Classic Doctors, New Monster Vol.2 rolls on and reaches the Sixth Doctor and his chosen “New Series” monster: The Carrionites. Now, I have to admit, I don’t remember much about them, other than they appeared in “the Shakespeare one”, so this really felt more like a bonus Sixth Doctor story, though towards the end there are at least hints as a stronger connection to the new monster’s first appearance than the others… Let’s take a look!
Classic Doctors, New Monsters Vol.2 moves forward into the Fifth Doctor era as the Racnoss make their appearance. Unlike the Tenth Doctor TV episode, this sees The Doctor end up in the heart of the Racnoss Empire itself, and tells a good one hour story in the process. Let’s have a closer look!
The long awaited release of the second volume of “Classic Doctors, New Monsters” arrives and opens with a really enjoyable near-hour of the Fourth Doctor finding out the previously-thought harmless Vashta Nerada can turn bad and watch people be stripped to their skeletons in a abandoned fun fair… It’s just as fun as it sounds! Let’s take a closer look…
This month’s main range audio is the rather Douglas Adams-y titled “The High Price of Parking”, though the actually story is less Adams-y, though very few if any story are… Anywho! It’s a fun story in places, but also a pretty generic one, once you get past some of the sillier story beats and setting, it’s pretty run of the mill stuff. Ah well… Let’s take a closer look!
The sixth series of Fourth Doctor audio Adventures continues and reaches a rare high point. Dethras is an great story, uses its runtime perfectly and does a few new and / or interesting things among a generally good Doctor Who story. This is Adrian Poynton’s first story for Big Finish, and I certainly hope it’s not his last. Let’s take a closer look!
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The Doctor, Romana and K9 arrive in 20s Hollywood, with the transition between silent and “talkie” films in full effect. This story plays with the concepts well, but I can’t help but feel in a few weeks time I’ll have forgotten about it. It’s one of those Fourth Doctor Adventures stories that just isn’t very memorable. Not bad, not great, just… alright. Let’s take a closer look to see why…
Sontarans! Zombies! … Zombie Sontarans! The Eternal Battle is certainly an odd story, but not in a bad way. It takes a possibly over-used classic villain (in recent Big Finish history, anyway) and at least puts a bit of an interesting slant on them. Let’s take a closer look…
After playing catch up with the Main Range, it’s time to do the same with the Sixth series of “Fourth Doctor Adventures”, which kicks off with this story featuring the return of Jago and Litefoot, as well as the general Victorian London theme that is… well, overused, let’s be fair. Still, a lot of fun interaction between the lead cast make this a fun, if not particularly memorable, audio story.
Finally caught up with the Main Range with this, the last of the trilogy of two two-part stories, this time reuniting the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex, the classic audio trio whose story came to an end a few years ago. This story is set somewhat early in their adventures, certainly before their story became arc heavy, which makes sense given most of Big Finish’s Who output is placed in the middle of an established Doctor Who time period, so why not plonk a new story in the middle of your own established era? Anyway, enough of all that, both stories are actually good this time, with World Apart being a standout…
Vortex Ice and Cortex Fire are an unmemorable duo, though the former is at least a fun spin on time travel, even if the rest of the story is pretty dull. Cortex Fire on the other hand is generic as generic gets, not bad, not good, just… there. Ah well, at least this is the second (and third, I guess) story to feature Flip recently, and once again she was actually an enjoyable companion, so it seems the Big Finish writers have managed to pull her back into an actually consistently good role…
Hogan Reviews 