The fifth series (or Box set, if you like) of The Diary of River Song finishes up with a second half much like the first: two stories that are really fun to listen to, but a bit light on any major story arcs or development. Also like in the first half, one story features an incarnation of The Master that had yet to appear on Big Finish audio, in this case Eric Roberts’ version from the TV Movie! … Yay? … Sort of? Let’s find out!
The Fifth Series of Diary of River Song takes a side step from the “River meets past incarnations of the Doctor” set up and instead goes with “River meets different incarnations of The Master”. The first two stories includes the Big Finish debut of Missy, the first bit of Twelfth Doctor continuity to hit the audios, and unsurprisingly, is very fun indeed! Let’s have a look at River meeting both Missy, and rather more serious “melty Master”, in this first half of the set…
What happens when you take a historical person like Ada Lovelace and place her in a plot not unlike The Terminator? Unsurprisingly, given how I phrased that specific question, you get this! Seriously though, the idea of using the woman who, for all intents and purposes, invented computer code in a story about machines going back in time to change history was a great one, but does the story do the idea justice?
The Doctor and his new companion Ann Kelso visit their first alien world together, and it just so happens to be a bit Jurassic Park-y (and Alien-y!)… but with Drashigs! I’ve always loved the Drashigs, they were heavily featured in my first Jon Pertwee story, and I always thought those shots of them screaming and suddenly twisting their heads towards the camera was unsettling… at the time. Anyway, I’m glad they’ve finally been brought back, and even made to work well on audio! Let’s take a look…
Series 8 of the Fourth Doctor Adventures is a significant event as it features Tom Baker’s Doctor getting a brand new companion in the form of Ann Kelso, and it’s not long before the two strike up a good back and forth. The rest of the story is an odd mix of 70s police show and general British gangland stuff, but with a heavy alien presence, obviously! Let’s take a look…
The 2019 run of Main Range stories kicks off with a first for Big Finish, despite celebrating 20 years with the Doctor Who license this year: Kamelion! The silver robot whose prop creator sadly passed leaving no one able to actually use the thing, so it was swiftly written out of the TV show… hooray? Well…
Ophidius introduces us to Destrii, who will go on to become a companion for the Eighth Doctor down the road, but it’s also the first Doctor Who Magazine comic to be published in full colour, which would continue from then onwards, so once again this Audio / Comic Companion Debut Story has more of an impact than just the new companion. While Ophidius is the lengthier story, Beautiful Freak is perhaps one of the more well written and sombre stories in Doctor Who in general, so is definitely the star of this double bill. Let’s take a closer look, regardless…
Endgame is not just the debut for Izzy, but it’s the start of the Eighth Doctor’s great run in Doctor Who Magazine. As his Big Finish audio tenure went on the Doctor got more and more cynical and sarcastic, where as these comics have him just like in the TV movie: very excitable and funny. Izzy is a great companion too, a “nerdy” character within a very nerdy sci-fi series works great. So let’s take a look at Endgame (the story, not the whole Graphic novel…) and kick off the Eighth Doctor’s lengthy part in the Audio/Comic Companions Debut Marathon!
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!
2019’s first, and only, televised Doctor Who story was at the very least a good one. Despite being the weakest of the writers in his own show-ran season, Chris Chibnall managed to tell a good story and put a unique spin on a Dalek tale, something very hard to do after 50+ years of the evil pepper pots. So let’s take a deeper look at Resolution, and then I’ll update the Thirteenth Doctor page for the last time this year… already. (not bitter or anything…)
Hogan Reviews 