River Song: Five Twenty-Nine by John Dorney (Big Finish, 2016) One of the better Big Finish stories, not offering full closure but nonetheless presenting a global extinction event with sombre melancholy. Sans any of the Doctors, River Song is given space to make the programme her own. Alex Kingston does just that.
Tag Archive for John Dorney
Doctor Who: Night of the Vashta Nerada
Doctor Who: Night of the Vashta Nerada by John Dorney (Big Finish, 2017) A standard base under siege story with stock characters but nice execution and snatches of dark humour. The script is slick and the actors embrace their parts, Tom Baker veering away from his latter-day flippancy to give an unusually measured, heartfelt performance.
Doctor Who: Terror of the Sontarans
Doctor Who: Terror of the Sontarans by John Dorney & Dan Starkey (Big Finish, 2015) The Seventh Doctor is in full-on affability mode, drained of all intensity; the Sontarans are demented à la Strax; and one of the minor characters is channelling his inner Lord Flashheart. A specious comedy where only Bonnie Langford takes her role seriously.
Doctor Who: The Two Masters
Doctor Who: The Two Masters by John Dorney (Big Finish, 2016) Though undoubtedly ingenious— relegating Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor to a supporting role while prefiguring the multi-Master double-up of ‘World Enough and Time’—The Two Masters asks too much of the audio format, voicing and characterising its twin antagonists in too similar a fashion.
Doctor Who, Doom Coalition 2: Scenes from her Life
Doctor Who, Doom Coalition 2: Scenes from her Life by John Dorney (Big Finish, 2016) An audio drama but a TV idea, the sort to make one wonder at what Paul McGann’s Doctor could have been (or could still be if brought back in, say, a multi-Doctor special). A nice mix of Classic and New Series styles.