Tag: bbc

Doctor Who Audio Review: Yuletide Terror With The Doctor

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

In the Bleak Midwinter sees the welcome return of Paul McCann behind the microphone at Big Finish Productions in another pretty solid collection of audio dramas with the Eighth Doctor. Ken Bentley returns as director for this trilogy of episodes that has the Doctor and his two companions, Charlotte Pollard and Lady Audacity Montague fighting some pretty eerie manifestations over the Christmas holidays.

India Fisher reprises her role of Charley Pollard with Jaye Griffiths as Lady Audacity for these three stories. The guest cast includes Jason Watkins, Nickolas Grace, John Banks, David Robb, and Lucy Goldie.

Long-time and prolific contributor John Dorney starts off the set with Twenty-Four Doors. As the Doctor shares the delights of an Advent calendar with his companions, Al Norton, a department store Santa, is hearing some strange singing in his mind, and he is about to meet this TARDIS crew for what could be a joyous Christmas or a tragic one.

Jason Watkins I know from a detective series entitled McDonald & Dodds, and he is quite good here as the hapless Al Norton. The episode is pretty well-written and kind of unusual, which is not surprising since it’s a John Dorney script. The dynamic between Charley and Audacity is pretty compelling well. Fisher has been playing this part for over two decades, and I am finding that Griffiths has a very distinctive vocal presence that I am beginning to enjoy.

The Empty Man is the second episode and is written by Tom Foley. This time, the Doctor and his friends meet one Eldridge Brinkwood, an old man who shares his scary stories on the radio. An entity that takes the form of its next victim is stalking him, and the Time Lord may not be able to keep him safe.

Grace is the lead guest star here and is able to hold his own with the main cast. This is another pretty interesting story once I was able to work out the method of the creature. The TARDIS also seems drawn to the Christmas season, which is a bit of a mystery to her crew. Brinkwood is a rather witty character in spite of the fearful circumstances. McGann continues to deliver a familiar yet still compelling performance as the Doctor.

Finally, Roy Gill brings us to a close with Winter of the Demon. An industrialist named Donald Shaw, played by David Robb, is going to light up a city, but he may also be bringing an ancient demon to life

I had a little harder time getting into this one. It wasn’t a bad story, but I guess the other two resonated a little more.

Overall, the collection is pretty good with the performances of the main cast submitting some excellent performances. I enjoy this TARDIS team and hope to hear some more with them together. Paul McGann continues to deliver some wonderful moments as his version of the Doctor. Hearing Fisher back as Charley is a welcome treat as well. Now that I have spent a little more time with Lady Audacity, I have come to really look forward to hear how her character develops. She has taken on the role as a kind of surrogate older sister to Charley, and the two of them have a nice spark to challenge the Doctor at times.

It may have to become a proper Christmas tradition to indulge in the soundscape of In the Bleak Midwinter.

Doctor Who Audio Review: Who Knows More About Metamorphosis Than The Doctor?

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Big Finish Productions releases another welcome Fourth Doctor audio boxset starring Tom Baker. Metamorphosis contains three new audio plays that continue the Doctor’s travels with Harry Sullivan and Naomi Cross, as played by Christopher Naylor and Eleanor Crooks, respectively.

The guest cast includes the vocal talents of Annette Badland. Geoffrey Beevers, Nicholas Briggs, Mark Gatiss, Glen McReady, and Lydia West. As usual, I have no complaints about the casting or the performances.

The first story is entitled Matryoshka by Aurora Fearnley and is directed by Helen Goldwyn. The TARDIS has been forced to land on Earth where the Doctor, Naomi, and Harry encounter a toy inventor searching for his missing daughter. They also meet a supposed psychic who has made contact with a Toymaker of the celestial kind.

Annette Badland has taken on the role of the Toymaker, who was originally played by the late Michael Gough. The Toymaker’s inclusion in this story is rather clever because the role was not really recast as a woman. He is communicating with the voice of the psychic. Anyway, the Doctor squaring off against the Toymaker is always fun, particularly when it’s the Fourth Doctor. The friendship between Harry and Naomi continues to be entertaining. Harry is not as enthusiastic about his continued travels with the Doctor as Naomi, but he still manages to brave his way through the chaotic journey. He’s a bit of a bumbler, but somehow, I would still like to have him at my side in a crisis. I did have a little trouble interpreting some of the events in the story. It’s not really a bad effort from the writer, but it isn’t that easy to follow.

The second episode is written by Matthew Sweet, directed by Nicholas Briggs, and is entitled The Caged Assassin. The Doctor and his companions encounter a radioactive tiger that has somehow gotten into the TARDIS. This story somehow seems a little more confusing than the first one. There are alien wombats involved, and the Doctor and his friends meet a historical dealer in exotic animals named Charles Jamrach. The wombats he has in his possession are a bit more exotic than he expected. I was not that impressed with the story overall, but it still has Tom Baker giving a strong, enthusiastic performance even if the actual plot didn’t quite keep me rivetted.

Finally, Metamorphosis by Lisa McMullin wraps up the trilogy. Jamie Anderson directed this entry and does a good job. Geoffrey Beevers returns to the role of his version of the Master. This is the decaying husk version introduced during the Fourth Doctor’s era. Beevers is older, but the silky malevolence in his voice is as captivating as ever. The TARDIS crew lands on a planet known as Jaxus where some of its denizens are disappearing. There is an abandoned prison nearby, but the Master has made use of it and plans to restore his health at the cost of others’ lives. This is a pretty strong finish for this collection. Beevers’ performance alongside Tom Baker really gives the story an extra punch.

Overall, this set ends up being a bit on the disappointing side compared to some of the previous releases. It isn’t terrible, but the stories were lacking a little. I think there were too many moments where the sound effects or the dialogue didn’t paint an effective or cohesive picture for the imagination. The dynamic between the Doctor, Harry, and Naomi does remain pretty amusing. The main cast is still an enjoyable combination, and no one really tanks here. I will likely return to this one, but probably not as quickly as many of the other Big Finish releases.

Doctor Who Audio Review: The Doctor Finds The Union

~ Peter Kanelis ~ Leave a comment

Big Finish Productions has recently released the conclusion a Doctor Who audio saga entitled Once and Future. Paul McGann and Tom Baker are featured the most as the Eighth and Fourth Doctors, respectively. The conclusion does more to strum the heartstrings of nostalgia than actually aim for any real coherence in the story, but it’s still a pretty fun indulgence for the Whovians.

Ken Bentley returns to the director’s chair to coordinate the realization of the script written by Matt Fitton. Carole Ann Ford reprises her role of Susan, the Doctor’s granddaughter and the first companion he really wanted to impress. Alex Kingston also returns as the time travelling archeologist and the supposed wife of the Doctor’s. Maureen O’Brien, who would normally be playing the role of one of the Doctor’s early companions, Vicki, takes on the role of an adversary known as the Union. The Union turns out to be someone else who is quite familiar to the Doctor. Other Doctors also appear sporadically during this adventure since this was a release that celebrated the show’s fiftieth anniversary last year.

I have skipped out on reviewing the earlier episodes in this range, so I will offer a brief recap. The Doctor has been the victim of a weapon that destabilizes his regeneration cycle. As he has been trying to reconstruct what has happened to him, he has been suffering from something known as degeneration. He has been erratically returning to his past and sometimes his future incarnations as he has been chasing the cause of his condition through time and space.

Paul McGann and Tom Baker take on the bulk of this particular adventure. The Fourth Doctor rather amusedly referred to it as co-piloting. It was kind of touching and amusing to see Susan interact with other versions of her grandfather. Big Finish has already had the Eighth Doctor and Susan reunite in earlier episodes; however, it was pretty cool to get a taste of what she would make of the Fourth Doctor and his absurdly long scarf.

I have never been a real fan of multi-Doctor adventures like this because the story often takes a back seat to a quality plot. But I am still a fan and some of those scenes where the Doctor drags his other iterations is pretty funny most of the time.

There were times where I struggled to imagine what was going on based on the sound effects. It wasn’t always that clear as to what I should be conjuring up in my mind’s eye.

As usual, the actual performances were really good. McGann and Baker still portray their respective Doctors very effectively. It was still pretty fun to hear a bit of the other Doctors as well during the climax of the adventure even if the plot is a bit of the mess.

This is another sprawling, nonsensical episode that still manages to be entertaining just because the heartstrings of nostalgia are strummed with enough of the right notes. Multi-Doctor storylines do make less sense than a regular episode, but they are usually pretty fun, especially if Big Finish is on the job.