Doctor Who and The Blood of the Daleks

‘The Blood of the Daleks’

Written by Steve Lyons, Directed by Nicholas Briggs
Story 1.1/1.2
Transmitted on 31st December, 2006 and 7th January, 2007

Having just lost his best friend Charley, the Doctor is in a sour mood. Unfortunately, he is given no time to himself as the TARDIS is infiltrated by a foreign body named Lucie Miller. A stroppy north Englishwoman, Miller wastes no time in getting right on the Doctor’s last nerve by insulting his wardrobe, hairstyle (is his hair real?) and also implying that there is much more to her than she lets on. Unmoved by the concept of time and space travel, Lucie Miller accuses the Doctor of being a Martian kidnapper. When the TARDIS lands, the travelers find themselves in a hostile environment on the colony Red Rocket Rising.

The population is desperate for escape from a doomed city that is on the verge of collapse. Chased by a mad mob driven to extremes, a car crashes into the impenetrable TARDIS, killing the driver and stranding a pair of handcuffed survivors, Eileen Klint and her prisoner Asha Gryvern. Drawing attention from the others, the Doctor attempts to glean some information from the mob by playing the fool but ends up more confused than before. Rockets are sparingly launching from the planet toward a new home, but spots on them are valuable and rare.

There seems to be animosity directed at Asha’s former associate, the mad scientist Professor Martez who had committed unspeakably dark crimes involving grave robbing and genetic manipulation. After Martez died, the anger passed on to Asha who surprisingly declined her seat on an escape ship and found herself in the custody of Colony Senator turned President Klint. The Doctor and Lucie escape an incoming acid rain shower thanks to an apparently deranged survivor Tom Cardwell, a crackpot screaming about intruders from the stars from beneath a tin foil ha
Of course, crazy Tom Cardwell is precisely correct. Invaders are on the way, yet they arrive under the false promise of salvation, the Daleks. What makes matters more complicated is that they are not only expected, but they are not the only Daleks on Red Rocket Rising. It turns out that Professor Martez fancied himself a junior Davros and crafted a cross-breed of Daleks using corpses and Dalek blood. Will the two factions unite or wage a war that could threaten the tentative future of the human population.

The era of the Eighth Doctor is a convoluted one. Directly after the pilot movie that failed to launch a new TV series, a line of novels and a comic strip attempted to take the latest Doctor into his own legacy. Then the audio dramas came and developed yet another Eighth Doctor saga. Following six years of original audio stories, the decision was made to give him a fresh start. The Eighth Doctor had become more fleshed out from the limitations of his characterization on screen, but he was soon trapped within a story that had become angst-ridden and overly emotive as well as wildly random in quality.

The first few years are quite solid and build toward a dynamic finale, but once Zagreus arrives there is a definite drop into the Divergent Universe where the Doctor became cranky and his companions rather annoying. I don’t mean to dismiss such a large body of work like that… but it’s hard going. There is a 14 story block that challenges the listener to hang in there. That’s unfortunate as there are some superb ideas in there and Charley is one of the best companions ever, yet even actress India Fisher realized by her final adventure that fans were likely happy to see the back of her (ooh-er!)

Luckily, the pay off is in Blood of the Daleks when the Doctor is granted a reprieve from his past and a new lease on life. There have been comparisons of Lucie Miller to Donna Noble, another spirited companion who gave the Doctor some lip, however… I like Lucie Miller. She’s smart, self-determined and full of her own ideas about what should be done and how. There are many differences between Donna and Lucie, but the biggest to me is that she and the Doctor grate on each other (she actually causes the Doctor to get downright nasty) yet they end up complimenting each other in the end. There is also a big mystery around Lucie, how and why she ended up in the TARDIS and what her relationship is with the Time Lords. It’s all told very well and entices listeners to come back and see where it will go. Thankfully all of these stories are in the past, so I can say with some authority that the pay off is there.

After so many Dalek audio stories, many were getting bored with the creatures. Much like the situation on screen in the BBC Wales program, they lost their impact with familiarity. Yet Blood of the Daleks makes them downright scary and full of hatred again. These are the Daleks who are both cunning and deadly, killing everything that gets in their way. When they meet a breed of newly created Dalek/human mutations, they are filled with rage. An adventure that hearkens back to the events of Genesis of the Daleks when the Doctor had the opportunity to exterminate his enemies. This time, the Doctor is compelled to make a different decision and end the threat of the Daleks once and for all.

Again, this is the start of a very different era for the Eighth Doctor, one that would take him to new extremes and challenge what the character was capable of. I honestly can say now that I enjoy all of the various Doctors in audio form, but the Eighth Doctor is the most exciting as his path is still a mysterious one, leaving the possibilities wide open.

As a new companion, Sheridan Smith is a mixed bag, but only in that she grated with me right away, reminding me of Rose Tyler who I had already grown so weary of I had come to associate with the many failures of the BBC Wales program. Yet I had forgotten how brilliant Big Finish is in creating these new companions and she grew on me very quickly. As soon as it became clear that the mouth northern girl was something of a cover, Smith’s vocal range gains another level and I realized that this was going to get interesting. Well known from TV, Sheridan Smith was something of a score for Big Finish and her entry into the annals of Who immediately creates a dividing line from Charley, the Edwardian Adventuress.

Initially appearing to be a standard contemporary companion that listeners more familiar with characters like Rose Tyler, all that changes in the first story alone. When Lucie Miller becomes separated from the Doctor, she gains the freedom to make her own decisions that have surprising consequences including betraying the Doctor right after vocally calling out to the Time Lords for assistance. Just who is Lucie Miller and what is she all about??

Doctor Who and The Blood of the Daleks can be ordered from The Book Depository with free shipping worldwide by clicking on the link below:

Doctor Who and The Renaissance Man

‘The Renaissance Man’

Written by Justin Richards, Directed by Ken Bentley
Story 4.2
Released February 2012
“How does it feel to not be the most intelligent person in the room?”
“I don’t know, Doctor. You tell me.”

In his continued effort to educate his ‘noble savage’ companion, the Doctor takes Leela to the Morovanian Museum, housing the pinnacle of human knowledge. Instead, they find an immaculate lawn and a rather empty building. Presiding over the entire installation is Reginald Harcourt, a man who seems to know everything that there is to know.

As the Doctor battles wits with Harcourt, he realizes that the genius’ so-called brilliance is not his own and can be influenced. It also becomes clear that the reality of the entire museum is directed by Harcourt’s imagination. Fueled by every book, every bit of data within the seemingly endless structure, Harcourt aims to be the ideal Renaissance Man, a master of all things.

The return of the Fourth Doctor to the classic program has been a very bizarre experience. Starting with the box set containing The Foe From the Future and The Valley of Death, the main series is composed of incredibly varied material that is at once fanciful, witty and mind-blowing. On the surface Destination: Nerva may seem to be the standard base under siege, but the inclusion of a power-mad colonial British soldier forging a galactic empire adds a certain other quality to it all. Likewise, The Renaissance Man is a story of intelligence matched by absurdity.

The script by Justin Richards (who also penned the excellent Whispers of Terror and The Time of the Daleks) is effervescent with whimsy, featuring a moment when the phone rings and a barking dog on the other line attempts to warn the Doctor of imminent danger. The threat posed by Harcourt is a very real one, a man who seeks to drain all knowledge from others, leaving them dead husks… it’s also deeply flawed. The Doctor cleverly remarks that it is the search for knowledge that makes it valuable. Stealing it outright is a near-carnal endeavor, reducing wisdom to mere collectibles. It is fascinating to see the Doctor introduce random pieces of nonsense into Harcourt’s database which off-sets the whole house of cards and sends reality teetering on the edge of destruction.

Louise Jameson, Tom Baker and Ian McNeice

A fascinating and fun-loving adventure, I enjoyed The Renaissance Man a great deal. Again, it felt like slipping into a pair of warn comfy slippers made out of the Graham Williams era of the program when it was weird and different. Guest-star Ian McNeice is amazing as Harcourt and far more entertaining in this than he was as Churchill on screen, but in my opinion the material he has to work with is so much better.

The Renaissance Man can be ordered from The Book Depository with free shipping worldwide by clicking on the link below:

Doctor Who – Unregenerate!

‘Unregenerate!’

Story 70
Written by David A. McIntee, directed by: John Ainsworth
Released June 2005

Fresh from her experience on the planet Lakertia, Melanie Bush is back on the planet Earth. But it’s not the right time period, everyone is obsessed with pop culture and reality television, making her feel more out of place than ever. When the TARDIS finally turns up, the Doctor is absent but in his place is a holographic recording telling her where to find him. Sadly, the Doctor has gone mad and is being held in a mysterious asylum.

With only an ex-bouncer turned cabbie for protection, Mel must free the Doctor and unravel the mad trap that he has found himself ensnared in. Unfortunately, this particular trap is a cat’s cradle that even the Doctor has become caught in. What hope can Mel have when the newly regenerated Doctor has gone insane?

This is a terribly unusual audio adventure set in a time when the program had completely reinvented itself as a soft harmless family entertainment with weird dark undertones. In addition, the companion Mel is, at best, controversial. Introduced as a successor to Nicola Bryant’s Peri, Mel is so traditionally English and sweet that she ends up appearing comical. To boot, her backstory makes absolutely no sense at all. A companion of the Sixth Doctor, she is first seen in a future adventure yet pulled out of time (along with Sabalon Glitz) at the conclusion of Trial of a Time Lord. In effect, she has no first adventure and no back story! As viewers we have no idea who she is or why she is traveling with the Doctor. She is also the only connecting thread to the Seventh Doctor from the past and in that sense she fails miserably.

An awkward screaming companion played by a sexless former child actress, Melanie Bush is one of those companion that fans wish never happened. But before you ditch her, you should hear her in these audio adventures where she shines most brilliantly. Appearing opposite both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, Mel is a superb companion on the Big Finish productions, full of fire and intelligence. She remains a homely kind of personality who is so pure and good that she becomes almost comical, but a more experienced Langford (and a better set of scripts) manages to breath some life into the character.

But you may ask yourself why I am spending so much time on Mel and the answer is that throughout most of Unregenerate!, the Doctor is a gibbering mess, spouting nonsense and helpless in the thrall of the facility he has become trapped in. Only Mel stands a chance of helping the Doctor out of the mess he has landed himself in, and as such she becomes terribly important.

The Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) tries to make sense of himself

I wasn’t sure what to make of Unregenerate! as it was frankly a convoluted premise made all the more complicated by a non-linear narrative approach. This meant that the many pieces to the complex puzzle were arranged out of order. Even so, it’s a thrilling and inspired plot that utilizes McCoy range to the utmost. Granted, much of the story demands that McCoy echo the lines of his fellow cast members or speak in riddles, but when he finally ‘arrives,’ he is in fine form. Set in an early period of the Seventh Doctor’s reign, this version of the character is less of a wise manipulator and more of a clownish innocent galactic vagrant. This is of course a period that Doctor Who books, audios and comic strips side-steps most avidly, so I am impressed with the bravery of McIntee’s script in delving headfirst into a world of playing the spoons and pastel colors.

As the story (slowly) unfolds, the overly convoluted plot is impressive to say the least. The paranoia of Gallifrey has reached a fever pitch to the point that they are convinced manipulation of the lesser species is necessary to insure that time travel be regulated and controlled. In short, they are transplanting artificial intelligences into various alien races that could develop time travel capability in hopes of controlling them. Unfortunately, the Doctor sets off an experiment and becomes taken over by another intelligence. He is driven insane, but no one knows quite what to do with him. Mel cons a cabbie into helping her break into the facility and finds that she has other confederates that have escaped manipulation.

After finally getting the Doctor back in his ‘right mind,’ the pieces start to fall into place but not before numerous violent attempts to gain control of the situation by the facility staff. There is a lot of continuity and Doctor Who self-reference going on in this story, but it is also a very interesting concept, albeit told in a manner that is a bit too complicated for its own good. The idea of featuring a Doctor so soon after his regeneration seems a bit out of place as this confusion was, more or less, resolved in screen in Time and the Rani. Even so, it’s an unusual choice and that must be applauded.

The biggest star of Unregenerate! is of course Bonnie Langford, who is given so much to do that one unfamiliar with her TV appearance would think her to be one of the more celebrated companions. Another surprising star is Jennie Linden, who played the role of Barbara in the feature film version of Doctor Who and the Daleks.

Unregenerate! can be ordered directly from Big Finish and from other online retailers such as Mike’s Comics and BookDepository.

Doctor Who and the Return of the Daleks

Return of the Daleks

Written by Nicholas Briggs, Directed by John Ainsworth
Special Release V
Release date: 2006, December

In the far future, humanity’s fate hangs in the balance. A fleet of Dalek ships has attacked suddenly and viciously, enslaving the few remaining survivors to assist in their scheme of galactic domination and total extermination of all inferior beings. To do this, they have engaged the services of an outspoken slave known as Susan ‘Suze’ Mendez. It was her forthrightness and bravery that gave the people hope, and it is with that hope that the Daleks have tightened their psychological strangle hold on their subjects.

There is no need to robotize anyone if they can have believe in the possibility that there is a better life and that is what Suze has created. Dubbed ‘the Angel of Mercy,’ she travels from slave colony to slave colony spreading the message that if the survivors work harder they will live. Secretly, the Knight of Velyshaa Kalendorf has been accompanying her and planting seeds of rebellion on each planet using telepathy. But their plan hangs with the delicacy of a spider’s web, almost untangled or snapped at any moment.

As the Daleks build their ever-expanding empire, Kalendorf and Susan Mendez play a risky game by attempting to outwit the monsters. Conversing telepathically, they keep their battle strategies to themselves but are watched every moment of the day. When a stranger calling himself the Doctor arrives, they are of course suspicious and rightly so. The Doctor has one last gambit to engage in, and the cost is great.

There is a forgotten army of Daleks on the planet Spiridon that the Daleks are looking for. Long hidden but never forgotten, the army has remarkable abilities and could make the assault on Earth that much easier. It’s up to the Doctor to steer events in just the right manner so that the army is not revived, but he must first sacrifice himself. The Daleks are suffering from ‘light wave sickness’ and they know that the Doctor must have the cure. The game player of people has finally become a pawn himself. Allowing himself to be taken captive, he is a prisoner of the Daleks until just the right moment.

Return of the Daleks is set in a hazy point in the Doctor’s timeline, just before his regeneration and after his final confrontation with the Master (in the story with the same name). The Doctor is wracked with guilt and sorrow, weighed down with the consequences of his actions, implied by his invoking of his previous companions, especially Hex. The trickster god/champion of time has come to the end of his tether here and is a shadow of his former self in more ways than one.

It is fascinating to see Big Finish explore the decline of the Seventh Doctor’s era as it has been explored in print, but not in the audio line. The ‘longest reigning’ of the Doctors lasting from 1987 to 1996, the Seventh Doctor received more development off screen than any other incarnation. Between the comic strips, novels, multi-media projects and of course the audio stories the exact history of the Seventh Doctor is almost as vague as the Eighth, but we do know that he was a crafty individual who was ‘more than just a Time Lord’ who cleared old debts by destroying the Daleks, Cybermen alien gods and almost finished the Master on screen.

Uniting McCoy with Gareth Thomas of Blake’s 7 who plays the gruff and world-weary Kalendorf is a sheer delight. The addition of Ogrons and Daleks in the jungle of Spiridon is delightfully fannish and inserts some continuity to the Dalek Empire series.

It is very moving and sad to witness a version of the Doctor who is apparently at the end of his line, desperately trying to mend a few tears in space and time before he expires. A fitting homage to the Seventh Doctor, it also slots into the Dalek Empire series as a special bonus.

Doctor Who and the Return of the Daleks was a special release given to subscribers but can now be ordered directly from Big Finish or from online retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Doctor Who and The Masters of Luxor (at last!)

Click to pre-order!

Initially intended to follow An Unearthly Child (A.K.A. One Million Years B.C.), The Masters of Luxor was to be the program’s first foray into science fiction. Under the working title, ‘The Robots,’ Anthony Coburn’s script ended up encountering production trouble. A last minute replacement was needed and luckily comedy writer Terry Nation had The Dead Planet all set to go, the story that would start off the long legacy of the Daleks.

However, script editor David Whitaker was still interested in getting Coburn’s script to screen even in 1964. The program was dramatized by a group of stalwart fans in 2001 and was a massive hit with fandom when it premiered in Chicago during a convention. You really have to admire the temerity and ingenuity of Whovians, don’t you? The film retained several key elements of the early Doctor Who productions and acted as a loving tribute to the series.

(for more information on the Masters of Luxor fan film, please follow this link)

A story set in a futuristic world with harrowing adventure and weird situations, the Masters of Luxor was perhaps a bit too heady for the time. Luckily, the folks at Big Finish have dramatized the six parter with William Russell and Carole Ann Ford reprisiong their roles as Ian Chesterton and Susan Foreman.

In the original script, the travelers find themselves on a world that sits in the center of a vast network of satellites. Mistaken for the human masters, the robotic Derivitrons serve the Doctor and his companions like royalty. It is only after the true nature of the planet is revealed to them that the horror of Luxor becomes apparent and escape a priority.

The scientists of Luxor are obsessed with perfecting the human form at any cost, through spine-tingling and dubious process of experimentation bordering on torture. They are not that unlike the Cybermen who were to follow many years later in some respects..

The Masters of Luxor has been a lost jewel of fans for decades, released as a script book by Titan Publishing in 1991 before becoming incredibly scarce. That situation has of course been remedied courtesy of Big Finish and author Nigel Robinson (who has also adapted other Hartnell-era adventures).

As reported by Big Finish on twitter:“49 years in the making… and out in August. Doctor Who: The Masters of Luxor.”

The latest in a series of Lost Stories, The Masters of Luxor will follow in the steps of Farewell, Great Macedon and That Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, collected in a box set that comes highly recommended.

(Thanks to TardisNewsroom for the heads up!)

DOCTOR WHO: THE FIRST DOCTOR BOX SET

More as it comes…

Bonus, the cover and details to the forthcoming Companion Chronicles, Jigsaw War.

Click to pre-order!

Written by Eddie Robson, Directed by Lisa Bowerman
RELEASE DATE:31 May 2012

Starring Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), Dominic Mafham (Moran)

SYNOPSIS: A cell. Four walls, one door. Jamie McCrimmon can escape, but it means unravelling a puzzle of extraordinary complexity.

And there are more than just two players in this game. The Doctor is there. So is his opponent, Side.

As a hero turns killer, and a rebellion becomes anarchy, the lines between good and evil are blurred. And so is the distinction between cause and effect…

Sylvester McCoy returns to U.N.I.T. with Raine, Klein and… the Doctor?

This year promises to be an exciting one for Big Finish. A special set of stories starring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, Paul McGann in a special Eighth Doctor set, the adaptation of the New Adventures classic Love and War and of course the Counter Measures spin-off series featuring characters from the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks.

In addition to all of those specials is a box set bringing Sylvester McCoy and U.N.I.T. back together, along with fan favorite companion Klein and the newly introduced Raine Creevy… along with a ‘Another Doctor.’

Big Finish Doctor Who – UNIT: Dominion Box Set
The universe stands on the brink of a dimensional crisis – and the Doctor and Raine are pulled into the very epicentre of it.

Meanwhile, on Earth, UNIT scientific advisor Dr Elizabeth Klein and an incarnation of the Doctor she’s never encountered before are tested to the limit by a series of bizarre, alien invasions.

At the heart of it all is a terrible secret, almost as old as the Time Lords themselves. Reality is beginning to unravel and two Doctors, Klein, Raine and all of UNIT must use all their strength and guile to prevent the whole of creation being torn apart.

Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Tracey Childs (Dr Elizabeth Klein), Beth Chalmers (Raine Creevy), Alex Macqueen (Another Doctor)

Doctor Who – UNIT: Dominion Box Set £30 until December 17 2012, then going up to £40. To buy or download this cd set visit www.bigfinish.com

Released 31 December 2012

Via TardisNewsroom and DoctorWhoSite.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Master

Master

By Joseph Lidster
Story 049
Released October 2003
“Do you see me as I see myself? Do you see you as you see yourself? When you see the color red, do you see the color red that I see? Or is your red my blue?”- Doctor

Late one night, Doctor John Smith receives a pair of old friends, Victor and Jacqueline Schaffer, for dinner. A somewhat secluded and tragic individual, Smith tries his best to play the host to his friends and avoid unpleasant conversation, but it seems impossible. A series of grisly murders is the popular topic and its ghost haunts the proceedings. As the weather turns ugly, a stranger arrives in a roar of thunder.

The Doctor has arrived far earlier than he planned to resolve some unfinished business. An old debt has been called in, one that he always knew must be paid, but one that he also knew would demand a tremendous cost. But even the Doctor could not predict how this well constructed situation would pan out, or what path it would take.

Built largely on ideas developed in the Virgin New Adventures line of novels, this version of the Doctor is ‘Time’s Champion,’ a title that came with a  price. The Doctor made a bargain with the abstract cosmic entity of Time and part of that deal involved his old nemesis the Master being placed in a fictional world where he would live out a life without the history of his past crimes. The fact that the Doctor has entered the fiction means that it must end and his debt must be paid. The Master will be allowed to accept or dent his role as the devious evil genius or accept the life of a new man.

Of course the Master knows nothing of this and the pair of intellectuals engage in a series of philosophical discussions on the nature of evil. The Master states that a sociopath driven to commit acts of murder suffers not from a damned soul, but a psychological differentiation.

“So, one who suffers such an affliction is merely helping the universe see the same color red?”- Master

“Perhaps.” – Doctor

“So there is no such thing as evil. It doesn’t exist!”- Master

“A man who kills because of motive can be questioned. A man who kills because he is ill can be helped. A man who kills because he was born, fated to be evil is a true tragedy in itself.”- Doctor

This story adds depth to the unspoken relationship that the Doctor and Master had in the classic program. When he is first introduced as a rough Moriarty to the Doctor’s Sherlock, it’s clear almost immediately that the Doctor and the Master are more than just old classmates ort acquaintances. Letts and Dicks had planned a story that would reveal that the Doctor and Master were part of the same person when the third Doctor regenerated into his fourth body, but Roger Delgado’s untimely death prevented that story from being screened. In Planet of Fire, after the Doctor committed the Master to a fiery death, John Nathan Turner inserted the line, ‘how could you do this to your own brother?’ which was cut from the final transmission.

The Doctor and the Master are more than just former friends and committed foes. Their past is shrouded in mystery, allowing for stories like this to be written. ‘Master’ furthers the story of the two characters by implying that while the Doctor is Time’s Champion, the Master is Death’s Champion. Both the Doctor and the Master have decided their paths, but in each case, they have taken on the responsibility of abstract concepts, placing them further part from the rest of the universe.

There is a story of the Doctor and Master’s childhood where one of them committed murder, accidentally, to defend the other from a bully. The Doctor remember that it was the Master who killed to protect him, but Death informs him that it was the Doctor and in order to escape the guilt, he placed the blame on his closest friend, the Master. The back story and turnabout are both a bit too pat for my taste and make an otherwise brilliant meditation on sociopathy too contrived.

As the Doctor and Master learn of their true selves, so too do the Schaffers. Jacqueline reveals her secret love for the Master and Victor admits to committing unconscionable acts of violence. The intention is obviously that the potential for evil lies in all of us, but the conclusion of ‘Master’ involves the acceptance of an abstract concept of evil and death that makes this somewhat confusing.

Part of a quartet of stories delving into the inner workings of the Doctor’s greatest nemesis’s, ‘Master’ is an odd duck, but in places it is absolutely marvelous. Geoffrey Beevers once again delivers a sterling performance and given the magnificent material to work with, McCoy knocks it out of the park.

Doctor Who – Master can be ordered directly from Big Finish and from local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Celebrate the Eighth Doctor Who this month!

Romantic and dashing, the passionate and alien Eighth incarnation of Doctor Who only appeared on screen once in a story that may not even ‘count’ for fans or for the casual viewer who missed it. However, it introduced one of the more extravagant and interesting versions of the Time Lord to date.

The Eight Doctor was more fully developed in a line of novels and comic strips but when McGann himself returned to the part in the Big Finish line of audio stories, it felt like he had finally arrived. Even after several series of audio stories, McGann remains the Doctor with the most untapped potential and luckily he is still at work furthering the legacy of the time-tossed Bryonic hero.

The Big Finish series of Eighth Doctor stories embodied the wild abandon and fantasy of the Graham Williams/Tom Baker era and added a modern spin that gave depth and character to several concepts and story lines that run through the program’s long history from Morbius to Romana and even the Krynoid.

This month has been something of a celebration of the Eighth Doctor as Big Finish has promoted bargain priced packages of all four of his current series. There’s also this nifty sculpture that can sit at your desk so co-workers can ask who that is and you can tell them the long convoluted story of the 1996 TV Movie… and then direct them to Big Finish to listen to Storm Warning and watch them get hooked.

Eight Doctor maxi-bust – Click to order from Forbidden Planet

Titan Merchandise are proud to announce the latest item in their limited edition, high-quality Doctor Who Masterpiece Collection!

This beautifully-sculpted 8″ maxi-bust of Paul McGann’s unique incarnation of the ever-regenerating Time Lord captures the every detail of his performance as the adventurous and romantic Eighth Doctor!
Paul McGann starred in the 1996 BBC/Fox Network TV movie (and many subsequent Big Finish audio adventures) as perhaps the most individual and certainly the most outwardly-romantic incarnation of The Doctor! The Eighth Doctor and his frockcoat, waistcoat, cravat & signature timepiece is brought to life in this intricately-detailed three-quarter length sculpt standing 8″ tall.

For more info on upcoming Doctor Who memorobilia, bookmark Doctor Who Site

In addition to a spiffy maxi-bust, the folks at Big Finish are running a special sale, the ideal way to prepare for Paul McGann’s impending new series of audio adventures.

Fans can choose from individual stories via download or CD, or just buy the entire cataclysmic fourth season as the Doctor and Lucie Miller travel through time and space.

The Ice Warriors, Daleks and even the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan are featured in this highly acclaimed season. Need to catch up? This is the perfect opportunity!

4.01 Doctor Who: Death in Blackpool by Alan Barnes
Lucie Miller always loved Christmas back home in Blackpool. Her Mam running a still-frozen turkey under the hot tap at ten. Great-Grandma Miller half-cut on cooking sherry by eleven. Her Dad and her uncle arguing hammer and tongs about who was the best James Bond all through dinner. And in the afternoon, Aunty Pat, haring up to the house on the back of a moped weighed down with ridiculous presents. Christmas 2009 didn’t turn out like that. Christmas 2009, the Doctor turned up…
4.02 Doctor Who: Situation Vacant by Eddie Robson
TRAVELLER IN TIME AND SPACE seeks male or female companion with good sense of humour for adventures in the Fourth and Fifth Dimensions. No experience necessary. No time wasters, no space wasters please.
4.03 Doctor Who: Nevermore by Alan Barnes
A bizarre manifestation in the Control Room forces the TARDIS onto the Plutonian shores of the irradiated world Nevermore, whose sole inhabitant is the war criminal Morella Wendigo – a prisoner of this devastated planet. But the Doctor and his new companion aren’t Morella’s only visitors. Senior Prosecutor Uglosi fears the arrival of an assassin, after the blood of his prize prisoner. An assassin with claws…
4.04 Doctor Who: The Book of Kells by Barnaby Edwards
‘Anyone who’s prepared to kill for a book interests me.’ Ireland, 1006. Strange things have been happening at the isolated Abbey of Kells: disembodied voices, unexplained disappearances, sudden death. The monks whisper of imps and demons. Could the Lord of the Dead himself be stalking these hallowed cloisters? The Doctor and his companion find themselves in the midst of a medieval mystery.
4.05 Doctor Who: Deimos by Jonathan Morris
Millions of years ago, the noble Ice Warriors fled to Deimos, moon of Mars, hoping to sit out the radioactive death throes of their home planet. When the TARDIS lands on Deimos, the Doctor discovers that the Warriors’ ancient catacombs are now a popular stop for space tourists. But the Martian dynasties are more than history, and the Warriors are far from extinct. It’s not for nothing that ‘Deimos’ is the ancient word for ‘dread’
4.06 Doctor Who: The Resurrection of Mars by Jonathan Morris
Deimos, moon of Mars – where Lord Slaadek’s plans to revive the ancient Ice Warrior civilisation hang by a thread. Only the Doctor can stop him… but an old enemy, hiding in the catacombs, has an alternative plan. A plan that will test the Doctor’s heroism to its limits. Just how far will the Doctor go to prevent the destruction and resurrection of Mars – on a day when his friends become enemies, and his enemies have right on their side?
4.07 Doctor Who: Relative Dimensions by Marc Platt
Christmas is a time for family, they say – which is why the Doctor has invited his grand-daughter Susan, and great-grandson Alex for Christmas dinner in his time and space machine. But who, or what, is the spectre at their yuletide feast? Venturing deep into the dark heart of the TARDIS, Susan uncovers her past, Alex is told his future – and the Doctor finds himself caught in a deadly dangerous present!
4.08 Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Sun by Eddie Robson
Six years after being captured by the galaxy-spanning organisation known only as The Consensus, the Doctor lives inside a hi-tech complex at the heart of an unstable sun, condemned to an eternity maintaining its systems. But rebel eyes have their eyes on the sun, and its lonely controller – and are prepared to risk even a galactic cataclysm to secure the Doctor’s release…
4.09 Doctor Who: Lucie Miller by Nicholas Briggs
Lucie Miller needs the Doctor’s help. The whole planet Earth needs his help. But he is nowhere to be seen. While Lucie struggles to survive a terrible sickness, an even greater threat to the human race is about to be unleashed. And this will be the second Dalek invasion of Earth the Doctor’s grand-daughter has had to endure.
4.10 Doctor Who: To the Death by Nicholas Briggs
After a last, futile fight-back against the Daleks, Lucie, Susan and Alex are heading home to England in the desperate hope of saving the Doctor’s life. But the true, terrible nature of the Daleks’ plan is beginning to emerge and the Monk has blood on his hands. To defeat the Daleks, it can only be a struggle… to the death.

Peruse the entire range of Eight Doctor adventures here.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Omega

Omega

Story 47
Written by Nev Fountain
Released August 2003
“I must say of all the metaphors I have been in, this is by far the nicest.”

Part of a set of adventures exploring the super villains of Doctor Who (Omega, Davros, the Master and finally Zagreus), Omega is an oddity among oddities. The story begins with the Doctor seemingly aboard a time travel cruise where the experiments of Omega that birth the civilization of Gallifrey are re-enacted by second rate actors. The patrons seem only marginally interested as the story of Omega’s sacrifice in the creation of the Eye of Harmony is dramatized. Only the Doctor seems concerned, but that is because he was called to be there.

Actor Peter Davison was at the beginning of his career when he took on the role of the Doctor back in the day and frankly he suffered the whims of producer John Nathan-Turner and frustrated script editor Eric Saward during his three year reign. In many ways, he was prevented from establishing a firm persona of the Fifth Doctor for fear of a comparison to his predecessor, Tom Baker. In the Big Finish Productions, Davison is given free reign to develop his character as he chooses (more or less) and the result is mystifying. A doddering English gentleman wandering the pathways of space and time, the Doctor appears young but is in fact far older than can be imagined. His past haunts him like a familiar ghost and this story embodies that trait perfectly.

Nev Fountain’s Omega is a story about history and legend and how it can be rewritten by historians for political reasons. The character of Omega appears on the surface to be a booming megalomaniac with dreams of conquest but in actuality he is a tortured soul who has become lost in his own history.

Surprisingly (SPOILER) The Doctor only really arrives mid-way through the adventure in a very clever turn of events that places the tale on its head and then spins it like a coin (if you’ll excuse the extended metaphor).

In Johnny Byrne’s Arc of Infinity, Omega used the Matrix to take over the form of the Doctor and in the process absorbed parts of his experiences. Taking them on as his own, Omega believes that he is a terrible villain, responsible for the demise of an entire race during his experiments. The truth is that this memory belongs instead to the Doctor, who apparently destroyed an entire life form by accident. It’s a rather staggering reveal in that the villain is in awe and disgust by the Doctor’s ability to live with the consequences of his actions.

I am quite happy that Davison’s Doctor flatly states that he accepts his actions with difficulty without milking the moment or drawing it out in some angst-ridden manner (as other Doctors might). It speaks volumes to the depth of the Doctor’s character and his alien nature. He walks in eternity and calls no place home, after all. On top of that, this is the gentleman’s gentleman, the Fifth Doctor, and he bears the weight of the universe on his shoulders with nary a twinge of worry.

Omega is a trifle convoluted and over-populated with colorful characters, but they are all very well portrayed and the clutter is in actuality a facet of the tale itself. The unraveling of legend takes place through the separation of several layers of myth and fiction until what lies bare is the truth… for all its flaws.

The script is full of charm and sharply barbed wit, taking stabs at soap opera and television as well as the edutainment racket. Omega is revered by Sentia (voiced by the voluptuous Caroline Munro) who wishes to marry him in a ritual as symbolic as it is romantic, but her sentiments are built on half-truths, legends and lies, much as you’d imagine the history of a time altering society such as Gallifrey would be.

Omega is a superb story in that it utilizes the strengths of Peter Davison’s Doctor and fleshes out his relationship with Omega as well as his tenuous connection to Gallifrey. A captivating tale that fits into the fills yet mote of the gaps in the continuity of the program, Omega is another patch on the legend of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who – Omega can be purchased directly from Big Finish Productions and local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Time of the Daleks (Dalek Empire IV)

Time of the Daleks

“Think of your worst nightmare. Think of the most repellent, disgusting thing you can imagine. Think of pure evil made malignant flesh.”

“And that’s what it’s like?”

“No… it’s a thousand times worse.”

Story 32
Written by Justin Richards
Released May 2002

The final part of the inter-linking audio adventures tied to the Dalek Empire (consisting of The Genocide Machine, the Apocalypse Element and The Mutant Phase), Time of the Daleks reveals the devastating intention behind the various components of the Dalek’s temporal extinction device. Opening with a rather ominous sequence in which their experiment goes wrong, a Dalek fleet faces death and quotes Shakespeare in the same moment. THAT is the proper way to begin one of the weirdest Dalek stories I have read/seen/heard yet.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers that his companion Charley has no knowledge of Shakespeare, but can easily roll off the names of his contemporaries such as Johnson and Marlowe. He recalls that upon their visit to Earth’s past, Orson Welles also had no memory of Shakespeare despite the fact that he had made films based on the bard’s work. Something is seriously wrong and the Doctor is determined to get to the root of the problem. He finds that there is a trail of temporal distortion running from Shakespeare’s period to the far future.

Traveling to one of the Earth Empire’s dictatorial periods, the Doctor and Charley pass themselves off as expected specialists and meet General Mariah Learman, a woman who refuses to relinquish control over her people and freely quotes Shakespeare, seemingly passing the prose off as her own thoughts. Her experiments in time have born strange fruit, yet she refuses to acknowledge that they have anything to do with the anomaly that the Doctor has tracked to her doorstep. Using a complex array of mirrors and clocks, Learman’s chief scientist Professor Osric admits that it would never work without the assistance of their benefactors, the Daleks.

Realizing that his most hated foes are scheming something so dangerous that it threatens the stability of time itself, the Doctor surprisingly puts on a winsome grin and strikes against their anxious cries of death with chirpy witticisms. It is one of the Eighth Doctor’s finest hours and also confirms for me where the Big Finish production team were taking this era. The mixture of comedy and violence so popular during the middle period of Tom Baker’s time is revived through a modern lens with the dapper and charming eighth face of the time traveling champion and it works so well that (like many others) I am crestfallen that we never got to see it on screen.

Time of the Daleks borrows from and pays homage to classic Doctor Who stories, reproducing key moments from Evil of the Daleks (such as Osric eluding to a mysterious benefactor and the Dalek entering the room to the Doctor’s dismay), Dalek Invasion of Earth and Day of the Daleks but it never really seems forced. This is more of a celebration through story than a contrived trip down memory lane.

Despite the Doctor’s insistence that the Daleks are evil, neither Learman nor Osric listen (referencing a similar moment in Power of the Daleks), as the Daleks claim to be scholars. The Daleks and Osric are working together to solve the crisis over the loss of Shakespeare, something that the Doctor finds hard to believe. Nicholas Briggs’ delivery of the line ‘The Daleks venerate Shakespeare’ is both hilarious and kind of chilling, furthering the absurdity of this adventure.

When the Doctor proves too troublesome to remain free, he is placed in a prison cell. Using his brilliant mind, the Doctor is able to deduce how the mirrors work as a method of time travel and reproduces the technique with some ‘odds and ends’ he nicked from the lab. Thus begins a weird chase through various periods of time and space through mirrors that connect like a spider’s web through the fabric of the temporal vortex (possibly an allusion to The Chase).

Time of the Daleks is not generally regarded well by fans and I can see why. It’s almost flippant sense of humor, overly complicated plot (time begins to splinter and heal, producing alternate versions of the truth) and the Doctor himself is at his maddest (Smith take note) as he seems to actually enjoy himself despite the gravity of the situation. He even refuses to take the Temporal Extinction Device seriously as its acronym is TED. However, I really like this one. Whereas the other three installments of this loosely connected plot are very serious and grim, this one is a horse of a different color yet the Daleks retain a certain dignity and do not fall victim to the absurdity (as they no doubt would should BBC Wales attempt something similar).

I was also impressed by the way in which Time of the Daleks touched upon previous stories (such as Invaders from Mars and Seasons of Fear) and also continues the thread of the time paradoxes that seem to be following the Doctor since he saved Charley from the doomed R-101. I have touched on this in my other reviews of the Eighth Doctor adventures, but it is astounding how well Big Finish has woven together this story without jeopardizing the integrity of each tale along the way (Moffat… you’re on notice.)

On a final note, I will never tire of listening to the Daleks on these Big Finish audios. When I first approached this series I thought that just listening to Daleks screech for an hour and a half would be impossible, but vocal master Briggs makes it gripping drama. The Daleks in these stories are also at their most cunning and devilish, a quality that had not been seen since at least the Troughton era. The Daleks in these stories affirm the threat and power that the dreaded pepper pots once had. It’s disheartening as the monsters return to the screen lately has been more groan inducing than exciting. But these stories bring back the experience when viewers were excited to see the Doctor’s most feared enemy return once more. This is aided by the superb and haunting music score and of course the script.

The Eighth Doctor may have only appeared on screen once, but his continued run in these audios is head and shoulders above much of the new program (though I have been told that after Neverland the quality drops considerably… which is why I am reviewing his stories so slowly). If you are unfamiliar with this era, I highly recommend checking it out.

Doctor Who – Time of the Daleks is available from local retailers and can be ordered directly from Big Finish.

Also recommended:

Dr. Who: The Eighth Doctor Collection, Vol. 1

Doctor Who - The Glorious Dead

Blood of the Daleks, Part 1

Doctor Who - Earth and Beyond (three stories read by Paul McGann)