Big Finish day review

So last weekend Brian from British Invaders and I met up again and travelled to Barking Abbey school for Big Finish day 2. This convention was a co-production between Big Finish and a convention company called Tenth Planet. The impressive guest list for the day was headed by Tom Baker who was right up there on the Brian Blessed scale of eccentricity and anecdote. He started the day off with a panel with Louise Jameson who played the companion Leela to his Doctor in the 1970s. Once again there were plenty of questions but they were mostly just prompts for Tom to tell stories about the fun he had while playing the Doctor, and the enjoyment he was getting out of reprising the role for the new Big Finish stories. I got a chance to ask him about the scariest monster in the series and he launched into a discussion about how many of his fellow actors thought it was him!

Along with Tom Baker and Louise Jameson there were several other big name actors doing panels and signing autographs. From Doctor Who there were Anneke Wills (who played Polly), Katy Manning (Jo Grant), Terry Molloy (Davros) and Lisa Bowerman (Bernice Summerfield). Then there was Paul Darrow who played Avon in Blake's 7 and David Warner who has played bad guys in Star Trek, Time Bandits and Tron as well as taking on the role of Steel in the Big Finish Sapphire & Steel stories. Brian had been to a performance of Taming of the Shrew at the RSC during his trip and had fun discussing the theatre with David Warner who had started his career there.

However my own personal highlight was meeting Shane Rimmer who was in Doctor Who with William Hartnell back in the 1960s, appeared in several James Bond films and was in one of our British Invaders gems, Alternative 3. But for me he will always be the voice of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds. He was there with his wife promoting his autobiography From Thunderbirds to Pterodactyls which I bought. He signed the book and a picture of Scott Tracy for me. He also recorded a voice memo on my phone which you can download and listen to here. It was fantastic to meet him.

After lunch Brian and I joined the only big queue of the day which was to meet Tom Baker and get our Big Finish CD covers signed. Once again he was on great form, it turned out that the reason that the queue was moving slowly was that everyone was getting a Tom story. Brian got a discussion about Canada and also persuaded Tom to record a British Invaders bumper on Brian's pocket audio recorder. Because people find it difficult to spell my first name I had written it on a card for Tom to dedicate his autograph for me, however Tom couldn't read my writing. When I explained that it was a doctor's handwriting he asked if I was a medical doctor. I said that I was but that I was just A doctor while he was THE Doctor. He then started to tell me all about his GP who sounds like he has his hands full with his famous patient, and then after signing my CD he said "Well goodbye, Doctor." Awesome.

Finally, we finished off the day by recording a brief interview with Nick Briggs who is an executive producer, director, writer and actor with Big Finish as well as providing the voices for the Daleks, Cyberman and several other monsters in the new Doctor Who. We'll probably put the interview in an upcoming bonus episode.

Big Finish day was great fun and if you get the chance to go next year you should go for it. Next up is the Doctor Who Experience.

SFX Weekender review

I don't normally got to conventions, but by the end of February I will have been to three cons this month. First up was the SFX weekender held at Pontins holiday camp in Prestatyn, North Wales. It was weird going back to Pontins which was the scene of a daring escape from my childhood, but that's another story.

SFX is a two day convention organised by the science fiction magazine of the same name. Brian my co-host from British Invaders was over from Canada and went to both days and I joined him for the Saturday. Although it is small in comparison with American conventions this was considerably bigger than the single room Brumcon I went to last year. Thousands of people were there, with many in costumes and several professional models in rather more revealing outfits.

Brian and I went to some of the panels including Q&A sessions with Eve Myles from Torchwood, and the Sixth Doctor Colin Baker. Then while Brian went off to get Baker's autograph I listened to the Judge Dredd creators John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra answer questions about the comic, and then I queued up to get their signatures on one of my Dredd books.

And like Dave Gibbons at Brumcon who was doing quick head sketches of Rorschach, Carlos was doing Dredd or Johnny Alpha doodles in peoples' books. Here is mine. Gracias, Carlos!

In the afternoon we went to another Q&A with the larger than life Brian Blessed who raised the roof with the power of his voice. There was a moderator on stage to ask questions but he never got a word in as Blessed told anecdote after anecdote for an hour, pausing every now and then to bellow "Gordon's alive!".

Finally in the evening we went to the SFX awards ceremony where author Robert Rankin and his wife gave out various awards for 2011. Obviously several of the award-winners were not there to accept their gongs and several had sent video acceptance speeches. It is worth checking out the videos at the SFX site to watch Neil Gaiman's amusing video about his best writer award for The Doctor's wife. However, Stan "The Man" Lee probably stole the show with his video to accept the "Biggest Disappointment" award for not doing a cameo in the X-Men: First Class movie. It's great, watch it.

On the Sunday Brian set off on the rest of his travels around the UK, while I returned home for work on the Monday. One week later we got back together for Big Finish Day. Review coming up next.

Big Finish - Zagreus

Time to kick-start this blog. This is Big Finish's 50th release Zagreus, written by Alan Barnes and Gary Russell, and starring, well everybody.

The eight Doctor may, or may not, have become the mythical monster Zagreus. It will take all the resources of the Tardis and several of his companions to help him. There are at least twelve companions in there, and four previous incarnations of the Doctor spread over three CDs of confused mayhem.

The good points about Zagreus are its huge scope and ambition, plus the delight of using recordings of the late, great Jon Pertwee as one of the Tardis voices trying to help the Doctor. On the down side it is all rather confusing and it does seem strange to have Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy playing characters other than the Doctor.

Overall, I was slightly disappointed, mainly because I had heard such great things about it. However, you have to admire the mammoth story it tells. It gets a solid 2.5 out of 5 mythical Gallifreyan monsters. Next up is the return of Davros in The Juggernauts. But first some convention reports.

Big Finish - Neverland

This is Big Finish release number 33: Neverland starring Paul McGann as the eight doctor and India Fisher as Charley Pollard, written by Alan Barnes and directed by Gary Russell.

I've jumped back to a much earlier release in the Big Finish line because this story sets the scene for the huge adventure of Zagreus that marked the 50th release for Big Finish. I picked up Zagreus and some other stories in a cheap eBay package but more of that another time.

I'm really enjoying Paul McGann's Doctor in these audio dramas. He is an excellent actor who seems to understand perfectly what is required in a radio play. He is on fine form again here in an adventure that takes him back to Gallifrey and to dark events from the history of the Time Lords. Lalla Ward reprises her role as Romana and Don Warrington turns up in an important role.

There's a mystery that can only the Doctor and the Tardis can solve and it may relate to a mysterious figure from a nursery rhyme known only as Zagreus. Can this character from fiction and fable actually exist? And how is the Doctor's companion Charley Pollard mixed up in all of this? She goes from being a peripheral observer to becoming the central figure in a maelstrom that may affect time and space forever. I was reminded of Rose Walker in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics who finds herself as the unwitting nexus of a huge disaster.

All in all this was another great Doctor Who audio adventure with all the actors giving good performances. I'm going to give this 4 out 5 R101 airships. Next up is the madness of Zagreus with, by my reckoning, five Doctors and at least twelve of his companions.

2000AD Prog 1765 - A medical review

A new year and a new 2000AD prog to review. Abalom is back which is great, and Judge Dredd begins a new story arc in the build up to the Day of Chaos. This is part one of Eve of Destruction and the tension is really building up. In the aftermath of the raid on the Sov-Judges' research bunker Dredd meets with the Mega-City's chief microbiologist to discuss the likely nature of the bio-weapon that is heading their way.

They begin with some fairly graphic descriptions of the effects that the Chaos organism had on its victim. All quite gruesome stuff that sounds like the rage virus from 28 Days Later. Dr Wyant points out that the super-bug is similar to Toxoplasma Gondii as discussed in my previous blog entry, but gives the writers a get out clause by noting that this is "not the same beast at all".

Unfortunately the confusion between a virus and a protozoa continues. Anti-virals are not going to be of any use against even a mutated form of Toxoplasma. Once again the doctor mentions his own speciality of Phage therapy which may offer the best hope for Mega-City One, and is more realistic.

And then there is a computer screen image of the victim's blood. Henry Flint gets the shape of red blood cells right, and although T.Gondii isn't a spiky beastie as shown here it does have a curved crescent moon shape so this picture is not bad as a portrayal of a mutated killer protozoa. Maybe they looked at an image of T.Gondii parasites like this one.

The medical rating drops a bit for the continued confusion about micro-organisms, so this gets 3.5 out of 5 medic-droids. But the almost unbearable sense of expectation and, let's say it - dread makes for a great storyline. Unlike the surprise attacks of Block Mania and The Apocalypse War this time the Mega-City Judges know exactly what is coming but seem almost powerless to stop it. Great stuff for 2012.

2000AD Prog 2012 - A medical review

2000AD prog 2012 is the big Christmas 100 page special, rather like the old annuals that British comics used to put out. It's an excellent jumping on point for 2000AD as several new stories start in this issue so there isn't a lot of previous continuity to catch up on.

The Judge Dredd story in this issue is a stand alone that parodies choose your own adventure books. It's ok but after the building tension of the recent Day of Chaos and Assassination List storyline it seems a bit lightweight.

More interesting is the first part of a new Absalom story, "Sick Leave" by Gordon Rennie, with art by Tiernen Trevallion and letters by Simon Bowland. Harry Absalom is a police inspector who heads up a paranormal investigation team that spun out of another 2000AD strip called Caballistics, Inc. He is a cranky and hard drinking old-school police officer who is also suffering from advanced cancer. While his team are investigating some strange graffiti in an East London estate, Absalom is at the hospital for a consultation with his oncologist. He is shown into a clinic room where he encounters a demonic ghost version of himself.

The above panels reveal that Absalom has cancer of the Pancreas which has a notoriously poor prognosis. Sadly, you can't diagnose Pancreatic cancer from x-rays as the demon does here. It needs a CT or MRI scan to detect the tumour in the Pancreas gland which lies behind the stomach and underneath the diaphragm, which separates the chest from the abdominal cavity. The demon seems to be looking at chest x-rays with lots of dark, round shadows on them. Presumably these represent metastases or spread from the original cancer. Technically the shadows should be in in the peripheries of the lung fields and not, as they are shown in these panels, overlying the central structures of the heart, mediastinum and sternum. You can see an image of a real chest x-ray with metastases here.  Spread to the lung can occur in many different types of cancer, and are not typical of pancreatic cancer. Unfortunately you can't tell what type of cancer causes lung shadows like this just by looking at them. Still, let us assume that demon, ghost thingys have diagnostic powers beyond those of us mortal doctors.

The other very interesting thing about the Absalom strip is its references and nods to other classic works of occult fiction. The next page in this issue includes these panels.

Harry Absalom refers to Inspector Trout from the Abominable Dr. Phibes movies, starring Vincent Price. Inspector Calhoun was played by Donald Pleasence in the 1972 film Death Line, in which he investigated Cannibals in the underground.

Jack Regan was, of course, played by the late John Thaw in The Sweeney. Inspector Barlow was a character in the British TV shows Z Cars, Softly, Softly, Barlow at Large, and Second Verdict, and was played by Stratford Johns. Regan and Barlow didn't investigate the paranormal although Barlow, with his colleague John Watt, did look in to the Jack the Ripper case once.

Finally, the "Irish git who was involved in that Zombie mess up in Manchester" is a reference to the film The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, and to the police sergeant played by Arthur Kennedy.

The images in the third panel show from the left, Dr Phibes, Inspector Barlow, Jack Regan and, I think, Inspector Trout. Hopefully, somebody will let me know where the demon with the inverted cross on its head comes from.

The artist and writer got a bit confused about Pancreatic cancer, metastases and chest x-rays, but they more than made up for it with the cult references. For medical accuracy this story gets a solid 3 out of 5 outpatient clinic appointments. However this is a great first episode and I've now got something to look forward to in 2000AD other than Judge Dredd. If you are interested you can read the first episode of the original Absalom story from prog 1732 here.

Big Finish - The Witch from the Well

This is Big Finish release 154 - The Witch from the Well.

The eighth Doctor and Mary Shelley get caught up in a seventeenth century witch hunt which gets more complicated when the fast return switch on the Tardis separates them by 400 years.

This story didn't quite hit the heights of The Silver Turk but it is very good. There's a nice creepy element to the mystery of the titular witch. Personally I could have done with that mystery carrying on for a bit longer before the science fiction solution is revealed, but that is just my preference for spooky ghost stories.

There is only one problem with these eighth Doctor stories and it's the music. I assumed that Big Finish were using the appropriate theme music for each doctor and that this was the music from the TV movie. But as Paul from the TimeVault podcast pointed out on my previous post this is actually a remix.

When Channel 4 did their countdown of the 100 scariest moments they included the original Doctor Who theme music as an entry in its own right. The rock journalist Alexis Petridis described it then as a perfect piece of music, and I agree. That's not to say that I don't like the updated versions for the subsequent Doctors, I actually enjoy all of them apart from the movie version. If you want to listen to an interesting run through of all the theme tunes up to the tenth Doctor then check out Tom Dillahunt's Podcast Who and, in particular, his episodes 40, 41 and 42.

Anyway, this soft rock of version of the theme tune is the worst version out there, it really spoils the cliffhanger endings to the four episodes in this story. But let's look past that and give this Big Finish story 3.5 out of 5 Radiophonic workshops. Next up I'm jumping back in the Big Finish timeline and will be listening to Neverland.