Well, as advertised, the new Eighth Doctor storyline gets off to a rather… slow start. Stranded on Earth once again but with no UNIT to distract him, The Doctor, along with Liv and Helen, have to try and blend in with regular life in (a mysteriously COVID free) 2020 London. Does Doctor Who work in a contemporary and sometimes completely alien free setting? Let’s find out!
The main range continues to plough forward with the next Sixth Doctor / Constance / Flip story, and boy it’s a dozy. Scorched Earth takes place in France just after its liberation, in other words Constance’s near future, and so this story really explores the differences between Constance from the 1940s and Flip from the 2010s. Throw in some soldiers on all sides of the war and a fiery alien and you’ve got a hit on your hands! Let’s take a closer look.
Much like with Poison of the Daleks, my immediate thought was “World War II again?” but unlike the Dalek story before this, I quickly thought to myself “That being said, the Third Doctor had very few historical-set stories, and never appeared in WWII, so…It’s actually quite fresh for this incarnation”. So ignoring the setting, is it fresh? or more importantly, is it any good? Let’s find out!
I was of two minds going into Poison of the Daleks. On the one hand I love the Third Doctor Adventures, especially now they have the Brigadier in the stories, but on the other hand, The Daleks, again? The Third Doctor already has the second most TV encounters with them out of the classic Doctors and they already appeared a couple of TDA sets ago. Oh well… Was Poison of the Daleks a treat or a retread? Let’s find out!
Shadow of the Sun is a “Lockdown Special Release”, recorded entirely from the casts’ homes. How does that effect the release? It doesn’t, other than a bonus Fourth Doctor release in May… which sounds good to me! The actual story is two parts bog-standard run-around, one part interesting religious examination. Does that mix work?! Let’s find out!
This month’s Main Range audio sees the return of the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip trio, plus the audio debut of the Ice Warrior “Ice Queen”. All this plus regular Ice Warriors, Ice Lords and Time Lord technology, and that’s a lot of returning or familiar elements, but what about the new Vultriss race? Does it all add up to a good story?! Let’s find out!
So here we have it, the final full cast Blake’s 7 audio review. It’s a shame it had to come to an end, but with yet another key cast member down, there isn’t any other choice. So does Restoration, and indeed Blake’s 7 Audio Series… series as a whole go out with a bang?! Let’s find out!
Subterfuge is the last of the three “Seventh Doctor meets a renegade Time Lord while travelling alone” trilogy, and thankfully unlike the previous two, this is really good! A lot of that has to do with Rufus Hound’s incarnation of the Meddling Monk, but it’s also just a good script in its own right. So let’s take a look!
The fourth and final story in the ninth series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures (Numbers!) is an odd one. The setting and some of the scenes are really great and get the old imagination going, but some of the script is slow going, and the villain over-written. Does it balance out, or does it swing one way more than the other? Read on!
Series 9 of the “Fourth Doctor Adventures” continues onwards, but after the all-out classic of “Chase The Night”, what chance does “The Planet of Witches” have to stand out? Well, to be fair, it goes in a completely different direction and is perfectly fine. I guess the month in between listening sessions helps! So let’s take a closer look at the next Doctor-Romana-Adric-K9 four parter, shall we?
Hogan Reviews 