Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Alfie Shaw

RRP: £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: April 2021

Reviewed by: Robert Emlyn Slater for Doctor Who Online

"Trapped, a haunted monster waits to consume new victims. It needs help. It needs a doctor. Unfortunately, it also needs to kill whoever it meets. Thrust into immediate danger, and on the back-foot, it will take all of the Doctor’s ingenuity to triumph.

Two interlinked adventures. Two Doctors. One foe."

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

After months of postponement thanks to the pandemic, Big Finish finally brings the Time Lord Victorious saga to a close with Echoes of Extinction, a multi-doctor story of sorts featuring both Paul McGann and David Tennant.

I have to admit, I was apprehensive going into this audio drama. I haven’t exactly paid that much attention to the Time Lord Victorious saga, mainly because I’m not made of money, so I was unsure as to whether or not I would understand any of what was to come in Echoes of Extinction. I know a little of the Time Lord Victorious story thanks to a couple of the books and comic strips I’ve read, but I was still a little worried that there would be plot points that I wouldn’t understand that would affect my enjoyment of the story. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

In fact, after having listened to this audio drama, other than a couple of references towards the TLV storyline right at the end, I’m struggling to understand why this story was even a part of the TLV in the first place. Other than acting as a little coda to the series, Echoes of Extinction could well have been just a regular release from Big Finish and it wouldn’t have made a single bit of a difference. 

The story itself consists of two half-hour episodes that are interlinked, which is a pretty neat concept and works well. One episode features the Eighth Doctor and the other features the Tenth Doctor, but it’s all one long overarching story. The Tenth Doctor has to clean up the mess the Eighth Doctor made in his episode as they both go up against the same enemy. 

Though there are two Doctor’s present in this story, they don’t directly interact with each other at any point, meaning this isn’t the sort of multi-doctor story we’re used to. 

I for one was pretty pleased that the Doctor’s don’t interact with each other. Over the past few years, I feel as though multi-doctor stories have become less of an event and more of just a thing that seem’s to happen on a regular basis in audio dramas, comics, and novels. The regularity of all these Doctor’s constantly meeting each other just kills the multi-doctor magic, and it becomes less special. Therefore, I have to praise writer Alfie Shaw for resisting the urge to have Eight and Ten meet up and swap sarcastic comments. The story works much better without all the usual, somewhat tedious, multi-doctor shenanigans thrown into the mix.

As for the story itself, it’s actually quite enjoyable. The first episode follows the Eighth Doctor as he lands on a space station manned by a butler droid called Edwards, his owner/captive, Jasmine, and a psychopathic serial killer called the Network. It’s in this episode that we learn who and what the Network is and discover what it actually wants. The episode ends on a cliffhanger, which leads us into Doctor number ten’s episode.

The second part of this story takes place on the planet the space station was orbiting. The Tenth Doctor has to mop up the mess his previous incarnation left behind and bring an end to the Network before it can slaughter the rest of the universe. 

Whilst I did enjoy this story, I do feel a little let down by the villain. In the first episode, the Network is built up to be this complex, psychopathic villain who is struggling with a bit of an identity crisis, however, by the end of the second episode it seems to have just regressed into a shouty monster who wants to kill everyone. Burn Gorman, brings an air of menace to the Network and is unrecognisable in the role. 

I have to further praise Alfie Shaw on how well he’s written both Doctor’s too, in particular the Tenth Doctor. He’s a lot sadder, a lot snappier, and seem’s to have a much shorter fuse than usual, which is definitely in keeping with where he’s at in terms of being the self-appointed Time Lord Victorious. It’s also always great to hear David Tennant back in the role too - so, bonus points for that. 

As always, Paul McGann is great and is brilliantly sarcastic, witty, and clever when going up against the Network as he tries to save Jasmine’s life. I am yet to hear Paul McGann give a performance that’s anything other than brilliant. 

In terms of timelines, from what I could gather, this adventure is set before the Eighth Doctor’s involvement in the Time Lord Victorious storyline (he hasn’t flown into the Dark Times with the Daleks yet, anyway), and it also seems to be set right at the end of the Tenth Doctor’s adventures in the TLV storyline too. I’m sure if you’ve been following TLV closer than I have it’ll wrap things up nicely, with the Doctor seemingly having learned his lesson from his war against the Kotturuh, but if you haven’t, it’s a touching ending to an enjoyable story all the same.

As well as McGann and Tennant, the guest cast is brilliant. Kathryn Drysdale was a great sort-of-companion to Eight, and Inés de Clerq was just the right amount of despicable to get you as annoyed with her as Tennant’s Doctor does. It’s also really weird hearing Arthur Darvill and Mina Anwar playing roles other than Rory Williams and Gita Chandra. Although they don’t really have much to do other than bicker and die, they’re fun additions to the cast all the same.

According to producer Scott Handcock, Echoes of Extinction can be listened to in any order. However, if you’re a more of a fan of linear storylines, I’d recommend listening to the Eighth Doctor’s story first, then the Tenth’s, like I did. It’ll make much more sense that way, but again, it’s entirely up to you. 

Overall, this is an enjoyable story with great performances from the two leads, and takes full advantage of a really interesting concept, that being future Doctor’s having to clean up the mess or finish jobs their past selves set in motion. Whilst I’m still unsure as to why Echoes of Extinction had to be a part of the Time Lord Victorious storyline, it’s still an enjoyable enough story all the same. 

+ TLV: Echoes Of Extinction is OUT NOW, priced £8.99 (Download).

+ ORDER this title from Big Finish!

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Written By: Scott Handcock

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: April 2018

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

"Daniel Hopkins thought he knew what he was letting himself in for when he joined the top-secret UNIT organisation as its latest Medical Officer.

Racing about the countryside, chasing strange lights in the sky? Check. Defending the realm against extraterrestrial incursion? Check. Frequent ear-bashings from UNIT’s UK CO, the famously no-nonsense Lt-Col Lewis Price? Check. Close encounters of the First, Second and even Third kind? Check, check, check.

But he had no idea what alien beings were really like. Until the day of the Fallen Kestrel. Until the day he met the Doctor."

The start of this year has been a joy when it comes to writing these reviews.  The main range has been well and truly riding high and each month has presented us with something funny, something well-constructed and something downright enjoyable.  It is far more fun to write a review praising something to high heavens than to write one explaining why a certain release has utterly failed to grip you.

But all good things must come to an end perhaps.

I want to state here that I have enjoyed Scott Handcock’s work elsewhere. His direction of The War Master was very strong, for example, as it was in The Worlds of Big Finish (a much underrated release) and a lot of Gallifrey. His first outing as a writer for the ‘main range’ of Big Finish plays, World Apart, was a triumph of character study and understatement. Handcock is a very capable and strong writer, producer and director, of that there is no doubt in my mind at all. It just wasn’t to be, here.

The play starts as follows: the Doctor lands on Earth, drawn there by a signal of extra-terrestrial origin. He is not alone though. UNIT are also on the scene, but this is a UNIT the likes of which the Doctor has not encountered before. Gone are Lethbridge-Stewart, Bell, Yates, Benton and the rest. In their stead is a far colder and harder military outfit headed by one Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Price. Sometimes, it’s the lack of familiarity on your home soil that can be the biggest threat of them all…

There is a problem here. The problem is quite a big one because it goes on to undermine and underline everything that comes next. The problem is that this new version of UNIT are fully aware of who the Doctor is and his past with UNIT: and they still treat him as an alien hostile, threatening him with execution, giving him orders and acting as if he could be a traitor to the Earth and an enemy of humanity. Which makes no sense whatsoever. If they just thought he was another alien wandering around with significant intelligence, then so be it, but the Doctor? He of heroism and daring do? He who helped UNIT so often?

It doesn’t work and renders these soldiers utterly inept and stupid, thus making a huge aspect of the story just a bit… well, silly. UNIT has moved on, yes, but they know the Doctor of old and all he has done, so to try and make him out to be a threat to the planet just doesn’t wash or hang together at all.

This isn’t helped by the aforementioned Lieutenant-Colonel, who is as drab and one-note a character as the range has ever seen. There is no nuance or depth; no subtlety or, crucially, believability. He shouts, he snarls, and when the plot needs to wrap up he has a slight change of heart for no explicable reason. Everything about this character is painfully dull. It is utterly flat and this extends elsewhere sadly. The plot feels overfamiliar: aliens fall to Earth, humans experiment upon them. Aha, though! There is a twist!

Because of course there is, because you expect there to be, because nothing here feels new or exciting or fresh at all. It feels like we’ve been down this path many, many times. Misguided humans, the power of love, the Doctor poised against the authorities, a token ‘good’ character who is on the Doctor’s side against their commander’s wishes.

The same goes for the Morden Clinic and those who work there. They never convince as real people. They’re plot devices and twists. They’re there to try and make you think the story is going one way when in fact it’s going quite another: only you never believe it’s going just one way, because that sense of familiarity from the off means you never expect to be surprised.

In the end, it all makes for a rather boring play.  I don’t think I ever once failed to see what was round the corner, and even if I could not spot the specific incident about to unfold, I was certain that a twist or incident was incoming because it’s that sort of Big Finish play. The plot would be competent at least, but the UNIT element in the wider world of Doctor Who means it stumbles on that front as well. 

Across the past three releases, I’ve talked about how exciting and fresh the plays have felt; how new and interesting. This feels like a massive leap back, into predictability and stale writing; into characters poorly executed and an absence of shock. Lewis Price is the worst of them all, but he is by no means alone.

Perhaps this is just a blip; a small hiccough and no more. I hope so. Because as it is, this has been as disappointing a release from Big Finish as I think I’ve ever heard.

AudioGO have sent DWO the cover and details for the forthcoming Doctor Who CD release of Snake Bite.

Doctor Elehri Mussurana has spent a lifetime on her work. She's guarded her pet project close to her chest, letting only one person share her secret - her husband and lab partner Ernst Wharner.

As their experiment reaches its final, glorious fruition, they watch in awe as sparks fly in a sealed chamber and specks of sapphire light begin to join together into a shining haze. A wormhole in time and space is being created...

But then something unexpected appears inside the swirling vortex: a tall blue box with the words 'POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX' on the side. The TARDIS has arrived in the far future, in a scientific research facility - just as reality is ripped at the seams and the universe tears in two...

Written specially for audio by Scott Handcock, Snake Bite features the Doctor, Amy and Rory as played by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill in the acclaimed BBC TV series.

It is read by Frances Barber, who played Madame Kovarian.

+  Snake Bite is released on 6th December 2012, priced £10.20 (CD) / £6.79 (Download).

+  Compare Prices for this product on CompareTheDalek.com!

[Source: AudioGO]