Doctor Who: Kingdom of Silver / Keepsake
by James Swallow (Big Finish, 2008)
An unusual three-plus-one-parter. The Cybermen themselves don’t offer much, but the androids serve (with considerably more nuance) to explore the grey area between human and artificial life. Terry Molloy plays an authority figure without megalomaniacal ambitions, which makes for a nice change!
Doctor Who: The Axis of Insanity
by Simon Furman (Big Finish, 2004)
There’s a SF idea hiding somewhere in this four-parter, but it’s overwhelmed by a soundscape of chaotic action scenes and a pointlessly cackling villain(ess). In partial mitigation, Peri and Erimem are granted some airtime. Peter Davison puts on his usual acting masterclass.
Doctor Who: Wave of Destruction
by Justin Richards (Big Finish, 2016)
This swinging sixties invasion story starts out in full flippancy mode and just barely injects enough seriousness to keep its regulars from losing all credibility. Tom Baker and Lalla Ward do ultimately walk that fine line, producing a fun if throwaway two-parter.
Doctor Who: The Angel of Scutari
by Paul Sutton (Big Finish, 2009)
A straight historical adventure, engagingly scripted and giving Ace and Hex some room to breathe. On the downside, Sutton resorts to the usual, lazy trope of a mentally unhinged human adversary, while needlessly dredging up famous personages (Florence Nightingale, perhaps, but Tolstoy?!).
Doctor Who: Cold Fusion
by Lance Parkin (Big Finish, 2016)
A six-parter adapted by Parkin from his own novel. In script and performance, ‘Cold Fusion’ perfectly captures (indeed, elevates) the early Davison era—an exemplar of what Big Finish can accomplish when not going through the motions or faffing about with Daleks.
Doctor Who: City of Spires
by Simon Bovey (Big Finish, 2010)
Colin Baker and Frazer Hines make for good listening, undiminished by the passing years. The story, while diverting enough, exists mostly to reunite their characters, the Overlord proving a paltry adversary even by Doctor Who’s standards of dim villains with dubious schemes.
Doctor Who: The Time Vampire
by Nigel Fairs (Big Finish, 2010)
Two episodes of untethered timey-wimeyness, deliberately written to be explicable only in retrospect. All very clever, but it doesn’t make for a great listen. Louise Jameson narrates as Leela, and she and John Leeson play all the parts (including a sketchy Doctor).
Doctor Who: The Natural History of Fear
by Jim Mortimore (Big Finish, 2004)
More ambitious than the usual run-around. The dystopia, however, is both overplayed and oversimplified, outlawing all questions, yes, but in standard interrogative form only (not other means of eliciting information), and having persons raised without such phrasings still instinctively reaching for them.
Doctor Who: The Magic Mousetrap
by Matthew Sweet (Big Finish, 2009)
This has a distinct ‘Chimes of Midnight’ feel, and it’s nice to hear Big Finish try something other than run-of-the-mill. That said, some of the story elements are a little too affected in their oddness, favouring strangeness for the sake of it.
Doctor Who: Smith and Jones
by Russell T Davies; dir. Charles Palmer (BBC, 2007)
A diverting enough romp that throws everything at the mission brief: introducing Martha as the Doctor’s new companion. Freema Agyeman makes a strong first impression. The militant bureaucratic Judoon are sufficiently ridiculous that Davies can take walloping great liberties with the plot.