Fancied watching this last week, and if I don’t do the odd Who review outside of new releases and marathons I’ll never fill out the review pages! So, Claws of Axos comes to us straight from Season 8, a.k.a. the Master season, as Roger Delgado’s first (that we see) incarnation of the rogue Time Lord was in every story. Also featured are the regular UNIT crew, the titular Axos, an American UNIT agent and a comedic tramp! So let’s have a deeper look to see if this all works together or not…
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…
After what I felt was the first weak story in the Fifth Doctor / Adric / Nyssa / Tegan audios with Ghost Walk, I’m happy to report that Serpent in the Silver Mask is back to being great fun, with plenty of humour and a really fun murder mystery plot. Let’s take a look at this… Doctor Whodunnit! … Sorry (also goes without saying, as I always put a spoiler warning, but as this is a murder mystery it’s best to skip to the “overall thoughts” and see if it sounds good if you haven’t listened to it yourself yet…)
I’m guessing the first thing that came into most people’s heads when they saw that the Third Doctor was getting full cast audios was “maybe now we can get a Third Doctor – Cybermen story!”, and it took a couple of boxsets, but here we are! Written by Marc “Spare Parts” Platt, Tyrants of Logic is a good story that while doesn’t touch his enduring classic, still provides us with a good full cast Third Doctor confrontation with the Cybermen, at last. So let’s take a bit more of a detailed look…
It’s time for another set of two four-part Third Doctor stories from Big Finish! Once again Tim Treloar does an excellent job filling on for the sadly departed Mr. Pertwee and in this first story we have Rufus Hound returning as his incarnation of the meddling Monk. What could go wrong? Not much, thankfully! Let’s take a look…
The next volume of Titan Comics’ 12th Doctor run once again contains two stories (this time a three-part story and a two-part one) but is now set in between Series 9 and 10, meaning The Doctor is companionless. Much like the show itself, being Clara-less helps wonders here, as the titular story is actually really great, and the second story (“Playing House”) isn’t too bad either. So let’s take a look!
After spending some time back with the Doctor Who Magazine comics, it’s time to rejoin the Titan line and take a look at the first two 12th Doctor collected graphic novels of the second “year”, starting with The School of Death. Technically a four-part story and a single part one, both of which are the last stories to feature Clara in the Titan line and both of which feature a returning enemy! So are they any good? Well…
It’s time to cover the titular story from the latest Doctor Who Magazine collection, and what a story it is! The Twelfth Doctor going up against the original Master in 70s London! A story you can only do via a medium like comics, given the sad passing of Roger Delgado all those years ago. As if that wasn’t enough, it contains an even more significant event at the end (depending of which expanded media you like to consider “canon”). So… let’s take a look!
Hogan Reviews 