Doctor Who: Pretty Lies
by Guy Adams (Big Finish, 2017)
As gratifying as it is to hear John Hurt as the War Doctor, this audio drama—inevitably?—portrays him as doing his humane best in an impossible situation; ergo, as no more callous or culpable than any other of the Doctor’s incarnations.
Doctor Who: The Mind Robber
by Peter Ling (Target, 1986); audiobook read by Derek Jacobi (BBC, 2010)
Peter Ling’s only Doctor Who novelisation is more competently written than many in the Target range. As a Wonderland homage, however, and as a pioneering work of metatextualism, the story trots out (and bottoms out on) visual flourishes better suited to television.
Doctor Who: An Earthly Child
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2009)
Platt does a good job envisaging Susan’s future life and a reunion with her grandfather (in his eighth incarnation)! Carole Ann Ford and Paul McGann work well together but the Doctor—not uncommonly in Eighth Doctor stories—contributes little to the resolution.
Doctor Who: The Chimes of Midnight
by Robert Shearman (Big Finish, 2002)
A dark yet sometimes funny, perfectly paced bottle-episode audio adventure that starts in total darkness and slowly reveals its grim premise, dropping clues that are best appreciated in retrospect. Paul McGann takes total ownership. What a TV story this would have made!
Doctor Who: The Thief Who Stole Time
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2017)
A wildly imaginative audio drama that successfully sacrifices exposition for immersion (assuming it is meant to stand alone). While Tom Baker cruises and Lalla Ward adds depth to Romana, Sartia (Joannah Tincey) emerges as one of the audio series’ more endearing villains.
Doctor Who: The Age of Endurance
by Nick Wallace (Big Finish, 2016)
This First Doctor audio drama evokes something of Warriors’ Gate, and again shows Nick Wallace to be one of Doctor Who’s most effective and talented writers. The scenario intrigues and the alien Shift would be brilliant on TV (as they are here).
Three to Conquer
by Eric Frank Russell (Avalon, 1956)
Russell selectively breeds two SF storylines — alien body snatchers and telepathic outsider — to produce a memorable invasion tale, told in the manner of hardboiled detective fiction (itself melding lone wolf with FBI manhunt). Cited for possible adaptation during Doctor Who’s planning stages.
Doctor Who: Landbound
by Selim Ulug; audiobook read by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish, 2017)
While exiled on Earth, the Third Doctor crosses paths with a grounded sea captain. After an uninspiring beginning—a rather forced set-to wherein the Doctor can display his Venusian aikido—this develops into an apposite, rather wistful vignette, cathartic for both characters.
Doctor Who: Fury From the Deep
by Victor Pemberton (Target, 1986)
Having opened on a well-staged cliffhanger, Pemberton proceeds with a workmanlike retelling of this lost serial, contented more or less to prosify his own script. Off-screen as on-, his only feat of note is the puckish metatextualising of Doctor Who’s screaming companion.
The Doctor Who Audio Annual
(BBC, 2017)
Presented in chronological order (First to Sixth Doctors) and read mostly by erstwhile companions, this collection of stories from the old Doctor Who Annuals has a nostalgic appeal, capturing the tone of each era. Little surprise though that the authors were uncredited.