Next up in the Fourth Doctor / Harry / Naomi run of stories is “The Face in the Storm”, where Big Finish go back to the “person meets their relative in the past and can’t risk damaging their own future” trope, complete with a tragic storyline for good measure. I mean, at least it isn’t Helen this time, I guess! Let’s take a look…
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The second half of the latest Fourth Doctor set is comprised of two very different stories, not just in narrative tone but in quality. “The Caged Assassin” I found to be extremely annoying and quickly forgettable, while the boxset-titular “Metamorphosis” is a perfectly fine Master story that much like the Celestial Toymaker story that kicked off the set won’t surprise you but will still keep you entertained. Let’s take a closer look!
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The latest series of Fourth Doctor Adventures continues with a doubly timely appearance of the Celestial Toymaker, after the character appeared in the TV series last year and the character’s debut story having just been completed with animation (the next Who review I’ll be getting to after this boxset, for the record!) both of which weren’t known to the writers when this was written/recorded a few years ago. The Toymaker appeared in one of my all-time favourite audios in “The Magic Mousetrap” so I had my fingers crossed we’d get another good one. Did we? Well…
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Another season of Doctor Who has arrived on Blu-Ray, so let’s take a look at the story I haven’t seen in the longest time, which is this case was difficult as while Season 15 has two of my favourite Tom Baker stories in “Horror of Fang Rock” and “Image of the Fendahl” it also has three of my least favourites in “Underworld”, “The Sun Makers” and this story, all three committing the cardinal sin of being dull rather than at least “so bad it’s fun to watch and make fun of”. In thinking about it, I’m pretty sure it’s “Invisible Enemy” that takes the prize of the longest since I last watched it, and given this has the debut of K9 there’s at least SOME interest to be found here… Let’s take a look, and who knows, maybe this time round I’ll suddenly really like it?!
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The latest “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” set has arrived and with it the first proper original Fourth Doctor / Sarah Jane solo story, which is nice as Sadie Miller does such a great job with her mother’s role. Sadly, I guess, the villain of this story is the Harmony Shoal, the brain-looking aliens from the rather weak “Return of Doctor Mysterio” Christmas Special. Can they be redeemed?! Well, no… they’re just your standard body-stealing parasite sci-fi cliché, it’s hard to do anything too original with them, but at least you can craft a fun, if not predictable, story though…
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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…
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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!
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Now, “Dimensions in Time” is a tricky one because technically it doesn’t feature two Doctors interacting but given it has multiple Doctors and companions and its an anniversary story I felt I couldn’t skip over it… plus if I don’t do it now I never will! So for those not aware “Dimensions in Time” was a 1993 Children in Need 3-D charity sketch (spread over two nights) to celebrate the series 30th anniversary, but due to it being off the air for three years all we got was this, which given it also crosses over with forever-popular soap Eastenders and had a phone-in vote to decide what some of the soap’s cast did shows how the show was viewed by the BBC at the time… Let’s take a look anyway, and not worry about if its canon or not!
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“The Forgotten” was a big deal at the time of its release as it was pretty much the first bit of media to properly connect “Classic Who” with “NuWho”, with the then-current 10th Doctor strolling down memory lane in a museum dedicated to himself but with no memories of his previous lives. It’s sort of like “The Eight Doctors” but less about Terrence Dicks patting himself on the back. Sadly though as the series progresses the art gets worse and worse until the final issue has some of the worst likenesses I’ve ever seen. At the time I ignored it because “classic and old Doctors next to each other!” but now, when that concept is old hat? Let’s take a look…
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The Destiny of the Doctor “advanced audiobooks” roll on with Doctors 4, 5 and 6. While none are bad the Fourth and Sixth Doctors are pretty dull but I will praise the Fifth Doctor story, “Smoke and Mirrors”, as it’s a great little story and well worth the little money these stories go for individually nowadays. Anyway, let’s see how the Eleventh Doctor cameos in these three stories then!
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Hogan Reviews 