The early War Doctor adventures continue with another trio of stories and this time the middle story, Berserker, is fantastic. Being the middle story I couldn’t separate it into its own review but it really does deserve more spotlight, not that “A Mother’s Love” is bad either. So let’s take a look at both stories and act surprised by a rare case of returning Big Finish continuity!
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In the last of the review catch-ups from 2022 we have the fourth War Doctor Begins boxset with more great Jonathon Carley in the lead role. Once again if you’ve read my “Top 10 Doctor Who Stories of 2022” list from a few months ago you’ll know I was quite fond of this three-parter, so let’s just dive straight in!
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After feeling a bit flat on the previous two stories I’m happy to report that “Rewind” was a great story, taking the rather trad at this point Groundhog Day scenario of reliving the same day over and over and giving it a really good spin. Let’s take a look!
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The War Doctor Begins side-range continues with another trio of stories, the first two of which don’t feel very Time War-y, where as the third is very Time War-y, so it was an easy decision how to split this box into two! This doesn’t mean the stories in this half of the set’s review are bad per say, but more that given the setting it seemed like something of a waste. Let’s take a look!
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The War Doctor Begins: Warbringer comes to a close with a story set just before its first two episodes, just to confuse everyone! Well, okay, it is entirely explained at the end of the previous part so it doesn’t actually confuse, but it’s still an odd decision because this being last doesn’t really make any difference compared to whether it was on first. Well, anyway, what’s the story like? Let’s find out!
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The adventures of the freshly minted War Doctor continue with his second boxset. Unlike last time all three stories are heavily linked here, though the third episode is just separate enough for my usual splitting of the boxsets to still make sense. The War Doctor arrives on a world at perpetual war and he’s heralded as a mythic figure, whether he likes it or not. Let’s take a look!
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Forged in Fire’s final two thirds are two stand alone stories that continue the high bar set by the first story. Once again Jonathon Carley impresses with his vocal work and the latter of the two stories, “The Shadow Squad”, properly plays about with time in twisted ways that make the Time War a bit more … Time-y. Let’s take a look!
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The brand new sub-set of War Doctor stories titled “The War Doctor Begins” has arrived, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Jonathon Carley does a stellar job filling John Hurt’s shoes, not only replicating the incarnation’s voice but also his vocal mannerisms all while still actually acting. “Light the Flame” is technically the War Doctor’s debut / post regeneration story, a key milestone indeed, but does it live up to those lofty heights? Let’s find out!
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Now, technically the War Doctor made his debut in a 30 second stinger at the end of “The Name of the Doctor”, but that would seem like a waste of that story for the sake of 30 seconds, so I decided to go down the Eighth Doctor route and do John Hurt’s first performance from start to finish in the role as the lead (as Day of the Doctor was covered last year…), meaning we get the first Full Cast Audio Drama to feature him: “The Innocent”, from the “Only the Monstrous” box set. Is it any good? Well… It’s alright, I guess. It’s nice to finally debut my War Doctor image template anyway!
It’s kind of a shame to cover this in the “Regeneration Marathon”, because really the War Doctor’s regeneration isn’t a big part of the story at all, and really this would be better suited for a hypothetical multi-Doctor story marathon, but I said I’d cover each regeneration in order, so here we go! It has the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in key roles, John Hurt’s newly added War Doctor, plus Zygons, Daleks and an on screen appearance from Tom Baker himself! Throw in cameos by all other past and future Doctors (at that point) and you have a great 50th Anniversary story. So let’s take a look!
Hogan Reviews 