The Ratings War is superb, with Beep's fantastic theme song.
Meep meep!

Cuddlesome - pink vampire hamster toys from the 80s are coming to life and attacking their neglectful owners:

Er. Yes. Well. One shouldn't be TOO harsh on a little freebie. Should one...?

Avian flu seems dated already. As does the claim it killed millions.

Do people really waffle on about 'my husband, well I say "husband" actually he'd not even my fiance...'? (And if so, WHY?)

You shouldn't try to rip off all-time classics like Terror of the Autons. Unless you do it REALLY well.

'What do Time Lords do?' 'Save planets mostly' - the HELL they do!

Nice (pre-)echoes of Eleventh Hour - the Doctor returning as promised, what he thinks is minutes but is actually years later, demolishing a shed in the process.

Why would any journalist be stupid enough to confront, without weapons or back-up, the people she thinks have DELIBERATELY murdered millions of people by infecting them with bird-flu? What exactly did she THINK they'd do to HER?

Sorry, I'm confused. (Life is, as they say in Torchwood: Random Shoes, short and really boring and I just couldn't be bothered to give this my full concentration.) Did Turvey spend three years or twenty in jail? If three, what the hell was holding up his Evil Masterplan all those years? If twenty, how serious WAS his tax evasion?!

Alright - I admit it! Cuddlesome's death in defence of his owner was actually moving! It got me wondering what the hell happened to Teddy and Tolly and Helen and Doggie (yeah, just DON'T ASK what I was doing with a toy DAWG). Alright, so by the time Turvey was utterly predictably doing the Noble Self-Sacrifice thing too it was starting to feel like Voyage of the Damned...

Last of the Titans:

If you have to make your Doctor as thick as a lobomoised Ogron to make your story work....do a different story.

Seven narrating it (albeit for no readily apparent reason) certainly works better than making the Doctor (Eight in particular) talk to himself in that embarrassing manner.

'The planet Ormelia had always been a favourite haunt of mine in my younger days' - WHAT younger days! Hartnell and Troughton would never have been able to get there twice, and Pertwee was stuck on Earth most of the time and obsessed with Metabelis 3 when he got off Earth...

Why does the Doctor blithely assume that the Titan is innocent and the official is a 'cold-blooded lizard' (what racism!) hellbent on murder...without letting it explain??

And even when the DEATHS OF BILLIONS penny FINALLY drops - well, is spelt out for him in words of one syllable anyway - the Doc's lecturing away pompously and declaring that the Titan isn't evil, he's just true to his nature. That's not what he says whenever he encounters a Dalek.

Well, at least it's better than the part-one-of-Storm-Warning that was stuck on the freebie disc with it...

No Place Like Home:

The Fifth Doctor treads in lots of cat-poo while trying to stop the universe being taken over by a big mouse. I have the horrible feeling this is supposed to be funny.

Troughton's fur coat is FAKE fur? Why then does Five make all these excuses about wearing it when he was another man?

How come EVERYTHING mentioned in the wardrobe happens to be a garment that Who fans would be familiar with?

Erimem refers to Davison looking like 'a normal man of 30'. Surely the 30-year-old men SHE knew looked much older than that, having tough prehistoric lives under an Egyptian sun?

The Vortex ages you centuries in the blink of an eye since WHEN!

Whatever made anyone think we wanted to see (sorry...hear) Shayde from the comics?

Where is Peri while all this is going on? She and Erimem usually stick together like glue. And surely you'd want to accompany ANYONE on their first tour of the TARDIS, to see their happiness?

So why does the rack of clothes fall over on Erimem? It's the Megalomaniac Mouse's first step towards universal domination?

Why has the Mouse decided to chuck the Doctor into the Vortex when it said a minute ago it needed him onboard to get through Gallifrey's transduction barriers?

Well, it's awful but at least it's short. And didn't go for the cliche of Antronak-the-cat eating the mouse.

Living Legend:

This is actually surprisingly successful for what it is: a few minutes of fluff. It's light, witty, makes unusually good use of Charley, and takes the mickey out of football.

'Come away carefully. This is no time to be snapping any loud twigs' the Doctor says - loudly.

'Duller than a turtle marathon' is a GROSSLY unfair way of referring to this new alien species. They're actually quite fun.

The idea that the Threllips had dealings with the Time Lords (Why? When? How?) is grossly unconvincing, if essential to the plot.

Conrad Westmaas is Thom?! More proof that the godawfulness of C'rizz was due to the writing not the character. Would that Thom had become the Eighth Doctor's Companion instead. He'd be rather one-note, but no more so than the late unlamented Lizard-Boy...

Silver Lining:

'It all started with an invitation to do a little archaeology' - surely Brax, Jason and Adrian KNOW this already?

'I'm always been invited to this planet and that planet these days, and as you know I turn down more than I accept' - yeah, this whole narrating-a-letter-to-the-blokes-back-home stuff just isn't working for me.

Whathisface has the hardbacks and trade paperbacks of Benny's books? But not the e-versions?

Benny feels she's defacing books by signing them since WHEN!

'I don't mind bumpy rides, I used to travel with a guy who made a habit of them' - given that Benny seems in serious denial about even THINKING about the Doctor these days, why would she casually and unnecessarily refer to him to a stranger?

'It's Martians or New Martians in these PC days' - I thought the NAs said it was Neo-Aretians or something.

Benny's tone-deaf but she still knows how to read music? I don't know how to read music these days and I grew up playing half-a-dozen instruments.

Wasn't The Bad Guy taking a risk, pretending to be Benny's Number One Fan? What if she mentioned something in her books that he SHOULD have known about? And it was so unnecessary - he was paying her a lot for the job, she didn't need flattering as well.

And why put the countdown-to-the-explosion device into Benny's pocket - what if she'd found it sooner?

I'm quite HURT that Benny betrays the Cyberman who saved her and gets it blown to smithereens. And gives him an (even to me) embarrassing lecture about putting together some Cyberwomen into the bargain.

What was someone fanatically devoted to the rebel cause doing mining on some obscure planet anyway? And why couldn't the separatists have concocted their own plague - giving the natives immunity or something - rather than nick a potentially-humanity-destroying one from the Cybermen?

The Veiled Leopard:

Lively and enjoyable* - at the price of being somewhat implausible.

OBVIOUSLY Peri'd be considerably happier in the Davison era than in the Multi-Coloured Strangler's era, but still...

Erimem used to shave her hair - why is THAT never mentioned before?

So the Fifth Doctor is arguing with the 'goofy little guy with the weird pullover' - and yet he STILL doesn't believe in Androzani that he'll regenerate? After meeting Seven here and Ten in Time Crash...?

Why do Peri and Eri pose as sisters despite being (according to the Blood and Hope novella, as well as judging by ONE character's reaction in Veiled Leopard, even if the others are too polite to notice) of different coloured races?

'He took one of the king's sisters as his wife - I forget which one' - sorry, WAIT a minute! Erimem's father had loads of different wives? I don't remember THAT being mentioned in Eye of the Scorpion (or anywhere else). Why did he have only three (dead!) sons then?

Erimem buried the 'greatest jewel in the world' with her father so he'd have it forever, in service to his spirit? Would the priests really have let HER make such choices, when her position as heir was in such doubt? And whatever happened to her being an atheist who didn't BELIEVE in such afterlife nonsenses?

'Have you ever tried to run in one of these dresses?' - why not choose more practical clothing if you're planning to foil a robbery?

Why assume that the thief is male? (And yes, I WAS thinking this BEFORE discovering that...the thief is female.)

Peri and Eri talk loudly for ages...while not turning on light in case they tip-off the thief as to their presence? *rolls eyes*

Who'd choose HEX for a mission that needs 'posh'?

'Nobody told me it was fancy dress' - I should be used to the Seventh Doctor withholding information from his Companions, but what on earth would be the POINT in this case?

Ace certainly maintains her long and dishonourable tradition of INCREDIBLY dreadful flirting.

'My dad almost got the heave from the docks, falling asleep on the job' - sorry, Hex knows ANYTHING about his dad? Come to think of it...who WAS Hex's dad? And what happened to him? Why was he reared by his gran after Mummy went criminal/vampire?

Hex: 'whatever you do, Ace, don't use a late 60s bathroom, OK?' - er...WHY? I know Monte Carlo is near France (well, I do NOW, having just Googled it) and I know French toilets are notorious (having been dragged on holidays to France as a kid) but if the host can afford the rarest diamond in the world, surely he can afford flushing sit-down toilets...?

So Erimem's dad somehow gets his hands on an alien-ecosystem-diamond? This being the same bloke who somehow fought alien Great Old Ones across the world from Egypt to the Himalayas without anyone actually noticing (Roof of the World)? Do you REALLY want his life to get MORE implausibly complicated?

And how come people wearing fancy dress in the twentieth century know how he dresses, but not about the existence of his daughter and heir, or about how he fought alien Great Old Ones across the world from - oh, never mind. Whatever.

*At least, the first episode - by the second I'd started to drift away a bit, still have NO IDEA what eventually happened to the 'diamond'.

Why do Peri and Eri pose as sisters despite being (according to the Blood and Hope novella, as well as judging by ONE character's reaction in Veiled Leopard, even if the others are too polite to notice) of different coloured races?

Half sisters maybe?

Yeah, that's what they started to hint when someone was (finally!) impolite enough to mention the skin-colour-disparity, but...why (when on a top-secret mission) draw attention to themselves by claiming to be sisters in the first place? Why not (truthfully!) claim to be Just Good Friends? The only advantage of being so lacking in imagination as to come up with the cover-name of 'Smith' is that they COULD plausibly have claimed to be 'no relation' (a la Sarah and the Doc in Invasion of the Dinosaurs).

And for heaven's sake, this is the NINETEEN SIXTIES - where EVERYONE was sexist and racist as hell (especially in France). It's a wonder people didn't start making monkey noises at Erimem before pinching her bottom and chucking her outside (at least, ATTEMPTING to pinch/chuck her and ending up with broken arms - see The Kingmaker).

Cuddlesome was actually fairly fun. It had some creepy bits, a decent plot, and the story finished. Also, like Emily, I enjoyed the pre-figuring for Ten and Eleven's inability to manage "a few minutes" absence.

I enjoyed the fact that up until the very end the villain's main motivation for turning on his monstrous creation/parasite/best buddy was that it wanted to replace his old model killer-cuddlesomes with a newer brand.

Too bad he then decided he might as well just die and save the world, though even then, I think he was defending his cuddlesome-children over the new brand.

Awfully convenient of all the Cuddlesomes to up and die when their creators did. It saves the Doctor having to figure out what to do with another sentient race that has some reasonable claim on Earth as home. Also kind of a pity. It could've been interesting. And I admit to sort of liking the older Cuddlesomes. Not that I would want one to visit, exactly, but their brand of villainy made sense (Woudln't you want revenge for being locked into an attic for umpteen years?)

I suppose a parasite that starts out as an idea and then turns into a giant physical creature isn't too strange under the circumstances... It might be going a bit too far to wonder where it gets its mass and how it manages to make that step from mental to physical and how it managed to do so without killing Turvey.

Emily Did Turvey spend three years or twenty in jail? If three, what the hell was holding up his Evil Masterplan all those years? If twenty, how serious WAS his tax evasion?!

I think he was in for twenty and got out three years early because of good behavior; that time period also explains how John(?) could have a cuddlesome saved and up in the attic.

His masterplan was held up during whatever time period because only he could initiate the recall. I don't know why the giant whatsit couldn't, since it apparently did all sorts of interesting financial arrangements on its own so as to have its army available.

Did the parasitic whatsit have any plan for making new little parasitic whatsits after it had finished converting all the adults into giant Cuddlesome-things?

Why do the new-Cuddlesomes sound like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle knockoffs?

Too bad he then decided he might as well just die and save the world

Yeah. Did no one explain to him that it's an INCREDIBLY CLICHED thing for a villain to do?

(Woudln't you want revenge for being locked into an attic for umpteen years?)

I'm not sure. I'd tend to assume that they had a pretty good reason for locking me in the attic. And as long as I was well-provided with Who I might barely NOTICE, frankly.

I think he was in for twenty and got out three years early because of good behaviour

But if you're in for twenty they let you out after TEN! Not seventeen!

Sliver Lining:

Emily: Why does the Cyberman say it's not logical for Benny to betray their agreement? They're always betraying their inferior allies ('Promises to an alien have no validity) and after all, Benny's got all she needed from him.

He really wasn't very bright, was he? There was no need for him to explain the entire plan to Benny before she got the doors open, to begin with. In fact, he should have had her pick up the canister and take it out.

Not that Cybermen don't have tendency toward intricate and bizarre plans, but one that reads: 1) Develop a plague 2) Seal it behind closed doors 3) Go to sleep until someone figures out how to open the doors 4) Hope they pick up the plague and 5) Hope the plague leaves them alive long enough for them to learn where it came fro so that you can 6) Wait for the panicked populace to come lining up at the now-unsealed doors in search of a cure is strange even for them.

Maybe they just like locking themselves up behind complicated puzzles as in Tomb.

Or was there some simplifying factor I missed? The Cyberman wasn't exactly easy to understand, and there's only so often I'll stop what I'm doing, rewind, and re-listen.

"He was a bit of a fan." Why is Benny saying this when, by the time she makes the recording, she knows he isn't and wasn't?

She doesn't have health or travel insurance?

Best I can figure her erstwhile employer is getting her to sign all of her books in order to make some extra side-profit on selling the signed copies after she dies.

Though speaking of complicated plans... He's planning on borrowing a plague from the Cybermen, releasing it on his enemies, and hoping that they either don't release it back or that he and his can develop a cure first. and he's counting on escaping the Cybermen.

And he likes countdowns.

The ending was something of a letdown. "Oops. Time's up. Cyberman caught. Bye!" No one really has to think much about anything or outwit anyone to achieve victory. This particular tomb(waiting room?) is even nicely destroyed by the enemy who kindly succumbed to the plague a bit early. Very tidy all around.

She doesn't have health or travel insurance?

In Dragons' Wrath Benny actually LAUGHS when she discovers that her university has insured her when she's digging up unknown artefacts on an uninhabited world. Well, she DID grow up during a Dalek War and then spend years travelling with the Doctor, it's no wonder she's a bit blasé about danger.

Of course, in Beige Planet Mars a hotel's insurance premium rises by 7.2% just because Benny stays in it for a few days, so it's quite possible she's so notoriously high-risk as to be uninsurable.

Well, she DID grow up during a Dalek War and then spend years travelling with the Doctor, it's no wonder she's a bit blasé about danger.

This is possibly an audio that would be improved by having some knowledge of Benny past "She exists."

Ah.

Think Professor River Song, only with fewer guns and SLIGHTLY less sex with the Doctor.

This was fun--light & goofy fun.

So the Fifth Doctor is arguing with the 'goofy little guy with the weird pullover' - and yet he STILL doesn't believe in Androzani that he'll regenerate? After meeting Seven here and Ten in Time Crash..

Oh, is that what was going on? I enjoyed the episode, overall, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why the Doctor sent in two different teams without bothering to tell them about each other.

As always when multiple Doctors are involved, one wonders why the later Doctor and Company have no memory or record of the earlier Doctor's actions, but since this is, by now, traditional, one can hardly complain.

So, Erimem is Egyptian royalty? I mean, the audio makes it obvious she is, it's just--unexpected--though rather fun, given the current Doctors' obsession with twenty-first century British young women.

Erimem certainly has a remarkably variable understanding of slang and such. She's also not very good at remembering that she's not royalty any more--or at least, not royalty anyone will believe is royal.

From the description "Why does Ace have to pretend to be a French maid?"

When does Ace pretend to be a French maid?

Gotta say the Seventh Doctor had a much better plan for foiling the thieves and getting the real "Diamond" away than the Fifth.

I suppose there's no point in asking why the Doctor didn't just stash the Diamond somewhere nice and secret to wait out the centuries?

Could Erimem and Peri possibly be any noisier in their super-secret, sneaky, break-in to the office? I was expecting the owner to come in and mistake them for the thieves.

Benny's helping herself liberally to whatever alcoholic beverages are being served at the decontamination center, Erimem and Peri are at least as excited about the champagne as about preventing a theft, Ace wants to head over for the free drinks as soon as she and Hex arrive... Does the Doctor drive them to drink or what?

This is one of the better ones so far.

As always when multiple Doctors are involved, one wonders why the later Doctor and Company have no memory or record of the earlier Doctor's actions, but since this is, by now, traditional, one can hardly complain.

Well, SOMETIMES it's traditional, and sometimes you get Time Crash...

So, Erimem is Egyptian royalty? I mean, the audio makes it obvious she is, it's just--unexpected--though rather fun, given the current Doctors' obsession with twenty-first century British young women.

Yeah, as I said in her introductory story (Eye of the Scorpion) she's not exactly a product of her society, being an atheist, feminist, scientifically-minded democrat (AND kind to small furry animals). But she really livened up the old Five/Peri team and she was a great mixture of vulnerability (being young and ignorant of the universe) and strength (being a royal warrior). Though (see Companions: Audios: Erimemushinteperem) it was bloody ridiculous she should give up her throne.

Erimem certainly has a remarkably variable understanding of slang and such. She's also not very good at remembering that she's not royalty any more--or at least, not royalty anyone will believe is royal.

Actually you can't really blame her, given how Louis XV and his court accept her as Egyptian royalty without even asking what the hell she's doing wandering around France with just her physician for company...(Church and the Crown).

Gotta say the Seventh Doctor had a much better plan for foiling the thieves and getting the real "Diamond" away than the Fifth.

Which is exactly how it SHOULD be!

Benny's helping herself liberally to whatever alcoholic beverages are being served at the decontamination center, Erimem and Peri are at least as excited about the champagne as about preventing a theft, Ace wants to head over for the free drinks as soon as she and Hex arrive... Does the Doctor drive them to drink or what?

To be fair, Benny was already well on her way to alcoholism when they met. The others, though...

Relistened to Part 1 of The Veiled Leopard featuring Peri and Erimem from Big Finish and Erimem (Caroline Morris) says that she now has long hair after a time when she was bald.
This was released in 2006 and this line made me think of future companion Karen Gillan when she had her long hair shaven off and go bald when she played Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

The Veiled Leopard has a character called Lily played by Lizzie Hopley who earlier had gained companion status by Big Finish when she played Eighth Doctor companion Gemma Griffin for one story Terror Firma.
Karen herself would also play a character called Lily in the TV movie 7 Days In Hell.

this line made me think of future companion Karen Gillan

Yeah, but then EVERYTHING makes you think of Karen Gillan...;)

Cuddlesome:

Avian flu seems dated already. As does the claim it killed millions.

On the other hand, the whole 'Aggggh! PLAGUE!' thing is back in vogue THESE days...

'I think you'd better leave' - Turvey is prepared to let a journalist with a tape of him admitting to releasing a plague just...go?

The Doctor doesn't even have a torch? Truly, Davison is No True Doctor and has the pockets to prove it.

'Sliding doors - electronic - no sonic screwdriver!' 'Glass doors - breakable - hammer!' - Angela is reminding me of Donna, WORSHIP HER!

Gosh the Doctor's useless but that's not necessarily a nit, it IS Five.

Living Legend:

The Captain doesn't get suspicious that the freely-available 'vaccine' doesn't seem to have cured ANY of the natives? And he doesn't worry that it might not be compatible with his alien biology?

The Ratings War:

'I've been trying to see you for over a week now' - I really doubt it, on the other hand the Doctor might just be lying through his teeth. He doesn't REALLY want to discuss the downturn in television quality though come to think of it, he really SHOULD.

'The most psychotic sadistic war criminal I've ever had the misfortunate to encounter - Beep the Meep!' - is that TRUE?

'You ridiculous bag of flesh!' is an EXCELLENT description of the Sixth Doctor.

I was all set to complain about the endless waffling and delays and the Doctor's helplessness but it turns out he'd saved the day by destroying Beep's machinery hours ago, and was just keeping the fluffy git talking so he wouldn't notice. It's ANNOYING to be robbed of nits like this.

'I'm afraid the programme has been put on hiatus for eighteen months' - oh how hilarious I find these meta-references.

Silver Lining:

Benny's implying that she's tone-deaf, which is weird for someone who was perfectly good at singing in The Worst Thing in the World.

'They died out centuries ago' Lynton says of the Cybermen - isn't this the early twenty-seventh century? Doesn't Earth have a major Conference to discuss the Cyberman threat in 2526 (Earthshock)?

For a body-language expert, Benny is extraordinarily unsuspicious of Lynton. (And even SORRY for the 'poor' genocidal maniac when he croaks - what the HELL?)

The Cybermen don't spot the flaw in their Cunning Plan and make the plague a bit slower to kill?

Last of the Titans:

The Doctor's not worried about drinking tea here despite saying he's never seen such grime as on this ship?

Planet-eating ships were created to 'clear space lanes' - does that make any sense? I'm thinking Hitch-Hikers' 'space is really big', here...

Sorry, what are the 'my darlings' Vilgreth keeps talking about?

Why does Stelpor not shoot Vilgreth AGAIN after shooting him once and seriously wounding him? Instead of running away with Vilgreth staggering after him?

You know, Stelpor is one of the faces the Doc should have seen when Davros taunted him about all the people who've died in his name. He's one of the few who died mainly because the Doctor decided to act like Mr Thickety-Thick from Thicktown, Thickonia.

No Place Like Home:

'The TARDIS has better things to do than clean up after that furry little menace' - our Doctor has NEVER had the correct attitude towards our feline masters...

'I'm sorry Doctor, it won't happen again' - wasn't Erimem taught not to make blatantly-false promises at Pharaoh-school?

'I never had any of this trouble with K9...' - rose-tinted specs Doc, the mutt sold you to the Shadow and the Nucleus...

'My scarf. I used to wear it all the time' - well, Osgood has the Sacred Scarf in Day - the real thing according to Wintertime Paradox - and scientists had it for analysis in one of those Lockdown prequel videos...

The Doctor says he doesn't think of his family, except Susan sometimes? I KNEW Troughton was lying about bringing them back in front of his eyes...

Erimem's never struck me as the type to panic in the dark.

Since when has Five had everlasting matches in his pockets - certainly not in Four to Doomsday.

I don't remember Erimem being this enchanted by ice in Roof of the World? (Mind you, I don't remember much about Roof of the World, mercifully.)

Hmm. Seem to remember this sort of thing has happened before - that woprat from Ancient Gallifrey in Heart of TARDIS.

The Doctor's never encountered a megalomaniac mouse OR been sucked into a cleaning machine before? He MUST have done!

'And people ask why I don't go home' - no they don't. Especially after Time in Office when you totally DID go home.

The Veiled Leopard:

Why assume that the thief is male? (And yes, I WAS thinking this BEFORE discovering that...the thief is female.)

What's even weirder is that said female thief assumes that her copycat is male. (Alright, so he IS male. That's not the POINT.)

Peri knows Janus is a Roman god with two faces? American education is (was?) better than I thought.

Isn't 'We just got married' a pretty stupid thing for Ace to say to Hex just because someone called her 'Mrs'? There are plenty of OTHER Smiths around she could have married-and-degraded-herself-by-taking-their-name. And she must have noticed Hex has a crush on her.

Aha! So Seven is staring at Peri and Erimem weirdly - i.e. he's remembering them being his Companions! Except at some point the Doctor will presumably get all memories of Erimem wiped from his mind, given that she didn't pop up for Five's little farewell tour. And even KAMELION turned up for THAT.