This month’s main range audio is the rather Douglas Adams-y titled “The High Price of Parking”, though the actually story is less Adams-y, though very few if any story are… Anywho! It’s a fun story in places, but also a pretty generic one, once you get past some of the sillier story beats and setting, it’s pretty run of the mill stuff. Ah well… Let’s take a closer look!
The sixth series of Fourth Doctor audio Adventures continues and reaches a rare high point. Dethras is an great story, uses its runtime perfectly and does a few new and / or interesting things among a generally good Doctor Who story. This is Adrian Poynton’s first story for Big Finish, and I certainly hope it’s not his last. Let’s take a closer look!
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The Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive in 20s Hollywood, with the transition between silent and “talkie” films in full effect. This story plays with the concepts well, but I can’t help but feel in a few weeks time I’ll have forgotten about it. It’s one of those Fourth Doctor Adventures stories that just isn’t very memorable. Not bad, not great, just… alright. Let’s take a closer look to see why…
Sontarans! Zombies! … Zombie Sontarans! The Eternal Battle is certainly an odd story, but not in a bad way. It takes a possibly over-used classic villain (in recent Big Finish history, anyway) and at least puts a bit of an interesting slant on them. Let’s take a closer look…
With “Series 3” (a.k.a. a single box set called “The Spoils of War”) coming out soon, I finish playing catch up with Big Finish’s Blake’s 7 Full Cast audio dramas by dashing through Series 2, which for the record, is set during the TV series’ 3rd Series… Got it? Good. The plot revolves around Dayna being missing due to Josette Simon not wanting to return to playing the character. Oh, also, Del Grant from the 2nd Series TV episode “Countdown” is currently part of the crew, which is something that happened in the audio book range “The Liberator Chronicles” that I haven’t listened to, so I was rather baffled during the first episode… Anyway! Let’s have a look at the first half!
After playing catch up with the Main Range, it’s time to do the same with the Sixth series of “Fourth Doctor Adventures”, which kicks off with this story featuring the return of Jago and Litefoot, as well as the general Victorian London theme that is… well, overused, let’s be fair. Still, a lot of fun interaction between the lead cast make this a fun, if not particularly memorable, audio story.
My occasional dip into the Titan Comics collected trade paperbacks resumes after taking a break from the end of “Year 1”. The Endless Song contains three stories across five issues of the original 10th Doctor comics, and things take a while to get going, but at least manages to find its feet at the end of the volume…
The final season for Peter Capaldi’s Doctor comes to a close with a story featuring not one but two incarnations of the Master, the original Mondasian Cybermen (who I always called “Mondas Cybermen”, so I guess I’ll have to get used to that…), regeneration teases, companion exits and even a cameo from an older Doctor (sort of…) Sounds over-stuffed, right? Surprisingly, with the exception of a few little annoying bits, it’s actually a really good story from start to finish. Let’s take a closer look!
Finally caught up with the Main Range with this, the last of the trilogy of two two-part stories, this time reuniting the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex, the classic audio trio whose story came to an end a few years ago. This story is set somewhat early in their adventures, certainly before their story became arc heavy, which makes sense given most of Big Finish’s Who output is placed in the middle of an established Doctor Who time period, so why not plonk a new story in the middle of your own established era? Anyway, enough of all that, both stories are actually good this time, with World Apart being a standout…
Vortex Ice and Cortex Fire are an unmemorable duo, though the former is at least a fun spin on time travel, even if the rest of the story is pretty dull. Cortex Fire on the other hand is generic as generic gets, not bad, not good, just… there. Ah well, at least this is the second (and third, I guess) story to feature Flip recently, and once again she was actually an enjoyable companion, so it seems the Big Finish writers have managed to pull her back into an actually consistently good role…
Hogan Reviews 