… Uh-oh. You know when you remember something being bad, then when you return to it it’s somehow worse than you remembered? Well.. That. Mission to Magnus, despite being written in the 80s, is somehow more sexist than Prison in Space, written in the 60s, and has a really gratingly bad child actor to boot. How did this nearly get made as part of the original Season 23? As a fan of the Ice Warriors I imagine appearing in this story would’ve been worse than what actually happened to them, and what actually happened is they weren’t brought back on screen for decades. Let’s take a look then…
Continue reading6th Doctor
Doctor Who – The Nightmare Fair Review
It’s funny that its taken this long to swing back round to the Lost Stories that started them all, but here we are! The Nightmare Fair is the first of an impressive run of eleven Sixth Doctor Lost Stories (twelve if I hadn’t already reviewed Ultimate Evil) and is one of the ones I knew about before the range started. It was originally supposed to kick off Season 23, with the last line of Revelation of the Daleks originally making reference to Blackpool being their next destination before everything became uncertain and they removed it. So how does the Nightmare Fair hold up? Is it better than the other Lost Story featuring one of the Celestial Beings?… It would be hard not to be! Let’s take a look!
Continue readingDoctor Who – Colony of Fear Review
So here we have it: the final Sixth Doctor main range story, and while it would be more fitting if it were with Evelyn that’s no longer possible, so a new story set during the period where it was just The Doctor and Constance together will have to do! Colony of Fear is a perfectly fine “base under siege” story, though with some fun twists and some odd continuity! Let’s take a look!
Continue readingDoctor Who: Plight of the Pimpernel Review
Another year, another final review being a Doctor Who audio drama I hadn’t got around to giving a listen before Christmas! “Plight of the Pimpernel” is sort-of a pseudo-historical, though really the sci-fi far outweighs any historical context to come from the setting, not least the fact that the titular Pimpernel is a fictional character! But how is he then alive here in this story? Let’s find out!
Continue readingDoctor Who: The One Doctor Review
The One Doctor is a bit of an odd-ball in this Christmas specials look, as it technically doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas. It was released in December 2001, but that’s about it… except it’s clearly a light-hearted comedy affair set up to be Big Finish’s “Christmas Panto”. For that reason I feel it deserves to be here on this list, unlike the next year’s release “Bang Bang-a-Boom”, which while more light-hearted felt more like a Star Trek parody than anything Pantomime-y. ANYWAY, so let’s have a look at the first of five audio Christmas offerings in a row!
Continue readingDoctor Who: The Vanity Trap and Conflict Theory Review

After what was frankly a disappointing first half of the “Doctor and Peri” boxset, can the second half of the box salvage it? Well, erm… not really, though Conflict Theory is a good laugh if you like your humour more… Frasier-y. Want more details and less made up hyponated word bollocks? Read on!
Continue readingDoctor Who: The Headless Ones & Like Review

Back in the Main Range a few years ago there was a trilogy of stories where The Sixth Doctor met back up with an older Peri, the one that lived as a Queen alongside Brian Blessed (truly a fate worse than death…) This new plot thread was then dropped without a conclusion to the whole Peri thing… Until now! This “Doctor and Peri” set picks up that thread and, at least so far, gives us a continuation of the new “era”, even though I doubt it gives it any finality just yet. The first two stories are… rather by-the-numbers in two completely different settings, so let’s take a look!
Continue readingDoctor Who: The Lovecraft Invasion Review

Now this is an interesting one! The Lovecraft Invasion was supposed to be released last month, but ended up being delayed due to “production issues”, which most people assumed was probably due to Lovecraft being an out-and-proud racist and the current culture of condemning such historical figures. Sure enough, thanks to a preview that went out before the “issues”, this is indeed what happened, and it led to some rather on-the-nose character assassination of the titular author. I mean, I hate racists with a passion, but there were more subtler option available, I’m sure… *hand waving gesture* anyway, ignoring that, what’s the actual story like?! Good question!
Doctor Who: Scorched Earth Review

The main range continues to plough forward with the next Sixth Doctor / Constance / Flip story, and boy it’s a dozy. Scorched Earth takes place in France just after its liberation, in other words Constance’s near future, and so this story really explores the differences between Constance from the 1940s and Flip from the 2010s. Throw in some soldiers on all sides of the war and a fiery alien and you’ve got a hit on your hands! Let’s take a closer look.
Doctor Who: Cry of the Vultriss Review

This month’s Main Range audio sees the return of the Sixth Doctor, Constance and Flip trio, plus the audio debut of the Ice Warrior “Ice Queen”. All this plus regular Ice Warriors, Ice Lords and Time Lord technology, and that’s a lot of returning or familiar elements, but what about the new Vultriss race? Does it all add up to a good story?! Let’s find out!




