Big Finish Reviews+ Plight of the Pimpernel by Tony J Fyler

 

They seek him here, they seek him there,

Our Tony, he gets everywhere… 

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a novel in our universe. 

It’s a novel in the Doctor’s universe, too. 

Which rather begs the question of who it is the Doctor and Peri are helping to rescue French aristocrats from the guillotine in post-Revolutionary France. 

Certainly, ‘Sir Percy Blakeney’ claims to be…well, first and foremost, Sir Percy Blakeney, and secondly the Scarlet Pimpernel. But that can’t be – or can it? Is a fictional hero who won’t be written into existence until the 20^th century somehow manifesting in the 18^th to fulfil his destiny? And if not, what’s really going on? 

Chris Chapman’s The Plight of the Pimpernel raises lots of interesting questions in its first half, and the Doctor in particular is keen to play along with the swashbuckling aristocrat in whom he’s always seen a little of himself, both for the simple pleasure of the derring-do involved, and to find out the answers to those questions. 

In some respects, it’s an odd conceit, The Plight of the Pimpernel, with both the Doctor and Peri at one time or another playing Pimpernel (in line with one of Pimpernel author Baroness Orczy’s later stories, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel), alongside or instead of Sir Percy. 

The Doctor’s determination to buckle his swash is very Sixth Doctor – he was always more open to self-indulgence than some of his other selves, and there’s definitely a streak of that self-indulgence in the way he chooses to play this situation. 

Here though, that self-indulgence – which might otherwise have seemed relatively harmless - has bigger and deeper consequences than can be comfortably imagined. 

Of course, from the very beginning, this idea of a Pimpernel where there should be no Pimpernel sets up a handful of potential truths: the Pimpernel’s an imposter; the Pimpernel’s an innocent amnesiac, a la The Next Doctor; we’re not really in Revolutionary France, etc, etc. Our minds leap to them all pretty quickly, and the rest of the running time is involved in showing us which – if any – of the things we thought were going on were correct. 

Along the way though, there’s scope for both unusual sci-fi action when it turns out the Pimpernel is wanted by more than the French authorities, and an interesting philosophical line that might just give you a new perspective on the Doctor’s post-Time War character.

The villain in this story is in a pretty grand tradition of Classic Doctor Who, from Omega to Eldrad to Scaroth and more. People used to power, who, having suffered a dramatic setback, try to make a new destiny for themselves. 

That’s what gives us that pause for thought about the post-Time War Doctor. How you deal with the things you’ve done, and how easily you forgive yourself for the hurt you’ve caused in the past, are key themes to the drama surrounding the Pimpernel. 

And while we may not have been involved in space-time shenanigans that send the police force of a major European nation after us, we’ve all had regrets in life, all had relationships. Whether our regrets define us, and whether, when it comes right down to it, we’d do things differently if we had the chance, are decisions we make for ourselves. 

Here we have a Sixth Doctor in at least some degree of crisis, because he uncovers a target against whom he can unleash his famous moral outrage, but the complexities of the situation into which he’s led by the surely-can’t-be-real Scarlet Pimpernel mean that as well as the external target of his rage, he also feels the need for some savage self-criticism. 

Remember the Sixth Doctor of The Twin Dilemma? All reckless action and devastating repentance? There’s a touch of that character keystone in this story, though both Chris Chapman and Colin Baker are in far tighter control of the character here, meaning the Sixth Doctor’s fury is more buttoned-down and powerful than it is necessarily explosive and shouty. 

In a way, that makes the Sixth Doctor less safe for us as listeners than we’re used to, which gives a degree of thrill to the story. You’re actually, at one point, not entirely sure you’re safe in his company. As he chases after the villain, having been duped himself into doing frivolous things that may have cost lives, there’s a sense that he can only atone, can only cleanse his lofty Time Lord conscience, by spilling the blood of the character who led him to his folly. 

Intense, high-octane stuff when it really gets going, The Plight Of The Pimpernel.

It’s also, before we oversell the dark and brooding nature of that plot-strand, a right old romp that would in no way be out of place in the 21^st century show. Apart from anything else, it’s larks with the Scarlet Pimpernel! Wigs, silks, dashing escapes and rescues from French dungeons – all the makings of a great Sunday afternoon adventure movie. 

To give him credit though, Chris Chapman does point out that it’s rarely as if those who were heading to be executed were friends of the people. The Revolution by no means came about spontaneously – it was an eruption of long-growing frustration against the…ahem…1%. And while, like most revolutions, it ended up turning to blood and bureaucracy, at its heart, it was a fundamental rejection of unfair financial and social privilege, so those rescued by the Pimpernel are less innocent victims than they’ve been traditionally portrayed. 

If you’ll forgive a contemporary reference, they’re the people who would these days spout Fascistic hate on Twitter (and in real life), and then cry about being ‘cancelled by snowflakes’ when their access to a mouthpiece is taken away. It’s just that the Revolutionary French had a rather more…permanent…method of cancellation. 

With class tensions bubbling into violence, a Percy Blakeney who surely can’t be Percy Blakeney since Percy Blakeney is fictional, a chance to act out the Pimpernel role for himself and at least a couple of devastating realisations later in the story, The Plight Of The Pimpernel puts the Sixth Doctor properly through the wringer in a way rarely seen on screen, and not enormously often done on audio either. 

In fact, it’s dangerous character work throughout, because the Doctor, our avatar for all that’s right and good in the universe, is duped, coerced into actions that turn his anger in on himself, and potentially lead to a crisis point as to whether he is, after all, ‘a good man.’

The Plight Of The Pimpernel is a powerful audio story that balances the necessary swash and buckle of its premise with a philosophical pulse that riffs on self-forgiveness – even if those you wronged have yet to forgive you. And it ends with a degree of the Time Lord Merciless, as seen at the end of The Family Of Blood, and with the same vibe – his kindness has been abused, the Doctor has been duped, and his actions to try and avoid bloodshed have led to the deaths of innocents. 

The Sixth Doctor frequently wears his moral outrage on his gorgeously-multi-colour sleeve, like a big brother for those in the universe who can’t defend themselves. If you turn that inward, if you make him something close to ashamed of himself, you begin to get a sense of where notions like the Valeyard, the War Doctor, and the Time Lord Victorious come from.

There’s never anything explicit in the story that forward-references any of that, but you’ll get a guaranteed shiver before this story’s over, standing where you are in the 21^st century, and knowing what lies ahead for this Doctor and the ones who’ll follow him. 

The Plight Of The Pimpernel sets up a fair few expectations early on, and does its best to meet them. When it starts to give you answers to the questions at the heart of the story though, it goes beyond its initial premise and delivers something that’s absolutely true to the spirit of Classic Who, while foreshadowing a Doctor who will be more than the universe’s best friend. A Doctor who will need to purge his own darkness, and occasionally his own dangerous tendency to trust, if he’s to do the job that being the Doctor demands.

Big Finish Reviews+ Last of the Cybermen by Tony J Fyler

 

Tony stares vacantly into space for two hours. 

Last of the Cybermen packs a lot of promise into its title. Then it adds the attraction of reuniting Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor with Second Doctor companions Jamie and Zoe (they were together as a team in Legend of the Cybermen, which is about as close as Big Finish has ever come to an acid trip outside of some of the Eighth Doctor’s adventures). The question is whether it can ever hope to deliver on the potential it promises. 

So does it? 

Welllll, sort of, yes. It does it in a very time-twisting, causality-corrupting, and for at least an episode why-should-I-care sort of way, but ultimately, you look back on the time spent listening to it and think ‘Hmm. Interesting,’ rather than, as is very much the potential of a piece that stacks its own odds so high, ‘Well, that was a waste of time, wasn’t it, boys and girls?’ 

The story is set just before The War Games – unusually for a Big Finish story, it’s very specific in when it’s set – and the whole ‘Locum Doctor’ thing of later Doctors suddenly being zapped into the place of their earlier incarnations is given very little in the way of plot development, it’s just zap! There you are, deal with it. But once the Sixth Doctor, Jamie and Zoe settle in together, the dynamic is rather fun – Jamie being relentlessly suspicious of the mad-coated bloke in the blond perm until at least episode three, while Zoe accepts almost immediately that this is the Doctor, just not their familiar version. It’s a dynamic resonant of Ben and Polly when the First Doctor became the Second, which is rather sweet as homages go. 

There’s a thread running through the story that, were it made for TV, would have fans weeping, in much the same way as Attack of the Cybermen did, because you really have to know your Who to get the point of some of the plot, which pitches the Cybermen somewhere between The Invasion and Revenge of the Cybermen (even, rather cheekily, throwing in a reason why Revenge Cybermen and their subsequent eighties evolutions were quite so ‘flippant,’ ‘emotional’ and wanting ‘revenge’ in the first place. Very, very cheeky, Alan Barnes. We salute such cheek at Project Torchwood!). The thread brings in a missing cyber-fleet that’s been sitting in hyperspace for ten years waiting for instructions, a bit of the Cyber-war – you get to ‘see’ a Glitter Gun, as mentioned in Revenge of the Cybermen, and even, via a bit of time-twisting, to experience the final attack on Telos that defeated the Cybermen, leaving them, to quote Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor, ‘just a pathetic bunch of tin soldiers skulking around the galaxy in an ancient spaceship.’ It also brings in Zoe’s backstory, her youth and schooling, Cyber-Planners, from everything from The Invasion to Nightmare In Silver, and the Brotherhood of Logicians that gave rise to Kaftan and Klieg from Tomb of the Cybermen. It’s very reference-rich, this story – and that’s before we start getting into the business of rewriting the timelines, which by episode four requires you to actively listen with your brow furrowed, and ideally a sheet of paper in front of you to keep straight what the hell is going on. 

All of this with a fairly small cast, and at least a first episode that appears to go nowhere near any of it – although you do get a friendly northern Cyberman, a couple of zombie Cybermen and Cybermats by the maintenance shaftfull to contend with. Besides Colin Baker, Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury, you have just three other people in this story, which is almost insane given the scope that’s delivered. From a tight first part, by the end of part four, you’re looking at skyfulls of Cyberships, a Cyber-SuperController (another neat allusion making him seem a bit on the chubby side because he’s – ahem – ‘so full of sensors,’ which would explain Michael Kilgariff’s chunky CyberController in Attack of the Cybermen), twisted dimensions, the potential extermination of life on Earth and Telos and maybe, just maybe, the intervention of the Time Lords. That such a scope is rendered with so small a cast is positively breathtaking, but the question really is whether the effort is worth it. 

I had to listen to Last of the Cybermen three times to decide that overall, it was. That’s because this is not an audio to attempt casually, while you do something else. This demands your attention like a proper, go-out-at-night-and-sit-in-the-dark play (Remember them?). But if you give it that respect, rather than trying to absorb it by aural osmosis while you do the ironing, or drive from A-B, Last of the Cybermen is actually a thing of many complex joys for the dedicated Who fan. The imagery it conjures is impressive, the performances ranging from the simple (Nicholas Farrell as Captain Frank, a ‘Tally Bally Ho’ space captain and veteran of the Cyber-wars), to the classic (Lucy Liemann as Zennox sounding as though she could be lifted straight from the black and white era of single-minded, blinkered leaders), to the delightful – Baker plays the ‘modern,’ more mellow Sixth Doctor here, and it’s absolutely right; his more explosive original would have taken up too much of the oxygen you need to move the play along. Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury give solid renditions of their respective companions – not perhaps as one-note as the TV versions demanded of them, but effective in convincing the audience that these people were special enough to be friends of the Doctor’s. 

Ultimately, Last of the Cybermen is one worth listening to – but you need to take the time out of your busy schedule to fully engage with it if it’s not to slide by you and leave you upside-down and confused as hell. 

Give it the time and the attention it deserves, and it’s a Colin Baker classic.

 

Big Finish Reviews+ Planet of the Rani by Tony J Fyler

 

Tony never sleeps. 

The return of the Rani to the universe of Doctor Who was a cause for joy, even though it was mixed with sadness at the death of the wonder that was Kate O’Mara, leading the character to a regeneration played by Siobhan Redmond. 

The Rani Elite, her first story, was originally written with O’Mara in mind, and tweaked for Redmond to introduce a few strands of different characterization into the role. This slightly strange duality was evident throughout, and the whole script made more sense if you heard O’Mara’s incarnation performing the lines in your mind than it did if you listened to Redmond’s in your ears. 

Now she’s back for a second outing, and the first thing you need to know is that the character has had time to gel a little more, Marc Platt’s script for Planet of the Rani seeming more tailored to Redmond’s particular take on the amoral scientist than Justin Richards’ Rani Elite had the chance to be. 

The story takes us on some ninety years in the Rani’s personal timeline, and sees the Sixth Doctor and Wren Constance Clarke beginning to travel together in earnest after the end of Criss Cross. The Rani’s been in prison all that time, but hardly what you might call idle – there’s a Sea Devils vibe about the idea of the Rani being in prison in the first place, and that’s exploited here, with Redmond’s Rani majoring more in charm than a sneer, and doing a reasonable line in girlish eye-batting innocent acting when the situation calls for it too. The trick that needs to be pulled off there, in terms of making the Rani charming, is one of balance – charming people can certainly be amoral, but to work in drama, it has to be shown. Platt takes a good stab at this here, playing on the same string as Missy’s recent ‘No, I’ve not turned good!’ – her escape from imprisonment is shocking and horrible, or at least it is in theory. In practice, we hardly see enough of the situation to invest emotion in the people who are used, and killed, to gain the Rani her freedom, so the mention of a high body-count feels distant and remote, something that happens on paper and out of earshot, so we don’t particularly feel the outrage of it. A good stab then, but not an especially effective one. That doesn’t particularly feel like a fault to lay at Platt’s door though – but oddly, at Ken Bentley’s, director of many Big Finish stories, including this one. One audio effect to give us the voices of the people used by the Rani could have delivered that chill we need to feel when a monstrously amoral act is committed, and it feels missing from this story, along with its impact. 

The impact gets better as the story unfolds though – there’s something irresistibly, oddly familiar about listening to a story where a Time Lady with a Scottish accent and a distinctly English companion of the Doctor are whisked off on an adventure of their own, as they are here, and it’ll make you want to watch The Witch’s Familiar again. While Redmond’s Rani is more analytical than Gomez’s Missy, the bite of superiority does land here and there, with the Rani telling Constance to forget about the Doctor ‘if you want to survive,’ and dismissing the Earthling’s certainties as ‘laughable.’ Perhaps most of all though as the story builds, we see the impact of the Rani, and her refusal to countenance anything as tiresome and messy as free will on her planet. Oh yes, Platt fulfills a long-term fan-fiction dream, and takes us to Miasimia Goria, the planet whose people she was trying to save from the results of a failed experiment when we first met her in The Mark of the Rani. There’s a good deal of Platt’s inventive madness at play in the building of Miasimia Goria – stone forests, elegant metal cockroach-suits (he himself notes a certain similarity to the Daleks in the concept), and perhaps most creepily a kind of ‘people-forest’ too, a kind of Terracotta Army of the Rani’s ravaged, sleep-deprived vegetative victims. That said, overall, it’s difficult to measure up to the imagination of fans who’ve had thirty years to ponder what Miasimia Goria could be like, and overall, there’s a sense of some wild window dressing around a fairly standard Peladonian construct – a ruler, a couple of advisors, and the great unwashed. 

Honestly though, any disappointment with Miasimia Goria only sinks in after you’ve finished Planet of the Rani, because while you’re listening to it, the pace is relentless – it’s a hundred minutes that really feels like fifty at the most, because the pacing and the story-threading is efficient, not to say relentless. The temptation to make the more charming Rani into a slightly sad disappointed mother-figure raises its head, but thankfully – so, so thankfully – Platt strangles that idea, if not at birth then certainly before the end of Planet of the Rani. 

Overall, Planet of the Rani works and delivers to expectations, allowing us a glimpse of the Rani’s pet world, and showing us what being a pet world of the Rani’s turns you into. Constance gets a chance to stretch herself as a citizen of the universe, giving as good as she gets with the Rani, befriending the leader who’s taken the Rani’s place while she’s been absent, and generally doing the traditional companion thing of interposing her own values between people and harm. The Sixth Doctor probably has stronger, deeper stories, but Colin Baker brings a vigour and a breathless, running-about-the-place energy to proceedings that helps pump up the pace. Siobhan Redmond really does begin to carve herself a niche as the Second Rani here, different from the O’Mara version in lots of ways, but still driven by the adamantine core of scientific determination that is key to the character. 

If you felt a little deflated after The Rani Elite, wondering when the real Rani would show up, you’ll enjoy Planet of the Rani a lot more as Redmond flexes her characterization muscles. If you loved The Rani Elite, you’ll love Planet even more, for the same reasons. If you want a headline or an encapsulation of the whole, that’s easy: Happy days are here again – the Rani’s back, with a whole new interesting personality. 

Big Finish Reviews+ Scorched Earth by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s getting hot.

Scorched Earth, by Chris Chapman, takes the Sixth Doctor, Chief WREN Constance Clarke and Flip Ramon (nee Jackson) to one of the most dangerous places they could possibly go – France at the end of the Second World War.

Wait, what? The end of the war is dangerous?

Ohhh hell yeah.

Granted, you might well be right to think that almost any point during the war might be dangerous, but France at the end of the war is a special time and place. It’s a time when the ‘all pull together’ spirit of fighting against a big enemy is like an elastic band – touch it the wrong way and it can snap, and twang you into unforeseen circumstances.

And the war of course is a very different thing for Constance, who lived in it and helped to fight it, than it is for Flip, who knows it as history, as taught to the sons and daughters and grandchildren of the survivors, a thing remote, that needs a work of creativity, a book or a film, to bring out the pure empathy you need to make it real. That means they have very different takes on the emotional issues of the day, and Chapman brings them into stark and agonising contrast in this story.

But this time and place is dangerous for this Tardis team on a whole lot of levels – it’s a positive lasagne of dangers, Chapman layering his threats from the straightforward human to the alien to the intensely personal – and by the time they leave France, this Tardis team may never be quite the same again.

The set-up is pleasingly straightforward. It’s July, 1944 in a small village outside Rouen.

The village is crammed to bursting point with Resistance fighters, trying to re-learn and remember how to be anything else. There are some British troops coming through, not so much on a liberation tour as a Johnny-Come-Lately effort to catch the last of the fighting and the hard work still to do. And, just so we can get the other major power into the picture, there are a couple of captured Nazis.

Captured Nazis?

Ah, well, there’s a story behind that – a story of strange, living fire that consumes material with gusto, but with a very limited menu. It’s a living fire that seems to only attacks Nazis.

Our time travellers come into this environment with very different outlooks – Constance and Flip are more or less in sync, determined to see France at the end of the war, to feel the relief, the hope, the determination to rebuild and rid itself of the marks of Nazi occupation. The Doctor is deeply worried about the effect of such close future knowledge on Constance.

The human dilemma of Scorched Earth though isn’t so much about any knowledge that Constance gains, but about the shockingly different reactions of Constance and Flip to acts of revenge.

Because there’s a woman in the village.

Clementine, played with good emotional layering and backbone by Katarina Olsson. Clementine’s a traitor. A collaborator. And the village is out for its own form of rough justice.

That’s where Constance and Flip start to really differ in their mindset, and the divide gets wider as the story rolls along.

The alien story here is fine as far as it goes, a handy monster-as-metaphor tale of a stranded life form that feeds on something of which there’s a lot about in immediately post-war France. The monster is mostly non-vocal, so it’s not by any means a carrier of great dialogue, but needless to say the destruction it brings with it is a stand-in for something rather more philosophical.

You can listen to Scorched Earth as a straightforward historical story that poses interesting intellectual and visceral questions about good, evil, shades of grey, retribution, punishment and how you rebuild after a cataclysm. Or you can bring it closer to home, in which case, the answers you think you know get less certain. France after the war. Britain after Brexit. America after Trump. America after George Floyd, even.

How do you rediscover the way to bring communities, to bring nations back together in a way that works, in the wake of an angry conflagration, where you know – you know – that your neighbours backed the other side. The horse you know with everything in your being was wrong. When they did things that hurt you, not so much personally or physically, but emotionally, intellectually, even if you want to get fanciful, spiritually, so the place you thought you lived can never quite be the place it was for you again.

How do you do it?

There’s an answer here, but it may be a sign of the times that it feels the stuff of pure science fantasy, complete with a fairly shameless Peter Pan riff – which means it works within the context of the story, but doesn’t give you a takeaway solution to the problems of the present day. (To be absolutely fair to poor Chris Chapman, if he could deliver an answer to healing or reuniting a country, he should probably be in Downing Street).

But those questions linger at the end, resonating through the relationship between Constance and Flip, and while it doesn’t shatter that relationship utterly, the things that are revealed along the way as they all find a solution to the hungry sentient Nazi-stalking fire from outer space – complete with a Sixth Doctor variant of the on-the-fly planning lately shown on screen in 13’s fight against the Cybermen – will make the two women aware of differences they didn’t know were there. Differences which might yet be irreconcilable. Differences which seem irreconcilable in our here and now.

Scorched Earth is a solidly plotted, extremely well layered Sixth Doctor story, with plenty of alien action, some dark decision-making and at least one wartime plane ride, while chasing after a hungry fireball searching for its next big meal. It’s also an immensely effective, affecting study of two people, and the friendship they thought was secure, possibly split by revelations, possibly on a road to being mended by shared peril and hope. And it’s a manifesto for how a nation divided might begin to rebuild its friendships and its lives. How much that manifesto depends for its viability on the progressive side having won, it’s difficult to tell, but it’s a story that ultimately offers hope in a world which both needs it, and yet might not particularly recognise it any more. 

Big Finish Reviews+ The Hunting Ground by Matt Rabjohns

Every now and then with Big Finish, after a run of already absolutely superb stories, you get one that is even that extra bit special. For me The Hunting Ground by AK Benedict is one of those stories. Colin Baker to begin with is on the top of his game here, its lovely in the bonus interviews at the end of the story to hear the writer herself show such warmth and love for this most undervalued and underrated Doctor. So good to hear that the writers love his oh so colourful and sparkly Doctor. And it ain’t hard to see why AK says what she does about Colin's sublime take on the role.

Colin gets to spar magnificently with the delightful Amy Beth Hayes as Yrsa Kristjansdottir. And one for certain can yet again that Amy should absolutely be a companion for his Doctor, oh boy yes, she should. She's a great cop, with a firm and logical head on her shoulders and takes care of herself well within this superb tale. She also gets to act some touching and stirring moments of pathos whilst trying to discover why her Dad was murdered, and whom committed the murder. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Amy has given one of my favourite performances of a character for a very long time in a Big Finish audio. Yes, I kid you not her strength of character yet her caring nature make her one heck of a character. Oh, Big Finish when you restart the Doctors in their own box sets in 2022 please please, please, don’t let Amy Beth pass you by again. It would be absolutely incredible hearing her be yet another new companion for Old Sixie.

I always love stories that are set in bleak and harsh landscapes too. And the sound and the score for this story work very very, well indeed. The feel of this being set in Iceland feels totally authentic, but then again one has come to expect no less from the great Big Finish productions. The Hunter is a rather unpleasant and vulgar creation too, played with zeal and aplomb by Michael Griffiths. That he turns out to be not a wholly black hearted psychopath in the end though does make his final scenes in the play saddening and stirring. It’s good that some writers seem to grasp the point that the best villains are written in shades of grey sometimes, and not just black and white. Yes, his ending is actually saddening in the end and gives yet another added touch of emotional impact to an already emotionally rich story.

You can tell that AK knows her stuff about crime writing too. This tale flows along superbly well. A succinct and tight plot which never has any overtly distracting humour to ruin the tone of the story. It does though have a vein of light relief, this time in the amusing form of the two headed alien being Marfick. Both heads are brilliantly portrayed by Will Hislop and Joe Jameson. Both of these guys never verge on stupid either, and they make a memorable and decent and even lovable character indeed who’s obsessed with all things administration!

Michael Griffiths also gets to portray Yrsa's father and it’s great to hear an actor being given two such polar opposite roles within a story. And Michael delivers fantastically for both roles. The story of her father's death is one that is extremely well portrayed. Malcolm James as the slimy creep Sigdor too really impresses with his performance. And we also get a very commendable performer in Harriet Colling's Frida too.

This story brings its twists and turns well, and has some moments I genuinely found quite surprising and brilliant to listen to. Margaret Ashley particularly as the DCI comes over very well as a character who isn't wholly ripe but at least still has a firm grip on her humanity, and throughout the story this comes over extremely well again indeed. The story has some great cliffhangers and the resolutions of those cliffhangers too are brilliant and inventive and all come together to make one of the most enjoyable and lovely stories I've heard in a while from Big Finish. In fact, this may even be my favourite Big Finish outing for quite some time, and that truly is saying something with the fantastic array of stories we've been getting from Big Finish for the last few years in all their ranges.

A story rich with strong characters, highly charged performances and some sublime scoring and sound design, The Hunting Ground truly is a total winner of a tale and I please hope that Big Finish have the sense not to let the chance of Amy Beth's Yrsa pass them by. I for one definitely want her to be a new companion. Honestly, I must even admit that shes made an even bigger impression on me than even Constance or Flip did in their debuts, and I adore both those characters to pieces. Sorry but I don’t care if I’m gushing. Its only due to the simple fact that AK has written a first class Old Sixie adventure where her writing of his character is absolutely spot on and Colin sinks his teeth into the role yet again and runs with it with the lovely Yrsa at his side. Honestly the vein of brilliant characters Big Finish create never cease to amaze me.

Wolves, Hunters, murderous intrigue and even some superb moments of intense pathos. Honestly what more could one ask from a story? Oh boy am I glad Big Finish gave us a jewel of an adventure such as this. This is one of those very rare cases where every single element of a story works perfectly and comes together to make a belter of a story.

Expo & Cons Old Sixie, Voc Robots and False Hopes by Matt Rabjohns

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Imagine the scenes. ​

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I'm young and on fire! The day has finally come! ​

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Today me and my family go to Longleat to meet the Doctor himself! I am not lying when I say I am staggeringly nervous. I always was such a trembling little idiot when anywhere near anyone I love on Telly! I have met a few people from the show before but this, for me, is the first mega deal name with the show that I am to be meeting! I just can’t believe it. I am also greatly looking forward to dressing up for the competition they are supposed to be holding. I am all dolled up in my Pat Troughton Doctor garb and my sister Davina is dressed and ready as Peri, and even if I say so myself, I think we're both in with a chance of winning! 

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Colin Baker! Old Sixie. Still for me a relatively new Doctor whom I've not seen all of his stories yet on TV. This is also before the emergence of Big Finish audio productions. But I love what I've seen of his Doctor already and am elated and jubilant as we reach the gates of Longleat and are let in to the grounds. ​

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I'm slightly perturbed at the huge turnout for the event! You see with my Asperger's syndrome I always find it very hard mixing in with large crowds. I have overcome this aspect of my Asperger's now, but back on this day it was intimidating. But I loved the superb cosplayers who were dressed as Paul McGann and Peter Davison and every other Doctor back then! ​

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Then I get my first annoyance of the day. We are informed that the competition is no longer taking place. I am hugely disappointed, but swallow it down because at least I still get to meet the Doctor himself! And not only that, there are Cybermen walking about too and a Voc Robot and a Zygon! I feel sorry for the poor man or woman who has to walk about in that sweltering Zygon costume all day! ​

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And Michael Jayston is here too! I can’t believe I'm going to shake the hand of the Valeyard! This is an extra special treat! Oh, wow I'm so hyped up and then the Cyber Leader (who I am sure was actually David Banks because his voice sounded just like his did back on Silver Nemesis) walks up and we talk to him about what he has for lunch. He states Duracell batteries. Of course, I should have known that! ​

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My Dad is in his wheelchair today and this is when I find out just how kind a man Colin Baker is. My Dad is constantly getting bashed and whacked around his bonce with camera bags and tripods and hand bags and all that kinda rubbish. Colin then sees my Dad amidst the crowd getting irate about being constantly smacked around the head. He himself even notices someone clout my Dad with a tripod and he breaks through the crowd. "Excuse me please, thank you!" he bursts through these people and shakes my Dad's hand and we get to talk to Colin first out of the whole crowd. His kindness for seeing my Dad being hurt and interceding have remained with my Dad and me to this day and that's why Colin is my most purchased Doctor in the Big Finish Audio range. I like to think its some small kindness for his kindness for sending those thoughtless idiots away and seeing me and my family first. He signs my photos and books and even calls my sister Divine Davina! ​

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I'm not sure at what juncture the next little thing occurs to me, but I recall it vividly. I am having my photo taken with the Zygon and the Cybermen and the Voc Robot. The Voc Robot is right next to me. I've looked around and whoever is inside this costume is the only person right next to me. When the camera clicks then I distinctly feel the unmistakable feeling of a hand fondling my backside. I joke with you not. To this day I am sure it was whoever was in that Voc Robot costume as no one else was standing near me for the photo then. I bet there's not many people then who can say they've been molested by a Voc Robot! If I had been any older then I would have told my Mum and Dad but I didn't want to cause a scene so I kept quiet. But that hand on my backside still makes me shudder now. Wherever you are Voc Robot you need to be deactivated, or your wandering hands do at least!!!​

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Then I go to the Longleat Doctor Who shop and I am awed at just how much stuff is crammed into this little space! I am even more elated that my Mum and Dad have let me have a brilliant amount of pocket money! So, when my gaze falls on the novels of The Power and The Evil of the Daleks I am ecstatic! I've always wanted to see Power and Evil and am not yet versed in the episode loss of the black and white era. All I know is I love these big chunky Target novels which are bigger than any previous Target novel! I am awed by the fact that I can purchase them both! ​

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Both Michael Jayston and Colin seem to be lovely blokes who talk openly and candidly about their time on the show and how much they enjoyed it. It's a dream come true for me to be able to shake the hand of Doctor Who!​

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Then the Cyberleader comes over whilst Colin is talking to my Dad and he slips his hands round my Dad's throat and Colin playfully says "NO DON'T YOU DO THAT, I WANT TO!" Me and my Dad are laughing our heads off!! ​

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All in all, despite my disappointment at not being able to partake in any competition I am so happy. It's been one of the happiest days of my life despite the Voc Robot with the wandering hands. Several other occasions will soon arise for me to meet other people to do with the show!​

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A few years later and this time we are back at Longleat: this time meeting the king of Doctor Who, Tom Baker himself! And there's a little mystery to do with my Dad again this time. No one calls my Dad by name but suddenly Tom points at my Dad and says "Ian, come over here, your turn now" or words to that effect. And at the time this passed us by but afterwards me and my Dad wonder how in the heck Tom knew my Dad's name! The only thing we can think of is that he must have seen my Dad's wildlife videos he produced, because unless he is clairvoyant how else would he know my Dad's name? My Mum too only called Dad Love that day every time she spoke to him, so the mystery of how Tom knew my Dad's name remains with us to this day! Haha!​

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More recently I have gotten to meet Wendy Padbury and Frazer Hines and John Levene too. I even got to have my photo taken with all three of them. All three of them are such kind and warm and particularly John is absolutely side splittingly amusing. He's such a nice and funny guy and its truly a delight to meet all three of them at the Cardiff Comic Con! I have been blessed now with meeting so many favourites of mine from the history of the show. I'm on Doctor Who cloud nine. ​ Oh, and at the same Comic Con I met Garrick Hagon who portrayed Ky in the Mutants and George Roubicek who played Captain Hopper in Tomb of the Cybermen and the lovely Julian Glover as well! WOW!

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Next on my to meet list are Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann. I'd love to meet these chaps. Oh and Peter Davison as well. I'd adore to meet the rest of the still living classic era Doctors. And I wouldn't say no to meeting Peter Capaldi or Jodie Whittaker either. They all seem such lovely and amazing people! ​

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What other show has ever given me such days of happiness in my life? None at all. Doctor Who will always be my favourite ever show on TV.

Big Finish Reviews+ Cry of the Vultriss by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s emerging from cryo-stasis.

Much of the time, the point of Big Finish audio is that it can tell stories to fans who are hardwired into the concepts of their favourite shows, fans who are older and more steeped in the hows and whys of those shows, so the stories themselves can be more real and less child-orientated than the TV version can be, aimed as it is in the case of Doctor Who at a mixed family audience with at least one child in the group.

Then just occasionally, you come across stories like Cry Of The Vultriss, which have a feeling to them that’s precisely like the TV version of the show from whichever era is appropriate.

Early on, you can absolutely imagine Cry Of The Vultriss as an 80s Sixth Doctor on-screen story.

All in all, that’s not something that overly recommends it to the listener.

There are at least three separate storylines at work in Cry Of The Vultriss, at least one of which never gets the kind of satisfactory resolution you may be expecting from Big Finish – but it does remind you of stories like The Mysterious Planet, which had the Doctor and Peri walking off into the distance pondering the many questions to which they still needed answers.

The Vultriss are bird-people, and they’re bird-people in that distinctively Classic Who way in which the Menoptera are butterfly-people, or Azmael’s followers in The Twin Dilemma are a different kind of bird-people, rather than say, that New Who way in which the Cat Nuns are cat-people, or the Shansheeth are…well, bird-people. You can imagine the Vultriss mostly as actors in suits with layers of make-up on, which subverts the power of audio to make them properly bird-people.

In particular, that’s a feeling underlined by the fact that the Vultriss are bird people…who cannot fly.

There’s quite a bit of Vultriss societal background delivered in Darren Jones’ story – they used to be able to fly, there’s an equivalent to a witch-trial in which the victim either flies and is innocent or doesn’t fly and is guilty, so their plunge to their death is only right and proper, and we arrive in the midst of a Vultriss civil war. The previously rightful queen, Jabule, has been ousted by the arrival of an upstart mythical messiah, Queen Skye, who has the power of ‘The Cry’ – essentially a squawk that kills. Silly in the abstract, it more or less works in the context of Jones’ story. Ousted Vultriss queens though tend not to take it lightly, and Jabule has become the leader of a group resisting the leadership of Queen Skye, who are regarded as terrorists by that queen.

With us so far? Bird Wars is Storyline 1.

Storyline 2 is that the Doctor, Flip and Constance are on their way somewhere utterly else when, for mysterious reasons, they fall out of the vortex and end up on Cygia-Rema, home of the Vultriss. Why they fall out of the vortex, and the threat inherent in that fall? Storyline 2.

Storyline 3 is, to put it mildly, an homage to The Monster Of Peladon. The Vultriss, furiously isolationist for most of their history, are about to welcome ambassadors from space for the very first time, and initially, the Doctor, Constance and Flip are mistaken for those ambassadors.

Nope. It’s the Ice Warriors.

Gimme a break, they’re on the cover, they can’t be that much of a spoiler.

The Ice Warriors here are rather fabulous fun – there’s an Ice Queen, played by Adele Lynch, who played the Ice Queen in Empress Of Mars on TV, there’s plenty of hissy, stomping, growly fun from Nicholas Briggs as ‘the rest of the Ice Warriors,’ and one loyal underling in particular who’s a credit to the stompy, speedy lizard-men from Mars we know and love. The homaging of The Monster Of Peladon comes within an inch of its life, with questions over which Ice Warriors are the Right Ice Warriors, and which, if any, are a bunch of Ice Chancers. And there’s even a glorious handful of callbacks to stories like The Ice Warriors and The Seeds Of Death ­when we first encountered the Ice Warriors in all their conquering glory.

This is perhaps the point – as an Ice Warrior story, Cry Of The Vultriss is top notch. As the story of a narrative hacked, abused and brought to life for nefarious purposes, it’s excellent. As the story of the Vultriss, the fundamentals are excellent, there just seems little need for them to actually be bird-people, other than that Classic Who reaching ambition that says ‘Sure, make them bird-people, why not?’ As the story of rebellions, overthrows and clashes of power-groups it works perfectly well, but the nature of the Vultriss as bird-people feels overlaid mostly for 80s kitschy swank, and as such it rarely convinces.

But most of all, despite developing into a threat which powers most of the latter half of the story, the reason the Doctor and his friends are there is distinctly underexplored and underexplained. If you recall the likes of Timelash, or again The Mysterious Planet, and that sense of there being a whole other story that was told before we got there, that’s the vibe of this storyline too – there are things set in motion apparently by the wanton carelessness of another species, and which feed into both the other storylines, but which are never resolved. Why things are the way they are is left for an uncertain other adventure to explain to us. While there’s a certain gambling value in doing things like this, here the sensation is one of missing explanation rather than tantalizing intrigue, and it rather lessens one’s ability to engage with the drama.

Essentially then, Cry Of The Vultriss is a story with three strands, one of which, the Ice Warrior strand, is clear and excellent, one of which, the Vultriss strand, is complex and interesting, for all it feels unnecessary that they’re bird-people, and the third of which, the why are we here and what must we do strand, feels underbaked and pace-forced, leading to a degree of disengagement with the whole.

Overall then, Cry Of The Vultriss is a good-ish story, with plenty for people to do, especially Flip and Constance, but falls short of being hugely memorable or demanding a re-listen by giving only a limited explanation of why things are the way they are.

Big Finish Reviews+ Arrangements For War by Matt Rabjohns

The first time I heard this story I cried, and I am not remotely ashamed to say it. Arrangements for War I came to with no massive expectations, and boy was I well and truly booted up the butt for not thinking this story would be anything memorable or long lasting. ​

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Colin Baker's Doctor on screen has always come in for a heck of a lot of flak. There were the notions flying about that the era was blatantly overtly violent, and that the writing standard was poor and Id even seen several people saying Colin was no good as the Doctor at all. What arrant nonsense.

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The Colin Baker era was plagued with behind the scenes chaos. The show was to suffer an offensive hiatus for eighteen months and it was only with the driving force of John Nathan Turner that we got the show back at all in season 23. And I must say that I have always long admired and loved the Colin Baker era of the show. It was just as colourful and flamboyant and brilliant as every other classic era.

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This nonsense has led to Colin being criminally underrated and overlooked as the Doctor. True, his Joseph coat of many colours is stark and bold and brash, but actually I think his costume suits his Doctor to a tee, perhaps a better character fit than any other incarnation of the Doctor. Anyway, I’m supposed to be writing a review for Arrangements for War but all this information does have some impact on the story.

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For Arrangements for War is my all-time favourite Big Finish Production, and by quite some margin too. Everything about the story is absolutely perfect. And this is the story where Colin can prove to his non-believers that his Doctor is indeed a worthy incarnation, and a darned formidable one at that.

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Arrangements for War leads on from the heart breaking and harrowing aftermath of Project Lazarus. Maggie Stables Evelyn is left shattered and bone marrow raw by the death of a friend in that story and she takes serious umbrage at the Doctor's apparently aloof and detached manner about the matter. The opening scene between Maggie and Colin showcases two characters at the zenith of their powers. The strain and pain in Maggie's performance is utterly sensational and Colin's Doctor is so amazingly voiced by Colin. Cor I'm waxing lyrical and this is only the first scene of the play!

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This story is actually one of the best of the character led dramas that Doctor Who has ever done. One of the other extremely special aspects of this story is we get to hear the superbly talented Gabriel Woolf return to the Doctor Who fold. And this time he's a goodie, not a warmongering evil God! The development of his relationship with Evelyn over the course of this story is absolutely winning and beyond charming. It feels all totally believable and real and garnishes an already captivating story with an added stroke of emotionally charged genius. One wishes nothing but warmth for Evelyn and Governor Rossiter.

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Corporal Reid and Krisztina are the embodiment of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet really, but whilst I am no fan of Shakespeare, I most certainly am a fan of Paul Sutton's writing of these two central characters of the plot. Lewis Rae and Katarina Olsson are absolutely captivating with their delivery of the two lovers set amidst the backdrop of a corrupted and blinkered government. And The Doctor's involvement in the relationship is handled so well and Colin clearly enjoys his role in this story as his performance is utterly incredible. Honestly the scenes these three characters share together are spellbinding and totally gripping.

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The sheer uselessness and wastefulness of war comes thick and fast in this story, so perhaps many would label it rather political. Although I have never understood why moral decency has anything to do with good moral messages and food for thought. War is such a despicable and heinous thing.  So many millions die in them, and for what gain? ​

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Set against the background back stabbing politics all the other characters in this story too are fantastically well rounded and very believable too.

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And the climax of the story is an award-winning performance nomination from me for Colin Baker. When a tragedy happens, the Doctor shows a very rare side to his nature. His total angst and grief at the tragedy are sublimely delivered by Colin, and the effect means you feel like you've been punched in the heart by Mike Tyson or something very similar. There is also a very bittersweet ending for now to the budding and wonderful relationship written for Evelyn and Govern Rossiter too. The goodbye scene between Gabriel and Maggie is heart breaking and adds even more impact to the massive ending to this masterfully crafted tale.

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This is most assuredly a story that will set the record straight and clearly display with hundred-foot-high neon writing that Colin Baker most assuredly is a darn awesome actor and an even more awesome Sixth Doctor. One must be so thankful to Big Finish for a story like this. Thankful to Paul Sutton for writing it, thanks to the sound design team for creating such a rich atmospheric backdrop for the story all the way through, and thanks for a phenomenally directed epic by Gary Russell. This story has so much rawness and emotion woven into it that one feels it should be made into a film. It really and truly does have that amount of profound impact for me.

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And I won’t apologise for not finding one single negative to darken the sky of this fantastic story from Paul Sutton. Paul would go on to write a fantastic sequel to this story too, but that is quite another story of course!

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Colin's TV era was actually pretty distinctive and brilliant and amazing. And now Big Finish will see to it that we respect and dignify the Sixth Doctor with the acclaim and recognition he oh so clearly deserves. Long live Old Sixie and all who write for him....