The Architects of History written by Steve Lyons and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: The year is 2044. Earth is enjoying a Golden Age of peace, prosperity and technological advancement… but somebody is plotting to destroy all that. The Selachians, shark-like alien monsters, launch a crippling attack on Earth’s Moonbase, using deadly weapons from the future. Help is at hand. A police telephone box appears in a Moonbase hangar. A time-travelling hero has returned in the hour of Earth’s greatest need. Now, Elizabeth Klein must fight to save not only the Galactic Reich but Time itself from the mysterious prisoner who has orchestrated these fateful events... the Doctor.

The Real McCoy: This trilogy has enjoyed revealing the potential of the seventh Doctor in different shades and The Architects of History is no different. A Thousand Tiny Wings saw him at his improvisational and sparring best, Survival of the Fittest focussed on a more cuddly, charming Time Lord that was trying his best for a dying alien civilisation and now in History he is back to being the master manipulator again, sitting in a dark cell pulling strings and bringing down a perverted timeline. After the Mousetrap/Daleks/Scutari trilogy and now the Klein trilogy Big Finish have revolutionised McCoy’s Doctor on audio to the point where he is potentially the most exciting incarnation to listen to because of the possibilities. Even better this prominent material has enticed some of the best ever performances out of Sylvester McCoy and I am including his television performances in that. There has been a consistency and dramatic strength to his performances in his last two trilogies that has put a lot of his earlier Big Finish performances to shame. Just listen to how commanding he is when he drops his bombshell at the end of episode two. There is none of that angst and melodrama that sunk stories like The Rapture – McCoy is completely focussed, word perfect and powerful. Exciting times for fans of the seventh Doctor.

As far as the Doctor is concerned he and Klein only met in this timeline a while back whilst he was held prisoner in this cell, he doesn’t remember travelling with her in the TARDIS because that timeline no longer exists. Its odd but I find that a more frightening prospect than many others – the Doctor has always been in control of the TARDIS and responsible for any shifts in the timeline and for somebody to alter his timeline against his will feels…wrong. The Doctor sees the Selachians as a disagreeable race but also as a product of an abused history. He doesn’t see a great deal of difference in them and the Nazi’s and ponders whether he should bother interfering because one race of ruffians will just take over from another. He’s a Time Lord with seven lifetimes worth of exposure to the vortex, she might have rewritten those timelines and placed him in a universe he doesn’t recognise but she cannot take his mind. The Doctor remembers his own past and then history reshaping over and over again. This is one time that the Doctor has to face up to a manipulating presence that even he would have trouble facing…himself! He has no idea what his own consciousness might have been about before he arrived and replaced his but it looks like he has had a hand in Selachian development. I cannot believe how frightening the Doctor is when he takes control of the situation, he really seems to fit into the role of a aggressive, snarling dictator. He visits Klein in what used to be his cell to remind her of the water dripping torture she tried to put him through, that every drop was a second ticking away imprisoned. The Doctor knew all along that no matter how many trips in the TARDIS she took, how many changes she made, she would never get back the timeline she lost. There are simply too many variables when it comes to changing time. You can take away his past but you can never changer who he is and I don’t think we have ever seen a greater affirmation of what the Doctor is all about when he tells Klein despite the odds, despite the role this timeline wants him to take he will still save as many lives as he can on both sides of this conflict. Very often when they have clashed he hasn’t been able to argue with Klein’s logic but that doesn’t mean that he has to like it.

It turns out that Rachel is an old companion of the Doctor that should exist in this timeline. The Doctor she knew always had a plan but he didn’t always tell what it was. He’s beaten Selachians, Sontarans, Autons and Daleks but this time even he said the stakes were the highest they have ever been and took her back to Earth to her old life. But he also fixes it so a few days later she gets her call up papers and a week after that she is working in the Moonbase. Its almost as if he knew he wouldn’t be around anymore and his alternative self would need her help and he put her exactly where she was needed, leaving her with a list of instructions. This is clever, mind bending stuff. In a story that refuses to conform to any stereotypes Rachel dies in the destruction of the Moonbase and the Doctor doesn’t even realise she was an old companion of his so he doesn’t know she exists to save her. She dies wondering if she has ever lived. That’s pretty tragic.

(Not So)Reformed Nazi: Since stealing the TARDIS Klein has managed to not only go back and restore her timeline but ensure that the Reich succeed at every turn and is calling herself Oberst Klein, Head of temporal affairs for the Galactic Reich! Only Klein and Richter remember how the timeline should have played out and she is starting to think that that might be a problem. Klein has rewritten history again and again until she likes what she reads. She considers the TARDIS her property now. Even she isn’t sure what is real and what is not anymore, whether she left a lover called Faber in 1965 or if that had never happened at all. It has been worrying Klein that at some point she might accidentally write herself out of the timeline and so others are being trained up to continue her work. The story is even brave enough to have a cliffhanger where Klein’s life is in danger as the TARDIS threatens to tear itself apart – considering she is the central protagonist at the beginning of this story it seems only fair that the jeopardy angle is reserved for her! Its almost with her teeth clenched that she has to ask the Doctor for his help in fixing the broken TARDIS but her desperation to have the one item that always gives her the advantage clearly overrides any sense of pride she might have. The Doctor seems to enjoy the moment Klein realises that there is no going back on the events that are taking place, that she will have to live with the consequences of her actions. Only Klein would consider boiling the Selachians in their water filled armour to be an acceptable strike against the enemy. When the Doctor turns facist Klein declares that they are a lot more alike than they seem which he refutes strongly. When she rewrote history she made herself a Lord of Time, everybody was afraid of her and she didn’t expect to feel so relieved once it was over. She’s almost sanguine about the thought of being executed. When you think that Klein might have turned a corner she tries to have Rachel murdered by the Selachians to get her out of her hair! She realises with some clarity that this was only ever going to end one way – the Doctor’s way. Executing Klein would never have been enough, she was always going to have to be taken out of existence because she is an anomaly, a refugee from a world that never should have been. Thanks to the Doctor Elisabeth Klein is born in England to German parents, raised in a time of war, gifted with an enquiring mind and prestigious intellect but also a need for order. And she is working for UNIT. Who ever saw that coming?

Standout Performance: I’m still astonished at how good McCoy is in this story. All of his detractors (which includes me) needs to listen to this story to see how good he can be. On the downside I wasn’t convinced by Lenora Crichlow who was mostly fine when she was spouting exposition but lack conviction when it came to the more emotional material.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I have become the architect of a better world! A golden age!’
‘This man could save our lives but he chooses not to. Its against his principles! Well good for you, Doctor. Now at least you can die with a smug look on your face.
‘I’m the Doctor. That’s what I do.’
‘You can’t punish a whole race for something we’ll never do!’
‘Push that button. End my life.’

Great Ideas: The Galactic Reich has ships powered by Dalek propulsion units – imagine the two great racial cleansers working together to exterminate the universe. Their ships have the finest technology of three galaxies incorporated. It’s a great scene setting set piece that shows you how much Klein has raped the timeline and twisted it to her design and she keeps returning to one particular moment where she has the Doctor trapped. The Reich cannot lose because as soon as they realise that there is a revolution they have all the time in the world to go back and wipe it out. In 2044 a unified Nazi government has ended famine and disease, averted wars before they could even begin, repelled invaders from a score of worlds – it’s a track record that is very impressive and sees a thriving world but there is only one problem. This world is hiding under the shadow of a swastika and free will is no longer an option. Knowing the future is a fascinating idea and encapsulated in a scene where Richter confronts the staff of the Moonbase knowing that there is a traitor on board because he has already seen the future where it plays out. The way he plays with them, teases them, threatens them…it is a teasingly sadistic way of exploiting foreknowledge to get your kicks. Klein using the TARDIS as a Nazi device causes another intriguing deviation from the norm, rather than being a simple conveyance for the Doctor it is now a weapon and one that is being targeted by the insurgents. In the other timeline the Selachians were the scourge of the galaxy and it took Klein many months to stop them from conquering this one. In 2044 they hadn’t even built their armoured suits that allow them off planet let alone developed space travel and Klein sees the Doctor’s hand in their rapid evolution of technology. Fantastic world bending imagery as the interior of the TARDIS becomes…just a box. The exterior dimensions of the TARDIS have been torn away from the interior. Sam transpires to be a spy from the future working for the Selachians and when he sleeps it uploads his memory to their flagship. The perfect spy. The story veers close to admitting that if Klein had never come to Colditz castle then the Nazi’s may have won the second world war which is a pretty bold statement to make. Very Steve Lyons. Then he sports the terrific notion that at the flick of a switch either the Doctor’s or Klein’s timeline will spring back into existence and either one would be preferable to the one they have experienced in this story. I thought the story might end on that indecision but we get a definitive answer.

Audio Landscape: Footsteps, squeaky prison door, dripping water, marching boots, bleeping deep space radar, the TARDIS having a choking fit whilst it refuses to take off, the cloister bell, setting a fire extinguisher on the flaming TARDIS, the bubbling water tanks of the Selachians and their gorgeous amphibian voices (how was that achieved?), gun shots, explosions, a Selachian drowning on his own tank, breaking through the Earth’s defences and bombarding the Earth.

Musical Cues: Listen to the score at the very beginning of the story which is full of bombast and striking the right note of furious fascism right into the heart of the listener. Jamie Robertson is back and I couldn’t be happier. I really like the approach of playing out a space battle sequence through some powerful performances describing the action and the dynamic music guiding us to all the right feelings of excitement. It’s a very different approach to the usual deluge of sound effects.

Isn’t it Odd: My only real trouble with this story was that I found the Doctor/Klein material so stirring that when the story concentrated on the guest cast I found my attention waning because I wanted to get back to where all the intelligent discussion was. But this only lasted for the first two episodes because this material suddenly gained sharp focus when Rachel admits she is working for the Doctor and it takes on a whole new emphasis. Perhaps Sam being a spy for the Selachians as well as Rachel being one for the Doctor was one twist too many. His ‘I have to sleep now’ is appalling clichéd for a death scene and I expect better of Lyons unless he was going for the clichéd wartime melodrama approach.

Standout Scene: The end of episode is an absolute stunner. The first two episodes have been toying with the idea of the Doctor being helpless against the Reich and then he has been slowly taking control of the situation. But he proves an imposing figure as he boldly declares ‘I gave your rulers the means to reach this Moonbase a hundred years in your past and I told them how to conquer it. I planned this invasion right down to the last detail. And that leader is why I am now taking command!’ It is one of those jaw droppingly magnificent cliffhangers that turns up once in a while that leaves you begging to listen to the next episode.

Notes: Its nice to see some continuity being shared between the novels and Big Finish. The Selachians featured in a number of Steve Lyons Past Doctor Adventures less successfully in The Murder Game (a light entertaining novel that turns into a disaster movie halfway through) and more prominently in The Final Sanction (where they were the central protagonists of a really nasty war which was pleasingly told from many points of view to give a fair and unbiased snapshot of the conflict). They are pleasingly brought to life here with very little subtlety, an aggressive, nonnegotiable armed force that considers everybody that isn’t a Selachian to be plankton beneath their feet! Its quite nice to have a stomping, violent, thoughtless alien race in Big Finish for a change because they do like humanising their monsters and giving them some depth. These guys are just nasty and there’s nothing wrong with that every now and again. Besides this is written by Steve Lyons so if there were any accusations of dumbing down the race this is their creators approach to writing for them on audio. Because this is an alternative Earth the Selachians get to be the biggest badasses the Earth has faced as they blast the planet to pieces with their battle fleet in reparation for the Doctor’s betrayal. Not many Doctor Who villains can said to have destroyed the entire human race. Many have tried but none have succeeded. ‘The only blood that will spilt today is warm blood.’

Result: There are a wealth of goodies to discover in The Architects of History and it is something of a miracle that after the quality of the previous adventures in this trilogy that this concluding blockbuster doesn’t disappoint. Steve Lyons has always been a dependable Big Finish writer (The Fires of Vulcan and The Son of the Dragon are two of my favourites) and his obsession with temporal shenanigans dovetails into this arc to create a fascinating ‘what if’ tale and then play with the audiences expectations with some surprising results. Klein manipulates herself into a position of power and learns to the true dangers of playing about with time. An alternative Doctor manages to pull strings within this timeline without even existing to see if it pans out as he planned. An enemy from the books makes a bold appearance in the audios and achieves where so many other Doctor Who monsters have failed, to destroy the Earth. We meet an ex companion of a non existent Doctor. Our seventh Doctor gets to bark orders like a mad Nazi commander. There is just so much to enjoy in this adventure which is also bursting at the seams with action and excitement to balance the intelligent dialogue. Considering where this adventures leaves Klein I sincerely hope that they pick up her character in the upcoming UNIT box set the seventh Doctor is going to have because there is clearly a whole new spin on the character to enjoy. I found this a very satisfying audio and when my head wasn’t spinning with the heady ideas I was engrossed in the action and spurred on by great cliffhangers. This is another accomplished audio from a fantastic year – let John Ainsworth script edit again because he clearly has the knack for it: 9/10

Survival of the Fittest written by Jonathan Clements and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: The hive of the Vrill bears the scars of a terrifying cataclysm. Only a handful remain alive, hatched after the holocaust of the mysterious Winterlack. The Vrill seek a new Authority. They find the Doctor, a two-legged creature who can lead them to survival. He must solve the mystery of the Carrion beast that haunts the lower chambers. He must face the Winterlack that still stalk the mountains. And he must find a path that does not lead to extinction…

The Real McCoy: Its such a Doctorish thing to do when faced with a cave to starts hollering just for the sheer joy of hearing his voice echoed back. He’s super cheeky this week and when the Vrill chants ‘someone is here’ over and over the Doctor suggests what it means is ‘someone is here!’ The scent of the Doctor’s name is one of helping, healing and giving information. He’s like a childish pied piper the way he excitedly tries to encourage the Vrill to leave the nest, it reminds me of just how cute the seventh Doctor can be when he is given the chance. He talks to them in a very soft, singsong voice that is almost hypnotic. When Ace called him an ageing hippy in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy she was not wrong as he gives the Vrill he meets names like Rose and Lily. He thinks they are incredible creatures with their memory hardwired into them, there before they are even born and is devastated when Butterfly is killed after protecting him. The Doctor refuses to listen to a lecture about taking the moral high ground from Klein of all people. He’s declared a condescending hypocrite because he thought he could change Klein’s philosophy by seeing the universe through his eyes. By jiminy these two make an exciting pair!

Reformed Nazi: Survival of the Fittest is unique in that it is the only story of the trilogy to actually see Klein travelling as a companion of the Doctor and enjoying an adventure in the tradition sense of the term. A Thousand Tiny Wings re-introduced the character, the aptly named Klein’s Story explains a great deal and Survival of the Fittest sees what happens to time after she half inches the TARDIS at the end of this story so this is the only peek into how she would turn out as an assistant had they taken her down this route for a longer period. Unfortunately for us, she’s rather impressive even on those terms.

When stepping from the TARDIS she is awe struck by the sight of the entire galaxy swirling around her, experiencing the wonder of the universe for the first time. She has always found it is best to negotiate with the highest possible power. The more time she spends with the Doctor the smarter she realises that he is but in her own unique way she only sees that as a missed opportunity for the Reich. She really is a woman after her fascistic political party. The Doctor jokes that Klein would like the Vrill because their mantra seems to be that they are just following orders but the difference is that they don’t have a choice or free will to do otherwise. She makes a massive mistake by realising that the Winterlack are human beings and voicing that she is one of them too, a snippet of information that sends the Vrill into a frenzy and is repeated over and over throughout the nest. The story takes the unusual approach of putting Klein very much in the sympathetic category, shoving one the humans in a headlock to make him realise that they are exterminating the native species on this planet. She doesn’t care who is the inferior race in this situation only that there is an alien race to be studied so she is still thinking like a scientist but seems to have dropped her Nazi morality for the time being. Klein hears another culture claim to be the Master Race and she is shocked, almost as if she can finally see the paucity of those words. Almost as astonished as she is that she is actually pleased to see the Doctor when they are finally reunited. Klein is extremely smug at having the knowledge that the Doctor’s incredible universe at large is small enough to contain its own fascists. She is willing to let Stefan die a horrible death by poetic justice, torn apart by a hundred Vrill. Klein believes the common good comes before the private good. Klein is smart enough to figure out that the Vrill consider the truth to be whatever they hear and they stay calm as long as they like the sound of it…so she convinces them she is the Doctor and with the TARDIS key whisks herself away with the power to gut the timeline and turn it back the way she remembers. She’s still furious with the Doctor for tricking her into obliterating her own timeline and she plans to put it back exactly as she remembers it.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘It made the tunnel’ is not a great line on its own but it is repeated when Klein discovers a diamond drill head that has sliced through from the surface into the nest and that is how the Vrill have tries to justify its existence.
‘Oh Klein if you want fascists I’ll get you a date with a Dalek!’

Great Ideas: Languages that are composed entirely of scent markers you are hearing words that aren’t there and the residual smell is like an accent. A language made of scents, what an imaginative idea to base an alien species on. The Vrill have a caste system based on size with small ones to watch and warn, medium sized ones to work and build and large ones to fight and protect. Their language leaves them no room for things that aren’t true because their words are something physical. They hatch in the centre of their nest and right in the heart is the authority. Eggs sit in boiling nutrients until it is time to hatch and then they are taken from the shallows until the new Vrill emerge. They do not have names to tell each other apart, only jobs, different functions to tell themselves apart. Shout with a human voice and you can hear an echo but if your language is a scent you can be track very easily. Its like you are constantly saying ‘follow me.’ The Winterlack are an outside agency that have been trying to systematically destroy the nest, an agency of human beings. Without a new authority they cannot make a new one and no more eggs can be hatched, by destroying her the Winterlack have brought the Vrill to edge of extinction. The story the humans spin to Klein is that their homeworld is drastically overpopulated, the air dirty and the food getting more toxic by the day and they have decided to colonise the Vrill homeworld. There aren’t the resources to search further for another inhabited world. All the Vrill were murdered in one monstrous half hour and now the only Vrill that will be hatched are the ones that have already been laid. Vrill workers are female and they hatch from fertilised eggs. There are 4000 eggs left in the hatching yard and because they are to hatch unfertilised they will all be born as warriors. There is a fine line between exterminating and farming another species, isn’t there? Vrill nourish their eggs with super concentrated nutrients and grow to a huge size in a matter of days, it’s a super food that can be diluted to feed humans. Undiluted it could be used as a wonder drug or a hoer growth hormone and this is a fringe military smash and grab organisation after the nutrients. By leaving with the TARDIS Klein is denying the Vrill and the humans the ability to communicate with each other and the Doctor knows that it will mean further exploitation and murder.

Audio Landscape: John Ainsworth has done a phenomenal job in giving the Vrill a unique realisation on audio with their wings that beat so fast they sound like a motorbike engine, their repeated language and the gorgeous voice modulation. He’s basically been given a Web Planet style story to realise and it looks as though he has attacked the challenge with his usual vigour and enthusiasm. The different sized Vrills are given very different tones of voice and you can hear their mouth mandibles twitching. There’s a lovely sequence where we hear the overlapping voices (smells) of the Vrill crying out for the warriors and wondering why they are burning. Its such an imaginative way to tell a story credit has to go to both the writer and director for making the Vrill so instantly unlike any alien species we have met before and enjoyable. They discover bodies of dead Vrill blocking a passageway, burnt and choked by the Winterlack and the Doctor still being able to hear their distress by the smell of their burning corpses translated by the TARDIS. The bubbling hatching yard, firing a machine gun at the Vrill, creatures screaming in the jungle. tearing apart Stefan.

Musical Cues: The music is wonderfully odd and perfectly matches the unfamiliar tone of the story with discordant themes bridging the scenes and unusual sounds trickling into scenes and vworping out of them.

Standout Scene: How wonderful is it when the Doctor convinces Lily that he is an authority and can sanctioned the creation of a new Adam and Eve to create a new nest of Vrill – he sounds so giddy with excitement its impossible not to get whipped up into his frenzy.

Result: Completely different from the opening story of this trilogy (and a bit) of adventures but just as assured, Survival of the Fittest is a weird and wonderful foray into an alien culture that is brought to life with some skill. It reminds me of The Web Planet not only because of the unusual focus on an exotic alien race but also because it tells a traditional Doctor Who story in a very unconventional way suggesting a colonists versus natives tale and then twisting into a story of greed and genocide. Its worth mentioning here just how superb Sylvester McCoy has been in the last few years of Big Finish adventures and this trilogy sees him at his peak. Survival of the Fittest is a story that allows us to experience him at his best; desperately sweet with the Vrill, locking horns with Klein and trying to save as many lives as possible. Four episodes and this might have outstayed its welcome but at three it is fast paced and exciting (great editorial decision) and there is even a juicy cliffhanger ending that should be all the excuse you need to dive into the next story. Its our one chance to see Klein as a travelling companion rather than an enemy and it works so well its agonising to think that their adventures are almost over already. They make such a gripping, antagonistic pair the distinctive dialogue trips naturally from their tongues and the final face off before she steals the TARDIS is a fantastic moment. Unlike anything else and hugely enjoyable: 8/10

Klein’s Story written by John Ainsworth & Lee Mansfield and directed by John Ainsworth

What’s it about: Elizabeth Klein is an anomaly. A renegade from an alternate future in which the Nazis won World War II, In an attempt to get to know his latest companion, the Doctor invites Klein to tell him how exactly she came to be in possession of his TARDIS and of the events that led to her trip into the past to Colditz Castle.

The Real McCoy: The Doctor is a realist and he understands that they may be ideologically opposed and not like each other but they are travelling companions now so they have to find some way of co-operating. He can’t imagine why anybody would want to steal his corpse because he is much more fun when he is alive! The Doctor admits that his death in her timeline was no accident, that he arranged the whole thing.

Breathless Romantic: How exciting to get to listen to an alternative eighth Doctor who was born out of violence just as ours was (the Nazi’s shooting the seventh Doctor down mirrors the death of our Doctor by a San Francisco gang). Because we know he does not have access to the TARDIS there is the exciting prospect of him on the streets of Berlin, penniless and homeless trying to find a life for himself and work up to a position of power so he could gain access to his ship again. Its so exciting a prospect I would have loved to have spent more time with this version of the eighth Doctor but what we get is intriguing enough to set all these thoughts rolling. Paul McGann is at his charming best, the Doctor worming his way into Klein’s affections by suggesting that she will do great things with access to a time machine that he can provide and help her study. Young, slim and handsome in a gothic kind of way, that’s how Klein describes the eighth Doctor. Yunis doesn’t like the idea of Schmidt working with Klein and feels there is a mocking attitude to him. It turns out that since he regenerated the Doctor has been helping political prisoners to flee the country and undermining the Reich’s ethnic cleansing programmes.

Reformed Nazi: Klein is still clinging onto the hope of using the TARDIS to reclaim her lost Nazi future. She will never accept this reality because she doesn’t belong here. In 1962 when Klein was researching physics at Cambridge (very Liz Shaw) she was commandeered and taken aboard a special military airship to fly her to Berlin. She was quite happy at Cambridge and her researches has reached a critical stage – this is very Liz Shaw, its practically a retelling of the scene between Liz and the Brigadier in Spearhead from Space. Yonis Faber is a charming man and before long they were sharing meals together and falling into bed whilst the research went on. Time travel interested Klein before she ever discovered the TARDIS having written her thesis about it at Cambridge and she uses her wily feminine charms to get Faber to sanction her meeting with the Doctor. Yonis warns Klein about the dangers of time travel and how tinkering with it could result in the most catastrophic changes but Klein is desperate to get her hands on the consequences – a decision she will live to regret bitterly. That entire timeline lives only in her memory now which is quite a burden to carry. She went back in time because she was determined make Yonis the Fuhrer. Klein realises now that she was used by a future Doctor to go back in time and erase her entire timeline and all this time she has blamed herself for what has happened.

Standout Performance: If you needed any more reason to (beyond the superb characterisation and the storytelling opportunities) excuse Klein’s return then listen to Tracey Child’s give it some real welly as she Klein discovers the Doctor manipulated her into deleting her entire timeline. She is furious and however this ends now you know it wont be pretty.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Mankind has a breathtaking ability to sweep things it doesn’t understand under the carpet of history.’
‘I was so determined to secure a glorious future for the Reich for Yonis and myself I took a gamble with time’ ‘And lost…’
‘The memory cheats…’
‘You used me!’

Great Ideas: Its easily the best idea for a one parter Big Finish have ever given us and unless I am very much mistaken it is the last of its kind. This features the story of Klein’s first trip in the TARDIS, a tale that is not only worth telling in its own right but fills in a lot of the gaps that led from Colditz and add much depth to that story. In a government depository in Berlin are various items of extra terrestrial technology recovered from alien incursions over the years and it was to be Klein’s job to study them. Surely that is a job that no scientist could refuse! Chairman Hitler was reluctant to accept the existence of superior alien technology, decreeing that they were sealed away and their existence denied. Since his death policies have changed and Yunis wants to make a unit to unlock the secrets of these devices. A UNIT? This is almost a cruel twisting of established Doctor Who continuity but a very fun one. I could imagine this Nazi version of UNIT winding up exactly where the show was during the alternative universe in Inferno, a fascistic scientific base manned by slave labour. I love how this segues into Colditz but telling the story with a very different outcome, the Nazi’s having captured the Doctor and killed Ace and having won the war. Stupidly the Doctor returned to Germany ten years after the events of Colditz and was shot down, forcing a regeneration. In 1961 the ruling body was shaken by conflict and a time machine had the power to literally shape the future which was an exciting enough prospect for Klein, guaranteeing the supremacy of the Reich. Because they know how to fly the TARDIS back to a previous journey (thanks to the eighth Doctor’s insider knowledge) Klein theorises they could travel back to 1944 before he was killed and bring him to the future and force him to reveal the secrets of the time ship.

Audio Landscape: The story picks up directly where A Thousand Tiny Wings left off with the Doctor and Klein still in the Kenyan jungle. The Doctor making the tea, rain in the forest, gun shot, high speed diamond tipped drills trying to gain access to the TARDIS, siren, phone ringing,

Musical Cues: Simon Robinson’s music for this story is excellent, from his magical twinklings as the Doctor asks Klein to recount her story of discovering the TARDIS (it sounds rather like the noise Enlightenment made when it was unveiled in the story of the same name) and the powerful bridges between scenes as the eighth Doctor and Klein meet and start working together. Just because this is a one off it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be the best that it can be.

Standout Scene: I had absolutely no idea that the eighth Doctor was going to have a role in this story the first time I heard it and I remember walking down a forest path with Simon’s mums dog and literally punching the air with delight when I heard his voice. I cannot remember this being heavily publicised at the time (maybe it was and it completely passed me by…it has been known to happen) but I was so shocked in a gleeful way it was the first time Big Finish had pulled off that kind of surprise to me since The Master showed up in Dust Breeding. It’s a truly great moment and it still makes me beam from ear to ear.

Result: A compelling story that cleverly rips the ending away from Colditz and introduces us to a world under Nazi rule before using a Doctor that should never have existed to put it all right again. For so many reasons it is an exciting piece; to delve more deeply into Klein’s obsession with time travel, to explain who we originally met her, to meet an alternative eighth Doctor and the fact that this one part story is used to enhance the trilogy of tales rather than feeling like a tacked on bit of nonsense. The script is of a very high standard and has clearly been thought through well and the first time I heard Paul McGann’s voice at the end of that telephone I almost pissed my pants with pleasure! The sad truth is I could have happily have turned this story into the three parter because there was so much more to explore but what’s great is that even at just half an hour the story never feels rushed or underdeveloped. Its easily my favourite one parter and continues this runs sterling quality: 10/10

A Thousand Tiny Wings written by Andy Lane and directed by Lisa Bowerman

What’s it about: 1950s Kenya. The Mau Mau uprising. A disparate group of women lie low in a remote house in the jungle, waiting for a resolution or for rescue. Among these British imperialists is Elizabeth Klein, a refugee from a timeline that no longer exists… thanks to the Doctor. Reunited, the Doctor and Klein are forced to set aside their differences by terrifying circumstances. People are dying in this remote place. One by one. And there's something out there, in the jungle, accompanied only by the flutter of a thousand tiny wings…

The Real McCoy: He waltzes into the farmhouse with some authority ready to help with the mysterious creature found in the woods until he discovers his old friend Elisabeth Klein is about and then he decides to stay. The Doctor tells Klein is travelling on his own these days and says the words with a heavy heart. Klein suggests the Nazi’s did what they did for the betterment of the human race and the Doctor uses Mengele’s (coined The Angel of Death for his work on children testing the noma disease and even sewing together Romanian children to create a conjoined twin) experiments as an example of how obscene their methods could be. This powerful material ignites a passion in McCoy that is rarely seen and holds your attention completely. In return Klein offers to list all the British and American scientists that have committed atrocities against their fellow man. The Doctor considers the history of humanity as a history of abuse by the more powerful directed against the less powerful and sometimes he wonders why he likes them so much. Its Klein who has to remind the Doctor to remember that Christine’s death has affected them personally but he dismisses their feelings saying that there will be time enough to mourn later once they have discovered what killed her. Klein describes him as devious, manipulative and arrogant and that his innocuousness is his greatest asset. You know what they say, cold hands, two hearts. The talks of ‘his people’ and Sylvia dismisses him as foreign and later as a contentious objector when he tries to avoid violence. In practically every way (especially morally) the Doctor and Klein are different people but when they start working together to beat the disease they make a very effective team and all their previous hostilities are dropped. The Doctor has happy memories about big green land rovers…aww. He’s a clever bastard an no mistake, leaving a shotgun primed to fire when a thin wire is tripped across the perimeter giving them an early warning signal. He boasts he can move like a cat when he wants to! The story pushes the Doctor into the uncomfortable situation of having to try and save Klein’s life which makes him indirectly responsible for anything she might do in the future. Klein thinks the Doctor is suggesting that he will stay with her and watch her until she dies when he tells her cannot allow her to set about trying to create a Fourth Reich but he actually means quite the reverse. She is to travel with him, a dangerous business considering her interest in history but it will definitely make for a thrilling dynamic. He considers her perception too shallow and he wants to show her things that might change her mind.

Reformed Nazi: Klein was introduced to the main range almost over 100 releases ago and any hope of seeing what was by far the sharpest character in Colditz (and the best thing about the entire production) was practically beyond hope. So imagine my surprise and delight when they announced a trilogy of adventures for the corrupt Nazi Officer butting heads with McCoy’s seventh Doctor. For the first time since the Sixie/Charley adventures I was really looking forward to hearing some main range adventures. Tracey Childs made such a fantastic impression in that earlier story and the character had so much untapped potential it would have been such a waste had she never been seen again. A small confession to make – I had absolutely no idea that Tracey Childs played the part of Metella in The Fires of Pompeii and when I found out (checking some obscure detail on its Wikipedia page for my review) I was absolutely delighted as it is one of my favourite New Series episodes. Compare her on the cover of these audios to her period look in Pompeii and they are completely different and the fact that I could even tell by her voice is further proof of what a versatile actress Childs is.

Klein suggests some kind of rota to protect the farmhouse and is greeted by derision and mocked that this isn’t Nazi Germany…if only they knew who they were talking to. She hears the TARDIS materialising in the distance and drops a glass – this is all of her dreams come true. Whilst she may have to circumnavigate the Doctor a time machine would give her the one opportunity to go back and change the events of Colditz. The Doctor describes her as blonde, blue eyed, strikingly attractive with an air of an Aryan about her. She had a feeling they would meet again; first it was a hope, then a certainty and finally a dream and now they are face to face she calls him insane for re-ordering reality the way he wants. It seems that the two of them are never going to agree on which reality is the real one and that will fuel the drama of this trilogy. After the war ended in a farcical victory for Britain Klein escaped to a colony of nationalists in South America, a home away from home (DeFlores from Silver Nemesis was one of this breed). That she put things right – that’s what Klein wants her epitaph to be. When she was in South America she re-qualified as a Doctor of medicine and she couldn’t see herself whiling away her time dreaming of past glories she headed for the Dark Continent for challenges anew. In her version of history the Germany army crushed the Mau Mau rebellion with wave upon wave of aircraft carpet bombing the tribal areas. When the carpet bombing had stopped and the various native uprisings had been irradiated builders were sent in to construct new cities. Within three years most of them were dead, some disease, not infectious but carried by something. Hitler put Klein in charge of a team of Doctors to investigate but they were evacuated before they could make any progress. She doesn’t like to fail and if she couldn’t make a difference in her own timeline she is determined to eradicate the infection in this one. The Doctor wonders if she wants to use the disease in some ludicrous scheme to put the Nazi’s back on top but she scoffs at this asking him to credit her with a little intelligence – diseases aren’t fussy as to who they attack and if she wipes out humanity there would be no hope of her putting things right. To all accounts an purposes this is a humane mission and we are so used to seeing the Nazi’s as monsters it is hard to correlate the two. A quiet moment between Klein and Sylvia reveals that they have similar ideals – the tragedy of national socialism is that the concept of the benevolent dictator has lost all credibility where it is palpably the best form of government if you choose the right dictator. They are literally finishing each others sentences and it is fascinating to see a British citizen quoting Nazi ideals. Her philosophy is that you have to break something down to rubble into order to build it up again in the right way whereas the Doctor believes you can build in whatever direction you want using whatever you are as a foundation.

Standout Performance: A huge round of applause to Ann Bell who slowly unpeels her character as the story develops, starting off as a sympathetic motherly presence in the farmhouse and gradually revealing her fascistic ideals in a so natural its frightening fashion. Its not often we get characters in Big Finish plays that make an impact like this, usually they are there to service the plot but this is a full fleshed out character in her own right and the subtle way Bell gets more furious and forceful as she talks about the positives of the Nazism had me hiding behind my hands. By the end of the story she is a pretty fearsome woman.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘And will he make the trains run on time?’ ‘You say it as if it’s a bad thing to have a predictable transport system.’
‘Which one will get to us first, the Army or the Mau Mau?’
‘I don’t trust him’ ‘You don’t trust anyone’ ‘And you trust everyone! Guess which one of us gets disappointed the most?’
‘We’re a small island with a small population and yet we’ve made our mark around the world. We didn’t do it by force by and large we did it by civilising and educating and showing small tribes whose vision went as far as the horizon that by working together they could form a nation that would stretch from coast to coast’ ‘Which you would rule.’
‘Violence doesn’t care about your opinions Doctor, it just is.’
‘There are many ways of getting to the same destination and often the best one is not the most direct.’
‘A few seconds earlier there were three people in this house and suddenly there was only one…’

Great Ideas: A tawdry uprising on the part of discontented natives who don’t when their well off…or at least that’s how Sylvia sees it. The British government will not allow this to go on for much longer and they will send the troops in. The Doctor says that self rule is the inevitable outcome and the country the British are used to controlling has changed forever. Klein is worries about the natives getting in and that is very tangible threat throughout the entire story. Denise is such a wonderfully naïve character and symptomatic of a British Empire that refuses to accept that times have moved on since the war. In a farmhouse under siege she is more concerned about having a four for Bridge and expects the servants to still be catering to her every whim. You know from the first few seconds of meeting her that she is going to learn a lesson in the harsh realities of life before the story is over. A body found in the forest that has two knees in each leg, two elbows in each arm and whose joints move in the wrong direction. I love the approach Lane takes to the Nazi’s from Sylvia’s point of view, she had a German husband that was posted near Colditz castle who she loved dearly but has had to hide the fact since the end of the Second World War. She remembers the Mitford girls travelling back and forth between Germany and England, having grand balls and parties with the two countries united as friends. Its such an refreshing new take on the relationship between the two countries it really stands out. That’s why Sylvia and Henreich came to Kenya because British citizens couldn’t admit to knowing Germans anymore. Joshua enters the story at just the right point when a new element of suspicion is needed and despite his protestations of being on the run from the Mau Mau you cannot help but wonder if he is an advance scout sent to asses their defences. There are two burnt out cars and tree trunk blocking the entrance and preventing their escape in the car…the Mau Mau don’t want them to leave. Sylvia catches Joshua signalling with a torch to the Mau Mau, revealing his allegiances and discovering him nearly costs her her life until Lucy intervenes and murders him. The flock is alien birds with poisonous claws, using the Abraham as their mule to provide their manual work via short range telepathy. They are doing research on Earth that is too dangerous to conduct on their own planet, biological warfare which created the disease that would wipe out the population in Klein’s timeline and this one too if they hadn’t have wound up here. They want to use humanity as test subjects for their research, planning to create diseases that attack many races at once – a universal plague. Astonishingly this research isn’t even for their own benefit, they want to sell the microbes on to warring planets and become the most powerful economic power in the galaxy. Once all over life forms have wiped each other out they will take over.

Audio Landscape: 130 releases into the main range and Big Finish scores possibly their most atmospheric production with Lisa Bowerman casting aside all the bluster of the two Key to Time trilogy stories she directed and the camp madness of Mission to Magnus in the Lost Stories range and really focussing on the drama of this superbly scripted story. Not to dismiss the work of other directors (because Big Finish has a very high hit rate when it comes to its chosen directors) but there is a level of care in this story that I don’t always feel in the main range of this period. What’s astonishing is that for an audio this story is far more involved in what we don’t hear rather than what we do and with the Mau Mau closing in on the camp Lisa Bowerman manages to wring astonishing moments of tension by allowing this story to be silent in places and add the sound effect of a snapping twig or a sudden scream to maximum dramatic effect. You can trust Klein to get straight to the heart of the matter with the ultimate cliché – ‘It’s quiet out there…too quiet.’ Denise discovering Christine’s body is terrifying, her screams quite made me jump! Bowerman pulls of the same trick in episode two when a window suddenly smashes and my coffee leap from my hands all over my desk! Sylvia walking through the house as bodies thump to the ground and nobody answers her calls really chills the bone. The fact that there isn’t even an attack in the end and we are still taken to the extremes of dread is all credit to Bowerman’s skill as a director.

Exotic birds screaming in the wilderness, the rustle of leaves and animals forage through the undergrowth, tapping on the typewriter, the dinner gong, wings flapping, walking through the tangled undergrowth, knocking at the door, clacking knitting needles, a crackling news report, the suddenly flurry and fluttering of wings, starting the coughing, grinding engine of the car, shotgun, shots in the distance.

Musical Cues: Like everything else the music has been exquisitely selected to create the maximum disquiet and its lovely to see Yason and Fox (who usually work with Bowerman in the companion chronicles range) having the chance to score a full length main range adventure. A Thousand Tiny Wings proves how good they are at their craft and they should be drafted in more often (still the main ranges loss is the companion chronicles gain). Listen to the atmospherics as there is a knocking at the door in episode one. I love the exotic turn the music takes as they start car and try and leave the farmhouse, its very catchy.

Standout Scene: I honestly couldn’t choose one scene – this is a fantastic story from beginning to end.

Result: A Thousand Tiny Wings is one of my all time favourite Big Finish adventures. Such a simple, evocative, intelligent, beautifully characterised script from Andy Lane complimented by Lisa Bowerman’s atmospheric and disquieting direction that rings every nuance and moment of tension for what it is worth. Whilst you are soaking up all the intellectual discussion between the Doctor and Klein, taking in the ambience of the Kenyan jungle and enjoying the complex characterisation of the guest cast there is the terrifying approach of the Mau Mau keeping everybody on edge and the discovery of an alien creature to solve. As I said in my audio landscape section at times it is the silence that impresses the most because we are waiting on tenterhooks for the Mau Mau to make their move and slightest twig snapping or footstep can be very frightening. Practically every line of dialogue is a gem and the story develops in exciting and unusual ways with the cover and title for once offering hints rather than spelling out the answers. At the heart of this splendid tale you have two towering performances from Sylvester McCoy (whose Doctor has taken off since Briggs took over) and Tracey Childs and their fractious, nascent dynamic makes for an engrossing new partnership. Absolutely top notch, this is the kind of Doctor Who Big Finish can revel in and the New Series couldn’t even touch: 10/10

Gallifrey

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

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

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

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2010/09/square-one-written-by-stephen-cole-and.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/12-Gallifrey-Square-One

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

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

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

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.com/2010/09/gallifrey-blind-eye-written-by-alan.html
Buy it from Big Finish here: http://www.bigfinish.com/14-Gallifrey-A-Blind-Eye

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

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

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

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

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

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/gallifrey-annihilation-written-by-scott.html
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Gallifrey Forever: Its better than Annihilation but considering my allergic reaction to the previous story don’t take that as a indictment that Forever is any good. I realised going into this story that we have lost the two most impressive aspects of the first half of the Gallifrey IV box set and that that might be another factor in my growing disillusionment; Leela’s blindness and Brax. But things that are missing are hardly the only faults on display here; the script is garrulously verbose to the point of not making any sense during the technobabble scenes, Romana’s character has perversely been twisted into a immoral time meddler, Narvin continues to make no impact whatsoever (even when there are two of him around) and the story blunders along from one lengthly dialogue scene to another refusing to gel into a narrative with any momentum. Its telling that the final story of this box set fails to cohere any of the ideas or themes that have been explored throughout the season and instead it just brings things to a jarring halt with no sign that things will be any different next year. It feels as though this has all been made up as it went along and that so much effort has gone into ensuring that the mammoth cast were available at the same time that nobody charted out the narrative or knew where the story was heading. Was there any point to introducing the threat from another dimension at the climax? Will we ever see Braxiatel again? Was there any point in blinding Leela only to wave a magic wand and cure her again? Will Romana ever pay for her misdemeanours? So many unanswered questions and what bothers me more than anything is that if I have to endure another season like this I don’t even know if I am interested in learning the answers. Forever feels like an amateurish first draft of a story that needs several revisions before it is bashed into any kind of recordable shape and it closes a disappointing season on a real bum note: 3/10

Full Review Here: http://docohobigfinish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/gallifrey-forever-written-by-david-wise.html
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Emancipation: ‘If I’m right we could save our Gallifrey!’ Either Gary Russell is brave for sticking to his guns and letting this story play out as he originally intended (ie not returning to Gallifrey Prime at the first available opportunity) or that he is stubborn for refusing to admit that the least series went down like a cup of cold sick and trying to steer things in a more popular direction. For the time being at least Gallifrey is staying on the alternative world set up in last season’s Forever and that’s just how it is. The fact that the series is clinging onto one location is a massive plus because at least if this reality does prove to be another pointless deviation from the main plotline it at least has the time to be set up and explored in some depth. Last season there was a stronger feeling of getting the gang back together for a good laugh over creating an enduring four chapters of the Gallifrey legacy (seriously, go and listen to the special features disc of Gallifrey IV which is the most self congratulatory thing you will ever experience) and what was needed here was a back to basics approach to show a doubtful audience they should see this story through. This is hardly a return to form for the simple fact that it takes ages for anything to happen (there’s eventually an assassination attempt on Leela) and the consequence is merely more incessant squabbling and bickering. The series seems to have lost its engaging penchant for politicking, replacing it with people standing in rooms bitching at each other instead (and no they are not one and the same thing). There’s a slight thread running through this story that suggests that long overdue plot resolutions are on their way (talk of the Dogma virus being cured and a return to the Axis) but I don’t think a range should dine out on the positive hints that the current situation will soon to be tossed away. You can’t exist on an empty promise. Most of the positives in Emancipation are characterisation of Romana and Narvin but Leela is awkwardly written, and none of the new characters make much of an impression (remember the golden days of super-bitch Darkel?). I remember a time when each chapter of a series was a self contained story in its own right (to be fair to Gallifrey IV that was the case even there) but this latest box set seems to be playing a long game, laying down seeds here but playing out as one, long, three part story. Which wouldn’t be a problem if it was an interesting three-part story. I used to love this series and I want to love it again, it frustrates me that I don’t. A shame, I was hoping a fresh writer would bring a fresh perspective: 4/10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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