5th Doctor

Doctor Who: Hooklight Review

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Hooklight is a twelve (!) part story that was released across two six-episode boxsets, but unlike the ill-fated “Last Day” double-whammy from last year this is actually coherent and enjoyable! While not perfect, particularly in the second half, Hooklight succeeds at a grander form of storytelling (even if it borrows heavily from the narrative structure of Lord of the Rings) and introduces genuinely interesting characters that have a chance to develop and breathe thanks to the extended runtime. Let’s take a closer look!

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Doctor Who – Genesis of the Cybermen Review

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It’s time for the “post new TV series Big Finish audio catch up” once again, starting with the return of one of my favourite ranges, the “Lost Stories”. Admittedly “Genesis of the Cybermen” is another one of the Lost Stories that can’t really be slotted into regular continuity thanks to a lack of knowledge as to what Cybermen were by The Doctor’s companions in Adric’s final story “Earthshock”, not to mention having to get rid of the superior audio Cybermen origin story “Spare Parts”. Still though, in a “imagine if instead of Earthshock we got this” way it works well, and seeing original Cyberman creator Gerry Davis’ take the origin was historically interesting, even if it wasn’t, um… that great. Let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: The Great Beyond Review

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“The Great Beyond” is the latest Fifth Doctor release from Big Finish and has taken the approach of doing a six-parter, something that can sometimes lead to a great story full of slow-burn plots and great characterisation, but often ends up spinning its wheels and padding out the story poorly, and I’m sorry to say this is very much the latter. It’s a shame as there are some fun sci-fi ideas on display here and the TARDIS team is well realised, but the plot doesn’t survive the nearly three hours, and the new characters barely survive the one scene they’re introduced in! Let’s take a look, anyway…

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Doctor Who: Goth Opera Review

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It’s time for a one-off return to the Novel Adaptations range as for some reason the Paul Cornell “Missing Adventures” book Goth Opera has been turned into an audio drama, but not the Fourth Doctor novel that leads into it, so it’s all a bit odd. Still, I’m not going to turn down a three-hour Fifth Doctor story with a larger cast one way or another, so let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who – Dream Team Review

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The second story of the latest Fifth Doctor boxset sees the return of the “Dream Crabs” from the Twelfth Doctor Christmas Special “Last Christmas” as well as a couple of audios a year or two ago, and its safe to say that there really isn’t anything new you can do with them beyond repeating the same story beats from their first appearance. Most returning monsters you can put some sort of spin on but here its more dreams within dreams sequences and fake-outs, with only a little wrinkle in why they are where they are. Still, unoriginal as it may be, what was it like to listen to? Let’s find out!

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Doctor Who – The Merfolk Murders Review

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The latest Fifth Doctor boxset continues the trend of well written genre pieces with “The Merfolk Murders”, a great example of Doctor Who doing the classic “whodunnit?” story, with a 1940 Scottish historical setting to finish it off. In fact this is a full-on historical in that beyond our time travelling protagonists there are no sci-fi elements at all. So let’s take a look at this murder mystery and keep in mind that the spoiler section is perhaps more important than ever in terms of not looking at it if you intend to get the most out of the story!

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Doctor Who: The Five Doctors Review

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The Five Doctors has to be one of my favourite “comfort food” things to put on, if I’m not really sure what to watch or for whatever reason feeling unhappy it’s something that will cheer me up for 90 minutes or so. That being said this is a review and to be completely fair to it the story really isn’t up to much, it’s a big anniversary special with loads of companions and, well, four Doctors to be more accurate, plus a few old villains and the like so it doesn’t really have time to be anything with more substance. Am I just making excuses? Well, let’s take a closer look…

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Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time Review

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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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Doctor Who: Cold Fusion Review

David HoganLeave a comment

“Cold Fusion” was originally a novel for the “Virgin Missing Adventures” line, pitched as a Fifth Doctor story that happened to feature the Seventh Doctor and his then-current companions from the main “New Adventures” line, but like some of the other novels (though not nearly as many as I’d like) it was turned into a full cast Audio Drama, and boy it’s a really fun one too. At six parts it moves around at a quick pace and gives lots to do for pretty much everyone while keeping a light-hearted but occasionally serious tone. Let’s take a look at what is the last audio in this marathon (as I’m going by release order of the original book, otherwise it would’ve been closer to the start!)

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Doctor Who: The Sirens of Time Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Where to start with “The Sirens of Time”? It was the first full cast Doctor Who audio Big Finish produced (not including the Bernice Summerfield spin-offs anyway) and as such the audio quality, script and small-part actors are all of lower quality that what you got even one year later honestly, it didn’t take long for them to get a better handle of things but this first release is rough. That being said the set up isn’t bad, in fact its one we’ve seen many times in this multi-Doctor marathon in that the first three parts are for one Doctor each then they all come together for the fourth, though there is a weird anti-Fifth Doctor thread across the story… Anyway, let’s take a look!

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