Doctor Who: The Twilight Kingdom
by Will Schindler (Big Finish, 2004)
The gritty, underground setting suits Paul McGann’s Doctor, who meets his match here yet retains both dignity and presence. The Big Finish team remain overfond of jumping between scenes. Blake’s 7 fans will be pleased to hear Michael Keating as Major Koth.
Doctor Who: The Legend of Ruby Sunday / Empire of Death
by Russell T Davies; dir. Jamie Donoughue (BBC, 2024)
This two-part finale sees a loosely scripted buildup but then a shocking, soul-chilling threat reveal. Unfortunately, Davies then concocts a facile reversal to haul the Doctor back from the brink. Ruby’s big revelation has some merit and yet… doesn’t explain the snow?
Doctor Who: Rogue
by Kate Herron & Briony Redman; dir. Ben Chessell (BBC, 2024)
Fun and frivolous in its period setting and alien threat, yet also rather staged—in particular the plot/dot-trail tragedy of the Doctor’s forming a faster-than-speed-dating ‘travel the universe with me’ romantic attachment while leaving Ruby unsupervised with murderous shapeshifters on the loose.
Doctor Who: Dot and Bubble
by Russell T Davies; dir. Dylan Holmes Williams (BBC, 2024)
A heavy-handed commentary on social media culture. Davies commits fully to the satire, rather neglecting all other aspects (save for an ending that offers some unexpected substance). Giant slugs and Ricky September notwithstanding, this makes its point without offering much rewatch value.
Doctor Who: 73 Yards
by Russell T Davies; dir. Dylan Holmes Williams (BBC, 2024)
A beautifully crafted Doctor-light episode exploring life after loss. The horror elements are effective and Ruby’s despair, hopelessness and eventual survival all feel very real. A classic, save that a rushed ending glosses over both looping mechanism and the woman’s terrifying effect.
Doctor Who: Boom
by Steven Moffat; dir. Julie Anne Robinson (BBC, 2025)
New Series Doctors share a boundless energy, a defining sense of motion. In contrast, this anti-war bottle episode sees the Fifteenth precariously bemired, balanced atop a landmine. His vulnerability is refreshing, the dialogue exchanges often exquisitely fraught in both scripting and delivery.
Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death
by Barry Letts (BBC Radio 5, 1993)
This five-part radio serial carries an aura of Pertwee-era authenticity, though broadcast two decades later. It’s also unambitious, concerned more with finding its audio feet, reuniting old favourites and riffing on familiar plot elements than with pushing any sort of creative envelope.
Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman?
by Adrian Mourby (BBC Radio 4, 1994)
A Doctor Who wilderness years curiosity, reframing Susan’s adventures in the TARDIS and life thereafter by way of in-character interviews with her, Barbara, Ian, et cetera (none played by the original actors). The script is drolly subversive, and intentionally leery of continuity.
Doctor Who: Slipback
by Eric Saward (BBC Radio 4, 1985)
Slipback captures much of the Sixth Doctor zeitgeist but also attempts a Hitchhiker’s-style humour, which entirely fails to land. Valentine Dyall is given no interaction. The plot strands are barely developed (yet shamelessly rehashed). Hardly an advertisement for a programme on hiatus.
Doctor Who: Legacy of Death
by Jonathan Morris (Big Finish, 2016)
Essentially Day of the Daleks squared. The back-and-forth time raids introduced in The Paradox Planet are here shown to have been initiated by both sides in response to the other. Lots of timey-wimey plotting fun for Morris but surprisingly little moral quandary.