The latest Main Range release, The Dispossessed, has some good ideas tucked in it somewhere, but much like Paradise Towers that it references so much, the good ideas are buried in a bunch of bad, over-the-top acting and in this case, a really clumsy amount of exposition explained via a simple conversation pattern. More info, you say? Read on!
Elizabeth Klein is one of the odder “companions” of The Doctor. She starts off as an alternate reality Nazi, ends up in our reality, and then… well, lot’s of other stuff, but concentrating on her debut story you’d probably think I made some sort of mistake. Klein’s next three stories form one of the best “trilogies” in the main range, but since this all about debut stories, we have Colditz, one of the earlier stories from Big Finish, but a great little look into all sides of World War II through the eyes of soldiers and inmates of the infamous castle, plus David Tennant’s first Doctor Who role thrown in! Let’s take a look…
Raine Creevy was supposed to be the companion that replaced Ace in the now mythical “Season 27”, and although that never came to be, here she is! Crime of the Century was the second story in the Seventh Doctor Lost Stories, and although the original pitch has been changed to include Ace, it’s safe to say if this aired on TV in 1990… Yeah, the series wouldn’t be as well received as most of Season 26 is, let’s put it that way…
The main range of Doctor Who audios gears up for a marathon run of Seventh Doctor stories, starting with a return to the Doctor-Ace-Mel combo that has so far been… well, pretty poor. Is this an improvement?! Well, it’s certainly an improvement over “The Silurian Candidate”, but talk about damning with faint praise! Seriously though, Red Planets is a good story with some fun ideas, but never really kicks into second gear. Let’s take a closer look at any rate…
When this was first released in 2012 I was really excited to hear this story, and it didn’t disappoint! But what about listening to it a second time this past week, the uniqueness of a four-hour boxset now long gone, and the big twist at the end of Part 3 already known? Let’s find out if UNIT: Dominion still packs a punch!
“Doctor Who”, “The TV Movie”, “The Enemy Within”, whatever you want to call it, “the Movie” featuring the Seventh Doctor regenerating into the Eighth is a… interesting and unique look at the franchise at a time it was all but dead. I actually quite like it, but then I’m a big fan of Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor audio dramas, so it’s just nice to see him visually in the role. As this features the Seventh Doctor so much I couldn’t skip it for the Regeneration Marathon, which means I’ll have to come up with something else for the Eighth Doctor next year when I do a “first stories” marathon… ANYWAY, with all that being said, let’s take a look at the TV Movie…
I had high hopes for The Silurian Candidate, one of two Main Range audio releases this month, but sadly it was far too concerned with lampooning Donald Trump than it was telling a new or interesting story with the Silurians. Sadly that’s another 7th Doctor / Ace / Mel trilogy in the Main Range that just hasn’t worked, although at least this time the lead trio weren’t really the problem… let’s take a closer look…
This month’s Main Range audio continues with the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Mel combination that, sadly, has failed to really work, mostly due to its placement in Big Finish’s own timeline. While the last story was disappointing, this lived up to the fact that it looked and sounded a bit dull by … being a bit dull. Let’s take a closer look anyway, because that’s how my blog works!
This month’s main range audio is the rather Douglas Adams-y titled “The High Price of Parking”, though the actually story is less Adams-y, though very few if any story are… Anywho! It’s a fun story in places, but also a pretty generic one, once you get past some of the sillier story beats and setting, it’s pretty run of the mill stuff. Ah well… Let’s take a closer look!
Finally caught up with the Main Range with this, the last of the trilogy of two two-part stories, this time reuniting the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex, the classic audio trio whose story came to an end a few years ago. This story is set somewhat early in their adventures, certainly before their story became arc heavy, which makes sense given most of Big Finish’s Who output is placed in the middle of an established Doctor Who time period, so why not plonk a new story in the middle of your own established era? Anyway, enough of all that, both stories are actually good this time, with World Apart being a standout…
Hogan Reviews 