Saturday, August 30, 2014

Big Finish - Revenge of the Swarm

The latest from the monthly main range: Revenge of the Swarm by Jonathan Morris, directed by Ken Bentley.


Back to the Seventh, Ace and Hex combination with the ongoing plot about restoring Hex's original memories, but first there's a plague ridden space station and a return of the Swarm from the Fourth Doctor television story The Invisible Enemy. The Doctor seems to have the bad guys defeated and the whole thing wrapped up after two episodes, so much so that the third and fourth parts seemed like unnecessary padding. Still the Doctor gets to roll some Rs with relish and Ace rides a light bike from Tron and makes a nice Jet Set Willy reference.

It's all done with the usual Big Finish professionalism apart from one sore point. Philip Olivier has to do a Swarm possessed Hex voice and while he sounds entirely natural when doing his normal voice he struggles with his alien inflected tone. It really stood out for the wrong reasons and spoiled the last two parts for me. Shame really as this was almost a good Seventh Doctor story.

So only two of out a possible five light cycles for the first part of what appears to be a Seventh versus bugs trilogy. Ho hum and roll on the next Big Finish Sherlock Holmes release please.

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