“The Trials of a Time Lord” is the latest in a run of overly-long boxsets where to celebrate a milestone since a Doctor’s first TV appearance Big Finish decided to throw literally everything into a blender and see what happens, and once again it’s just not very good. It’s thankfully better than the Seventh Doctor’s “Last Day” duo but that’s damning with faint praise if I’ve ever heard it. Featuring the Cybermen, Davros, Daleks, Androgums (yes, Androgums!) and The Master, with a plot that’s basically just Vengeance on Varos again it could have been a fun ride in expert hands, maybe, but instead it’s just a “remember him?/them?” fest with little going for it… So, let’s take a closer look! Yay?

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It’s time for a one-off return to the Novel Adaptations range as for some reason the Paul Cornell “Missing Adventures” book Goth Opera has been turned into an audio drama, but not the Fourth Doctor novel that leads into it, so it’s all a bit odd. Still, I’m not going to turn down a three-hour Fifth Doctor story with a larger cast one way or another, so let’s take a look!

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At the end of my review for Part One I said “I guess and we’ll see if any of this actually pays off in a meaningful way or not…” and now I’ve listened to Part Two, guess what? Not! Yes, somehow Part Two is just as much of a muddled mess as the first half despite what I thought would be getting the Doctor-lite set up episodes out the way leading to a bigger role for the man whose last adventure it actually was turned out to not be the case, instead we just got another six episodes of loads of companions and old foes, a lot which nobody remembers all, running around with little direction until a final episode that tries to tie it all together but fails, instead giving us a pretty nasty and crappy way to send off the Seventh Doctor, possibly even worse that his undignified end from the TV movie… Yikes. Let’s take a look, shall we?

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The second half of the latest Fourth Doctor set is comprised of two very different stories, not just in narrative tone but in quality. “The Caged Assassin” I found to be extremely annoying and quickly forgettable, while the boxset-titular “Metamorphosis” is a perfectly fine Master story that much like the Celestial Toymaker story that kicked off the set won’t surprise you but will still keep you entertained. Let’s take a closer look!

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The latest series of Fourth Doctor Adventures continues with a doubly timely appearance of the Celestial Toymaker, after the character appeared in the TV series last year and the character’s debut story having just been completed with animation (the next Who review I’ll be getting to after this boxset, for the record!) both of which weren’t known to the writers when this was written/recorded a few years ago. The Toymaker appeared in one of my all-time favourite audios in “The Magic Mousetrap” so I had my fingers crossed we’d get another good one. Did we? Well…

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After an unfortunate (but necessary to… well, earn money and live) work-related delay I thought I’d better finish off my review of the “Star-Crossed” boxset before getting back on some sort of track. I ended the previous review mentioning how this was the proper highlight of the box and a true standout story so I guess it’s finally time to tell you why!

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