DWO’s Spoiler-Free Preview of episode 9.12: Hell Bent;

Oh, it’s all been leading to this. Not just Series Nine - though obviously we’re building on everything we’ve been through this season - or the Doctor’s time with Clara Oswald by his side, but his entire life, since he ran away. No, actually, before that.

When Steven Moffat writes a finale, he packs them full to bursting. Monsters and time paradoxes and tweaks to Doctor Who’s wider mythos. It’s fair to say that Hell Bent has all of those in spades, and that it’s a real treat for the fans. As we saw at the end of last week’s episode, Gallifrey is back from the pocket dimension it was sealed in during the 50th anniversary (How doesn’t matter, the fact is it’s here), and it’s facing a new threat. Prophecies predict the coming of the Hybrid - an entity formed from two great warrior races; and not the ones you might expect. It must be ‘well hard’, though…

There’s only one man in the universe who can tell the Time Lords about the Hybrid, and he’s just been through four-and-a-half billion hears of solitary hell to get here. It’s safe to say that The Doctor isn’t in the best of moods for a large portion of this episode. Peter Capaldi continues to give a top-drawer performance, managing to hold your attention for a long stretch without ever saying a word. This finale has been crafted as a real tour-de-force for the actor, and he’s more than risen to the challenge.

Also rising to the challenge, of course, is director Rachel Talalay, who continues to make the world of Doctor Who look beautiful. Working alongside - frankly - the best team in the world, Talalay gives us everything we could want from our first in-depth look at Gallifrey in the modern era. From the tip of the tallest towers to the pits of the Matrix and out into the Dry Lands, we get to explore the Doctor’s homeward like never before, and it’s never looked better.

There’s far - far - more to praise when it comes to the direction (and the script, and the action), but we can only say so much about Hell Bent without giving too much away (and we’d be thrown in the Timelash if we did), but that’s okay - it’s another one of those episodes which is only improved by having each surprise come as fresh, building on the last and sweeping away what came before. It ties up the last few years of adventures, dusts the Doctor down, and sends him off towards the future. And who knows, with Gallifrey back and reeling from the events of this episode, the Doctor might have some powerful enemies keeping tabs on him…

SIX things to look out for;

1) “Are all the bells ringing?”
2) A hint of the Doctor’s extended family.
3)“Stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.”
4)“The Doctor does not blame Gallifrey for the horrors of the Time War. He just blames you.”
5) “Could I have a lemonade?”
6) “You’re a Time Lord. A High-Born Gallifreyan… Why is it you spend so much time on Earth?"

[Sources: DWO, Will Brooks]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Justin Richards, Jonathan Morris, Nick Wallace

RRP: £8.99 (CD) / £6.99 (Download)

Release Date: September 2014

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Review Posted: 12th September 2014

“An epic adventure uniting the Doctor's friends across time and space, featuring Jago & Litefoot, Counter-Measures, the Vault and Gallifrey!

1: Mind Games by Justin Richards
In Victorian England, Henry Gordon Jago and Professor Litefoot investigate worrying events on the streets of London – which seem to be linked to the New Regency Theatre’s resident act, the mesmerist Mr Rees…

2: The Reesinger Process by Justin Richards
London, 1964, and the repercussions of Jago and Litefoot’s adventure are dealt with by Sir Toby Kinsella and his crack team of specialists at Counter-Measures. What is the Reesinger Process – and who is behind it?

3: The Screaming Skull by Jonathan Morris
Disgraced soldiers Ruth Matheson and Charlie Sato are called back into action by Captain Mike Yates, when the UNIT Vault is mysteriously locked down by a deadly force. Together they must infiltrate the Vault and get those trapped out alive. But what enemy are they facing?

4: Second Sight by Nick Wallace and Justin Richards
The actions of Mr Rees have alerted the Time Lords of Gallifrey, and Romana has assigned her best warrior. Independently, the Sixth Doctor has arrived on Earth. A power from the dawn of the Universe is about to be unleashed once more…”

***

Fifteen years ago, I had my tickets booked to attend Battlefield 3, a Doctor Who convention in Coventry.  I had been lucky enough to grab a copy of Sirens of Time on CD beforehand, and spent the night before transferring it to audio cassette so that it could be listened to in the car on the way there.  I was familiar with the concept of the show on audio: I’d listened to Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space, and I had long since worn out a tape recording of The War Games which I had made.  This was something exciting and different though; this was new Who with three Doctors and the promise of more adventures to come! I listened to the Big Finish “Talking about my Regeneration” preview CD time and again in preparation, but nothing compared to hearing Sirens on the way to Coventry.  It was a truly magical experience.

Big Finish had a buzz about it and a big crowd at its stall that year, where I purchased Phantasmagoria and listened greedily to their panel, thrilled by the hints of what was to come.

Fifteen years on, it’s amazing to see how massive Big Finish have grown as an entity, and how large it looms in the annuls of Doctor Who as a whole, and so we now have The Worlds of Doctor Who, a celebratory trawl through spin-off series aplenty.  The first thing worth noting is how beautiful the packaging for this CD set is.  The photography inside is very nicely done, the brief essays by actors are sweet, and the individual covers done for the CDs themselves are lovely, with the Jago and Litefoot and Vault ones being of particular note.

As for the story itself, it concerns a mysterious hypnotist named Mr. Rees, whose influence extends far beyond his natural lifespan.  From the Palace Theatre in Victorian England to the 1960s and the present day, his story and threat carries on worming its way through life and history, and touches the lives of many connected to that mysterious traveller in Time and Space, the Doctor.

Across the four CDs, we dip into the worlds of Jago and Litefoot in Mind Games, Counter-Measures in The Reesinger Process, the Companion Chronicles via The Vault in The Screaming Skull, and finally a mixture of both Gallifrey and Doctor Who itself in the finale, Second Sight.  What impressed me the most about this release is how all the series retain their own identities throughout whilst carrying a story thread across them all.  For example, the Jago and Vault stories are a whole world away from one another and perfectly fit their respective story, whilst they also move things on with the overall story.  Ditto comparing the second and fourth CDs.  It shows how strong a hook Big Finish latched onto here with Mr. Rees.

The only tale which perhaps lacks any real clear identity is The Screaming Skull, the but that is perhaps expected.  The previous two outings for the Vault have involved them used as a framing device for other tales, and whilst that it mostly the case here as well, it does at times feel less of an established format than is shown elsewhere, though that doesn’t stop Jonathan Morris from writing a damn good script all the same.  Despite misgivings over its format though, it also feels very sneakily like a pilot episode for a new series: the UNIT old guard, the Vault and maybe the new outfit as glimpsed in both UNIT, the original spin-off series and its follow-up, UNIT: Dominion.  I guess we’ll see, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all.

All of the instalments here are strong though, with Justin Richards doing the majority of the writing (he’s responsible for CDs 1 and 2 and co-writes the fourth with Nick Wallace) and showing us once again why he’s so prominent a name in the world of Doctor Who fiction.  Second Sight may suffer sometimes from its brief length (we get a lot of scenes where characters say “This could be his plan... unless... of course! It could be *this*!” which, by staggering co-incidence and ease of plot, turns out to be the case– but of course) but it wraps up Mr. Rees’s tale well and gives Leela a lot to do, which is always nice to hear.  It also makes good use of the Sixth Doctor, played as ever with gusto by Colin Baker.  It’s the Eighth and Sixth Doctors who have benefited most from Big Finish over the years, so it’s only right to see one of them celebrated and featured here.

What’s a joy over the whole release is hearing everyone in the same place connected to the same story: Ellie Higson, Charlie Sato, President Romana.  Everyone is here, present and correct and this is as fun and enjoyable a celebration of the extended worlds of Who as Big Finish could have given us.  Another triumph for Big Finish.

DWO’s spoiler-free preview of episode 8.4: Listen:

Since Doctor Who’s return to screens in 2005, current show-runner Steven Moffat has been the king of ‘scary’. He provided us with the chilling ‘are you my mummy?’ in Series One, ‘who turned out the lights?’ in Series Four, the ominous tick-tock of the Clockwork Droids in Series Two, and - of course - the Weeping Angels, some of the scariest monsters that the programme has ever produced. In many ways, Listen feels like a return to Moffat trying to scare us, and it’s safe to say that he succeeds.

This story revolves around a simple premise - what if when we’re all alone… we’re actually not. What if every second of our lives, there’s someone, or something there with us. What if when we talk aloud to ourselves, there’s someone listening, and when the hairs on the back of our necks stand on end, it’s the breath of another creature right behind you. It’s this thought which has preoccupied the Doctor when we find him at the start of the story, and the tale becomes his quest to find the answer.

The idea at the heart of this tale pulls on threads that Moffat has used before in a story for the 2007 Doctor Who story book, where he answered the question with the suggestion that people sometimes attract ‘Floofs’, small creatures which attach themselves to people and toy with them by hiding keys, or making mischief. Listen takes many of the concepts from that story and transfers them masterfully to the screen, managing to make them even more unnerving in the process. It’s safe to say that people will be checking in the shadows (and under the bed) on Saturday night. And probably Sunday night, too. And Monday, if we’re honest. [DWO have been checking for the last hour and a half, just in case.]

All the scares have been realised here by director Douglas Mackinnon, who storms back into the series with some truly gorgeous visuals. It’s some of his best directing work, and the use of colour in the episode is particularly nice. The direction of this story really serves to heighten the fear in places, and make a simple blanket the most terrifying thing in the universe. It’s also good to see that - as with Robot of Sherwood last week - directors are finding new and interesting ways to use the TARDIS set. It feels huge here, and somehow manages to make even Peter Capaldi seem small here, when left alone with his thoughts.

We’re also seeing the welcome return of Samuel Anderson in this episode, after a break from the programme last week. Danny Pink continues to be a source of humour here, but it’s nice to see Anderson given the chance to tackle some more dramatic stuff, too. He’s given lots to do here, and it’s hard not to simply love him. We can’t wait to see where his story goes from here - and this episode certainly give us some tantalising hints.

Five things to look out for: 

1) "Scared is a super power."
2) "Robinson Crusoe at the end of the universe…"
3) "A soldier so brave, he doesn’t need a gun."
4) Are you afraid of the dark?
5) "The human race. You’re never happy, are you?"

[Sources: DWO; Will Brooks]

 

Big Finish Productions will be launching a brand new audio range in 2014. Doctor Who: The Early Adventures will comprise four-part stories starring the surviving lead cast members from Doctor Who’s black and white era.

Producer, David Richardson said:

“While working on The Lost Stories, we fell in love with releases like Farewell, Great Macedon and The Masters of Luxor, which combine narration with dialogue. I suggested to executive producers Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery we could use that format to tell new stories for the First and Second Doctors, pushing the full cast elements in order to create big, impressive productions.

“The scripts for the first four Early Adventures are now in, and it’s so exciting to bring the early days of the series back to life in this way. The aim is for these to feel like lost television soundtracks. The first series will comprise First Doctor tales, and will feature an historical, a trip into outer space, a beautifully reflective character piece… and the return of a classic villain from the early years!”

Big Finish has also revealed that three of its Doctor Who audio ranges will be reaching their grand finales.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, the adaptations of scripts originally devised for television but never made, will end in December after a short final run of stories for the first three Doctors. Gallifrey, the much-loved spin-off centred on Romana and Leela on the Time Lord homeworld, concludes in spectacular style in October with series six. And The Companion Chronicles, adventures narrated by The Doctor’s friends, will end their monthly run in June 2014.

Nicholas Briggs, said:

“It’s always sad to say goodbye to something, especially if they are popular, but at Big Finish we feel we must always be moving forward, and finding new ways to tell exciting Doctor Who stories on audio.”

For those whose current subscription will leave them fewer than six releases from the end of The Companion Chronicles, we've added a four-release Final Season sub so it won't be necessary to buy up to five titles at full price.

[Source: Big Finish]