Casual British Racism - The Talons of Weng Chiang

The Talons of Weng Chiang is one of those big named serials that I've been looking forward to for a long time. Not only is it generally held up as one of the best, Big Finish hang a lot off of it, including Jago and Litefoot getting their own long running series.

It’s, erm, it’s a bit racist.

Journeying with Eight - Two More Big Finish

Once again into the full swing of an audio season with Eight, we have two adventures with C'rizz and Charley as we see what they get up to in the normal universe. Only the first one, we kind of don't.

Scaredy Cat
Now we get to the standard Who fare of travelling around the universe visiting nice places and things inevitably going tits up. Here we have a visit to a garden world to show C'rizz something nice, and discover a scientific research lab on there that shouldn't.

Agatha Christie IN SPACE! - The Robots of Death

Leela's second outing, The Robots of Death is one of those highly regarded episodes. But I'm not overly sure why.

Don't get me wrong. It's good. But it's not amazing. There's not much more to it than robots reprogrammed to kill.

Return to the Daleks - Terror Firma

And now we also return to the Eighth Doctor as he returns to the proper universe, and Big Finish do the only thing you can do to welcome back the Doctor. The same thing RTD did. You bring out the Daleks.

They have also decided to address a rather large elephant that has been in the room for seventeen years. Just how exactly are the Daleks about after Skaro was blown up in Remembrance of the Daleks?

The Doctor Makes Mistakes - The Face of Evil

Again we reach Tom Baker. Despite that he's the Doctor that's got the most TV appearances, he's one of the two that I've spent the least time with. Mainly due to my reticence since I disliked Genesis of the Daleks which is meant to be one of his best. However, this means there's a lot of material here that Big Finish rely on that I haven't gone near.

We've already hit one of these in a major way. Leela. When I listened to Zagreus I had my first meeting with this companion, and it meant nothing. So I figured this Who run through would entail a big stop off with Four, like last year and Three. What better place to do that with Leela's hoping on board the TARDIS?

Back to the Cyber War - Kingdom of Silver/Keepsake

I decided to stay with 7 a little longer because he really is the most hard done by of all the Doctors for me. Besides, these two audios (released as one serial) form a sequel to The Sword of Orion. After Cyberman you would have thought I'd learned my lesson, but I keep hoping that there's a sequel that does that fantastic serial justice. That it's written by Cyberman 2 writer James Swallow gives me some hope.

In The Navy - The Sea Devils

As what is basically the sequel to The Silurians I expected so much more from The Sea Devils instead it's the Master's rather devious return to the show after getting captured at the end of The Daemons. Of course we just read “The Face of the Enemy” so it's a slightly different spin here.

Doctor Who without the Doctor - The Face of the Enemy

Again we divert from the usual audio fare to dive into written Who. Why? Because this is Pertwee-era without Pertwee. The Face of the Enemy is also pretty highly regarded, and since it takes place at the same time as The Curse of Peladon I figured it was the perfect opportunity.

Besides, a look at ancillary characters without the Doctor about and see how they cope in a situation that greatly needs him sounds right up my street.

The Penis Shaped Alien isn't the Monster? - Curse of Peladon

So after two seasons of Earth/UNIT based stories, we're just giving up on them? Not that I mind, but I expected some decent to address it. At least Day of the Daleks excused it's time travel with it being Dalek technology. Here we just have the Doctor announcing the TARDIS is repaired. It seems a little anti-climatic.

Fair enough, at the end we're told that it was likely the Time Lords doing, but it comes across as bolted on. Like a traditional Doctor Who script was written and at the end someone realised they had to explain how Jo and the Doctor are here.

The Story of an Empire - the Drashani Empire trilogy

With eight episodes done and the Doctor and Charley, along with C'rizz, now back in the proper dimension it felt like the perfect end of season. Which also allowed me to take a break from them. Now I've been doing a bit of planning for the blog, and once again it looks like Doctors 5, 6 and 7 are going to be hard done by before 12 comes back for his second season. So I took this season break as an opportunity to dip my toes into their respective audios.

Long time readers will know I've had mixed success with this. Big Finish continuity is all over the shop because they're producing regular material for five Doctors all at once. With the first three getting the odd look in with spin-off series too. But I found a trilogy that was perfect.

Today is Gonna be the Day - Day of the Daleks

After my last run with Pertwee, I wasn't looking forward to his return. I made no apologies for the fact that I've enjoyed his stint the least so far. However, we did end on the high note of The Mind of Evil so I wasn't writing him totally off. Hopefully the return of the Daleks is a good sign too.

The plot makes a nice point of the problems of time travel, which is pretty surprising for Classic Who. In my dealings so far I've got the impression that it was practically ignored. Of the serials I've watched so far I can only think of City of Death that pulls something similar. Mostly time travel is a means to an end, a way of getting the Doctor to that particular story. Here, it's front and centre. Which might be one of the reasons it's so good.

Zoe gets all high and mighty, again - The Wheel of Ice

Now for something completely different. Rather than dive into Pertwee I decided to try a little newness. I got The Wheel of Ice ages ago, and since Troughton's audios are few and far between and obviously not full cast, I decided to throw it in here.

For the 50th Anniversary, BBC Books decided to offer some big time sci-fi writers their chance to write Doctor Who. It's pretty rare that publishers bother with anything like that, probably because of money, and I figured it was a good way of diving into the world of Who Lit. After all, how much continuity are these guys going to throw in? They're likely to cater to the wider audience their name recognition garners. The Wheel of Ice is Stephen Baxter's contribution. While I've not read any of his own novels, I have read The Long Earth, a collaboration he did with Terry Pratchett and I loved it.

The Doctor Has A Foam Party - The Seeds of Death

After their debut, I wasn't overly enthused about another Ice Warrior outing, but I figured skipping it was a bad idea because The Curse of Peladon is also in this set. Damn I glad I did, because The Seeds of Death is pretty epic.

Two episodes in and we're dealing with T-Mat being down and the Ice Warriors invaded the moon base that co-ordinates it all, but with no real reason given to the audience. Back on Earth the Doctor has the idea of pulling a viable space program out of mothballs to go see what's happening. The titular seeds aren't even mentioned yet. It adds a level of mystery to the proceedings that I hadn't realised I was missing.

Home Time - The Next Life

Where Caerdroia is the 'let's get the TARDIS back then we can maybe deal with the Divergents' but had them get away while the Doctor was so focused on his prized possession. It ends with our three protagonist's deciding to go have some fun in the TARDIS while the Doctor prepares himself for the final confrontation. “The Next Life” picks it up with that confrontation about to happen. Which in some ways is a shame.

You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand! - The Krotons

After a quick stop at Victoria-era Troughton, I decided that wasn't enough so popped along for the last two Zoes on my recommended list. The first is The Krotons. I'll admit I didn't have high hopes for this one. The title sounds like one of those serials that's best forgotten due to dodgy aliens.

Well, I was wrong.

It's all gone a bit Welsh - Caerdroia

The start of this is fantastic, finally giving some real feeling to the Divergent Universe storyline, and retrospectively making a few of the others fit slightly better, especially The Last with the new explanation of the Interzone.

It seems the Doctor's had just enough of all this 'experimentation' that's been going on and finally takes on the Kro'ka and starts an endgame that takes him to the Divergents' homeworld. What this means is that the sub-standard audios we've had to put up with are over and things kick off again.

The Cracks Start to Show - The Ice Warriors

I think the Ice Warriors are the only iconic monsters I've not yet met in Classic Who. While I've not seen any of the Sontarans major arcs yet, they were in The Two Doctors so I'm claiming that done.

This run through I'm actually watching three of their four original serials. Four serials? Is that all?How did the Ice Warriors become so iconic. I know they're B-List icons, maybe even C, but they're not Ogdons or Krotons. People outside of the fanbase have heard of them. Yet their design is terrible.

Even More Divergent Universe

Ooops. Couple of days late. Sorry about that. Just started a new job and getting used to the new schedule.

Anyway. we starting to close in on the end of this Divergent Universe storyline, and I'm pretty sure that's a good thing. Big Finish had an interesting idea, taking the Time Lord to a place with no time, but it's not lived up to it, nor the promise of what we saw of this place in Zagreus either.

With Faith Stealer things have started to shift away from the eighties feel, but only just. The Doctor, Charley and C'rizz hit a zone where faith is treated as a commodity, and arguing religions are treated like advertisements rather than the usual excuse for a good war. So what happens when a zealot enters the fray?

Where we meet another Time Lord. Only we don't. - The Time Meddler

This is an important moment in the show. The Time Meddler is the first time we ever meet another member of the Doctor's race.

Except it's not that simple. The Monk is still not a Time Lord, never mind being from Gallifrey. It's another four years before anyone even utters one of those words. We get an acknowledgement that he’s a time traveller, and a very different one to the Doctor. But that's it.

Deeper in the Divergent Universe

As promised, I'm lumping a bunch of audios together. Rather predictably I'm starting with Eight and his adventures in the Divergent Universe.

The Natural History of Fear
Oh, another identity confusing adventure with Eight.... even more so, isn't it a bit early for C'rizz getting a different personality? We still don't properly know his proper one, especially considering that hint at the end of Creed of the Kromon that his was undergoing a rather seismic shift. I even spent a good section of this serial not realising one of the many different personalities was played by Conrad Williams, being he's only been in one other story so far. I'm not used to his voice enough for him to start playing another part and it not be obvious.