Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: David Llewellyn

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: June 2021

Reviewed by: Robert Emlyn Slater for Doctor Who Online

"Paris, 1809. The Fifth Doctor takes a tour of the Catacombs and meets a sassy Time Agent doing the same...

Paris, 1944. The Tenth Doctor misses his target and lands in occupied France. He hides from the Nazis – in the Catacombs.

A collision of two Doctors' timelines triggers a temporal catastrophe, granting the Cybermen dominion over the Earth.

The Doctors must travel back in time to find the source of the Cyber-invasion and close the Gates of Hell..."

WARNING: The following review contains spoilers. You have been warned!

Fourteen years after Time Crash, the Tenth and Fifth Doctors reunite in Paris, as they battle Cybermen and try and close the Gates of Hell in this second volume from the Out of Time mini-series. 

Out of Time 2: The Gates of Hell was arguably one of my most anticipated Big Finish releases for 2021, so I definitely went into it with high hopes. I think it’s pretty safe to say that it didn’t let me down.

David Llewellyn’s script wastes no time in getting down to business. Not as soon as the opening theme is over are we thrown into the adventure, with the Fifth Doctor encountering the Cybermen and meeting the Tenth Doctor in twentieth-century Paris. 

The story doesn’t really pause for breath once the Doctors unite, and we’re taken on a timey-wimey adventure featuring Cybermen, explosions, yet another Time Agent with an American accent, and a mysterious golden orb.

I’m cutting to the chase a bit here, but it was so much fun hearing David Tennant and Peter Davison bouncing off each other once again. Ten and Five sound like they really enjoy each other’s company, and almost seem to be reluctant to part ways at the end. I know I was hoping that they’d stay together and have a couple more adventures before sailing back off into the time vortex to go their separate ways. 

I’ve said before in a previous review that I find that multi-doctor stories can be a bit tedious at times, but that wasn’t the case at all in this story. There wasn’t really much of your typical multi-doctor ‘shenanigans’ and insult matches at play here, really. The Doctors just bumped into each other, teamed up, and got on with the job. Usually, multi-doctor adventures feel like big epic events, but I don’t feel like that was the case here, and that’s not a bad thing in the slightest. 

Also, the references to the past were a hell of a lot of fun too, and I loved the catty comments the pair made about the Fourth Doctor and Tegan. 

The guest cast in this adventure is minimal but strong. Shelley Conn plays a time agent called Tina Drake, who pretty much calls the shots and saves the day here, whilst Mark Gatiss was unrecognisable as Joseph Delon, the man who the Cybermen corrupted and turned into their slave. I had no clue Gatiss was even in this play, so I was particularly impressed to find out it had been him who’d been playing the evil Frenchman all along! It also goes without saying that Nicholas Briggs was great as the Cybermen too, as he always is, and he sounded really menacing going up against the two Doctors as they battled against them and attempted to foil their plans. Glen McCready also appears as both Marcel (Joseph’s father) and King Charles VI, and though I didn’t feel as if he had too much to do, he still gives a strong performance all the same.

If I had any criticisms of The Gates of Hell at all, it’s that a very interesting setting wasn’t explored nearly enough, which I was left a little disappointed by. Paris under Cyber-rule sounds like such an interesting, cool concept, and yet I feel like we hardly experienced any of it during this adventure. But with the audio only lasting an hour or so, things like that can’t really be helped. 

The pace of the story was definitely a big plus and made for a very entertaining hour on an otherwise boring Friday evening.

Overall, this is a great little adventure that will definitely keep you entertained for an hour, and will leave you wishing you had more time with Doctors Five, Ten, and the Cybermen. David Llewellyn’s script is tightly paced, and I really enjoyed how quickly he threw us into the adventure, and really appreciated all of his little nods to days gone by. The guest cast was very strong, and it’s always a good time when the Cybermen turn up and try and take over planet Earth. I could have quite easily listened to another hour of this story, as it was such a fun time! 

Out of Time has been a really entertaining mini-series so far, and long may it continue. I know we’re getting an adventure with Six, Ten, and the Weeping Angels next year, but here’s hoping that Doctor number ten get adventures with Doctors Seven, Eight, Nine, and hopefully even Five and Four again! Fingers crossed!

+ Out Of Time 2: The Gates Of Hell is OUT NOW, priced £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download).

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: James Kettle, Jonathan Morris, Simon Guerrier & Dan Starkey

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: October 2020

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Something is very wrong. The Fifth Doctor is lost in the Time War, heading for an encounter with his oldest and deadliest enemies... the Daleks!

Aimed at the Body by James Kettle

"An encounter with a notorious cricketing legend should be right up the Doctor’s street. But the unexpected appearance of an old enemy is about to send the Doctor on a quest."

Lightspeed by Jonathan Morris

"The trail has led the Doctor to a spaceship in the far future - where he finds himself trapped in the middle of a terrifying revenge plot."

The Bookshop at the End of the World by Simon Guerrier

"It’s very easy to forget yourself and get lost in a bookshop. But in some bookshops more than most..."

Interlude by Dan Starkey

"The play’s the thing! Or is it? The Doctor is roped into a theatrical spectacular - but who is he really performing to?"

WARNING: The following review contains spoilers. You have been warned!

I’m going to level with you: when I first heard the idea behind this story, I groaned a little. “Classic Doctor + the Time War” sounded like the same tired sandbox thinking that has plagued Doctor Who for a long time now on audio, in print, in comics, and thanks to the Series 12 finale, on screen as well. There was a time when a surprise Kroton in a book or a shock Nimon in a play really were surprising and shocking, whereas nowadays it feels all-too-predictable and, bizarrely, dull: less really is more.

How pleased I was, then, when Shadow of the Daleks 1 turned out to be the best Main Range play Big Finish has released for years now.

It starts off on an odd note, mind. Aimed at the Body was released as a freebie to entice listeners in, but I’m not sure half an hour of walking and vague talk about cricketing etiquette was the best way to go. It’s by no means a bad episode, and author James Kettle has proven himself tenfold with the phenomenal Barrister to the Stars earlier this year in the seventh series of The Diary of River Song, but really not all that much happens. It sets up a few threads for later on and all of the cast are great (more on them later) but it’s a bit of a strange opener.

Things really step up a gear with Lightspeed by Jonathan Morris, which combines intrigue, humour and thrills with a practised ease. A hijacked ship, a countdown, and a cheeky but intelligent conclusion? Count me in. It’s here that you really notice just how brilliant the cast are, too. I want to draw special attention to Dervia Kirwan (who was also exceptional in the recent Class box sets, both of which are well worth your time: more Blair Mowat scripts please?) and Anjli Mohindra, who is continually proving herself to be a versatile actor deserving of great acclaim. But it feels remiss of me to then not note how good Glen McCready and Jamie Parker are, too, not to mention Peter Davison and Nicholas Briggs. Everyone is at the very top of their game here.

This is evident in Simon Guerrier’s The Bookshop at the End of the World. It leans heavily on the amnesia gimmick (which is such a Doctor Who cliché now that when the recent Eighth Doctor Time War series used it twice across its four box sets, I hardly batted an eyelid) but uses poetry, effective performances, atmospheric sound design and well-paced writing to generate tension and heartache that has stayed with me in the days since I listened to it. Would that all stories were this good.  Would that all bookshops were this cosy, too.

We wrap things up with Interlude, Dan Starkey’s best script yet. Much like Mohindra, Starkey has proven himself to be a real gem who is flourishing under Big Finish’s eye (not that either of them wilted on screen). The play-within-a-play trope may be familiar but again, the script gets around this by letting the actors have a lot of fun, with some genuinely clever twists in there and winning performances by everyone.

I finished this release excited for what comes next, and that has not happened for a long, long time. The trailer for the next release is sadly the usual mix of noise and unrelated scenes which Big Finish often put out (do they really entice anyone?) but the promise shown here in this release has whet my appetite.

What an impressive finished result this is. Shadow of the Daleks 1 is a fantastic showcase for Big Finish in Lockdown. A limited cast used in an inventive way, solid sound design, and lots of proper, weighty drama. Sure, you can nitpick if you like: Mohindra’s microphone isn’t quite as good as everyone else’s, and there is a line in Aimed at the Body where the Doctor remarks upon the design of the Daleks which sticks out like a sore thumb. Is it just very bad sound mixing to make that line scream out at you as being dropped in later, or perhaps it’s that the Time War angle was only hit upon later on? Hard to tell. These are small niggles though.

Speaking of smalls things, let’s quickly mention the Daleks. Though present, they hardly feature: shadows indeed and all the better for it. The Time War does not really rear its head either, and again this is to the story’s success.  Perhaps it’ll fall apart a little and fully dive into this in the second half, but I hope not, or if it does embrace this angle, I hope it doesn’t falter. Prove me wrong again, just as you’ve proven me wrong here.

Honestly, this is the most energised I’ve been with a release for ages now. How wonderful to have this treat, just as the range nears its end. I cannot recommend it enough.

+ Shadow Of The Daleks 1 is OUT NOW, priced £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download).

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Steve Lyons, Jacqueline Rayner, Tommy Donbavand & Kate Thorman

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: July 2020

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

"Separated from his companions, the Doctor attempts to find solace in the history of his favourite planet – Earth – but instead discovers new threats lying in wait.

Travelling from twentieth-century East Berlin to sixteenth-century Strasbourg, the Doctor encounters creatures from other realities: monsters beneath the waves, and human beings determined to exploit their fellow man.

But how long can he survive without a friend?"

WARNING: The following review contains spoilers. You have been warned!

It’s that time of the year again: Big Finish’s “4x4 release”. Paradoxically, this annual affair arguably shows off the varying beast that is Big Finish best of all. On the one hand, it shows how quick they are to fall back and repeat themselves at the first whiff of success. Circular Time was released to critical acclaim in 2007 and so Big Finish have repeated the trick every year since rather than try anything new. On the other hand, by and large these releases have proven themselves to be some of the best they do all year, and 1001 Nights for the Fifth Doctor was especially strong. I guess sometimes you swing and hit.

Back last year (November 2019 to be precise) I reviewed Conversion, a two-part story for the Fifth Doctor which ended with him leaving his companions for a bit to mull over traumatic events. I commented then that it doesn’t really fit in with TV continuity at all, and while that’s not something that is necessarily an issue (after all, the Fourth Doctor in Big Finish isn’t a thing like the Fourth Doctor on TV, and most of the actors don’t sound like they used to, including David Tennant), it is something that jarred.

Skip forward to 2020 and we follow up the ending to that story. Sort of. We get four stories here with the Fifth Doctor on his own, but quite why he’s riding solo is never addressed. I feel this is probably the best way forward as it makes this release far more of a standalone affair, a welcome thing in the muddy waters of Big Finish internal continuity.

We kick things off with Ghost Station by Steve Lyons. Set in Berlin, it sees the Doctor encounter a lone soldier and try to solve a murder mystery. I can pretty much guarantee you’ll know the ending a few minutes in but it’s well acted and directed with some nice sound design to tie it all together.  Just don’t expect any surprises along the way.

The Bridge Master by Jacqueline Rayner is next, and it’s a lot of fun with a great central premise: the Doctor has his shadow sacrificed to appease evil, but it turns out that perhaps there is more to this than simple ritual and superstition when the Doctor finds himself falling ill after the operation. Rayner writes her supporting cast with a lot of character depth and the sound design again works well. This is all rather lovely. (Oh, and for all I’ve said Conversion last year doesn’t fit in with TV continuity, the references to The Great British Bake-Off here are at once more of a continuity breaker but also far less of an issue as they’re fun lines and not ones which give us incompatible character traits and stories.)

Third up is What Lurks Down Under by Tommy Donbavand, to whom this release is dedicated in a genuinely touching gesture. His story is a strange one: a celebrity historical in which you are never told much about the celebrity or why they’re important. If you don’t know who Mary Wade is, or why she is so important in Australia's history, you’re not going to come away any wiser and instead you’ll be wondering why the story is a companion introductory tale without the new companion staying at the end. Indeed, you’d be very easily forgiven for not knowing she was a real person in the first place (and seeing as Mary Shelley has travelled with the Eighth Doctor, there isn’t really any great reason that Wade couldn’t, too). It’s definitely a different approach and Wade comes across well, but it feels a little empty and lacking finality because of the lack of historical context we are given. Still, if it encourages people to research her story, that’s surely a good thing, and the inclusion of a play by Donbavand is really nice. The interviews included state how he always wanted to write a story for Big Finish, but sadly died before it was made and released. It’s a touching and glowing testimony to the company that we have it here.

We wrap things up with The Dancing Plague by Kate Thorman, which proves to be every bit as good as Rayner’s play: they’re by far the highlights of this release. Set in the midst of the infamous Dancing Plague, a strange historical occurrence where people started dancing for no readily apparent reason and then just… stopped, the Doctor is on hand to try and solve the puzzle, aided by the rather brilliant Margareta. Everything here just works: great choice of historical location, brilliant dialogue, fantastic cast acting their socks off, and a satisfying ending.

And so we come to an end. Some things muddled, some things you’ve heard many times before, and some things utterly brilliant: how very Big Finish overall. With the monthly plays soon changing format entirely, this may be the last time this particular structure has an outing for a while. All told, this is a strong release and a fine farewell to it.

+ Time Apart is OUT NOW, priced £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download).

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Jamie Anderson & Eddie Robson

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2019

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

Black Thursday - By Jamie Anderson

"1902. Deep beneath the Welsh village of Abertysswg, men have worked the black seam for generations. Until the day of the disaster. The day that a blue box from the future materialised inside the mine.... and things would never be the same again."

Power Game - By Eddie Robson

"Welcome to the Incredible Power Game, in which three brave Earthlings enter the Void Pit in search of strange gems to help return the alien Hostess to her home dimension. Today's contestants include Graham, Sadia... and Tegan, an air stewardess from Brisbane!"

It's funny how history can impact upon the present in unexpected ways. Despite an audibly older cast, stories which deal with concepts the 1980s run of TV episodes would never have done, and episode running times that often far outrun the original format’s restrictions, give me a Big Finish Peter Davison story which is but two episodes in length and I find myself nodding: “Yes. This feels right.”

The presence of two-episode-long stories in this era's original run lend the format here an air of authenticity that would be absent for, say, Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. Here though, it fits well and whilst I think the ‘pure historical’ label sometimes ascribed to Black Orchid is wildly misleading, its existence lends the opening story in this release, Black Thursday, extra weight.

Written by semi-regular Big Finish director and sometimes-writer Jamie Anderson, Black Thursday takes us to Wales in the early 20th Century where a mining disaster strikes and the TARDIS crew soon find themselves in the middle of it all, helping save lives where they can, comfort the grieving where they cannot, and, naturally, winding up in trouble.

Kamelion and human emotion are the main focus points in this story, leading to a masterclass performance by Jon Culshaw. This is a script which gives us a man having to perform as a robot speaking in a slightly-off Welsh accent that's still recognisably robotic. It's incredibly impressive: to make his accent here authentically Welsh enough while holding back a little but in a way that doesn't distract is one hell of a task but he pulls it off superbly.

Much of the rest of the cast bring a similar level of depth and skill to their performances, too, with Tim Treloar turning in his strongest outing for Big Finish yet and Lizzie Roper giving an equally impressive showing. Add to this the best script Anderson has written so far and you've a recipe for success.

Oddly enough, its weakest element is also its strongest: Kamelion. His plight is heartfelt and understandable and Anderson writes it well with sympathetic strokes, but it undoubtedly feels rather familiar, being yet another case of ‘Kamelion is overwhelmed by another's emotions / mind and changes as a result’. Coming so soon after the exact same plot point being a fairly big hunk of Devil In The Mist, it really does show up limitations with the robot's plot potential, even if it's executed well as is the case here.

That it pops up again in the very next story only further this sense of familiarity, though writer Eddie Robson keeps it on the back burner and lets the rest of his story do the talking.

If Black Thursday was an intelligent and weighty slice of education that effectively grabbed the heartstrings, then Power Game is an intelligent and light slice of adventure that effectively tickles the funnybone.

Set in York in the 1980s, Power Game tells of a television series that mysteriously appears in the middle of scheduled transmissions, much to the bemusement and confusion of the TV schedulers but the joy of a local Science Fiction and Fantasy group. Anyone who has watched television shows such as The Adventure Game or, to a certain extent, Knightmare will recognise this story's use of early computerised effects, contestant interaction and gameplay, and come away smiling. It uses nostalgia well, but better still it doesn't just rely on that to woo the audience but has a strong script with well-realised characters to back it up: Ready Player One this (thank god) is not.

As before, the cast are more than up to matching the high quality with Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson in particular turning in fantastic performances. Match this with a delightfully amusing script (Robson writes for the regular cast brilliantly) and you've one of the most enjoyable hours Big Finish have given us for a while now.

Kamelion may be at once the weak link and focal point / highlight of a good portion of this release (a contradiction I'm still wrapping my head around) but this release of two halves does not waiver in quality.

A story featuring the prominent use of early BBC Micro computer graphics? One about miners? This release has “The Eighties” tattooed upon its chest and it's only a surprise that Big Finish have not gone down this road before.

How utterly delightful that they have done now with such a strong release.

+ Black Thursday / Power Game is OUT NOW, priced £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download).

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Cavan Scott

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: January 2019

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

"The TARDIS deposits the Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and their android ally Kamelion aboard a prison ship. A ship with just one prisoner: Nustanu, last warlord of the Zamglitti – monstrous, mind-bending mimics able to turn themselves into mist.

A ship that's in trouble, and about to make a crash-landing...

On a planet of mists."

With Doctor Who having as many stories under its belt as it does, it’s unsurprising that at times the show wishes to celebrate this. Done well, a brief nod or wink to the past can be amusing and encourage people new to the show to dip into the past. Done badly, it can be off-putting, make the series feel like it is tailor-made for a small audience, and give characters the strange habit of not being able to walk five metres without referencing a former adventure.

Big Finish have historically veered between the two, sometimes in the same scene, and their reputation at times can be of pandering too much to the sort of fan who thinks simply name-checking Vardans makes for a good story, no plot required. The trouble with this attitude is that it means genuinely good nods to the past can perhaps be overshadowed: cue Kamelion.

Kamelion is oft-forgotten, not least by the TV series itself. Almost impossible to operate, superfluous to requirements and absent for months on end, the poor android was pretty much done and dusted as soon as he had set foot upon the good ship TARDIS (I’m using the male pronoun here: if it’s good enough for the character’s new voice artist, Jon Culshaw, then it’s good enough for me). There was potential there though: a shape-shifting companion with the ability to have its mind controlled by outside influences!

The trouble is, the two stories in which he appeared (no, I’m not counting Androzani) show this potential off and so one if left to wonder what else there is to be done with the android. Devil In The Mist by Cavan Scott does not really put those fears to rest, but it does show that there is some exploration to be had with the relationship between bot and human, even if it is largely resolved by the end of things. (It also has a lovely cover, which shows off how gorgeous the android’s design was if nothing else.)

The story starts with a very wary Tegan. Kamelion has links far too close to the Master in her eyes and when he is apparently caught tampering with the ship, her fears appear to be confirmed and she sees red. It’s this fractious relationship between the pair (Tegan angry, Kamelion unable to solve this problem) that forms the crux of the emotional heart of this four-part adventure, and adventure is very much the right word. We’ve crashing spaceships, rivers to cross, a jungle to explore, and secrets to happen upon and the running time does tick on nicely enough. Throw in some space hippos (Scott’s own creations, the Harrigain, who have popped up across media now) and ne’er-do-wells and you’ve something that feels like it’s taken a shot of adrenaline before breakfast.

The regular cast are more than up to the game. Mark Strickson remains thoroughly underrated as Turlough and Janet Fielding is as brilliant as ever. Culshaw, meanwhile, fits into Kamelion’s shoes with utter ease. If anyone has been dipping into the Target audiobook range, they’ll know already how soothing and gorgeous his voice can be on the ears and there’s no change here. He could read the phone book and I’d be content.

I mentioned earlier that not much new is really done with Kamelion though, and I stand by that. There is a nice exploration of companion dynamics (Tegan’s slipped confession that she still feels uneasy around Turlough is beautifully done) but does this story really show the need for Kamelion’s return? I’m not sure it does. (I’m also not sure having one of the story’s cliffhangers revolving around a boat accident is in especially great taste given the tragic death of the android’s original operator. I am 100% sure it’s just a nasty co-incidence but even so, I did wince a little.)

Adventure aside, the script itself passes the time nicely but I can’t say it made much of an impression. Think of this as a blockbuster popcorn movie: the sort you watch with half a mind elsewhere whilst grazing and forget much of the plot hours down the line. That’s not a criticism of the genre at all: sometimes that sort of entertainment is necessary and I’d take it over being bored. I definitely wasn’t clock-watching during this outing, but give me a few months and I am not sure I will be able to regale you with many specifics about it.

Kamelion is now due for a further two stories, and I am more curious than anything else. Will we see the potential hitherto untapped? I do not know, but I am confident that they’ll give it a good go. As a starting block Devil In The Mist is not bad, even if it is not an especially convincing argument for a need for more outings for the character. Perhaps with some of the dramatic tension now eased we’ll see what could have been, with a happier Tegan, a busier TARDIS and a calmer Kamelion.

And if you can’t end a review on a terrible Culture Club joke when talking about a creation from the 1980s, when can you?

+ Devil In The Mist is OUT NOW, priced £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download).

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Subscribers to Doctor Who Magazine, who have received their copies of Issue 529 early (due out this Thursday), have reported confirmation of the planned release of Season 19 on Blu-ray.

The release follows the recent success of the Season 12 blu-ray box-set, which featured Tom Baker's (The 4th Doctor) first 5 adventures. As with the Season 12 release, Season 19 will feature Peter Davison's (The 5th Doctor) first 7 adventures, remastered together with special features, all presented in special, limited edition packaging, in an 8-disc box-set.

The set will be released on 19th November 2018, priced £54.99, although we expect the date could be pushed back if there are any technical issues.

+ PREORDER this title from Amazon.co.uk! 

[Source: Doctor Who Magazine]

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: David Llewellyn

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: March 2018

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

"You are cordially invited to Argentia, the galaxy’s most exclusive tax haven, to attend the funeral of mining magnate Carlo Mazzini. The memorial service will be followed by music, light refreshments, and murder!

Carlo’s heirs have come to say their final goodbyes (and find out how much they’ve inherited) but when a masked killer begins picking them off one by one, Argentia goes into lock-down, closed off behind its own temporal displacement field.

Can the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric apprehend the murderer before Argentia – and everyone on board - is forever cut off from the rest of the Universe?"

Back in the dim and distant country that was September 2014, I reviewed the play Mask of Tragedy for DWO and sung the praises of Samuel West’s turn as Aristophanes in it. He nailed the comedy perfectly, and the extras showed him to be genuinely passionate about Doctor Who and infectiously enthusiastic.

Flash forward to March 2018 (present day at the time of writing) and Big Finish have just released Serpent In The Silver Mask. Who is that actor putting in a genuinely excellent comic turn with multiple characters, all of whom have a degree of humour and gravity where required injected into them? Take another bow, Samuel West! In the extras for this play, director Barnaby Edwards rightly sings West’s praises and I think it’s worth just stressing again how good he is here. Truly, you’ll not find a better guest performance in a Big Finish play across the board; this equals the very best of them, perhaps even besting his turn in I Went To A Marvellous Party.

(I’ll get a grumble out of the way now: the extras. Long-time readers of these reviews will know it’s a bugbear of mine that the extended extras for subscribers do not surface for weeks after the plays’ releases, and that’s especially irksome here when the extras we get on the CD/original download feel heavily edited. You can tell they’re curtailed, with some edits coming in almost mid-sentence, and that’s a real shame.)

What of Serpent In The Silver Mask elsewhere though?

The play starts with our heroes landing on Argentia where the Doctor is on the hunt for the materials to build a new sonic screwdriver. Before too long, they’ve had their tongues swabbed and they’ve gatecrashed a funeral, but it appears that there’s a murderer on the loose... cue a Sherlock / Christie-style romp with robots and prisons and dolls, oh my!

David Llewellyn is in the writing seat this time around and he’s clearly had the same memo as the other writers in this latest trilogy of Fifth Doctor / Adric / Nyssa / Tegan plays: listen to the DVD commentary for Earthshock and write them like that and not how the characters were on screen. It does mean you’re not going to come away from this play, or indeed any of the others in this trilogy, feeling you’ve experienced an ‘authentic’ era-accurate story. This sort of thing really bugs some fans and kills the mood for them, but for me personally it does not factor in at all when the scripts themselves are as strong as the past three have been. Are these the companions we used to watch on screen or the Fifth Doctor who saved the world in the early 1980s? Not even close at times but, crucially, does it matter at all? Mileage will vary.

For my money though, I’d say Llewellyn has crafted an exemplary script with a central mystery that genuinely surprised me. I was so sure I had worked out “whodunnit” but, pleasingly, I was wrong. I had the means but not the right antagonist: and what better treat for a fan of the genre to be close but outfoxed? I think I had as much fun trying to work it all out as the Doctor does. Indeed, the Doctor is having a lot of fun here, whether conversing with a robot or playing detective, and it’s a joy.

I’ve already celebrated West and the script, so it’s time again to heap praise on Edwards’s direction and the regulars’ performances. I want to highlight Janet Fielding here as this play gives Tegan a lot to do, but frankly Matthew Waterhouse is brilliant, Peter Davison hilarious, and Sarah Sutton making every scene count. This is an exciting time to be a fan of the Davison era. We had Jenny Colgan give us an incredibly good outing for Turlough in Gardens Of The Dead. Time In Office was my favourite main range release in 2017 by some distance, and this original trio of companions just goes from strength to strength in the main range.

Does all this praise feel repetitive to you? It would be understandable if so as I’ve done that time and again this trilogy, because this trilogy is by a leap - a bound - and a mile, the very best succession of releases in the main range we, as fans, have had the pleasure to receive for years, now.

Guy Adams’s stint as script editor for these plays has injected verve and spark in what was increasingly becoming a range of average releases, and his role in teasing out the best we’ve had for ages cannot be understated.

Three high hitters worthy of full marks? Yes, I really think these plays deserve that accolade, and that gives me more pleasure to write and share online than I can readily articulate. As the Doctor herself put it: “Oh, brilliant!"

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Eddie Robson

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: September 2017

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

"The Doctor's adventures in time and space are over. The Time Lords have recalled him to Gallifrey – but what he faces on his home planet is worse than any trial. Following the disappearance of President Borusa, the High Council condemned him to the highest office - and he can't evade his responsibilities a nanosecond longer...

So all hail the Lord High President! All hail President Doctor!

Rassilon save him. This time, there's really no escape."

Some stories and ideas fit some specific Doctors perfectly. Imagine The Curse of Fenric with the Sixth Doctor for example, or The Rescue with the Tenth: it just doesn't quite gel. Here with Time in Office though, we have the perfect marriage of incarnation and scenario, and full credit to Alan Barnes for suggesting it. You can just about picture the Fourth Doctor doing the job of President and purposely sending it up. The Sixth would be all bluster and indignation, but he would secretly enjoy the comfy seats and pomp more than he cares to admit. The Fifth though? So polite and unable to run away from a job he knows he will hate? It's the best fit.

Eddie Robson knows this, and writes for the Fifth Doctor especially well, and Time in Office is a perfect testimony to that fact. Throw in Leela and Tegan, too, and you've got a recipe for success, and thankfully 'a success' is undoubtedly what the finished product ends up being.

The Doctor's TARDIS is intercepted on the way to Frontios and before long our hero is in front of cameras, unable to escape, and being forced into office very much against his will. Leela is on hand to try and smooth things over, and Tegan is being held prisoner before being offered a position she cannot refuse.

There is something truly wonderful about seeing the Doctor, and more specifically this Doctor, run through diplomatic hoops. The trouble is, the Doctor is not without a past, and this comes to the fore in Part Two especially, which is genuinely funny and smart. The pairing of the Fifth Doctor and Leela (and indeed Peter Davison with Louise Jameson) works really well, and the addition of Tegan (and Janet Fielding) in the mix is the icing on the cake. It's easy to forget sometimes just how good the acting from the regulars is; we're so used to hearing or seeing their performances that it's easy to become blasé about it. Likewise, it's easy to forget at times just how much better served the regulars can be by Big Finish, but this blows those memory lapses out of the water and reminds you time and again just how good they all are.

Fielding especially gets to shine throughout the play with some brilliant comedy that suits both her character and the tone of the story down to a tee, whilst Robson writes to Davison's strengths with practised ease. The only thing which never really works in the play is Tegan’s love of adventure, seeing as we know she leaves soon after this play due to not enjoying things anymore.  That’s always the major problem with Big Finish plays though: they only fit to some extent and often you need wriggle room to make to really work.

Ignore that though. Nearly every facet of this play has an air of confidence and polish about it, from the script (with fan jokes about the number of regenerations a Time Lord can have to knowing comments about how male-centric Gallifrey is (a thread which ran through Doom Coalition to good effect, too)) to the performances to the direction. Indeed, the direction and performances feel the tightest we have had for a while now, and full praise must go to Helen Goldwyn for that.

Perhaps that says a lot though? Perhaps it shows that a shake-up in production team and format works wonders and gives the main range a much-needed kick and breath of fresh air?

Compare this play to nearly all the others this year and it stands out for being pleasingly different and pleasantly fresh-feeling. The story of an element coming to a dusty but well-meaning entity and shaking things up by being different feels symbolic of this play's position in the wider Big Finish pantheon right now.

Yes, this is a play which is for fans only really and takes in a lot of continuity points here and there, and yes, this is a play which still runs with the 4x4 format, albeit it with a new glance. But it's also a play which re-invigorates that format, plays with continuity in a fun and cheeky way, and actually uses the past to good purpose.

This isn't a play which says "oh, go on, let's put the Fifth Doctor with Leela" with no thought beyond. This is a story which does that because it fits perfectly and doesn't feel shoe-horned in by committee like nearly all of the Locum Doctors scripts a while ago did.

In some ways, this makes it all the more frustrating as there isn't really any excuse why it isn't this imaginative and fun every month. There are times when it feels as if the monthly/main range just rests on its laurels a little, and a play like this only shows that up.  A bit more imagination, a bit more daring do, a shake-up of the format... perhaps the future will see this happen and the now tired trilogy formula will get the injection of energy and verve it so desperately needs.

For now though, let us celebrate this Doctor's time in office and not feel too sad that it wasn't longer still.

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Matthew J. Elliott

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: March 2017

Reviewed by: Steve Bartle for Doctor Who Online

"In the Vortex, the TARDIS comes under a form of psychic attack – resulting in the abductions of first Adric, then Tegan. Following their trail, the Doctor and Nyssa arrive under the lurid skies of the planet Zaltys, whose entire population has vanished in strange circumstances. Soon, they discover that Zaltys is now the target of treasure seekers, come to scavenge this so-called Planet of the Dead…

Meanwhile, deep below the planet’s surface, Adric learns the earth-shattering reason why the people of Zaltys disappeared... and why they were wise to do so. And Tegan is, quite literally, in the dark – enduring interrogation by the mysterious Clarimonde. Any friend of the Doctor’s is Clarimonde’s enemy... because theirs is a blood feud!"

It wasn’t until reading Peter Davison's recently released autobiography that I realised he has now been doing Big Finish for over fifteen years. It puts into perspective the challenges faced by the writers of Big Finish to continually come up with new ideas while also staying true to the time the stories are set within the series original run.

Although Davison's tenure with Big Finish is lengthy it wasn’t until 2014 when the original ‘Crowded Tardis’ team of the Doctor, Adric, Tegan and Nyssa were reunited once more. In 2017 they are now well into their stride and Zaltys writer Matthew J. Elliott has managed to recapture the sense of relationships that instantly transports you right back to that weekday tea time slot from the early eighties.

All the tropes of that particular era are here and affectionately conveyed. The story opens with a protracted Tardis scene with our four protagonists. Big sister Tegan and little brother Adric are bickering away just as they always did. Tegan is still incessantly going on about getting back to Heathrow and actually goads Adric into showing off his so called superior maths skills and putting them into practice when programming a flight course to her desired destination. The chance to impress naturally appeals to Adrics constant desire to prove his worth to The Doctor, but needles s to say  this goes disastrously wrong leading to the TARDIS crew disappearing one by one. And with that we are off into the heart of the story!

This might be one of the most jam-packed stories Big Finish has ever produced, with so many disparate elements. We have fish people, a wolfman with psychic abilities, and grave robbers - to name a few. And all the while our TARDIS team are encountering these colourful characters, there's the threat of a huge space meteorite heading towards Zaltys that will mean the ultimate destruction of everyone.

Of course Elliot’s real challenge is to serve all the main characters well, a feat the TV series failed at with regularity during this period. As well as getting all their characteristics spot on, Elliott manages to give them all a decent narrative strand too. Nyssa is paired with The Doctor as she frequently was in the original run; Adric forms an uneasy alliance with the custodians of Zaltys in a very similar vein to his questionable allegiances in Four To Doomsday and State Of Decay. Additionally Tegan gets plenty of time in a ventilation shaft. What could be more appropriate than that!!

Special mention should go to Rebecca Roots' portrayal of Sable who brings a deadpan style of delivery that makes you really warm to the character and want to see her on more adventures. Phillip Franks and Niamh Cusack are also effective as the questionable villains of the story.

Elliott also writes Davison's Fifth incarnation extremely well too. I always enjoy the breathless energy that he injects into every story but here we also get the acerbic wit that we know his portrayal was capable of but never truly had the opportunity to show consistently on TV. Perhaps only in Time Crash, so many years later, did we see what his potential for humour truly was.

At certain points in the story you wonder how Elliott is going to tie all these storylines together, as it seems all the strands are running parallel and yet so separate, but manage it he does, and with aplomb. It is almost a shame we don’t get to spend more time with all the fascinating characters that he has created for our enjoyment.

However the real gem of this story for me is some of the interaction between the regulars. There are a couple of standout scenes for me; at one point Tegan questions whether Adric was happier when it was just The Doctor and him onboard the TARDIS and when one thinks back to the opening scenes of The Keeper Of Traken and Logopolis it would be hard to argue that wasn’t the case. Additionally a scene towards the end between The Doctor and Adric which, knowing Adrics ultimate fate, is extremely emotive.

Overall a great showcase for one of my favourite TARDIS teams; once again and a very ambitious story that revels in seemingly pulling together various storyline strands into a satisfying conclusion.

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Phil Mulryne

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2017

Reviewed by: Steve Bartle for Doctor Who Online

"London, 1864 - where any gentleman befitting the title ‘gentleman’ belongs to a gentlemen’s club: The Reform, The Athenaeum, The Carlton, The Garrick… and, of course, The Contingency. Newly established in St James’, The Contingency has quickly become the most exclusive enclave in town. A refuge for men of politics, men of science, men of letters. A place to escape. A place to think. A place to be free.

The first rule of the Contingency is to behave like a gentleman. The second is to pay no heed to its oddly identical servants. Or to the horror in its cellars. Or to the existence of the secret gallery on its upper floor… Rules that the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan are all about to break."

I grew up during the era of the crowded Tardis. Admittedly I was only age 5 but I have distinctly clear memories of a beleaguered Doctor trying to keep relative peace in his time machine with an ever growing bunch of stowaways and orphans joining him for adventures...with the added factor this eclectic bunch weren’t always necessarily happy to be there! Viewing the DVD range more recently you really appreciate what a job he had on his hands at times and one wonders why he continued to journey with them all, on occasions. At times the Fifth Doctor almost adopted the role of headmaster - something which he outright claims in this story!

However, despite the family style friction, this era of the show always gives me a warm fuzzy glow and saw a return to the episodic nature of the black and white days where stories sometimes bled into each other and references were made to previous adventures. Looking back through much more mature and critical eyes you can see where stories were creaking under the pressure of trying to cater for all these different principal characters, and there was an over-reliance on somewhat one-dimensional specific character tropes.

You might be concerned from the opening scenes that this tale veers between paying homage to this era or possibly regurgitating old material. The key protagonists are easily identifiable with their TV portrayals. Adric is somewhat annoying and antagonistic of Tegan, in this case regarding the primitive nature of a cassette player (which is a crucial item in the denouement). Check. Tegan is irascible and talks about Heathrow nonstop, as well as making generic references to flying. Check. Nyssa is...well Nyssa. Pragmatic and pleasant. Check. And of course Peter Davison effortlessly injects his usual breathless energy that always made his incarnation a hero in the truest form. Check. (Thank goodness!)

All four tend to bring out the argumentative side in each other, through constant chiding and witty barbs which too often on TV appeared somewhat childish at times. However, here writer Phil Mulryne has captured the flavour of the interaction of Season 19, but is more effective with the playful banter. This interplay immediately aids in casting the listener back to that time where Doctor Who was arguably more like a soap opera until its 2005 return, but without grating on your nerves.

What of the story itself? Well it’s a bit of a curio. Centred on the titular Contingency Club; an exclusive club in Victorian London where the gentlemen of the upper social strata gather to think, talk and, of course, drink. The clubs' popularity is such that membership is swelling and their restrictive policy for new members make it more appealingly exclusive. This club is the place to be.

The Tardis team, via unorthodox means, visit the club and, very early on, it becomes patently evident that something VERY strange is going on. The members of the club refuse to acknowledge that Tegan and Nyssa are women! The valets are all called Edward and are identical! Plus absolutely no one comments on the foursomes’ strange garments or their presence there at all.

And if all that wasn’t bizarre enough we have the mysterious club owner Mr Peabody and his even more mysterious benefactor, The Red Queen, who has an insidious reason for the club existing in the first place - all centred around a seemingly futile game.

There is some good comedy to be had in this one especially around the plurality of the ‘Edwards’! And surely “we’ll break our necks on the pavements of Pall Mall” might be one of the strangest cliff hanger statements ever! Ultimately this boils down to a gothic mystery in a Victorian Steampunk environment. Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding all effortlessly slip back into their roles and, unlike on TV, they are all served pretty well without any of them really being side-lined. But it’s Peter Davison whose star shines the brightest as he drives the narrative and perfectly recaptures every trait that made him a success. Sardonic wit, bravery, vulnerability and going full tilt in every scene. It’s all here!

Arguably the story is a little light weight in places but is a genuine attempt at something different, captures the TARDIS crew perfectly from the early eighties, and is a fun romp from start to finish.  Highly recommended. Want to listen? Join the club. 

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Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Eddie Robson

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: June 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven and Vicki to the Italian city of Ravenna in the year 540 – besieged by the army of the celebrated Byzantine general Belisarius. Caught up in the fighting, Steven ends up on a boat bound for Constantinople, the heart of the Roman Empire.

Rescuing Steven, however, is the least of the Doctor's problems – because he shouldn't be mixed up in this particular adventure at all. Someone has sabotaged his own personal timeline, putting him in the place of his First incarnation... but who, and why? The truth is about to be revealed – but at what cost to all of the Doctors, and to the whole future history of the planet Earth?”

It’s been a bumpy old ride, but finally here we are: The Secret History, the final story in Big Finish’s latest trilogy. We’ve had the more-Fourth-than-Third-Doctor story The Defectors and then, sadly for us all, Last of the Cybermen, which is about as awful a play as we’ve ever been given by Big Finish, even if it did try to explain away the photograph-roundel-walls in the TARDIS. (I begrudgingly give it a nod for that.)  This has been a pretty lackluster trilogy so far then, but thankfully they’ve gone and saved the best ‘til last.

For a start, this feels just like a First Doctor story. Put William Hartnell in the title role instead of Peter Davison and it would feel just right in the way the other two plays would not have done.  Eddie Robson has easily written the most successful play for this different-Doctors remit, no question about it.

It perhaps also helps that Steven and Vicki, the two companions in this tale, fit in perfectly with the story being told, too, and gel with the Fifth Doctor in a way that makes you long for this troop to have further adventures. Peter Davison, Peter Purves and Maureen O’Brien are all class acts and they milk Robson’s brilliant script for all it’s worth.

The story itself takes place in the year 540 CE: Ravenna is under the control of the general Belisarius, Steven has been whisked off to fight, and someone is in the shadows, manipulating the Doctor’s personal history and timeline… but who? And why?

The question of who is a thorny one, really. It should be a big secret, and indeed if you simply downloaded the story and seen the cast list as put on the Big Finish website, it would be. However, if you get the CD, then there is a whacking great spoiler on the cover, clearly showing you the name of the actor playing the antagonist, a character that actor is associated with. Added to that is the CD artwork which decides to place an image representing the antagonist in the centre of it all: why that and not, say, a generic roman soldier or even Belisarius? It seems odd that Big Finish have gone to great lengths to hide the identity of the Doctor’s foe and then place them smack-bang in the middle of the cover.  It’s a pity as it would have been a nice surprise otherwise.  Instead, having seen the cover and then received the CD, I met the revelation of the baddie with a shrug instead of the shock I should have felt.

Just in case you haven’t put two and two together though or been spoilt, I’ll refrain from naming them here. Suffice to say that they fit perfectly though, with both the story and the notion of incorrect Doctors across this trilogy. The actor in question works brilliantly with Davison, and again, you would gladly see more of them in the future if possible. It’s also a welcome return to their character; a nice continuation of their story which adds some genuine sadness to proceedings. Yes, they’re doing the wrong thing, but you can see why and it is heartbreaking in many ways, as is the implication that they’ve tried to carry out this plan time and time again, forever caught in a loop of revenge and upset and rage.

The use of this character proves a smart one for this, the 200^th ‘main range’ release from Big Finish, as it ties in with one of their other most successful runs: a celebration, and rightly so, of some of the company’s most popular outputs.  It’s nice to see Big Finish approach this milestone with some subtly and restraint as it’s not something they’ve been doing as of late, and as such it makes for one of the most satisfying releases from the company for a long while.

Two hundred releases though: an impressive milestone.  Not every release is a gem, and there is a strong argument to be made that quality has suffered as of late due to the vast quantity of output, but the importance, and indeed at times genuine brilliance, of Big Finish is not something to be sniffed at. The world(s) of Doctor Who, and indeed my own world, would be far poorer without them.

Just think of three things they’ve given us off the top of your head: the Eighth Doctor’s adventures through time and space, the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher, the Companion Chronicles.  Impressive, and one can easily pluck out three more: Dalek Empire, Charlotte Pollard, the magnificent Jago and Litefoot series. And more still: Melanie Bush and the Sixth Doctor and Adric all being given stories arguably far better, and certainly far better received, than they had on screen. And then there is the array of brilliant writers: Eddie Robson and Joseph Lidster and Rob Shearman and Uma McCormack and Jacqueline Rayner and Andrew Smith and John Dorney and… and…

And one could go on.  This has not been an especially good run of stories, but The Secret History itself is a fantastic play that richly deserves the full marks it’s been afforded below.

The not-so-secret history of Doctor Who will sing highly of Big Finish in years to come, and rightly so.  Here’s to more adventures… 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Jonathan Morris

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: February 2014

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“A Great Darkness is spreading over E-Space. Entropy increases. In search of a last exit to anywhere, the TARDIS arrives on the power-less planet of Apollyon, where the scientist Pallister guards the only way out – a mysterious portal. But the portal needs power to open, and the only power Pallister can draw on is the energy contained within the molecular bonds of all living tissue...

The Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough soon learn that neither Pallister nor his ally, the space pirate Captain Branarack, will stop at murder to ensure their escape. But they're not the only menace on Apollyon. The Sandmen are coming – creatures that live on the life force; that live on death.

Death is the only way out into N-Space. Death, or sacrifice.

But whose death?

Whose sacrifice?”

***

All good things must come to an end (sometimes; if your name is Hex then god only knows) and so the stories featuring Older/Young/Old-ish Again Nyssa come to an end in this, The Entropy Plague by Jonathan Morris.  In many ways, this feels like not so much a conclusion to the E-Space trilogy which we’ve been experiencing across these past few plays, but a sequel and finale to everything post-Morris’s own Prisoners of Fate.  Nyssa has a family to get back to, and being stuck in E-Space is only hastening the inevitable, despite how much the Doctor would like her to stay.

In keeping with the rest of this trilogy, the story has strong nods to its positional equivalent in Season 18’s original foray into E-Space: Mistfall shared its writer, Marshmen and, erm, Mistfall with Full Circle; Equilibrium and State of Decay have their castles and regal cast; and here in The Entropy Plague, we have Warriors’ Gate’s thresholds and setting as well, this one being set on the other side of the world to Steve Gallagher’s original concept-heavy tale.

Whilst Equilibrium managed to feel very Bidmeadian in its concepts, music and execution, this time we are firmly in Eric Saward’s home ground.  You know how Ressurection of the Daleks has the ethos of ‘Life is Crap and then you Die’? This play makes that look positively life-affirming and comedic.

We start with the Doctor telling Nyssa’s son, Adric, that he will never, ever see his mother ever again, and then we flashback to a point where Tegan is still kidnapped by space pirates (clearly everyone on board forgot how successful space pirates had been on the last attempt) and the TARDIS is crashing (what else?) down on the planet Apollyon.  Devoid of power and borrowing liberally from the sound effects bank (Cloister Bell? Check.  Dwindly-light sound from Death to the Daleks? Present), things are looking dark and bleak for our heroes, which only sets the tone for what is to come across the next 100-odd minutes.

Apollyon is a dying world, the people are celebrating the end of all things, and the only way out— a CVE leading to N-Space— is probably what’s going to kill everyone else, unless entropy does first.  Morris decides to make entropy more of a tangible threat than a few starts being blotted out ala Logopolis though, and so we get the Sandmen, the nipple-tastic monsters which grace the CD cover, who rather nightmarishly are the living embodiment of an old folk tale… or would be if they were nightmarish.  Instead, they mostly growl about dust a lot.  It’s a rare dropping of the ball by Morris, who usually milks his good ideas for all they’re worth, but this monster-of-the-week feels increasingly functional and not much beyond tokenistic.

In fact, The Entropy Plague is a rare case of Morris dropping the ball altogether, and giving us something that is just unremittingly bleak across its duration.  I understand that the collapse of an entire universe is no laughing matter, but there is no glimmer of happiness across the play.  We get pointless sacrifice, torture, threatened executions, families torn apart, separation and selfishness instead, and that’s nearly all in the opening episode.  By the time I reached the point where one of the guest cast is mercilessly put to death only to get a slight reprieve before killing themselves horribly and pointlessly, I found myself having to Google images of kittens to fully recall that not everything in this world is utterly horrendous.

No-one seems happy here.  The Doctor seems quite happy to let a universe die to escape, channelling Hartnell’s incarnation in many ways; Turlough sounds pained as situations confer to make him have to act selfishly; Tegan is placed in danger of death more often than one can count; and Nyssa seems to know that she is never going to see her family again even before the title music has properly faded and the first scene kicked in.

The story is at least open about Nyssa’s fate from the very off (until Big Finish perform a massive u-turn on it in a couple of years’ time, one suspects) and such a scenario warrants a certain gravity, but this goes beyond that, to the point where her departure feels almost by-the-bye in this world of utterly nasty things and occurrences and, despite an attempt at sweetening things with a monologue at the end, you’re left in no doubt that nobody is happy, no-one at all.  And why would they be in a world where everything is bloody awful?

Doctor Who is many things and has many faces, but it has rarely if ever been as grim and so utterly devoid of pleasure as this.  For me, Doctor Who is and always will be a children’s show.  I think there is room for more adult pursuits in these plays and comics and books and suchlike, but if the goalposts are shifted so far as to become unrecognizable as is the case here, and you lose any appeal to children whatsoever, then you can count me out.

There will be many, no doubt, who warm to this nihilistic take on the show and its truly adult no-kids-allowed vision, but I am not among them; it left me thoroughly cold and just wanting it to end from around three episodes in.  It takes more than just a TARDIS to make Doctor Who the show it is; I only hope that’s remembered in the future. 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Andrew Smith

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: January 2014

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online 

“Drawn off-course, the TARDIS passes through a CVE into a closed universe – a hugely improbable event with a tragically obvious cause. In order to escape inescapable E-Space, the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough are forced to venture in the wilds of planet Alzarius.

But they're not the only unwanted visitors to this strange world. A Starliner has landed, captained by Decider Merrion – but why would Merrion risk rousing the Planet that Slept, and the monsters in its marshes?

Mistfall is coming. The Marshmen are coming. But while Nyssa and Turlough find themselves caught in the open, in the hands of fanatics who model themselves on the legendary Outlers, the Doctor and Tegan discover that the supposedly secure Starliner affords them no protection from monsters both within and without...”

***

If there was any good thing to come from AudioGO’s demise (and ‘good’ is the wrong label to lose), then it was that timing led to the audiobook of Full Circle getting a release around the same time Mistfall was released by Big Finish (and frankly a novelisation-reading getting a fortuitous new release date is no compensation for everyone who lost their livelihood due to the company’s collapse).

Regardless though, the two releases fit snugly together as far from being a sequel to the televised version of Full Circle (though, erm, it is), Mistfall is really a follow-up to Andrew Smith’s own novelisation of his one and only television outing.  To quote myself (because no other bugger is ever going to) from my review of the novelisation in the fanzine Whotopia, Full Circle is:

A really rather lovely novelisation written by the young Andrew Smith from his own scripts.  What makes it such a winner is not so much the story, which is fine, but the obvious care and delicacy which has gone into writing this novelisation, with plenty of time given to delving into the Doctor’s thoughts and giving characters […] a depth which shows us a real desire to make this story the very best it can be.  There’s an almost tangible adoration– love, even– in this book, which grabbed and enthused me, even if the story isn’t the greatest ever told.

I hope you’ll forgive me for being indulgent and quoting myself as these same thoughts popped into my head upon listening to Mistfall: the greatest story ever told? No.  One which Smith is clearly enjoying writing? Yes! And not only that, one which makes good use of Doctor Who lore, most specifically Adric.  He may not be around, but his presence is felt, dragging people into E-Space and leaving a solemn shadow over people once it’s clear just where the TARDIS has landed.  Even the music feels indebted to Season Eighteen and the artful dodger that almost never artfully dodged.

Mistfall cracks along at a fair pace, clocking in as one of the shortest plays Big Finish have given us as part of the monthly range for a long time now, and whilst a lot of it focuses on people being a bit cranky in a spaceship, it also moves on the mythos of Mistfall and the Marshmen nicely, showing that Smith has a really solid idea of where his creations should have gone and of the world he devised back in the 1980s.

Whether returning to E-Space will prove to be anything more than a novelty for this current arc remains to be seen, but it works well enough here and it’s true to say that without it, this story could not have happened.  The ending also suggests a tighter continuation from story to story than we’ve seen for a while, so perhaps the setting will be fully justified across the next two releases.

I’m still not 100% sure on how I feel about Nyssa’s presence here after the events of Prisoners of Fate— for someone deeply regretting what they’ve done to their son, she hopped back on board the TARDIS fairly quickly, leaving him forever abandoned if the conclusion to that play is anything to go by.  It doesn’t feel very true to the character at all, but colour me at least intrigued as to how this trilogy is going to approach this.

Overall, Mistfall is not the best play I have ever heard, but it’s fair enough and a decent start to the year’s releases, and as always, it’s lovely to hear what Andrew Smith has to offer. 

Finally, a word on the cover art.  It’s not secret that I personally know Will Brooks, diarist for this very website and co-writer of a book with me, but I did want to, from a neutral, appreciative standpoint, highlight the frankly gorgeous cover for this play which he has designed.  It’s the first since 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men to really grab my attention, and makes a very nice change in pace to the usual one-alien-and-a-handful-of-generic-headshots approach which has dogged many releases lately, promising a return to more experimental and/or arresting covers such as that for Phantoms of the Deep, and indeed many of that series of Fourth Doctor Adventures before they returned to the (in my opinion) disappointingly repetitive Photoshop affairs.  The cover for next month’s E-Space adventure, Equilibrium, is equally pretty, so touch wood for even more from Brooks in the future. (He can pay me for the good vibes later.)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 650: The Caves of Androzani, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I’ve been banging on for the last couple of days about the way the Doctor is being put through the wringer in this story, and this final episode doesn’t disappoint in holding that tradition up! I love that we spend the full episode with him in a state so unlike we’re used to seeing - with a cut on his head, and his costume caked in mud and blood. The Doctor has never looked so out of his depth and lost before, but by the same token, he’s never looked this determined, either. This really has to be Peter Davison’s finest hour in the role - do you remember through Season Nineteen, when I used to track the way his performance was evolving while he worked out how to play the part? He’s been on good form for ages now, but this episode is probably where it really clicks for him… just in time for him to die!

I’ve not really mentioned the direction of this story all that much so far, because I’ve been waiting to bring it up at the end here. Grahame Harper remains the only director who worked on the ‘classic’ series who came back to do work on the 21st century version, too. It’s not hard to see why when you’re watching something like The Caves of Androzani, and you can really see the skill that he’s putting into everything. There’s no end of little moments that I could pick out - like the scene in Episode One where Morgus has a conversation with Chellak on a kind of video screen. It’s almost become the bread-and-butter of futuristic Doctor Who stories, and we’ve seen characters video-conferencing like this since the Hartnell days of the programme, but Harper has managed to find a new and unique way of shooting it - including the back of Chellak’s head for reverse-shots! As I say, a simple thing, but something which really does stand out as being different.

Then there’s today’s episode, and particularly the chase of the Doctor across the barren landscape. It’s possibly the finest moment of the story, and I have to admit that I was gripped throughout. Thankfully, Harper manages to then take this interest and hold it in place for the rest of the episode. When the Doctor’s journeying through the tunnels to find the bat’s milk, it feels tense. In the back of my mind, I know there’s not long left in the episode, and we’ve still got to fit the regeneration in there somewhere… there’s a real energy to it and it almost makes you feel a bit sick, just knowing how much the Doctor is up against the clock. Truly, masterfully done.

Of course, though, the crowning moment comes in the form of the regeneration. As with all of them throughout the programme’s run, I’ve seen this scene more times than I’ve seen any individual episode of Doctor Who. Every line, and ever beat of every line, is burnt onto my memory. That said, it really is no substitute for watching the action in context - not only with the rest of the story, but the 649 days that have led me to this moment. I’ve already praised Davison’s performance today, but it really does bear repeating - because his absolute finest moment comes as he lay dying on the floor here.

There’s been debates for years about how the Big Finish audios giving Peri more adventures with the Fifth Doctor between Planet of Fire and this story can lessen the impact that he’s given his life to save this girl he’s only just met. I have to admit that I prefer the idea that they’ve not spent much time together, but it’s because I think the Doctor is feeling incredibly bitter here. There’s one exchange in particular which has always felt a little bit scary to me:

PERI
Where is it?

DOCTOR
What?

PERI
The bat's milk!

DOCTOR
Finished. Only enough for you.

There’s a hint - just the tiniest hint - of resentment in the way that Davison delivers that final line. There’s almost shades of the Tenth Doctor’s rage at having to give his life to save Wilf, having already survived saving the entire world. It’s not explicit, and I think that works to its advantage - the Fifth Doctor isn’t a man who would outwardly resent having to give his life for another person. Indeed, of all the Doctors to date, I think he’s the one who would most willingly do so to save another (just take Mawdryn Undead as an example, where he refuses to give up his remaining regenerations, until he knows that Nyssa and Tegan are in danger), but still, I like that in his final seconds, he’s allowed to have just that tiny bit of anger, just tucked away under the surface.

Speaking of Nyssa and Tegan… here they are! And Turlough, Kameleon, and Adric, too! This is my favourite example of the classic companions coming back to hall will the Doctor on into his new life, and there’s something really rather poignant about Adric being there, and being the Doctor’s final word. It’s great to see them all again - albeit briefly - and I love the way that they all pop up out of his mouth! The Master puts in an appearance, also, and he’s possibly never been more terrifying than he is here! willing the Doctor to his death… yeah, that’s rather smart.

And that’s it! The Fifth Doctor has taken his final bow, and we’re off on some more colourful adventures with the Sixth Doctor from tomorrow. It’s all change, again, and it’s… well, it’s come around rather quickly! You’ll find my ‘Fifth Doctor Overview’ post further up the news page here on Doctor Who Online. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 650 Extra: Fifth Doctor Overview

Dear diary,

We’ve reached a turning point for the marathon with the Fifth Doctor. Hartnell, Troughton, and Pertwee all have a similar number of episodes, so they each take about the same amount of time to complete at the pace of an episode each day. Tom Baker comes along and really up the ante by having around 50 episodes more to sit through, so he ends up taking even longer to watch. Then you reach Peter Davison, and things drop right off. He’s been around less than three months for me, and that’s simply unheard of. Worse still, from here on out, things don’t get much better! Colin Baker’s only going to be with us for the next month or so, and Sylvester McCoy for a month after that… McGann’s only here for one night, and even when we reach the new series, there’s only a fortnight of Eccleston! In short: it feels really strange to be writing a Doctor Overview post so soon after writing the last one - it feels like I’ve hardly gotten to know the Fifth Doctor.

That’s not to say that I haven’t enjoyed having him around, though. If anything, the last three seasons have chimed with my inner child more than anything else that I’ve watched for this marathon so far. That’s not to say that they were always perfect (they weren’t, as some of my scores will attest), but they covered topics and locations that I know I would have lapped up at the ages of eight or nine. This particular incarnation, the people who travelled with him, everything about this period of the programme just feels so right for me.

We kicked off with Season Nineteen - which has come out with the highest average rating of Davison’s three seasons for me, at 6.96. I think it’s fair to say that the season was helped massively by the fact that Kinda received a full-on ’10/10’ for one episode, the first score that high I’ve given out since Genesis of the Daleks right back at the start of Tom’s time in the TARDIS. That said, Earthshock fared rather well with me, and even stories like Four to Doomsday, which I’d never given a second thought to, were right up my street.

Season Twenty was the one I was looking lest forward to, and I think that comes across in the scores. It averaged just 6.18, which puts it in last place for the Fifth Doctor. I don’t think there was any real stand out classic for that season, even though Mawdryn Undead fared well with me, and that’s a shame. General reaction seems to be that Enlightenment is the great one from that year, but it simply didn’t really work for me - certainly one to try again in the future, I think. The weight of the Black Guardian trilogy bearing down on it just took away from the story I wanted to enjoy. Just as an aside, I’ve not included The Five Doctors as part of Season Twenty - that one sits out on its own, just as it did on broadcast.

Then we get to Season Twenty-One, and what feels like a real shot in the arm for the programme. This is the first time since the 1960s that I’ve been looking at a season average while I’m still working through that run of stories - with The Twin Dilemma finishing up the year from tomorrow. We’re back up to an average of 6.7 so far, but that could obviously change after the next few days. I’ve really been enjoying Season Twenty-One, especially stories like Frontios, which really grabbed my attention. I have a feeling that there may be some grumbles about the fact that The Caves of Androzani hasn’t come out on top for me - I enjoyed it a lot, but I just liked a couple of other Davison stories better! 

The Sixth Doctor is likely to fly by - it’s only another month or so until I’ll be writing another one of these ‘overview’ posts! He comes in for a lot of stick in Doctor Who fandom, but I have to say that I’ve been really looking forward to reaching this period. I’ve seen all of his stories before, and I’ve always enjoyed them, but I’m excited to see how they fare in the context of all the other stories I’ve been watching. Here’s hoping they still stay strong in my mind!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 649: The Caves of Androzani, Episode Three

Dear diary,

There’s a special feature on the DVD for The War Games all about regeneration in Doctor Who. It’s one of those features that you’d watch once and that’s it - I’ve been a fan of the programme long enough, and I know all there is to know about a topic like regeneration. Except, I’m not all that familiar with The Caves of Androzani, I’d never watched it properly before, and thus I’d never noticed that the Doctor doesn’t start his regeneration by laying on the floor of the TARDIS console room, with Peri leaning over him… he starts it here. It’s Clayton Hickman who points it out in the documentary:

”You get a fore-shadowing of his regeneration at the end of Part Three. Just when he’s trying to steal that spaceship, he starts looking at the stars, and you get the sort of Quantel-y regeneration thing coming towards him and he fights it off! So you’ve got a whole episode of Peter Davison surviving just so he can save Peri. It’s not flagged up - there’s no fan fare - it’s just him refusing to die until he’s saved his friend. That’s Davison all over.”

I have to admit that I really love this. Once it’s been pointed out, you can’t un-see it, and it does add a whole new layer to the Fifth Doctor’s departure. I’m also loving just how much this Doctor is being put through the wringer before he’s allowed to bow out. I’ve already touched on it in the last couple of days, but here we’ve got the Doctor being smacked by Sharaz Jek, abused by the gun runners, still in a lot of pain from the slow death of his infection, and now he’s crashing in to a planet! It’s fair to say that he’s really going out in style!

On the whole, I’m finding a lot to really love in The Caves of Androzani (and much of that does continue to come down to Robert Holmes’ way with scripts), but I can’t let it go by without mentioning the Magma Beast that provided the cliffhanger from yesterday’s episode in to today’s. I’ve seen it pointed out as the one flaw in an otherwise perfect story, and it has to be said that it really isn’t good, is it? Even Grahame Harper’s direction isn’t able to save it. I’m sort of surprised that it doesn’t get picked up on more ‘worst monster’ lists, with things like the Myrka, the Nimon, and the Gastropods.

And while it’s not a fault of the story, I feel the need to make note of how awful the subtitles on this DVD are. Not the ‘Information Text’ ones, but just the regular programme subtitles. I’ve taken to keeping them on while watching episodes, because they come in handy when working out how to spell a character’s name, or hearing some of the less audible parts of the dialogue. On the whole they never bear talking about because they simply do a good job of transcribing what’s happening on screen… but they’re appalling on this story, and have been since Episode One. There’s several lines that have been missed out completely or altered (changing the meaning in at least one case!), and in today’s episode they twice manage to get the planets ‘Major’ and ‘Minor’ the wrong way round! A shame, because the quality is usually rather higher!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 648: The Caves of Androzani, Episode Two

Dear diary,

We’ve not had Robert Holmes writing for Doctor Who since The Power of Kroll, an absolute age back. Indeed, we’re in a period of the programme’s history where writers from the older seasons aren’t as welcome any more. It has to be said that Kroll didn’t really fare all that well with me (a victim, I think, of The Key to Time series being a bit of a slog - I was just a bit burnt out), but before that, he kicked that year off with The Ribos Operation, which I enjoyed a lot more. Something that I praised there was Holmes’ ability to build convincing worlds, and to populate them with believable characters and situations.

There’s certainly that skill on show again in The Caves of Androzani, and it shows up far more today than it did yesterday. Here, we’re presented with two planets, and it feels as though the stories the Doctor and Peri have wandered in to are truly fleshed-out. I can understand Jek’s motivations for prolonging this war, because we’ve seen first-hand just how despicable Morgus can be. In the first episode, cutting away to the man in his office, staring straight down the camera, felt like a distraction from the story I wanted to be watching, but here I can really appreciate the role it plays in building this society - his interactions with the president are simply fantastic. I particularly enjoy this exchange;

MORGUS
Those without valid employment cards will be shipped off to the eastern labour camps.

PRESIDENT
Of course, the irony is while you've been closing plants here in the west, you've been building them in the east. So if the unemployed were sent to the eastern labour camps, a great many of them would be working for you again, only this time without payment.

MORGUS
I hadn't thought of that.

PRESIDENT
Of course you hadn't.

It’s hugely revealing of the way the system works in this world, and it’s all crafted so beautifully into just a few short lines. I’ve condensed the conversation above, to spare the space on the page here, but the heart of the conversation is preserved, and wonderful.

I think it’s also telling that everyone in this world is operating selfishly, and you sort of take a dislike to them all… apart from Jek! He’s acting out of pure hatred and revenge for what’s happened in the past, while Morgus is helping to line his own pockets with the above exchange, and Chellak is willing to send his men on ‘deep penetration’ missions in order to save face in front of his superiors. This is a harsh world, where people look out for themselves, and it seems fitting for Season Twenty-One’s darker tone.

Speaking of which… we get a rather nice description today of the Fifth Doctor’s final few hours, as Salateen describes the effects of Spectrox Toxaemia is great detail. I love that this description comes as we’re already seeing the Doctor and Peri experiencing some of the effects, and knowing that this is the Fifth Doctor’s final adventure adds even more poignancy to the situation - we know he’s going to be dying soon anyway, so it’s a shame to see it come in the form of such a slow and painful infection. All the previous Doctors have gone out simply through events in their final episodes (Hertnell is perhaps the one exemption, as he’s been weakening throughout The Tenth Planet, but it’s not really until the end that the energy drain really affects him), so as the Doctor himself will go on to note later in the story, it ‘feels different this time’. The sweetest of all the Doctors is the one who has to endure the most drawn-out demise. 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 647: The Caves of Androzani, Episode One

Dear diary,

Right then! It feels like an age since I’ve had the chance to say this, but The Caves of Androzani is one of those Doctor Who stories that people always cite as being an absolute ‘classic’. A full-on, 10/10. In 2009, it was even voted the number one story out of the programme’s first 200, by the readers of Doctor Who Magazine. I’ve seen it before, mostly, and I have to admit that I didn’t really find it much better or worse than any other tale. I can hear you sharpening your pitchforks now. I’m hoping that on this occasion, I’ll finally understand just what all the fuss is about, and even though it means saying goodbye to Peter Davison, I’ll admit that I’ve been looking forward to reaching this point.

I think the highlight in today’s episode has to be the cliffhanger. Or, rather, the cliffhangers. They just keep piling up at the end here, don’t they? Not in a bad way, where it feels like the episode just needs to end already (which is a problem I had with Enlightenment), but in the sense that the situation just gets more and more unavoidable. The Doctor and Peri are in a cell, awaiting execution, when suddenly… a door slides open and someone is watching them! Cliffhanger? Not yet. The guards come to the cell to retrieve the pair, and it appears to be empty, but the camera pulls back, and our heroes haven’t managed to escape! Cliffhanger? Not yet. The Doctor and Peri are lined up before a firing squad and say their final words, before the hoods are pulled over their faces. Cliffhanger? Not yet.

That’s really the point, because in any other Doctor Who story, that moment would be the cliffhanger. Our leads would make their final declarations, the squad would take aim, prepare to fire, and just as the order comes… we’d crash into the closing titles. At the start of the next episode, we’d get a reprise followed swiftly by someone bursting into the room to delay the execution. Or something would cause a distraction, giving time for the Doctor and Peri to make a run for it. Something would come along at just the right second to spare their lives. Here, though, we’re really kept guessing, because we close on the shot of the guns firing. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know how they escape this cliffhanger, but it doesn’t lessen the impact one jolt - it’s a striking way to close the episode, and shows that they’re really not letting Davison’s Doctor go out easily…

Elsewhere… are we still abroad? Planet of Fire took us all the way to Lanzarote to film the vistas of Sarn, but here we’re back in the UK… and we might as well be in Lanzarote! I meant to bring up yesterday how much better the location work was in that episode compared to some of the earlier ones (the smoking landscape, though artificially created, looks fantastic), but then we’ve got something almost as impressive here, too. It looks like we’ve got glass shots in place again to help give some extra scale to this week’s quarry, but it allows for some gorgeous wide shots of the Doctor and peri as they explore their new surroundings. You get the same sense of open space (perhaps even more so) that going all the way out to Lanzarote gave us, but done at home! I’ve often thought of this story and the last one as having very similar landscapes, but looking at it here, I can see how wrong I was on that count. It’s similar in scope, but has a completely different feel to Sarn, and I’m really impressed by it!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 646: Planet of Fire, Episode Four

Dear diary,

The Master stands surrounded by flame as the healing energies are replaced with fierce nature

THE MASTER
Help me! I'll give you anything in creation. Please! Won't you show mercy to your own… Argh!!!

Oh, of course I was going to have to bring this up today. Along with the introduction of Peri, the departure of Turlough, and the fact that it was filmed abroad, this is the thing everyone knows about Planet of Fire. They were finally going to reveal that the Master is the Doctor’s brother! Do you know, it’s been so long since I last saw this story that in my head it was far more… explicit. The way the line is spoken in my head makes it sound much more as though he’s been cut off, but Anthony Ainley’s delivery doesn’t quite have the same effect - it’s more stilted. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that the Doctor and the Master are siblings. It just seems too neat somehow, and I much prefer the idea that they’re friends and contemporaries. Indeed, I rather like the thought that one of them ran away from Gallifrey first, and the other followed suit because they were always trying to keep up with their cooler friend. I can’t quite decide who went first, but I love not knowing. It’s a little piece of mystery in my own head canon, and I enjoy that.

I’m not enjoying Planet of Fire as much, though, I’m sad to say. Right the way through, the story has simply failed to connect with me, and it’s hovered around a fairly average score. Today is no exemption. While there’s plenty in here that should be appealing to me… it simply isn’t. I’m not overly bothered by the plight of the people on this world, and I don’t really care about the struggles they have to go through to get to the end.

Where I am interested is when we get all of Turlough’s background. Because I’m coming to all of this some thirty years later, I know that Turlough is from Trion, and a prisoner following a bitter civil war. What surprises me is just how much all of that only gets invented here. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I’d convinced myself that little hints had been drip-fed to us right through Turlough’s time in the TARDIS, but really, this is the only mention we’ve had that he’s an alien since his arrival… and even there it’s not made all that explicit! In many ways, I should be complaining that all of this comes as an info dump in his final episode, but I really like everything we’re told, so I’m willing to completely overlook that fact. I’ll miss having Turlough (and Mark Strickson) in the programme, though, because he’s been a highlight in several stories lately!

Still, we’ve got the arrival of Peri well and truly started now. I’d forgotten (are you sensing a theme here? Lots of Planet of Fire simply failed to stick in the mind!) that she actively asks to come along with the Doctor, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that evolves over the next two stories. What a time to join the ship! It seems an odd decision to want to tag along, mind, considering she’s had relatively little time with the Doctor so far - though they get some great time together today - and she’s spent most of the episode being threatened and running around Lanzarote trying to keep alive! I can’t fault her enthusiasm, and after a fair old stretch with Tegan in the show (much as I loved her), this comes as a real breath of fresh air.

There’s change coming…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 645: Planet of Fire, Episode Three

Dear diary,

The Master’s… situation in Planet of Fire might just be the most ridiculous one he’s ever caught up in. I’ve already mocked it more than once during the course of The 50 Year Diary, and I’m sure I’ll end up mocking it again (probably tomorrow, if I’m honest). That said, the cliffhanger for today’s episode, in which Peri opens up Kameleon’s ‘Control Box’ to find a miniature Master inside, is so ridiculous and stupid… that I can’t help but love it! I think it’s almost one of those situations where something is so bad that it actually ends up twisting back round to ‘good’ again.

In fairness, I’ve rather enjoyed the Master in a lot of this story so far. He’s certainly coming across better than he did in The King’s Demons or Time-Flight. There’s something really wonderful about the fact that the Doctor is trying to convince these people to follow his advice and to help him, while making a point of telling them that he’s not the ‘Chosen One’ they’ve been waiting for. The Master (or the Kameleon-Master), on the other hand, strolls into the room and immediately starts playing the part of the man they’re expecting. I love the way he raises his arm and starts to give a sermon akin to an over-the-top preacher as he orders the Doctor to be put to the flame. It’s times like this that the Master is at his very best (it’s just a pity that it ends up undercut by the fact that he needs helping out of a box… What do you know, I didn’t even have to wait until tomorrow to mock it again!)

It feels quite monumental, too, that we’re seeing Anthony Ainley’s final confrontation with the Fifth Doctor. Back when Ainley first appeared in the programme, I commented that having him work against four different incarnations robbed him of the ‘mirror image’ effect that we had with Pertwee and Delgardo. Those two were perfectly matched - both a little pompous and arrogant, both entirely convinced that they’re right… there’s so many instances that I flagged up while watching where they’re simply made for each other as ‘Hero’ and ‘Villain’. Ainley has already fought the Fourth Doctor (and even caused his demise, indirectly), and yet I’ve grown to think of him as being very much the Peter Davison Master. I’m wondering how I’ll find him in the next few seasons, when forced to go up against Colin? Certainly, at the time, I believe this was planned to be the end of the character at least for a while, and it’s sort of a shame that they ended up bringing him back so swiftly.

Also worth mentioning - the Master’s outfit in this story. When I think of the 80’s Master, I think of the velvet outfit that he’s most famous for. He gets a few variations (most notably in this story and in Survival), but it’s usually confined to being that one standard ‘costume’. It’s amazing how much swapping him out into a suit for his appearance as Kameleon helps, though! It really looks good as an outfit for the Master, and it feels so much nicer than the one he usually has to wear. I’ve seen people complain that the action figure of this Master is technically a figure of Kameleon in a suit… but I’m somewhat glad it’s the one we’ve got!

It was only during today’s episode, too, that I’ve noticed the Doctor’s outfit! You’d think, after two-and-a-half season of seeing him so often with his jacket and jumper on, that his appearance here would make more of an impact. In fact, it genuinely washed over me until today. I think it’s because this is another one of those useless facts you build up as a Who fan - I know this is what he wears for the story, so my brain doesn’t bother to kick in when I see it! As a costume, I think it works for the Doctor, and I like how much more relaxed it makes him seem. Having Turlough out of the school uniform makes it really look like the pair are on holiday, and I think I rather like that!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 644: Planet of Fire, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I’m not sure what the general consensus is on Peri as a character, but I really do love the way she’s being introduced in this story. With the Doctor and Turlough off having their own adventure for much of today’s episode, and Peri stranded on her own with the Kameleon-Master, it feels almost as though she’s waiting in the wings for Turlough to up and leave, before she can take her place as one of the programme’s leads. I’ve never noticed how strange this period of the programme is, with three consecutive stories ending with the departure of a lead cast member… it’s really starting to hammer home to me now that things are all change once more! I’d also like to highlight some of my favourite dialogue for Peri ever, and a line that I often find myself quoting to people completely out of context for no real reason:

KAMELEON (IN THE FORM OF THE MASTER)
You will obey me…

PERI
No.

KAMELEON (IN THE FORM OF THE MASTER)
I am the Master!

PERI
So what? I'm Perpugilliam Brown and I can shout just as loud as you can.

I love that she’s not taking any of the Master’s grandiose rubbish - as far as she’s concerned, he’s just a slightly shonky robot who isn’t particularly friendly. I must admit, in the past, I’ve found it hard to wrap my head around Kameleon’s role in this story, because even the cast don’t always seem to be entirely sure when someone is playing their original character, or the Kameleon copy of them. There’s a moment in today’s episode, where a piece of rubble falls onto Kameleon-in-the-form-of-the-Master’s head, and when he gets up again, he gives the bump on his head a little rub as if he’d just knocked it against something a little light. In some ways, it seems to give the impression that it’s only a tiny bump to a robot like Kameleon, but Anthony Ainley plays it far more ‘organic’ than that!

On the whole, I’m really not sure what to make of Planet of Fire. I had memories of it being a story which isn’t really here-or-there, and it didn’t leave any real impact on me. I don’t know if it’s simply that I’m waiting for the new era to kick in (and the fact that the next story has been voted the all-time-number-one Doctor Who adventure before now probably doesn’t help!), but I’m just not all that bothered by anything that’s happening here. We’ve come all the way out to Lanzarote (a location which still isn’t really being used to it’s best potential), we’ve got the annual return of the Master, the introduction of a new companion, a volcano about to erupt… and I’m just a bit bored by it all. I’m hoping that things can pick up in the next episode, because with so little Peter Davison left in the series - and having enjoyed the rest of this season quite a lot - I want to really get the most out of the Fifth Doctor while I can!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 643: Planet of Fire, Episode One

Dear diary,

I’ve always thought that Nicola Bryant did quite well, joining the series here. Her very first story takes her out to Lanzarote for filming! It’s a far cry from Janet Fielding being introduced to the programme on the side of the Barnet Bypass! I’m going to have to mention Peri’s… arrival in the story, so I may as well get it out of the way quickly! It has to be said that the famous bikini shot is quite a departure for the programme! I often end up saying ‘we’ve never had anything quite like this in the programme before…’, but that’s very true in this instance! I’d somehow got myself to thinking that it was out first shot of Peri in the series, so I was quite surprised to see her given more clothes and character in several scenes before this one! I’d also forgotten how bratty Peri comes across in this episode, but I rather like that. By the time we reach Season Twenty-Three, we’ll have seen her grow up considerably, so I’m looking forward to watching the character grow over the next couple of seasons - we’ve got a great place to start from!

While I’m on the subject of companions… Kamelion is back! This is one of those times where I knew he was in the story (and played quite a major part), and I knew this as recently as yesterday… but completely forgot today until he started screaming out in agony! It’s a real shame that he’s been completely ignored since the end of The King’s Demons, because the Doctor’s cry of concern for the android here comes across almost as though he’s remembered that the thing exists. It would have been nicer to have a brief appearance from Kamelion in each of this year’s stories (there was one cut from The Awakening - I meant to watch the scene at the time, but got too caught up in the war games and forgot!), even if he was just plugged into the console and offered advice, or sarcastic K9-esque comments to the rest of the TARDIS crew. As it is, I don’t really care that he’s in any pain here, and I worry that it won’t make much of an impact on me as the story continues and we see him go through his final hours.

I’ve already mentioned the Lanzarote filming briefly today, but I can’t quite decide if it’s a good idea or not. On the one hand, it does provide some lovely locations - Peri out on the boat looks far more effective than it would have done being shot off the coast of England - but it’s not being treated as the focal point I’d expect. Our opening shot today, as two characters make their way across some rocky terrain, doesn’t try to give us a real cope of the vistas behind them; it lets them start to creep into shot as we follow their actions, but then cuts away before we can get a real decent look. For all it matters, this could have been shot in any old quarry!

I’m also struggling to keep on top of which location is meant to be where. The production team really got their money’s worth out of the trip abroad here, by having the island appear as itself and the planet of Sarn, but it’s causing me no end of problems. This is most noticeable when we cut from Peri out on the boat, to two of our Sarn… people, looking out over a body of water from atop a peak. There’s no indication that this is supposed to be a different body of water to the one we’ve just seen Peri in, and I can’t help but think that either Sarn would look better contrasted against something like a flat, grey, London locale, or Lanzerote would look better crossed with an alien planet filmed here in the UK. I’m hoping that the distinction might become more clear as the episodes roll by…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 642: Resurrection of the Daleks, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Fanboy that I am, I can’t help but enjoy taking this episode, and retroactively inserting modern Time War continuity in to it. The Daleks’ plan here is to duplicate the Doctor (and his companions, because they wisely understand that the Doctor needs companions or he’ll look a bit… off), and then dispatch the clones to Gallifrey to assassinate the High Council of the Time Lords. Let’s be honest, it’s not exactly hard to try and view this as an early shot of the Time War, is it? In fact, this feels now like the first retaliation for the events in Genesis of the Daleks, where the Doctor was tasked specifically with wiping out the Daleks before they have a chance to become… well… the creatures we know and love to hate.

I also don’t think it’s hard to read the Doctor’s actions here as being aware that this could be the start of an almighty war. Once he knows what’s going on, and finds out where Davros is, he decided that he needs to go and put a stop to it all. There’s something almost brutal (and in keeping with this story) about the way he simply announces that he’s off to kill Davros, and then ruminates on the fact that he ‘held back’ once before when he could have put a stop to things. There’s a few more instances to come in the ‘classic’ series yet which can be seen as part of the Time War, but we’ve now got the aforementioned Genesis, The Invasion of Time (which I decided was the Sontarans ‘auditioning’ for a part in the battle), and this story. It’s fitting that the universe the Doctor’s in this season should be that little bit darker, and that little bit less safe.

Especially fitting, in fact, because it’s this kind of thing that prompts Tegan to make a decision and leave the Doctor behind. I must admit - I love Tegan’s departure. We’ve never had a companion exit quite like this before, in which they actively decide that they’ve had enough of the Doctor’s lifestyle and they want out. Usually, they’re off to better things, leaving for love, or a chance to get back home, or because they’ve found a new family. Tegan leaves because everything’s gotten a bit nastier of late. There’s certainly a feeling of this over the last few stories - In Warriors of the Deep, there should have been another way. The Awakening puts another one of her relatives in danger. Even Frontios takes its toll. I sort of with that they’d fed in a little bit more of this over the last few tales, knowing that she was on the way out.

For years and years, I’ve seen people complain that Tegan was a rubbish companion because she never wanted to be there in the TARDIS. It’s one of those things that you sort of subconsciously take in as part of your Doctor Who knowledge. I have to admit, though, that she’s been far less whiny than I was expecting. Yes, she spends some of Season Nineteen trying to get back to Heathrow, but when an adventure arose, she was able to jump in and be a vital part of the team. I have to say that I’ve really loved Tegan as a companion, and it’s surprising just how quickly her departure has come around. She’s moved a good few places up my list of favourite companions, and I’m going to be sorry to see her go. I’d like to take one final chance to heap some praise on Janet Fielding, too. She’s been fantastic in the part, and her final scene here is simply wonderful. Oh, Tegan, I shall miss you!

Today’s episode, while still a bloodbath, has been quite enjoyable. There’s some lovely direction on show (Tegan being chased by the fake policemen is home to probably the best shots of the story, especially as she tries to escape down a flight of steps towards the river), and I’m glad that Matthew Robinson will be back next series to helm the return of another popular monster. I can’t remember a great deal about Attack of the Cybermen, but I don’t think it’s quite as bleak as this one has been! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 641: Resurrection of the Daleks, Episode One

Dear diary,

Today feels extra special. It’s the start of a new story, the return of the Daleks after a five-year absence from the programme (brief cameo in The Five Doctors notwithstanding), Tegan’s final story, and it’s almost double-length! Yes, I’m going to be watching Resurrection of the Daleks in the 45-minute version that it was shown in on first broadcast (altered because of the BBC’s screening of the Winter Olympics, I think?). I’m not doing it this way because I’m trying to go for exact historical accuracy in this marathon, but more for nostalgic reasons. Having rented Invasion of the Dinosaurs from the local library in the autumn of 2003, my interest in Doctor Who had been sufficiently piqued. I’d rented out a few more tapes of the series (and for an idea of the effect that they had on me, I can’t remember which ones they were…), and had a read up online. I knew, therefore, that the Doctor’s greatest foes were the Cybermen… and the Daleks.

The first two DVDs of the programme that I purchased therefore were this story and The Tomb of the Cybermen, because I thought that they would give me a good idea about these two most famous of villains. I also wonder if this initial choice made an impact on the fact that I’ve always been more at home with 1960s and 1980s Doctor Who than the 1970s stuff that goes on in the middle? The original DVD release of this story came out with the as-broadcast two episodes, so that’s how I remember experiencing this tale the first time around. I’ve seen it maybe twice more since then, and I’ve been really looking forward to reaching it in the marathon.

There’s certainly a lot to like about this opening episode, isn’t there? We open with that gorgeous shot of the warehouses, the girders overhead, and then pan in to a man lighting up a cigarette. Already, thanks to the direction, there’s something somewhat eerie about all of this… and then a bunch of people dressed in ‘futuristic’ clothes come running in terror from one of the buildings, pursued by a group of policemen, who proceed to shoot them down… and take out the man with the cigarette too, just for good measure. I think I’m right in saying that Resurrection of the Daleks has the highest on-screen body count of any Doctor Who serial, and this opening scene certainly sets that stock out early on.

From there, the episode doesn’t let up, and I think the crowning moment is probably the crew of a space-prison setting up a barricade to fight from behind as the Daleks come blasting aboard the station. It’s the first time that we’ve ever seen the Daleks treated in such a manner - dropping them in to the kind of ‘gritty’ and ‘macho’ science fiction that was popular in the 1980s. The last time we saw them, in Destiny of the Daleks, they were trundling round a quarry and trying to save Davros from bombs. Here, they come gliding through the safety barrier and into the ambush, where they immediately manage to dispatch a couple of their opposition.

But then we get a couple of Dalek casualties, too! Seeing the two blown up in the entrance to the airlock is lovely, as is the way that reinforcements come along and just push these shells out of the way when recommencing the attack. And then you’ve got the destruction of the Dalek in the warehouse - which we get to see pushed out of a second-floor window and explode as it hits the street below. As if that weren’t enough, you then get the terror of the Dalek mutant, too, which prompts even the Doctor to take up arms. This certainly isn’t your standard Dalek tale.

Quite often, people talk about Eric Saward’s scripts for the programme being very bleak. This is, I think, the first time that we’ve really been able to see that in action - it’s certainly a lot bleaker than The Visitation was, and you can sort of track the through line from Earthshock to here. This is Saward taking the same starting point, and just really feeling free to go all out with it. I don’t think I’d want Doctor Who to be like this all the time, but having this type of tale peppered through the programme now and then is always nice, just to break things up a little. It’ll help make Tegan’s decision to go in tomorrow’s episode all the more relatable.

Today is also the first appearance of Terry Molloy as Davros. He’ll be seeing us through another two Dalek tales after this one, and I have to admit that I’m a fan of this ‘incarnation’ of the villain. I’d imagine it’s probably because I was first introduced to the character through Molloy’s portrayal (I’d seen all of his stories in the roll long before seeing either Wisher or Gooderson fill the part), and also because I’ve had the provalidge of seeing Terry give a performance first hand. When I was studying for my degree, we had to make a lot of short films, each one showing off a different technical aspect of film-making. For one of the pieces, we had to put together a trailer.

Of course, I decided to go ahead and create a Doctor Who trailer. We could only use footage that we’d created ourselves, though, so I set about getting shots in various locations that could be used. The crowning moment of the trailer was to be the TARDIS arriving, the door opening, and the light spilling out to illuminate Davros, sat alone in a dark space, ruminating on the mistakes he’s made in life. I wrote a short piece, and Terry was kind enough to come along and record it for me (in the back room of the shop I worked in at the time!). Just hearing him deliver the lines in a cold and calculating way (a performance honed by years of working with Big Finish, I’d guess, because it was incredibly subtle and nuanced, was a real joy, and when he finally broke out in to full on ‘rant’ mode… absolutely beautiful. For an hour afterwards, Terry crouched down behind the original Davros mask and operated the mouth, while I took shots of various angled and we synched it to the dialogue. It was something of an odd day, but a real highlight of the degree!

There’s a lot to like in Davros’ revival here, but it’s not quite as good as I remembered it. One of my favourite shots in this serial is the big ‘cryogenic chamber’ lifting up, and the smoke pouring out around Davros, revealing the scientist. I’d remembered it being the big introduction of Davros to the story, and thought that the chamber had appeared entirely filled with smoke up to then. Actually, though, he’s visible in the background of shots for ages before that happens, and it does lessen his arrival into the story. It reduces him to simply being a bit of the furniture that happens to be there, as opposed to exciting me about his return. I’m also somewhat baffled by his musing that he’d have loved to have seen the war between the Daleks and the Movellans… but he did! In his last story! Ninety years in suspension has obviously been playing a little with the grey matter! 

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 640: Frontios, Episode Four

Dear diary,

I really love the image of the TARDIS here, embedded in to the rock. It’s such a striking image, and it’s another one of those ones I can recall seeing long before I had a chance to watch this story, and it’s always stuck with me. Even the effect of the TARDIS being pulled back together looks fab - it’s a simple case of fading between two shots, but something about it just really works for me. As you can probably tell, I’m going to be raving about this episode a little bit more today!

Frontios is a tale which doesn’t really get a great deal of attention. It’s not often talked about, it just sort of exists as a part of this season. Even though I know I like it from a previous viewing, I tend to forget that it’s even here, so it’s lovely to watch it again now and find that it can really hit the right notes for me. It feels confident, it looks stunning, and there’s a great story at the heart of it. When we talk about showing stories to people as an attempt to interest them in Doctor Who, there’s a few candidates that always crop up - City of Death is normally in the number one spot. I think that Frontios might be a good addition to the list, though! There’s perhaps a little bit of continuity in the fact that the Gravis thinks the Doctor has been sent to spy on events here, but so long as someone sitting down to watch knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord, you’re good to go!

Certainly, I think this is the strongest ‘space’ tale that we’ve has for a long time. I gone on at length over the last few days about how good the sets look, but it does bear repeating one final time here, because they’re stunning. I don’t think there’s a single set which doesn’t work for me, from the tunnels to the surface, they all have a very strong identity, and they’ve managed to really get the hang of that ‘battered future’ look that’s been creeping into the series for a while. This is a far cry from the sterile white corridors of the Nerva beacon - and while that set was gorgeous in its own way, this is just as beautiful - if not more so - in a completely different direction.

Director Ron Jones will be helming stories in the next two seasons, and I’m suddenly very much looking forward to seeing them. Everything here feels like such a step up from his previous efforts on the series, and I really can’t deduce what’s happened between Arc of Infinity and this story to warrant such an upswing in quality. He was never a bad director, but he’s never before made the impact on me that he has here. I’m hoping he can keep it up!

Someone who won’t be returning, though, is Christopher H Bidmead. I’ve not really discussed him a great deal in this marathon - despite the fact that he script-edited Season Eighteen, which did rather well in my scores - but it’s nice to see him bowing out of the programme on such a high. I think it’s fair to say that this is a far better script than Castrovalva was, and my thoughts on Logopolis are probably best being left where they are. The script for this story is filled with so many lovely little lines that I’ve been noting down over the last few days, and I’ve barely brought any up because it’s been too tricky to try and pick favourites. I do want to single this one out from Turlough in Episode Three, however, before the story is over:

TURLOUGH
The earth is hungry. It waits to eat. … I can see them. They are the appetite beneath the ground.

The whole idea of the earth being ‘hungry’ really appeals to me (it’s likely why The Hungry Earth is one of my favourite story titles from the new series), and it’s painted beautifully in this story, as a mixture of myth and madness. It’s a shame that Bidmead won’t get the chance to provide another tale like this one to the programme, but I think Frontios has shot right up my list of favourite stories, and I’ll certainly be returning to it fairly quickly once the marathon is over!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 639: Frontios, Episode Three

Dear diary,

I think I played my ‘isn’t Mark Strickson good’ card a day too early. He was very good yesterday, but today’s episode has been a real tour-de-force for him! I think you can really see him sinking his teeth into having something different to do in today’s episode, and even though he’s required to mostly look troubled and spout half-complete sentences, he’s really giving it his all, and making the most of the part. I’m really, really impressed by him here, and I think this is likely to be his best performance in the programme, and the one that I’ll be remembering him for.

Yesterday, I tried to stay away from praising the direction too much, but I’m going to have to bring it up again now, because it really is fantastic. I still can’t quite get my head around the idea that this is the same man who directed Black Orchid or Time-Flight. Everything looks so polished, and it’s the use of lighting and colour that really works for me. The underground scenes have a unique feel all their own, and it does come across as a completely different alien environment to the world above the surface. I love the way that the green light is used in scenes with their own portable lighting tubes, and it helps to make this look even creepier than they could do. I’m also wondering if they’ve started using a different quality of video this season which could be helping to contribute to that slightly ‘glossier’ look that I was discussing yesterday - this story looks somewhat sharper than I’m used to, and I think the same was true of The Awakening, too, looking back…

I’d also like to give some praise over to the design team on this one. I’m so used to banging on about the way the BBC are so much better at creating historical or down-to-earth locations, and Season Twenty-One so far has been something of a case in point, with the poor quality sets in Warriors of the Deep being followed up by the church and the manor house in The Awakening. This story is the perfect example that they really can do space-age, and I think it’s probably my favourite futuristic design to date. The use of several glass shots (or, at least, I’m assuming they’re glass shots) in different locations really helps to give a sense of scale to the sets where needed, which helps to make the various tunnels all the more claustrophobic.

Of course, at some point, I have to mention the story’s resident monster - the Tractators. People dressed up like giant rubber woodlice. A concept which is frankly ridiculous, and the design department couldn’t be expected to do anything short of rubbish with it.

Which is why it’s all the more surprising just how well they work! Haha! There’s a moment early on in today’s episode, where Tegan throws one of the lights at a group of the Tractators, and they go shuffling off, waving their arms around… and it looks great! It shouldn’t - it should look absolutely awful. If you were to show the clip to a non-fan out of context, they’d probably think it looked stupid, and rubbish, and all those things that it quite possibly does… but I don’t care, because right there in that moment, I completely bought it. It was only after the episode ended that I remembered complaining about the Myrka waving its arms around the other day - it’s surprising just how differently everything combines together this time to create something that I’m really enjoying.

And while I’m on the subject of it, come on, Character Options! Where the hell is my Tractator action figure?

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 638: Frontios, Episode Two

Dear diary,

There’s something quite striking about having a cliffhanger in which the TARDIS - effectively - blows up. I used to comment about enemies getting in to the ship being something truly unsettling, because that white console room is our beacon of safety for the main characters, but this feels like going several steps beyond even that. Having just the hat-stand left as a signifier of where the ship once stood is also a brilliant visual image.. but I’m not sure if it would make as much of an impact on me if I didn’t know that the hat-stand was supposed to be such an obvious part of the ship, with the Doctor drawing attention to it at the start of yesterday’s episode. I think of it as being iconic… because I’ve always been told it is. I know it’s been around in the console room for ages now (and will continue to be so right through to the new series), but I’ve never really noticed it before!

This story is still scoring an awful lot of thumbs up from me, though. I mostly mentioned the direction yesterday, so take it as read that I’ve really enjoyed that aspect of the tale today (though I do need to make mention once again of the way different coloured light is being used to great effect - yesterday it was the red of the ‘missile attack’, while today it’s the green of the underground tunnels - and close ups again of various characters is making this look really rather beautiful), but I’m getting caught up in lots of the actual narrative this time around. Despite the fact that I’ve seen Frontios before, I can’t remember a great deal about the plot. I know that the Tractators are dragging people down through the soil to power their machines… but I can’t remember why they’re doing it, or what they hope to achieve. It means that I’m finding everything really gripping as I try to piece it all together!

The last time Christopher H Bidmead penned a script for the series, it was filled with lots of high-concept ideas that simply couldn’t be realised all that effectively in a BBC TV studio. Now, it feels like he’s come back to the programme with a better idea of what they might actually achieve with the time and budget they’re given. He’s created a world here that I feel really invested in - it’s populated with very rounded characters, and a sense of shared history that I can completely buy in to. It’s always nice when this happens, and it’s putting me rather in mind of Kinda, which can only help to strengthen this story’s position! We’re being drip fed information about this colony, their back story, and their various power struggles really carefully, and it’s bringing me right in to the story. There’s no doubting that this is Bidmead’s best script for the show.

I’d also like to take a moment today to give some prise for Mark Strickson. He’s been in the series for a while now, and he’s given a great performance in every episode so far. He’ll be off in only a few episode’s time, so I wanted to make sure that I single him out for praise at least once! I fear that he gets rather over-looked in the grand scheme of companions, overshadowed by the likes of Tegan and Peri around him, both of whom are Doctor-defining companions. Turlough is just there, not always given the most to do, but Strickson makes sure to really flesh out the part every week. His performance today is a real highlight, when forced to come running through the caverns absolutely petrified by the thought of the Tractators - I’m really unsettled by his acting here, and that’s supposed to be a compliment! He’s managing to convey the terror of the situation perfectly, and I think it’s a shame that he doesn’t get credited for his work on the programme as much as he deserves to!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 637: Frontios Episode One

Dear diary,

Frontios was one of the last Peter Davisons stories to be released on DVD, coming out towards the latter end of the range in 2012. Up until then, there wasn’t much I could have told you about it, other than it was broadcast as a part of this season. It was just one of those Doctor Who stories that existed, but whereas the tales around it in this season featured the return of creatures like the Silurians, or the Daleks, or were the location of major cast departures and arrivals, this one was just A. N. Other story. Because it was one of the later DVD releases, I was long since caught up on buying them, and I’d pick them up on day of release on the way to work. Even if it wasn’t a tale I was desperate to watch immediately, I’d still dutifully buy the DVD, because a) I’d want to see it one day, and b) there would be a gap in the collection and it would drive me mad knowing that it was still to be filled. That said, I’ve still not actually bought The Web of Fear on DVD, because I picked it up on iTunes…

With this being one of the stories I knew so little about, though, I couldn’t wait to get it home and watch it. At some point, I’d sort of made a conscious decision not to find much out about it, because I liked the idea that there could still be Doctor Who stories that were almost completely alien to me. Actually watching my way through the series for The 50 Year Diary has revealed that there’s loads of stories I know very little about - even if I didn’t realise it - but for a long while Frontios was an example of a story that I was aware of knowing very little information on. I still wonder, if I’m honest, if that’s why I enjoyed it so much on that first viewing, because I can remember being simply glued to it throughout.

It’s one of those times when I want to say ‘you can always tell that so-and-so is back in the director’s seat this week…’, but actually, it’s not as simple as all that. When I started out on today, I made a note that it must be Peter Grimwade directing, because it was looking so polished and he’s one of the best director’s we’ve got at this point… but then I remembered that he bowed out of the series with Earthshock. I had to wait for the closing credits to roll around to find out that this one was being directed by… Ron Jones!?!?! Surely that’s an error in the credits? Ron Jones was the director responsible for Time-Flight, which wasn’t particularly stand out direction, and for Arc of Infinity, which even in Amsterdam didn’t make any impact! This is the man who turned the corridors of Gallifrey into a tacky office block corridor, complete with sofas!

I’m being rude, yes, and unfair. I was just so surprised by the revelation, because I’m loving the direction in this story. The main courtyard set looks fantastic when it’s being struck by the ‘missile attack’, and there’s a lot of really nice close ups that make this story feel quite unlike anything… well, quite unlike anything from before Season Twenty-One. I’ve been musing over the last few days that this season has its own very unique style. The costumes worn by the ‘locals’ here are very similar to the ones we see in Warriors From the Deep, and we’ll be seeing similar things cropping up in at least a couple of other stories before the season is out. It’s not just the design that feels different this year - the whole ‘look’ of the season feels more polished and glossy than anything from the last few years has. It’s almost as though we’ve done that ‘Season Eighteen Upgrade’ thing again, where everything has suddenly started to look completely different from the Doctor Who that came before…

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 636: The Awakening, Episode Two

Dear diary,

Oh dear. Yesterday, The Awakening had so much promise. Although the central mystery was botched a little bit - informing us that the people in this village are playing a war game before trying to drum up mystery about the fact that they're all dressed in period costume - there was enough going on to keep me really interested and I was enjoying things. Today's episode has been much more of a mixed bag.

For starters - we get the revelation that Sir George is under the influence of the evil Malus in the church. I'd wondered if there was some kind of influence being applied to the people in this village, or if they were just going too far by their own accord, and I really like the idea that it's a bit of both. Sir George is under the influence, and because people know and respect him, they all get caught up too. We also find out today that they plan to really recreate this battle in the village - complete with casualties. That's a great revelation, and I think it needs to have been seeded in to the story a little bit earlier on. You can get away with explaining the concept of the war games and then building mystery about the fact that they're all going too far to make it accurate, but that didn't come across on screen as well as it perhaps should have.

The other issue I have is in the form of Tegan's grandfather. He's the reason that they're here in Little Hodcombe, and much was made in the first episode about the fact that he was 'missing', and the locals were being more than a little bit shady about it. After all of that, though, he turns up today without any real fanfare - he simply happens to be locked up in the same barn Turlough gets taken to, and is introduced to the plot with a simple 'hello, I'm so-and-so'. This probably shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but then he doesn't actually make any difference to the story after that. We discover that he's the one who found the Malus, but for all the difference that makes, it could have been any character in the village. Thank goodness Tegan asks for time to spend with him at the end of the story, or he'd be completely redundant!

On the plus side, I really like the Malus creature in the church here. It's an image that I just know would have been burned in to my mind as a child, watching the bits of the wall crumble away to reveal the evil face behind. Indeed, I can claim that it's been burned into my adult brain, because it was one of the images I an most clearly recall from the Doctor Who: The Legend book, about a decade ago. I've said before during this marathon that that book was responsible for inspiring and growing my love of Doctor Who all the more in the early days of my interest in the programme, and this is just another example of it. I think I like that even though it's only a two-part story, and we only really get to see the creature in this second half, they've created what looks like a fairly expensive prop for it - complete with moving lips and glowing eyes, billowing smoke… yeah, definitely one of the greatest creations of the era, if not the entire 'classic' series.

I didn't bring him up yesterday, but I'm really loving the character of Will in this story (and not just because he's my name-sake. Is this the first time we've had a 'Will' in the programme? No others spring to mind immediately…). It's quite nice to see a return to that Season Nineteen format of pairing the Doctor off with a 'local', while the companions go off to play a different role in the story. Peter Davison works well with a 'child' companion, and Keith Jayne turns is a really lovely performance. I've also been enjoying Polly James in this one as the schoolteacher - she works very well with Davison's Doctor, too. I think I'm right in saying that both these characters travel with the Doctor for a while in the novels - presumably while taking Will home again at the end of the adventure, leaving Tegan and Turlough behind in the village for a little bit (there's a point - I can understand Tegan wanting to stay put for a day or three, but Turlough has been so desperate to never see the planet again - I'm surprised he doesn't want to hurry away again!).

It's a real pity that this has all fallen apart so much for me, because I so enjoyed various aspects of the first episode, and it seems like a real shame to see them go to waste like this.

While I'm here, I'd also like to draw attention to the 'making of' feature on this DVD - Return to Little Hodcombe. I don't watch special features for every story as I go through the marathon, but I tend to dip in and out here and there. This particular one is a real highlight, though, and probably one that I've enjoyed the most from the entire range. It takes this story's director - Michael Owen Morris - back to one of the locations used for the story, as well as bringing back Eric Sawad, Janet Fielding, and Keith Jayne to talk about their various involvement in the story. The feature is peppered with input from local residents who remember the filming, and it's lovely to hear them recall it, and to see their photographs from the time. It adds a really nice new angle to these kinds of features, and I've really enjoyed watching it!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 635: The Awakening, Episode One

Dear diary,

I watched this episode hours ago. I usually write up the day’s thoughts fairly quickly after viewing (if I don’t, I’ll get distracted by something shiny, or some Doctor Who action figures or something, and I’ll never get round to it), but I’ve been wrestling with myself on this one. You see, I really want to give it an ‘8/10’, but I don’t think the episode quite deserves it, because… oh. Right. Tell you what. Let’s start with all the (many) positives, shall we?

For starters, this episode looks gorgeous. It does! Once again, the BBC are most comfortable when filming something down to Earth with actors in period costume. They’re rather gorgeous costumes, too, because the period of the Civil War allows for a certain amount of flamboyancy to be introduced into the design of the story. That also extends to the various sets, which are also gorgeous (and represent Barry Newbury’s final work on the programme, capping a tenure that’s stretched back intermittently to the very first story, with stops via Marco Polo, Doctor Who and the Silurians, and The Brain of Morbius). Visually, you couldn’t ask for much better.

I also love the whole idea of the war game, and that the entire village is all a bit too caught up in things. I can’t tell if that’s going to turn out to be down to the Malus’ influence (Will here does say that the creature makes the fighting worse), or if it will simply end up being just the way humans behave, which could be a nice way to take things. I just know that I’d enjoy getting caught up in these games, and the rural life on display here isn’t a million miles from what I grew up around (indeed, it’s almost making me a bit homesick!), so I’m enjoying that aspect of things, too.

And then you’ve got Tegan’s grandfather going missing, and everyone getting a little bit cagey as to what’s really going on here. I can’t tell if any of the characters are directly under the control of the Malus, and thus are behaving oddly on its orders, but it’s certainly fun to watch the Doctor come up against these obstacles in a slightly different way to the norm. I’ve become so used to him coming up against people in power that it’s always fun to see him caught up in some slightly different dynamics.

My problem with the episode, then, is the way that information is seeded out to us. There’s a lovely moment, when the TARDIS crew arrive and Tegan declares that they’re in the wrong century. Turlough tells her that he checked the instruments himself, and it’s definitely 1984… so something strange is going on. As our trio continue to explore, lots gets made of the fact that they’re surprised by the events around here, and the story tries to build up a real mystery around it all. But… we’ve already been told that it’s a recreation of the Civil War! We know that it’s just the present-day villagers getting dressed up and having a bit of a laugh. Surely it would work better if we have to wait and find out that information along with the Doctor? This is where I’m not sure that the episode deserves a full-on 8/10 score, because it feels like such an oversight.

Today also sees the introduction of Peter Davison’s new costume as the Doctor. I’ve always known that he had a slightly different version for this final season (though I assumed it would have debuted with Warriors of the Deep - I assume his original costume is still in the wash after the events of that story…!), but I always thought it was just the little changes - the shirt switching from red lining to green, the bands on the jumper, and the stripes on the trousers. But unless my eyes deceive me, we’ve got a slightly different jacket, too? I’m not sure what it is about the piece, but it doesn’t looks quite right - almost like a budget cosplay version of his regular jacket. It’s not something I’ve ever noticed as a problem before now, so I’ll be keeping an eye on it during the rest of the season to see if it’s just having an ‘off day’ (or, rather, if I am!)

Something else I’ve found amusing in today’s entry - and it’s the kind of pathetic thing I think of when watching several episodes but then don’t bother to write about here - has been an odd string of coincidences. The episode opens with the local schoolteacher searching the barns for someone. As she appeared on the screen, I thought to myself ‘she looks bit like an older Polly Wright’ (no, no, I know she doesn’t as the story wen’t on, I couldn’t decide why I thought that). As if on cue, she then starts calling out for her missing person… and it’s a man called ‘Ben’! That raised a smile, but then when the credits began to roll, I realised that the schoolteacher was being played by an actress called Polly James! So there we have it - a Ben and Polly reunion, taking place entirely in my own head!

Anyway. Coming to the end of this entry, and having finally written everything out… no, I can’t give this one an 8/10. The slightly strange seeding of information feels too out of place for me. I’ll stick with a solid 7/10, and hope that tomorrow might be enough to tip it up slightly…