Series 9 of the “Fourth Doctor Adventures” continues onwards, but after the all-out classic of “Chase The Night”, what chance does “The Planet of Witches” have to stand out? Well, to be fair, it goes in a completely different direction and is perfectly fine. I guess the month in between listening sessions helps! So let’s take a closer look at the next Doctor-Romana-Adric-K9 four parter, shall we?
In the second of a strange makeshift “Seventh Doctor travelling alone meets a renegade time lord” trilogy, The Psychic Circus is actually, as you’d imagine, far more a prequel to the McCoy TV story “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” than it is anything else, which is fine if you have a fond attachment to the serial… me? It’s alright, but did I need a two hour drop of backstory? Let’s find out!
Unexpected hit alert! Chase The Night was a genuine treat to listen to, with the still-fresh quartet of The Doctor, Romana, Adric and K9 finding themselves on a most unusual planet with a strange twist involving a train and the planet’s rotation. Want to know more? Well, read on then!
It’s a rare thing, but it’s time for a new-to-Big-Finish Doctor-Companion team! Yes, in what is possibly the last TV team yet to be recaptured via full cast audio drama (with the original cast members), we have the start of a four-story series involving The Doctor, Romana and Adric trying to escape from E-Space. Purgatory 12 also does that classic Big Finish thing of filling in a gap in character development, as Adric starts to come to terms with the death of his brother, something never really explored on the original show. Does it work? Let’s find out!
I was really looking forward to this release. As you may know from previous reviews here, I love The Eleven, he’s always good fun, and to see how he got captured before the opening to Doom Coalition was exciting. Then they throw in an older Ace, which is an interesting new string to the Doctor Who bow, and man… Really excited. *sigh*… A shame really…
Let’s try and catch up with the Big Finish audio releases from the past few months, shall we? Starting with December’s offering of the final War Master box set (… for now) titled Anti-Genesis: it’s your standard “altering history causes the timeline to go all crazy” story, but it has some great ideas and performances at its core. Let’s take a closer look!
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
Hogan Reviews 