Doctor Who: Project: Lazarus (II) Review

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…

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Doctor Who: Zagreus Review

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…

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Doctor Who: The Four Doctors Review

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!

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Doctor Who: Peri and the Piscon Paradox Review

“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!

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Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor – Parts X & XI Review

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…

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Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor – Parts VII – IX Review

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!

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Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor – Parts IV – VI Review

The Destiny of the Doctor “advanced audiobooks” roll on with Doctors 4, 5 and 6. While none are bad the Fourth and Sixth Doctors are pretty dull but I will praise the Fifth Doctor story, “Smoke and Mirrors”, as it’s a great little story and well worth the little money these stories go for individually nowadays. Anyway, let’s see how the Eleventh Doctor cameos in these three stories then!

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Doctor Who: Destiny of the Doctor – Parts I – III Review

I was unsure how to cover these stories as one review for all 11 would be far too long and individually would eat up far too many days of the this already lengthy catch up marathon so I compromised in the middle (and therefore had to make a new template for them…) Basically these are Companion Chronicles, one hour audiobooks read by a companion with one extra actor performing a new guest role, with one for each Doctor up to 11 (a.k.a. all of them at the time it was written) but with a linking thread through all the stories of the Eleventh Doctor communicating with his past selves in various ways due to something happening in the final part. It was a fun idea and gave me an extra story to listen to each month leading up to the 50th but ten years later and listening to them in closer proximity is quite a different experience… Let’s take a look! (at the first three…)

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Doctor Who: The Light at the End Review

We hit our first offical 50th anniversary story of this catch-up marathon (remembering that Day of the Doctor has already been reviewed…) as well as our first non-comic review and it’s Big Finish’s well advertised multi-Doctor story “The Light at the End”, the story that made me lose a lot of respect for Nick Briggs after he showed no interest in writing the multi-Doctor story until Tom Baker wanted to be in it, then he claimed the story had “his name written all over it”, and boy-oh-boy, it does have his name all over it, but not in a good way, more in a “this clearly didn’t get checked over by anyone else because he’s in charge” way. It has its moments, mostly Paul McGann and Tom Baker making a fun duo, but thank goodness the TV series delivered a fun multi-Doctor story for the 50th instead… Let’s take a closer look, anyway…

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Doctor Who: Once and Future – The Union Review

So as to not spam two Doctor Who reviews in one day let’s take a look at the last (until next year…) entry of the Once and Future storyline before my daily Multi-Doctor story marathon kicks off tomorrow. Thankfully “The Union” was a really enjoyable story with some fun cameos and twists, to the point where I can’t help but think adding on a second hour with similar themes to the other Once and Future releases leading into this and just releasing it stand-alone would’ve been much better than the mostly weak monthly releases we’ve had, but ah well… let’s take a look!

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