Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora Review

The next somewhat random Fourth Doctor serial to get reviewed is the “Masque of Mandragora”, another one of those stories I can’t remember the last time I watched due to an overriding feeling of it just being “okay”. It is a rare Fourth Doctor “pseudo historical” and set in Italy’s past no less, but despite sentient time energies, evil cultists and swashbuckling scenes it’s… yeah, still just “okay”. Let’s take a look anyway!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: The Seeds of Doom Review

Kicking off this run of Fourth Doctor reviews is one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who stories: “The Seeds of Doom”, which features the plant-based Krynoids and spends one third of the story in Antarctica and the other two-thirds in the British countryside, leading to a fun six parter that doesn’t lose steam like so many of its peers. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: Terror of the Zygons Review

The latest Doctor Who Blu-Ray set has arrived, and sadly they used some pretty poor AI upscaling thing that makes the picture look… weird, even to my eyes that often doesn’t catch that sort of thing, to the point where I’ve taken screenshots from the DVD release instead, which kind of goes against the point of these reviews but oh well! While it does introduce the Zygons, a great alien race that oddly never reappeared on screen until 2013, many decades after this story, my favourite thing about it is that it’s pretty much a Third Doctor era UNIT story with the Fourth Doctor… and being set in Scotland. Still! It’s a great story, so let’s take a look at it!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: The Last Queen of the Nile Review

“The Last Queen of the Nile” is the titular story for this final box of this year’s Fourth Doctor Adventures and really goes out on a high. A “pure historical” (in other words our time travelling heroes and their timeship are the only sci-fi elements) which is rare for any non-Hartnell Doctor but even rarer four Mr. Baker, but it really succeeds in its goal of showing the “Whoniverse’s” version of Anthony and Cleopatra with real dramatic gravitas, while also not forgetting to have a bit of fun here and there. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: Conspiracy of Silence Review

“Conspiracy of Silence” is the first part of the “Last Queen of the Nile” box, a two-parter compared to the titular story’s four, and honestly it does feel like they were worried a historical themed boxset wouldn’t sell so added this in so they could stick a recognisable monster on the front. That being said though this is actually quite a fun story, the first part shows us the story from the perspective of our main cast complete with Silence memory wipes, and then the second part is the same story again but fast-forwarding through repeated scenes while showing all scenes with the Silence in, completing the picture. It’s a fun idea, so let’s take a look!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: The Remains of Kaerula / The Ruins of Kaerula Review

The next load of Fourth Doctor audio dramas have arrived, and sadly this double-bill fits into that all too frequent category of “dull and forgettable”. I guess because they have to make so many often one hours stories for Mr. Baker is why so many of his “Fourth Doctor Adventures” fall flat, but that’s not really an excuse when plenty have been good, and a few great. Oh well, let’s get my thoughts down before I literally forget everything about it…

Continue reading

Doctor Who: The Memory Thieves Review

The Memory Thieves is a two-parter that has the unfortunate fate of being the other story not featured in the boxset title so kinds of falls off the radar even before its released. In this case it’s a shame really because while the titular “Hellwood Inheritance” fell off as it went along this at least kept me entertained for its admittedly shorter runtime, even if it was still very much a vanilla Who experience. Let’s take a look!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: The Hellwood Inheritance Review

“The Hellwood Inheritance” is a story with a great premise and four episodes to tell it, but somehow “Jurassic Park with ghosts” falls apart in the middle and its second half just feels flat with little to do with the concept (beyond ghost-like beings anyway). Ah well, it’s been a little while since we’ve had a just Fourth Doctor / Leela story and both were on good form at least… Let’s take a look!

Continue reading

Doctor Who: Faithful Friends – The Dying Breed Review

It’s time for another “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” set and for the first time we get a Thirteenth Doctor era “monster” to meet a classic Doctor in the Lupari, the dog-like warriors from the um, not-that-great Flux series. The issue here is that a lot of what make them at least a little unique is the fact that they look like dogs so on audio all this story really feels like is a really basic “combat-obsessed medieval society” story with one gag that sees the bipedal and human-sized dog-people somehow believe K9 is one of them, but even that gets old quick. Well… anyway, let’s take a look!

Continue reading