The first two stories in this “Mags Trilogy” scored a three, then a two. Does story number three hold up any better? Well… no, not really. After the disaster that has been the Ace/Mel stories, these have sadly continued the trend of poor Seventh Doctor audios, which is a shame because that particular Doctor used to be the highlight of the Main Range. Well, let’s take a look at this one, anyway…
Bernice Summerfield has finally reached Legion, and … once again we get a boxset of mostly completely stand-alone episodes, one of which ended up being a backdoor pilot for a different audio series all together. It’s not a bad thing to have single stories from time to time, but after a box of them stalling time for Benny to get to Legion, it was an odd choice… Let’s take a look if they still stand well on their own, anyway!
Benny’s second boxset release, Road Trip, actually feels more like it was created after the run of boxes and just set “during the time Bernice was on her way to Legion”, as that plot thread from the end of Epoch doesn’t arrive until a 10-minute post credit sequence. That being said, for three stand-alone stories, it’s actually a good bunch of audio dramas, so I’m certainly not complaining after the far more dull start to this run… so let’s take a closer look!
We end our look at the third 10th Doctor Adventures set, and a mammoth two weeks of new Big Finish releases (though if you think it’s been bad now, wait until July!) with The Creeping Death. Set in early 50s during the very real Great Smog of London, though with a very unreal alien element, obviously! Let’s take a look…
We continue our look at the third volume of the Tenth Doctor Adventures with One Mile Down. It’s a middle of the road story, containing both good and bad, and I can’t help but feel the Judoon, seen here front and centre of the cover image, were added for the sake of it, but without further beating around the bush, let’s have a closer look!
Kicking off the third volume of the Tenth Doctor Adventures then is a ghost story that is both a fun story in its own right, and a a great showcase as to why The Doctor and Donna are among the best pairing in the series’ long history. It also features both of Donna’s family members, which is great because it’s always nice to hear Bernard Cribbins! So let’s take a closer look then!
Last month’s Monsters of Gokroth was an average affair, but did at least give us a new combination of Doctor and companion thanks to the reintroduction of Mags… sadly, Moons of Vulpana is, well, not very good. A not very interesting setting full of incredibly dull characters that you don’t even remotely care for, this is not worth going out of your way to track down… Let’s have a closer look anyway!
The Fifth Volume of the Third Doctor Adventures concludes, and now I’m more used to the new Brig I feel I can comment on this story easier, though I am happy to say that Sgt. Benton joins the cast in this story as well, not recast or anything, but it’s a nice addition that makes it feel all the more authentic. The Scream of Ghosts also features the return of something else as well, but that would be for the spoilers section…
The Third Doctor Adventures returns, and has further evolved! Starting off as a mostly narrated affair, we eventually got Tim Trelor’s Third Doctor in a full cast environment, and now we have a perfectly recast Brigadier thanks to Jon Culshaw, and a good version of Liz Shaw from the original actresses own daughter. Adding in Jo Grant, who is thankfully still with us, and we’ve pretty much hit full cast Third Doctor stories! Primord, the first story of two, features both new recasts and is a really fun, if not rather basic, story that is also a direct sequel to TV classic Inferno… Let’s have a deeper look!
A few months ago Big Finish had a big sale on and during it I picked up the five Bernice Summerfield boxsets that take place after her 11 series run (that I won’t be picking up without downloads…) but before her New Adventures range (that I brought as they were released a few years ago), so I thought I’d finally get round to listening to them, now we’re currently in between non-currently-released Who marathons. Epoch kicks things off with… a mish-mash of genres and characters that doesn’t fully work, sadly… It’s not all bad though, so let’s press on with the review!
