The Time War: Cass boxset ends with a two parter (or the length of a four parter, if you want to think of it that way!) that once again proves to be a fun story to follow with a good “Time War screwing everything up” plot, a great set of new characters and the TARDIS trio is once again on fine form. So let’s take a look!

The Eighth Doctor Time War stories return and with The Doctor’s great grandson from an alternate timeline Alex already settled in. As the name suggests Big Finish shows that no companion is off limits for them once again as the box features Cass, the woman The Doctor met moments before her death and his regeneration. How do they meet up now? The Time War! That’s all the excuse you need for timeline muddling scenarios… So let’s take a look at these first two single part episodes, shall we?

Despite being such a visual enemy the Weeping Angels once again appear in a really good audio story with Albie’s Angels. It puts focus on Helen and her family in a way that’s not embarrassingly out-of-nowhere and heavy handed like in the past and it really works. Now I’m a little late with this review so paradoxically this has already appeared on my “Top 10 Doctor Who Stories of 2022” list so its quality might not come as a surprise, but hey-ho… let’s take a look anyway!

Connections is the latest Eighth Doctor stand-alone Liv & Helen set and it’s a mixed bag, but while the standout story is the next one these two stories are perfectly fine. Here Lies Drax is a fun comedy and Love Vampires is a pretty standard space station under siege story with a bit of an emotional twist. Neither will blow you away with originality, but both will keep you entertained for an hour, so let’s take a bit of a deeper look.

The most interesting thing about “The Dalby Spook” is finding out that it’s based on an actual thing! Apparently on the Isle of Man in the 30s there was a hot rumour of a talking mongoose called Gef that attracted paranormal specialists and skeptics like Harry Price to debunk it. How bizarre! What’s that? The story? … It’s alright. After “Paradox of the Daleks” it was certainly more straight forward and low key, that’s for sure! Let’s take a look…

Paradox of the Daleks is kicking off a new period for the Eighth Doctor (I hesitate to say “new era” since it has the same two companions he’s had for years now) free of an over-arching storyline with a linked title and frankly it had me with “Paradox” and “written by John Dorney”, as he is not only a great writer in general but has done great time bending stories in the past. Is Paradox of the Daleks chief among them? Well, no, but it’s still really fun! Let’s take a closer look…

Getting a new Eight Doctor and Charley story is always special for me, they were the lead duo I loved listening to when I first got into Big Finish Doctor Who audio, but I have to say this next story in “Classic Doctors, New Monsters: The Stuff of Nightmares” was disappointing. I get where they went with it and it was well written and performed but I just didn’t get on with it for most of its runtime… Want to know more? Read on!