The first two stories in this “Mags Trilogy” scored a three, then a two. Does story number three hold up any better? Well… no, not really. After the disaster that has been the Ace/Mel stories, these have sadly continued the trend of poor Seventh Doctor audios, which is a shame because that particular Doctor used to be the highlight of the Main Range. Well, let’s take a look at this one, anyway…
Last month’s Monsters of Gokroth was an average affair, but did at least give us a new combination of Doctor and companion thanks to the reintroduction of Mags… sadly, Moons of Vulpana is, well, not very good. A not very interesting setting full of incredibly dull characters that you don’t even remotely care for, this is not worth going out of your way to track down… Let’s have a closer look anyway!
It’s time to finish catching up (pretty much) with the Titan Comics releases by covering “Year 3”, starting with… a story that came out at the end of the run, but as it stars the Seventh Doctor I thought I’d read the stories in Doctor order, rather than release order. Operation Volcano shares a lot of similarities to the Third Doctor Titan story I raved about last year, especially with accurate drawings of the lead cast, but does the story hold up on its own? Well…
This is what happened a few months ago: Big Finish – “Hey, Mags is back for a new trilogy with the Seventh Doctor!” Me – “… Who?” Yes, I didn’t recognise the name, and even when someone said it was the werewolf girl from “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy”, I thought “Oh her… right. Okay then?” Still, as unnecessary a reunion as it is, has it produced a great story? Not really, but it did at least give off a fresh feeling, hearing the Seventh Doctor with a companion other than Ace is a rare thing, if nothing else. So let’s take a deeper look into the Monsters of Gokroth and see where this new trilogy could lead…
Original Sin introduces us to Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej and is an adaptation of the novel of the same name from back in the 90s “New Adventures” range. Given their final stories haven’t been adapted into audios I wasn’t going to include them in this marathon, they’re really Book companions rather than Audio or Comics, but Big Finish have started releasing new, audio only stories with The Doctor, Chris and Roz so that made them… straddle the line. Given their intro story has been adapted into audio though, I thought it’d be fair game! So let’s take a look!
Unlike the next story in the Audio / Comic Companion Debut marathon, this novel adaptation certainly makes sense in the audio category as Bernice Summerfield has made more audio appearances than she did during her initial novel run. Love and War is suitably dramatic and does a great job of introducing Benny, but the main thing was a rather nasty turn for Ace that sees her leave The Doctor is a huff… So let’s take a look!
The first of two Main Range releases this month, neither of which are directly linked to anything. Muse of Fire is definitely the most interesting though, as not only is it a new Doctor / Ace / Hex story, but it sees the return of Iris Wildthyme, and even her panda teddy bear companion… Panda. All this plus 1920s Paris and Paul Magrs at the helm of the script? You know its going to be something to behold…
The last half of the first volume of the New Adventures contains what I feel is the best story of the bunch, and possibly the worst. Well, worst is harsh because it’s still perfectly good, just more generic and predictable than the other three… Want to know what I’m going on about? Read on!
The first volume of the “New Adventures” has arrived! What are they? Well, they’re new stories for the Seventh Doctor and his companions Chris and Roz from the New Adventures books and their relevant audio adaptations. So… new New Adventures, I guess. Either way, I did enjoy Roz and Chris in the aforementioned book adaptations, and if the first two stories are anything to go by, I’ll enjoy these small slices of that era too…
The trilogy originally billed as a “UNIT Trilogy”, but in reality is more a trilogy surrounding tragic UNIT soldier Daniel Hopkins, comes to a close with Warlock’s Cross, a story that also features the return of Big Finish sort-of-companion Elizabeth Klein. So how does the three-part story close itself out? The tone of the story may surprise you…
