After a shockingly poor “regeneration” in what is really just the Seventh Doctor’s debut story, Big Finish and Colin Baker got to “do it right” and create a story set just before the Sixth Doctor collapses mysteriously at the start of “Time and the Rani”, and here it is! “The Brink of Death” is sadly not terribly interesting, and beyond the actual regeneration scene it’s very little in the way of … anything beyond talking. Oh well! And we get so few second chances in life…
After a short delay to re-subscribe to the main range, we’re back with the trio of the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip. Tackling the “problem” of older people’s role in our society, The Middle does a good job of tackling this issue while also creating a very alien yet believable dystopian society. Not without flaws, but pretty damn good! Let’s take a look!
So we did a contemporary Earth invasion and a pseudo-historical, so what’s left on the Russell T. Davies hit list? Oh yeah, a story entirely in space! Throw in the 10th Doctor’s first encounter with the Ice Warriors and you’ve got a fun, if not a bit plain, story. Let’s finish off the 10th Doctor adventures – Box 2, shall we?
So we had an “present day Earth” invasion story, so what’s up next? Well, it a story where the Doctor meets an historical figure and gets into alien-based hijinx, obviously! Big Finish continue to nail the feel of Russell T. Davies era Who, and create a good story to boot! Let’s have a look!
The Tenth Doctor Adventures Vol. 2 has landed in my… download tray, and so off we go with the first story in the set! The Doctor, Rose and Rose’s Mum Jackie star in an Earth invasion story, so they’ve got the “feeling like the period” bit right, that’s for sure! But what’s the actual story like? Well…
Having to wait until I get paid at the end of next week to renew my monthly range subscription for another 12 releases means that this Early Adventure comes first! (that sentence is going to be pointless to anyone who reads this review via the tabs above later on…) Anyway, I wasn’t expecting much from The Morton Legacy, it didn’t sound very interesting and the trailer did nothing for it, and sure enough, there wasn’t much to it. Rather dull, overall… Or am I lying for literally no reason?! You must read on to find out!
Blake’s 7 Full Cast audio reaches Series 4, and this time the series isn’t consisting of a single boxset, instead it’s spread over three, four-story boxes! Once again we’re set in the third TV series (due to Blake being off limits due to death and the rights to TV Series 4 being complicated, this is likely to continue…) and we see the beginning of a civil war, with the crew of the Liberator in the middle of it! How do these four stories fare? Well…
The first box (or Series, sorry…) of The Time War comes to a close with “The Conscript” and “One Life”, two very different stories, but both equally great. I had my doubts due to the up and down nature of the War Doctor boxsets, but these four stories have been a triumph, both in terms of the storylines and in actually using the Time aspect of the war so well. So let’s take a closer look at Parts 3 and 4 then, shall we?
Well what do you know? A Time War story that actually has time-altering jeopardy instead of just Daleks and Time Lords shooting at each other! This is what I was hoping given this series (of series!) is set during the opening stages of the war, where Time Travel was the weapon of choice rather than on-ground combat, as it was during the War Doctor’s boxsets. So let’s look at the first half of the first set, containing “The Starship Theseus” and “Echoes of War”, shall we?
The Outliers is a classic Second Doctor “base under siege” story, but with a modern, “makes you think” twist in the final part. It’s a good story, though it does have a rather leisurely pace (though that does kind of make it seem all the more genuine of the era…) Let’s take a more detailed look then!
Hogan Reviews 