, but by no means least, Joe has written an essay on the joys of the Hartnell historicals – and if that doesn’t convert you, nothing will!

We hope you enjoy reading issue 1 as much as we enjoyed putting it together. Any comments can be added on the site or be sent to thethirdzone@hotmail.co.uk, and we’ll post some next issue.

Mission to Magnus written by Philip Martin and directed by Lisa Bowerman

What’s it about: The Doctor and Peri face enemies at every turn on the planet Magnus. There's the Time Lord bully Anzor, who made the Doctor's life hell during his time at the Academy. There's also Rana Zandusia, the matriarchal ruler of the planet, who seeks to prise the secret of time travel from these alien visitors. Also on Magnus is the slug-like Sil, still bitter from his defeat on the planet Varos and seeking to make his fortune from the most potentially destructive ends. And, deep within the planet, there is something else. Another old enemy of the Doctor's. And the future is looking decidedly colder...

Softer Six: Aside from the big wuss hiding under the console from Anzor, which is a moment of hilariously camp cowardice, this is another phenomenal showing for the sixth Doctor. Colin Baker says in the interviews that this is a return to the violently reactive Doctor of season 22 but having just listened to it (and since this is so authentically as written for at the time) I have to say that the original season 23 was clearly moving away from his unlikable persona. He’s great fun here, nice to his friends and horrid to his enemies and wonderfully fun with Sil! Anzor was a school bully in the Academy who used to torture the Doctor and his friends at school and made their lives a total misery. I loved the scenes with Jarmaya invading the Doctor’s mind and describing it as a dance of delight and thought. They dance around in each other’s mind but as she tries to probe for the dematerialisation equations he turns the tables and invades her memories. When he wakes up he is delighted to be surrounded by beautiful women, the old perv! Sil, Anzor…Magnus seems to be a magnet for all the Doctor’s least favourite people. Because of the Doctor’s interference on Varos Sil was ex-communicated from his home planet. The Doctor plays a game of double bluff with the Magnesians, planting the wrong information into Jarmaya’s mind so they would access Anzor’s TARDIS and programme it with the data and send the old bully spiralling back to the beginning of time – what a crafty sod! As tricky as a four armed Tholian monkey! He surrenders to blind chance to deactivate the bomb. I adore the Doctor’s persuasion techniques – ‘Saving the planet means saving you!’ In a moment of pure sixth Doctor he strolls into the Ice Warrior base, all confidence, ego and commanding and putting them in their place. Twice in the story he attempts t save his friends lives at the cost of his own. Funnily enough the Doctor doesn’t seem too bothered by Sil’s disappointment of him. At the close of the story he brilliantly (and hilariously – see sparkling lines) stands up to Anzor, mission accomplished!

Busty Babe: I would have loved to have been able to have seen Peri trying to drag the Doctor up from the console, how nice to have some comedy coming from the characters without them barking at each other. She wonders why he didn’t just stand up to Anzor and tells the Doctor to grow up and face his fears. In return he tells her to stop being so dramatic (
about time somebody said that, the melodramatic harpy!). She seems quite perturbed to have young boys kissing her feet! Like The Hollows of Time (yes I know it comes after this story but I listened to it first) Peri gets to act like a mother again but this time she gets a much gentler, less irritating kid to ingratiate with her maternal instincts. There is a moment when Peri is soaked through – considering the sexist angle to this story I bet some of the lads would have loved this to have been televised for that reason alone! There was one line where Peri mentions she is from a planet where women aren’t the equals of men that was a very important message to make at the time. Peri tries to save her life at the ‘great clumsy’ hands of the Ice Warriors – nice one Peri, insult your captors! Apparently she has a degree in TARDIS technology from the UCLA! Described as a Magnesian she-devil! Just as a comparison to how much things had moved in since the sixties, Peri is cheeky with the Ice Warriors (‘Tell room service hot chocolate’) whereas Victoria whimpered and screamed. I would pay cash to be able to see the Doctor and Peri carrying Sil as he says ‘mush...mush!’

Standout Performance: What a joy it is to have Nabil Shaban back as Sil – I don’t think I have ever laughed so much during a Big Finish adventure! He toadies up to everybody but backs both sides from the middle so he always comes out on top. I loved the scene where he helped the Doctor and then seconds later blamed him for everything! I would just love for a trilogy of stories where they are stuck together; it would be a laugh riot! Any scene with Sil is gorgeous; he calls his Ice Warrior allies ‘great clumping oafs!’, encourages our hero – ‘Doctor! We need something brilliant from you! At once!’, begs piteously for his life (‘save me Morgo! I will sacrifice every credit I own!’ and made me heave with laughter when the Ice Warriors were defeated and fell ‘flat on their stupid faces!’ He’s just so naughty! I love him.

Sparkling Lines: ‘Do you like the creatures known as women?’ ‘Can’t stand them!’ – I spat my coffee over my notes at that!
‘The despised creature who owns every last woolly jumper on the planet!’
‘Doctor? You have thwarted our plans before, have you not?’ ‘Once or twice. I’d rather like to do it again!’
‘I should make a cosy killing! Lalalalalala!’
‘Oh get stuffed Anzor!’ – I choked on that one!

Great Ideas: The TARDIS is dragged off course by Anzor who activates his trans replicator mode and swaps his TARDIS with the Doctor’s trapped in the beam of a spaceship (nice mention of this – it’s the Ice Warrior ship and we don’t hear from them again until the cliffhanger). Anzor once sealed the Doctor’s friend Chevor into a block of crystal and dropped it from a great height. Sil (‘bath my person in glorious aqua…’) is an outcast from Thoros Beta and needs to make a fortune on Magnus to please Kiv so he can return home. The virus on Magnus makes men blind and k
ills them off at the age of 20 summers leaving a female dominated society. A few men are kept alive for breeding purposes (form an orderly queue guys!). The Magnesians wish to obtain time travel technology because they believe their neighbouring planet (male dominated – spit!) have developed an antidote to their male killing virus and they want to go back in time a year and stop their research ever taking place. Its either that or war. Sil the greedy devil wants to manipulate the universal money markets, jump ahead in time, see if a product sells well and come back to invest and make lots of lovely profits! The Doctor and Peri discover a detonator in the ice for a hydrogen bomb, enough to fracture the planet! The Ice Warriors burst from the ice in what would have made a deliciously visual cliffhanger. The TARDIS is partly sentient and takes Sil and the Magnesians forward in time a few hours where they discover the Rana’s palace has fallen. There is an invasion force from Salvak on Magnus that have been captured by the Ice Warriors and forced to engineer nuclear devices around the planet. They are trying to change the climate on Magnus to make it perfect for the breeding and hatching of Ice Warriors, the once proud race plan to rise from the ashes of this planet. The explosions shift the planets axis and alter its orbit, moving it further from the sun and propelling it into a perpetual winter. The Doctor returns the planet to its orbit and the sun rises and slaughters the Ice Warriors.

Audio Landscape: Magnus is one of those alien planets that feels genuinely alien thanks to some groovy sound effects. The story opens on the TARDIS going dolally, Anzor’s galvaniser stick crackles, the harmonious mind music, girly gasps, Sil’s delicious laugh, the freeze ray, we penetrate Anzor’s mind and hear his thoughts whizzing about, water flowing, ice cracking releasing the Ice Warriors, a ticking time bomb, lovely sibilant Ice Warrior voices, sonic weapons palooza n some terrific gun fights, Sil plopping about in his goo, bomb shockwaves, icy winds, the Doctor playing with the bleeping bombs and Anzor’s grumpy TARDIS returning at the end!

Musical Cues: Wow, that was a fabulously authentic eighties score, part Roger Limb, part Timelash and a whole lot genuine grooviness! I was instantly transported back to season 22 by the music alone – very nice indeed.

Standout Scene: Because I was looking forward to it so much I loved the Ice Warriors breaking from the ice and any scene with Sil had me in stitches!

Isn’t it Odd: Nicola Bryant suggests that if you were coming to this story from a 21st Century point of view you could find the sexism angle insulting. Are you kidding me? All the men are bloody idiots! I think a planet ruled by women is an awesome idea no matter how clichéd! The ending that sees the women from Magnus and the men from Salvak joining forces is hilariously funny (‘I promise you will enjoy the mingling of the sexes!’ he says of a bit of nookie!). It would take the most sensitive of people (and Janet Fielding) to find this bit of old nonsense distasteful.

Result: Wordy, clichéd, silly and stupid…who gives a shit? This story is an absolute laugh riot! Lisa Bowerman directs Mission to Magnus with a lightness of touch which ensures it is a very smooth ride and extremely reminiscent of the confidence of the Williams era. Fresh performances, funny lines, insane levels of inventiveness (oh right you can handle a time travelling police box but knocking a planet out of orbit is just ridiculous!), lots of great monsters and a general sense of crazy exuberance make this an incredibly fun slice of hokum. The story turns on its axis at the cliffhanger and becomes something quite different in the second episode ensuring the story keeps delivering. Turn off your critical faculties, this feels astonishingly authentic as though it has literally stepped from the mid eighties and should be thoroughly enjoyed as a lively and delightful breath of the past: 8/10

Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/102-Doctor-Who-Mission-to-Magnus

The Hollows of Time written by Christopher H. Bidmead and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: The Doctor and Peri have been on holiday, visiting old friend Reverend Foxwell in the sleepy English village of Hollowdean. But why are their memories so hazy? Piecing together events they recall a mysterious chauffeur, who is not what he seems, and Foxwell's experiments that could alter the nature of reality. Huge sand creatures have been sighted on the dunes, and many of the locals are devoted to a leader known as 'Professor Stream'. But who is Stream? And what lies within the Hollows of Time? The Doctor will discover that not every question has a definitive answer... (haha -that is definately true!)

Softer Six: Even poor Colin Baker admits that he was lost by the labyrinthine (his words, not mine) story and that after two days working on it he didn’t get his head around all the complexities of the script! Now that is not always a bad thing, Ghost Light produced wonderful results when the star of the show didn’t have a clue to its purpose in 1989 but it does please me that a man of Colin Baker’s clear intellect couldn’t get his head around this either! There’s hope for me yet! The Doctor tells Peri that perhaps things are best left unsaid which is pretty ironic for the most verbose of Doctors! I love the idea of the two of them going on holiday together, packing suitcases, heading to a sleepy village, its precisely the sort of fun we were denied on the telly. The Doctor is narrating this story, trying to remember the events as they took place. Don’t go grabbing at him because he couldn’t bear for anything to happen to his coat! He is told he needs to take more care of how he treats people. A grasshopper mind let loose on the universe (I wasn’t quite sure what that meant…). The Doctor knows a lot of long words (out of the mouth of babes!). Very good at capturing the trust of children which is a really endearing habit. For him history is the only thing, telling you where you’ve come from and where you’re headed. The Doctor finds it helps to stay cheerful on his misadventures! He quotes Captain Oates leading everybody to think he is going to sacrifice himself!

Busty Babe: She turns up in crossword puzzles don’t you know! The Hollows of Time proves that you should be really happy that Peri is not your mother…she is left to babysit the petulant Simon throughout and she keeps telling him off, sending him to bed and telling him to do as he’s told! You always become your parents, right? Peri really shouldn’t go around frightening the populace! Peri is deliberately deceived by the Doctor who is trying to mix business with pleasure. There are a number of scenes where the Doctor and Foxy are chatting and you have Peri in the background shouting ‘heel!’ at the mechanical turtle that made me howl with laughter! Peri thinks she is being complimented at one point when she is actually being told to piss off! Simon suggests that Peri is the Doctor’s girlfriend but she firmly insists she is his assistant!

Great Ideas: Professor Stream is the local Swami and made all his money out of electronics on the 70s. Simon, a local lad, has a shell, which moves of its own accord and emits gravity waves. Jane’s mind is being controlled and she leads the Doctor right back to the TARDIS and her hands arch over the console like an avenging angel! Peri and Simon go on a Tractator hunt. It was at about this point that I lost the plot…


Isn’t it Odd: Why did the ticket collector know where the Doctor and Peri are going? Why is this a narrated story and why can’t the Doctor remember what is going on…the story never explains why the Doctor’s memory is so mashed up! At one point the Doctor sounds like he is going to give us an explanation and says ‘start with a three dimensional, imagine it with its own timeline…’ and never finishes his explanation! The story deliberately confuses itself by not only telling a non-linear narrative but also slipping in and out of the Doctor’s forgetfulness within the narrated story! Susan Sheridan does a reasonable job as Simon but I still don’t understand why the character is being played by an older woman when there are plenty of great young actors out there! Simon manages to be as much of a petulant little ¤¤¤¤ as Adric (‘They’re mine and mind your own business!’). All this exhibit A/exhibit B is absolute bollocks, I can think of a hundred better ways to bring back the Tractators than as little kid running around with their carapace (remember Frontios when people where ‘eaten by the Earth…’). I know a lot of it has been cut out but there is still far too much descriptive dialogue, especially during the car scenes (‘We’re on a motorway!’ and ‘Its pulling me in!’). In episode two things go from confusing to frustratingly baffling when the Doctor and Peri start walking back on their own timeline – what was the point of these scenes? If this was the case they should have had unexplained moments in the first episode which are explained by them going back Instead it is just more disarray in an already complicated script! Why use the Gravis if you are not going to utilise his fabulous middle class voice? Why use the Tractators if you’re not going to do anything with them? People seem to have real problems with Stream not being revealed as the Master and the Doctor being thick for not realising the anagramical nature of his name but really that is the least of this story’s problems! My issue with Stream was that he hardly appeared in the story and was mostly represented by his chauffeur, he turns up at the stories climax to tell them he is going to take over the universe or bend it to his will or some other such nonsense but overall he is completely anonymous throughout. He makes for a very unspectacular villain. So with a story that has baffled me to buggery throughout, an absent villain and a technobabble-strewn plan that makes no sense, Bidmead then goes and ends the story with some technical jiggery pokery that confused me even more! How does any of this translate into drama? Geospatial coherence, quantum gravity engine, rupturing strands of space, time tunnels linked to time rotors, amplified gravity bubbles, cosmos star fields and Phenomenoptera encasements….WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN???

Audio Landscape: Birdsong, muddy puddles, train tracks, sparks, crowds in the church, a babbling brook, the Doctor trapped in a thorn bush, ticking clock, the tide brushing against the sand, cave echoes, smashing through the car windscreen, whistling vortex wind, the car crashing into the mansion, whizzing time corridor energy, the grunting Gravis, Tractator noises.

Musical Cues: Pleasingly reminiscent of Frontios, the musician utilises woodwind instruments to give this story an unusual score.

Standout Scene: I can’t pretend to understand what happened when the TARDIS became a Citroen but the scene of the Doctor crashing it into the mansion would have been great to see on the telly!

Result: Utterly inexplicable, here you have a story with a mysterious villain who dishes up some indecipherable technobabble for unknown motives! The Hollows of Time starts off well with an intriguing flashback structure, the Doctor and Peri going on holiday and promising some Tractator action and then singularly fails to do anything interesting with all three. This isn’t a piece of drama where the plot services the characters and we go on journey with them, it’s a science lecture where the characters are sacrificed to the nonsensical, illogical narrative. It’s a pity because the direction is evocative and the performances are very good but in this case I have rarely heard an audio where the script has singularly destroyed any chance of enjoyment. This was a real shock to me because I adore Castrovalva and Frontios but The Hollows of Time is singularly Bidmead’s worst ever script (I even preferred Renaissance) and one of the most turgid excuses for a story in Doctor Who canon: 3/10

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