The final two stories in the “Cosmos and Mrs. Clarke” release couldn’t be more different. “The Key to Many Worlds” sees both the return of Marco Polo and Iris Wildthyme and has a strong line of comedy running through it (as you’d imagine!) while “Inconstancy” is a rather dull affair featuring clones and lots of past-tense narration. Ah well, how well and poorly do these things effect their stories? Read on and find out!
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Kicking off the latest Sixth Doctor audio boxset is “The Story Demon”, which promises a Dalek telling kids stories, which is a weird concept but also a fun idea. A lot of the rest of the story feels appropriately straight for a popular children’s book, with a few more grizzly exceptions, overall leading to a pleasant hour’s listen. Let’s take a look…
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Hooklight is a twelve (!) part story that was released across two six-episode boxsets, but unlike the ill-fated “Last Day” double-whammy from last year this is actually coherent and enjoyable! While not perfect, particularly in the second half, Hooklight succeeds at a grander form of storytelling (even if it borrows heavily from the narrative structure of Lord of the Rings) and introduces genuinely interesting characters that have a chance to develop and breathe thanks to the extended runtime. Let’s take a closer look!
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I know I’ve skipped ahead of a few Big Finish releases here but, given its significance I wanted to get this review up a little quicker as yes: here we are, another Doctor has joined the world of Audio Drama and it’s the Thirteenth Doctor herself! “Vampire Weekend” doesn’t break any mould but what it does do is give us a fun story re-establishing The Doctor and Yaz’s personalities / relationship before, hopefully, doing some more interesting things with the characters going forward. I don’t know about a “full on Sixth Doctor rehabilitation” as some are hoping, but it’s safe to say that this era free from Chris Chibnall can only be a good thing. Let’s take a look!
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The Memory Thieves is a two-parter that has the unfortunate fate of being the other story not featured in the boxset title so kinds of falls off the radar even before its released. In this case it’s a shame really because while the titular “Hellwood Inheritance” fell off as it went along this at least kept me entertained for its admittedly shorter runtime, even if it was still very much a vanilla Who experience. Let’s take a look!
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“The Hellwood Inheritance” is a story with a great premise and four episodes to tell it, but somehow “Jurassic Park with ghosts” falls apart in the middle and its second half just feels flat with little to do with the concept (beyond ghost-like beings anyway). Ah well, it’s been a little while since we’ve had a just Fourth Doctor / Leela story and both were on good form at least… Let’s take a look!
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It’s time for the “post new TV series Big Finish audio catch up” once again, starting with the return of one of my favourite ranges, the “Lost Stories”. Admittedly “Genesis of the Cybermen” is another one of the Lost Stories that can’t really be slotted into regular continuity thanks to a lack of knowledge as to what Cybermen were by The Doctor’s companions in Adric’s final story “Earthshock”, not to mention having to get rid of the superior audio Cybermen origin story “Spare Parts”. Still though, in a “imagine if instead of Earthshock we got this” way it works well, and seeing original Cyberman creator Gerry Davis’ take the origin was historically interesting, even if it wasn’t, um… that great. Let’s take a look!
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I will always look forward to more Season 7 content, it remains one of my all-time favourite seasons full stop, so I was really looking forward to “and the Brain Drain”, which I guess is a callback to “and the Silurians” though that title was always an annoying one-off rather than something that should be copied (but let’s not get into the “Doctor Who/ The Doctor” debate!) Sadly Brain Drain took an interesting concept for a one hour story, maybe a four parter at best, and then had to stretch it out for seven parts, causing it to fall to pieces. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the Season 7 seven part stories can drag but they at least often have alien threats to give some fun cliffhangers! Ah well, let’s take a closer look.
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Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Faithful Friends comes to a close with the Eighth Doctor encountering the otherwise nameless Monks that the Twelfth Doctor faced off with in a rather disappointing three parter during what was otherwise his finest season. When one of these stories comes around you know it will be taking a “new monster” and either doing a retread of their TV appearance or doing something interesting with the species, and given I didn’t massively like their TV appearance I was hoping for the latter, but instead I got the former. Still, does the addition of the Eighth Doctor in a romantic relationship make it better? Let’s find out!
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The latest Classic Doctors, New Monsters set has once again created a two-parter but split the parts across two different eras of the Doctor, in this case the Second and Seventh, so in order to cover the story as a whole I’m linking them together with the Seventh Doctor template, but Part 1 is still all Troughton, so to speak. The Krillitane are an interesting concept in that that keep adapting themselves all the time, stealing things from other species in packs, so no Krillitane grouping is ever the same, visually or power-set-wise, so it’s nice to see them appear here (even if the visual on the cover has them looking exactly the same as their TV appearance, but I can forgive that as it’s kind of the point of the set…) Let’s take a look!
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Hogan Reviews 