Review Category: Audio

Past Forward, the latest instalment of the Seventh Doctor’s audio adventures from Big Finish, is an ambitious three-episode box set that feels like a turning point for this Doctor’s travels. Alongside multiple timelines and a fan-favourite monster, at the centre of this three-episode box set is an emotional story that sees the (apparent!) end of companions Harry Sullivan (Christopher Naylor) and Naomi Cross’s (Eleanor Crooks) time in the TARDIS.

John Dorney’s With The Angels Part 1 opens the set with a high-concept thriller involving a terrifying new form of Weeping Angel. When the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy, delivering the mix of mischief and melancholy that has come to define his take on the Time Lord) fails yet again to return Harry and Naomi home to the correct time, the three find themselves unexpectedly recruited by UNIT to help combat this angelic threat. This first instalment is somewhat dense with exposition and could perhaps have used slightly tighter pacing, but it sets the stage well and the atmosphere builds nicely – alongside the creeping horror of the damage the Angels could do in the wrong hands, there is a real sense of claustrophobia.

The second story, Catastrophix by Lizzie Hopley, is the emotional tipping point of the narrative. The team are separated – Harry zapped back to the 1970s with UNIT, while Naomi battles an apocalyptic future at sea – and the Earth is seemingly about to meet a premature end. The Doctor needs a miracle to find his way out of this one, and he gets it in the reintroduction of an old friend: Ray (Sara Griffiths), the motorbike-riding mechanic from Delta and the Bannermen. Hopley’s writing is poignant, particularly when exploring Naomi’s dread and Harry’s charmingly steadfast optimism. While the complicated timelines occasionally make the story a little hard to follow, the payoff – particularly the Doctor and Ray’s reunion – is worth it. Griffiths slips back into the role with enthusiasm and confidence, breathing fresh life into a character many had long hoped to see return.

In With The Angels Part 2, billionaire Max Bladukas’s birthday party aboard a super-yacht becomes the opulent setting for a terrifying final battle with the Angels. Josh Cowdery shines as Max’s jealous son and the villain of the story, Irving Bladukas. Cold, calculating and seemingly without mercy as he is blinded by his own ambition, Irving has no idea how dangerous the Angels are. The realisation that the Angels could be used as the ultimate weapon is chilling and it’s up to the Doctor to prevent the birthday celebration from turning into a tragedy.

The sound design by Leon Parris creates a cinematic experience, while director Samuel Clemens ensures a tight, character-driven story despite the scale of the plot. Though there are certainly moments where the story’s ambition starts to detract from the coherence, Past Forward sticks the landing emotionally. In all, this is a fitting swansong for Harry and Naomi and a welcome new beginning for Ray.

The Seventh Doctor Adventures – Past Forward is available now from Big Finish Productions.

Susan’s War: Family Ties offers a fresh take on the Time War, exploring the human impact of this dark and mysterious period in Doctor Who history through the eyes of one of the series’ most iconic characters.

Released in August and available exclusively on the Big Finish website until October, this two-story collection brings the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford) back into the limelight. Her new adventures are packed full of political intrigue and espionage, yet imbued with the over-arching theme of the importance of family and empathy.

The Lost Son by Sarah Cassidy sets the tone. Reeling from her last encounter with the Doctor but still supporting the Gallifreyan war effort, perhaps from a sense of duty to her people, Susan is sent on a diplomatic mission to assist Priestess Vesselina in finding her missing son.

It soon becomes apparent not everything on the supposedly neutral planet Materos is as it seems, and as the political situation becomes increasingly fraught, Susan is forced to draw on all her emotional resilience and boundless empathy to survive, though this might just be her downfall…

Whilst Cassidy places much of the story’s focus on Susan, using her experiences to explore a more humanitarian, diplomatic side to Gallifrey’s role in the Time War, the world of Materos is also extremely well developed, with time dedicated to world-building – the vivid physical landscapes of the planet, as well as its politics and people.

The supporting characters are perhaps not particularly memorable (though Beth Chalmers excels in the role of Susan’s friend and acidic wartime strategist Veklin, imbuing her with a caring nature beneath her outward bravado and ‘long-suffering’ façade) but Carole Ann Ford is once again excellent, as Cassidy deftly weaves a narrative that taps into the trauma of Susan’s past, particularly the loss of her own son, Alex.

This connection between the two missing sons makes the narrative deeply personal, and Ford’s performance brilliantly captures Susan’s pain and strength in the face of unimaginable loss as she bonds with Vesselina through their shared trauma of losing a son.

The punchline perhaps doesn’t quite live up to the build-up, particularly given the distinct lack of Daleks after their imminent threat is posited, which may disappoint some listeners going in blind.

Overall, though, Cassidy’s script is an impressive Big Finish debut; it’s a rich, character-driven piece, proving that an older, more introspective Susan, written to match the age of her voice actor, can still kick ass.

In The Golden Child by Peter Anghelides, the stakes are raised even higher. When a key Gallifreyan ally, Maxor, disappears from existence, archivist Andolar soon realises she is the only one to remember him.

With Susan’s help, she attempts to break through the time lock around Gostan to uncover the truth about the politician and strategist’s mysterious erasure from history. Unfortunately, a petulant young Maxor isn’t going to make things easy for them…

To complicate matters further, Susan’s investigation leads her to an unexpected encounter with a future version of her grandfather, voiced excellently by Jonathon Carley. This meeting between Susan and a now-hardened War Doctor is the emotional heart of the story, sticking to the overarching theme of family.

Anghelides beautifully contrasts the War Doctor’s grim pragmatism and reluctance to share too much about the future with Susan’s enduring hope and determination, creating a poignant and powerful dynamic between the two and showing how fascinating a different angle on the Time War can be.

There is a sense of distance between the two as the presence of his granddaughter, who knows him better than anyone, forces the Doctor to confront who he has become, which creates a sense of futility in their attempts to set history back on track. The eventual twist and resolution feel satisfying, if a little rushed.

The production value of both stories is top-notch, with Andy Hardwick’s sound design and music effectively heightening the drama and emotion. Director John Ainsworth ensures that the pacing is tight, and Carole Ann Ford delivers a well-honed performance, embodying Susan as a mature, complex character who has grown far beyond the scared teenager we first met in 1963.

Susan’s War: Family Ties offers a fresh perspective on the Time War while delivering some truly compelling, emotionally charged storytelling. Big Finish honours Susan’s legacy while expanding it in exciting and meaningful ways.

 

Susan’s War: Family Ties is now available from the Big Finish website.

Dear reader, are you sick of boring plots that run from A to B with nary a deviation? Fed up with narratives being too linear in their thematic explorations? Well, then, Dark Gallifrey: The War Master may just be for you! Although, don’t let the title fool you, the eponymous antihero doesn’t actually feature in this first of three instalments.

Having heard intriguing rumours of a hidden Gallifrey, our evergreen hero Bernice Summerfield (played as always by the irrepressible Lisa Bowerman) sets off to investigate. But, as the Doctor (an alternative universe incarnation played by the magnificent David Warner) points out, some things are just not meant to be found, especially if they want to be.

We’re going back to front with this one, starting at the end as Bernice confronts a malignant entity known as the Imbomination, before things slowly reveal themselves for the dramatic ending/beginning.

The backwards narrative choice is an interesting one and thankfully, it never confuses the listener too much. The problem, really, is that the tale it weaves is quite slight, and for all the cod-angry exchanges between Bernice and the Doctor about how dangerous it all is, you never really gets the foreboding feeling you should.

The two leads, as always, are marvellous and hit every mark with the precision of such grand artistes. The Imbomination, as performed by Tariyé Peterside, is just the right kind of queasily menacing, and an honourable mention goes to voice of the TARDIS Homer Todiwala, who’s as snivelling as it’s possible to be.

As we expect from Big Finish, the music and soundscape is top-notch, rewinding as it does through the story. Sadly though, that flimsy story lets the whole piece down. A case of style over substance, let’s hope it picks up over the next parts in this saga.

Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor never got a proper ‘finale’ adventure when the classic Doctor Who TV series came to an end, and so Big Finish Productions have tried to address that with the release of The Seventh Doctor Adventures: The Last Day – a twelve-episode story, across two box sets of full-cast audio drama.

Bringing together several of the Seventh Doctor’s best companions and villains, as well as crossing the streams on previous stories (most significantly Dark Universe and The Quantum Possibility Engine), The Last Day may have seemed like an epic finale adventure for this Doctor, as well as a way of sewing up loose ends. Part 1 certainly captured the essence of the Seventh Doctor’s TV run – summoning ideas, half ideas and vague themes into an incoherent amalgam of confusion – but does Part 2 rescue it in the end?

Those who have already waded well into Part 1 will be aware that Ace (or at least the good Ace) has gathered together both a magnificent seven and dirty dozen of assistants and villains to take on the archest of arch-manipulators and the Dark Citizens, and re-rewrite the timelines back to the way they should be. To avoid spoilers, we will leave the plot at that, but everything plus half a dozen kitchen sinks seems to have been thrown into the first six episodes, so the job of episodes 7 to 12 is to tie everything up.

Sadly, it feels like it’s left to episodes 11 and 12 to even begin that job, while the rest alternate between throwing more ideas at the audience like JJ Abrams backed into a plot corner, and infuriatingly dragging their feet. For a multiverse-spanning, timeline-hopping story, a frustrating amount of The Last Day’s action is played out in drawing room theatre-style scenes of characters relitigating their motivations and telling the listener things we already know.

Equally for most listeners, as wiggly and incoherent as the telling can get, it may also have been relatively obvious relatively early what the plot was about and where it was going. So, teasing it out and making us wait to meet the good (or non-bad) Doctor, while it has some dramatic value to begin with, really cheats the listener of the best of the fun of the story.

While Kane’s belligerence and Garundel’s sass are fun, few of the other characters really sparkle aside from the episode 1 good Ace and the more Doctor-y Doctor, who only emerges halfway through the six episodes of Part 2 (although he is a lot of fun when he gets there).

Episode 12 does at least to manage to tie up its own loose ends and is pacey enough to almost have you forgetting how bogged down previous episodes were by all the characters now finishing their plotlines with a (sometimes literal) bang.

That said, unless you have been particularly invested in all the characters from all these separate related properties (without being sufficiently invested in one to be frustrated by their lack of relative airtime), all the noise and fury leading up to this, more or less satisfying, finale mostly just carries the echoing resonance of half a dozen kitchen sinks clanging against one another in a slightly overstuffed and overstretched saga.

Let’s face it – all Doctor Who stories, good and bad, come down to a simple formula. The Doctor arrives in a place or time, discovers something or someone nefarious, talks a bit, and then does something impossibly clever to resolve the situation. It’s a simple formula and it’s undoubtedly why we, as fans, keep lapping up all things Who. Is Dark Gallifrey:  Morbius – Part Three, the latest audio drama in Big Finish’s epic new series, guilty of this?

Part Three picks up right where Part Two left off, with all the pieces in place for a mighty showdown between the Doctor and Morbius. The Doctor isn’t exactly who Captain Argento was expecting when she blew the Horn of Rassilon for help, but hey, you get what you’re given. Aided by the Sisterhood of Karn’s Gilda, they hatch a plan to stop Morbius before he can restart a war that threatens to envelop the cosmos.

The problem is, the plan, as flimsy as it is, comes together all too easily for a foe as deadly and clever as Morbius. We are promised a rematch of sorts between Tom Baker and Samuel West’s characters that should rival their earlier encounters, but amidst a lot of grandstanding between the two, the dénouement feels a little flat. That said, a cheeky little cameo, summoned by the Doctor, will have classic Who fans smiling in appreciation.

Story aside, the characters are the real treat here. Masterfully written and with tons of instantly quotable lines, the four leads chew enough scenery to fill a banquet and then some. Gilda is given a lot more to do here, and we find out that it’s a story about her as much as it is about Morbius.

As usual, the soundscape and music befits the action in a way we’ve come to expect from Big Finish; a little score goes a long way. The sound does a large amount of heavy lifting here, placing the action in recognisable locales, without the need of characters or a narrator to explain everything. As for the score, well, you can imagine Morbius has his theme playing as his alarm clock or simply as he walks down corridors, just for the sheer pleasure of its pomposity.

Part Three doesn’t quite live up to the epic promise of its preceding parts, and the rematch between the Fourth Doctor and Morbius is suddenly cut short, the villain defeated all too easily. But does that really matter? We know he’s going to come back at some point, and when you have some of the best dialogue from such well-rounded characters, it really is more of a case of the people you meet along the way rather than the destination.

But what exactly is Dark Gallifrey? Perhaps a story for another time.

The Fourth Doctor Adventures: Metamorphosis weaves a rich tapestry of danger and intrigue. Released in June and available exclusively on the Big Finish Productions website until the end of July, this audio box set is comprised of three brand-new Doctor Who tales, imbued with tantalising twists!

Starring the legendary Tom Baker alongside Christopher Naylor and Eleanor Crooks as companions Harry and Naomi, this collection presents a trio of thrilling two-part adventures penned by Aurora Fearnley, Matthew Sweet, and Lisa McMullin. The Doctor faces foes new and old, deadly plots, and a healthy dose of mystery.

The journey begins with Matryoshka by Aurora Fearnley. The TARDIS is dragged to Earth in the 1900s by a mysterious force, leading the Doctor and co. to the enigmatic Lord Pearson, inventor of toys. A game of hide and seek soon becomes a deadly challenge as they face the Toymaker, brilliantly voiced by Annette Badland, who manages to capture the egotism and playfulness of the Toymaker brilliantly, with subtle changes to her vocal mannerisms as she flips between him and her second character Madame Bisset.

Fearnley’s script is masterfully eerie, evoking childhood fears of creepy toys, a sentiment echoed by Eleanor Crooks, who recalls her own childhood terror of toys in a backstage interview. The story perhaps doesn’t make as much use of Harry and Naomi as it could, sidelining them in favour of exploring the guest characters, but Christopher Naylor and Eleanor Crooks still give dynamic performances that showcase their characters’ emotional depths and sharp instincts. While not a direct tie-in to the return of the toymaker in The Giggle, it can certainly be head-canoned as a fun prequel!

Matthew Sweet’s The Caged Assassin opens with the bizarre yet captivating scenario of a radiation-dosed tiger in the TARDIS. The Doctor and his companions soon find themselves entangled with Charles Jamrach, purveyor of exotic animals. Sweet explores the true story of this real-life collector of exotic animals, as well as poet Dante Rossetti, voiced by Mark Gatiss. Sweet’s narrative, described by Baker as “a delightful blend of whimsy and muscle”, unravels a chilling plot occurring within Jamrach’s menagerie, which unbeknownst to mankind, conceals a bloodthirsty terror…

The storyline may be slightly lacking, with the Doctor and companions seeming simply to react to the series of strange occurrences around them rather than displaying enough sense of urgency at the situation, and the historical elements clashing somewhat with the overall sci-fi plot, but it’s nonetheless an entertaining tale.

The titular Metamorphosis by Lisa McMullin brings the box set to a strong conclusion. The planet Jaxus is facing a mysterious foe as its inhabitants start to vanish. When Naomi too is captured, she finds herself in a prison controlled by the Doctor’s old nemesis, the Master, portrayed with signature sinister charm by Geoffrey Beevers. The stakes are high as the Doctor must once again thwart the Master’s plans.

Director Jamie Anderson orchestrates these adventures with a keen sense of pacing and suspense. The sound design by Toby Hrycek-Robinson and Iain Meadows, paired with Jamie Robertson’s evocative music, immerses listeners in each unique setting, from the eerie confines of the Toymaker’s lair to the exotic world of Jamrach’s menagerie.

Tom Baker continues to embody the Doctor perfectly, while the supporting cast, including Mark Gatiss, Michael Fenton Stevens and Lydia West, add further talent to the ensemble, delivering some memorable and hilarious performances.

Big Finish doesn’t disappoint – with some thoroughly engaging narratives, solid performances and meticulous production, this series expertly captures the essence of the Fourth Doctor’s era.

Big Finish Productions’ latest The Worlds of Blakes 7 box set features three episodes from the life of pilot, charmer and rogue Del Tarrant, played by original actor Steven Pacey.

The first, The Authorised Version, explores Del’s origins, with the help of the Dream-makers, to discover (or rewrite…?) the journey from sensible and privileged Terran upbringing to outlaw on course to join the Liberator. We are also introduced to series antagonist Kith Brell, initially Tarrant’s trainer at the academy, who has a nasty habit of turning up in the background of some of Tarrant’s more critical life experiences. Meanwhile, Tarrant tries to tell a story of his past that he is satisfied with: rebellious pilot trainee, lover, smuggler, dutiful son, outcast… but will any of it be worthwhile?

Sadly, no. The story beats covered may stretch the plot too thin, but equally the limited cast are over-stretched, with characters often broadly caricatured (Tarrant’s mother particularly feels like a disappointed 1970s sitcom mother-in-law) making for a story like a Wikipedia paragraph titled ‘Background before the Liberator’ spun out to 50+ minutes.

The second story, Behemoth, sees Tarrant as a Federation space captain, with a worn-out crew of whinging humans and one stoic mutoid for company. When a mysterious and utterly alien ship crosses their path, a taut and claustrophobic exploration of the ship begins, as well as a fight for the crew’s very survival.

Combining shades of Alien and Quatermass and the Pit, Behemoth wisely concentrates most of its effort into characterisation, with snarky back and forths between Tarrant’s fractious crew that have more than a shade of Chris Boucher about them. A good use of echo, movement and voice acting chops give a real sense of place, as well as judicious descriptions of what the characters are encountering in the mysterious ship’s murky interior, while taut plotting creates a ticking time bomb tension even before any countdown element is introduced.

Tarrant’s stern captain role also gives us a glimpse into what kind of trauma can change an ambitious and capable man’s career trajectory in a way that The Authorised Version doesn’t manage.

In the last instalment, Bomb, we are treated not just to Steven Pacey’s Tarrant but also Yasmin Bannerman’s excellent Dayna Mellanby, as these two recent recruits to the Liberator crew are sent on an away mission to test their usefulness (and trustworthiness?) to Avon. They’re tasked with exchanging cash for information from a curious recluse in an abandoned mining facility (with just a little too much time on their hands until pickup by the Liberator…), and the title of the episode might be a mild spoiler for the ticking clock that threatens everyone trapped there.

With a perfectly Blake’s 7 mix of mutual distrust, treachery and double dealing, and great performances all round, Bomb matches the tone of the original series sufficiently well that we came away picturing the scenes as if we had just seen them on TV.

“The thing about Time Lords is… they can’t all be heroes.”

With this one line, Big Finish sets the table for Dark Gallifrey, a new range of audio drama trilogies focusing largely on the villains of the Doctor Who universe. It’s a bold move, but in a fandom that embraces the series’ baddies as much as its heroes, it’s sure to pay off.

The first trilogy focuses on the (for now) defeated Time Lord Morbius, and Part One sets out the players and the pawns in an ever so slightly, but needfully, languid pace. The war on Karn has ended and the last Time Lord warship, the Proteus, prepares to return home victorious; but a bizarrely shrinking ship, travel through the vortex, and the prisoners of war onboard may make that more than a little tricky.

The cast, it should be said from the off, are fantastic. They hit the sweet spot of what we’ll call ‘Saturday tea-time acting’ with aplomb. What’s the audio equivalent of chewing the scenery? We ask because Rachel Atkins must have chunks stuck in her teeth – she is fabulous as the beleaguered and newly regenerated, as well as re-gendered, ship’s captain.

And, Hywel Morgan as first mate Mr Middlewitch and Lara Lemon as the Sisterhood of Karn’s envoy to the ship make fine use of the expertly crafted script to really make their lines sing. It should be noted that there is very little of the actors describing their surroundings; rather, the exceptional soundscape and score do the work instead.

Part Two begins as the crew discover an island in the vortex and a fortress of ice containing more than its fair share of secrets and lies. This episode is all about Samuel West playing –spoilers! – with a deft flippancy that proves to be deeply unsettling. It’s always a little disparaging to call a performance one-note, but the low and menacing punch West brings to the performance ensures that note sings like a bird.

While Part One sets the players out on the chessboard, Part Two delights in putting each of the characters in check and some in checkmate. The pace here is, at times, a little difficult to keep up with, but Tim Foley’s tight script keeps everything on the right side of chaotic.

Both parts serve as a great opening to this first trilogy, with plenty of the twists, turns and surprises we’ve come to expect from Big Finish’s telling of the Whoniverse. It’s the little things here that the listener should pay attention to, as everything pays off to a degree with more answers to be revealed in Part Three, and with a certain Time Lord making an appearance, we can’t wait to see how it all pans out.