Where to start with “The Sirens of Time”? It was the first full cast Doctor Who audio Big Finish produced (not including the Bernice Summerfield spin-offs anyway) and as such the audio quality, script and small-part actors are all of lower quality that what you got even one year later honestly, it didn’t take long for them to get a better handle of things but this first release is rough. That being said the set up isn’t bad, in fact its one we’ve seen many times in this multi-Doctor marathon in that the first three parts are for one Doctor each then they all come together for the fourth, though there is a weird anti-Fifth Doctor thread across the story… Anyway, let’s take a look!

This is an awkward release to cover as “Project: Lazarus” was released as a single story made of two halves but the issue I always ran into was that the first half, which is a self-contained Sixth Doctor story, has a major companion departure (pretty much anyway) whereas this second half, a self-contained Seventh Doctor story (featuring the Sixth Doctor, sort-of) isn’t really that important. So to give the Sixth Doctor story its rightful spotlight I’ve broke it up into two reviews, with the first half appearing next year (hopefully!) when I cover all the Evelyn Smythe stories here and there. So let’s take a look at the second story in Project: Lazarus, itself a sort of second story in a loose trilogy…

This is a review I was hoping I would’ve got to in my sadly-put-on-hold “filling in the gaps” covering of older Who stories I had to stop a year or so ago as instead of a big anniversary story with multiple Doctors meeting its instead a near four hour story wrapping up a bunch of the Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard storylines and setting up the next era of the audio-exclusive series (the show’s TV revival had yet to come about at this point so these audios with Paul McGann were very much the continuation of the show) so while I’m happy to talk about this now it does feel like reviewing a season finale without having reviewed any other part of the season. There is a brief scene with four Doctors talking, in case you’re wondering why it’s part of this marathon, plus each of Doctors 5-7 and a bunch of their companions play other roles in the story as well. Confused? I bet. Strap in, it’s a long story…

Time for our second review of this marathon to have “Four Doctors” in the title, though this one has the “The” in it! I remember how big a deal this was at the time, full-page adverts in Doctor Who Magazine and everything, then it turned out the Four Doctors only meet for all of a minute at the end, and beyond that it’s just a fun scene with the Fifth and Eighth Doctors and then a stand-alone story that features four incarnations. I’ll admit I was disappointed when reviews started coming out and I found out, but when I listened to it I was actually really happy with the story as it was really well paced and had a unique way to feature all the Doctors that really works. Now, with a re-listen and knowing exactly what to expect, I hold it in even higher regard. Let’s take a look!

“Peri and the Piscon Paradox” is a unique story in many ways, it deals with the continuity errors within Peri’s timeline, it deals with Nicola Bryant’s very real and unfortunate personal issues within the context of her fictional character, it’s a funny story with a lots of slapstick and well timed witty comments, it has two Doctors interacting (in a very unique way) but also ends on a very dramatic and sombre note. Somehow, despite all these things being so different, it’s a cohesive and really entertaining two hours. Let’s take a look!

The Destiny of the Doctor mini-series comes to a close with the Tenth and the Eleventh Doctors, the latter being the big finale connecting them all together. “Death’s Deal”, the Tenth Doctor story, is good fun as its read by Catherine Tate, though that does mean the dramatic bits are a little lost. The finale on the other hand is good but bit of an anti-climax at the time, after ten months of build-up. What’s it like now listening to all of them so close together? Well…

The next three stories in the Destiny of the Doctor run closes the “classic” era and brings us into the “NuWho” era (though it’s really all just one show, but you know…) as well as dropping us in on the Eighth Doctor and Charley, allowing Big Finish continuity a go round. This time I felt all three stories were enjoyable and invoked the spirit of their respective eras and Doctors, though the Ninth Doctor story suffers from being the only one not to feature a returning companion to narrate the story. Let’s take a look!