Life Experience review [Jenny Colgan]

After signing up for work experience at Sevelin Laboratories, Tanya and Ram find themselves thrust into the world of medical research. But dark secrets lie at the heart of Sevelin Industries – and not everyone can make it out alive...

When?: 2016.

The Doctor's Case:

• Ram's fine, I guess.

The Valeyard's Case:

• The guest characters have nothing to them, being uninteresting scientists and authority figures. Yawn. I've seen a lot of praise for Marty
• It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a curious choice to have Ram appear as part of a duo twice in a row in Class's first volume.

Honours Roll: Marta killed Boris using a pathogen. She's later killed by the specimen. I kind of phased out during a lot of this story and didn't note any others.

This Reminds Me...:

• Lu Corfield played Brongwyn in Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy; Scott Haran played Malfi Pryn in The Year After I Died and Liz Sutherland-Lim played Alison Speer in Winter for the Adept, Farroll in Wirrn Dawn and Ling in Sympathy for the Devil.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Before Big Finish got their hands on Class, the only character I couldn't rant about was Matteusz because he was far too likeable and in the background. Conversely, Tanya was probably the one that I disliked the most, finding her unpleasant in her talk about "the whites" and irritating in general. Rather than going for a character-driven story like the other two stories in Volume 1, Colgan gives us a monster-escapes-lab tale that we've seen and heard a hundred times before. It's dreadfully boring and I have little else to say. It earns itself an E.

Class: The Audio Adventures - Volume 1

Gifted  |  Life Experiences  |  Tell Me You Love Me

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood review [Chris Chibnall]

It's Doctor Who and the Silurians with better costumes.

When and Where: The (fictional) Cwmtaff, Wales in 2020.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "No, you're really not, because I'm the last of my species and I know how it sits on my heart so don't insult me."
• The new Silurian design is beautiful. It's a big change from the classic series, of course, and almost unrecognisable as the same species, but the new look allows for more emotion and subtlety than a hulking rubber suit. Alaya's silhouette in the graveyard hunting a little boy is a very scary moment, as is her sneak attack on Ambrose.
• Given that Doctor Who has been filmed in Wales since Rose, it's a surprise that we haven't had a Welshy story since Blon tried to destroy the world from Cardiff Bay in Boom Town. This story begins with some lovely views of the Welsh countryside and the even lovelier sound of a Welsh accent on the BBC. The lush setting has to be praised. 
• Amy's being lovey-dovey with Rory and even wearing her engagement ring. She risks her life to save Tony. Amy's Choice did some good for her, it would appear, although she's still not perfect.
• It's important to keep giving the lead actor new facets of the Doctor to show, and Matt Smith perfectly plays the Doctor's sinking feeling when he realises he let Elliot go out into possible danger. His excitement and positivity about the potential alliance of humans and Silurians is nice to see and gets us really behind the idea of the two races sharing the Earth. Unfortunately, we're only in 2020 so we know it's not going to happen.
• Alaya's claim that either Rory, Tony or Ambrose will kill her and that she knows which it is builds some tension, although we know it'll be Ambrose. She had those weapons in the van, after all.
• The Silurian city looks pretty decent up close in Cold Blood. A lot better than the CGI we see at the end of The Hungry Earth.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Oi, don't diss the sonic!"
• "Did you just shush me? Did you just shush me!?"
• "Yeah. And stay out."
• "You never picked a lizard man's pocket?"
• "You're so clingy."
• "We're in the centre of the Earth and there are lizard men."
• Something about the dialogue or the acting has Matt Smith playing the Tenth Doctor rather than the Eleventh in some scenes, especially during his explanation of bio-programming.
• Whilst the Silurians are an interesting creation, there isn't really that much that can be done with them. Modern human technology awakens them and then the Silurians attack - it's difficult not to simply redo the unfortunately-titled Doctor Who and the Silurians short of a political, sensitively-handled, bold story about re-homing them on the surface. All we get with regards to this is the Doctor saying that owning Earth once doesn't give them automatic rights to it now. The story that the Silurians deserve went to the Zygons.
• Child actor Samuel Davies does a decent job as Elliot, but none of the guest characters are particularly engaging or interesting and the relationship between Tony and Nasreen fails to resonate.
• Amy acts as though she didn't just suffer a traumatic experience as Malohkeh prepared to perform a vivisection on her, becoming instantly cocky and carefree. So much for a renaissance for the character after Amy's Choice.
• "She's part of your gene chain," is the excuse given why Neve McIntosh plays both Restac and Alaya. Unfortunately, when you have one actress playing every female Silurian (don't forget Vastra still to come) it makes the Silurian race feel rather small and lacking in variety.
• The Fifth Doctor wore celery because of his allergy to certain gases in the praxis range and it would turn purple if exposed to any. The Doctor asking for celery here doesn't make much sense.
• The Doctor tells Restac that the humans attacked the Silurians in Doctor Who and the Silurians. That's a massive oversimplification that would only further increase and support Restac's hatred of humans.
• Rory dies again, with any shock there might have been lost given that he died only in the last story. Amy's reaction, whilst dramatic and well-acted, doesn't feel earnt given her lack of connection with him during this story.

The Master Plan: There's another crack of time in the Silurian city below Cwmtaff, from which the Doctor pull some "shrapnel" - a smouldering piece of the TARDIS.

This Reminds Me...:

• Everything reminds me of Doctor Who and the Silurians.
• Why does Amy forget about Rory? She remembered the clerics in Flesh and Stone but because Rory is part of her own history she won't remember him? What sense does that make?

The Inquisitor's Verdict: Series 5 has had a pretty good run since The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, but here is where it ends. There's not very much to be said about this story, except that the Silurians look pretty good and it's not one I'm likely to watch again. The pacing was very slow, the characters uninteresting and it's mostly stuff we've seen before. This poor two-parter might have made an adequate single episode with a few changes. All in all it fails to really explore the subject matter that it deals with and the resolution isn't satisfying. Amy's back to her smugness and now Rory, who brings out the best in her, is gone. The Silurians' mighty return has proven mightily disappointing. This story is very bad, and that earns it an E.

Doctor Who (Series 5)

Amy's Choice  |  The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood  |  Vincent and the Doctor

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship review [Chris Chibnall]

It's all there in the title.

When and Where: A Silurian ark. For Amy and Rory, this is ten months after Asylum of the Daleks. It's been quite some time for the Doctor as well.

The Doctor's Case:

• A time-travelling nurse who collects bits of medical technology from the future to help during his adventures. It's a shame we never got to see Rory as the main or sole companion because one throwaway line made him more interesting than he's ever been. It's easy to forget that he's a nurse and it's good to see him away from his wife, teamed up with the Doctor and his father. Amy was terrible in series 5 and improved dramatically with series 6, but it's nice to see her as such a pleasant person in the build-up to her leaving.
• We've had Jackie Tyler, Wilfred Mott, Sylvia Noble and (considerably less successfully) Francine Jones, but in Moffat's era we've been missing out on the companions' family members. Amy's parents were rewritten into reality in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang and we've not seen or heard anything of Augustus or Tabetha Pond since, nor Amy's aunt and legal guardian Sharon. At last, just as Amy and Rory are about to leave, we meet Rory's father Brian, who's something of a Hobbit in that he's a normal man with a few old-man quirks who opens his eyes to the wonder of adventure. Brian Williams would have been a great part of the series if we'd met him early on. We could have learnt of Rory's feelings towards Amy through him and had a connection to Earth's invasions... Still, better late than never.
• The dinosaurs are very impressive for a BBC TV series. They're used sparingly but always look great, even when the pterodactyls attacking the Doctor and the Williamses could have looked like Birdemic.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Dad, I'm thirty-one. I don't have a Christmas list anymore." / "I DO!"
• Ancient Egypt, the ISA, the African plains, London, a spaceship... Moffat first did the jumping thing in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, where it was fresh and new and exciting. Then we saw it in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, where it effectively drew together the previous stories of the series by having a number of previous guest stars return across space and time. Then we had Day of the Moon, where it was unnecessary but quite the spectacle. Now even the other writers have started doing it. It's become quite tiresome and is no longer the awe-inspiring thing it once was.
• The Doctor's never needed a gang before. How lucky he happened to bring one made up of the perfect people for the story of the week. Brian's needed to pilot the ship because he shares genes with Rory, Riddell is a game hunter who proves to be good at shooting dinosaurs and Nefertiti is valuable and allows Solomon to move the plot along by kidnapping her. Brian allows us to see a little more of Amy and Rory's life before they depart (and until now we've only seen Amy's parents and only briefly), but the other two are entirely unnecessary.
• Ever since the Eighth Doctor and Grace Holloway, the Doctor has become more and more a romantic character. He fell in love with Rose, slept with Queen Elizabeth I and kissed (or was kissed by) Reinette, Christina de Souza, River, Joan Redfern, Donna, the TARDIS (in Idris's body), Astrid Peth, Cassandra (in Rose's body), Martha, Captain Jack and Amy. With Moffat, he's become increasingly sexual a character and here we have Queen Nefertiti lusting for him and Riddell telling us of two disappointed dancers. It's gross. Not only is it gross, but it's pointless and does absolutely nothing for the character other than confirming Clara's later claim in The Bells of Saint John that the TARDIS is his snog box.
• It's ten months later for Amy and Rory and they're living as happily as ever, in which case the divorce drama from Asylum of the Daleks was not only forced but entirely inconsequential. There was absolutely no point to that subplot.
• Solomon deserved to die, yes, but the Doctor wouldn't really leave him there knowing he'd die. He's not a Dalek, after all. He's a man. 
• The robots aren't funny.

I'll Explain Later:

• The Doctor disagrees with Solomon selling dinosaurs but is friends with a man who hunts down and kills animals?
• Why ride the triceratops? Running would probably be quicker given how slowly it seems to move.
• If the Silurians had space-travel technology as advanced as the ark, why are there small pockets of Silurians still on Earth? Why didn't they all take to the skies to wait it out?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor had an adventure with dinosaurs in his third incarnation (Invasion of the Dinosaurs).
• Amy and Rory met Silurians early on in their travels (The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood)

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship is one of the worst Doctor Who story titles around and, whilst it's not the worst Doctor Who story, it's not very good. Nothing really lands - the robots aren't funny, Nefertiti and Riddell feel like they've both been cut from another episode so they decided to get it on this one, and Solomon is a villain who's become retroactively memorable because he's played by David Bradley (AKA, the third First Doctor). The plot isn't incompetent but it's just not very good and a big step down from Asylum of the Daleks. This episode is very bad and that earns it an E.

Doctor Who (Series 7)

Asylum of the Daleks  |  Dinosaurs on a Spaceship  |  A Town Called Mercy

Exile review [Nicholas Briggs]

All the Doctor has to do to avoid being caught by the Time Lords is work in a supermarket and go to the pub. It's a cunning plan - certainly far less dangerous than fighting the dreaded Quarks and all those other alien fiends.

But just when everything seemed mundane and safe, alien transmissions, exploding poison gas, Princess Anne and wobbly trolleys burst onto the scene to ruin everything. It's a crisis! A fiendish alien plot! And the Doctor must use all the resources at her disposal to defeat it.

She'll probably need to have a large vodka first, though.

What If...?: Rather than being put on trial at the end of The War Games, the Doctor escaped justice and lives in hiding in a female incarnation after jumping from a pylon to regenerate.

Where and When: In another universe, after The War Games. London, 2000.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Oh, shit," says a Time Lord.
• "Trolleys. I hate trolleys. They're just Daleks without the interesting bits."
• "Are you really the same Doctor who defeated the dreaded Quarks time after time?" / "The Quarks were rubbish."
• The Time Lords shouldn't be funny. They're a grandiose race that work best when they're being mysterious and all-powerful, and are at least tolerable (most of the time) when they're being stuffy bureaucrats. However, they should never be made fun of or laughed at as they are at the beginning of Exile, as it's completely contrasted with what and who the Time Lords are and their position in the universe of Doctor Who. But it's hilarious and definitely belongs in this section and not the next. David Tennant puts in a great little performance as one of the squabbling Gallifreyans. This should never be done outside of the Unbound universe, though.
• The tongue-in-cheek digs at the Quarks are some of the funniest lines in the story.
• Arabella Weir is easy to listen to even if it isn't the best of scripts. She finally gets to be Doctory towards the end and she proves that she would have been a good one. Unfortunately, it seems very unlikely that we'll ever be seeing her as the Doctor again.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "After five pints of lager, Cheese starts thinking his beer tastes like cheese. That’s why we call him Cheese."
• Nothing really happens for most of the story. We spend time with the Doctor living her life on Earth but she's unfortunately not too engaging and her friends are very thinly sketched. The story might have worked as a character piece but as a comedy with underwritten characters, it's vacuous.
• There's a lot of burping and vomiting and not all of the humour lands.

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor's going by the name "Susan Foreman", chosen, of course, from her granddaughter who first appeared in An Unearthly Child.
• The Doctor uses Venusian aikido, frequently used by the canon Third Doctor.
• The Doctor echoes the Fourth Doctor's line in Logopolis; "the moment has been prepared for."
• The previous Doctor and the Time Lords mention the Quarks a lot, who appeared in The Dominators.
• The Time Lords mention a Dalek invasion of Earth in 2164, referring to The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
• The Doctor gets scarecrowed, which is what causes the Second Doctor to regenerate in the comics.
• UNIT is all but mentioned by name.
• The Time Lords allude to the possibility of a trial not unlike The Trial of a Time Lord.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Arabella Weir does a good job with what she's given and the Time Lord double act is a hugely memorable one, but, whilst the humour is often very funny, there's almost no plot. The vomiting and burping doesn't make for the best listen and a not inconsiderable amount of the humour doesn't land. Big Finish should bring back Arabella Weir but do away with her alcoholism. This story is very bad, and that earns it an E.

Unbound

Deadline  |  Exile  |  A Storm of Angels

A Thing of Guile review [Phil Mulryne]

The Daleks are developing a secret weapon on Asteroid Theta 12. It is imperative that their plans are uncovered. Cardinal Ollistra has her hands full studying the range of ancient and mysterious armaments the universe has to offer, but she makes it a personal mission to investigate the Dalek project. On this dangerous assignment, there is one particular Time Lord she wants at her side — and he will be accompanying her whether he wants to or not.

Infernal Devices: The Anima Device turns people against their allies, sowing discord and bringing disagreement.

When and Where: The Gallifreyan Station Kronos and the Daleks' Asteroid Theta 12, shortly after Legion of the Lost and before The Neverwhen.

The Renegade's Case:

• None of the previous War Doctor stories have opened with so exciting a cold open. This one gets you raring for adventure. It's a shame, then, that no good adventure follows.

The Cardinal's Case:

• Despite the cold open being good, we go back in time to learn how it came to be, which is entirely unnecessary.
• The experiment is a combination of Kaled and Dalek. With Kaleds being humanoid, this is virtually no different from Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks. It was created for the same reason Dalek Sec became half-human - to imagine and think differently.
• Jared and Solex die, but who cares? Very few characters have been awarded any sort of development. The War Doctor and Ollistra are decent enough because of John Hurt's and Jacqueline Pearce's performances, but they've not really been explored.

This Reminds Me...:

• As already mentioned, the Dalek plan was the same as in Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.
• The Doctor mentions the Ood (The Satan Pit), the Sensorites (The Sensorites) and the Arcateenians (Greeks Bearing Gifts).

Next Time on Doctor Who: The Doctor is free once more and has left Ollistra behind. However, she's sent his TARDIS somewhere.

The Inquisitor's Case: A Thing of Guile suffers from Rejoice Syndrome - having a great name but no real notability. It's a boring story with little going on until the very end, where the reveal is the same one we already saw in series 3. Perhaps it's impossible to tell a good War Doctor story. This story is very bad, and that earns it an E.

The War Doctor - Infernal Devices

Legion of the Lost  |  A Thing of Guile  |  The Neverwhen

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

The Lodger review [Gareth Roberts]

79A Aickman Road. Looking for a friendly housemate. No pets. Ample parking. One storey.  
Two storey.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation: 
• "No, Amy, it's definitely not the fifth moon of Sinda Callista. I think I can see a Ryman's."
• "Have some rent."
• "Is that a reference from the Archbishop of Canterbury?"
• "It's a one-story building. There is no upstairs."
• The Doctor convincing Sophie to believe in herself and follow her dreams through reverse psychology is perhaps the quietest scene with the Doctor this episode, and also the best. It's a short, nice and little sequence but very sweet and clever on the Doctor's behalf.
• The Doctor leaving the keys to slip away and then being given them by Craig was another tender moment.
• After losing Rory, Amy proved to be a pretty decent companion (with a single hiccup) in Vincent and the Doctor and it seems that this decency has continued, with her being so much more bearable than she was for most of the series. However, this might have something to do with her barely appearing in this episode.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "I'm the Doctor. Well, they call me the Doctor. I don't know why. I call me the Doctor too. Still don't know why."
• "I am the Doctor, the Oncoming Storm."
• This episode tries to make the Doctor as quirky and weird as possible, and whilst it's more endearing than the caricature he became in series 7 it's not the Doctor at his best. It comes across as trying too hard. Putting the Doctor in the modern day is fine but giving him ridiculous lines and acting stupidly makes for an episode that's frequently difficult to watch. Matt Smith is at his best in The Eleventh Hour or The Time of Angels/Flesh of Stone, in neither of which is he entirely without quirk.
• Given the building up to the finale and the reveal of the source of the cracks in time, why is The Lodger set before The Pandorica Opens? It would be much better placed early on, before The Time of Angels, perhaps.
• If the Doctor flies the Silent ship the solar system will be destroyed, because he's apparently too much for it. Firstly, it's a ridiculous idea. Secondly, this level of threat isn't necessary and feels out of place in this small episode.
• Why does the Doctor take so long to go upstairs and confront what's been killing people? To give us scenes of the Doctor trying to be normal, of course, but that seems to be it. He says it's so that whatever's upstairs won't get suspicious of him, but when was he intending to deal with the foe on the first-floor?
• Eww. Craig and Sophie's kisses at the end are unusually squelchy.

The Universe is Cracked: There's another crack in time in Aickman Road, behind Craig's fridge.

Silence will Fall: Although we won't learn until Day of the Moon, 79B Aickman Road is a Silent time-ship.

This Reminds Me...:

• A mysterious room harbouring an alien villain in an otherwise normal house describes both 79 Aickman Road and the Ponds' house in Leadworth. 
• The Silent ship is looking for a pilot that wants to leave, the same as the sentient oil that claims Heather in The Pilot.

I'll Explain Later:

• Craig has a photo of the Doctor on his fridge by the end of the episode. How did he get that up so quickly? Who was taking photos and why were they so desperate for them that they got them printed off and distributed in so short a space of time?

NEXT TIME: What will come of Amy finding her engagement ring?

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Quiet episodes aren't objectively a bad thing (Love & Monsters is a decent episode) and this episode isn't entirely without merit, adding some freshness to this series and Eleventh's tenure as a whole, but it's not one that's going to stay in your mind for long after you've watched it. It's mostly fluff and the resolution and (lack of) explanation was far too rushed. E

Doctor Who (Series 5)

Vincent and the Doctor  |  The Lodger  |  The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

Prime Winner review [Nigel Fairs]

The Doctor and Peri land in what looks like a '30s casino for aliens. But what is Peri's step-father, last seen in '80s Lanzarote, doing here?

Who are we with?: The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown.

Where are we?: A casino far from Earth.

When are we?: For the Doctor and Peri this takes place shortly after Revelation of the Daleks, presumably before The Nightmare Fair given how the pair are still bickering.

The Good:

• Nicola Bryant is very, very good at making each character distinct. Her accents are superb (although her American accent continues to stray from coast to coast).
• The method of cheating at the casino isn't a ground-breaking idea but an interesting one all the same.

The Bad:

• The Doctor's a bit unpleasant in this story. It makes sense given that it's presumably set between Revelation of the Daleks and season 22a, but emotional abuse in the TARDIS is always a bad thing.
• The Doctor makes a very strange jump in logic in assuming that the Howard Peri saw was actually Kamelion. He's not the only shape-shifter in the universe. What a strange line of thinking for him to come to.
• The Howard mystery fails to interest and the payoff is lacking. The reference to Maxil isn't clever.

This Reminds Me...:

• "You'll need to wear something blue!" Blue is established as the colour of mourning on Necros in Revelation of the Daleks.
• We previously met Peri's step-father Howard in Planet of Fire.
• "That shouldn't have happened," the Doctor also remarked in Attack of the Cybermen.
• The Doctor has a bleeping device not unlike the one he will later use to identify Evelyn Smythe as a nexus point in The Marian Conspiracy.
• The Doctor replaces his fob watch, which was broken in Revelation of the Daleks.
• The Howard lookalike is just that - a lookalike, just as the Abbot of Amboise looked like the First Doctor (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve), Ramon Salamander looked like the Second Doctor (The Face of Evil), Ann Talbot looked like Nyssa (Black Orchid) and Maxil looked like the Sixth Doctor (Arc of Infinity), among a number of others.

Verdict: This story lacks in a number of areas. The plot isn't hugely interesting and the mystery of what Howard is doing in the casino turns out to be... well, just a guy who looked like him. We've had lookalikes in Doctor Who a number of times before but they've always served some sort of purpose. We wondered whether the Abbot was the Doctor, Ann and Nyssa are mistaken for one another, the whole plot of The Face of Evil, but this time it's just because. The narration by Nicola Bryant is good and, as someone who really isn't a fan of Peri, her character is written tolerably whilst we get a nice gleam of the Sixth Doctor's niceness towards the end. E

Short Trips

Gardens of the Dead  |  Prime Winner  |  Washington Burns