Doctor Who - Signs and Wonders

The Hex story arc is probably the longest story arc that has ever been attempted at since Doctor Who began. We met his mother in the first release of the Project Trilogy, and then we met him in The Harvest. Since he joined The Doctor he has been a fan favourite within the Big Finish listener community, played always superbly. However his time has come to end now culminating in this final Hector trilogy where in Signs and Wonders we wave bye to him and a whole era of Doctor Who. Big Finish will never be the same again...

I love the premise of Signs of Wonders. This end of the world/alien invasion set up is done very well here. It feels epic. Which it should as this is the end of an era. We return to Liverpool one last time where Ace tries for the final time to help Hector rediscover his true identity as Hex. Despite even his dead grandparents’ house and all of his childhood memories, Ace is unable to rediscover Hex (this is confusing I realise, Big Finish have set up a massive arc and really you do need to listen to a lot of it in order to discover what is truly going on - 'Gods and Monsters' and 'Afterlife' are essential listens (or at least an understanding of) before you can understand what is really going on in concern with Hector/Hex). Even if you do not get the arc, as I said the whole premise and the first three parts are sensational.

It is the return of another great character in my opinion - Sally Morgan - which helps to save Hex. It is brilliant to see this character return again, she has been a brilliant addition to Doctor Who, but it is a shame that this is probably her last story (as I said an end of an era).

Another point I have to say the cover on the front of the CD case is probably my all-time favourite one that Big Finish have ever done, well done to whoever designed and produced the art for this story.

My only problem with this story is that I think when we get to Part Four the story (which has been brilliant up till this point) gets a little confusing, which is a shame. However that is likely me not paying enough attention and maybe on a relisten I may understand exactly what is going on and love this story even more.

Personally the Big Finish main range this year has been very lackluster, a couple of good stories, many lackluster, a couple (Brood of Erys, Masquerade) which I have thought to be awful. I always look forward to the Seventh Doctor trilogies in the main range as they are personally always the best, I just prefer this style of the show over the other two versions seen in the main range. This story is the best release of the year so far and I hope the forthcoming sixth doctor trilogy will continue in this stories footsteps.

This is the end but the moment has been prepared for. I am looking forward to seeing where Big Finish go now following the end of Hex. Personally I believe Love and War probably happens next, I feel like Ace from here feels ready to go into Love and War now. But only time will tell...

9/10

Doctor Who - Listen

This new series of Doctor Who has taken some very brave steps, taking the show in a very new direction. The casting of an older Doctor could have failed but fortunately has been perceived by the general public and Doctor Who fans alike as a complete success due to the electric performances of Peter Capaldi. Another riskier move was the fact that this was the first story not to feature any physical monsters or villains. Instead of the physical demons, The Doctor comes into conflict with his own psychological demons.

This series has been very character driven but instead of retreading the character driven routes taken by RTD throughout his tenure, Moffat is exploring the lives of our major characters. Clara has been given a boyfriend and now a life outside the TARDIS but more importantly The Doctor is getting more character development than ever before. The Twelfth Doctor presently is trying to discover his identity and as I have said before those 800 (ish) years of Trenzalore have changed The Doctor, he has had time to reminisce  over the previous 1200 years of his life and has began to question who he really is (a good man, a hero). We have explored all this so far and now he is beginning to confront his fears - the fears of him as a child. The parallels between The Doctor and the story continue. 

There are some properly scary scenes in this story. The scene where The Doctor, Clara and Rupert are trying not to look around to see the thing under the blanket as it walks up behind them and then takes the sheet off to reveal a glimpse of an out of focus face is one of the only times I have actually been scared since Moffat took over from RTD (the other time was The Rebel Flesh). I hope we have some more of these scenes in the future.

Danny and Clara's relationship is further explored in this story with her confronting his past, his present and discovering more about his future. The lines in their date are very awkward but that is what they are intended to be. I am looking forward to see more of Danny later on in the season, possibly we saw too much of them in this story, moving away from the real plot but it did not detract from my viewing experience. I would prefer however we saw their relationship develop more like we saw it in Into the Dalek, a bit at the beginning before the story and a bit at the end.

I cannot discuss this story without commenting on one of the most important scenes in the last fifty years of Doctor Who - the scene on Gallifrey. I have said that we are exploring The Doctor more than ever in the last couple of years. Now we have gone further back than ever before and we have discovered The Doctor as a child for the first time. Some people complain about the fact that we are exploring too much but I love the fact that this scene teased us with very little information but just gave us an insight into The Doctor's fears whilst showing us where he grew up. I love the fact that the barn in The Day of the Doctor is the same barn where he grew up in, The War Doctor though he would end his life and the time war, where his life began. One final point is that in Sound of the Drums when it is referenced that The Master went mad when he faced the untendered schism and The Doctor just ran from it, was the barn in this story where he ran to and the fears we saw in this story, caused by such an experience. It is nice to see more of these references to The Doctor's childhood making us wonder what he was up to for two hundred years on Gallifrey that would force him to run away.

There was a lot of variety in this story as well as we went from barren futuristic planets at the end of the universe to haunted children homes. The design of this story is very good as usually, the sets look amazing and the CGI is brilliant as we have become accustomed to in this modern age. Furthermore the performances in this were very strong throughout.

In summary this story showed us that The Doctor is truly afraid of some things (the hand coming under the bed etc) and is able to turn the normal (children under sheets, atmospheric pressure) into monsters. There seems to be a lot of foreshadowing in the series which I can only speculate what it is for. In Listen we have another reference to Clara's life span ('from the moment you were born to the moment you die') like what happened in Deep Breath. I can only speculate but we know that characters after death get to the Promised Land (Missy was absent this week but that one line made me believe that the story arc is still here), so what if Clara dies later in the season and is sent to the Promised Land, (this is only speculation at the moment).

8/10

Doctor Who - Mask of Tragedy

Essentially this story explores the consequences of space time tourism. The Doctor arrives in a temporal tourist hot spot (Ancient Athens) at a time of unrest. This is a pseudo-historical. No alien megalomaniacs planning to conquer the Earth with a gigantic bomb or devious under Gods from the dawn of time planning to crack the planet open like an egg. No just The Doctor, Ace and Hector landing in Ancient Athens and experiencing the problems at hand.

The story kicks off when they discover another alien tourist who has this mysterious alien mask. This alien mask however soon is lost and as a result Athens is brought into further chaos. As a result of not so complicated plot, the characters are given a bit more time, which is necessary for the major character development and revelations that occur at the end of the story, leading it directly into Signs and Wonders.

Acting wise this is a very strong story, all the cast are on top form and some great guest performances. Unfortunately I find this story to not have much to it. There is a plot, but it feels very much like some of the early Doctor Who historical stories, lackluster. It seems a bit strange to be saying this as at the same time there is an alien beetle in the sky, plague zombies and a God descending to Earth. The way these are connected is good but unfortunately means that the story does feel somewhat empty after that. The story does not drag like The Brood of Erys earlier in the year which I really did not like but it did not have enough there, leaving me somewhat disappointed.

I am looking forward however to seeing where this final Hex arc ends up with in Signs and Wonders as having listened to the trailer, seen the cover and read the synopsis, it looks to be an absolute cracker. This is what we have needed from the Doctor Who Main Range this year. There have been a few good stories (Moonflesh, Tomb Ship, Revenge of the Storm - but none of these were particularly special) and some very poor ones (Brood of Erys, Masquerade) then there are stories like this which I have just found totally lackluster. I do not believe it is Big Finish as the stories in the other ranges like the Fourth Doctor Range, The Early Adventures and Dark Eyes Two have been amazing but it seems like we are now in desperate need of a great story (like the Assassination Games last year). I do hope that the following release lives up to my expectations.

6/10

Doctor Who - Robot of Sherwood

Returning to write for televised Doctor Who on his seventh occasion is fan favourite writer Mark Gatiss and this time he is bringing Robin Hood to life. Robin Hood was always going to be a tough character to bring to Doctor Who. I know that many were unconvinced about his inclusion when it was revealed. There have been some classic outings for the character and some very poor ones. We know that Robin Hood was in the pitch that Moffat gave to Gatiss and it is a good idea for The Doctor to encounter this impossible hero, aiding The Twelfth Doctor in his search for identity and as a result Moffat gave the job to one of his main writers.

Robin Hood is described on several occasions as an 'impossible hero' by The Doctor; this is also a reference to him. The Doctor has been wondering a week ago in Into the Dalek whether he was a good man (the answer a good dalek), now this week brings him a stage further in his search for identity. Robin Hood is a very good character to play of The Doctor as both characters are very similar. Robin Hood is played very well.

Many Robin Hoodisms are included in this so it can feel like a proper Robin Hood story. This is the only time The Doctor is probably ever going to meet Robin Hood, so it is right that the production team included everything from Robin's mythos. This includes the Sheriff of Nottingham who is played very very well and is a proper Doctor Who villain. There was a scene deleted due to political reasons but I am glad they did that. On the one hand there is the current situation but on the other I find the fact that the Sheriff being human much better than him being a robot.

The Doctor is very strong and Capaldi is very confident in his performance. He is very much The Doctor but a very different one to that we have seen before. There are some very clear homage to the Third Doctor in this story and the Sixth Doctor in his personality. 

Clara however steals the story; Coleman's performances are as incredible as ever, the character now seems to have been given a lot of space to evolve over the series making her much more rounded as a character. The confrontation between Clara and the Sheriff is one of the best Doctor Who scenes I have seen since the show came back. She totally outwits the sheriff using only her intelligence, body and wit.

This story is what one could refer to as this series more comedic story (as episode three usually is) with some good jokes throughout but there are some darker scenes such as the death of the villager early on in the story.

The robot knights are never going to be a legendary monster that will return for the next fifty years but they serve the job in what is truly a character piece, this is a story about the doctors search for identity. He was on Trenzalore for so long that he had a lot of time to think about his time and obviously he is beginning to question who he is. The pinnacle of the story is this and the way Gatiss parallels the heroes The Doctor and Robin Hood.

This story does have some floors however. Some of the exchanges between The Doctor and Robin went a little too far into the silly. A gold arrow a) would not fly and b) would not help the ship fly. If they could delete the final arrow scene at the end like the beheading scene, we would have a very good story.

Robot of Sherwood was fun basically. It is nice to have a fun story every so often. This story is the light relief of the series before we venture into Listen next week which is looking to be Moffat returning to the terrifying which was what made his name in Doctor Who in the first place.

7/10

Doctor Who - Domain of the Voord

The latest range from Big Finish Productions is The Early Adventures. This range is based on the old lost stories format but instead of using lost stories scripts they are making new original adventures for the first and second doctors.

The first release is Domain of the Voord. The Voord were only the second monster to ever be seen on Doctor Who (after the Daleks) but in the Keys of Marinus they are quite one dimensional. Over time there have been a number of stories which explored the Voord further but now Big Finish have taken up the gauntlet and have released Domain of the Voord.

Andrew Smith has written this one. To me Andrew Smith is a risk as he can write some absolute classics such as The First Sontarans but has written a couple of weaker scripts such as The Brood of Erys. I am pleased to say that this is another strong script from him. The story feels like it has just come out of Season One stylistically, despite the fact the horror elements and budgetary constraints would have probably meant that this script would never have been produced if it had been submitted in 1964.

Smith has got the characters just write, especially people such as Ian and The Doctor. Susan is given a lot more to do in this one and is frankly a much more interesting character than she was back in the 1960s. The performances from the entire cast are very very good.

One of the main features of this story is that it explores the concept of what it is to be Voord. The idea of the mask fusing to your head and then accepting you to become a Voord is brilliant enough, but the horror elements that you can be rejected and then the fused mask will pull itself off your head is just amazing. The Voord are much more interesting three dimensional monsters here than they were in The Keys of Marinus. The story also has a lot more pace than most of the stories at its time had; probably due to the fact it is much more interesting than a lot of the very early First Doctor stories.

I have to say that this is one of my favourite First Doctor stories I have ever experienced. Well done Big Finish for another cracking release and I hope more like this are set to continue!

9/10

Doctor Who - Into the Dalek

Back in 2010 Steven Moffat stated that he believed the Doctor must fight the Daleks very early on in his run (which is why Victory of the Daleks was the third episode in Series Five). This idea has clearly not changed as now the new Twelfth Doctor is meeting his ancient foes in his second story.

One of the many things I love about this story is the way that it is not a Dalek story where the entire universe is at stake due to a reality bomb or whatever. This Dalek story is smaller and thus allowing us to focus more on the characters and the Daleks themselves. The story has been told a number of times in the past (The Invisible Enemy, Let's Kill Hitler) where the main characters are miniaturized and go inside something, but there is more to this story than retreading the same ground. By going inside a Dalek we get probably one of the greatest insights into the Daleks since the show came back. The idea of a good Dalek is interesting but I think the show could have explored that further. In the award winning Big Finish Productions Box Set Dark Eyes, the idea of Daleks becoming good is examined in much more depth than it is here.

The Twelfth Doctor is incredible in this story with some classic one liners ("She cares so I don't have to"). Capaldi is one of the greatest actors to take on the role and his very confident performance in this, highlights this fact. Clara too is very good in this. I have always been a fan of Clara but I know many fans were saying that she is completely uninteresting - however since the Twelfth Doctor has taken over from the Eleventh Doctor, fan opinion is changing. Danny Pink also is introduced in this story. The Danny scenes are not necessary for the plot of this story but they are probably important for later on. In five minutes Moffat and Ford have created an interesting mysterious character that has already left all fans intrigued. Samuel Anderson gives a strong performance - I am looking forward to seeing him get on later on.

The writing is very strong in  this story. I really hope Phil Ford returns for Series Nine. He has already written two very strong stories (The Waters of Mars and this). The guest performances are strong in this also. Furthermore the story is visually incredible. The CGI in the last couple of years is beginning to rival everything else available even the CGI in $200 million Marvel films.

It is interesting to see the theme of parallels in this series with the references to the broom with the half-face man in Deep Breath and now the line "You are a good Dalek" being said by the Dalek in this. I wonder if this is set to continue.

In summary a very strong story. Not an all-time classic but one of the best ones I have seen in a while.

9/10