Extinction review [Matt Fitton and Andrew Smith]

Whilst Scientific Advisor Osgood attends a 'skyfall' incident with Colonel Shindi and Captain Josh Carter, Kate's duties take her to visit Devlin Future Tech, and reclusive billionaire Simon Devlin.

Journalist Jackie McGee is also on FutureTech's case, and nothing's going to get in the way of her story: a product launch that will change the world...

When and Where: Extinction takes place between The Power of Three (which took place at some point between 2016 and 2020) and The Day of the Doctor (which was at least a year after the beginning of the former episode). By Power Cell, Shindi is still recuperating from being shot but Osgood has met the Eleventh Doctor, so The Day of the Doctor is next for UNIT.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Here at Devlin FutureTech, your future is in our hands."
• UNIT: The New Series begins very new, with a modern plot that brings the Autons to the contemporary age in a way that Rose didn't attempt.
• Rather than reintroducing UNIT through a sat-down discussion as it was in Spearhead from Space with the Brigadier and Liz Shaw, this story begins with Kate and her crew in action trying to save an extraterrestrial crocodile in the River Severn. The organisation hasn't been allowed to be too effective since the Third Doctor left them, meaning that in the modern series they're usually made useless so that the companion has the opportunity to be clever. For example, they have to bring in Clara in The Magician's Apprentice and again needed her in The Zygon Invasion. Here there's no Clara, meaning that they have the chance to be an effective and intelligent force for good.
• On television, Kate has a nasty habit of just being a sound-board delivering cool Moffatisms like River or Missy ("He's on the payroll", "With dress sense like that you must be the Doctor", "I've got officers trained in beheading. Also ravens of death.") rather than being an actual character. She improved by The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion, but here she is undeniably flesh and blood with thoughts, feelings and a history. Osgood too was a bit of a gimmick on TV, and has similarly been rounded into more of a character.
• Devlin gets a plastic skull that means he's able to connect to the Nestene Consciousness. This could have seemed like a ridiculous idea if it wasn't handled so well, with Devlin's delivery and Kate's shock.
• Setting UNIT apart from the Torchwood Institute is that UNIT isn't outside of the government nor beyond the police. Kate has to visit Downing Street to speak to the Prime Minister and Colonel Shindi visits Geneva, with both leaving feeling frustrated at the lack of leeway being given to them. Torchwood would go in all guns blazing. It's good that Big Finish have chosen to stress the difference between the two organisations as otherwise having them both be separate might feel redundant. If a story would play out exactly the same in a Torchwood One or UNIT story then Big Finish aren't doing their job.
• Jacqui isn't a character I thought much of for most of Extinction, but her scene at the very end where she sounds like a mad conspiracy theorist is definitely standout.
• We haven't seen a whole lot of science leading, but Kate going to the Nestene to discuss terms is an example of UNIT's ethical growth since Doctor Who and the Silurians and Children of Earth.

The Valeyard's Case:

• We're introduced to a few new UNIT personnel: the rule-flouting Captain Carter and the hard-line Colonel Shindi. Their first scene together feels mostly natural, if a little obvious at getting us to know that one's a rebel and the other faultlessly dependable. Neither of them had much to do in Vanguard to set them apart, but Lieutenant Bishop is very much a main character in his first appearance and we learn nothing about him either. 
• "Everyone wants to talk about Dad today." Kate's right, and having the shadow of the irreplaceable Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart over this story does nothing but cast her in the same shadow. The Brigadier shouldn't be forgotten about, of course, but if Kate is going to lead a new UNIT series then we shouldn't be being reminded of him all the time.
• There's a lot of exposition in Earthfall. It's necessary and had to end up somewhere, but it doesn't make for the most exciting of stories.
• Osgood and Lieutenant Bishop go to the Gobi Desert in search of a Nestene energy unit. Unfortunately, this thread isn't a very interesting one and nothing much comes of it except the sphere's retrieval at the end. It's a wholly unmemorable adventure for the two characters.
• Auton conversion is introduced. It's always good to bring new things to old villains but this feels too much like the Cybermen.
• The 3D printers printing Autons was obvious from the beginning, yet Kate and Osgood apparently didn't have the slightest inkling until the printers began printing. It makes them seem rather naive.
• That news jingle very quickly gets annoying. Angering, even, and Nicholas Briggs's voice is so prolific in Big Finish that it always breaks the immersion for me when I hear his voice as a bit-character.
• Captain Carter now has an Auton skeleton more or less as a result of his own recklessness. However, he's completely and entirely okay with being plastic now, which shouldn't be the case. It isn't interesting and would be like if Owen Harper had no qualms about being dead.
• The use of anti-plastic makes Armageddon a mix of Spearhead from Space and Rose. It's a shame that the resolution is so easy.

I'll Explain Later:

• It's not until Armageddon that there's any mention of the fact that Kate has two children. With the world coming to an end, one would think that she'd have her children in mind, but they're mentioned only once in a throwaway line.

This Reminds Me...:

• Osgood has read the UNIT files on the Nestenes, referring to the Third Doctor adventures Spearhead from Space and Terror of the Autons.
• The Pharos Project from Logopolis is mentioned.
• UNIT uses nitro-12, which is presumably a new and improved version of nitro-9, Ace's weapon of choice since Dragonfire.
• On the cover of Earthfall, Osgood seems to be wearing a cat badge. This was arguably the least offensive of the Sixth Doctor's items of clothing.
• Kate mentions that she plays bridge, which she said she was outstanding at in Dark Water.
• Devlin says that UNIT have used investigative reporters before, referring to Sarah Jane Smith.
• Kate orders five rounds of RPG fire, a reference to her father's "five rounds rapid".
• Anti-plastic was first seen in Rose, where a Nestene was killed by a vial.

The Deliberation: 

• Vanguard updates the plot of Spearhead from Space and brings both UNIT and the Nestenes into the 21st century. (We can't be much more specific, but this is probably the 2010s.) Vanguard establishes the characters both old and new in a way that doesn't feel remotely superfluous or purely functional. Kate doesn't just spout "cool" lines and Osgood is far more effectual than she was on TV. 
• Earthfall is rather disappointing, following an extraordinarily strong start to the first series of the new and improved UNIT. It has atmosphere and is perfectly functional, but involves a lot of exposition being dumped and not much else really happening. Osgood and Bishop's sojourn isn't very interesting and Kate doesn't get up to a whole lot. This story is too short and concise and could have done with more colour and excitement.
• Bridgehead shows that the box set, after a promising start, has sagged somewhat in the middle with the most blatantly obvious reveal of what the 3D printers were for and very little else. When it's been this obvious to the listener since the superior Vanguard, it makes Kate and Osgood look stupid. Perhaps New UNIT does need Clara around after all. Also, I hope I never hear that news jingle again.
• Armageddon rounds up Extinction neatly and steps up from Andrew Smith's somewhat average middle episodes. The Nestene's defeat isn't anything we haven't seen before and the existence of the anti-plastic comes out of the blue, but it can't be said that Armageddon is anything less than competent. Still, it's not quite Vanguard.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: All in all, Extinction is a relatively stream-lined story that mixes and modernises the plots of Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons and Rose to create a confident tale that's a promising start to UNIT: The New Series in a way that, for example, the first series of The Diary of River Song isn't. That volume could just have easily been about Jack Harkness or Charley Pollard, but Extinction is unabashedly UNIT. It has a number of problems and Earthfall is forgettable, but Vanguard is a high-point for Big Finish. These issues, however, are minor and Extinction is, overall, very good and has earnt itself an A.

UNIT: The New Series

Extinction  |  Shutdown

Earth Aid review [Andrew Cartmel]

For some reason, Ace is the captain of a spaceship called the Vancouver, which coincidentally gets targeted by Metatraxi ships. What are the chances?

Where and When: At some point between Animal and The Fearmonger.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "You let others die for you."
• "You wouldn't by any chance be telling a huge fib."
• The Doctor and Raine get some proper time alone together since... probably the first half of Crime of the Century. It's just traditional Doctor-and-companion exploration but it takes on a whole new dynamic with Raine being inexperienced. She emerges from a safe just as the Doctor did when they first met, which is a nice reversal.
• Ingrid Oliver (who would later be cast as Osgood) isn't given the most engaging of roles but she does a great job with what she's got.
• It isn't the most interesting of plots and takes a while to kick in, but at least this story has one, which its predecessors were lacking in. 

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Belay that!"
• "You will know the wrath of the Metatraxi!"
• "Muuuum."
• "Yeah, we're like the three musketeers."
• The Metatraxi are an immensely impotent threat, hanging upside down and shouting empty threats. They supposedly led Raine on a wild goose chase in order to trap her in a safe and send her onto the Vancouver, but we've seen nothing to show that they can be so crafty and patient. It's safe to say that they've been an utter failure since their first appearance in Crime of the Century, not working as comic relief nor as villains. One of the most warlike races the Doctor has ever come across? Please.
• New companion Raine is wasted once again. What was the point in introducing her if Ace is going to serve the role of companion and Raine is going to do next to nothing? It isn't even as though Ace is getting great material to half-justify it. She pretends to be the captain of a spaceship (for some reason) and does a terrible job of acting the part.
• Raine's method of finding the password for the grain silo was, frankly, ridiculous. It's up there with Tosh's random leap in logic that an ISBN would open the Torchwood Hub in They Keep Killing Suzie.
• The Vancouver is saved thanks to the Metatraxi's sexism. It wasn't funny or clever when this sort of thing happened in Crime of the Century and it is even less so here, happening completely out of the blue.
• The character of Yanikov exists for one sole purpose - to point out Ace's mistakes, yet nothing comes of this until she is finally relieved of her command in part 4.

I'll Explain Later:

• Why were the Doctor and Ace on the Vancouver in the first place? Unless I missed a fleeting explanation, none was ever given.

This Reminds Me...:

• Ace is angry at how she keeps being called small.
• The Great Mother created the Metatraxi to kill her previous generation of children, much like the Giants and the Titans in Greek mythology.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Whilst it's the best of season 27, it's not good by any means and wins by the slimmest of margins. The humour remains flat, the Metatraxi remain pathetically ineffective and Raine remains superfluous. It has more direction than the previous releases and Raine gets to play companion for a short time but there's very little else to compliment about this story. This is a poor story to end a very disappointing season. Earth Aid is very bad, and that earns it an E.

The Lost Stories (Series 2)

Animal  |  Earth Aid  |  The Elite

Animal review [Andrew Cartmel]

Raine has her first journey with the Doctor and Ace, arriving at Margrave University in 2001. She and Ace pose as freshers to investigate an ecoterrorist plot with extraterrestrial connections.

When and Where: Margrave University in England, 2001. This is between Crime of the Century and Earth Aid for the TARDIS crew, and four years after Battlefield for Brigadier Bambera.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "You will come to know harm."
• Like with Crime of the Century, the first episode is the best, although still not great, featuring some nice interaction between Ace and Raine which has just the right amount of antagonism between the two. Ace learning that she's supposed to be a vegetarian and then having a burger served to her is funny.
• Brigadier Bambera (one of the few decent elements of the otherwise solid season 26, Battlefield) returns, played more convincingly than in her onscreen appearance.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "You lied to me." / "You lied to yourself."
• "Here's one he prepared earlier!"
• "Hey, Doctor dude! Check this out!"
• The cliff-hanger is one of Classic Who's staples and Big Finish have done a number of excellent ones. Cartmel's scripts, however, are utterly devoid of any exciting endings. The various plotlines don't tie up very neatly either: we've got Ace and Raine going undercover to investigate an ecoterrorist who turns out to be in contact with the Numlocks; we've got man-eating plants in the university for some reason; and then there's the battle robots that the Doctor came here to investigate in the first place. Very little actually happens in this story and, whilst this could be forgiven if it involved some character work for Raine or something, it's another overly thin plot with nothing happening until part 4.
  
• Ace is still present but has no function that Raine couldn't just have easily assumed, meaning that despite the fact that this is Raine's first journey in the TARDIS she disappears for large chunks of the story. We've seen the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Give us Seventh and Raine.
• Is the sergeant dopey or corrupt? He isn't consistently characterised, seeming to want to execute Ace for one of the cliff-hangers but showing no such cold-bloodedness in the rest of the story. Scobie, too, is boring and, although his mission is noble (at least, his motivation is) he isn't remotely sympathetic.
• Oh, dear. The Metatraxi. Why? They aren't an interesting race and the translator gag isn't funny.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: An improvement on Thin Ice and Crime of the Century, but still a poorly written release. Thinly-plotted, uninteresting and once again sidelining Raine, this story is a jumble of plotlines with no engaging characters or developed themes. Still, it's more competent than its predecessors and Brigadier Bambera's appearance is a welcome one making a rare connection to the later seasons of the classic series. This story is very bad, and that earns it an E.

The Lost Stories (Series 2)

Crime of the Century  |  Animal  |  Earth Aid

Crime of the Century review [Andrew Cartmel]

Cat burglar Raine Creevy sneaks upstairs at a garden party and cracks into a safe containing an object she'd been contracted to obtain. But that's not all that's inside. There's also a short man in a brown jacket and a hat.

When and Where: We're in London and Kafiristan in October 1989. This takes place between Thin Ice and Animal for all involved.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Lock-manipulation is safe-cracking in its purest form. No specialist tools are required, just a notebook, a pen and the stethoscope I got from a nice medical student I once met at a party in Holland Park."
• "The dogs? Now that really is uncivilised."
• New companion Raine is the polar opposite of Ace. She's more mature and sophisticated and from a far different background, making her a breath of fresh air. She speaks in an upper-class accent and has an appreciation for art, and dislikes her father whilst Ace disliked her mother. Big Finish have the Seventh Doctor travelling with Ace all the time, with a handful with Elizabeth Klein or Mel, so this new dynamic is a joy to listen to.
• Raine cracking open a safe to find the Doctor inside was pretty much all that Andrew Cartmel knew would happen in the planned episode that became this audio drama, and it's realised very well. Raine talking about safe-cracking in an almost sensual way is fascinating and finding the Doctor in the safe more so. Timey-wimeyness is a rare thing with the classic Doctors, so the Doctor knowing what Raine was going to do from her diary in the future is cool. It's easily one of the best companion introductions and would have made a great scene had it been filmed.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
  
• "Come back and fight, you sexist Metatraxi!"
• The Doctor and Raine work beautifully as a pair in a way wholly different to him and Ace. Unfortunately, Ace is still here holding him back from diving into a fresh relationship with a new companion and the beginning of a new era in the Seventh Doctor's life. Ace is a great companion and easily amongst the best of the classic series, if not the series as a whole, but the Seventh-and-Ace Era has become tired with very little new things to be said about them. Ace should have left in Thin Ice and her presence in this story is unwanted. It's mentioned early on that Raine has some skill at fencing, yet for some reason it's Ace who uses the artefact to fight the Metatraxi at the end. Ace is a thunder-stealer.
• The plot of this story is ever so slightly better than Thin Ice, but it has very little substance to it, failing to interest or develop in interesting ways.
• The Metatraxi are a dull villain. The translator gag isn't remotely funny and their code (yawn) is reminiscent of the Ice Warriors, who only just appeared in Thin Ice. Otherwise, they're quite similar to the Sontarans.
• If the score is trying to sound like it really could have belonged to a season 27, it does a poor job of it.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: The first episode is a promising start, introducing the refreshing character of Raine Creevy in a hugely memorable scene that earns a place amongst the best companion introductions. After this episode, however, the story falters. Ace is a relic of an era that should have ended with Thin Ice and the Metatraxi (who take a long time to make themselves known) are unoriginal and uninteresting. Cartmel's script suffers from the same trap-falls as the previous story: there's not that much plot and a change in setting doesn't equal plot development. Aside from Raine's great introduction, Crime of the Century is very bad, and that earns it an E.

The Lost Stories (Series 2)

Thin Ice  |  Crime of the Century  |  Animal

Click here for more audio dramas featuring the Seventh Doctor

Thin Ice review [Marc Platt]

Martian relics have found their way into the hands of Russian scientists in 1967, and so have the Doctor and Ace. Caught up in the planning of a robbery with Londoner Markus Creevy and Russian Raina Kerenskaya, the two come face-to-face with the Ice Warriors.

When and Where: Moscow, November 1967. For the Doctor and Ace, this is between Survival and Crime of the Century, which is just under twenty-two years later for the Creevys. For the Ice Warriors, this is between Empress of Mars and Cold War.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "You always used to call me 'professor'." / "Kids' stuff. Things change." / "I liked it."
• "Come on, professor. We've still got work to do."
• Choosing to introduce a companion's parents and her own birth the story before her first real appearance is a wonderful idea that makes this one of the best companion introductions, certainly of Classic Who. Markus is a cheeky and likeable man who we'll be seeing again and who was meant to be a recurring character in the classic show much as the Brigadier was. Raina too is well-performed by Beth Chalmers and proves to be one of the more interesting characters, having a believable and sweet secret romance with Markus. Doctor Who doesn't have a great track record of accents (Ray's Welsh accent in Delta and the Bannermen, Peri's American) but Ricky Groves and Beth Chalmers do an excellent job, as do all the Russians.
• Ace sympathises with Lord Hhessh, having been taken from her planet against her will when she had to live on Svartos. They have a nice relationship, which is the sort of thing not really seen between Ace and any aliens on the show (with the exception of Kara). It helps that Hhessh is played by Nicholas Briggs with a voice far superior than was used in Red Dawn for Lord Zzaal.
  
• The Doctor is his manipulative self, secretly training Ace to become a Time Lady and keeping the fact that his people are testing her from her.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Groovy, baby."
• Had this story been produced for the television, it was to be Ace's departure. Big Finish chooses, rather than to have Thin Ice take place post-Hex, to have it take place shortly after Survival, meaning that Ace remains with the Doctor rather than going to Gallifrey. This is disappointing. Ace has appeared in around forty audio dramas and, just as the Sixth Doctor was refreshed by travelling with Evelyn and Flip, it would have been nice to finally see Ace leave and to have the Doctor travel alone with Raine. Ace staying gets in the way of what could be an engaging new relationship between the two and will relegate Raine to a tag-along rather than the companion that she would have and should have been. This could have been the start of a brand new era for the Seventh Doctor, but it wasn't so.
• A powerful relic searched for and fought over by a number of factions and starring the Seventh Doctor, Ace and one of the big Doctor Who monsters. This could be used to describe Remembrance of the Daleks, Silver Nemesis and now Thin Ice. The heist element adds some refreshment, but it can't disguise that it's the second story to follow on the successful formula of Remembrance without much success.
• Each of the cliff-hangers are lacklustre. Hhessh saying that Ace needs to die in an unthreatening way that could only be resolved with ridiculous ease (which it is), the Doctor saying that a tractor beam is pulling them in... They fail to make any sort of impression or cause any degree of excitement or anticipation. The Time Lord telling Ace that she was being tested to join the Academy would have been a great cliff-hanger if we didn't already know that this was the case.
  
• Ace getting angry at the Doctor because she feels she can't trust him. We've already seen this, in Ghost Light and The Curse of Fenric. Unfortunately, this means that Ace's statement that she will never trust the Doctor again just feels like something we've heard before and adds nothing new to their relationship.
• There's far too much percussion in this story. Not only is it unlike the classic series' soundtrack, but it can get rather irritating at times. The music at times is reminiscent of that of Attack of the Cybermen.

I'll Explain Later:

• If the Doctor can communicate with the Time Lords telepathically as he does in this story, why hasn't it been done before?

This Reminds Me...:

• "This is a kindness," Hhessh says. This is the catchphrase of the Handbots seen in The Girl Who Waited.
• "Who are you calling small?" Ace says, as she did to a Dalek in Remembrance of the Daleks before beating it up with her enhanced baseball bat.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Thin Ice would have been the first episode of season 27 and would have made for a sedate opener notable only for Ace's quiet departure. The audio drama doesn't have that, meaning it's all-round average and largely unmemorable. The bottom line is that, despite some great performances for Markus and Raina, there isn't enough plot for four parts (perhaps making it even more authentic as a Classic Who story than it intended). It goes through the motions and from plot point to plot point, but it's slow and a boring listen. It's atrocious, and that earns it an F.

The Lost Stories (Series 2)

The Destroyers  |  Thin Ice  |  Crime of the Century

Click here for more audio dramas featuring the Seventh Doctor