Big Finish - Doctor Who and the Pirates

I picked up three titles for a £1 each in the recent Big Finish fifteen year anniversary sale and here is the first. Doctor Who and the Pirates by Jacqueline Rayner, directed by Barnaby Edwards.

Evelyn Smythe visits one of her students to recount a somewhat improbable tale of the Sixth Doctor and some seafaring shenanigans. But there is something deeper than Davy Jones locker going on and the nonsensical tale has a point. However there is a fair bit of that nonsense to get through before we learn the true purpose of Dr Smythe's visit. And there is some singing, in fact the third act is a musical and how you feel about that my depend on whether you can stand the light operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. It has to be said that the cast do a pretty good job of their singing duties but it was not quite my thing. 

The pirate stuff including a rather over the top performance by a Bill Oddie is a bit tiresome but the framing story is rather touching and Maggie Stables is as good as ever. I just wish we could have some more from her but that probably isn't going to happen which is a great shame.

So a bit of a mixed bag that gets three out of piratical eye patches, but not at all bad for a pound. Next up from the Big Finish pound shop is the Fifth Doctor and some Werewolves.

Big Finish - Breaking Bubbles and other stories

This monthly release from Big Finish is one of the yearly collection of four shorter stories with some sort of shared theme. Breaking Bubbles and other stories.

I'll borrow the copy from their website to give you the details of the four stories:

An anthology of four tales on the theme of perception.

Breaking Bubbles by LM Myles

The Doctor and Peri find themselves in the palatial gardens of the deposed Empress Safira Valtris where nothing is ever quite what it seems.

Of Chaos Time The by Mark Ravenhill

Cast adrift in his own chronology, the Doctor must avert the consequences of a catastrophic experiment in using time as a weapon of war.

An Eye For Murder by Una McCormack

The year is 1939, and a case of poison pen letters at St Ursula’s College threatens to change the course of the Second World War. Fortunately thriller writer Miss Sarah Perry is on hand to investigate...

The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time by Nev Fountain

Michael is a young boy who likes to solve mysteries, such as the mystery of the extra gnome, the mystery of the absent father, and the mystery of the strange man in yellow trousers at the bottom of the garden.

All are directed by Nicholas "he never sleeps" Briggs.

Let's be honest I'm a bit jaded with old Sixie at the moment and even pairing him with the lovely Nicola Bryant didn't get me terribly excited about this release. Having said that the second and fourth stories stood out and did something interesting. The Curious Incident actually does quite well with its version of the original book.

This may be a perfect CD set to hand to a newcomer to give them a flavour of what Big Finish can do. Art and production design are up to their usual high standards. So I'll give it 2 out of 5 garden gnomes and hope that Sixie finds a Big Finish companion who can put him in his place as well as Evelyn Smythe. Step up, Flip Jackson.

Big Finish - Scavenger

Scavenger is release number 184 and it's written by William Gallagher and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

Thursday 28 May 2071: the day the Anglo-Indian Salvage 2 rocket launches. Its mission: to clean up space; to remove from Earth’s orbit over a century’s worth of man-made junk, and the Doctor and Flip are there to watch. However they are soon separated with Flip floating about in a spacesuit while the Doctor is down on Earth trying to persuade mission control to let him save the day.

This was recorded back in June 2013 and goodness knows how long before that it was commissioned and written. So it is just an unfortunate coincidence that the set up seems quite similar to the Sandra Bullock movie Gravity. There's a similar chain reaction of destroyed satellites and a couple of astronauts floating in space having to use their wits to save themselves.

I've been struggling so far with this Sixth and Flip trilogy, neither Antidote to Oblivion or The Brood of Erys really grabbed me. This is better than either of those but not by much. The story works a bit better and Flip is less annoying than normal, but I think I need a bit of a Colin Baker break. I do love him and his grumpy Doctor but his stories seem a bit dull at the moment. And I had a slight problem with the way he pronounced one character's names. It's an unusual Indian name which most of the cast manage perfectly easily but each time the Doctor tries it sounds like Baker is taking a bit of a run at it. It's just a little thing but it stood out and bothered me.

Another problem was once the nature of Scavenger's host was revealed it was fairly obvious how this was going to end and I don't usually see these things coming. Best of the trilogy but only 3 out of 5 space helmets and bring on Peter Davison please.

Big Finish - The Brood of Erys

Release number 183 The Brood of Erys by Andrew Smith, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Sixth Doctor and Flip encounter a living moon called Erys, a bunch of mischievous aliens, and a woman with no memory and a strange mission to complete. After that a whole bunch of stuff happened and I may have nodded off for a while.

Hmmm. I'm not enjoying the current Sixth/Flip trilogy. I didn't think much of Antidote to Oblivion and this was even more dull. At the moment there seems to be much more fun to be had with other Big Finish releases such as Jago & Litefoot, Sherlock Holmes and Dark Eyes. And my subscription is coming up for renewal. Decisions, decisions.

Again there's no major problems here, it just didn't grab my attention at all. 2 out of 5 space skimmers and let's hope Scavenger can restore my enthusiasm for the monthly range.

Big Finish - Antidote to Oblivion

Antidote to Oblivion is the first release of the year from the Big Finish monthly range. Written by Philip Martin and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Sixth Doctor and Flip respond to a distress signal from another Time Lord and find themselves in a future London where big business rules the day, and scientists are researching the end to all infections. That's never going to end well in science fiction, is it?

Once again my lack of knowledge of the Colin Baker years on television lets me down. I'm not familiar with the slug like villain Sil so his reappearance here played with sibilant relish by Nabil Shaban didn't really mean much to me. He's just one more bad guy, and not one that seems to provide much opposition for the Doctor. In particular there were none of those clash of wills dialogues that I like.

The production is fine with some of the music being very good but it was another average story for me. I'm not yet convinced by Lisa Greenwood's Flip and Colin Baker seemed to be overdoing his actor's articulation a bit in places.

Ho hum I'm afraid. 2.5 out of 5 abandoned underground stations. Time for some Sherlock Holmes instead.

Big Finish - The Trial of the Valeyard

Being a subscriber to the main Big Finish monthly Doctor Who stories means I get the yearly bonus release and here is Trial of the Valeyard by Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox, directed by Barnaby Edwards.

The Sixth Doctor is back in the Time Lords' courtroom again but this time he is defending the prosecutor from his own show trial. Can the Doctor untangle the web of lies surrounding his possible future self and reveal some of the dark secrets in Gallifrey's past?

I confess I haven't ever watched any of the Trial of the Time Lord series at all. I am also one of those Doctor Who fans who find the rest of the Time Lords rather boring and annoying. They have dull, pompous attitudes and tend to wear ridiculous robes and silly hats. One of the smart things that Russell T Davies did when he revived the show in 2005 was to scrap all that nonsense and leave the Doctor as the last survivor of his race. So this story was always going to have a hard time impressing me.

Colin Baker, Lynda Bellingham and Michael Jayston all tackle their roles with relish and sound like they are having a lot of fun. They are also all very charming in the CD extras interviews. But this was all rather dull for me. I'm not interested in whether the Doctor has twelve regenerations, or twenty four or a hundred. I'm still surprised that Robert Holmes introduced the concept in the 1970s but presumably that had something to do with making the Doctor appear mortal to some extent.

Last year's bonus release was the rather splendidly spooky Night of the Stormcrow which is now available to buy from the Big Finish site. My advice would be to go and buy that instead. 2 out of 5 Time Lord helmets for Trial of the Valeyard. Onwards!

Big Finish - The Space Race

The second release in the Big Finish 1963 series: The Space Race written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

While the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa are in England investigating pop music the Sixth incarnation and Peri arrive in Russia and find themselves caught up in a Vostok rocket mission and a mystery surrounding the earliest history of space exploration. The Russians are sending a mission to the moon but they may not be the first to get there and one of their capsules has returned to earth with a very strange occupant.

Actually this one is rather good. Colin Baker is in fine form and his Doctor seems childishly excited to get on board a rocket. Meanwhile Peri is left behind to figure a way through all the different levels of intrigue at the control centre. Someone is a spy but who? There's some great sound design work as well and the rest of the cast are terrific. It's nonsense of course but great fun for all that.

4 out of 5 space dogs and on to The Assassination Games.

Big Finish - The Light at the End

The Light at the End. Written and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

It's the 50th anniversary special featuring the eight classic Doctors, a host of companions, the Time Lords, and the Master, and it's all fantastic. Everything about this production just hits the right spot for Doctor Who's birthday celebrations. The music and sound effects are superb. All the Doctors are on fine form with Tom Baker and Paul McGann really standing out. And there's a terrifically creepy performance from Geoffrey Beevers as the Master.

I won't go into details of the story and how all eight doctors end up drawn back to an important event on the 23rd November, 1963. However it's all masterfully done, there is nothing like a good multi-Doctor story and this is a real stand out. It even features incarnations of the first three Doctors here played by William Russell, Frazer Hines and Tim Trealor. They are trapped in some sort of Tardis time pocket so their voices are a little distorted which allows the actors some leeway in their recreation of the original actors.

As well as all this there are two CDs worth of extras which are well worth listening to. It's a tremendous package from Big Finish and it is impossible to give it less than 5 out of 5 classic Doctors. Highly recommended.

Big Finish - The One Doctor

Here's another title from the Big Finish first 50 for a fiver range. The One Doctor by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman, directed by Gary Russell.

The Sixth Doctor and Mel land on the planet Generios at the vulgar end of time, and encounter another Doctor and his assistant, Sally-Anne. Who is the imposter, and can the real Doctor save the day when an alien creature demands that the planet pay a huge price to avoid destruction?

This is apparently a bit of a fan favourite from the early days of Big Finish (released in 2001) and it is a comedy of sorts. There seems to be a fairly clear attempt to evoke memories of Douglas Adams and the Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, particularly with some of the oddball characters the two Doctors encounter on their different quests. Unfortunately it didn't work for me at all, much like Big Finish's attempt at a Monty Python script in Castle of Fear this just fell flat. Humour is such a tricky thing to pull off in a radio play and rarely succeeds for me. I've had similar problems with the 2000AD audios when they play up the comedy in their Judge Dredd stories. At the moment I'm more interested in the spooky or atmospheric adventures such as the Sherlock Holmes or Jago and Litefoot ranges, although they do have moments of humour.

There's not anything terribly wrong with The One Doctor. Christopher Biggins is pretty good as the imposter in his usual pantomime manner, and Adam Buxton and Matt Lucas provide some comedy voices for the minor characters. It just did not interest me. Even the Doctor's inevitable triumph just seemed like a bad joke that had been slowly set up over four acts. A favourite for lots of fans but not for me. 2 out of 5 evil Skelloids.

Big Finish - Brotherhood of the Daleks

A recent Big Finish sale gave me the chance to pick up another Sixth Doctor and Charley Pollard adventure. Brotherhood of the Daleks, by Alan Barnes, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Doctor and Charley are expecting an ice planet but instead find themselves in a jungle, and in a war zone. The local resistance are fighting a losing battle against the Daleks, but there is something very strange about these Daleks, and about the whole situation.

So yes I bought this one just because it was cheap, and because Nicholas Briggs picked it as one of his favourite Dalek stories, and I didn't pay too much attention to the writer until I listened to the CD extra interviews. Alan Barnes is a Big Finish writer whose previous stories I have struggled with. I like what he does as the script editor for the main Doctor Who range, and I have to admire him as a former editor of The Judge Dredd Megazine but his writing has bothered me in the past. The only one I really liked was his parody of 2000AD in Izzy's story from The Company of Friends, and apparently I'm pretty much alone in liking that tale. In this take on the Daleks Barnes references the Vietnam war and draws heavily on the writings of Karl Marx and develops a branch of the Dalek empire that has adopted the principles of Communism. And the funny thing is it all kind of works, I quite liked it.

Admittedly this adventure does play with the dream within a dream, within a dream idea which has cropped up before and can be quite difficult to disentangle for the listener. It is never easy to work out exactly which reality we are in at any one point, but that didn't bother me here. India Fisher works wonders as Charley Pollard and Colin Baker is on infuriatingly accurate form as the Sixth Doctor. The rest of the cast were fine with no particular stand-outs, although there were a few problems when they are required to use the ring modulator to produce Dalek voices. Unless it is Nicholas Briggs doing them they just sound like children playing with something bought from a toy shop.

This Big Finish release is back to full price now and with their recent announcement that all of their earliest fifty stories are going to be available for £2.99 only on download it is difficult to recommend picking this up instead of a cheaper adventure. However it has restored my faith in Alan Barnes. Let me give it 3.5 out of 5 Dalek manifestos and move on to some invaders from Mars.

Big Finish - Industrial Evolution

Release number 145 from back in March 2011, Industrial Evolution by Eddie Robson, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe take Thomas Brewster back to Victorian England, find him a job, and then hang around to see that he settles in. But there is something mysterious lurking in the cellars below the factory and it is growing in power and malevolence.

Industrial Evolution is a good steampunk story that suits the Sixth Doctor rather well. It also harks back to some of the classic adventures from the 1970s. It could almost have been written by Robert Holmes, which is high praise indeed. It's my favourite of the Thomas Brewster stories so far and it has that terrific Sixey-Smythe combination going for it as well. Strange and sad that it is the last story with either companion that we are likely to have.

One observation: The Doctor's adventures on Earth must now number in the hundreds, in all the various formats over the years. So it does rather strain credulity that stories like this one have not affected human history. Obviously this is one of the concessions we make when we suspend our disbelief, but it does make me wonder whether there is some hidden force in the Doctor Who-nverse that goes around tidying up after his exploits. Maybe that was one of the things that The Silence did while they controlled history.

Anyway a terrific story, great performances, rather good music, and a creepy, clanking creature of cogs and steam. 4 out of 5 Victorian top hats off.

Big Finish - The Feast of Axos

The Feast of Axos by Mike Maddox, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

Continuing the arc of stories featuring the Sixth Doctor, Evelyn Smythe and Thomas Brewster. This harks back to an adventure from the Third Doctor's time on television. The space parasite Axos was left deactivated in orbit around the Earth by the Doctor, but now humanity is facing a power crisis and have sent up a mission to restart Axos and harness its power for Earth. Well we know that's not going to go well don't we?

The Sixth Doctor and Evelyn continue to be one of my favourite Big Finish combinations. It seems that the grumpy Doctor meets his match with an older, no-nonsense companion. I just love a Dr Smythe story, her brief but eventful space walk is a highlight of this audio drama. Sadly Maggie Stables is not very well at the present so we may not get any more stories with her. I shall have to look at the back catalogue and see if I have missed any of her adventures while hoping that Ms Stables feels better soon.

On the other hand I am still unsure about Thomas Brewster. John Pickard's performance is fine but for some reason the character does nothing for me. He's just there and I could take him or leave him. Maybe I will be more convinced by Industrial Evolution.

The rest of the production is pretty good and it was nice to see a France space mission depicted as brave and resourceful for a change. But, apart from the Evelyn scenes this story didn't do a great deal for me. Middle of the road 2.5 out of 5 claws of Axos for this one.

Big Finish - The Crimes of Thomas Brewster

Wham bam! and straight onto the Crimes of Thomas Brewster by Jonathan Morris and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

Lots of stuff going on in this story. The Sixth Doctor meets up with Thomas Brewster. He also encounters Detective Inspector Menzies (although it's the first meeting for him but not for her, if you see what I mean in a timey-wimey way). And it's his first adventure with Philippa 'Flip' Jackson who may be returning soon as another Sixey companion. In amidst all these comings and goings there are swarms of robotic Mosquitoes, a malevolent alien race called the Terravore, a sentient planet, and a telepathic force known as the Locus. All this and Evelyn Smythe as well.

I must admit I've been struggling with the Sixth Doctor of late. He's a grumpy old curmudgeon sometimes, but team him up with Dr Smythe and you have a winning combination. Something about her no nonsense, down to earth approach seems to work well to temper the more extreme elements of the Sixth Doctor's personality. It's also clear that Colin Baker and Maggie Stables get on well together and seem to be having a lot of fun with their characters. It's a great shame that a period of ill health is preventing Ms Stables from doing any more stories at present, she has been one of the best things about my Big Finish listening experience.

I am less sure about Thomas Brewster. I know I have missed out two parts of his adventures with the Fifth Doctor that followed The Haunting of Thomas Brewster, and maybe they would have convinced me about him. He just seems a bit dull at the moment and his part in this adventure could have been filled by any of the lesser characters. Meanwhile it's nice to have Anna Hope back as the laconic but efficient D.I.Menzies in her third adventure with the Doctor. I hope she comes back for more, or maybe a spin off one shot story called Menzies Investigates!

Having David Troughton show up in Doctor Who is always nice because it reminds us of his father. I am curious why Sean Pertwee has never done any Big Finish or television Who, I'm sure he must have been offered? Anyway Troughton is great, and Lisa Greenwood and Ashley Kumar provide good back up as Flip and Jared.

This time the music fit right in and didn't bother me at all, and with Nick Briggs' ever reliable direction it all trips along nicely and is one of the better Sixey stories I can recall listening to recently. 3.5 out of 5 mechanical mozzies. And onwards to The Lady of Mercia

Big Finish - The Condemned

From 2008 The Condemned by Eddie Robson, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

It's Charlie Pollard's first encounter with the Sixth Doctor. He doesn't know her yet and her answers to his questions are somewhat evasive. Meanwhile they have bigger problems when they land in a Manchester tower block right in the middle of a murder scene. Soon the Doctor is down at the police station helping Detective Inspector Menzies with her enquiries, and Charlie has been captured by less legal forces and is being held prisoner somewhere in the tower. Can she free herself and the mysterious Sam who speaks to her on the telephone?

Good stuff first. D.I. Menzies is a tough, no-nonsense police officer played with Mancunian relish by Anna Hope. She's not quite as enjoyable as she was in The Raincloud Man, possibly because she initially suspects the Doctor is the murderer, and it takes some time before they are working together. Colin Baker and India Fisher are both on strong form in this one and their suspicious and strained relationship is evident right from the start. The Doctor knows there is something strange about Ms Pollard but she's not telling.

The twin mysteries of the murder and the strange goings on in the rest of the tower block play out nicely, although the conclusion was perhaps a bit obvious even to me. There are, of course, aliens involved and I would have been quite happy without them. A straightforward police procedural murder mystery for the Doctor and Menzies to solve would have been fun. Instead we get another new alien race, another new technology that we haven't seen before, and a plot that is too familiar from too many Doctor Who stories.

Still the rest of the cast, direction and the cover and sound design are all fine. I wasn't convinced by the Doctor's escape method, or taken in for that matter, but I can probably let that one slip by. About on a par with The Raincloud Man so 3 out of 5 DNA patches from me. More Menzies would be nice.

Big Finish - Seeds of War

The latest Big Finish main range release is Seeds of War by Matt Fitton and Nicholas Briggs, directed by Barnaby Edwards.

The third of the run of Sixth Doctor and Mel stories and my favourite so far. From the synopsis: 

A race against time takes them from the Great Tower of Kalsos to the Reliquaries of Earth. In an epic journey across the ten systems, their fates are intertwined with one family. The Tevelers are to feel the effects of war more than most. The Doctor has a plan. Mel is sure he can save the day. But something is lurking. Watching. Waiting. A presence the Doctor knows of old. But just how far does its influence pervade? The Eminence awaits.

A sprawling space epic with four distinct parts each set in a different location and all featuring the growing menace of a new (or old) villain, The Eminence. David Sibley does a marvellous job as the voice of the new baddie, and all the performances are very strong in this drama. Despite the shifting locations the writers wisely focus on the fate of the central Teveler family who hold this story together and give it that important human element. In fact I was a bit disappointed when we didn't get back to the surviving family members as the story concluded. They were all likeable characters and it would have been nice to learn their fate.

The fate of humanity is at stake as the forces of the Eminence try to destroy their crops and all food supplies. Given enough time the Sixth Doctor may be able to save the day but the odds are stacked against him, despite Mel's continued faith that he will save the day. Interestingly in the midst of all this the Doctor has to run a realistically portrayed resuscitation  I really felt for him as he struggled to save a life while Mel confidently promised the relatives that he would. I have been in similar situations myself and they are not pleasant  Well done to Big Finish for getting this right.

I've been a but unsure about Colin Baker recently but he and Bonnie Langford are very good here. In fact the whole cast are very strong with Ray Fearon standing out as Barlow. It's a terrific story with a memorable villain. Best of the mini series. 4 out of 5 glowing orange eyes.

Big Finish - Spaceport Fear

Big Finish's latest monthly range release is Spaceport Fear by William Gallagher, directed by Barnaby Edwards.

From the Big Finish synopsis: Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where the tribes of Business and Economy have been at war for all of four hundred years, where a terrible creature called the Wailer prowls the corridors around the Control Tower, looking to eat the unwary, and where there is one Arrival: a battered blue Police Box containing the time-travelling Doctor and his companion, Mel.

This story feels like one of those generational spaceship science fiction stories such as Brian Aldiss' Non-Stop. The tribes of Business and Economy know no other world than this strange Spaceport. And with the power supply limited there is a lot of wandering around in dark corridors with the spooky sounds of the mysterious Wailer creature punctuating the silence. The Sixth Doctor is in fairly robust form, although this is not quite the spiky persona of his early stories. Similarly Mel Bush is an older, more experienced (and less irritating) character who uses her computer skills to good advantage. There's some clever trickery with using handheld computer games as a form of communication. Although this does beg the question as to why the Doctor with his technical know-how, and his tendency to get separated from his companions, doesn't come up with some form of communicator to use when they step out of the Tardis.

The stand out vocal performance in this adventure comes from the distinguished actor Ronald Pickup who appeared in the very first season of Doctor Who on television. Bonnie Langford and Big Finish regular Beth Chalmers are very good, and Colin Baker seems on better form than he was in The Wrong Doctors. It's another example of a skilled audio production from Big Finish but it still didn't quite do it for me. At the moment I'm getting more fun from the Big Finish special releases such as Unit:Dominion and The Memory Box.

It's better than the Wrong Doctors but still not up to the best that Big Finish can do. Although the Doctor gets a high score within this story I can only give it 3 out of 5 extra lives.

Big Finish - The Wrong Doctors

Bang up to date with the latest Big Finish monthly release - The Wrong Doctors by Matt Fitton, directed by Nicholas Briggs (does he ever sleep?)

This adventure fits in somewhere after the Sixth Doctor has said his farewells to Evelyn Smythe and is moving on to his meeting with Mel Bush (Bonny Langford) in her village home Pease Pottage. Except there's something wrong with time, Dinosaurs roam the golf course and the Women's Institute are dealing with an invasion of alien business consultants. And into this mix comes another version of the Sixth Doctor and an older, wiser incarnation of Mel. Time is unravelling and it will need two Doctors and two companions to put it right again.

I know nothing of Bonny Langford's run on Doctor Who on television and I think I've only heard her in one previous Big Finish production, The Juggernauts. Somewhat like Tracey Childs in Unit: Dominion Langford comes with a slightly dodgy 80s reputation but actually she's fine on radio. I could have done without her singing but that's what she is best known for and it seems unlikely that Big Finish would pass up on the chance for her to stretch her vocal cords. Mel doesn't seem at all annoying and while I haven't warmed to her yet she certainly didn't bother me.

Colin Baker is hit and miss with me at the moment. Sometimes he is on imperious form and others times his Doctor just seems a bit of an obnoxious bumbler. He tries to give us both versions here but I confess I couldn't tell them apart and as often happens with a timey-wimey type story I got a bit lost in the twists and turns. I'm still waiting for a main range release that will match the frenetic heights of The Burning Prince.

The supporting cast are fine, I particularly enjoyed Patricia Leventon as the commanding leader of the WI. Matt Fitton's script tries for lots of verbal word-play and Spice Girls jokes about Mel A, Mel B & Mel C, but it all fell a bit flat for me. The sound design includes several strange background beeps and electronica which stood out to me for the wrong reasons. I wasn't sure what they represented and they distracted me from the story.

All in all a bit of a disappointment really. 2 out of 5 flowing cravats. Hopefully the rather marvellous titled Spaceport Fear will do better.

Big Finish - Voyage to the New World

Another Big Finish special release featuring the Sixth Doctor, Jago and Litefoot. Voyage to the New World by Matthew Sweet, directed by Ken Bentley.

The Doctor and his Victorian companions travel to America in 1590 and tackle the mystery of the lost colony at Roanoke. They all get separated in traditional fashion and have to talk their way through angry settlers, native Americans and a strange wasting disease that reduces its victims to wraith like spectres.

I didn't really enjoy Matthew Sweet's story The Magic Mousetrap so I was not sure if this would keep me as entertained as Voyage to Venus. However he has tackled a fascinating true life mystery and managed to give it that distinctive Doctor Who flavour. I liked how he brought in the various facts about the disapperance including the strange word "Croatoan" which was found carved into a tree at the sight of the former colony. He also seems to have a complete grasp of the Jago and Litefoot characters, which is probably not surprising as I gather he has written for their own Big Finish series.

And it is Jago and Litefoot who again steal the show with the remarkable theatrical voices of Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. They even outshine Colin Baker and I missed them whenever they were "off stage". After these two short adventures I am tempted to dip into the Jago and Litefoot series but I still have a large backlog of Big Finish to get through. Maybe something to buy at Big Finish day 3 when both actors are due to be in attendance.

I am always impressed whenever I hear Matthew Sweet talking about popular culture on the radio and I am glad to say this was a much more enjoyable story from him. It gets the same 4 out of 5 Victorian Frock coats as the other Voyage story. Recommended

Big Finish - Wreck of the Titan

The second story in the Jamie trilogy, 134 - Wreck of the Titan. Written and directed by Barnaby Edwards.

The Doctor decides to give Jamie a trip on the Queen Mary but his navigational skills seem to have betrayed him again and they end up on the Titanic. As they struggle to get off the ship before the Iceberg strikes, reality shifts around them and they find another doomed vessel, the Titan from the novel Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan. As the world of fiction bleeds over into the real the Doctor and Jamie struggle to uncover the true villain behind all of this.

Sounds great doesn't it? Add in the submarine Nautilus from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and this should be a recipe for a great adventure but it left me rather perplexed. Part of the problem may be the character of Captain Nemo. After his strong portrayal in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novels I was expecting something similar here. However, at one point somebody says "Captain Nemo? What a disappointment", and that was how I felt. He seemed a rather anonymous nobody, although that does fit with his name.

At least the Doctor and Jamie are forming a good relationship, although the 18th century Highlander still seems to be too much at ease with all the technology he encounters. This was similar to the issue I had with Charley Pollard in Sword of Orion, the plot requires that the companion be fully immersed in the Doctor's world right from the start and we don't see any of the future shock that might actually happen.

The rest of the cast just passed my by apart from one dodgy accent which stood out for the wrong reasons. At least it all sounds very good and the music and post-production by Howard Carter are great. A middling 2.5 out of 5 Giant Squids for Wreck of the Titan.

Big Finish - City of Spires

Big Finish release 133 - City of Spires by Simon Bovey, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Sixth Doctor visits the highlands of Scotland and finds himself in the middle of a battle between English Redcoats and Black Donald's Highlanders. Except Black Donald turns out to be Jamie McGrimmon who travelled with the Second Doctor and whose memory was wiped by the Time Lords at the end of the War Games. Something very strange and anachronistic is happening and the Doctor must discover who is the mysterious Overlord and why he is pumping oil from wells at least 100 years before the industrial revolution.

Phew! This is more like it. It is not an absolute classic but it felt reassuringly more like the norm for Big Finish Doctor Who. Colin Baker gives us a good Sixth Doctor, and it was great to hear Frazer Hines as no older Jamie who has no idea why this strange traveller knows so much about him. Their double act is impressive and one of the best things in this story. Perhaps Jamie adapts too quickly to all the time travel and technology stuff but the story sort of demands it, and there is a suggestion that Jamie's previous experiences are starting to come back to him.

There is also a bit too much of that standard trope of capture, escape and then recapture, but that is classic Doctor Who and I can forgive them that for now. I was slightly confused by all the different time periods in this story but that may be explained in the next two parts of this Jamie trilogy. As will the big villain behind all this. For the moment the monsters in this story had a suitably creepy voice, and all the actors were pretty good.

A quick enjoyable story which gets a just above average 3 out of 5 Dirks from me.