The next Sontarans vs. Rutans story has a lot in common with the first one as it also uses a Doctor / companion combination we haven’t heard from in a long long time, in this case the Sixth Doctor and Charley, back when she thought the Eighth Doctor was dead and ended up travelling with an earlier incarnation. This works out well as she now has prior knowledge of Sontarans and Rutans so the whole “she can’t let on how she knows this stuff” plot works well. How is it in general though? Well, let’s take a look!

Continue reading →

The “Storm of the Sea Devils” boxset concludes with this entirely Sea Devil-less two parter that more than most stories really suffers from not having its own cover… Well, anyway, as with a lot of the under-one-hour stories there isn’t a lot of time to get know new characters which is why this story very cleverly focused almost entirely on the TARDIS team themselves. Let’s have a look…

Continue reading →

This year’s Fourth Doctor series finally gives us the debut of the Harry Sullivan / Naomi Cross duo that has had adventures after their time with the Fourth Doctor already released, thanks to the Fourth Doctor stuff being banked so far in advance. In their further adventures I’ve been critical of Naomi being really plain and her actress not emoting very well, and unsurprisingly I can’t say she started off great and got worse, let’s put it that way. Oh well, what about the rest of the story? Let’s find out!

Continue reading →

The next Ninth Doctor boxset has arrived and it has a linking narrative of “stories where something from the past in effecting the present”, which is an odd choice as it does make all three stories feel rather samey, even if they take place is vastly different eras. The fact that these two stories also have the Doctor get a temporary companion to help out against an other-worldly threat, a.k.a. like 95% of these Ninth Doctor audio stories, doesn’t help the overall samey feeling these sets have created for themselves… Ah well, let’s take a look at the first two stories, shall we?

Continue reading →

This year marks 50 years since the Sontarans debuted on screen and therefore 50 years since the Rutans were mentioned as well, so Big Finish have decided to cash in/celebrate this with what was clearly meant to be a boxset release but for whatever reason has become four separate releases over four months. Since they’re all different Doctors I would’ve had to review them separately anyway, so this works well enough for me! Most importantly in my mind though is this is the first time the TARDIS team of the Eighth Doctor, Charley and C’rizz have reunited as a “new story in an old period”, and while the era is not a favourite I can’t say the reunion didn’t make me smile when I heard. So let’s take a look at what is actually an extremely rare Sontaran and Rutan story! (though I guess won’t be rare once the four months are up…)

Continue reading →

While only half done I think “The Last Day” might be a classic case of “careful what you wish for” because I complained that the Sixth Doctor’s audio-exclusive final adventure before his regeneration was rather flat and uneventful but here the Seventh Doctor’s audio-exclusive final adventure is so over-stuffed with characters, continuity and episodes that it’s so far pretty poor, I have to say. I mean I know I’m technically judging half a story but boy if this half is the set up I don’t have a lot of faith in the second half having a good pay-off given just how many characters and storyline strings are going on… Let’s take a look anyway!

Continue reading →