Hogan Reviews

For the first time in many years I haven’t actually gotten around to listening to all the Big Finish releases this years, thanks in part to falling behind due to the new website/app disaster from a few months ago. So if any of December’s releases end up being better than my Number 10 pick… bugger. With that being said it’s also been a few years since we’ve had a year with a full Series of Doctor Who airing, so at least there’s a greater pool of stories to choose from! Let’s take a look…

The Eighth Doctor’s latest Time War adventure was a fun story that put just as much focus on his companions as the man and major event itself. Finally having Alex find out he’s not the Alex from this timeline and the consequences of that was good fun, and as usual Paul McGann is on fine form no matter the scene. (My Review is coming very soon!)

The latest “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” set actually had a good hit rate, but “The Queen of Clocks” really stood out not just from the fun performances but because of the world building and how it all played into the big revelation at the end of the story. Good fun and a rare use of the one hour time limit that felt like it fit all of its story in perfectly rather than needing a bit longer to flesh out aspects like so many one hour or less Who stories do. (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

“The Devil’s Chord” was something of a life-saver for me as it was released at the same time as the God-awful “Space Babies” and managed to reassure me that Doctor Who hadn’t suddenly fallen off a cliff. The story itself is a fun, very bonkers look at the new “take things in a bit more of the fantasy route” mantra and I had a smile on my face for nearly the whole time (I could’ve done without the bad musical number at the end, even if it made sense in the context of the story…) (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

Okay, so this is sort of cheating here, but the four “Sontarans vs. Rutans” stories do form a narrative whole and were clearly meant to be released as one boxset originally, so… yeah. I’ve waited ages for a proper look at the never-ending war between the two alien species so getting four scripts that were all very good to great telling a story about one conflict leaking into four different parts of The Doctor’s life was just what I wanted, using rarely revisited eras like the Eighth Doctor, Charley and C’rizz, or the Sixth Doctor and Charley was all the better! (My Reviews of the story arc can be found HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE)

There have been a lot of milestone celebrations this year, including the previous entry on this list and the two-story disaster that was the Seventh Doctor’s “Last Day”, but at least with “The Quin Dilemma” it actually worked. Featuring no less than four versions of the Sixth Doctor taken from periods across his long (in audio) life it could easily have just been a fun “romp” but they also use it as an opportunity to tie up a few narrative loose ends and take a proper look at the character of the Sixth Doctor itself alongside the more fun campy aspects, which unlike some releases were actually fun! (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

“The Ninth Doctor meets Bernice Summerfield” could’ve been just that, just a box-ticking exercise and nothing more, but thankfully “Ancient History” told a really fun story AND had the two not only meet but really blend well together. With the exception of another story yet to appear on this list it did the most to dive into the Ninth Doctor’s psyche and mindset in this pre-Rose time period thanks to their long relationship, adding a bit of extra interest to the story. (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

“The Quintessence” starts off as a pretty familiar story and honestly doesn’t really do anything new with the more freaky Mondas Cybermen but boy does it do what it needs to well. Honestly one of the strongest Cybermen stories in years, to the point where it might have been higher had it not had one episode in a false reality that killed the momentum a bit. Otherwise it feels like the Third Doctor has finally got his great Cyberman story. (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

“Boom” joins a pretty long list of great Steven Moffat-penned episodes and once again shows that he’s at his best when he’s not creating a season-long narrative and instead just told to make one isolated episode. The whole story is just “The Doctor has stepped on a mine and needs help” but so many great character moments, both from The Doctor and his companion Ruby but also from one-off guest cast members, made for a great and tense 40 minutes. (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

“Star-Crossed” is the final Ninth Doctor boxset for now and boy did they go out on a high. “Archipelago” is an emotional tour-de-force that has the Ninth Doctor and River Song essentially live a whole life together and fall in love only to have to give it all up (for future narrative reasons, really…) It’s superbly acted by both Christopher Eccleston and Alex Kingston and if this does end up being the former’s final time acting as The Doctor he chose the best possible story to go out on. (My Review can be found by clicking HERE)

What an odd thing this is, a “Top 10 Doctor Who Stories” list and it ends with a story that barely features the main character at all. “73 Yards” focuses instead on companion Ruby Sunday and an eventually aborted timeline where she lives a life constantly seeing a mysterious woman watching her from the titular distance, never able to catch up to her and only seeing anyone who talks to the figure run in a blind panic. The mystery build up and the big pay off at the end was nothing short of superb, and it became the first true Fifteenth Doctor classic that I’ll happily watch again, despite knowing the mystery. (My Review can be found by clicking HERE).