Scourge of the Cybermen is the first of a new range of “audio novels” – in other words, enhanced audiobooks, as distinct from audio dramas – from Big Finish. Written by Simon Guerrier, it uses the format to tell a “Target books” style story; over more than seven hours, the tale mirrors the structure of … >
Sky One’s new original eight-part space opera acknowledges its debts to its small screen forebears and antecedents without apology. Intergalactic stands squarely in the tradition of shows as far apart in the TV timeline as Blake’s 7 (1978-81) and Firefly (2002). It’s a big, playful, energetic exploration of high-stakes, high-concept sci-fi. And despite the occasional … >
Doctor Who: Stranded 2 continues on immediately from the previous boxset, but provides a substantial change in tone In our review of Stranded 1, we admired the bold experiment of forcing the Doctor (Paul McGann), Liv Chenka (Nicola Walker) and Helen Sinclair (Hattie Morahan) to spend time in 2020 London. We were treated to a set … >
Continuing in the vein of last week’s “Home, Sweet Home“, episode eighteen of The Walking Dead‘s tenth season “Find Me” delivers more compelling small-scale and intimate drama. Light on zombies, this is instead a completely absorbing study of the nature of human resilience and interconnectedness in an impossible world overrun by endless undead. It’s hardly … >
Production on season ten of The Walking Dead halted last year due to the impact of the Covid lockdown. With socially-distanced filming permitted once more in the US state of Georgia a few months ago, the remaining episodes of what’s confirmed as the show’s penultimate series are now airing in the UK on the Fox … >
Enthused by the positive critical reaction that greeted the release of Breakaway, an updated retelling of the pilot episode of ITC’s 1970s TV sci-fi romp, Big Finish have now released the first volume of three Space 1999 audio dramas. With the moon launched into deep-space and pushed through a worm-hole, the fate of humanity back … >
Scavengers, the sixth episode in Star Trek: Discovery season 3 looked fabulous (again) and was an easy watch piece of entertainment, but failed to disguise the flaws prevalent in many recent episodes. Already we have a pattern, it seems. As Scavengers opens, we see the crew of Discovery getting to grips with the tech upgrades a thousand years of … >
Shadow of the Daleks 2 is comprised of four single-episode stories, concluding the Fifth Doctor’s puzzling encounter with the Time War; the temporal conflict between the Time Lords and the Daleks of which he should have no knowledge. Seemingly compelled to meet the same faces over and over, the Doctor leans more and more of … >
Die Trying. Star Trek: Discovery has an ability to burn though plot at a remarkable rate. After finding the location, we imagined a journey to the new heart of the Federation might consume a few weeks. Instead, Discovery arrived at the new covert Starfleet Headquarters before this episode’s opening credits. Once the thrill subsided, the … >
After starting to build an overall idea in The Paternoster Gang: Heritage 3, the current set of stories brings this sequence of boxsets to what feels an abrupt close. The three stories in set each fails to contribute to a coherent whole, and feels like a series of missed opportunities. The stories aren’t necessarily bad, they … >