The Invasion review [Derrick Sherwin]

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are fired at from a spaceship hidden on the Moon before materialising on Earth, where they find themselves entangled in the mission of the newly-formed UNIT. Genius Professor Watkins has gone missing and not everyone who enters the main office of International Electromatics come out.

When and Where: The Web of Fear took place over forty years after 1935, making it 1976 at the earliest. The Invasion is in the summer four years after this, setting it in 1980. Sarah Jane Smith comes from 1980 and this takes place seven months before Spearhead from Space, so this couldn't be possible. Perhaps it's the summer of 1979 and the Brigadier was wrong about it having been four years. This means that all of UNIT's adventures from Spearhead from Space to, at least, Robot are set in 1980. Let's ignore anything that might have been said in Mawdryn Undead.

However, Last of the Cybermen explicitly dates this story as being set in 1975, meaning that The Web of Fear was in 1971 and the Third Doctor's involvement with UNIT began in 1976. This contradicts what Professor Travers says in The Web of Fear about how the Yeti attack in Tibet was over forty years before - it would have been only thirty-six years. Perhaps he wasn't very good at maths?

To conclude, The Invasion takes place in either the summer of 1975 or 1979. I'd be inclined to think 1975 given that Last of the Cybermen is the only bit of TV/Big Finish media to actually give the specific date.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
  
• "Do you not write anything on paper at all?" / "I'd only lose it if I did. Writing on a wall's much safer. You can't lose a wall, can you?"
• "Next time, read the notice on the door!" / "Oh, don't tell me you can read as well. What else can you do?"
• "If there's trouble to be found, the Doctor and Jamie can't miss it."
• "Hey, are you stinking rich?"
• Cyberman reveal in episode 4
• I've seen some complaints that The Invasion is too long. Perhaps episodes 3 and 4 could have been merged, but otherwise I find Tobias Vaughn and International Electromatics to be good enough villains in their own right and more than tide us over until the Cybermen emerge. Vaughn is a memorable human villain
• In the '60s, we've had screaming girls like Susan Foreman and Victoria Waterfield travelling in the TARDIS as our heroes and identification figures. Then we've had guest characters like Samantha Briggs in The Faceless Ones and Isobel Watkins in this story. Strong, capable, active women more than capable of travelling time and space. Isobel is one that might be irritating if she was a companion but she functions perfectly well in this story, being more than just a replacement for Anne Travers. She's an ambitious photographer with a few quirks (namely writing on walls because they're more difficult to lose than bits of paper) and is very much a feminist, rebelling against what she sees as the Brigadier's bigotry. She has a fun relationship with Zoe and brings out more of the girl behind the scientist. Saying all this, she might have needed a Donna-style mellowing before being a companion.
  
• Despite being devoid of emotions, when Cybermen die they scream for some reason. However, there are times where it's not a bad thing. The cries of the Cybermen at the end of Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel as they come to their senses and realise what they are is chilling. The mad Cyberman in this story, like in Tennant's story, has a valid reason for screaming and it's a very scary thing to witness, hobbling through the sewers shrieking.
• The quality of the animations of lost Doctor Who episodes are variable. Quite a few are rudimentary and unimpressive, but episodes 1 and 4 of The Invasion are absolutely beautiful, carrying so much atmosphere and conveying action so well.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "I think those crazy kids have gone off to the sewers to get photographs of the Cybermen."
• "Yes, sir. Something called a Cyber-megatron bomb."
• Episodes 3 and 4 feel like padding. It's fortunate that the Doctor and his companions are charismatic and watchable enough that I don't mind.
• The Cyberman voices are borderline incomprehensible at times and are a real step down from The Tomb of the Cybermen (at the time of writing I've not yet watched The Wheel in Space).

I'll Explain Later:

• Where did these Cybermen come from? Are they from Mondas? If so, why do they look and sound so different to the Cybermen that arrive on Earth some years later in The Tenth Planet?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe go looking Professor Edward Travers, who helped fight against the Great Intelligence in The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear. Jack Watling was, unfortunately, unavailable for filming for this serial or his creators refused to allow him to be used because of their experience in writing The Dominators. It depends where you look. He later appears in Downtime.
• In the animation, the car that takes the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe to London bears the licence plate "11-22-63", the airdate of the first part of An Unearthly Child.
• In the animation, it says "Bad Wolf" on Isobel's wall.
• Jamie previously met the Cybermen in The Moonbase, The Tomb of the Cybermen and Zoe's first story, The Wheel in Space.
• Kevin Stoney (Tobias Vaughn), Sheila Dunn (the computer voice) and Clifford Earl (Major Branwell) previously appeared in The Daleks' Master Plan as Mavic Chen, Blossom Lefavre and the station sergeant respectively. Edward Burnham (Professor Watkins) previously appeared as Professor Jeremiah Kettlewell in Robot. Ian Fairbairn (Gregory) previously appeared as Questa in The Macra Terror.
  

The Inquisitor's Judgement: On a scale from Silver Nemesis to World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, The Invasion definitely falls on the higher end of the Cyberman stories, although this isn't really because of the Cybermen themselves. Tobias Vaughn is a menacing, smooth-talking villain and the first appearance of UNIT proves that it deserves to be the staple that it became in the Third Doctor's era and beyond. The Doctor, Jamie, Zoe, Isobel and the Brigadier are all fantastic and such an easy cast to watch and listen to. The Invasion is very good, and that earns it an A.

Doctor Who (Season 6)

The Mind Robber  |  The Invasion  |  The Krotons

The Snowmen review [Steven Moffat]

The Doctor has retired to a life of non-intervention in London 1892, assisted in his isolation by Vastra, Jenny and Strax. Then a new face approaches him, one that turns out not to be so new after all...

Snowmen are popping up around the city and inside a frozen pond grows an icy horror that the Great Intelligence has its designs on. 

When and Where: London, from the 23rd to the 25th December, 1892. A significant period has apparently passed for the Doctor since The Angels Take Manhattan. For Vastra, Jenny and Strax, it's been four years since A Good Man Goes to War. For the Great Intelligence, this is before The Abominable Snowmen.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Typical middle child of six million."
• "Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?" / "Ha! All my stories are true." / "Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?" / "Accounting for my acute sense of time." / "And you invented fish." / "Because I dislike swimming alone." 
• "It's smaller on the outside."
• Moffat has chosen to make snowmen the monsters for this Christmas special, which is a gamble. If he can't justify them and explain them in an interesting way that makes sense in the Doctor Who universe then they're going to seem ridiculous. Fortunately, the explanation is one that makes sense. It's telepathic snow that can remember its previous forms and is being used by the Great Intelligence (a former-snowman who had the darkest of Dr Simeon's thoughts poured into it, granting it power and independence) to create an ice being that will give the Intelligence form and allow Dr Simeon to build an ice-army. 
  
• Clara being touched at being given a TARDIS key is a really sweet and emotional moment and has her showing more emotion in a few seconds than modern-day Clara will over the course of her run. It makes her shocking death all the more surprising and poignant, even if she isn't the first prospective companion to die. Speaking of: Moffat had the balls to kill a girl at Christmas. Davies did it with Astrid Peth, but she got a happy ending out of it and she wasn't nearly as endearing or engaging a character (nor was Kylie Minogue ever going to stay on for more than a Christmas special).
• The Great Intelligence is one of the more memorable villains from the black and white era, having appeared in The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear (two decent stories) and Downtime. It's fitting that the 50th year of Doctor Who should feature an old enemy and it's far more interesting for it to be a lesser-known but formidable one rather than the Daleks or something else we've seen dozens of times before. The Intelligence was never explained or explored in the classic series, leaving it practically begging for the origin story that it finally gets here. Ian McKellen does a great job of bringing the Intelligence to life with his menacing voice.
• Dr Simeon is an intimidating villain who Richard E. Grant plays as stoic and scowling for almost the entirety of the episode, which works. It makes his moment of vulnerability where he learns that his snowman was actually just reflecting his own personality back at him that much more powerful, leaving me wanting for more vulnerability and insight on Simeon's relationship with his snowman. It's sort of a reverse of Amy and the Doctor: Amy loses her friend, waits for his return and becomes a better person whilst Simeon stays with his friend and becomes a worse person because of it reflecting back his darkest dreams and impulses.
• The Doctor has had companions that he's had to leave behind, companions that left him and companions that died. He's sad for a time but quickly moves on, because that's who he is. He understands better than anyone that these things happen. However, after Rose died he spent all series 3 mourning for her because of how special she was to him and, here, the Doctor has full-on retired because of the loss of Rory and Amy. I began writing this for the next section where I was going to discuss how indulgent it is of the showrunner to paint the companion that they created as being so much more important to the Doctor than any of his previous ones, but then I realised that, for the Doctor, this is 300 years after The Eleventh Hour. He's known them for three centuries, so mourning does make sense.
  

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Over a thousand years of saving the universe, Strax, you know the one thing I learnt? The universe doesn't care." 
• "Spoken like a man!"
• Moffat seems to be incapable of writing a female companion who isn't obsessed with the Doctor and has unfounded faith in him. Clara's just met the man and gives chase after he leaves. Was it because of what he said about the snowman? She was a barmaid and has surely heard far more ludicrous things on the job than that. And just like Rose, Martha, Amy, River and Nefertiti, she has a thing for him, ogling him as he climbs the ladder. She gives him a snog and tells him that he likes her. The kiss adds nothing, means nothing and shouldn't be here. The Doctor can interact with females without it being so sexually-charged, Moffat.
• My only other complaint about Clara is that she's a little too perfect and wouldn't work as a long-term companion without some development. She takes things in her stride a little too easily.
• The universe doesn't care about the Doctor for his efforts? The Wedding of River Song said the exact opposite and we learnt in series 6 how famous the Doctor is (or was) across the universe. Since when has the Doctor ever asked for thanks, anyway? Didn't Martha say that he never asked to be thanked in Last of the Time Lords?
• So... the Great Intelligence was defeated because the mass of snow at the Latimers' was overpowered by the family's tears over Clara's death, meaning that the snow that the Great Intelligence existed as became tears. Why is the Intelligence so connected to the snow at the Latimers'? Why does it become tears? Why does this strip the Intelligence from Dr Simeon's body? The implication is that the snow is no longer mirroring Dr Simeon but the Latimers' tears, but hadn't the Intelligence become more than just a reflection of Dr Simeon by this time?
  
• Strax is funny but if the Sontarans are ever going to be a credible threat again he's made it very hard for the writer.
• The Sherlock Holmes thing isn't funny or clever.

I'll Explain Later:

• Why does the Doctor need a memory worm to erase Clara's memories? He managed to erase far more than an hour of Donna's memories without one.
• Did women give handshakes in 1892?
• What was the point of Dr Simeon's visit to Captain Latimer?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor met Oswin Oswald in Asylum of the Daleks.
• The Intelligence used snowmen of a different kind in The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear.
• The Doctor has invited people to join him who've subsequently died before, like Lynda in Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: The Doctor has known and travelled with Amy and Rory for two and a half seasons and now it's time for a fresh start. He's uncharacteristically moody and not much fun to watch until Clara reawakens his sense of adventure, after which the episode properly begins. His new companion is a breath of fresh air after Amy (although she's too squeaky-clean and perfect) and her death is shocking and heart-breaking. The Intelligence's origin is presented although its relationship with Dr Simeon could have been explored more and the gimmicky snowmen are sufficiently justified. This is a very good episode and deserves an A.

Doctor Who (Series 7)

The Angels Take Manhattan  |  The Snowmen  |  The Bells of Saint John

Asylum of the Daleks review [Steven Moffat]

What can the Daleks do when faced with a task so terrifying that they won't dare attempt it themselves? They call the Doctor.

When and Where: The Dalek Asylum at an unknown time.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "You think hatred is beautiful." / "Perhaps that is why we have never been able to kill you."
• The main villains of this story are the insane Daleks, but the far more successful foes are the latest addition to the Dalek mythos - the puppets. The idea of Daleks mutilating a dead body without respect and turning it into a mindless drone is a gruesome idea and a frightening one given that anybody could be one without even knowing it. Why an eyestalk is needed I'm not sure but it can't be denied that it's a scary image, far more than the Robomen of The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
• Oswin Oswald proves to be an exceptionally good character that, even if Jenna Coleman didn't return, would prove memorable. She's a technological marvel and a certified genius who boarded the Alaska as junior entertainment manager so that she could see the wonders of the universe, asking the Doctor at the end to take her to see the stars. A shame, then, that she's a Dalek. In a shocking twist that I didn't see coming, Oswin was a Dalek the whole time. It makes for a tragic turn for the confident and cheery character and makes for the best sequence of the story where Oswin realises that she's no longer human. The episode's gain is the show's loss because Oswin is far more interesting and engaging than the vacuum that will fill the role of companion by the name of Clara Oswald. Had Oswin joined, we could have had a relationship similar to Second and Zoe or Fourth and Romana - two geniuses travelling the universe and butting heads. There's nothing more for the show to say about Amy and Rory, but a wealth to be gained from an adventure-deprived genius entertainment manager from the future.
  
• The Daleks haven't been scary since... probably Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, with the reason being that nobody acts as though they're frightening. The biggest offender by this point is Victory of the Daleks, in which neither the Doctor nor Amy fear them. They don't even seem to take them seriously. In this story, we get to see the Doctor scared of them again, yelling with his back to a locked door as Dalek suckers approach him.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Don't be fair to the Daleks when they're firing me at a planet."
• "Doctor... who? Doctor... who? Doctor... who?"
• The Doctor is told by the Dalek puppet at the beginning that her daughter is in a Dalek camp and that she arranged her meeting with the Doctor because the best way of getting him to help was to intrigue him. Firstly, the Doctor shows absolutely no signs of caring about her daughter or expressing any disgust at the Dalek camps like any of his predecessors would. Secondly, the Doctor shouldn't have to be intrigued in order to help someone. Sherlock Holmes, yes, but not the Doctor.
• The Parliament of the Daleks isn't just stupid. It's unnecessary, which is the worst kind of stupid. Daleks aren't a parliamentary race and nor would they elect a Prime Minister given that they don't have any individual identities. The story could have been about the Doctor, Amy and Rory landing on the asylum and trying to get back to the TARDIS - cutting out the Parliament doesn't change the plot in any way at all. The Prime Minister being a thoroughly unconvincing rubber prop doesn't help, especially not when Metaltron from series 1 looked so much better.
  
• Series 5 was about Amy's cold feet before realising that she truly did want to marry Rory, who always doted on her. Series 6 has the married couple have a child that they look for and learn that they raised all along thanks to time travel. Now Amy and Rory are a signature away from divorce and the break-up happened off-screen between seasons? It doesn't make any sense and, even worse, it has absolutely no lasting effects. The two would have had a good exit being left with a new house in The God Complex by the Doctor to keep them safe, or after learning from River that the Doctor is alive in The Wedding of River Song. Perhaps even after sharing Christmas dinner with the Doctor in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. The pair are outstaying their welcome at this point with absolutely nowhere new to go with these characters. Oh, and their marriage troubles which led them to divorce are resolved with one short conversation mid-episode.

I'll Explain Later:

• How is Skaro back? The Doctor destroyed it in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• The episode is called Asylum of the Daleks, but what separates the committed Daleks from the usual ones? They don't seem any more insane than those on the spaceship.
• The only way to disable the shields of the asylum planet is actually in the asylum? How daft is that?
  

This Reminds Me...:

• The intensive care Daleks come from Spiridon (Planet of the Daleks), Kembel (The Daleks' Master Plan), Aridius (The Chase), Vulcan (The Power of the Daleks) and Exxilon (Death to the Daleks).
• The Daleks turned humans into Daleks in Revelation of the Daleks and Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Asylum of the Daleks has faults. If Amy and Rory are going to have marital troubles, we should see them happen, not be reintroduced to them signing the divorce papers and then making up half an hour later. However, this episode is probably the best since The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon and was actually far better than I remember it being. Dalek Parliaments aside, the Daleks are for the most part scary once again and we have an engaging guest character who turns out to be a Dalek. Throw in some decomposed bodies with Dalek eyestalks and what more could you want from a Dalek story? A little daft in places, yes, but this episode is very good and earns itself an A.

Doctor Who (Series 7)

The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe  |  Asylum of the Daleks  |  Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Believe review [Guy Adams]

The deceased Dr Owen Harper has come across a religion, one that preaches that humans must leave this dull rock and soar amongst the stars for the next stage of evolution. But there are anti-extraterrestrial organisations in the way of this exodus, like UNIT. And like Torchwood.

When: Gwen will later mention the Nostrovites, meaning that this takes place between Something Borrowed and Fragments. Tosh tells Owen that she's sorry for what he's going through, so it's presumably sooner rather than later.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Am I the only one who still treats Torchwood as top-secret?"
• "I've got a brain." / "Yeah, but he doesn't want to have a go on that so, you know, we'll just have to fall back on other body parts."
• "Auberginus from the planet Balti."
• It retrospectively seems a missed opportunity that neither Doctor Who nor Torchwood have done the Church of Scientology before. A controversial and controlling cult that believe in intergalactic wars and aliens seems obvious for a science fiction show but it's not been done until now.
• Owen could often be an unlikeable character onscreen, but here Burn Gorman's given some very good material. His talking to Tosh through her earpiece is frequently hilarious and his confession that he hates the Church for giving people false hope when he knows there's nothing beyond life adds more richness to his character. He was always a better character dead than alive, so Big Finish's choice to have him so was definitely the right one. Another character that was done a disservice on the show is the quiet and under-explored Tosh. In Part 1, we learn a lot about her attitude towards sex and her making Owen listen to her is a weird new dimension to her.
• The Greys strip away everything about themselves. They sew alien masks onto their faces and insert robotics into their limbs. The idea that someone could be so lonely and so full of self-hatred that they could go to this extent to do away with their old-selves and start anew is intriguing.
• Ianto's time at the Church is a great listen. The sad young woman who never felt she belonged until she joined the Church; the weird consultation in the same vein as Scientology's audits; the body horror of the greys; and the fact that the Church seems to be preying on those who think themselves worthless.
• The ending of Part 3 is made up of a handful of great scenes. We've got Jack's powerful speech to Val about how she has to accept responsibility for the actions and welfare of the members of her church; Tosh tells Owen about her anger and tells him that he was a bad leader; and Gwen tells Andromeda that, ultimately, no one cares about outer-space.
• Jack involved himself with the Church because he feels somewhat trapped in Cardiff. This is a facet of Jack rarely seen and is far better than overlong shots of Jack watching over the city from a rooftop.
• Arthur Darvill is unrecognisable as the absolutely disgusting Layten. Was that really sweet Rory Williams? I didn't realise until I looked at the cast after listening. What a scumbag.

The Valeyard's Case:

• This is the first time we've seen the original Torchwood together since the end of series 2, but when Part 1 begins it's business as usual. It would have been nice to reintroduce the team and remind us of the warmth between them before the plot kicks in. Instead we get an awful lot of exposition over the Torchwood theme song, about the real-life Kevin Warwick and the fictional Church.
• Jack is involved with the Church. This doesn't come as a huge surprise after he knew about the disappearances in Adrift and he turned out to be working with Red Doors in Aliens Among Us. It's presented as something groundbreaking but we've seen it before, plenty of times.
• Cutting away from Ianto to the other teammates in Part 2 is something of a nuisance. Scheduling was obviously not very easy, but if you can't get them all together then perhaps focusing each episode on a different character (or pair of characters) is the way to go.
• Gwen's thread throughout Believe was important in that it got Andromeda to the Hub, but it wasn't too interesting to listen to and was easily the weakest part of each episode.

This Reminds Me...:

• Jack knows more than he's letting on again.
• Bandrils appeared in Timelash.
• Jack's speech is very Oswald Danes.

The Deliberation:

• Episode 1 is a promising start to the box set. It's dominated by an Owen-Tosh team-up, which we've never really seen before, and we learn new things about both characters, like why Owen hates religion and what Tosh thinks about sex. Although the whole team are together at the beginning and won't be again until the end, little is made about the long-awaited reunion with it mainly being about expositing information as quickly as possible.
• Episode 2 introduces a load of new questions and with it a thirst for answers. Just as we learnt more about Owen and Tosh in the first episode, in this one we get a glimpse of how Ianto felt before he became close with his colleagues. Things seem to be build to a crescendo.
• Episode 3 is somewhat underwhelming in how the Church is defeated, but the ramifications of its destruction are bittersweet. The most interesting thing about the story other than Tosh and Owen was the members of the Church, why they joined and what they got from it. This is explored well with Davey Russell, Erin and Jack's speech to Val, but the Greys weren't explored as well as they could have been. It would have been fascinating to learn more about them and why they do what they do, as well as what they'll do now.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Believe avoids being self-indulgent about the reunion of the original Torchwood and chooses to play out as just another adventure for them, which is the right decision to make however disappointing their time all together at the beginning feels. It finds new things to say about characters that we've seen introduced, evolve and die, but it can't be said that Believe belongs to anyone but Owen and Tosh. On the show they might have been largely unlikeable and boring respectively but Big Finish have done wonders for them, adding depth and here giving us a reunion between the two that I didn't know I needed. The Church (a great idea) isn't explored a whole lot, Gwen's plot is utterly forgettable and the finale was slightly underwhelming, but otherwise this is a very good story deserving of an A.

Torchwood Special Releases

Herald of the Dawn  |  Believe  |  Machines

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

The Revolution review [Nev Fountain]

When and Where: Arviem II in the 27th century. The Doctor is travelling alone (having left Ace on Gallifrey) and is wearing his question mark pullover. This is between Many Happy Returns and Good Night, Sweet Ladies.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "As I thought, there's nothing archaeologically significant about this floor." / "Thanks for that expert analysis." / "No charge."
• "It's a bar. Citizens come in here to imbibe intoxicating liquids for the purpose of inducing unconsciousness."
• "I hope you're not engineering miracles. That is a Category A Science Crime."
• "This isn't easy, Doctor, but I don't want you to come with me. I just don't think this is your kind of adventure. This isn't the kind of adventure where we do something frightfully clever at the end where everybody ends up more-or-less happy. This is the kind of adventure where I fire my guns at them and they fire their guns at me and the one who fires their guns the most number of times wins. It's just a lot of shooting and shouting and you don't fit in here. Most of the time you are the most wonderful, inventive, clever person I've ever met and you have quite definitely the finest brain in the galaxy but here... here you're just an odd little man saying odd little things and you're just getting in the way."
• Everything the robots say.
• The rebranding of the series was presumably to bring in a new audience, meaning that this story has to introduce Benny and let us get to know her. The way that they chose to do this was with something of a reboot, making this a perfect jumping-on point. The presence of the Doctor, too, is a good way of making the series feel accessible to newcomers.
• The Doctor has been affected by Renk Van Magnastein and isn't his usual self, meaning Sylvester McCoy is able to let his hair down, as it were, and not be too dour and dark. This is occasionally taken a little too far but is a nice reminder of the genial and friendly Seventh Doctor of season 24 (with the exception of the abominable characterisation in Time and the Rani). He's the companion in this story and is even referred to as much. It's always good to see him Aceless.
• Aside from Benny and the Doctor, we have Inquisitor Xavier, who's fine, and Renk. Renk is a fun and flirty character who you would never guess was the bad guy.
• This story is probably the funniest Big Finish I've ever listened to, being consistently hilarious. There deserves to be far more good quotations above.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Doctor, please! Send me a sign!"
• The Doctor does, at times, become too comic a character. This is most noticeable with his worship of his future-self, who he believes is behind the story's events.

I'll Explain Later:

• What's with the McCoy theme song?
• Why is the Doctor wearing his linen suit on the cover? He's said to be wearing his question mark pullover in the story.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: The beginning of a new era for Professor Bernice Summerfield, this audio is a great one. It's laugh-out-loud funny with a decent plot, great performances and a sense of fun throughout. The Revolution is very good, and that earns it an A.

The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield Volume 1

In Living Memory  |  The Revolution  |  Good Night, Sweet Ladies

Blood of the Daleks review [Steve Lyons]

An asteroid hit Red Rocket Rising, causing mass destruction and panic across the humans living there. The politicians are blamed, but never fear. A kindly race offer charity. They too have suffered struggles during their time, and they are here to help. They're called the Daleks.

Where and When?: This story takes place on Red Rocket Rising. For the Doctor, this is after Running Out of Time and before Horror of Glam Rock.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "People of Red Rocket Rising, my fellow citizens. Our long night is over. I've been contacted by a benevolent people. They too have known great trials, but they have overcome them and made it their mission to help others do the same. They have offered us refuge, and passage to the nearest human worlds. They have the resources, and the patience and compassion, to evacuate every one of us. My fellow citizens, my friends, rescue is at hand!"
• "Yeah, bye, bored now."
• By the time Christopher Eccleston graced our screens as the Ninth Doctor, the Eighth Doctor's main range stories were deep into its Charley arc. The BBC wanted to have Doctor Who on the radio for the new audience of people introduced by the new TV series, leading Big Finish to cut the Divergent Universe arc short and begin the Eighth Doctor Adventures with a clean slate. The Doctor is travelling alone, Lucie is introduced and there are no references to his previous companions or Big Finish adventures, deliberately making Blood of the Daleks a great starting point for new listeners.
• Just as Donna Noble later would, Lucie Miller appears in the TARDIS console room without explanation. Why, in 2006, did both the show and Big Finish introduce companions this way? Because it's a great idea. The Doctor travels time and space, dropping in and out of people's lives and sometimes taking people away with him as his travelling companion, and it's about time that someone was dropped in on him. The original idea was to have a Time Lord appear to explain the situation to the Doctor but fortunately this snooze of a scene was jettisoned for a more explosive entrance and to inject a bit of mystery. Rather than introducing another Charley, Big Finish does an anti-Storm Warning. Whereas the Doctor and Charley were magnetic, the Doctor and Lucie don't very much like one another, although this isn't unbearable like the Sixth Doctor and Peri. 
• It might be considered somewhat uncharacteristic of the Eighth Doctor to act how he does towards her, but one should remember that this takes place not long after C'rizz's death and Charley's departure. He's a moodier man than he was with Charley and is certainly a different man from the carefree man we were reintroduced to in Storm Warning. It's an interesting choice for Big Finish to make - they seem to have chosen to go in the vein of Christopher Eccleston's dark side. 
  
• The politicians aren't necessarily portrayed as the nicest of people (which is nothing new), but the mob are seen to be up in arms against politicians just because it's nice to have someone to blame and politicians are always the first. The Doctor says with irony to the crowd that they should have been able to predict the crashing of the asteroid, which the crowd seem to think on for the briefest of moments before deciding to carry on with their hunt. This is an angle we don't often see given how much politicians are vilified in the real world.
• There are some ideas which seem so obvious that you wonder why they haven't been done before. Here, we have Martez creating his (or her) own Daleks from damaged ones that she found. The scene where one of them dies with Martez assuring it that it is a superior being because of its human blood is strangely touching and sad.
• A car being totalled after crashing into the TARDIS, which stands resolute and unscratched, is a great visual that it's a shame we have to use our imagination for.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "This is not a date!"
• To introduce a new companion and reintroduce the Eighth Doctor (again) to a new audience, and to then have the two bicker for the first fifteen minutes and then spend most of the story apart isn't the best idea. Storm Warning (which keeps coming up; you can tell which story I've listened to recently) doesn't have a great plot or a great villain, but it works because of the wonderful interactions between the Doctor and Charley. The Doctor and Lucie don't like each other but it would have been a better idea to have them stay together and show at least some respect develop between the two. It means that we leave the story not feeling particularly warmed to either of them. At least it's not Sixth and Peri, though.
• The reason that Martez thinks that her Daleks are the future for humankind isn't explained. Finding a Dalek wreckage and then deciding that humans becoming this creature would be the best option for her species is something of a leap in logic.

Witness Protection: Lucie has been dropped into the TARDIS by the Time Lords as part of a witness protection program. A Mr Hulbert has hired a bounty hunter called the Headhunter to track her down and take her into her custody for reasons unknown.

His Constant Companion: The driver of the solar-powered car dies after hitting the TARDIS. Martez is killed by her own Daleks after she stops producing them, and her Daleks are exterminated by true Daleks.

I'll Explain Later:

• The Doctor tells Lucie off for leaving the TARDIS before he had time to check the readings. Has he even done that since his first incarnation? It's certainly not been second nature to him in a few centuries.

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor mentions being there at the Daleks' very beginning (Genesis of the Daleks) and fighting against them in various wars (The Daleks' Master Plan, etc.)
• The Doctor wishes that Daleks could be good, a hope that the Twelfth Doctor has in Into the Dalek.
• Davros made Daleks out of humans in Revelation of the Daleks and the Emperor did it in Bad Wolf, resulting in self-hating Daleks. The New Dalek Paradigm in Victory of the Daleks are similarly disgusted by the Daleks made from Davros's cells and destroy them.
• The Doctor says that the Daleks are always in a war, asking if they have recently been fighting the Mechonoids (from The Chase), the Movellans (from Destiny of the Daleks) or each other (like in The Evil of the Daleks, Resurrection of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks, The Juggernauts and Remembrance of the Daleks).
• Red Rocket Rising have more help arriving, this time from Telos, the post-Mondas world of the Cybermen seen in The Tomb of the Cybermen and Attack of the Cybermen.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Blood of the Daleks is a good start to the Eighth Doctor Adventures and a jumping on point for the Modern Who fan who prefers their stories at a snappy 50 minutes rather than the considerably longer Main Range releases. Neither Lucie nor the Doctor are at their friendliest here and the two spend quite some time apart, which is a shame and keeps us from instantly falling in love with the pair as is so easy with Ninth and Rose, Eighth and Charley or Sixth and Evelyn. Overall, however, Blood of the Daleks is a very good story, earning it an A.

Eighth Doctor Adventures

Blood of the Daleks  |  Horror of Glam Rock

The Eighth Doctor's Timeline
Running Out of Time  |  Blood of the Daleks  |  Horror of Glam Rock

The Eleventh Hour review [Steven Moffat]

"Basically, run." - The Doctor

After his most violent regeneration yet, the Doctor lands in the back garden of a Scottish girl with a crack in the fabric of reality in her bedroom wall.

Matt Smith is the Doctor.
The Doctor's Case:

• Christopher Eccleston is awkward at times in Rose when asked to be quirky. David Tennant fails to give the Tenth Doctor a real identity until almost halfway into series 2. Almost every leading man has needed at least their first story to come to grips with who their Doctor is and how they're going to play it. Peter Davison admitted he had no idea what he was doing and just walked around smiling in Four to Doomsday. Wisely, The Eleventh Hour was held off until The Beast Below through The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone had been filmed, meaning that Matt Smith is marvellous from the off, slipping into the shoes of the Doctor so easily that it's easy to forget that those Converse had another man in them just an episode ago. Matt Smith isn't one of my favourite Doctors but his performance in this story is sterling and quite possibly his best in the role, later becoming almost caricatured by the time of his departure. We'll discuss that later.

• The up-and-down regenerative trauma set the Sixth Doctor off on the wrong foot as a schizophrenic coward in The Twin Dilemma, made the Seventh Doctor look ridiculous in Time and the Rani and made it difficult to get a feel for Twelfth in Deep Breath. Moffat chooses to largely forego the Eleventh Doctor's regeneration sickness after the food sequence. This was a clever choice, letting us get a feel for who this new Doctor is, which was an issue with having the Tenth Doctor bed-bound for most of The Christmas Invasion. 
• The Doctor meeting a girl only to come back to find her a woman happened in The Girl in the Fireplace but it's explored more here with Amy Pond, the first primary companion to hail from somewhere other than London since Grace Holloway. This is a refreshing change as London had become far too prevalent in the show. Unfortunately we'll be returning there when Amy and Rory move and then again with Clara in The Bells of St John. Let's enjoy the small-town vibe of Leadworth while we can, the only place in the UK that isn't London or Cardiff.

The Valeyard's Case:

• Opening with the zoom-in on Earth again? It had a purpose in Rose, but it doesn't here. It's much too quick and, by this point, unimpressive.
• Amy pretends to be an English policewoman for no other reason than to throw off the audience.
• The CGI of Prisoner Zero isn't very good at all, particularly in the scene where it hides over Amy's shoulder. How does it get around, anyway? It seems to be permanently attached to the ceiling when not in human form.
• The "what did I see?" sequence is unnecessary and ridiculous and eats up both money and time.
• It wouldn't have taken a moment for Rory to show the pictures of the coma patients to Dr Ramsden. Why not do it before his dismissal? Any reasonable person would have.

A Good Quotation: "So, all of time and space, everything that's ever happened or ever will. Where do you want to start?" (The Doctor)

When Are We?: The majority of the episode takes place in 2008, with the Doctor meeting Amelia Pond in 1996 and Amy joining him in 2010. This episode takes place almost immediately after The End of Time and just before The Beast Below.

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor previously stole clothes from a hospital after regenerating in Spearhead from Space and The Movie.

His Constant Companion: Dr Ramsden and the nurses are presumed to have been killed by Prisoner Zero.

I'll Explain Later:

• Amy doesn't have a car and she lives in a tiny village where everyone knows one another. How does she have a career as a kissogram?
• Why did the coma patients all say "Doctor"?

The Inquisitor's Judgement: It's rare for a new Doctor to get a great first story but this one is really very good. It's a little thin on plot but getting to see the new Doctor in action rather than suffering regeneration sickness, being unlikeable or being bedbound. Young Amelia Pond is a good character and the older Amy is good too, perhaps at her best here (having a bit more to her than sexuality and sarcasm), and her fairytale relationship with the Doctor is well-done. The Eleventh Doctor had the potential to be one of my favourite Doctors after I first watched this episode and, whilst that didn't come to be the case, it's still a fantastic performance in a decent story. I'd rank this episode at an A.

Doctor Who (Series 5)

The End of Time  |  The Eleventh Hour  |  The Beast Below

Forever Fallen review [Joshua Wanisko]

"It's my choice to do this, and in doing so I am acting by my principles. I'm sticking to what I believe and I hope you always do too." - Sean

Who are we with?: The Seventh Doctor, Ace and Sean Calvin.

Where are we?: A cafe called the Uncertain-Tea Principle on Elysium 7.

When are we?: Uncertain, but it takes place at some point after the Doctor first dons his brown suit jacket in 1963: The Assassination Games.

The Good:

• The framing device of Sean visiting the Doctor and Ace once a year is utilised far more effectively here than in A Christmas Carol, allowing us to explore Sean and his development, as well as the relationship between him and the time-travelling pair.
• The mention of the Doctor's metaphorical aunt is very funny. It's a wonder that a similar line has never been uttered by him before.
• Sean was always going to be arrested and exiled. The Doctor didn't involve himself to save Sean but to save Odessa. Because of his stopping Sean, Odessa reacts differently to her father's fate and will live a happier life of hope rather than one of resentment. This was a nice twist, injecting a bit of positivity into a sad ending.

The Bad:

• Sean is a little unbelievable at the beginning with the Leviathan and his supposed skill at robotics at a very young age. However, he quickly becomes a realistic and rounded character. 
• Nicholas Briggs could do with a little bit of work on his McCoy impression.

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor refers to a possibly metaphorical aunt - this is, of course, a reference to the Second Doctor's exclamation of "my giddy aunt!"
• The Doctor mentions haemovores, the monsters of The Curse of Fenric.

I'll Explain Later: Why does the Doctor say that he "possibly" has a granddaughter? Was it a reference to the belief that Susan isn't actually his granddaughter? Regardless, it feels like a missed opportunity to have a rare character moment of the Doctor thinking about Susan.

Verdict: I'll admit I had some unfounded prejudices against this story because of its being written for a competition, but soon after starting Forever Fallen that mood was dispelled and by the end I was of the belief that it would have been a crime for this not to have won. We're introduced to an unlikeable stranger as our main character who we learn about and journey with and by the end accept for his flaws and pity him for his past. Odessa being the true centrepoint of the Doctor's plans was an inspired idea. Hopefully this wasn't the last we'll see of Mr Wanisko at Big Finish. A

Short Trips

The Hesitation Deviation  |  Forever Fallen  |  The World Beyond the Trees

A Heart on Both Sides review [Rob Nisbet]

"For a race with two hearts they show little compassion."

Who are we with?: The genius scientist and spacefaring medic Controller Nyssa of Traken.

Where are we?: We're on Reave, a planet not far from Gallifrey.

When are we?: We're in the 36th century, at some point before Nyssa rejoins the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough in 3530 in Cobwebs. For the Doctor, this presumably takes place before The Starship of Theseus.

Who are the bad guys?: The Time Lords.

The Good: 

• Nyssa tending to victims of the Last Great Time War sounds so obvious that it makes you wonder why you never thought about it before. It's a brilliant idea to have the intelligent and kind-hearted Nyssa seeing to the poor people that get caught in the crossfire, wandering the universe in a hospital named after her home planet.
• Nyssa's difficulty to comprehend and accept the actions and new morality of the Time Lords makes it clear how much the race changes from their general passivity in the classic series to the war-like race we see in the modern. They've gone from having next to no contact with the universe outside of Gallifrey to threatening the nearby Reave, which wishes to remain neutral.
• The Doctor boarded The Traken fearing that Nyssa would come to harm because of the Time Lords' threats, saying that he wanted to protect the person with the most good in them that he had ever met. How sweet is that? Nyssa was always such an innocent character and the Doctor concerning himself with protecting her while the Time War is bubbling away perfectly represents his ethos.
• The Doctor leaves Nyssa knowing her looming fate in E-space in The Entropy Plague with just a kiss on the cheek, with Nyssa not even knowing who he was and thinking that he was unlike the Doctor. A beautiful final farewell.

The Bad:

• Some might find the lack of action to be a bad thing. Personally, I don't. This talkier story is a much more interesting way to explore Nyssa and the evolution of the Time Lords.
• The reveal of Dr Isherwood being a Time Lady doesn't really ring true after all the character building, and are the Time Lords really so vicious so early in the Time War? The explosions and Isherwood carving out one of her hearts sounds like something even Cardinal Ollistra wouldn't order. But then perhaps I'm a Time Lord apologist who doesn't want to accept it.

This Reminds Me...:

• The robotic Sisters bear the green crescent, said by the Tenth Doctor in New Earth to be the universal symbol for a hospital.
• Time Lords' allergy to gases in the praxis range was first mentioned by the Fifth Doctor in The Caves of Androzani whilst explaining to Peri why he wears celery.
• Nyssa has named a ward aboard The Traken the Turlough Ward after the Trion companion she would soon join once again. Another is the Adric Ward, named after the boy genius from Alzarius that died in Earthshock.
• The Doctor kisses Nyssa as they part, just as he did as a goodbye in Terminus.

I'll Explain Later: How does Dr Isherwood know about the Doctor Foster nursery rhyme?

The Inquisitor's Judgement: A very nice little story wonderfully performed by Sarah Sutton. It's an interesting take on the Time War by seeing how it affects the lives of previous companions and hopefully there'll be a few more to come. Nyssa was a character that wasn't given a whole lot to do onscreen so giving her centre stage in her own story is a great thing for fans of hers. Having the Time Lords seem like the villains of the Time War is a delightful new spin but after all of the characterisation of Dr Isherwood, her being a Time Lords isn't entirely convincing despite an earlier hint or two. Regardless, as a Nyssa piece this is a very good story that I would rate as an A.

Short Trips

The British Invasion  |  A Heart on Both Sides  |  All Hands on Deck