Has this been a good year for Big Finish? This year seems to have seen a high output that ever before. It was major milestone for the company as it celebrated its 10th Birthday in July. This year saw Doctor Who split into 3 part series. This was partly because the Thomas Brewster story was spread over several months which meant the story lost some of its flow. So in 2009 there was going to be three sets of three series and a single release. Also in 2009 there was the continuation of the Companion Chronicles series which saw the third series end in June and the Fourth begin straight away in July. Also after over a year of waiting the Lost Stories began with The Nightmare Fair but I getting ahead of myself. The Eight Doctor and Lucie adventures returned for a third series but it was different from the previous two.
THE MAIN RANGE
JANUARY – MARCH: THE KEY 2 TIME
THE JUDGEMENT OF ISSKAR, THE DESTROYER OF DELIGHTS & THE CHAOS POOL
The first series saw the return of the Key 2 Time. Back in the 1970’s Tom Baker spent 26 episodes looking for the segments only for him to destroy them. This time the Fifth Doctor had the task of looking for them. He didn’t have Peri (who seemed to be frozen in time) but was given a new companion in the form of Amy (played by ex-Hollyoaks star Ciara Janson). The first story was The Judgement of Isskar which was a bit of a mixed bag. The Ice Warriors returned for this one and at the end of it we were finally treated to one of the best cliffhangers that Big Finish have produced for quite a long time. The return of the Black Guardian. David Troughton won a Best Guest Star Award for his portrayal of the Black Guardian. In The Destroyer of Delights we were again treated to a weird story which seemed slightly more structured than the previous story. The final story of the series saw the return of Lalla Ward. Instead of playing Romana like we (ok I) thought she ended up playing Princess Astra like she did back in the Armageddon Factor. The thing about The Chaos Pool was that it was a slightly complicated story that did seem to drag at times. Overall the series wasn’t bad but neither was it anything to write home about.
SERIES AVERAGE RATING: 71%
APRIL – JUNE:
THE MAGIC MOUSETRAP, ENEMY OF THE DALEKS & THE ANGEL OF SCUTARI
The second series saw the Seventh Doctor reunited with Ace and Hex. The first adventure was voted Story of the Year by Toms Tardis Fans. This story saw the return of the Celestial Toymaker, his first appearance in over 40 years. This was a very good story with a great setting and the use of the Toymaker was original and enjoyable. The second story was what I would consider to be story of the year and that was Enemy of the Daleks. This story saw the Doctor and company arrive at a point of time where the Doctor knew that something bad happened there and he had to make sure that it happened. The Daleks were returning because the research being done on this base would have destroyed them. This meant that the Daleks were doing their invade and conquer bit but were just trying to survive. The final story of this series was never going to be as good as the previous two stories but was more of a character piece. Hex has never really had much of a push since he joined the TARDIS back in 2004 and this one allowed him to use abilities and to help. This story was set during the Crimean War and saw the appearance of Florence Nightengale. The side of Hex we saw was one that sneaking about behind the Doctor’s back. Whilst this was a good story it was the weakest in terms of adventure. Overall this series was the best so far and showed that this way of distributing the releases has some merit to it.
SERIES AVERAGE RATING: 81%
JULY: THE COMPANY OF FRIENDS
The only single release story of the main range in 2009 saw the Eighth Doctor return from the Lucie adventures. This story was effectively the 10th Anniversary story and saw four companions that the Eighth Doctor had in different forms. There was Fitz (Matt di Angelo), Izzy (Jemmima Rooper), Bernice (Lisa Bowerman) and Mary Shelley (Julie Cox). Apart from Bernice we never heard any of the other characters before in Big Finish and this story was a superb effort. Each episode was well structured and thoroughly enjoyable.
RATING: 84%
AUGUST – SEPTEMBER: THE CHARLEY TRILOGY
PATIENT ZERO, PAPER CUTS & BLUE FORGOTTEN PLANET
This was the most anticipated series of adventures of the year. We were finally going to see what was going to happen to Charlotte Pollard. The first story saw the second appearance of the Daleks this year. It also saw the return of the Viyrans who first appeared in Mission of the Viyrans back in 2007. This story saw Charley been trapped thanks to a character called Mila who was someone who has been infected with a disease and called Patient Zero. This story was very good from start to finish and the moment that Mila became Charley and there was the possibility that Charley might leave like this was horrific. Then there was Paper Cuts which saw the Draconians make their first appearance in Big Finish. The story wasn’t as good as Patient Zero but was better than I thought and considering it was by Marc Platt actually made a lot of sense. The final story of this trilogy was the story that I rated the highest. Blue Forgotten Planet was well and truly the final story featuring Charley and the explanation as to how the Eighth Doctor doesn’t remember anything that has happened between his sixth incarnation and Charley was explained in a very clever way. Overall this series was as good as it could have been considering it had so much expectation piled on to it. After eight years it was really sad to see the end of Charley.
SERIES AVERAGE RATING: 83%
OCTOBER – DECEMBER: THE STOCKBRIDGE TRILOGY
CASTLE OF FEAR, THE ETERNAL SUMMER & PLAGUE OF THE DALEKS
The final series of 2009 saw the Fifth Doctor get a second series and sees the Doctor return to Stockbridge which was a setting that was used many times in the comic strips in Doctor Who Magazine. The first story was set in the past, the second was in the present and the third was set in the future.
The first story was Castle of Fear which spent the first half of its life in comedy and then became deadly serious in the second half. The story saw the Rutan’s return to the series and set up and interesting link to the 1974 adventure The Time Warrior. Overall it was due to the comedic first half that put me off from enjoying this story. The second story was one that for most of the voting period was the favourite to win the Best Story gong. To be honest I found it very impressive. There was a lot of shifting about times and also things happening again and again. The final story of the year was the third story of 2009 to feature the Daleks and also the fourth in 15 months. This story was set in the future and was a slightly disappointing adventure and let down the Stockbridge Trilogy a little bit. Overall these stories were enjoyable and better than the Key 2 Time at the beginning of the year.
SERIES AVERAGE RATING: 76%
Overall the main range in 2009 has been a superb year. The three story series has been a fantastic success. In fact it’s the best year in terms of average ratings. It’s the best year since 2001 and was nearly 4.5% better than last year. The only stories that were weakest were the Key 2 Time series but on the whole its been a great year in the main range.
Now its time to look at the other ranges that have been released in 2009.
THE LOST STORIES
In November the Lost Stories were released with the Nightmare Fair and in December Mission to Magnus. These two stories were supposed to be the first two stories of the 23rd series back in 1986. Due to the high level of expectation the Nightmare Fair for me fell a bit below expectation and only got 81% whereas Mission to Magnus was a more enjoyable story and was paced at a better level which is why it got slightly better rating of 82%. The rest of the series is due to be released in the first half of 2010.
COMPANION CHRONICLES
SERIES 3
The last five stories of the third series saw Ian Chesterton, Polly, Mike Yates, Jago and Litefoot and also the First Romana tell stories of their adventures with their Doctors. It was the Jago and Litefoot one that was the best received and got 88% which was the second highest rating for this series only behind the brilliant Home Truths which got 90%. The final story was quite impressive, the first Romana tells a story where she is the only person in the story. Normally the actor playing the companion has someone else to act against whereas Mary Tamm was acting solo.
SERIES 4
The fourth series started the following month after Stealers from Saiph was released. The first story of this series saw the first sequel in the Companion Chronicles range. Home Truths was so well received that Sara Kingdom came back in The Drowned World. Also during the course of the first half of the series we had another adventure from Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines), King Peladon (played by David Troughton) told a third Doctor story. Romana II (Lalla Ward) was returning after her only other appearance in the first series. This start to the series was the best that I recall. Hopefully the second half in 2010 carries on this strong start.
EIGHTH DOCTOR AND LUCIE
With their being no TV series to speak of. The clever chaps at Big Finish decided to get the eight episodes they normally do and split each of them into two so we get 16 x 25 minute episodes which were available to download every Saturday.
The stories were all very good with particular notice to be drawn to Hothouse which saw the Krynoids return after their only appearance in the Seeds of Doom (1976). Also Wirrn Dawn saw the Wirrn make their first appearance in audio. Another return was the dreaded (quite literally) Eight Legs. This two part story saw the Eight Truths take over earth only to be foiled by the Doctor.
This third series was certainly different however I think that it didn’t quite have the same impact that I felt the second series had. That said it was the Christmas Special that was the most eagerly awaited release. Death in Blackpool won the Best Spin-Off award. This story saw the departure of Lucie. Lucie was the audio version of Rose Tyler but was more manageable. Her departure was very emotional and was the best ending for the companion.
AN EARTHLY CHILD
The subscribers special saw the return of Susan Foreman to a proper adventure (previously she was in Here There Be Monsters in 2008). The Eighth Doctor was the one that met his granddaughter some 30 years after the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It wasn’t about the plot but more about the emotional reunion between the Doctor and Susan. For anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the main range will have to wait until December 2010 before they can buy it and they will be in for a treat.
December saw the release of the second Cyberman series. I haven’t actually listened to this so this will probably be part of the 2010 review.
2009 has as mentioned been a fantastic year for all the different areas of Doctor Who. I have spent a small fortune buying the different series and I have to say that at no point during the course of the year have I regretted buying anything.
2010 has a lot to live up to!!!
Monday, January 04, 2010
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The Tomfiles: #7 - The Rebirth of the Sixth Doctor - Part 2
In the second part of this Tomfile, we look at the latter half of Colin Baker’s time in the Big Finish world. Exploring stories from Pier Pressure to the more recent Raincloud Man. But first there are the specials to look at.
There have been various special stories that have had no real relation to the main range. One such story is The Ultimate Adventure. This story as I mentioned in the last Tomfile was a stage play that Colin Baker starred in back in 1989. In 2008, Big Finish bought three stage plays back and asked Colin to reprise his Doctor for this musical-fest story. It had a different feel to it that most stories that Baker has been in and what surprised me was how good it would be. It was already shown in the 2003 story Doctor Who and the Pirates that musicals in Doctor Who can work but as there was some history behind this story that most people weren’t aware of then it might not have been successful. Colin was as you would expect and seemed to revel in this new feel Doctor Who story. Another special was The Maltese Penguin which was given away to Subscribers of Neverland. It is unique because it has the release number 33 ½ which hasn’t been done since. Released in November 2002 this story isn’t one that I would recommend to new Doctor Who fans. It took me a few attempts to get through it but once I kept at it then I grew to like it. I listened to this before The Holy Terror so I didn’t know who Frobisher was and at the time found him totally annoying and the thought of an American Penguin totally bored me. Listening to it recently I can appreciate what a good story it was and how good Colin’s Doctor was. The next special was Real Time which was first released on the BBC’s Website. This story had Cybermen and Evelyn in it and due to the fact that the episodes are quite short it tightens up the action and makes it a thoroughly enjoyable piece. The next special was Her Final Flight which wasn’t a particularly good story. I think because it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. Set after the events of Peri leaving in The Trial of a Timelord this story just didn’t work for me and it left Colin Baker’s Doctor not coming out of it particularly well. Again like The Maltese Penguin this isn’t one for new fans to listen to straight away but unlike The Maltese Penguin Her Final Flight doesn’t improve with further listening. Colin Baker racks up the specials with Crptobiosis which saw the Doctor and Peri on a ship so its that classic stuck with no means of outside help. I quite liked it, I mean it wasn’t the best story it could have been but it was ok. I remember at the time it was released to Subscribers in December 2005 reviewers weren’t exactly kind to it which was unfair because the writer Elliot Thorpe did a good job and the Doctor and Peri really seemed to work well together. The Sixth Doctor made an appearance in a series of Excelis Specials. The Sixth Doctor appeared in Excelis Rising written by David A.McIntee. I cant remember much about this story but the whole Excelis stories were quite good and I though that Baker’s was the best because his Doctor seemed more at home with this particular time of story. The final special (at the moment) was Return of the Krotons which was released to subscribers in December 2008 with The Raincloud Man. You had to listen to Return of the Krotons first really but I always wondered why they bothered to bring back a monster that wasn’t that popular when it made its one and only appearance back 40 years ago. However the story offered something different to the story and along with Colin’s Doctor - that seemed quite strong and effectively used in this story – and Philip Madoc this story was the best of the special subscriber releases.
Back to the regular releases. In the last Tomfile we had arrived at the end of 2005. The beginning of 2006 saw Pier Pressure which was written by Robert Ross who had written Medicinal Purposes. This was another enjoyable story that whilst it wasn’t on par with Ross’s previous offering, it had enough different elements to keep make it a good story. The Doctor was written in a strong way and was controlling throughout. What was enjoyable about this story was the setting. I always think that a setting is vital to a stories success because it creates an atmosphere in the listeners mind. It was in the next story that I thought the Sixth Doctor really stood out amongst the other Doctors. The Nowhere Place was one story that whilst I was listening to I was enthralled and couldn’t wait for the next episode. This story was split into many different scenes like on a spaceship and then on a train which could only work on Doctor Who. Yet again Colin Baker really played the Doctor with a wonderful charm and also Maggie Stables put in her best performance at that point which might sound like a back handed compliment but she always puts in a solid performance and to get it to the standard that it was in this story shows what a great actress she is.
The next story that featured the Sixth Doctor would have been the Toms Tardis Story of the Year 2006 if the site had been around. The Reaping was the first of two stories written by Joseph Lidster which featured the Cybermen. In this story we see Peri go back to her roots and goes back to see her mother just a few months after she left them in Planet of Fire. The Cybermen element helped make this story. The Doctor that we see at the beginning of this story is one that shows the biggest gap between the Timelord and his companions when Peri wants to get back home and when they do arrive on Earth the Doctor doesn’t take long to go off on her own and leaves the Doctor to solve what’s going on. Like The Nowhere Place this was an entertaining piece but for the first time, the Doctor took a back seat and The Reaping gave some back story to Peri which wasn’t really known about her. Colin Baker opened the year and ended the year with Year of the Pig. On my first listen I wasn’t really a big fan because it just seemed to take too long to get going. However when I listened to it again I really enjoyed it, it was a different type of story to what we would associate with the Sixth Doctor but enjoyable none the less and two Peri stories in quick succession. The Doctor was used more in this story but it wasn’t one that would go into the Top 10 Doctor Who stories.
2007 saw a big change for Big Finish. Gary Russell stood down as Executive Producer of the Doctor Who range to go and work for BBC Wales. Nicholas Briggs took over and during 2007 the format of stories changed. Instead of twelve four part releases there would be a certain number of stories that would be three parts and then a single part. Colin Baker was the first Doctor to undergo this new format. I.D. & Urgent Calls. This was the first time since Davros in 2003 that the Doctor was without a companion. The I.D part of the release saw the Doctor get involved with scavengers and has to investigate the death of one of the researchers. It was nice to see the Doctor not have the restrictions of a companion. Don’t get me wrong because Companions help drive a story and add a human aspect to a story but from time to time its nice for the Doctor be on his own. The story itself was an ok attempt. The thing that I noticed was how tight the story seemed to be, in four parts you would have to have a certain amount of padding which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Three parts just doesn’t allow for any waste. The single part story was what was classed as a Virus Strand and saw the Doctor have phone conversations with a woman. The story was again ok but it doesn’t really have much of a point and by the end of it I just thought that the single part stories were not going to go well. A few months later saw The Wishing Beast & The Vanity Box. What was so special about this was that it saw Jean Marsh return to Doctor Who. Marsh made three Doctor Who performances in The Crusade, The Daleks Masterplan (both 1965/66) and in Battlefield (1989). The Wishing Beast was the three part story and was not a particularly good story in my opinion, it just didn’t really stand out to me and that was disappointing because that meant that the Doctor wasn’t able to show what he can do. It was the single part story that was the strongest. It had an enjoyable pace and plot to it which saw the Doctor finally get some good scenes.
In September 2007, Big Finish celebrated it’s 100th release and to celebrate this fact they decided to have four single part stories all related to the number 100. When I listened to this story I wasn’t impressed. I had made up my mind that the single part stories just weren’t working for me. I didn’t think that you could tell a strong enough story in 25 minutes and out of the four parts in was the last one that was the best. It was called The 100 Days of the Doctor written by Paul Cornell which sees the Doctor trying to find a cure before he dies in 100 Days. It saw the Doctor meet various times in his Big Finish timeline.
2008 saw the biggest change to the Sixth Doctor in Big Finish. February saw the 6th Doctor encounter a companion from his future. The Condemned saw Colin Bakers Doctor have to try and work out with what is going on with someone who seems to be hiding something. This story arc is still on going as I write this in January 2009 and there is no end in sight but that was the B plot to this story the main story was set in a block of flats which was hiding a dark secret. Colin Baker was again on fine form in both plots. Baker’s relationship with India Fisher even in this first story holds great promise, in these mysterious times of the relationship it seems that the Doctor is going to have more to deal with than he has with Evelyn, Peri or even Mel. For me this was the story of the year due to the fact that it met my expectations (which can get a bit high), unfortunately when I opened the voting up for the Toms Tardis Awards the best story gong went to The Haunting of Thomas Brewster but Eddie Robson did pick up the Best Writer award which was for this story. What was nice was that Big Finish did conclude the mystery of Charley when the Condemned concluded. It could have been a cop-out in my opinion and was glad (if not slightly frustrated) that it continued. Another story that I had high hopes for was Assassin in the Limelight, this story was written again by Robert Ross and saw the return of Leslie Philips as Robert Knox. This story was set during the time of the Assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln. This saw the return of Evelyn and unfortunately it was a poor story. From the annoying American accents to the confusing plot I just found it a real disappointment considering how good and in the case of Medicinal Purposes was brilliant. It was back to business with The Doomwood Curse written by Jacqueline Rayner. This story was a fun tale of literature going bad with India Fisher putting in a sublime performance as Charley. The Doctor isn’t idle in this story but seems to take a slight backseat so that Charley can show use what she can do with this new lease of life for her character.
The next story was perhaps the most difficult story that I have ever listened to. I must have tried to listen to Brotherhood of the Daleks seven times and don’t understand it. So I am not going to try and describe it to you but basically the only thing that stood out for me again was the Doctor and Charley. This is the third story to feature this pair and despite the weird plot it enabled them to have enough memorable scenes where at one point we think that Charley is going to tell us the truth. However we don’t find out and her secret is safe… for now!. The final story to feature the Sixth Doctor was The Raincloud Man which saw the Doctor and Charley reunite with DI Menzies from The Condemned. This wasn’t as good as the first story but that was always going to be difficult so they tried something different and what I liked was the Doctor. His willingness to sacrifice his life for the sake of humanity was something that has not really been felt in too many Doctor Who stories as of late and it was nice to hear this. The game of Top Trumps was a nice funny moment that helped the story. The next Colin Baker story wont be until at least the summer of 2009.
As I have mentioned I think that Colin Baker’s Doctor has undergone the biggest resurrection out of the four. The stories are always that little bit better because Mr. Baker is doing them. If only he had had the same quality of scripts (and a different jacket) then he might have had a longer time as the Doctor, the show might have gone on longer and most importantly he would regularly be competing for that Top Doctor award that gets created every couple of months by varying websites. The storyline with the Doctor and Charley will probably be concluded this year if not in the early part of 2010. Big Finish have to time this right because failure to end it effectively will damage the company, damage the series but perhaps undo the fine work that has been done in showing us what a great Doctor he is.
There have been various special stories that have had no real relation to the main range. One such story is The Ultimate Adventure. This story as I mentioned in the last Tomfile was a stage play that Colin Baker starred in back in 1989. In 2008, Big Finish bought three stage plays back and asked Colin to reprise his Doctor for this musical-fest story. It had a different feel to it that most stories that Baker has been in and what surprised me was how good it would be. It was already shown in the 2003 story Doctor Who and the Pirates that musicals in Doctor Who can work but as there was some history behind this story that most people weren’t aware of then it might not have been successful. Colin was as you would expect and seemed to revel in this new feel Doctor Who story. Another special was The Maltese Penguin which was given away to Subscribers of Neverland. It is unique because it has the release number 33 ½ which hasn’t been done since. Released in November 2002 this story isn’t one that I would recommend to new Doctor Who fans. It took me a few attempts to get through it but once I kept at it then I grew to like it. I listened to this before The Holy Terror so I didn’t know who Frobisher was and at the time found him totally annoying and the thought of an American Penguin totally bored me. Listening to it recently I can appreciate what a good story it was and how good Colin’s Doctor was. The next special was Real Time which was first released on the BBC’s Website. This story had Cybermen and Evelyn in it and due to the fact that the episodes are quite short it tightens up the action and makes it a thoroughly enjoyable piece. The next special was Her Final Flight which wasn’t a particularly good story. I think because it didn’t quite know what it wanted to be. Set after the events of Peri leaving in The Trial of a Timelord this story just didn’t work for me and it left Colin Baker’s Doctor not coming out of it particularly well. Again like The Maltese Penguin this isn’t one for new fans to listen to straight away but unlike The Maltese Penguin Her Final Flight doesn’t improve with further listening. Colin Baker racks up the specials with Crptobiosis which saw the Doctor and Peri on a ship so its that classic stuck with no means of outside help. I quite liked it, I mean it wasn’t the best story it could have been but it was ok. I remember at the time it was released to Subscribers in December 2005 reviewers weren’t exactly kind to it which was unfair because the writer Elliot Thorpe did a good job and the Doctor and Peri really seemed to work well together. The Sixth Doctor made an appearance in a series of Excelis Specials. The Sixth Doctor appeared in Excelis Rising written by David A.McIntee. I cant remember much about this story but the whole Excelis stories were quite good and I though that Baker’s was the best because his Doctor seemed more at home with this particular time of story. The final special (at the moment) was Return of the Krotons which was released to subscribers in December 2008 with The Raincloud Man. You had to listen to Return of the Krotons first really but I always wondered why they bothered to bring back a monster that wasn’t that popular when it made its one and only appearance back 40 years ago. However the story offered something different to the story and along with Colin’s Doctor - that seemed quite strong and effectively used in this story – and Philip Madoc this story was the best of the special subscriber releases.
Back to the regular releases. In the last Tomfile we had arrived at the end of 2005. The beginning of 2006 saw Pier Pressure which was written by Robert Ross who had written Medicinal Purposes. This was another enjoyable story that whilst it wasn’t on par with Ross’s previous offering, it had enough different elements to keep make it a good story. The Doctor was written in a strong way and was controlling throughout. What was enjoyable about this story was the setting. I always think that a setting is vital to a stories success because it creates an atmosphere in the listeners mind. It was in the next story that I thought the Sixth Doctor really stood out amongst the other Doctors. The Nowhere Place was one story that whilst I was listening to I was enthralled and couldn’t wait for the next episode. This story was split into many different scenes like on a spaceship and then on a train which could only work on Doctor Who. Yet again Colin Baker really played the Doctor with a wonderful charm and also Maggie Stables put in her best performance at that point which might sound like a back handed compliment but she always puts in a solid performance and to get it to the standard that it was in this story shows what a great actress she is.
The next story that featured the Sixth Doctor would have been the Toms Tardis Story of the Year 2006 if the site had been around. The Reaping was the first of two stories written by Joseph Lidster which featured the Cybermen. In this story we see Peri go back to her roots and goes back to see her mother just a few months after she left them in Planet of Fire. The Cybermen element helped make this story. The Doctor that we see at the beginning of this story is one that shows the biggest gap between the Timelord and his companions when Peri wants to get back home and when they do arrive on Earth the Doctor doesn’t take long to go off on her own and leaves the Doctor to solve what’s going on. Like The Nowhere Place this was an entertaining piece but for the first time, the Doctor took a back seat and The Reaping gave some back story to Peri which wasn’t really known about her. Colin Baker opened the year and ended the year with Year of the Pig. On my first listen I wasn’t really a big fan because it just seemed to take too long to get going. However when I listened to it again I really enjoyed it, it was a different type of story to what we would associate with the Sixth Doctor but enjoyable none the less and two Peri stories in quick succession. The Doctor was used more in this story but it wasn’t one that would go into the Top 10 Doctor Who stories.
2007 saw a big change for Big Finish. Gary Russell stood down as Executive Producer of the Doctor Who range to go and work for BBC Wales. Nicholas Briggs took over and during 2007 the format of stories changed. Instead of twelve four part releases there would be a certain number of stories that would be three parts and then a single part. Colin Baker was the first Doctor to undergo this new format. I.D. & Urgent Calls. This was the first time since Davros in 2003 that the Doctor was without a companion. The I.D part of the release saw the Doctor get involved with scavengers and has to investigate the death of one of the researchers. It was nice to see the Doctor not have the restrictions of a companion. Don’t get me wrong because Companions help drive a story and add a human aspect to a story but from time to time its nice for the Doctor be on his own. The story itself was an ok attempt. The thing that I noticed was how tight the story seemed to be, in four parts you would have to have a certain amount of padding which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Three parts just doesn’t allow for any waste. The single part story was what was classed as a Virus Strand and saw the Doctor have phone conversations with a woman. The story was again ok but it doesn’t really have much of a point and by the end of it I just thought that the single part stories were not going to go well. A few months later saw The Wishing Beast & The Vanity Box. What was so special about this was that it saw Jean Marsh return to Doctor Who. Marsh made three Doctor Who performances in The Crusade, The Daleks Masterplan (both 1965/66) and in Battlefield (1989). The Wishing Beast was the three part story and was not a particularly good story in my opinion, it just didn’t really stand out to me and that was disappointing because that meant that the Doctor wasn’t able to show what he can do. It was the single part story that was the strongest. It had an enjoyable pace and plot to it which saw the Doctor finally get some good scenes.
In September 2007, Big Finish celebrated it’s 100th release and to celebrate this fact they decided to have four single part stories all related to the number 100. When I listened to this story I wasn’t impressed. I had made up my mind that the single part stories just weren’t working for me. I didn’t think that you could tell a strong enough story in 25 minutes and out of the four parts in was the last one that was the best. It was called The 100 Days of the Doctor written by Paul Cornell which sees the Doctor trying to find a cure before he dies in 100 Days. It saw the Doctor meet various times in his Big Finish timeline.
2008 saw the biggest change to the Sixth Doctor in Big Finish. February saw the 6th Doctor encounter a companion from his future. The Condemned saw Colin Bakers Doctor have to try and work out with what is going on with someone who seems to be hiding something. This story arc is still on going as I write this in January 2009 and there is no end in sight but that was the B plot to this story the main story was set in a block of flats which was hiding a dark secret. Colin Baker was again on fine form in both plots. Baker’s relationship with India Fisher even in this first story holds great promise, in these mysterious times of the relationship it seems that the Doctor is going to have more to deal with than he has with Evelyn, Peri or even Mel. For me this was the story of the year due to the fact that it met my expectations (which can get a bit high), unfortunately when I opened the voting up for the Toms Tardis Awards the best story gong went to The Haunting of Thomas Brewster but Eddie Robson did pick up the Best Writer award which was for this story. What was nice was that Big Finish did conclude the mystery of Charley when the Condemned concluded. It could have been a cop-out in my opinion and was glad (if not slightly frustrated) that it continued. Another story that I had high hopes for was Assassin in the Limelight, this story was written again by Robert Ross and saw the return of Leslie Philips as Robert Knox. This story was set during the time of the Assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln. This saw the return of Evelyn and unfortunately it was a poor story. From the annoying American accents to the confusing plot I just found it a real disappointment considering how good and in the case of Medicinal Purposes was brilliant. It was back to business with The Doomwood Curse written by Jacqueline Rayner. This story was a fun tale of literature going bad with India Fisher putting in a sublime performance as Charley. The Doctor isn’t idle in this story but seems to take a slight backseat so that Charley can show use what she can do with this new lease of life for her character.
The next story was perhaps the most difficult story that I have ever listened to. I must have tried to listen to Brotherhood of the Daleks seven times and don’t understand it. So I am not going to try and describe it to you but basically the only thing that stood out for me again was the Doctor and Charley. This is the third story to feature this pair and despite the weird plot it enabled them to have enough memorable scenes where at one point we think that Charley is going to tell us the truth. However we don’t find out and her secret is safe… for now!. The final story to feature the Sixth Doctor was The Raincloud Man which saw the Doctor and Charley reunite with DI Menzies from The Condemned. This wasn’t as good as the first story but that was always going to be difficult so they tried something different and what I liked was the Doctor. His willingness to sacrifice his life for the sake of humanity was something that has not really been felt in too many Doctor Who stories as of late and it was nice to hear this. The game of Top Trumps was a nice funny moment that helped the story. The next Colin Baker story wont be until at least the summer of 2009.
As I have mentioned I think that Colin Baker’s Doctor has undergone the biggest resurrection out of the four. The stories are always that little bit better because Mr. Baker is doing them. If only he had had the same quality of scripts (and a different jacket) then he might have had a longer time as the Doctor, the show might have gone on longer and most importantly he would regularly be competing for that Top Doctor award that gets created every couple of months by varying websites. The storyline with the Doctor and Charley will probably be concluded this year if not in the early part of 2010. Big Finish have to time this right because failure to end it effectively will damage the company, damage the series but perhaps undo the fine work that has been done in showing us what a great Doctor he is.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The Tomfiles: #6 - The Rebirth of the Sixth Doctor - Part 1
In the first of a two-part Tomfile, I take a look at Colin Baker’s time as the Doctor both on screen and on audio and see what has happened to the Sixth incarnation of Britain’s most loved alien.
Colin Baker made his first appearance in Doctor Who in the 1983 Peter Davison story Arc of Infinity. He then appeared as the Sixth actor to play the TV Doctor on March 16th 1984. Over the course of the next two years the show would suffer due to lack of support from BBC management. After the show was cancelled in 1989 many fans seemed unsympathetic towards Colin Baker’s Doctor. However since 1999 the Sixth incarnation has undergone some what of a re-evaluation and is now considered one of the best Doctors in the Big Finish range.
During his time as the Doctor on television it wasn’t so much Colin Baker himself that was the problem, it was just the wrong time for him. The BBC was being run by people who cared more about their reputation and what people thought of them than providing programming that the licence paying public would want to see. The budget for the show in 1984 was the same roughly as in 1963 and there seemed no desire to increase it to produce better production values and a more attractive programme. By the time Colin Baker had become the Doctor for his first full season in 1985, the show had returned to its traditional Saturday tea time slot. Except this time the show would be 45 minutes long and run for half the time it had done before. The main problem with the show at the time was the critics were out to get the show and would use anything to form an argument no matter how feeble it was. For example, it was accused that the Doctor pushes two guards into a tub of acid when if you actually watch it you will see that one guard falls into it and pulls the other one in. The only bad thing that could be said was the line that the Doctor uses and that it “You’ll wont mind if I don’t join you!”. Also strangling your companion is a pretty bad thing to do at 6pm on a Saturday night. I suppose it’s a sensible thing to say that making the Doctor different from previous incarnations was a pretty smart thing to do to try and breathe new life into a show which at that point had been running for 22 years. But I think they went to far with the outfit. The ‘outfit’ was out of date back then and is still out of date and it’s the one of the few things that you could get embarrassed about.
Colin Baker only had 31 TV Episodes to his name and 14 of them were in the mixed story ‘The Trial of a Timelord’. But despite that short run he did have some good stories. For example The Mark of the Rani is well worth a look. It sees the return of the Master following his firey ending at the end of Planet of Fire. It also sees the introduction of the Rani as played by Kate O’Mara. What is so good about this story is the location filming, it is some of the best in Doctor Who. Then there is the Two Doctors. Forget the pointless reason for filming the location footage in Spain or the point for bringing Patrick Troughton back at all. It was alright when the show was celebrating the 20th Anniversary but two years later it seemed rather a mute point. But to see a truly wonderful Colin Baker story then look no further than Revelation of the Daleks which saw Davros and had everything in the story and that is why it is one of the better Dalek stories of the 1980’s. Following the return of Doctor Who in 1986, Colin Baker was axed from the role in payment for the return of the show in 1987. To me his treatment was disgusting. I can understand why he decided not to do the regeneration sequence but what they did to make up for that was a joke. It would be over 20 years before the glimmer of the 6th Doctor would shine. Colin Baker made a few appearances as the Doctor like in 1989 when he starred in the Stage play The Ultimate Adventure and in 1993 to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Doctor Who he return to appear in a bizarre Children in Need special.
On March 6th and 7th 1999, Colin Baker joined Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy in recording the first official audio adventure for Doctor Who. The Sirens of Time wasn’t that bad but compared to today’s standards its quite poor. It wasn’t until the third story Whispers of Terror that Colin Baker got his own adventure for the first time in 23 years. In this story the Doctor is reunited with Nicola Bryant as Peri. This story like The Sirens of Time wasn’t anything special. Colin Baker’s third story was The Marian Conspiracy which is an important milestone because it was the first companion to created specially for audio. Dr. Evelyn Smythe had never been seen or mentioned in TV Doctor Who and so we were able to know her story from the beginning. For those of us who weren’t really watching Doctor Who when it was on originally this is the first companion that we have seen from the beginning. I really liked this story and it wasn’t really the plot that I liked. It was the relationship between the Doctor and Evelyn that made this so memorable. The opening seen really set it up for me, Smythe trying to do her job and the Doctor interrupting to try and satisfy his curiosity. As the story progresses it just gets better and better and shows what potential this partnership has. The next adventure was the Spectre of Lanyon Moor. this story was special because it had the Brigadier in it but the story was another good one. The story was a really good one for the Doctor and started to show what he could do.
The Apocalypse Element was another solid story and it saw the return of Lalla Ward as Romana. The next story it also featured the Daleks and in my opinion was better than the previous story the Daleks appeared in which was The Genocide Machine. Evelyn Smythe took a rest in the next story which was The Holy Terror and featured Frobisher who had only appeared in other Doctor Who media. I didn’t listen to this when it was released and it was one of the last ones that I did and I actually liked it. It was a gentle and nice story which wasn’t really meant to be taken seriously and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. I don’t think he should be a full-time companion because I think the American Penguin character might get a bit to annoying after a few adventures. He should come back for the odd adventure maybe every 18 months or so. The next story wouldn’t be until the summer of 2001 due to the first series of Paul McGann adventures. This was Bloodtide which was the best so far for Colin Baker. He was superb as well as Maggie Stables and also the return of the Silurians was another bonus point. Baker’s next story immediately followed Bloodtide and it was even better which I thought would be impossible. Project: Twilight was a vampire tale set on Earth, what this story showed was that with a nice strong story Colin Baker can show what sort of Doctor he can be and even considering the early ones Colin Baker has had more impressive stories than he ever did on TV. The final story of 2001 was a comedy and it was a much more obvious one than The Holy Terror. This story was called The One Doctor and it saw the Doctor reunited with Mel for the first time on audio. It was a really good story and was a fitting end to a quality year for the Sixth Doctor.
The start of 2002 was given over to Paul McGann’s second series of adventures, building on the success on the first season. As a result, Colin Baker only had two adventures that year and neither of them were particularly memorable. The first was …ish which was a wordy story in more ways than one. It featured Peri as the companion whereas I think Evelyn would have suited this story much better as her character is a teacher. The next story was The Sandman which saw the return of Anneke Wills to the series. Wills played Polly between 1966 and 1967 overseeing the change of William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton. The story was a really hard one to get through and I think that Baker suffered because of that. You have to give Big Finish credit for trying this sort of story but it just didn’t work. So as a result of these stories 2002 was a disappointment when you compare it to the previous year. I think if there had been more CB stories then it might have been a better year for him. The use of the wrong companions for the wrong stories also didn’t help the stories.
2003 was a very good year for the Sixth Doctor. The first story of the year was Jubilee which is what the 2005 Christopher Eccleston story Dalek is based on. This story saw the return of the Daleks following their so-so story The Time of the Daleks. This was another superb story which allowed Colin Baker to shine. Any opportunity that a Doctor has to battle the Daleks or a famous monster then they run with it and this one was no different. A short while later saw Doctor Who go all musical in Doctor Who and the Pirates. With any other Doctor then this story would have flopped badly but with Colin Baker in the main role it became a glorious and fun filled adventure. The addition of Bill Oddie also added to the enjoyment. The next story in the 6th Doctor range was Project: Lazarus which is a truly superb story that is better than Twilight which I thought was not possible. The story was perhaps one of the darkest and most gruesome stories that I have ever known in Doctor Who. This story also featured two Doctors which is obviously something that shouldn’t happen very often and when it does then something special or different should happen. In this case the 6th Doctor had been cloned and it was the Seventh Doctor that had to save the day. What I liked most about this story was Colin Baker’s performance. It was unlike any performance of this character that we had seen for quite sometime and at times it was quite off-putting because we are not use to seeing him that way. McCoy was also good in this story and his Doctor served the story well.
In the run up to celebrate Doctor Who’s 40th Anniversary and Big Finish’s 50th release. Three adventures were commissioned with the 5ht, 6th and 7th Doctors all facing foes from the Doctors past. For the sixth Doctor it was Davros in Davros. This story was the best of the trio and what absolutely fantastic because it gave Colin Baker and Terry Molloy (Davros) the chance to have so good dialogue together. Also Wendy Padbury is in it as Lorraine Baines who with Bernard Horsefeld playing her husband played the typical characters of thinking they could control Davros when in fact they couldn’t. Colin Baker made a guest appearance in Zagreus but the following month saw The Wormery. This is not only the worst 6th Doctor story but it is one of the worst Big Finish stories to date. Despite the fact that it had Katy Manning (Jo Grant) in it the story was confusing and didn’t interest me in the slightest. Not very often that I give a story 1/5 but this one was an easy decision. After three years of Doctor Who stories featuring the Four Doctors who were aliving and willing to do these stories it was the Sixth Doctor that had developed the best. He still sounded like the Doctor and Colin Baker put in the same passionate performance that he always did on TV and with the right scripts it was possible to see what Baker could have been like if he was given the chance.
As 2003 rolled into 2004 we were treated to what would be Evelyn Smythe’s last adventure in terms of chronology (because us Doctor Who fans love to put stories into order). Arrangements for War was a fitting story for Evelyn but the story helped expose how different the Doctor and Evelyn are as characters despite how well they have bonded. Following the events that occurred in Project: Lazarus it was obvious that this story would see Smythe change it some way. I wont say it was one of my Top 5 but it is an ok story that works well and Colin Baker yet again puts in another fine story. Medicinal Purposes was the next story and this is one of the stories that would go into my Top 5. I love when Doctor Who does historical and in this one it was in a period of history that I remember vividly from school. Burke and Hare were two Grave Robbers who stole dead bodies for people to do medical research on. What Big Finish did that was clever was insert the Doctor and Evelyn into it. This was a good story because it gave the Doctor a good opponent to try and work against. Not Burke or Hare but Dr Robert Knox who we thought at the time was another Timelord because he had a TARDIS but he in fact wasn’t from Gallifrey and he had won the TARDIS in a game of cards. Knox was played by Carry On legend Leslie Philips. Philips was absolutely superb and was a fitting opposition to Colin Baker. Another note of interest was David Tennant who played Daft Jamie. This story was good because it gave Colin a chance to do all sorts of emotions ranging from anger to sympathy. Hi s relationship with Daft Jamie was a poignant one and what made it even sadder was that the Doctor knew of Daft Jamie’s impending death because its in proper history.
The next story was The Juggernauts. This was with Bonnie Langford and saw Mel separated from the Doctor. This story was another strong script that enabled Colin Baker to not only develop a better relationship with Bonnie Langford’s Mel character but to also have some very good scenes and dialogue with Terry Molloy’s Davros. The story also sees the return of the Mechanoids. Their only appearance was in the 1965 William Hartnell adventure The Chase. The next story for the Sixth Doctor was Catch 1782. This was similar to the Juggernauts in that the Doctor and Mel become separated. Where Catch was different was in that the Doctor took more of a back seat in this one as Mel tried to regain her memory whilst the Doctor tries to find her. Its an interesting piece that works because the stories doesn’t feature aliens trying to slaughter another race of aliens or someone trying to invade but just a simple rescue mission that takes on an emotional twist. The next story that features the Sixth Doctor is Thicker Than Water and is a sequel to Arrangements for War. This features both Bonnie Langford and Evelyn Smythe. This isn’t a story that I remember well and it doesn’t really have anything to do with the acting it is just that the story doesn’t really reward the listener with anything in my honest opinion. 2005 was on the whole a very good year for the Sixth Doctor. For me the best story for Colin Baker was The Juggernauts though Catch 1782 comes a close second.. This year was another solid display from Colin Baker and he continues to be able to change peoples attitude towards his Doctor.
In the second part, we look at the Sixth Doctor adventures from 2006 to 2008 and also the special adventures Real Time, Her Final Flight and Cryptobiosis.
Colin Baker made his first appearance in Doctor Who in the 1983 Peter Davison story Arc of Infinity. He then appeared as the Sixth actor to play the TV Doctor on March 16th 1984. Over the course of the next two years the show would suffer due to lack of support from BBC management. After the show was cancelled in 1989 many fans seemed unsympathetic towards Colin Baker’s Doctor. However since 1999 the Sixth incarnation has undergone some what of a re-evaluation and is now considered one of the best Doctors in the Big Finish range.
During his time as the Doctor on television it wasn’t so much Colin Baker himself that was the problem, it was just the wrong time for him. The BBC was being run by people who cared more about their reputation and what people thought of them than providing programming that the licence paying public would want to see. The budget for the show in 1984 was the same roughly as in 1963 and there seemed no desire to increase it to produce better production values and a more attractive programme. By the time Colin Baker had become the Doctor for his first full season in 1985, the show had returned to its traditional Saturday tea time slot. Except this time the show would be 45 minutes long and run for half the time it had done before. The main problem with the show at the time was the critics were out to get the show and would use anything to form an argument no matter how feeble it was. For example, it was accused that the Doctor pushes two guards into a tub of acid when if you actually watch it you will see that one guard falls into it and pulls the other one in. The only bad thing that could be said was the line that the Doctor uses and that it “You’ll wont mind if I don’t join you!”. Also strangling your companion is a pretty bad thing to do at 6pm on a Saturday night. I suppose it’s a sensible thing to say that making the Doctor different from previous incarnations was a pretty smart thing to do to try and breathe new life into a show which at that point had been running for 22 years. But I think they went to far with the outfit. The ‘outfit’ was out of date back then and is still out of date and it’s the one of the few things that you could get embarrassed about.
Colin Baker only had 31 TV Episodes to his name and 14 of them were in the mixed story ‘The Trial of a Timelord’. But despite that short run he did have some good stories. For example The Mark of the Rani is well worth a look. It sees the return of the Master following his firey ending at the end of Planet of Fire. It also sees the introduction of the Rani as played by Kate O’Mara. What is so good about this story is the location filming, it is some of the best in Doctor Who. Then there is the Two Doctors. Forget the pointless reason for filming the location footage in Spain or the point for bringing Patrick Troughton back at all. It was alright when the show was celebrating the 20th Anniversary but two years later it seemed rather a mute point. But to see a truly wonderful Colin Baker story then look no further than Revelation of the Daleks which saw Davros and had everything in the story and that is why it is one of the better Dalek stories of the 1980’s. Following the return of Doctor Who in 1986, Colin Baker was axed from the role in payment for the return of the show in 1987. To me his treatment was disgusting. I can understand why he decided not to do the regeneration sequence but what they did to make up for that was a joke. It would be over 20 years before the glimmer of the 6th Doctor would shine. Colin Baker made a few appearances as the Doctor like in 1989 when he starred in the Stage play The Ultimate Adventure and in 1993 to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Doctor Who he return to appear in a bizarre Children in Need special.
On March 6th and 7th 1999, Colin Baker joined Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy in recording the first official audio adventure for Doctor Who. The Sirens of Time wasn’t that bad but compared to today’s standards its quite poor. It wasn’t until the third story Whispers of Terror that Colin Baker got his own adventure for the first time in 23 years. In this story the Doctor is reunited with Nicola Bryant as Peri. This story like The Sirens of Time wasn’t anything special. Colin Baker’s third story was The Marian Conspiracy which is an important milestone because it was the first companion to created specially for audio. Dr. Evelyn Smythe had never been seen or mentioned in TV Doctor Who and so we were able to know her story from the beginning. For those of us who weren’t really watching Doctor Who when it was on originally this is the first companion that we have seen from the beginning. I really liked this story and it wasn’t really the plot that I liked. It was the relationship between the Doctor and Evelyn that made this so memorable. The opening seen really set it up for me, Smythe trying to do her job and the Doctor interrupting to try and satisfy his curiosity. As the story progresses it just gets better and better and shows what potential this partnership has. The next adventure was the Spectre of Lanyon Moor. this story was special because it had the Brigadier in it but the story was another good one. The story was a really good one for the Doctor and started to show what he could do.
The Apocalypse Element was another solid story and it saw the return of Lalla Ward as Romana. The next story it also featured the Daleks and in my opinion was better than the previous story the Daleks appeared in which was The Genocide Machine. Evelyn Smythe took a rest in the next story which was The Holy Terror and featured Frobisher who had only appeared in other Doctor Who media. I didn’t listen to this when it was released and it was one of the last ones that I did and I actually liked it. It was a gentle and nice story which wasn’t really meant to be taken seriously and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. I don’t think he should be a full-time companion because I think the American Penguin character might get a bit to annoying after a few adventures. He should come back for the odd adventure maybe every 18 months or so. The next story wouldn’t be until the summer of 2001 due to the first series of Paul McGann adventures. This was Bloodtide which was the best so far for Colin Baker. He was superb as well as Maggie Stables and also the return of the Silurians was another bonus point. Baker’s next story immediately followed Bloodtide and it was even better which I thought would be impossible. Project: Twilight was a vampire tale set on Earth, what this story showed was that with a nice strong story Colin Baker can show what sort of Doctor he can be and even considering the early ones Colin Baker has had more impressive stories than he ever did on TV. The final story of 2001 was a comedy and it was a much more obvious one than The Holy Terror. This story was called The One Doctor and it saw the Doctor reunited with Mel for the first time on audio. It was a really good story and was a fitting end to a quality year for the Sixth Doctor.
The start of 2002 was given over to Paul McGann’s second series of adventures, building on the success on the first season. As a result, Colin Baker only had two adventures that year and neither of them were particularly memorable. The first was …ish which was a wordy story in more ways than one. It featured Peri as the companion whereas I think Evelyn would have suited this story much better as her character is a teacher. The next story was The Sandman which saw the return of Anneke Wills to the series. Wills played Polly between 1966 and 1967 overseeing the change of William Hartnell to Patrick Troughton. The story was a really hard one to get through and I think that Baker suffered because of that. You have to give Big Finish credit for trying this sort of story but it just didn’t work. So as a result of these stories 2002 was a disappointment when you compare it to the previous year. I think if there had been more CB stories then it might have been a better year for him. The use of the wrong companions for the wrong stories also didn’t help the stories.
2003 was a very good year for the Sixth Doctor. The first story of the year was Jubilee which is what the 2005 Christopher Eccleston story Dalek is based on. This story saw the return of the Daleks following their so-so story The Time of the Daleks. This was another superb story which allowed Colin Baker to shine. Any opportunity that a Doctor has to battle the Daleks or a famous monster then they run with it and this one was no different. A short while later saw Doctor Who go all musical in Doctor Who and the Pirates. With any other Doctor then this story would have flopped badly but with Colin Baker in the main role it became a glorious and fun filled adventure. The addition of Bill Oddie also added to the enjoyment. The next story in the 6th Doctor range was Project: Lazarus which is a truly superb story that is better than Twilight which I thought was not possible. The story was perhaps one of the darkest and most gruesome stories that I have ever known in Doctor Who. This story also featured two Doctors which is obviously something that shouldn’t happen very often and when it does then something special or different should happen. In this case the 6th Doctor had been cloned and it was the Seventh Doctor that had to save the day. What I liked most about this story was Colin Baker’s performance. It was unlike any performance of this character that we had seen for quite sometime and at times it was quite off-putting because we are not use to seeing him that way. McCoy was also good in this story and his Doctor served the story well.
In the run up to celebrate Doctor Who’s 40th Anniversary and Big Finish’s 50th release. Three adventures were commissioned with the 5ht, 6th and 7th Doctors all facing foes from the Doctors past. For the sixth Doctor it was Davros in Davros. This story was the best of the trio and what absolutely fantastic because it gave Colin Baker and Terry Molloy (Davros) the chance to have so good dialogue together. Also Wendy Padbury is in it as Lorraine Baines who with Bernard Horsefeld playing her husband played the typical characters of thinking they could control Davros when in fact they couldn’t. Colin Baker made a guest appearance in Zagreus but the following month saw The Wormery. This is not only the worst 6th Doctor story but it is one of the worst Big Finish stories to date. Despite the fact that it had Katy Manning (Jo Grant) in it the story was confusing and didn’t interest me in the slightest. Not very often that I give a story 1/5 but this one was an easy decision. After three years of Doctor Who stories featuring the Four Doctors who were aliving and willing to do these stories it was the Sixth Doctor that had developed the best. He still sounded like the Doctor and Colin Baker put in the same passionate performance that he always did on TV and with the right scripts it was possible to see what Baker could have been like if he was given the chance.
As 2003 rolled into 2004 we were treated to what would be Evelyn Smythe’s last adventure in terms of chronology (because us Doctor Who fans love to put stories into order). Arrangements for War was a fitting story for Evelyn but the story helped expose how different the Doctor and Evelyn are as characters despite how well they have bonded. Following the events that occurred in Project: Lazarus it was obvious that this story would see Smythe change it some way. I wont say it was one of my Top 5 but it is an ok story that works well and Colin Baker yet again puts in another fine story. Medicinal Purposes was the next story and this is one of the stories that would go into my Top 5. I love when Doctor Who does historical and in this one it was in a period of history that I remember vividly from school. Burke and Hare were two Grave Robbers who stole dead bodies for people to do medical research on. What Big Finish did that was clever was insert the Doctor and Evelyn into it. This was a good story because it gave the Doctor a good opponent to try and work against. Not Burke or Hare but Dr Robert Knox who we thought at the time was another Timelord because he had a TARDIS but he in fact wasn’t from Gallifrey and he had won the TARDIS in a game of cards. Knox was played by Carry On legend Leslie Philips. Philips was absolutely superb and was a fitting opposition to Colin Baker. Another note of interest was David Tennant who played Daft Jamie. This story was good because it gave Colin a chance to do all sorts of emotions ranging from anger to sympathy. Hi s relationship with Daft Jamie was a poignant one and what made it even sadder was that the Doctor knew of Daft Jamie’s impending death because its in proper history.
The next story was The Juggernauts. This was with Bonnie Langford and saw Mel separated from the Doctor. This story was another strong script that enabled Colin Baker to not only develop a better relationship with Bonnie Langford’s Mel character but to also have some very good scenes and dialogue with Terry Molloy’s Davros. The story also sees the return of the Mechanoids. Their only appearance was in the 1965 William Hartnell adventure The Chase. The next story for the Sixth Doctor was Catch 1782. This was similar to the Juggernauts in that the Doctor and Mel become separated. Where Catch was different was in that the Doctor took more of a back seat in this one as Mel tried to regain her memory whilst the Doctor tries to find her. Its an interesting piece that works because the stories doesn’t feature aliens trying to slaughter another race of aliens or someone trying to invade but just a simple rescue mission that takes on an emotional twist. The next story that features the Sixth Doctor is Thicker Than Water and is a sequel to Arrangements for War. This features both Bonnie Langford and Evelyn Smythe. This isn’t a story that I remember well and it doesn’t really have anything to do with the acting it is just that the story doesn’t really reward the listener with anything in my honest opinion. 2005 was on the whole a very good year for the Sixth Doctor. For me the best story for Colin Baker was The Juggernauts though Catch 1782 comes a close second.. This year was another solid display from Colin Baker and he continues to be able to change peoples attitude towards his Doctor.
In the second part, we look at the Sixth Doctor adventures from 2006 to 2008 and also the special adventures Real Time, Her Final Flight and Cryptobiosis.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
The Tomfiles: #5 - Big Finish Review of 2008
Big Finish really shone in 2008 for me. The first thing I have to say is that the stories have ranged from ok to fantastic. The first release of 2008 was The Bride of Peladon which was written by Barnaby Edwards. Edwards has directed many BF audios since July 1999 and it was nice to see him finally pen a Doctor Who story. In my review in Blog 44 dated January 27th 2008, I said; "The Bride of Peladon is a well written story with good characters and a good pace to it" The use of a familiar monster from Doctor Who's past was always a dangerous thing because if you don’t rise up to peoples expectations then its just going to be a terrible four part adventure. Also it saw the departure of Erimem (Caroline Morris). She had been in Doctor Who since 2001 and her partnership with Peri had been one of the highlights of the Fifth Doctor stories. Following on from C'Rizz departure and Charley's (supposed) departure it seemed that the Doctor was leaking companions. That wasn’t the case when February came around because it was The Condemned which saw the Sixth Doctor without Evelyn and more importantly with Charley Pollard who has spent seven years travelling with the 8th Doctor. After listening to the story I rated it 8/10. I thought that the explanation of why the Eighth Doctor doesn’t remember his time with Charley during his sixth incarnation would have been explained but it wasn’t yet.
March's release was The Dark Husband which featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace & Hex. This story was the weakest story that has been produced in 2008. It moved too slowly and as I commented on in Blog 55 dated March 30 2008 "Knowing what kind of person David Quantick is, I was expecting a slightly different kind of story and that is what we got but the only thing that let this story down was there just wasn’t any pace to it" April saw the introduction of Thomas Brewster. This was a three-part story arc starting off with The Haunting of Thomas Brewster. The only thing that I didn’t like about this story was the music, it just went on for too long and after a while it just got annoying. The surprise at the end that Brewster had stolen the TARDIS was an unexpected one. May's release was Assassin in the Limelight which saw the return of Evelyn Smythe who hadn’t been heard from since September 2007 in 100. It was a bit of a disappointment really as it was just a bit lacklustre. It was the final story in a trilogy following Medicinal Purposes in 2004 and Pier Pressure in 2006. It was nice to hear Evelyn back and also even better to hear Leslie Philips come back.
Moving on to June's release which was The Death Collectors. This was a three part story followed by a single part story. The three part was really good it had all the characters and a good plot what let it down was the single part story. It is the only time that I haven’t listened to a story all the way through, that was because it was just bizarre and uninspiring. July's release was the second part of the Thomas Brewster story-arc. The Boy That Time Forgot didnt feature Brewster until the end of Part 4 but his actions at the end of the previous story. This story does have a twist to replace the absence of Brewster. Adric. He travelled with the Doctor between 1980 and 1982 and was killed off in the story Earthshock, or so we thought. This story deals with the idea that Adric did survive and became lord and master of some weird earth. The Adric in this story was Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers. His inclusion instead of Matthew Waterhouse seemed to annoy a lot of fans but to me it was a masterstroke piece of casting. Was just behind The Condemned in my favourite story of the year. August saw the second story to feature the Sixth Doctor and Charley in The Doomwood Curse. Whilst it was an enjoyable piece it wasn’t as good as The Condemned. Both Colin Baker and India Fisher excelled in this story. The use of a character like Dick Turpin could have made this release a doomed one but actually it wasn’t and turned out to be quite a good follow up to The Condemned.
The first release of September saw the release of Kingdom of Silver which saw the return of the Cybermen to the main series. This story wasn’t the greatest one to feature the Cybermen but I thought that it was entertaining. Also with this release was Keepsake which was a single part story. Now I am not a fan of these single episodes, I just don’t think that they work because you cant tell a story in 25 minutes. I have to admit that I was wrong in this case, it was actually quite good. It had nothing really to do with Doctor Who even though it featured the 7th Doctor. October saw the conclusion to the Thomas Brewster story arc in Time Reef. It was sad to see the exit of Brewster as I think he was a good addition and his conflicts with the Doctor were entertaining. Time Reef (which was a three-part story) wasn’t as good as The Boy That Time Forgot but it would have been impossible to beat. A Perfect World was really good as it was just the right exit for the character who lost his mother and didn’t have anyone really. Two good single part stories in a row, things are looking good except....
November saw the 45th Anniversary of Doctor Who and Big Finish chose to celebrate this milestone with four single stories. Like 100 back in September 2007 the story Forty-Five had links to the number 45. I wasn’t really looking forward because in the past single part stories have tended to be poor. However I was wrong with this as all four stories were fantastic. The final release of the year was The Raincloud Man which featured the 6th Doctor and Charley in their third release of the year and whilst I enjoyed it I found that it wasn’t the best of the three. The main problem was that there was a bit too much humour in it for my likening. The return of DI Menzies was very good and I wish that she would become a companion but maybe she will return in the future. One of the best things that Big Finish have done is to use a story arc in their stories. Similar to what the TV series has done, you have had the Thomas Brewster story arc which worked brilliantly and was finished in similar style. There was also the Charley Pollard storyline which is still continuing. The thing that links both stories is that they have been told in a intriguing way.
THE STAGEPLAYS
This year saw the arrival of three audio adventures based on stage plays. The first was The Ultimate Adventure which starred Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker when it appeared on the stage but was just played by Baker for this audio. It was strange to have songs in between action scenes but it did actually work. I'm not sure about the alliance between the Daleks and Cybermen. I think with their confrontation in 2006 this attempt seemed a bit weak. The Second was Seven Keys to Doomsday which was quite good in the way that they used the same actor who played the role on stage. Trevor Martin was really good as the Doctor, it had a William Hartnell feel to it and by that I mean it had that feel that it took several days. The third and final release was Curse of the Daleks and was perhaps the most curious release of this season. The story was a Doctor-less release and despite the fact that it took me a few attempts to get somewhere with this story, once I did get into it I actually found it quite interesting. It was eerie and it was the best story of the series. I had heard about these stories in various Doctor Who forms but never knew much about it. These three releases were brilliant and well worth the money.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES
The companion chronicles entered a new form this year. January saw the final story the second series. The Catalyst was a Leela story and was a bit dull. July saw the third series begin. What was different about it was that there were 12 releases with one coming out each month. So far the stories have been really good and hopefully this new format will work. 2008 has been the best year for Big Finish. The quality of stories have always been high and even with weaker stories like The Dark Husband the releases have been enjoyable and worth the money.
March's release was The Dark Husband which featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace & Hex. This story was the weakest story that has been produced in 2008. It moved too slowly and as I commented on in Blog 55 dated March 30 2008 "Knowing what kind of person David Quantick is, I was expecting a slightly different kind of story and that is what we got but the only thing that let this story down was there just wasn’t any pace to it" April saw the introduction of Thomas Brewster. This was a three-part story arc starting off with The Haunting of Thomas Brewster. The only thing that I didn’t like about this story was the music, it just went on for too long and after a while it just got annoying. The surprise at the end that Brewster had stolen the TARDIS was an unexpected one. May's release was Assassin in the Limelight which saw the return of Evelyn Smythe who hadn’t been heard from since September 2007 in 100. It was a bit of a disappointment really as it was just a bit lacklustre. It was the final story in a trilogy following Medicinal Purposes in 2004 and Pier Pressure in 2006. It was nice to hear Evelyn back and also even better to hear Leslie Philips come back.
Moving on to June's release which was The Death Collectors. This was a three part story followed by a single part story. The three part was really good it had all the characters and a good plot what let it down was the single part story. It is the only time that I haven’t listened to a story all the way through, that was because it was just bizarre and uninspiring. July's release was the second part of the Thomas Brewster story-arc. The Boy That Time Forgot didnt feature Brewster until the end of Part 4 but his actions at the end of the previous story. This story does have a twist to replace the absence of Brewster. Adric. He travelled with the Doctor between 1980 and 1982 and was killed off in the story Earthshock, or so we thought. This story deals with the idea that Adric did survive and became lord and master of some weird earth. The Adric in this story was Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers. His inclusion instead of Matthew Waterhouse seemed to annoy a lot of fans but to me it was a masterstroke piece of casting. Was just behind The Condemned in my favourite story of the year. August saw the second story to feature the Sixth Doctor and Charley in The Doomwood Curse. Whilst it was an enjoyable piece it wasn’t as good as The Condemned. Both Colin Baker and India Fisher excelled in this story. The use of a character like Dick Turpin could have made this release a doomed one but actually it wasn’t and turned out to be quite a good follow up to The Condemned.
The first release of September saw the release of Kingdom of Silver which saw the return of the Cybermen to the main series. This story wasn’t the greatest one to feature the Cybermen but I thought that it was entertaining. Also with this release was Keepsake which was a single part story. Now I am not a fan of these single episodes, I just don’t think that they work because you cant tell a story in 25 minutes. I have to admit that I was wrong in this case, it was actually quite good. It had nothing really to do with Doctor Who even though it featured the 7th Doctor. October saw the conclusion to the Thomas Brewster story arc in Time Reef. It was sad to see the exit of Brewster as I think he was a good addition and his conflicts with the Doctor were entertaining. Time Reef (which was a three-part story) wasn’t as good as The Boy That Time Forgot but it would have been impossible to beat. A Perfect World was really good as it was just the right exit for the character who lost his mother and didn’t have anyone really. Two good single part stories in a row, things are looking good except....
November saw the 45th Anniversary of Doctor Who and Big Finish chose to celebrate this milestone with four single stories. Like 100 back in September 2007 the story Forty-Five had links to the number 45. I wasn’t really looking forward because in the past single part stories have tended to be poor. However I was wrong with this as all four stories were fantastic. The final release of the year was The Raincloud Man which featured the 6th Doctor and Charley in their third release of the year and whilst I enjoyed it I found that it wasn’t the best of the three. The main problem was that there was a bit too much humour in it for my likening. The return of DI Menzies was very good and I wish that she would become a companion but maybe she will return in the future. One of the best things that Big Finish have done is to use a story arc in their stories. Similar to what the TV series has done, you have had the Thomas Brewster story arc which worked brilliantly and was finished in similar style. There was also the Charley Pollard storyline which is still continuing. The thing that links both stories is that they have been told in a intriguing way.
THE STAGEPLAYS
This year saw the arrival of three audio adventures based on stage plays. The first was The Ultimate Adventure which starred Jon Pertwee and Colin Baker when it appeared on the stage but was just played by Baker for this audio. It was strange to have songs in between action scenes but it did actually work. I'm not sure about the alliance between the Daleks and Cybermen. I think with their confrontation in 2006 this attempt seemed a bit weak. The Second was Seven Keys to Doomsday which was quite good in the way that they used the same actor who played the role on stage. Trevor Martin was really good as the Doctor, it had a William Hartnell feel to it and by that I mean it had that feel that it took several days. The third and final release was Curse of the Daleks and was perhaps the most curious release of this season. The story was a Doctor-less release and despite the fact that it took me a few attempts to get somewhere with this story, once I did get into it I actually found it quite interesting. It was eerie and it was the best story of the series. I had heard about these stories in various Doctor Who forms but never knew much about it. These three releases were brilliant and well worth the money.
THE COMPANION CHRONICLES
The companion chronicles entered a new form this year. January saw the final story the second series. The Catalyst was a Leela story and was a bit dull. July saw the third series begin. What was different about it was that there were 12 releases with one coming out each month. So far the stories have been really good and hopefully this new format will work. 2008 has been the best year for Big Finish. The quality of stories have always been high and even with weaker stories like The Dark Husband the releases have been enjoyable and worth the money.
Friday, January 25, 2008
4 - Celebrities in Doctor Who
Celebrities and Doctor Who have gone hand in hand for many years. Before the likes of Derek Jacobi and Simon Pegg and alike starred in the new series, Doctor Who had attracted many famous faces. This Tomfile is about the famous faces that have graced the screen in the name of Doctor Who.
Now the thing about having celebrities in Doctor Who is obviously to raise the profile of the show and get some media attention. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Ken Dodd's appearance in Delta and the Bannermen in 1987 obviously didn't work but sometimes names like Kylie Minogue gets the job done. Her appearance in Voyage of the Damned got 13.3 million viewers which made it the 8th most watched programme in Doctor Who history. Below is the list of what I would consider the famous faces in Doctor Who. If you think that there’s anyone missing then – tough.
• The Beatles - The Fab Four who took over the world in the mid-1960's didn't actually appear specially for Doctor Who but a clip of them on Top of the Pops was shown on the 1965 William Hartnell story 'The Chase'.
• Peter Butterworth - Butterworth was more famous for appearing in 16 of the Carry On films. He played fellow Timelord The Meddling Monk and appeared in two William Hartnell stories, The Time Meddler (1965) and The Daleks Master Plan (1965/66).
• Michael Sheard - Michael Sheard is more known for playing Mr Bronson in the BBC Children’s Drama Grange Hill. He appeared in The Ark (1966), Dr Summers in The Mind of Evil (1971), Supervisor Lowe in The Invisible Enemy, Mergrave in Castrovalva and Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). He also appeared in the Big Finish play Stones of Venice (2001).
• Michael Gough - He has played Alfred in four of the Batman films but he appeared in two Doctor Who stories. His first was The Celestial Toymaker in the story of the same name (1966) and Arc of Infinity (1983) as Councillor Hedin.
• Carmen Silvera - Carmen who is best known for starring in the popular BBC Comedy 'Allo 'Allo!. She was in The Celestial Toymaker (1966) as Clara, Queen of Hearts & Mrs Wiggs. She also appeared in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) as Ruth.
• Lynda Baron - Baron is best known for playing in the BBC Comedy Open All Hours alongside Ronnie Barker and David Jason. She sang (off screen) in the 1966 story The Gunfighters. She then appeared on screen in Enlightenment (1983) as Captain Wrack.
• Kenneth Kendall - BBC Newsreader and presenter of Treasure Hunt appeared in The War Machines as himself.
• Bernard Bresslaw - Another Carry On actor appeared alongside Patrick Troughton's Doctor as Varga in The Ice Warriors.
• Pauline Collins - Collins has appeared in two Doctor Who stories. The star of the Oscar Nominated Shirley Valentine starred in The Faceless Ones (1967) and as Queen Victoria alongside David Tennant in Tooth and Claw (2006).
• Hannah Gordon - The presenter of Watercolour Challenge and star of shows like Upstairs Downstairs, Telford Change and My Wife Next Door appeared in The Highlanders as Kirsty.
• Peter Sallis - The man behind the voice of Wallace and one of the original line-up from the ancient BBC Comedy Last of the Summer Wine appeared in The Ice Warriors as Penley.
• June Brown - Before becoming the Chain smoking Dot Branning in the BBC Soap Eastenders. June was in the 1973 story The Time Warrior as Lady Eleanor.
• Matthew Corbett - Well known for sticking his hand up Sotty's arse. Matthew Corbett appeared as Jones as The Daemons (1971).
• Paul Darrow - More known for starring in the lamer Sci-Fi show Blake's 7. Darrow played Captain Hawkins in the 1970 Jon Pertwee story Doctor Who and the Silurians. He also appeared in the awful Timelash as Tekker.
• Fulton Mackay - The star of Porridge appeared in the 1970 story Doctor Who and the Silurians as Dr Quinn.
• Geoffrey Palmer - Palmer has been in three times. He played Masters in the 1970 adventure Doctor Who and the Silurians, Administrator in The Mutants (1972) and as the Captain in the 2007 Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned.
• Ingrid Pitt - Star of countless Hammer Horror films appeared in Doctor Who as Queen Galleia in The Time Monster. She then appeared in Warriors of the Deep as Dr Solow.
• Helen Worth - Helen is best known as playing long-suffering mother Gail Platt in the ITV1 soap Coronation Street but played Mary Ashe in the 1971.
• John Challis - Boycie in Only Fools and Horses and its spin-off The Green Green Grass appeared as Scorby in the Tom Baker adventure The Seeds of Doom.
• John Cleese - The former Python and Fawlty Towers comedian appeared as a Art Gallery visitor in the 1979 adventure City of Death.
• Kenneth Cope - Another Carry On favourite appeared in Warriors Gate (1981) as Packard.
• Janet Ellis - The former Blue Peter presenter didn't use sticky back plastic in her performance of Teka in the 1980 adventure The Horns of Nimon.
• Keith Barron - He has appeared in shows like Where The Heart Is appeared as Captain Striker in the 1983 adventure Enlightenment.
• Martin Clunes - The Men Behaving Badly and Doc Martin actor appeared in the Snakedance story as Lon.
• Robert Glenister - The Hustle actor appeared in The Caves of Androzani alongside Peter Davison in his swan-song story as Salateen.
• Leslie Grantham - Before finding fame as Dirty Den Watts in Eastenders, he starred in Ressurection of the Daleks as Kiston.
• Nerys Hughes - The Liver Birds actress starred in Kinda as Todd. Polly James - The Liver Birds actress starred as Jane Hampden in the Peter Davison story The Awakening.
• Burt Kwouk - The Last of the Summer Wine actor appeared in Four To Doomsday as Lin Futu (1982).
• Rula Lenska - Dennis Waterman's ex-wife appeared in Resurrection of the Daleks as Styles (1984).
• Jonathan Morris - The Bread actor appeared in Snakedance as Chela.
• John Savident - The former Coronation Street actor appeared in Doctor Who first in the 1982 adventure The Visitation as The Squire even though it was only at the beginning of Part 1.
• Lynda Bellingham -The OXO ad actress appeared in The Trial of a Timelord (1986) as The Inquisitor.
• Honor Blackman -The former Bond Girl and The Avengers actress appeared in The Trial of a Timelord as Professor Lasky.
• Brian Blessed - The very loud very popular actor appeared in The Trial of a Timelord as Yrcanos.
• Faith Brown - The comedian appeared in Attack of the Cybermen as Flast.
• William Gaunt -The Champions actor appeared in the 1985 story as Orcini in Revelation of the Daleks.
• Sarah Greene - The Going Live and Ghost Watch actress appeared in Attack of the Cybermen as Varne.
• Geoffrey Hughes - The Keeping Up Appearances, Coronation Street, The Royle Family and Heartbeat actor appeared as Mr Popplewick in The Trial of a Timelord.
• Kate O'Mara -O'Mara appeared alongside Colin Baker in The Brothers and also The Mark of the Rani as The Rani, she would return in 1987 again as The Rani in The Time of the Rani.
• Jacqueline Pearce - The Blake's 7 actress appeared in The Two Doctors as Chessene (1985).
• Christopher Ryan - The Young Ones actor appeared in the 1985 adventure The Trial of a Timelord as Lord Kiv and also a an Sontaran in the 30th series (2008).
• Alexi Sayle - Considered as one of the founders of the alternative comedy scene. Sayle appeared in Revelation of the Daleks as a DJ.
• Joan Simms - Another Carry On actress guest starred as Katryca in The Trial of a Timelord.
• Clive Swift - The Keeping Up Appearances actor has appeared twice in Doctor Who. The first was as Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks and as Mr Cooper in the 2007 Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned.
• Richard Briers - The Good Life comedian appeared in Doctor Who in 1987 in the story Paradise Towers as Chief Caretaker.
• Ken Dodd - The tickling funny man appeared in the 1987 Delta and the Bannermen as the Tollmaster.
• Gareth Hale & Norman Pace - The comedy double act appeared in the last story to be broadcast in the original run – Survival (1989). They appeared as Len and Harvey.
• Sheila Hancock - The actress appeared as Helen A in the 1987 adventure The Happiness Patrol.
• Don Henderson - The XYY Man actor appeared in Delta and the Bannermen as Gavrok (1987).
• Nicholas Parsons - The host of Just a Minute and Sale of the Century appeared as The Rev Mr Wainwright in the 1989 story The Curse of Fenric.
• Anne Reid - The Coronation Street and Dinnerladies actress appeared in the Curse of Fenric as Nurse Crane and in Smith and Jones (2007) as Florence Finnegan.
• Adele Silva - Not a famous face at the time, the Emmerdale actress appeared in Survival in 1989 as Squeak.
• Silvia Syms - The actress appeared in the 1989 story Ghostlight as Mrs Pritchard.
• Eric Roberts - Brother of the Hollywood actress Julia Roberts appeared as The Master in the 1996 TV Movie.
• Mark Benton - The Early Doors funny man appeared in the 2005 story Rose. He starred as Clive the geek and got killed by an Auton.
• Zoe Wanamaker - The My Family and May to December actress was the voice of Lady Cassandra in the 2005 adventure The End of the World and returned the following year in New Earth.
• Simon Callow - The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor appeared in the 2005 adventure The Unquiet Dead as Charles Dickins.
• Matt Baker - The Blue Peter presenter appeared as himself on the show in Aliens of London.
• Navin Chowdhry - The Teachers actor appeared as Indra Ganesh in Aliens of London but got killed by a Slitheen.
• Andrew Marr - The BBC News reporter appeared as himself in Aliens of London and World War Three.
• Rupert Vansittart - Playing Lord Ashfordly in Heartbeat, Vansittart played General Asquith in Aliens of London.
• Penelope Wilton - The Shaun of the Dead actress appeared in Aliens of London, World War Three as Harriet Jones MP and then returned in The Christmas Invasion as Prime Minister.
• Bruno Langley - The former Coronation Street actor appeared as Adam in Dalek and the Long Game. He did travel for those two episodes but isn't really a companion.
• Tamsin Greig - The Black Books and Green Wing actress appeared as a Nurse in the 2005 story The Long Game.
• Simon Pegg - The Shaun of the Dead funny man appeared as The Editor in the 2005 story The Long Game.
• Richard Wilson - Famous for playing Victor Meldrew in the BBC Sitcom One Foot in the Grave. Wilson played Dr Constantine in The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances.
• Sussannah Constantine & Trinny Woodall - The What Not To Wear presenters provided voice for Zu-Zana and Trine-E in the 2005 season finale story Bad Wolf.
• Davina McCall - The Big Brother presenter provided a voice for Davinadroid in Bad Wolf.
• Jo Joyner - The Eastenders actress played Lynda Moss who was a Big Brother contestant in the Bad Wolf story.
• Anne Robinson - The Weakest Link presenter provided the voice of the Anne Droid in Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways.
• Anthony Stewart Head - The Buffy The Vampire Slayer actor appeared in School Reunion as Mr Finch.
• Sophia Myles - She played Lady Penelope in the Thunderbirds, she then went on to played Madam De Pompador in the 2006 story The Girl in the Fireplace.
• Don Warrington - The Rising Damp actor played The President in Rise of the Cybermen.
• Gethin Jones - The Blue Peter Presenter played a Cyberman in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel in 2006.
• Roger Lloyd Pack - Best known as Trigger. Pack played John Lumic in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel before becoming Cyber Controller.
• Ron Cook -Parker in Thunderbirds, Cook played Mr Magpie in The Idiots Lantern.
• Maureen Lipman - The British Telecoms actress appeared as The Wire in The Idiots Lantern (2006).
• Will Thorp - The former Casualty actor played Tbobias Zed in The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit (2006).
• Peter Kay - The Max and Paddy, Phoenix Nights funny man played Victor Kennedy in Love & Monsters (2006). He also played the Abzorbaloff in the same story.
• Marc Warren - The Hustle actor played Elton Pope in the Doctor-lite story Love & Monsters (2006).
• Huw Edwards - The BBC News presenter provided the voice of himself in Fear Her at the 2012 Olympics in London (2006).
• Derek Acorah - The 'medium' appeared as himself in Army of Ghosts (2006)
• Alistair Appleton - The Cash in the Attic presenter played himself in Army of Ghosts (2006).
• Trisha Goddard - The talk-show host starred as herself in Army of Ghosts (2006)
• Barbara Windsor - The Carry On and Eastenders actress played Peggy Mitchell in Army of Ghosts (2006).
• Tracy-Ann Oberman - The Eastenders actress played Yvonne Hartman in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday (2006) where she was the leader of the Torchwood in Canary Wharf before becoming a Cyberman.
• Catherine Tate - The award winning actress appeared as Donna Noble in the 2006 Christmas Special The Runaway Bride before becoming a proper companion in the 2008 series.
• Sarah Parish - The Cutting It actress appeared as The Empress of the Racnoss in the Runaway Bride Christmas Special (2006).
• Roy Marsden - The PD James actor played Mr Stoker in the 2007 story Smith and Jones.
• David Lennox Kelly - The former Shameless actor played William Shakespeare in the 2007 story The Shakespeare Code.
• Ardal O'Hanlon - The Father Ted actor played Thomas Kincade Brannigan in the 2007 story Gridlock.
• Hugh Quarshie - The Holby City actor played Soloman in the 2007 two-parter Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks.
• Miranda Raison - The Spooks actress played Tallulah in Daleks in Manhttan and Evolution of the Daleks.
• Thelma Barlow - The former Coronation Street Actress played Lady Thaw in The Lazarus Experiment (2007).
• Mark Gatiss - The former League of Gentleman actor who had written The Unquiet Dead (2005) and The Idiots Lantern (2006) actually starred as Professor Richard Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment.
• Michelle Collins - The former Eastenders actress played Kath McDonell in 42.
• Jessica Hynes - The Royle Family, Spaced and Shaun of the Dead actress played Joan Redfern in Human Nature and The Family of Blood (both 2007).
• Derek Jacobi - The former I,Claudis actor played Professor Yana and then The Master in the 2007 story Utopia.
• John Simm - The Life on Mars actor played the Master in the Last of the Timelords and Sound of Drums two-parter in 2007.
• McFly - The pop group briefly appeared in The Sound of Drums.
• Sharon Osbourne - The X Factor judge also briefly appeared in The Sound of Drums.
• Ann Widdecombe MP - The Conservative politician appeared as herself in The Sound of Drums.
• Bernard Cribbins - Known for appearing in the Big Screen Doctor Who movie appeared as Wilfred Mott in Voyage of the Damned.
• Kylie Minogue - The pop star and former Neighbours appeared as Astrid Peth.
• Tim McInnery - The Blackadder actor is to be in The Planet of the Ood in 2008. Role yet to be confirmed.
• Felicity Kendall - The Good Life actress will play Lady Clemeny Eddison in 2008
Now the thing about having celebrities in Doctor Who is obviously to raise the profile of the show and get some media attention. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Ken Dodd's appearance in Delta and the Bannermen in 1987 obviously didn't work but sometimes names like Kylie Minogue gets the job done. Her appearance in Voyage of the Damned got 13.3 million viewers which made it the 8th most watched programme in Doctor Who history. Below is the list of what I would consider the famous faces in Doctor Who. If you think that there’s anyone missing then – tough.
• The Beatles - The Fab Four who took over the world in the mid-1960's didn't actually appear specially for Doctor Who but a clip of them on Top of the Pops was shown on the 1965 William Hartnell story 'The Chase'.
• Peter Butterworth - Butterworth was more famous for appearing in 16 of the Carry On films. He played fellow Timelord The Meddling Monk and appeared in two William Hartnell stories, The Time Meddler (1965) and The Daleks Master Plan (1965/66).
• Michael Sheard - Michael Sheard is more known for playing Mr Bronson in the BBC Children’s Drama Grange Hill. He appeared in The Ark (1966), Dr Summers in The Mind of Evil (1971), Supervisor Lowe in The Invisible Enemy, Mergrave in Castrovalva and Remembrance of the Daleks (1988). He also appeared in the Big Finish play Stones of Venice (2001).
• Michael Gough - He has played Alfred in four of the Batman films but he appeared in two Doctor Who stories. His first was The Celestial Toymaker in the story of the same name (1966) and Arc of Infinity (1983) as Councillor Hedin.
• Carmen Silvera - Carmen who is best known for starring in the popular BBC Comedy 'Allo 'Allo!. She was in The Celestial Toymaker (1966) as Clara, Queen of Hearts & Mrs Wiggs. She also appeared in Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) as Ruth.
• Lynda Baron - Baron is best known for playing in the BBC Comedy Open All Hours alongside Ronnie Barker and David Jason. She sang (off screen) in the 1966 story The Gunfighters. She then appeared on screen in Enlightenment (1983) as Captain Wrack.
• Kenneth Kendall - BBC Newsreader and presenter of Treasure Hunt appeared in The War Machines as himself.
• Bernard Bresslaw - Another Carry On actor appeared alongside Patrick Troughton's Doctor as Varga in The Ice Warriors.
• Pauline Collins - Collins has appeared in two Doctor Who stories. The star of the Oscar Nominated Shirley Valentine starred in The Faceless Ones (1967) and as Queen Victoria alongside David Tennant in Tooth and Claw (2006).
• Hannah Gordon - The presenter of Watercolour Challenge and star of shows like Upstairs Downstairs, Telford Change and My Wife Next Door appeared in The Highlanders as Kirsty.
• Peter Sallis - The man behind the voice of Wallace and one of the original line-up from the ancient BBC Comedy Last of the Summer Wine appeared in The Ice Warriors as Penley.
• June Brown - Before becoming the Chain smoking Dot Branning in the BBC Soap Eastenders. June was in the 1973 story The Time Warrior as Lady Eleanor.
• Matthew Corbett - Well known for sticking his hand up Sotty's arse. Matthew Corbett appeared as Jones as The Daemons (1971).
• Paul Darrow - More known for starring in the lamer Sci-Fi show Blake's 7. Darrow played Captain Hawkins in the 1970 Jon Pertwee story Doctor Who and the Silurians. He also appeared in the awful Timelash as Tekker.
• Fulton Mackay - The star of Porridge appeared in the 1970 story Doctor Who and the Silurians as Dr Quinn.
• Geoffrey Palmer - Palmer has been in three times. He played Masters in the 1970 adventure Doctor Who and the Silurians, Administrator in The Mutants (1972) and as the Captain in the 2007 Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned.
• Ingrid Pitt - Star of countless Hammer Horror films appeared in Doctor Who as Queen Galleia in The Time Monster. She then appeared in Warriors of the Deep as Dr Solow.
• Helen Worth - Helen is best known as playing long-suffering mother Gail Platt in the ITV1 soap Coronation Street but played Mary Ashe in the 1971.
• John Challis - Boycie in Only Fools and Horses and its spin-off The Green Green Grass appeared as Scorby in the Tom Baker adventure The Seeds of Doom.
• John Cleese - The former Python and Fawlty Towers comedian appeared as a Art Gallery visitor in the 1979 adventure City of Death.
• Kenneth Cope - Another Carry On favourite appeared in Warriors Gate (1981) as Packard.
• Janet Ellis - The former Blue Peter presenter didn't use sticky back plastic in her performance of Teka in the 1980 adventure The Horns of Nimon.
• Keith Barron - He has appeared in shows like Where The Heart Is appeared as Captain Striker in the 1983 adventure Enlightenment.
• Martin Clunes - The Men Behaving Badly and Doc Martin actor appeared in the Snakedance story as Lon.
• Robert Glenister - The Hustle actor appeared in The Caves of Androzani alongside Peter Davison in his swan-song story as Salateen.
• Leslie Grantham - Before finding fame as Dirty Den Watts in Eastenders, he starred in Ressurection of the Daleks as Kiston.
• Nerys Hughes - The Liver Birds actress starred in Kinda as Todd. Polly James - The Liver Birds actress starred as Jane Hampden in the Peter Davison story The Awakening.
• Burt Kwouk - The Last of the Summer Wine actor appeared in Four To Doomsday as Lin Futu (1982).
• Rula Lenska - Dennis Waterman's ex-wife appeared in Resurrection of the Daleks as Styles (1984).
• Jonathan Morris - The Bread actor appeared in Snakedance as Chela.
• John Savident - The former Coronation Street actor appeared in Doctor Who first in the 1982 adventure The Visitation as The Squire even though it was only at the beginning of Part 1.
• Lynda Bellingham -The OXO ad actress appeared in The Trial of a Timelord (1986) as The Inquisitor.
• Honor Blackman -The former Bond Girl and The Avengers actress appeared in The Trial of a Timelord as Professor Lasky.
• Brian Blessed - The very loud very popular actor appeared in The Trial of a Timelord as Yrcanos.
• Faith Brown - The comedian appeared in Attack of the Cybermen as Flast.
• William Gaunt -The Champions actor appeared in the 1985 story as Orcini in Revelation of the Daleks.
• Sarah Greene - The Going Live and Ghost Watch actress appeared in Attack of the Cybermen as Varne.
• Geoffrey Hughes - The Keeping Up Appearances, Coronation Street, The Royle Family and Heartbeat actor appeared as Mr Popplewick in The Trial of a Timelord.
• Kate O'Mara -O'Mara appeared alongside Colin Baker in The Brothers and also The Mark of the Rani as The Rani, she would return in 1987 again as The Rani in The Time of the Rani.
• Jacqueline Pearce - The Blake's 7 actress appeared in The Two Doctors as Chessene (1985).
• Christopher Ryan - The Young Ones actor appeared in the 1985 adventure The Trial of a Timelord as Lord Kiv and also a an Sontaran in the 30th series (2008).
• Alexi Sayle - Considered as one of the founders of the alternative comedy scene. Sayle appeared in Revelation of the Daleks as a DJ.
• Joan Simms - Another Carry On actress guest starred as Katryca in The Trial of a Timelord.
• Clive Swift - The Keeping Up Appearances actor has appeared twice in Doctor Who. The first was as Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks and as Mr Cooper in the 2007 Christmas Special Voyage of the Damned.
• Richard Briers - The Good Life comedian appeared in Doctor Who in 1987 in the story Paradise Towers as Chief Caretaker.
• Ken Dodd - The tickling funny man appeared in the 1987 Delta and the Bannermen as the Tollmaster.
• Gareth Hale & Norman Pace - The comedy double act appeared in the last story to be broadcast in the original run – Survival (1989). They appeared as Len and Harvey.
• Sheila Hancock - The actress appeared as Helen A in the 1987 adventure The Happiness Patrol.
• Don Henderson - The XYY Man actor appeared in Delta and the Bannermen as Gavrok (1987).
• Nicholas Parsons - The host of Just a Minute and Sale of the Century appeared as The Rev Mr Wainwright in the 1989 story The Curse of Fenric.
• Anne Reid - The Coronation Street and Dinnerladies actress appeared in the Curse of Fenric as Nurse Crane and in Smith and Jones (2007) as Florence Finnegan.
• Adele Silva - Not a famous face at the time, the Emmerdale actress appeared in Survival in 1989 as Squeak.
• Silvia Syms - The actress appeared in the 1989 story Ghostlight as Mrs Pritchard.
• Eric Roberts - Brother of the Hollywood actress Julia Roberts appeared as The Master in the 1996 TV Movie.
• Mark Benton - The Early Doors funny man appeared in the 2005 story Rose. He starred as Clive the geek and got killed by an Auton.
• Zoe Wanamaker - The My Family and May to December actress was the voice of Lady Cassandra in the 2005 adventure The End of the World and returned the following year in New Earth.
• Simon Callow - The Four Weddings and a Funeral actor appeared in the 2005 adventure The Unquiet Dead as Charles Dickins.
• Matt Baker - The Blue Peter presenter appeared as himself on the show in Aliens of London.
• Navin Chowdhry - The Teachers actor appeared as Indra Ganesh in Aliens of London but got killed by a Slitheen.
• Andrew Marr - The BBC News reporter appeared as himself in Aliens of London and World War Three.
• Rupert Vansittart - Playing Lord Ashfordly in Heartbeat, Vansittart played General Asquith in Aliens of London.
• Penelope Wilton - The Shaun of the Dead actress appeared in Aliens of London, World War Three as Harriet Jones MP and then returned in The Christmas Invasion as Prime Minister.
• Bruno Langley - The former Coronation Street actor appeared as Adam in Dalek and the Long Game. He did travel for those two episodes but isn't really a companion.
• Tamsin Greig - The Black Books and Green Wing actress appeared as a Nurse in the 2005 story The Long Game.
• Simon Pegg - The Shaun of the Dead funny man appeared as The Editor in the 2005 story The Long Game.
• Richard Wilson - Famous for playing Victor Meldrew in the BBC Sitcom One Foot in the Grave. Wilson played Dr Constantine in The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances.
• Sussannah Constantine & Trinny Woodall - The What Not To Wear presenters provided voice for Zu-Zana and Trine-E in the 2005 season finale story Bad Wolf.
• Davina McCall - The Big Brother presenter provided a voice for Davinadroid in Bad Wolf.
• Jo Joyner - The Eastenders actress played Lynda Moss who was a Big Brother contestant in the Bad Wolf story.
• Anne Robinson - The Weakest Link presenter provided the voice of the Anne Droid in Bad Wolf and The Parting of the Ways.
• Anthony Stewart Head - The Buffy The Vampire Slayer actor appeared in School Reunion as Mr Finch.
• Sophia Myles - She played Lady Penelope in the Thunderbirds, she then went on to played Madam De Pompador in the 2006 story The Girl in the Fireplace.
• Don Warrington - The Rising Damp actor played The President in Rise of the Cybermen.
• Gethin Jones - The Blue Peter Presenter played a Cyberman in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel in 2006.
• Roger Lloyd Pack - Best known as Trigger. Pack played John Lumic in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel before becoming Cyber Controller.
• Ron Cook -Parker in Thunderbirds, Cook played Mr Magpie in The Idiots Lantern.
• Maureen Lipman - The British Telecoms actress appeared as The Wire in The Idiots Lantern (2006).
• Will Thorp - The former Casualty actor played Tbobias Zed in The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit (2006).
• Peter Kay - The Max and Paddy, Phoenix Nights funny man played Victor Kennedy in Love & Monsters (2006). He also played the Abzorbaloff in the same story.
• Marc Warren - The Hustle actor played Elton Pope in the Doctor-lite story Love & Monsters (2006).
• Huw Edwards - The BBC News presenter provided the voice of himself in Fear Her at the 2012 Olympics in London (2006).
• Derek Acorah - The 'medium' appeared as himself in Army of Ghosts (2006)
• Alistair Appleton - The Cash in the Attic presenter played himself in Army of Ghosts (2006).
• Trisha Goddard - The talk-show host starred as herself in Army of Ghosts (2006)
• Barbara Windsor - The Carry On and Eastenders actress played Peggy Mitchell in Army of Ghosts (2006).
• Tracy-Ann Oberman - The Eastenders actress played Yvonne Hartman in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday (2006) where she was the leader of the Torchwood in Canary Wharf before becoming a Cyberman.
• Catherine Tate - The award winning actress appeared as Donna Noble in the 2006 Christmas Special The Runaway Bride before becoming a proper companion in the 2008 series.
• Sarah Parish - The Cutting It actress appeared as The Empress of the Racnoss in the Runaway Bride Christmas Special (2006).
• Roy Marsden - The PD James actor played Mr Stoker in the 2007 story Smith and Jones.
• David Lennox Kelly - The former Shameless actor played William Shakespeare in the 2007 story The Shakespeare Code.
• Ardal O'Hanlon - The Father Ted actor played Thomas Kincade Brannigan in the 2007 story Gridlock.
• Hugh Quarshie - The Holby City actor played Soloman in the 2007 two-parter Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks.
• Miranda Raison - The Spooks actress played Tallulah in Daleks in Manhttan and Evolution of the Daleks.
• Thelma Barlow - The former Coronation Street Actress played Lady Thaw in The Lazarus Experiment (2007).
• Mark Gatiss - The former League of Gentleman actor who had written The Unquiet Dead (2005) and The Idiots Lantern (2006) actually starred as Professor Richard Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment.
• Michelle Collins - The former Eastenders actress played Kath McDonell in 42.
• Jessica Hynes - The Royle Family, Spaced and Shaun of the Dead actress played Joan Redfern in Human Nature and The Family of Blood (both 2007).
• Derek Jacobi - The former I,Claudis actor played Professor Yana and then The Master in the 2007 story Utopia.
• John Simm - The Life on Mars actor played the Master in the Last of the Timelords and Sound of Drums two-parter in 2007.
• McFly - The pop group briefly appeared in The Sound of Drums.
• Sharon Osbourne - The X Factor judge also briefly appeared in The Sound of Drums.
• Ann Widdecombe MP - The Conservative politician appeared as herself in The Sound of Drums.
• Bernard Cribbins - Known for appearing in the Big Screen Doctor Who movie appeared as Wilfred Mott in Voyage of the Damned.
• Kylie Minogue - The pop star and former Neighbours appeared as Astrid Peth.
• Tim McInnery - The Blackadder actor is to be in The Planet of the Ood in 2008. Role yet to be confirmed.
• Felicity Kendall - The Good Life actress will play Lady Clemeny Eddison in 2008
Thursday, December 27, 2007
#3 - Big Finish Review of 2007
Question: Has this been a good year for Big Finish?
Well, Yes and No. Without doubt the stories such as Son of the Dragon, Absolution and Nocturne have been absolute crackers with all the pace, emotional material and damn good acting that wouldn't be out of place on TV. But then there were stories such as Valhalla and 100 which were mediocre, bordering on poor. There were big changes to the line up that would see some of the biggest changes that Doctor Who has encountered in the Big Finish range since it was launched in 1999. Gary Russell, who had been the top man behind the series contributed to his final story in Nocturne and Nicholas Briggs took over. There was also a change to the story format with new three parters followed by a single stand alone story. 2007 also saw the 100th Doctor Who story produced by Big Finish to celebrate it there was a different type of story made.
2007 started with Circular Time, which was a four part story with Peter Davison and also starring Sarah Sutton who was making her first Big Finish appearance since the 2005 story The Game. This was a poor story in my opinion as it didn't really seem to have much point to it. The only good part about it was the role of Sir Issac Newton which was played by the brilliant David Warner. I ended up giving this story 2 out of 5. February saw the Seventh Doctor star in Nocturne. This was a brilliant story which had me holding on to every word and by the end of part four was completely blown away which I thought was the best story for a long time and for most of this year was the best story of the year. March saw the return of the Daleks. This was Nicholas Brigg's first story as 'Executive' Producer. This story also featured a new look CD Cover which changed for the first time since Paul McGann's first adventure in January 2001. The story had been written by Christopher H.Bidmead who for new fans who haven't seen much of 1980's Who was the script editor for the end of Tom Baker's era and the beginning of Peter Davison's time in control of the TARDIS. Renaissance of the Daleks didn't have a written by credit but a 'From an Idea by' because apparently he was unhappy with changes been made to his precious script with his name on it. Even though this happens all the time and he must have done when he was script editor he was unhappy with this happening to him. The story was interesting and when I originally reviewed it I said that he should be encouraged to write more and I still stand by that statement. April saw the first three parter followed by a standalone story in I.D and Urgent Call. The three parter was ok but was slightly confusing as I didn't understand really what it was all about but I thought that it was good as three parts because its wouldn't have time to include any boring banter. The inclusion of Gyles Brandreth was one of the few highlights in this story based purely on his voice. The single parter however was not very good as I thought it was a completely pointless episode. May saw the second new style story telling with Exotron and Urban Myth. Unlike the previous release both stories were really good and enjoyable. The characters were well written in both stories and by the end of it I thought it was a good release.
June saw a return to the traditional format of a four part story but Valhalla was a very dull story which wasn't bad or poor like Circular Time but just didn't have a point to it. Slyvester McCoy was let down in this story with a poor story and no one to bounce his character off against as Ace and Hex had been written out of it for some reason. The story was written by Marc Platt who had penned the brilliant 2002 story Spare Parts and so I had high hopes of this release but was ultimately was left disappointed with this release. July saw Bonnie Langford return in The Wishing Beast and the Vanity Box. This 6th Doctor release featured Jean Marsh who had appeared along William Hartnell in the 1965 epic Dalek Master Plan and along the seventh doctor in the 1989 serial Battlefield. The three part story was quite good as if it had been four parts then it might have stumbled a little bit. The single parter was something that I didn't like as I though that even though it was a link to the Wishing Beast story it didn't really work because the pace and language used wasn't right at all.
August saw Slyvester McCoy return to in Frozen Time which was written by Nicholas Briggs who's last penned story The Nowhere Place (2006) was a brilliant adventure. Sure enough this story was also a well written, well acted piece of sci-fi. The biggest shock of the year came when it was revealed that the Ice Warriors were in main baddies. Unlike the companion-less story of Valhalla, McCoy was given a great script and had co-stars that complimented his Doctor. Nicholas Briggs is a brilliant writer and has shown time and time again that he can write a cracking script and it is only because he is doing the Dalek Empire and Cyberman series that we don't see more of his work. Early September saw release 99 and Son of the Dragon. This in my mind is the greatest story of the year. It was the sort of story that only comes round one ever few years and had the feel of an adventure that should be made for TV on my a big Sci-Fi budget. The addition of James Purefoy was a masterstroke in an adventure which will be around for a long time before being beaten in terms of quality writing and acting. Late September saw the 100th release in the brilliantly named 100. To celebrate this milestone four of the most popular writers penned a single episode. Paul Cornell, Robert Shearman, Joseph Lidster and Jacqueline Rayner. I was disappointed by this because I thought that single part stories just don't work. The only story that worked for me was the 100 Days of the Doctor which whilst wasn't brilliant was the best of a bad bunch.
October's release was Absolution which saw the first eighth Doctor story with C'Rizz and Charley since Memory Lane in late 2006. This was the second story in three which I thought was brilliant. Not because it wrote out the character of C'Rizz but because of the way of the exit. It was the most emotional story that has ever been done and actually made me Miss C'Rizz. Absolution saw three guest roles in the form of Robert Glenister who stars in the BBC Drama Hustle, Christopher Villers who stars in the ITV soap Emmerdale and Natalie Mendoza who stars in the BBC drama Hotel Babylon. November saw Peter Davison in The Minds Eye which had Owen Teale who had starred opposite Davison in The Caves of Androzani in 1984. The Mind's Eye was a really good story that was enjoyable but was let down by the single part story. December's story saw the exit of Charley in The Girl Who Never Was. Now this story was supposed to be the great ending for a character that had been with the eighth Doctor since he started the Big Finish plays in 2001. However I found it a little disappointing because it was more complicated than it needed to be. The ending was really heart breaking and was the perfect ending to a fine character. The special release that accompanied the The Girl Who Never Was. Return to the Web Planet saw the 5TH Doctor and Nyssa encounter the Zarbi in a story that was quite interesting. Another big name was Sam Kelly who was famous for starring in the BBC Comedy 'Allo 'Allo.
This has been a big year for spin-off releases. January saw all four parts of the Companion Chronicles released. These feature companions of the first four Doctors who cant (or wont in Tom Baker's case) appear in audios. Maureen O'Brien read as Vicki for the First Doctor, Wendy Padbury read as Zoe for the Second Doctor, Caroline John read as Liz Shaw for the Third Doctor and Lalla Ward read as Romana II for the Fourth Doctor. The success of this series led for Big Finish to produce a second series which started in October. By the end of 2007 Peter Purves had read as Steven Taylor for the First Doctor and Frazer Hines read as Jamie McCrimmon. Both these audios continued to the strong stories that had been produced by the first series. The lack of 8th Doctor stories in the regular range was down to the fact that the Doctor was busy on the digital radio station BBC7 in eight brand new adventures. This was a success because it had created a new companion in the form of Lucie Miller who was played by Sheridan Smith. These stories were released every month from January to August. The success of the series must have made the writers and producers decide that C'Rizz and Charley were surplus to requirements. If that's the case then they have replaced two well established characters with one that isn't quite on par with them but with time has the potential of being one of the greatest companions in the audio Doctor Who's.
2007 also saw the return of the most successful spin-off series that Big Finish has ever had. Dalek Empire returned with two former Doctor Who stars taking the lead roles. Noel Clarke who had played Mickey Smith from 2005 to 2006 played Silus Kade and Maureen O'Brien who had played Vicki from 1965-66 was playing Angnes Landen. The series is really well written and any doubts that I had about whether Clarke would be right for the role or whether Nicholas Briggs had left it to long since Dalek Empire 3 went as soon as Part 1 was released.
So that has been 2007 in the Big Finish universe. 33 releases and out of the regular releases the following returns saw a average rating of 3.62 which was an improvement from 2006. It actually was the second highest rating since the Doctor Who range began only losing out to the 2001 rating of 3.83.
So what can we expect from 2008? Well I hope that they don't do as many three part stories followed by a single story because they just don't work. Also I hope that the quality of the stories continues to improve like they have done this year. More stories that don't have companions would also be good even though there should be at least one with every companion.
2007 has been a great year for Big Finish and 2008 looks like it could be even better.
Well, Yes and No. Without doubt the stories such as Son of the Dragon, Absolution and Nocturne have been absolute crackers with all the pace, emotional material and damn good acting that wouldn't be out of place on TV. But then there were stories such as Valhalla and 100 which were mediocre, bordering on poor. There were big changes to the line up that would see some of the biggest changes that Doctor Who has encountered in the Big Finish range since it was launched in 1999. Gary Russell, who had been the top man behind the series contributed to his final story in Nocturne and Nicholas Briggs took over. There was also a change to the story format with new three parters followed by a single stand alone story. 2007 also saw the 100th Doctor Who story produced by Big Finish to celebrate it there was a different type of story made.
2007 started with Circular Time, which was a four part story with Peter Davison and also starring Sarah Sutton who was making her first Big Finish appearance since the 2005 story The Game. This was a poor story in my opinion as it didn't really seem to have much point to it. The only good part about it was the role of Sir Issac Newton which was played by the brilliant David Warner. I ended up giving this story 2 out of 5. February saw the Seventh Doctor star in Nocturne. This was a brilliant story which had me holding on to every word and by the end of part four was completely blown away which I thought was the best story for a long time and for most of this year was the best story of the year. March saw the return of the Daleks. This was Nicholas Brigg's first story as 'Executive' Producer. This story also featured a new look CD Cover which changed for the first time since Paul McGann's first adventure in January 2001. The story had been written by Christopher H.Bidmead who for new fans who haven't seen much of 1980's Who was the script editor for the end of Tom Baker's era and the beginning of Peter Davison's time in control of the TARDIS. Renaissance of the Daleks didn't have a written by credit but a 'From an Idea by' because apparently he was unhappy with changes been made to his precious script with his name on it. Even though this happens all the time and he must have done when he was script editor he was unhappy with this happening to him. The story was interesting and when I originally reviewed it I said that he should be encouraged to write more and I still stand by that statement. April saw the first three parter followed by a standalone story in I.D and Urgent Call. The three parter was ok but was slightly confusing as I didn't understand really what it was all about but I thought that it was good as three parts because its wouldn't have time to include any boring banter. The inclusion of Gyles Brandreth was one of the few highlights in this story based purely on his voice. The single parter however was not very good as I thought it was a completely pointless episode. May saw the second new style story telling with Exotron and Urban Myth. Unlike the previous release both stories were really good and enjoyable. The characters were well written in both stories and by the end of it I thought it was a good release.
June saw a return to the traditional format of a four part story but Valhalla was a very dull story which wasn't bad or poor like Circular Time but just didn't have a point to it. Slyvester McCoy was let down in this story with a poor story and no one to bounce his character off against as Ace and Hex had been written out of it for some reason. The story was written by Marc Platt who had penned the brilliant 2002 story Spare Parts and so I had high hopes of this release but was ultimately was left disappointed with this release. July saw Bonnie Langford return in The Wishing Beast and the Vanity Box. This 6th Doctor release featured Jean Marsh who had appeared along William Hartnell in the 1965 epic Dalek Master Plan and along the seventh doctor in the 1989 serial Battlefield. The three part story was quite good as if it had been four parts then it might have stumbled a little bit. The single parter was something that I didn't like as I though that even though it was a link to the Wishing Beast story it didn't really work because the pace and language used wasn't right at all.
August saw Slyvester McCoy return to in Frozen Time which was written by Nicholas Briggs who's last penned story The Nowhere Place (2006) was a brilliant adventure. Sure enough this story was also a well written, well acted piece of sci-fi. The biggest shock of the year came when it was revealed that the Ice Warriors were in main baddies. Unlike the companion-less story of Valhalla, McCoy was given a great script and had co-stars that complimented his Doctor. Nicholas Briggs is a brilliant writer and has shown time and time again that he can write a cracking script and it is only because he is doing the Dalek Empire and Cyberman series that we don't see more of his work. Early September saw release 99 and Son of the Dragon. This in my mind is the greatest story of the year. It was the sort of story that only comes round one ever few years and had the feel of an adventure that should be made for TV on my a big Sci-Fi budget. The addition of James Purefoy was a masterstroke in an adventure which will be around for a long time before being beaten in terms of quality writing and acting. Late September saw the 100th release in the brilliantly named 100. To celebrate this milestone four of the most popular writers penned a single episode. Paul Cornell, Robert Shearman, Joseph Lidster and Jacqueline Rayner. I was disappointed by this because I thought that single part stories just don't work. The only story that worked for me was the 100 Days of the Doctor which whilst wasn't brilliant was the best of a bad bunch.
October's release was Absolution which saw the first eighth Doctor story with C'Rizz and Charley since Memory Lane in late 2006. This was the second story in three which I thought was brilliant. Not because it wrote out the character of C'Rizz but because of the way of the exit. It was the most emotional story that has ever been done and actually made me Miss C'Rizz. Absolution saw three guest roles in the form of Robert Glenister who stars in the BBC Drama Hustle, Christopher Villers who stars in the ITV soap Emmerdale and Natalie Mendoza who stars in the BBC drama Hotel Babylon. November saw Peter Davison in The Minds Eye which had Owen Teale who had starred opposite Davison in The Caves of Androzani in 1984. The Mind's Eye was a really good story that was enjoyable but was let down by the single part story. December's story saw the exit of Charley in The Girl Who Never Was. Now this story was supposed to be the great ending for a character that had been with the eighth Doctor since he started the Big Finish plays in 2001. However I found it a little disappointing because it was more complicated than it needed to be. The ending was really heart breaking and was the perfect ending to a fine character. The special release that accompanied the The Girl Who Never Was. Return to the Web Planet saw the 5TH Doctor and Nyssa encounter the Zarbi in a story that was quite interesting. Another big name was Sam Kelly who was famous for starring in the BBC Comedy 'Allo 'Allo.
This has been a big year for spin-off releases. January saw all four parts of the Companion Chronicles released. These feature companions of the first four Doctors who cant (or wont in Tom Baker's case) appear in audios. Maureen O'Brien read as Vicki for the First Doctor, Wendy Padbury read as Zoe for the Second Doctor, Caroline John read as Liz Shaw for the Third Doctor and Lalla Ward read as Romana II for the Fourth Doctor. The success of this series led for Big Finish to produce a second series which started in October. By the end of 2007 Peter Purves had read as Steven Taylor for the First Doctor and Frazer Hines read as Jamie McCrimmon. Both these audios continued to the strong stories that had been produced by the first series. The lack of 8th Doctor stories in the regular range was down to the fact that the Doctor was busy on the digital radio station BBC7 in eight brand new adventures. This was a success because it had created a new companion in the form of Lucie Miller who was played by Sheridan Smith. These stories were released every month from January to August. The success of the series must have made the writers and producers decide that C'Rizz and Charley were surplus to requirements. If that's the case then they have replaced two well established characters with one that isn't quite on par with them but with time has the potential of being one of the greatest companions in the audio Doctor Who's.
2007 also saw the return of the most successful spin-off series that Big Finish has ever had. Dalek Empire returned with two former Doctor Who stars taking the lead roles. Noel Clarke who had played Mickey Smith from 2005 to 2006 played Silus Kade and Maureen O'Brien who had played Vicki from 1965-66 was playing Angnes Landen. The series is really well written and any doubts that I had about whether Clarke would be right for the role or whether Nicholas Briggs had left it to long since Dalek Empire 3 went as soon as Part 1 was released.
So that has been 2007 in the Big Finish universe. 33 releases and out of the regular releases the following returns saw a average rating of 3.62 which was an improvement from 2006. It actually was the second highest rating since the Doctor Who range began only losing out to the 2001 rating of 3.83.
So what can we expect from 2008? Well I hope that they don't do as many three part stories followed by a single story because they just don't work. Also I hope that the quality of the stories continues to improve like they have done this year. More stories that don't have companions would also be good even though there should be at least one with every companion.
2007 has been a great year for Big Finish and 2008 looks like it could be even better.
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Tomfiles: #2 - Return of a TV Classic
Doctor Who has gone through a TV renaissance. It was only a few years ago that the show was a figure of fun. Since then show was cancelled in 1989 there had been several hopes of a new series or movies only for them to turn into nothing and utter disappointment. Apart from the 1996 TV movie made by American TV Network FOX, Doctor Who Fans have had to make up their own adventures keeping the series alive long enough for the BBC to change their minds and bring it back. In September 2003, just a few weeks before the shows 40th Anniversary Jane Tranter (Controller of BBC1 at the time) announced that a brand new series would be airing in early 2005. This was far more than anyone was expecting, most would have been happy with a few specials but a series was brilliant. This now meant that there would have to questions asked concerning this 13-part series.
The first question was 'Who would be playing the Doctor?'. There were loads of names banded around like Eddie Izzard, Alan Davies and even Bill Nighy. The thing that I thought about these names is that they are all very good actors but not who I would want to play the Doctor. When Christopher Eccleston's name was revealed in the papers I have to admit that I was surprised, not that I thought it was a bad choice but that it I thought of Eccleston as a rather serious actor and not one to play a funny/serious role like the Doctor. The next question would be 'Who would be playing the Companion?' Again there were loads of names mentioned but it was former pop star Billie Piper who got the role. This did worry me a little bit because I thought that by getting a former pop star they were trying to dumb down the show and trying to just attract it to a younger audience and forgetting the fans of the new series.
In the coming weeks and months there were stories about what might be in the series. The biggest new was whether the Daleks were going to appear in the new series. First they were then they weren't and for a short time it seemed that the first series of Doctor Who for 16 years was going to be Dalek-less. Even the Sun newspaper tried to launch a campaign and apparently President of the United States George W.Bush was in support of the campaign though knowing how he is its not such a big shock. Then all of a sudden they were and people were talking about what the reasons were for the change but to be honest I didn't really care. They were back and that's all that matters.
One of the biggest surprises I encountered in the run-up to the series was the controversy that the logo seemed to attract. A lot of people didn't like it but I thought it was ok. Besides, there was a lot more to worry about that a sodding logo. As time got to the airdate more and more information came out which made it one of the most anticipated shows of the year if not decade. The trailers soon started airing on BBC TV which made it seem real, the look of Eccleston’s Doctor looked really good as did the TARDIS interior. My only concern was with the console, it didn't really look right but I assumed it would grow on me.
Saturday 26th March 2005 is one of the most important dates in Doctor Who history and it arrived with Rose. Those fears and concerns about whether Eccleston and Piper would work soon went away. It seemed that Doctor Who was back and that was supported by the fact that 10.8 million people tuned it. But jubilation soon turned into shock as it was announced that Eccleston was quitting after just one series. I was shocked as but not as much as I was shocked by the reaction to other so called 'fans'. Apparently the story was released by the BBC to early. Silly Twits. Still no excuse for the fans. We didn't have to wait long for the Dalek episode simply called 'Dalek' it was loosely based on Robert Shearman's fantastic 2003 Big Finish release 'Jubilee'. It was an interesting story and it has a sad ending because the last Dalek was gone and the Doctor who four episodes earlier admitted he was the last of the Timelords was ultimately the winner. Because the last Dalek was gone and the Doctor who four episodes earlier admitted he was the last of the Timelords was ultimately the winner. Over the course of the series we learnt more about the Doctor and Rose and then we met Captain Jack in Episode 8. But it all came to an end in 'Bad Wolf'. Now I have tried and tried to understand the whole Bad Wolf thing but ultimately I just can’t. That is really only critiscm that I have of the series because I think that it was just a bit too complicated for my liking. The scene where Rose is on Earth in 2005 and was trying to get back to the station was the best example of how the role of the companion has changed over the years. By this point we knew that Manchurian Eccleston was going to turn into Scottish David Tennant.
It wasn't until Children in Need that year that we got our first glimpse of the Tenth Doctor. Just a few weeks earlier Doctor Who won its first set of National Television Awards. It's a trend that they would repeat in 2006 and this year. The only blip was that Freema Agyeman didn't scoop the Most Popular Actress award. Shortly after the first NTA triumph in 2005 David Tennant had his first proper episode air on Christmas Day, it was only the second time in Doctor Who's history that it aired on December 25 (the previous one was an episode of the Dalek epic The Daleks Master Plan in 1965). The Christmas Invasion was a 60 minute special and the question was would a modern day audience accept a new Doctor after just getting use to another actor playing the lead role. It was the same question fans asked in 1966 when Patrick Troughton took over from William Hartnell. The answer was a resounding YES. Over 9 million tuned in to see this special which is amazing for a Christmas Day show. We would only have to wait a few months or Tennant's first full series. More news about the second series kept being leaked to the papers. It was announced that the Cybermen would return in what would be the 40th Anniversary since they made their debut.
In April 2006, Doctor Who returned with 'New Earth' and it was a ratings success. The Cybermen returned in episode 5, with their really good new look. The thing about the Cybermen throughout their time in Doctor Who had always changed. The ones in the 1980's tended to stay the same but ultimately it was decided to give the metal monsters a 21s Century look. 9.22 million people tuned in and proved that they still had fans. During the transmission of the series it was reported that Billie Piper was leaving at the end of the second series. The character of Rose was a really popular character (even though some didn't like her) so the replacement for the Rose character had to be someone who was just as good. Freema Agyeman was unveiled as the next companion of the TARDIS, she had played a character called Adeola who got killed in Torchwood HQ in Army of Ghosts. The series finale two-parter was strange not only did it write out the character of Rose but it showed Torchwood for the first time after several references throughout the series. It was very much like Bad Wolf in the previous series which made you want to find out what it meant. The only thing was that the Torchwood references was a bit more than the Bad Wolf as the Torchwood link would turn into a spin-off series but more of that later.
The biggest thing about the Army of Ghosts was the revelation of the Daleks who appeared just a few minutes after the Cybermen had made their appearance into the episode. For the first time ever the Daleks and the Cybermen would fight each other and we would answer an age old question of 'Who Would Win between the Daleks and Cybermen?'. It was always going to be the Daleks as any fool would know because they are the Daleks. The series ended in the most bizarre way as it was totally unexpected as there was no indication that it was going to happen. Catherine Tate, who was well known to British TV viewers as a comedian on the star of her very own BBC2 comedy series. The most shocking thing was that people were asking 'How Did She Get into the TARDIS?'. On Christmas Day 2006, The Runaway Bride aired on BBC One. It was a better story that the Christmas Invasion as it was more action packed because Tennant didn't spend 35 minutes in bed. Catherine Tate was slightly annoying but by the end you did want her to stay with the Doctor. The Runaway Bride did the ratings trick with over 9 million people tuning in.
In March 2007, Doctor Who returned for its third series (or 29th). It seemed like the previous two series were a blur. The trailer for this series made the show seem different and in a way I suppose it had to be as you would have found it strange that Martha was the same as Rose. The opening episode was totally unexpected as it seemed to have a pace that the previous series openers didn't have. The Martha character was more intelligent and less likely to lay down the life for the sake of it than Rose who was willing to jump into anything without a moments thought. The 2007 series was by far the best series since it returned but that's not to say there weren't fault with the series. The Macra in episode 3 was pointless like the writers thought 'Let just put them it for the fun of it, the fans wont mind' well I did, Gridlock was a great episode and the Macra let it down. The Daleks in Manhattan two parter was a bit of a let down. I think it was the beginning of Dalek overkill. In 41 episodes, the Dalek have appeared in 7 episodes which was the most of any baddies in the show. As much as I love the Daleks I think they shouldn't come back in 2008 because the baddies need a rest. The thing that I noticed was how the Jones family were completely different to the Tyler's because the Jones's didn't really play that much of a part in the series apart from The Lazarus Experiment and the Master two-parter in episodes 12 and 13. Also they weren't a comedy family like the Tyler's seemed to be which gave a new dimension to the Jones's.
Series 3 was about the master. Ever since Love and Monsters in 2006 where Mr Saxon was referred to in some form (usually after an alien invasion). When you realise that when Episode 12 comes around that all the Mr Saxon references were about the Master it actually gives the impression that the producers planned this really well. I don't know how true this is but none the less it was well planned and well executed. The final episode of the series ended with the Titanic crashing through the TARDIS, you just didn't know why the Titanic had crashed through something that was supposed be indestructible. That was answered though in the second Children in Need Special after the Tenth Doctor and the Fifth Doctor meet. This was a great show as it seemed to come from the heart of the writer (Steven Moffat) and David Tennant. If you haven't seen it then go onto YouTube and watch it, it's the best eight minutes that you will witness.
One of the most surprising things about the return of Doctor Who is that it has spawned two spin-offs. It has produced Torchwood which debuted in late 2006 and returns for a second series in January 2008. It featured Captain Jack and it got mixed reviews. I think it’s because it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Did it want to be Doctor Who wit sex and attitude or did it want to be something completely different. It didn't help by the fact that they bought in a female Cyberman in. There were several episodes that were very good but ultimately I thought the series was Ok at best. The second spin off comes from one of the Doctors old friends. Sarah Jane Smith got her own series 26 years after he pilot aired Elisabeth Sladen returned to much success in the 2006 episode 'School Reunion'. There was a pilot on New Years Day 2007 and a 10 part series aired on CBBC One in October 2007.
As I am writing this in Mid-December 2007 with just a few weeks to go before the Christmas Special what can I say about the new series and what it has achieved. Well in fact it has achieved more than I ever thought possible. People are treating the show in the press a lot better than they did before. People have a new point of view on the classic stories. Most think now that the Colin Baker stories are a lot better than what they thought whereas before 2005 most 6th Doctor stories were considered poor. I have to admit that I have a new opinion of Doctor Who episodes that I thought were poor or badly written but now they are not that bad. The new series doesn't cover over the cracks and flaws of the old series but it gives you the opportunity to look at these stories in a new light.
People have worked really hard to restore the image of Who and to a UK and International audience. Another good thing about Doctor Who is its cool again to be a Who fan. Mind you in my opinion it always has been. There is a fourth series (30th) starting in the Spring of 2008, three specials airing in 2009 and a fifth and full series in 2010 with Tennant appearing in all of these.
The first question was 'Who would be playing the Doctor?'. There were loads of names banded around like Eddie Izzard, Alan Davies and even Bill Nighy. The thing that I thought about these names is that they are all very good actors but not who I would want to play the Doctor. When Christopher Eccleston's name was revealed in the papers I have to admit that I was surprised, not that I thought it was a bad choice but that it I thought of Eccleston as a rather serious actor and not one to play a funny/serious role like the Doctor. The next question would be 'Who would be playing the Companion?' Again there were loads of names mentioned but it was former pop star Billie Piper who got the role. This did worry me a little bit because I thought that by getting a former pop star they were trying to dumb down the show and trying to just attract it to a younger audience and forgetting the fans of the new series.
In the coming weeks and months there were stories about what might be in the series. The biggest new was whether the Daleks were going to appear in the new series. First they were then they weren't and for a short time it seemed that the first series of Doctor Who for 16 years was going to be Dalek-less. Even the Sun newspaper tried to launch a campaign and apparently President of the United States George W.Bush was in support of the campaign though knowing how he is its not such a big shock. Then all of a sudden they were and people were talking about what the reasons were for the change but to be honest I didn't really care. They were back and that's all that matters.
One of the biggest surprises I encountered in the run-up to the series was the controversy that the logo seemed to attract. A lot of people didn't like it but I thought it was ok. Besides, there was a lot more to worry about that a sodding logo. As time got to the airdate more and more information came out which made it one of the most anticipated shows of the year if not decade. The trailers soon started airing on BBC TV which made it seem real, the look of Eccleston’s Doctor looked really good as did the TARDIS interior. My only concern was with the console, it didn't really look right but I assumed it would grow on me.
Saturday 26th March 2005 is one of the most important dates in Doctor Who history and it arrived with Rose. Those fears and concerns about whether Eccleston and Piper would work soon went away. It seemed that Doctor Who was back and that was supported by the fact that 10.8 million people tuned it. But jubilation soon turned into shock as it was announced that Eccleston was quitting after just one series. I was shocked as but not as much as I was shocked by the reaction to other so called 'fans'. Apparently the story was released by the BBC to early. Silly Twits. Still no excuse for the fans. We didn't have to wait long for the Dalek episode simply called 'Dalek' it was loosely based on Robert Shearman's fantastic 2003 Big Finish release 'Jubilee'. It was an interesting story and it has a sad ending because the last Dalek was gone and the Doctor who four episodes earlier admitted he was the last of the Timelords was ultimately the winner. Because the last Dalek was gone and the Doctor who four episodes earlier admitted he was the last of the Timelords was ultimately the winner. Over the course of the series we learnt more about the Doctor and Rose and then we met Captain Jack in Episode 8. But it all came to an end in 'Bad Wolf'. Now I have tried and tried to understand the whole Bad Wolf thing but ultimately I just can’t. That is really only critiscm that I have of the series because I think that it was just a bit too complicated for my liking. The scene where Rose is on Earth in 2005 and was trying to get back to the station was the best example of how the role of the companion has changed over the years. By this point we knew that Manchurian Eccleston was going to turn into Scottish David Tennant.
It wasn't until Children in Need that year that we got our first glimpse of the Tenth Doctor. Just a few weeks earlier Doctor Who won its first set of National Television Awards. It's a trend that they would repeat in 2006 and this year. The only blip was that Freema Agyeman didn't scoop the Most Popular Actress award. Shortly after the first NTA triumph in 2005 David Tennant had his first proper episode air on Christmas Day, it was only the second time in Doctor Who's history that it aired on December 25 (the previous one was an episode of the Dalek epic The Daleks Master Plan in 1965). The Christmas Invasion was a 60 minute special and the question was would a modern day audience accept a new Doctor after just getting use to another actor playing the lead role. It was the same question fans asked in 1966 when Patrick Troughton took over from William Hartnell. The answer was a resounding YES. Over 9 million tuned in to see this special which is amazing for a Christmas Day show. We would only have to wait a few months or Tennant's first full series. More news about the second series kept being leaked to the papers. It was announced that the Cybermen would return in what would be the 40th Anniversary since they made their debut.
In April 2006, Doctor Who returned with 'New Earth' and it was a ratings success. The Cybermen returned in episode 5, with their really good new look. The thing about the Cybermen throughout their time in Doctor Who had always changed. The ones in the 1980's tended to stay the same but ultimately it was decided to give the metal monsters a 21s Century look. 9.22 million people tuned in and proved that they still had fans. During the transmission of the series it was reported that Billie Piper was leaving at the end of the second series. The character of Rose was a really popular character (even though some didn't like her) so the replacement for the Rose character had to be someone who was just as good. Freema Agyeman was unveiled as the next companion of the TARDIS, she had played a character called Adeola who got killed in Torchwood HQ in Army of Ghosts. The series finale two-parter was strange not only did it write out the character of Rose but it showed Torchwood for the first time after several references throughout the series. It was very much like Bad Wolf in the previous series which made you want to find out what it meant. The only thing was that the Torchwood references was a bit more than the Bad Wolf as the Torchwood link would turn into a spin-off series but more of that later.
The biggest thing about the Army of Ghosts was the revelation of the Daleks who appeared just a few minutes after the Cybermen had made their appearance into the episode. For the first time ever the Daleks and the Cybermen would fight each other and we would answer an age old question of 'Who Would Win between the Daleks and Cybermen?'. It was always going to be the Daleks as any fool would know because they are the Daleks. The series ended in the most bizarre way as it was totally unexpected as there was no indication that it was going to happen. Catherine Tate, who was well known to British TV viewers as a comedian on the star of her very own BBC2 comedy series. The most shocking thing was that people were asking 'How Did She Get into the TARDIS?'. On Christmas Day 2006, The Runaway Bride aired on BBC One. It was a better story that the Christmas Invasion as it was more action packed because Tennant didn't spend 35 minutes in bed. Catherine Tate was slightly annoying but by the end you did want her to stay with the Doctor. The Runaway Bride did the ratings trick with over 9 million people tuning in.
In March 2007, Doctor Who returned for its third series (or 29th). It seemed like the previous two series were a blur. The trailer for this series made the show seem different and in a way I suppose it had to be as you would have found it strange that Martha was the same as Rose. The opening episode was totally unexpected as it seemed to have a pace that the previous series openers didn't have. The Martha character was more intelligent and less likely to lay down the life for the sake of it than Rose who was willing to jump into anything without a moments thought. The 2007 series was by far the best series since it returned but that's not to say there weren't fault with the series. The Macra in episode 3 was pointless like the writers thought 'Let just put them it for the fun of it, the fans wont mind' well I did, Gridlock was a great episode and the Macra let it down. The Daleks in Manhattan two parter was a bit of a let down. I think it was the beginning of Dalek overkill. In 41 episodes, the Dalek have appeared in 7 episodes which was the most of any baddies in the show. As much as I love the Daleks I think they shouldn't come back in 2008 because the baddies need a rest. The thing that I noticed was how the Jones family were completely different to the Tyler's because the Jones's didn't really play that much of a part in the series apart from The Lazarus Experiment and the Master two-parter in episodes 12 and 13. Also they weren't a comedy family like the Tyler's seemed to be which gave a new dimension to the Jones's.
Series 3 was about the master. Ever since Love and Monsters in 2006 where Mr Saxon was referred to in some form (usually after an alien invasion). When you realise that when Episode 12 comes around that all the Mr Saxon references were about the Master it actually gives the impression that the producers planned this really well. I don't know how true this is but none the less it was well planned and well executed. The final episode of the series ended with the Titanic crashing through the TARDIS, you just didn't know why the Titanic had crashed through something that was supposed be indestructible. That was answered though in the second Children in Need Special after the Tenth Doctor and the Fifth Doctor meet. This was a great show as it seemed to come from the heart of the writer (Steven Moffat) and David Tennant. If you haven't seen it then go onto YouTube and watch it, it's the best eight minutes that you will witness.
One of the most surprising things about the return of Doctor Who is that it has spawned two spin-offs. It has produced Torchwood which debuted in late 2006 and returns for a second series in January 2008. It featured Captain Jack and it got mixed reviews. I think it’s because it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Did it want to be Doctor Who wit sex and attitude or did it want to be something completely different. It didn't help by the fact that they bought in a female Cyberman in. There were several episodes that were very good but ultimately I thought the series was Ok at best. The second spin off comes from one of the Doctors old friends. Sarah Jane Smith got her own series 26 years after he pilot aired Elisabeth Sladen returned to much success in the 2006 episode 'School Reunion'. There was a pilot on New Years Day 2007 and a 10 part series aired on CBBC One in October 2007.
As I am writing this in Mid-December 2007 with just a few weeks to go before the Christmas Special what can I say about the new series and what it has achieved. Well in fact it has achieved more than I ever thought possible. People are treating the show in the press a lot better than they did before. People have a new point of view on the classic stories. Most think now that the Colin Baker stories are a lot better than what they thought whereas before 2005 most 6th Doctor stories were considered poor. I have to admit that I have a new opinion of Doctor Who episodes that I thought were poor or badly written but now they are not that bad. The new series doesn't cover over the cracks and flaws of the old series but it gives you the opportunity to look at these stories in a new light.
People have worked really hard to restore the image of Who and to a UK and International audience. Another good thing about Doctor Who is its cool again to be a Who fan. Mind you in my opinion it always has been. There is a fourth series (30th) starting in the Spring of 2008, three specials airing in 2009 and a fifth and full series in 2010 with Tennant appearing in all of these.
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