The new series of Doctor Who has (finally) started with a two-parter named “Spyfall”, which is at east an actual pun on “Skyfall”, unlike a certain episode last season that set me off… ANYWAY, Spyfall is Chris Chibnall’s best effort so far, which comes as a big relief after his rather poor track history in the last series. Throw in an unexpected twist and it’s a good near-two hours. Let’s take a closer look!
2019 was a weird year for Doctor Who stories, as there was only a single, solitary episode on January 1st, meaning this list is pretty much entirely Big Finish (I’m always behind on the comics I’m afraid). Still, which Big Finish was best? Did their anniversary release come up big? Did the one TV episode place at all?! Let’s find out!
The last Main Range audio of the year / decade, Blood on Santa’s Claw is an “and Other Stories” release that is actually more one single story where the location changes a bit in between. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but often entertaining, Blood on Santa’s Claw is a good end to the range in 2019, if not exactly the most original story you’ll listen to this year… Let’s take a look!
Daughter of the Gods was pitched as a what if “5th Anniversary Story”, a classic multi-Doctor story but with, at that point, the only two Doctors. What ended up happening instead is a weird opportunity to explore the character of Katarina a bit more, a companion who barely lasted a handful of episodes, all of which are missing (and yet to be animated!) Either way I really enjoyed it, so that’s all that matters in the end! Let’s take a deeper look at it…
The first of two 2nd Doctor stories from last month that I’m finally catching up on, and I’m glad I listened to this one first because… well, it was a bit dull. It had some good concepts and performances, but it was quite a slog to get through, and it would have come across as far worse had I listened to it after the second story… But enough about that, let’s take a closer look at Home Guard, shall we?
Back when the original run of Lost Stories came out “The Ultimate Evil” was notable by its absence, especially given it was so far along back in the day that it had a Target novel adaptation, something most of the other releases in this audio range didn’t have. So rights issues have apparently been sorted and The Ultimate Evil finally gets a dramatized adaptation and… yeah… erm, it’s not good. Very of its time, no doubt, but … Yeah. Let’s take a look! Continue reading
The Lost Stories make an unexpected return this month (as in it was unexpected when it was announced months ago…), starting with Nightmare Country, a Fifth Doctor story that was proposed for Season 21 but deemed too expensive to produce. This audio adaptation proved not only fun to listen to, but also… not really sure how it would have been too expensive, honestly. Either way, let’s have a look at Nightmare Country!
Going into this final release in the most recent Fifth Doctor Main Range trilogy I was expecting to like Conversion more based on the synopsis, but it actually ended up the other way around. That’s not saying the latter story was bad, and in fact the end scene was brilliant, but … well, let’s save the specifics for the actual review, shall we?
My idea of reviewing a story from every season as its released on Blu-ray immediately ran into a problem thanks to the release of Season 23, a season that’s actually one long story, albeit a story that is clearly segmented into four parts. Rather than review the whole Trial of a Time Lord (which I didn’t have time to do due to a certain six film, six game marathon) I was going to just review one part, but that didn’t seem right either. Thankfully, on the Blu-ray, is a special “Standalone Edition” of one of the stories, with all the Trial stuff cut out, so I’ve decided to review that, and then later do an additional paragraph or two when I reach this story during a review of Trial proper. With all that said, how is Terror of the Vervoids when all the Trial stuff is removed? Let’s find out!
The Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, along with their new companion Marc, have their first two adventures as a quartet, and sadly the two stories in question are rather unremarkable. Not bad by any means, but not very memorable. One of those “middle of the road” things, where you won’t remember them in a month or two’s time… Oh well, let’s take a closer look anyway!
