The last half of the first volume of the New Adventures contains what I feel is the best story of the bunch, and possibly the worst. Well, worst is harsh because it’s still perfectly good, just more generic and predictable than the other three… Want to know what I’m going on about? Read on!
The first volume of the “New Adventures” has arrived! What are they? Well, they’re new stories for the Seventh Doctor and his companions Chris and Roz from the New Adventures books and their relevant audio adaptations. So… new New Adventures, I guess. Either way, I did enjoy Roz and Chris in the aforementioned book adaptations, and if the first two stories are anything to go by, I’ll enjoy these small slices of that era too…
The trilogy originally billed as a “UNIT Trilogy”, but in reality is more a trilogy surrounding tragic UNIT soldier Daniel Hopkins, comes to a close with Warlock’s Cross, a story that also features the return of Big Finish sort-of-companion Elizabeth Klein. So how does the three-part story close itself out? The tone of the story may surprise you…
It’s the last of the trio of companion introduction stories that weren’t actually intended to be companion introduction stories, as much like Flip and Klein before her, Liv Chenka wasn’t conceived as anything other than a one off character for this story. This is an odd one though as Liv would go on to be a companion to the Eighth Doctor, rather than the Seventh, yet this is still her debut story! ANYWAY, as for Robophobia itself, it’s a sequel to Fourth Doctor TV classic “The Robots of Death”, but it manages to avoid the classic sequel pitfall by not just recycling the original but instead building a new story with the materials provided. Let’s take a closer look!
As I mentioned in my Gallifrey: Time War Vol. 1 review, I brought the two spin-off range boxsets that included Derek Jacobi’s version of The Master in a recent sale, but unlike Gallifrey, which surprised me with two excellent stories, this anthology is not up to the same standard, and if anything Jacobi’s Master is one of the few highlights… Let’s take a look!
A couple of months ago Big Finish did a “best of the year so far” sale, where everything returned to its pre-order price, so after thinking about it for a while, my enjoyment of the War Master set last year lead me to buy the two spin-off releases he appeared in, starting with this! Gallifrey, as a series, never appealed to me. Gallifrey politics was always a negative rather than a positive, and Lalla Ward hasn’t exactly won me over with her performances in the Fourth Doctor audios, but I can say this: There are two stories here that were fantastic! So let’s take a look at the set as a whole, and see what worked and what didn’t, in my opinion, of course!
While this TARDIS team has had more misses than hits, The Quantum Possibility Engine is at least a fun story, more comic book silliness (with some actually well-written political satire) than standard Who, and given it has Dogbolter from from comics, that’s a fitting decision. Let’s take a closer look then, at the end of this most recent Doctor-Ace-Mel trilogy…
Ravenous 2 ends with “Seizure”, a story that goes full on with the horror clichés, though admittedly with a Doctor Who twist of being set inside a dying TARDIS. We’re finally introduced to the Ravenous, or a member of the Ravenous, who turns out is some sort of demonic… zombie… thing, who likes to have a bit of a chat. Let’s take a look!
It’s the start of October and it’s time for a new Doctor Who Christmas story! The Eighth Doctor already holds the prize for best Doctor Who Christmas story with the classic audio “The Chimes of Midnight”, and while I don’t think this topples it, it’s a damn fine story. Creepy, fun and told with a really interesting story-within-story narrative, this two parter is not to be missed (though probably best listened to a little closer to December…)
Thanks to Ravenous 2 doing a two part story in the middle of the box, I’ve had to split it into three rather than the usual two, which is mildly annoying… Anyway! What isn’t mildly annoying is a fun story set on Kaldor itself, even if it lacks the kind of imagination I associate with the planet. Plus it adds several layers onto Liv Chenka, which is a nice bonus! Let’s take a closer look…
Hogan Reviews 