Another busy month in the worlds of Doctor Who audio sees the release of UNIT: Shutdown, the second set of adventures following Kate Stewart, Osgood and friends, saving the world without Time Lord assistance.
Meanwhile, Torchwood presents an early tale, with Game of Thrones actress Indira Varma reprising her role as wayward agent Suzie Costello in ‘Moving Target’.
The Second Doctor features in both a Polly-centric Short Trip and the Troughton-era spanning Companion Chronicles box set, while a subscriber only Short Trip takes an unusual look at the Fifth Doctor, and it is a bumper month for fans of writer/actor John Dorney and Time Lords; he has written two of this month’s Doctor Who titles and manages to involve six different Time Lords on the way.
Main Range #213: ‘The Two Masters’
The main course this month is ‘The Two Masters’, a Seventh Doctor story concluding the recent trilogy and giving us both Geoffrey Beevers as the Master and Alex Macqueen (Big Finish’s own Master) opposite Sylvester McCoy.
The idea of a multiple Master story is one of those ideas you wonder why nobody ever did it before. Not only do we have two incarnations of the Master, but John Dorney also brings back the Rocket Men, his own creation from the Companion Chronicles range.
Here the Rocket Men are a forlorn group with little of their previous stature and like others around them suffering from the side-effects of strange gaps in time. To save reality (again) the Doctor needs help, and who better (or worse?) than two other Time Lords, even if both are the Master?
When he encounters the Rocket Men, the Doctor meets a young girl, Jemima played by Lauren Crace (EastEnders) who might be known to fans as Kitty the barmaid from The Minister of Chance, where she appeared alongside not only Sylvester McCoy, but also Paul McGann. Her appearance in a Big Finish is long overdue in that regard and she is excellent if somewhat underused.
John Dorney does a lot with the premise, but giving detail would serve only to diminish the many surprises contained within this clever story. With such a rich mix of key characters, most of the action centres around the Doctor and the two Masters, and this does leave the other cast members with little to do. A minor gripe and it would have been a very different story had this direction been taken. And speaking of direction, this is another solid piece of work from Jamie Anderson.
The only downside is the end of the trilogy means the previous two stories might need a re-listen to spot all the threads linking the tales together.
Subscriber Short Trip: ‘The Monkey House’
For subscribers, ‘The Two Masters’ comes with the added side serving of a Short Trip; Stephen Critchlow reads Nic Ford’s tale of an inquisitive alien child, who visits the zoo to look at human “Monkeys”. Across successive visits, we follow her interest in these creatures and the terrible path it takes her down.
With an unusual slant on the Doctor and his friends, seen through an alien perspective, this is a well-constructed tale which builds to a clever and rewarding pay off.
4th Doctor Adventures 5.06: ‘The Trouble with Drax’
For dessert we have ‘The Trouble with Drax’ starring Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and fellow Time Lord Romana (Lalla Ward).
Drax is a fellow academy pupil of the Doctor’s, and appeared in ‘The Armageddon Factor’, 1979’s conclusion to the Key to Time season, which had Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor and Romana, played then by Mary Tamm. Lalla Ward was in this story as Princess Astra.
If that wasn’t confusion enough, the story was written for Barry Jackson who sadly passed away before this could be recorded. In tribute to his characterisation of Drax as a dodgy geezer from South London, the cast includes Ray Brooks as Drax (he played David Campbell in the 1966 film Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150) and John Challis (Boycie from Only Fools and Horses).
The cast also includes Hugh Fraser (Poirot) as the wealthy Charles Kirkland who has used Drax to get to the Doctor so he can force him to steal something of great value and securely locked away.
The plot moves along at great pace and there is plenty of character interplay. The story even has its own policeman in the form of Miranda Raison as Inspector Fleur McCormick, who is chasing Drax for his previous crimes.
The story has something of the style of a great West End farce, and manages a few twists as it entertains. From the interviews it is clear the cast had as much fun creating this as listeners will have when they hear it.
Short Trips 6.06: ‘Lost and Found’
A trip to post-WWII London, from Dark Shadows writer Penelope Faith, finds the Second Doctor visiting Henriks’ department store with Ben and Polly for a distinctly quirky adventure; and one that becomes rather personal for Polly as she brushes with her own past.
With animated baked bean cans and lost teddy bears, plus a surprising disregard for Doctor Who’s conventional time travel rules, the tale veers rather towards the fantastic and it might not be everybody’s cup of tea.
However, its tender treatment of childhood loss and acceptance is compelling, and the tale is enthusiastically performed by Anneke Wills.
The Companion Chronicles: The Second Doctor Volume 1
The latest Companion Chronicles box set release is devoted to Jamie McCrimmon (Frazer Hines), the Scottish highlander who was an enduring companion to the Second Doctor.
Across four stories, Hines plays both Jamie and the Second Doctor, with (Anneke Wills (Polly), Deborah Watling (Victoria) and Wendy Padbury (Zoe) all reprising their roles, along with the excellent Elliot Chapman, recast as Ben Jackson. All of the stories are partially narrated by the companion actors, with an additional guest star voice.
John Pritchard‘s ‘The Mouthless Dead’ brings the early line-up of Ben, Polly and Jamie to 1920’s Kent. After a collision, and while waiting for TARDIS to repair itself, the time-travellers find themselves trackside for the passing by of a train with a very special passenger.
It’s Victoria’s turn in ‘The Story of Extinction’, from producer Ian Atkins, where her relationship with Jamie comes under some scrutiny as the Doctor joins a crew of data archaeologists, researching the history of a dead world. This is a take guaranteed to put you off your Kindle!
Paired with Zoe for the final two tales, David Bartlett’s ‘The Integral’ looks at Jamie’s prejudice, assuming all aliens are hostile, when they become involved in the fate of a facility that cares for humans with anger management issues. We were particularly impressed by the sound design when facility’s residents became restless!
Atkins reveals in the extras that he set out to celebrate Jamie and these stories do so admirably; in the final tale, Rob Nisbet’s ‘The Edge’ give us full on space adventure, where the highlander takes centre stage and becomes the hero – proving his brand of instinctive heroism can be just as valuable as a scientific education.
What was your favourite Doctor Who release from Big Finish this month? Let us know below…