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.

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.

The Big Finale, after the other Big Explosive entry - Zagreus

Zagreus is... is not what I expected. After the epic that was “Sirens of Time” that started Big Finish, I expected their 50th audio drama celebration to match. Especially as they were now bringing in McGann so we had Doctors Five through Eight all together.

Except we don't. We have Eight and the TARDIS mad with Anti-Time power, calling themselves Zagreus with Charley somehow meant to stop them. So the TARDIS guides her, around time and space trying to understand the mystery of the name, with a rather interesting way of presenting those histories.

On one level it's a mid-season episode. A fun diversion taking place almost entirely in the TARDIS, dealing with the repercussions of the explosive finale of “Neverland”, and bathing in Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland.

But at the same time the whole thing is fan-wank at its height. Or it's a celebration of everything Who. Your Mileage might vary on that one.

A Tour of Who Audio

After The Sirens of Time it was quite a while before I got round to listening to anymore. In fact it was the drive back up to Dundee when I moved that I found the time, and I did three of them almost back to back, and I got properly stuck into the audio plays Big Finish gave away for the 50th Anniversary.

Mission of the Viyrans is probably the one that got me well and truly hooked. It was bizarre. It was a little mind bendy, and it left a lot of questions. Admittedly it's mostly a Peri story, with the Fifth Doctor taking a bit of a backseat, but Nicole Bryant does a better job here than the show ever really let her. Now I know there's sequels to this, my plans to only really listen to the Eighth Doctor has faltered, and those Doctors who actually had TV adventures has blossomed. This isn't going to end up cheap!

The Doctor's Big Finish

As I said when I tried my little dance around Doctor Who, the audio plays by Big Finish had always intrigued me. I don't know why. I have had a vague interest in them going as far back as before New Who started. I think it was just the fact that the franchise was being kept alive in such a way. For someone who became a big Star Wars fan in the early 90s, it held a certain romanticism.

I've investigated starting them a couple of times since New Who, but considering they deal with four (actually five now, but Tom Baker is a recent addition to their output) Doctors across multiple series makes it pretty bloody dense to get into. However, with a new understanding of Classic Who I finally felt ready to dive in. The fact Big Finish gave ten shows away for free as part of the 50th Anniversary last year helped a little.

Doctor Who turns 50 part 7: The Curse of Fenric

The guy who organised this little trip through Who history has, from day one, made it abundantly clear the Curse of Fenric is, by far and away, his favourite Who story ever! In fact, tt is only referred to as Curse of Mother Fucking Fenric.

To me, this felt like a Bad Wolf - which is suppose is an amusing pun. The pay off after a lot of build up that was a little lost on me. The finale comes down to a big battle of the words between Fenric and the Doctor was full of references I was just nodding along to. But it was still pretty awesome.