The Sixth Doctor’s TV story section on this blog is still barren, so let’s finally stick one of his televised stories up, shall we? Vengeance on Varos is one of the few true highlights of Colin Baker’s one regular season, full of violence, political messages and a critique on then-modern trends and TV itself… most of which is just as, if not more relevant today! Plus it’s a good story in and of itself, messages aside. So let’s take a look at it!
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…
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…
My review of GATE (or GATE: Thus the Japanese Self-Defense Force Fought There) is now up on Anime UK News HERE. It was alright, ruined slightly by the very pro-Japanese army theme that ended up leaking into real life…
(My review of the first half of the Season can be found by clicking HERE)
The second half of The Walking Dead’s 8th season gets off to a painfully slow start, but picks up quite nicely, ending with a really strong set of episodes. This comes as a great relief because, as poor as some episodes have been, this is the blow off to a several-season-long story arc and it needed the grand finale to deliver. Let’s take a look at the end of the “All Out War”.
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?
Legends of Tomorrow continues to be a source of great entertainment in the Arrowverse, able to be serious when needed but never loses its sense of fun and adventure. In this mid-way chunk of episodes we get a couple of appearances of John Constantine, once again played by Matt Ryan, as well as Kid Flash joining the team. Do these new additions work? Well, let’s see shall we!
My reviews of the UK releases of the DBZ Double Feature Blu-rays come to an end with the two TV Specials, which can be found HERE. Great fun reliving these 45 minute chunks of Dragon Ball action!
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 