Capsule Reviews

BF 79-Night Thoughts

The Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Hex, seeking shelter from a storm, are taken in by a number of odd characters in an isolated manor. There are researchers, scientists, and a traumatized young girl and the rabbit she talks through. A middling script rendered somewhat more interesting, for a time, by the practical implications of time travel accidents. But then this, too, turns into a riff on an overdone story. Originally submitted for season 27 of the original run. C.

BF 90-Year of the Pig

The Sixth Doctor and Peri take a break from reading to meet a talking pig at the hotel they are staying at, but it turns out that somebody has it out for them, the pig, or both. Scattershot, with a beginning that doesn't go anywhere and a resolution that doesn't really work, but the middle of the story is marvelous. Maureen O'Brien (Vicki) plays the aging nurse to Toby the Sapient Pig, but sadly doesn't get to do much in the story. Good enough once you get through the beginning, and even that has the Doctor drunkenly yelling at Marcel Proust. B-.

BF 106-The Dark Husband

The Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Hex try to take a day off and end up in the middle of an interplanetary war. Two moons are locked in a centuries-long conflict over the planet they orbit, but once every few centuries they host a joint festival. The Doctor must find a way to bring an end to hostilities. An endlessly clever script, starting out almost farcical. The writer really gets the Ace-Hex relationship; this might be their best story. The humor gives way to seriousness as the story goes on, but it never truly loses its sense of fun.  Almost like a Robert Holmes script without the cynicism, in particular with the reveal of the villain. A.

BF 112-Kingdom of Silver & Keepsake

The most bog-standard of bog-standard Cybermen stories. Basically Tomb of the Cybermen with Seven but not as good and in three parts. Fairly dull; Terry Molloy can't make much of one of his only non-Davros performances. But the epilogue of sorts, Keepsake, is fantastically interesting and sad. It's a shame that it requires listening to Kingdom of Silver to find out what's going on. If you REALLY like the Cybermen, it's worth it to get to Keepsake. D.

BF 121-Enemy of the Daleks

The Seventh Doctor, Ace, and Hex run into the remnants of a fleet fighting against the Daleks on an isolated research outpost. There, a brilliant mad scientist has birthed some creatures dangerous enough to destroy the Daleks...but at what cost? Mediocre, but elevated by some performances and character arcs. Has everything that you would expect from a Dalek script, so make of that what you will. It ends up better than it starts out, so if you really like Dalek stories, you might want to stick with it. C.

BF 122-The Angel of Scutari

The Doctor, Ace, and Hex touch down in Sevastopol during the Crimean War and quickly find themselves in a bit of a timey-wimey fix, as the three are separated in time and space and each is suspected of being a traitor to either Britain or Russia. Nothing really of note happens in the story. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but absolutely nothing to latch onto, either. Features not one but two historical guest stars: Leo Tolstoy is wasted thrown into a sideplot Ace has had thirty-five times already, but Florence Nightengale, who only makes a brief appearance, has some nice scenes with Hex. By the time you find out who the true traitor is nobody cares anymore. C-.

BF 142-The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories

Four short stories featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa. Big Finish's short collections are almost always great and this is no exception. Only the first story is somewhat disappointing, but that is only in comparison to the other three. The second story gets some fun jokes out of music history, the third has a wealth of ideas and a running gag with Nyssa. The fourth is probably the best, where the Doctor is recording a DVD commentary over a movie in which he and Nyssa inadvertently featured. A-.

BF 146-Heroes of Sontar

Several years ago the Sontarans carpet-bombed a planet with a biological weapon. Now a strike team of seven Sontarans, the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough have to deal with the blowback from that mission. This story pulls the same essential trick--and around the same time--as A Good Man Goes to War: making the Sontarans essentially a comedy species. This trick does much to ingratiate the audience to the Sontarans, as they are unwilling allies rather than enemies of the Doctor. But there's also a reason these Sontarans are funny which ties into the story, and it even creates pathos for them towards the end. Excellent character work all around: the story has Turlough slightly wrong, going more for straight coward rather than untrustworthy, but the only reason this is apparent is because so much is done to make the characters' personalities essential to the plot. A slightly botched resolution doesn't outweigh the very sympathetic Sontarans, intriguing plot, and great character work. Easily the best Sontaran story in any medium and an outstanding audio. A.

BF 147-Kiss of Death

While on vacation with the Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan, Turlough is spirited away to his ancestral home by a group of thieves who want to break into the vaults. But the voyage has awakened something else on the planet. Probably the best Turlough story. Characters and events from the companion's past are brought up, painting an interesting picture of an adolescent Turlough. The monster is largely extraneous, though it does lead to a giddily ridiculous sequence in the second half. But the gem of this story are the scenes in the Turlough family palace with Turlough, the thieves, and a childhood acquaintance of his. The end is a bit of a mess, but still quite a nice character piece. B.

BF 150-Recorded Time

So far the only bad short story collection Big Finish has done. Where previous short stories have felt well-suited to the length, these all feel like full-length stories unreasonably compressed. The extra runtime on the stories just drags out the misery. F.

BF 161-The Butcher of Brisbane

The Doctor, with Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough in tow, is dragged off course due to turbulence caused by time travel interference. The Doctor and Tegan arrive in war-torn Brisbane, while Nyssa and Turlough land three years earlier on a snowy peak, where bodies are falling out of the sky. One of the poor souls, barely clinging to life, tells them that they are the saviors in the battle against the wicked Magnus Greel, the butcher of Brisbane. As expected, this is a sequel to The Talons of Weng-Chiang, meaning that it brings with it a lot of baggage. Especially because everything dragging this story down is in its connection to the original. Magnus Greel in the original TV story was a war criminal on the run, defeated but still dangerous. In this he's an annoyed, somewhat loathsome genetic tamperer. His death count comes from time travel experiments. Divoreced of any context, this story's Greel is a fine villain, but he has nothing to do, essentially, with his TV counterpart. Mr. Sin most exemplifies this slavish devotion to the TV story. Absolutely nothing comes of his brief cameo; he's here only because he was on TV. The story absolutely sputters out: the Doctor literally tells Greel to get out of here, so he can go meet him in 1977. The story's problems extend to its characterization: very little is made of Tegan wandering around the ruins of her home, and Nyssa's state of mind after spending three years close to a lunatic is mostly ignored.

And despite that all it's actually a pretty good story. Great imagery, a solid time-travel plot and some fun moments. It's a shame it all has to be tied to another story at all, and especially one as problematic as Weng-Chiang. B.

BF 168-1001 Nights

Another short story collection, this time with three stories and a frame store riffing on, unsurprisingly, the tale of Scheherezade. That frame story, though it comes to an interesting conclusion, is a bit disappointing as the final part of the story, but the other short stories are all fine as usual. More impressively, the stories all share some themes which become apparent in the final part, helping to pick up the slack a bit. B.

BF 171-The Seeds of War

The Doctor and Mel are thrown into the middle of a war between the Eminence and humanity, a war which humanity appears, at first glance, to have won. The focus is now on rebuilding a shattered society, but will it survive the renewed attack of the Eminence? The first appearance of the Eminence, a gaseous entity which can enslave all who breathe it in. The terminology associated with the Eminence (teleport caskets, Breath of Forever) are enough to make them appear threatening, but the story can't really back them up. Stuart Organ's character is an endearing scientist, but the rest of the characters fall flat. C.

BF 173-The Lady of Mercia

The Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough make a visit to a historical conference in the 1980s. There they stumble upon an illicit time travel experiment which throws Turlough and one of the creators of the time machine are thrown back to the kingdom of Mercia in the 900s. And in a more interesting wrinkle, the daughter of the queen is cast forward into the 1980s. A solid story; nothing in particular stands out, it's just good in general. It handles the supporting cast well, and Turlough and Tegan get lots of good material. Tegan gets a good number of interesting scenes towards the end where she has to pretend to be the queen's daughter in her absence, complete with her attempting a Northern accent. B+.

BF 174-Prisoners of Fate

In this culmination of several elements of the Nyssa/Tegan/Turlough stories, Nyssa unexpectedly returns to the family she left behind, who believe that she died decades ago. Her son, Adric, works in a laboratory trying to find a cure for a disease ravaging the galaxy. He tests his vaccines on prisoners, who are accused in advanced by a Minority Report-like system, which is facilitated by the Doctor's first TARDIS, one he used before he fled Gallifrey. And amazingly enough, the story makes it pretty far before falling into a hot mess. Paradoxes upon paradoxes, pointlessly cruel, and featuring perhaps the dumbest resolution (of any story) to the final contradiction, Prisoners of Fate sputters out miserably, despite a pretty strong first two-thirds. D.

BF 184-Scavenger

The Sixth Doctor and Flip land aboard the Indian space station Gandhi moments before it begins to Clean Up Space!: a century of satellite and rocket launches have left the upper atmosphere filled with debris and it's time to gather it all up. But a ship of extraterrestrial origin and a loose grip on logic has a similar idea, and it's only a matter of time before wires get crossed. And thrown into this fairly hard sci-fi mix is a fairy-tale-esque story of loss and revenge. These two elements don't initially gel, but they come together nicely as the story unfolds. The script wrings some tension, mostly good, out of the contrast between the Indian crew and their wealthy English backers. The emotional, fairy-tale elements pay off in a big way, which is what clinches it for this story. It ends on a cliffhanger, which is unfortunately resolved off-screen in another story, but the ending mostly works regardless. You would swear that this was written the day after the writer saw Gravity, but despite the story of cleaning up space and lengthy space suit sequences, it was recorded several months prior. A-.

BF 185-Moonflesh

The Doctor and Nyssa land on a turn-of-the century English estate, and are immediately set up by several jungle cats which have been brought there for a hunting competition. The lord of the manor, explorer Nathaniel Whitlock, has invited several friends to the estate to kill to their hearts' content, much to the disgust of Nyssa. However, one of the guests, Hannah Bartholomew, has an ulterior motive: she wishes to take a sample of Whitlock's meteorite for her cult. But when she attempts to nick off a corner of the moonflesh, she releases a creature of pure red energy with the ability to possess animate and inanimate objects. This story is full of ideas and concepts, some of which are disappointingly wasted, like the animals in the forest and Bartholomew's cult. But on the whole it makes great use of its varied concepts and one, Whitlock's Native American companion Silver Crow, is essential to the novel and interesting resolution. There are some dull moments and a twist that you can see from miles away, but on the whole an engaging and clever story. Extra points for actually sticking the landing (something so many stories screw up) and the good sound design for the creature. A-.

BF 186-Tomb Ship

Eons ago the kings of the Arrit were laid to rest in floating tomb ships laden with treasure. They would eventually be reborn as a star when the ships went supernova. When the TARDIS lands on one such ship, the Doctor immediately recognizes that this process has already begun, but he and Nyssa are obstructed in their way off the tomb ship by a treasure hunter and her many sons, the tomb's own inherent traps, and a mysterious presence with an axe to grind with tomb raiders. The tomb exploration portion is pretty recognizable from any similar premise--traps, trials, etc., but it's executed fairly well. Where the story falters is in Virna, the mother of the expedition, who is presented as a complete cartoon character with a callous disregard for the lives of her sons. And as the story very much centers around her, there's not much to recommend. The other characters' placements in the story work fine, but it's impossible to believe that they would have such nuanced reactions to a figure who is less serious than Mom from Futurama. C.

BF 187-Masquerade

With Nyssa and Hannah Bartholomew in tow, a doctor visits a French estate in the 1700s. But he senses something isn't right. He remembers deeper pockets, and that he's been to France before. It takes some mysterious figures and a killer robot to make the Doctor remember who he is and where he is: in a simulation on a ship traveling through deep space. It takes forever to get to the actual plot of the story, wasting too much time on the regular cast believing they're from France in the past, but there's a pretty good sci-fi story once it actually starts. There's a neat reason that the crew of this spaceship are in a simulation and everything in that area is solid. Unfortunately, the resolution hinges around the emotions of the characters, and in that area this story is notably deficient. Nobody has any personality or is interesting. The story is still good enough to make it worthwhile, but it's annoying having characters so programmatic. B-.

BF 190-Mask of Tragedy

The Doctor, Ace, and Hex arrive in ancient Greece as time-traveling tourists among many, the golden age of Athens being a popular travel destination. The Doctor wants to visit with the artist he is sponsoring,  Aristophanes, but naturally his companions get into trouble: Ace finds herself ostracized and thrown to an approaching Spartan invasion force, and Hex, his psyche still weakened by recent events, runs afoul of a mask with the ability to project psychic forces. A very funny story, flirting with, but never actually becoming, an outright comedy. Every word out of Aristophanes' mouth is gold, and Cleon, leader of Athens, is also rather funny. The most serious aspect of the story, Hex's struggle for control with the mask, is tempered by the lunacy of the situation. The fact that none of the cliffhangers leave the characters in any actual immediate danger should signify the type of story that this is. And the story mostly sticks the serious epilogue, where Hex rages at the Doctor for treating violence and death like good fun just because it's part of history. Both the Doctor and Hex manage to make good points, leaving this conversation much, much better than some other where a companion gets made at the Doctor for not changing history. A-.

BF 194-The Rani Elite

When the Doctor goes to university to accept an honorary degree, he stumbles onto a plot involving brain switching concocted by a mad scientist whose identity is in the title. Not that much happens in the story, but Siobhan Redmond is enjoyable as the Rani and there's a solid emotional core. Indeed, the plot resolution is thankfully tied to emotional rather than technobabble stakes. B-.

BF 196-Equilibrium

The icy planet of Isenfel, starved for resources, must remain in perfect equilibrium. Even a single extra person to feed could cause the entire environment to collapse. So when the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough make an emergency landing on the planet, they are soon invited to an execution of four people--the four people who must be culled to make room. An engaging, Asimov-style golden age of science-fiction story. It's more dour than The Face of Evil or The Robots of Death, but it fits solely into that tradition. There's enough material for the companions to do, often reliant upon their individual characters, and the supporting cast is great. Annette Badland deserves special praise as the tormented queen of Isenfel, and Nickolas Grace is also marvelous. It would have been easy to add a power-hungry minister or something as a villain, but the story avoids that clichéd angle and instead uses the nature of the planet itself as the villain. The ending is slightly flabby, but it's still a great story. A.

BF-The Entropy Plague

Picking up from last time, the Doctor, Nyssa, and Turlough chase after Tegan, who has been kidnapped by space pirates of E-Space. They track the pirates to a planet, where both crafts experience power failures and crash. The immediate cause is that electricity has stopped working. The root cause is that entropy has drastically increased, meaning that E-Space will be destroyed in a matter of weeks. Some inhabitants are turning to drastic measures to escape to N-Space; however, these methods only hasten the entropic death of the universe. This is another story in the mode of the E-Sapce serials, Logopolis, and Castrovalva, and, like those stories, it's inherently interesting enough to smooth over some of the bumps. Some elements, like robots powered of clockwork and steam, seem inspired; others, like dusty entropy monsters, fall flat. There are some great moments when pragmatic Turlough steps in between the Doctor and Nyssa falling over each other to sacrifice themselves and reminds them that they can just have a robot do it. It's not perfect, and there are more than a few lines of dialogue that sound as though the writer never said them out loud, but it's a good enough apocalyptic tale. And it if ends up being the final chronological Nyssa story, it's a good enough note to go out on. B+.

BF198-The Defectors

Jo Grant awaits the arrival of the TARDIS and is taken aback when out stops the Seventh Doctor. But before the two can puzzle out what happened, they're taken at gunpoint by an armed band who claims to be part of UNIT. They are brought to a mysterious secret base on an island off the coast, which appears to be home to some strange inhabitants and some captured Cold War technology of possibly alien origin. The biggest attraction here, obviosuly, is the pairing of Jo with the Seventh Doctor. And while Sylvester McCoy and Katy Manning have some decent chemistry, Jo is written as the epitome of generic companion. The story makes some half-hearted attempts at delineating the difference between Three and Seven, but to mostly no avail. A decent plot, but nothing special. The story can't seem to decide who's side it's, and it's marred by a tone-deaf bleak ending. Not much to recommend here. C.

BF199-The Last Cyberman

Jamie and Zoe do the plot of Tomb of the Cyberman again, except with the Sixth Doctor this time. Like every other Cyberman story, this is a safe, unoriginal retread to an absurd degree, which makes the inspired, creative last half hour, involving the story taking place in two times at once, all the more surprising. It's already been established that Colin Baker and Frazier Hines get along great. Wendy Padbury does pretty well with Baker, too. There are a couple of interesting wrinkles early on, like a character who was cyber-converted in body but not in mind, and the companions' initial distrust of their new Doctor, to make the bulk of the bog-standard story bearable. The good outweighs the bad, but there's a lot of both. B-.

Psychodrome

When the TARDIS makes landfall in a mysterious location, the crew are greeted by both peoples and locations familiar to each of them. What they soon realize is that some mysterious force in the area has populated it with images from the TARDIS crews' minds: they are all reflections of persons known to the Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan, and Adric, including reflections of each other. The premise is a hugely inspired idea, cutting through the usual emotionless story beats by having, for example, the Doctor confront what Tegan's idea of the Doctor is. The last quarter of the story gets particularly creative in this regard, by having the companions confront some tragedies which were totally glossed over during their original airings, like the death of Tegan's aunt and Nyssa's father. However, there's not much the story can do to salvage Adric. Matthew Waterhouse obviously sounds much older, but his character is mostly the same. He fails to develop in any way and before long makes one wish Turlough was in the mix instead. But Adric, a bit of loose plotting, and a bit of flab aren't enough to tarnish this true gem of a premise. A-.