The Bad Penny, despite having a pretty boring title and being set in London AGAIN, is actually really entertaining, a lot more than the previous story in the Fourth Doctor Adventures S7. Time paradoxes, aliens, time-displaced people, it’s a fun hour-ish ride, so let’s take a closer look!
The 7th series of Fourth Doctor Adventures kicks off its second half with The Shadow of London, and sadly it’s exactly as it seems by the synopsis: rather dull. It’s by no means bad, but it’s about as memorable as… that time… that thing happened. Still, let’s have a look at it anyway, if I don’t do it now I won’t remember enough to write the review later!
The Lure of the Nomad is written by Matthew J. Elliot, the man who brought us Zaltys (hooray!) and the Silurian Candidate (Oh God no…), but which is this more like? Sadly, the answer is the latter. While it has some decent characters and ideas, they’re are either ruined by bad acting or ruined by a Part 4 that if it were visualised would literally be everyone standing around and telling their backstories to each other. Oh well, let’s have a closer look anyway…
The second half of the first River Song series has a far more successful hit rate than the previous half, with the first episode having a good sense of mystery, and the second having fun interactions between River and the Eighth Doctor. While not perfect, it does end the series on a high, so let’s have a closer look!
This was on sale a while ago, and I finally have the spare money to pick up the odd spin-off series… that being said, it took a while for me to get around to listening to it, but here we are! The first two episodes of Diary of River Song start off seemingly very stand-alone, and although they turn out to be more connected than it first seems, they are fun mini-stories… Not amazing, but fun. Let’s take a closer look!
When this was first released in 2012 I was really excited to hear this story, and it didn’t disappoint! But what about listening to it a second time this past week, the uniqueness of a four-hour boxset now long gone, and the big twist at the end of Part 3 already known? Let’s find out if UNIT: Dominion still packs a punch!
The main range takes a brief detour from the trilogy format to give a solo Fifth Doctor story based around him meeting a previously unheard/seen incarnation of UNIT. Admittedly this is to set up a lose trilogy of UNIT stories in the main range that will be split up throughout the year (so not really breaking from the trilogy format, but hey-ho…) and if this is anything to go by then… I’m not that interested. It’s a fine story, The Doctor in particular is well handled, but it’s slow going, and when it gets going it soon stops again. Let’s have a closer look, and try not to accidentally type “The Halifax Rift” while we’re at it…
While the first two parts of Ravenous 1 were pretty much standalone, the second half of the set is a two-parter, clearing a few lingering things from Doom Coalition before setting the foundations for this series going forward. It features the return of crazy rouge Time Lord The Eleven, but also features the return of Z-list villain The Kandyman, though not as an evil Bertie Bassett this time. Does it all work?! Well, let’s find out, shall we?
When the Doom Coalition series of boxes ended with a cliffhanger, many were left confused as the 8th Doctor Time War sets soon began their run… Thankfully, a new series of boxes titled “Ravenous” was soon announced as being the continuation of the Dark Eyes-Doom Coalition story strand. So how does it start? Oddly, it starts completely in isolation, the first two parts being more like throwaway stories from the old Eighth Doctor Adventures range of one-hour tales, but I enjoyed them a lot, so it worked for me! After all the arc heavy stories and Time Wars it’s nice to hear Paul McGann in a somewhat normal environment again (normal for Doctor Who anyway!) So let’s take a look at the first two parts of “Ravenous 1”, shall we?
Blake’s 7 Audio Drama Series 4 comes to a close with “Crossfire – Part 3”, another set of four stories, now in the middle of the galactic civil war between Servalan and the Former President. The Liberator crew can find only way solution to ending the war, and nobody is thrilled with it… but was I thrilled in hearing it?! Pretty much! Let’s take a closer look…
Hogan Reviews 