Hi

I've been requested to write about my own audio adventures. They're the Doctor Who Crossover Adventures, starring myself as the Doctor and Coren Idle as Astra. The addy is http://zap.to/crossovers/ Basically, they're Doctor Who adventures with a twist, they "cross over" with other shows, like Doctor Who meets Xena, Doctor Who meets Buffy, Doctor Who on Titanic, etc. At the moment we're working on an interesting musical crossover which could have consequences... Anyway, have a look at tell me what you think!

Timelord

I listened to Punchline today, which is quite possibly one of the saddest things I've ever heard. No, I don't mean bad sad, it's really quite tragic.

I definitely recommend giving it a go.

Kaldor City - Occam's Razor, Death's Head, Hidden Persuaders, Taran Capel, Checkmate, Storm Mine:

I have the feeling they'd respond well to a) careful attention, and b) being in the right mood. Neither of which applied to me. All the violent political machinations feel gratuitous and pointless rather than intricately clever.

Still, it had the odd good joke and a nice sense of irony that the Big Finishes are sadly utterly devoid of.

Even I find it hard to swallow that a religious cult could believe that Taran Capel (humanity be in him) HATES robots.

If 'the official story [of Robots of Death] was ore raiders' how come Taran Capel became a mad god and Uvanov became famous?

Come to think of it...why DID Taran Capel wait eight months to launch his Sandminer blitz?

And if, as THIS claims, he's reprogrammed all future-robots on the planet to kill all humans at his command, why risk his life messing around in the Sandminer in the first place, laboriously reprogramming his metals chums by hand, one at a time?

Oh, just shut UP about the bloody sewer-pits, will you.

Hearing the Brig's voice as a newsreader feels distinctly weird.

The sudden and unexpected (though admittedly quite cleverly built-up-to) appearance of the Fendahl feels a LOT more than distinctly weird. And renders all the political violence AND robot revolt rather pointless.

Oh, and apparently the sun the Doc chucked it into only made the Fendahl grow stronger. Though how it ended up HERE is sadly unexplained.

IF THE DOCTOR SAYS IT'S A SANDMINER IT'S A BLOODY SANDMINER, OK?!

And frankly Storm Mine was incredibly out of kilter with its five predecessors. Though if you think of it as an archetype-peopled hallucination as whatsherface is being absorbed into the Fendahl it makes perfect sense. Allegedly.

DWM review of BBV audio The Killing Stone, by Richard Franklin: '[Mike Yates] was eventually reassigned to UNIT, but not before a Moroccan sabbatical and another run-in with the Master - this time disguised as a snake charmer. Collapsing from a gall-stone, Mike is rushed home to have it removed, only to find the evil Time Lord trying to steal it' - Wow. Guess those Hornets Nest audios could have been worse, after all. At least THEY don't contain a 'greedy, belching klutz' of a Benton 'voiced like one of the Wurzels.' Wearing a dress.

Might this actually be WORSE THAN TURLOUGH AND THE EARTHLINK DILEMMA, or is that a physical impossibility?

Doctor Who at the BBC: The Plays: Regeneration: People at a Belfast Doctor Who Convention discover they're gay. Or something:

'Need I say more' - about who your mystery special guest is? YEAH!

Lots of '••••'s to show how adult this is.

Though it may not be sensible to say '•••• you' to the bloke who's just said you want to go to bed with him. It would rather confirm his suspicions.

No one reacts to Tom Baker turning up?! (OK, I have to admit I didn't particularly react either - I wasn't sure it was the real Tom Baker rather than a convincing Kingmaker-style imitation. Oops.)

The whole fight over 'you can't admit you're gay' is rather embarrassing, at least until someone shouts 'If we fight like animals we'll die like animals' (OK, so I'm easily amused).

Look, I'm sure this WAS a 'powerful and moving play' like the back cover claims, when broadcast in 2001. But it's rather passe now. The Irish Troubles are over. The Who-Fans-Are-Sad Troubles are over. The Homosexuals-Are-Repulsive Troubles are over.

The Minister of Chance:
http://www.ministerofchance.com/

The Minister of Chance is a Doctor Who spin-off audio series which in itself was spun-off from the BBC 2001/02 audio story Death Comes to Time which originally feature The Minister of Chance, a Time Lord and the character was originated by Stephen Fry.

Fry however does not reprise the character for the Minister of Chance spin-off and the character (perhaps undergoing a regeneration) is played instead by Julian Wadham (who recently been cast to play another character on audio that previously been played by someone else that of John Steed for Big Finish’s audio remake of the lost episodes of The Avengers).

Also in The Minister of Chance series are Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann (neither of whom plays the Doctor here although McCoy was the Doctor in Death Comes to Time), Jenny Agutter, Paul Darrow and Philip Glenister (and the presence of Philip Glenister here means I am now able to count him as a Whoniverse contributor).

The Pointed Hand:
Prologue.
This episode features Paul McGann as Durian and the rulers in the land he visits are not very pleasant people.
Pretty intriguing beginning to the series with this episode presenting a grim outlook of the series.

Wasn't Death Comes to Time bad ENOUGH??? (Hint for anyone who had the sense not to watch/listen to it: YES. YES. YES.)

Why would ANYONE do a SEQUEL???

The Minister of Chance

The Tiger:
Episode 4.
Quite a haunting atmosphere this episode especially at the end with what Lord Rathen decides to do and the Minister conceding defeat with the situation at hand.
Quite brave of Durian to go to the forest alone.

AV27: Justyce:

Look, how was I to know it was the TWENTY-SEVENTH Audio-Visual? (OK, possibly cos it had the number '27' on the spine. That's beside the POINT. You can't expect me to read the sodding spines AS WELL as waste hours of my life listening to the things.)

Anyway, the point is, starting at the end turns out to be a bit confusing. Though, let's face it, some illegal rip-off with some lesser creature pretending to be MY Doctor was always gonna be confusing, especially given a) the lack of visuals (which bit of audio-VISUAL do these people not understand?) and b) the fact I can't be bothered to listen properly.

The 'Doctor' is GLOATING at trapping Justyce?

The 'Doctor' is saying 'You can batter the TARDIS as much as you like, Justyce'? (Alright, compared to the New Who habit of HITTING SEXY WITH A HAMMER, this is pretty mild stuff. But still hurtful.)

The 'Doctor' FAINTS on shift if he misses a meal?

The 'Doctor' names some filthy vicious guard-dog creature 'Benton'?

The Doctor spends three years as a miner? (Look, I can't be bothered to do the inverted commas any more. Just imagine them yourselves.)

The Doctor is 'bewildered'? (He's not the only one.)

TARDIS, Type 40, Gallifreyan time capsule...they're REALLY not making any effort at disguising their copyright infringment, are they.

Sorry, who's gonna vaporise the planet Solardos, again? And...y'know...WHY? BOTH sides (all three, including the Earth Government) seem pretty keen to keep it going, one way or another.

Blimey, if you're gonna blatantly rip something off, couldn't you pick something better than The MUTANTS?

AV1: The Space Wail:

They started making these in 1984??? I'd've assumed they'd be more a Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair Thing. A stranded-in-the-desert-and-drinking-your-own-urine thing. NOT when Who was alive and...well, OK, I suppose it depends on WHEN in 1984 they started, whether or not Who was brilliant or unspeakably godawful.

'The cast contains some of the leading lights of Doctor Who fandom' - er...yes. Pity they didn't check first to see if being a Doctor Who Appreciation Society bigwig means you can actually ACT.

'An experiment to see what people thought of [audios]...the response was surprisingly enthusiastic' - LOVE the honesty.

Why would anyone STEAL the AV mastertapes? And what IS this 'popular demand' which led to them being rereleased in terrible condition anyway? (Though to be honest the sound quality isn't any more godawful than in the other plays, that I've noticed.)

Is that stating-the-obvious family (including new Companion Nadia) supposed to be FUNNY, or what?

Oh look, a power-mad computer. How terribly original.

This must be the least convincing Doctor EVER. Even Colin IN THAT COAT chucking people into acid baths is more Doctorish. Hell, even PETER CUSHING is more Doctorish. At least he can ACT.

For a start, this 'Doctor' is openly drooling over 'pretty little thing' Nadia. Before helpfully informing her 'Sorry, Nadia, your family is all dead. That's a fact.'

Of course, the REASON they're all dead is because THE DOCTOR ACCIDENTALLY BLEW UP THEIR HOMEWORLD. As you do. How fortunate that Nadia must be the most indifferent person in universal history to her family and planet getting blown to smithereens. Honestly, Nyssa is positively EMOTIONAL in comparison. If only Nadia was REAL instead of being a non-existent spin-off thing, I'd be setting her up on a blind date with Tim...

AV2: The Time Ravagers:

What kind of Companion tells the Doctor he 'shouldn't go round answering any old distress call'?

'Admit it, Greg - something's gone drastically wrong' - what, just because the Doctor's been away for a few minutes?

These are NOT convincing Companions. For starters, they don't seem to give a •••• when the Doctor's a) old b) dead, and c) regenerated.

'Which of you is the Doctor? Which of you is the arch-enemy of the Daleks?' - the Daleks NEVER call him THAT!

Yup, even Audio-Visual realised that their first 'Doctor' was unspeakably bad, given that they're regenerating him in his SECOND STORY.

The Doctor thinks the Temperon won't accidentally age him to death again because 'I think I tried to explain human beings to him' - you're not a human being you gibbering moron.

AV3: Connection 13:

Oh-kay. I can't actually remember anything about this. I mean, my NOTES mention that it kills off Nadia and it's really really short, but that's about it. Of course, killing off Nadia and being really really short are both pluses, but this is the SECOND killing-off of a member of a three-person TARDIS crew in three audios - couldn't they bloody well check that someone can act before they're forced to slaughter 'em for being rubbish? (Still, kudos for not doing a JNT-style sticking-to-your-guns no matter how dreadful your Mel/Adric/Sixth Doctor are.)

Ah! This is the one with noble self-sacrifice and electrocuting-wall-panels and UNIT (and a female head of UNIT in the days this was revolutionary and frankly pretty unlikely) and, um, possibly an Ambassadors-of-Death-style voyage into space (or possibly not)...?

AV4: Conglomerate:

The Doctor and Greg wander around some Underground or something for an hour. There are no Yeti.

To be fair, as far as pointless two-handers are concerned, I really hated Scherzo too.

The Doctor is hypnotised into thinking he's a board member or something? Shouldn't he be stronger-minded?

Hmm. I was expecting THIS Conglomerate to be related to the one in the four INCREDIBLY BAD (proper, Big Finish) Fourth Doctor audios. Bonus points for NOT being related.

'Time-travelling is distinctly tedious sometimes' - Message From Fred or WHAT!

'Remember Nadia' - why on Earth would THAT break the Doctor's hypnosis when the threat of a destroyed TARDIS doesn't? NO ONE remembers Nadia's noble self-sacrifice. No one, least of all the Doctor, gives a toss.

Why, in the last Greg/Doctor conversation, is Greg perfectly clear and the Doctor inaudible?

AV5: Cloud of Fear:

The Doctor knows how a concentration camp smells? He really SHOULDN'T. There's really no way for the Doctor to turn up THERE without it being in incredibly bad taste.

Greg's defining feature seems to be 'Can't we go back to the TARDIS'. This is already grating seriously on my nerves.

Why do the Doctor and Greg offer their sincerest sympathies to the late Commander's successor...but not to his daughter?

This Doctor is such a chauvinist even his Companion comments on it.

And can he please stop noticing (and commenting) on whether a woman is attractive? Whatever happened to 'You're a beautiful woman, probably'?

I can't understand a word those aliens are saying. Which is fully in keeping with Big Finish tradition, I suppose.

The Doctor declares that Time Lords have no phobias. Well, HE seems pretty scared of spiders. And fixed points in time, at least when they come in attractive Captain Jack-shaped packages.

The Doctor finds his own tomb? I'm sure that was terribly original at the time.

And, er, he decides 'no more adventuring for me' - he's returning to Gallifrey for a life of quiet contemplation, eeking out his remaining centuries, donating his TARDIS to the Presidential Museum, of which he'll perhaps become the Curator...I'd be positively EXPLOSIVE in my sneering condemnation of these ••••••• stupid ideas if the 'Museum Curator' thing hadn't struck a nerve...

God, this goes on for HOURS.

GREG (all of sixteen years old): I wish I'd still got my gun. DOCTOR: Don't worry, I've still got mine - UH?

Greg decides to settle down for good on a planet he's never seen?

'I don't understand' - not even Greg can be THAT stupid.

AV6: Shadow World:

'I've had about as much as I can take of your sighing and whining' - Doctor to Greg. You and me both, Doc.

Oh, please don't mention the loss of the Love Of Greg's Life in the LAST audio. And more than the loss of Nadia in the previous one.

'Thank you for teaching me the error of my ways, Doctor' - can't BELIEVE the Doctor fell for THAT. (Mind you, I too thought she might be sincere. But then, unlike the Doctor, I thought he might be stuck in a pretty rubbish audio.)

WILLIAM Baggs? His name is BILL!

Drugs - just say NO, kiddies! (Honest, I don't MIND this sort of thing...if it's well-done. Or at least if it's Nightmare of Eden.)

AV8: Mutant Phase:

TWO TAPES? Isn't one bad enough?

Why does pushing TARDIS buttons cheer Greg up after the loss of the Lurve Of His Life? Why does the Doctor know it will?

'The clones? Do you mean the police' – but Delores only met one policeman, how would she know that they're all clones?

There's a terribly long 'The Doctor is dead!' sequence which would be brave if it really WAS the Doctor instead of this AV interloper. And if 'not being exterminated for quite long enough' and 'being injected with a little something to boost your immune system without you noticing' weren't pretty pathetic excuses for him NOT being dead.

So the Doc's Companion just happens to have the perfect DNA to stop the Mutant Phase?

Despite being overrun with hideous mutations the Daleks STILL find time to experiment on becoming superbeings?

'I'm pleased to see you, I thought you were dead' says the Doctor to Ria, in a totally unemotional couldn't-care-less-if-you-were-dead manner.

'Anyone hurt?' asks the Doctor. 'Three dead' says Ria. How could he POSSIBLY not have NOTICED them being gunned down in front of him?

It's one thing for the BBC to ignore these as beneath their contempt (this being before the days of New Who, when they didn't realise Who was profitable despite it, er, being entirely profitable in the twenty-six years before they murdered it) but I still can't believe Terry Nation's estate let 'em get away with using their precious Daleks.

Why does that Doctor-saving Thal scientist betray the Doctor on the Daleks' orders? It's not like they're standing over him threatening him when he sells the Doctor out.

'What's done is done' - the Doctor's somewhat uncharacteristic reaction to the bloke he trusted selling him to the Daleks in exchange for his own miserable worthless life. (NB: said bloke SAYS his life is miserable and worthless, it's not just me (and anyone else who has the misfortune to listen to this) who thinks so.)

'Let's go' 'Not without Greg' - since when has Ria cared about GREG? Earlier in this audio she was assuming he was a gonner, with no discernable reaction.

So when the Thal is duly betraying the Doctor to the Daleks as ordered...why are none of 'em around to spring the trap?

GREG becomes a superbeing? Who does he think he IS, Kroton the Happy Cyberman? And THE DOCTOR casually dismisses this with a 'He's found his niche' comment?!

In some ways it's better than the REAL (i.e. Big Finish) Mutant Phase – there's no alternative Earth with everyone dead but a member of the royal family plus some American robomen. In other ways it's worse (see above). The main difference, however, seems to be that this doesn't have REAL Doctors' voices in it (though it does have the genuine Daleks' voice).

My god, they've suddenly got themselves production notes...Greg has been RECAST? I didn't even notice...

AV7: Maenad:

'Terminal cases please follow the black arrows' - omigawd! THAT'S what's been so drastically missing from these audios! Not just a Real Live Doctor's Voice but a bit of bloody HUMOUR!

'Nadia's death may have been savoured, or at least not mourned' by Greg. Blimey. So that lack-of-reaction to a Companion's Noble Self-Sacrifice was DELIBERATE? Or was that line inserted to explain away the actor's inability to emote?

Since when can a Draconian Ambassador be bossed around like that?

It's bad enough when REAL Doctors are talking to themselves on audio. It's worse when it's a pretend one.

God, he can't even attempt to compliment a girl without having to apoloise for smarminess. I know the real Doc can be a male chauvinist pig, but not like THIS.

Oh, NOW the Draconian Ambassador starts attempting to sound vaguely Draconian by having pauses in his sentences.

'A extraordinarily attractive young woman such as yourself should want to have fun...find a boy' - ugg ugg ugg! I KNOW this isn't a TRUE Doctor but how can you claim he is and then give him lines like THIS!

The idea of an asylum planet being taken over by its crazy inmates isn't a bad one at all (as the Faction Paradox Protocols audios Movers and A Labyrinth of Histories proves) - unfortunately this audio just goes on and on without producing any OTHER ideas, but still, it's a shame Big Finish didn't choose to adapt THIS one rather than some of the OTHERS like, oh god, Minuet in Hell.

And much can be forgiven of an audio that actually USES the 'May energy shine on you from a million suns' 'And may water, oxygen, and plutonium be found in abundance wherever you land' lines from the Space War novelisation. I've never got over them NOT being said on-screen during Frontier in Space...

AV9: Destructor Contract:

The OTHER audios are VAGUELY comprehensible. (Even though they have the cheek to expect me to CONCENTRATE on 'em when OBVIOUSLY I'm only ever gonna have 'em playing in the background.) But THIS feels like several completely separate audios jammed together. Why has the Doctor unprecedentedly started narrating things (to WHOM)? What's the point of his repeated claims that the recently-deified Greg is asleep in the TARDIS? Why does this suddenly turn into that Last of the Titans DWM free audio before abruptly wiping the Doctor out of the story for ages, before he reappears in a different 'adventure' with Ria in tow, minus the narration...before returning to the Vigreth's irrelevant adventure at the end.

'You mean - you're a tea-drinker? That's incredible!' - er...WHY is it incredible, exactly? Cos the ship's captain is a bit animal-like?

'We've stumbled across a local galactic incident' - how can it be galactic AND local?

The Doctor doesn't even recognise a flight box?

CUTHBERT! It's dear old CUTHBERT from those unbelievably pointless Fourth Doctor audios!

Oh god, it's also those Temperons again. To be fair, they're no worse in the AVs than when they were foisted onto our first ever Big Finish audio.

'Ria! For pity's sake, use that gun!' - look, Sunshine, if you're trying to persuade us you're the Doctor...you're doing a terrible job of it.

'There's only one way of destroying a time machine and that's with a time destructor' - since when has CUTHBERT been an expert?!

The Temperons need the DOCTOR to tell them that time is free and Cuthbert's 'you need money' philosophy is wrong? I take it back - they ARE worse than in BF.

The Doctor promises to come back and visit the Vilgreth WHY, exactly? This is in the days he doesn't even bother doing THAT for old Companions.

Why does this suddenly turn into that Last of the Titans DWM free audio before abruptly wiping the Doctor out of the story for ages, before he reappears in a different 'adventure' with Ria in tow, minus the narration...before returning to the Vigreth's irrelevant adventure at the end.

'Vilgreth' is a bonus story on the same tape as 'The Destructor Contract'. They're not linked.

Oh!

Well, that would certainly help explain why they felt like several completely separate audios jammed together. Couldn't the cretins have a TITLE sequence or something?

AV10: The Trilexia Threat:

Sound quality is even worse than usual. Didn't understand a word of the first half...well give or take the odd cry of 'rubberised secretions!' (NB: this isn't a COMPLAINT. Especially as whatever-it-was-that-happened (giant termites or something) was mercifully short, unlike the last audio which just went on forever and ever and ever...)

The second half is clearer, so one can hear the Doctor stabilising a black hole so a swarm of Trilexia can go through to another galaxy. Or something. How nice. Let's hope it's not inhabited.

AV11: Minuet in Hell:

Well, burst me bodice! This is considerably better than the REAL (Big Finish Eighth Doctor audio) Minuet in Hell. Advantages: NOT descretating the sacred voices of said Eighth Doctor and, even more importantly, our Brigadier. Being set in the appropriate time period for the Hellfire Club instead of being unconvincingly and cringe-makingly transplanted to modern-day America.

Sadly the time-period is also a disadvantage - all that talk of the Hellfire Club, Earl of Sandwich, Earl of Bute etc recalls the Faction Paradox Protocols audios Year of the Cat and Sabbath Dei. It really goes without saying that said comparison is not to Minuet in Hell's advantage.

God, it even manages to sucks joy out of the embracing your mistress/principles joke.

The Doctor studied psychiatry?

Prostitutes have a habit of marrying dukes?

The Doctor renounced his Time Lord name?

Ria is extraordinarily trusting of a woman who's obviously trying to kill her. (I know she's amnesiac, but she's not brain-dead.)

Oh gods, not ANOTHER race the Times Lords went to war with at the dawn of time.

'A perfect powerbase to renew the war against Gallifrey' - what, EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EARTH?

AV12: Blood Circuit:

Two cassettes - AGAIN? (Plus, you have to TURN OVER the cassettes and listen to the other side as well - something it took me a good five minutes to remember after my first AV stopped abruptly in what even I could tell wasn't the end of the story.) This is HOURS of my life I'll never get back.

'I can hear the Old Girl calling out in fear of the unknown...' - oh, SUDDENLY the TARDIS is a) dying and b) scared of death. A likely story.

If the Doctor's stranded on Gallifrey, 'I'll never be able to steal another TARDIS' - why the hell not! (And how DARE you openly talk of being unfaithful to Sexy when she's DYING right in front of you!)

'When the ship finally winds down we'll stay with her...forever.' - Er...WHY? And shouldn't she go off to that TARDIS graveyard (Omega audio)?

So it's off to the biological engineers on Tersurus. Haaaaaang on, isn't that the farting planet from Curse of the Fatal Death?

'I knew the silence was too good to last' says Tate. Y'know...the bloke who's just been complaining ceaselessly about it being 'too quiet'.

'Can't breathe...must have severed my airlines...going to suffocate' - why, thank you for explaining that all aloud to, er, no one, Doctor.

'You plan to hoard a secret supply of screaming gems, releasing them into the mainstream supply gradually so as not to flood the market' 'You catch on quick, Doctor' - how nice of Tate to tell any passing stranger his Cunning Plan. Has he forgotten that, whilst the Doctor's managed to clear himself of MURDERING Tate's colleague, he was STILL caught stealing from the dead guy's CORPSE?

'Forget her, Tate, history takes care of people like that' - since when has the Doctor had such a blase attitude towards murderers? Since when has he left 'history' to 'take care of' ANYTHING?

Why doesn't Tate bat an eyelid when the Doctor mentions he doesn't know what century it is?

Since when has THE DOCTOR said stuff like 'it has an aura of doom about it'?

Since when has the Doctor unnecessarily told any passing stranger about future-history? Especially something as IMPORTANT as starships' blackstone drives potentially destroying the universe? Isn't he worried that Tate will start a campaign against 'em thirty years early? Or is he just relying on 'history' to conveniently kill Tate off? (As it duly does, without the Doctor bothering to pretend to be sorry about it.)

The universe is 'almost infinite, for practical purposes' - can someone who knows anything about the universe tell me if this is a) true, and b) likely to be the sort of thing the Doctor would say?

Why does the Doctor accuse Tate and Fowler of 'acting like children fighting over a broken toy'? Which bit of FOWLER - MURDERED - TATE'S - COLLEAGUE is he somehow not grasping?

Great, now the Doctor's reciting nursery rhymes about cats killing each other. This SO isn't helping sell me the Nick Briggs Doctor.

'So this is your ship' - what, it's BACK? Since when!

'The delicious Macra pate'? There no such thing as Macra! Macra do not exist!

'You realise you are a cold-blooded murderer' says the Doctor, when Fowler presses the button. You know...that button he'd repeatedly informed her in words of one syllable would restore the TARDIS, save their lives and get them outta here - but that would destroy alien embryos in the process so he was far too noble to press it. I mean, he already KNOWS she's cold-bloodedly murdered ONE person today - what exactly did he EXPECT her to do?! (It's not that I MIND Our Hero manipulating people into killing others/themselves. It was an act of GENIUS when Tennant did it to Luke Rattigan. I just prefer my Doctors to be a bit more SUBTLE about it.)

Why doesn't the Doctor believe Ria OR Fowler when they repeatedly tell him there's someone else aboard? Does he REALLY think the TARDIS is THAT impregnable?

The Doctor is blissfully indifferent about taking Fowler to the right place to cold-bloodedly murder YET ANOTHER person...until he realises that said person is the one destined to save the universe.

(Honestly, the Time Lords aren't that bright, but shouldn't they have stepped in to stop blackstone drives a long time ago?)

'We've all been touched by the soul of creation' - since when has the Doctor said stuff like THAT?

The attempt to create an Eccy-style tough Doctor is terribly misguided. But just occasionally it works - love the Doctor conducting an (admittedly bizarre) TARDIS funeral...while ignoring the frantic pleas of the Companion who's about to die.

The universe is 'almost infinite, for practical purposes' - can someone who knows anything about the universe tell me if this is a) true, and b) likely to be the sort of thing the Doctor would say?

The universe is obviously much larger than the part we can observe. Is it literally infinite? That's possible, but we have no way to know at this time. Oh, and the expression 'almost infinite' is meaningless. You cannot be 'almost' infinite. Either you are, or you're not.

Is it the sort of thing the Doctor would say? It all depends on which incarnation you are talking about I suppose.

The universe is obviously much larger than the part we can observe. Is it literally infinite? That's possible, but we have no way to know at this time.

But there are other universes in the Whoniverse, so presumably their universe isn't.

Oh, and the expression 'almost infinite' is meaningless. You cannot be 'almost' infinite. Either you are, or you're not.

Yeah, even I had the feeling that was the case, though to be honest I have the nasty feeling the Doc's said something similar about the TARDIS at some point.

AV13: Second Solution:

'You've never met good old Alistair Gordon, have you' - as if ANY Doctor would say such a thing!

So DID Ria get magically cured going to, um, somewhere and merging with er...oh, never mind. If THEY can't be bothered to mention it, why should I care?

So the Doctor and Ria discover that Earth's disappeared. And sound mildly annoyed that this should happen in 1986. The Stolen Earth it ain't.

'Left in the lurch by a tear-away Time Lord. What overwhelming charisma I must have' 'A veritable epileptic's nightmare' - who TALKS like that?

Ria still thinks that the mysterious croaky-voiced unspacesuited figure is the Doctor - even after he tells her he never took off his spacesuit.

'Ow, my knee, I can't move' - I KNEW Ria wasn't a proper Companion! Should be your ANKLE, moron!

'You're always saying what a peaceful place Earth is to visit' - since WHEN!

'I feel I must exercise my temporal prerogative...I'm under a certain moral compunction' - NO Doctor EVER talks like THIS. (Well, maybe Colin Baker. In a Pip n'Jane story.)

Why does Ria regard changing history back to its correct course as 'irresponsible'?

Revealing the Gunpowder Plot to the authorities would 'implicate myself', claims the Doctor. What, he's too thick to think up a good story to explain his knowledge? Like, OVERHEARING SOME PLOTTERS, or something?

God, this is actually making me miss The Plotters Missing Adventure AND The Gunpowder Plot computer game...

Why - the - HELL didn't the Doctor TELL the guys that these aren't the only barrels of gunpowder in the cellar a LOT sooner?

Ria REALLY doesn't grasp the significance of her captors fetching a barrel and some rocks. Despite the fact they've repeatedly told her they're gonna kill her. (Admittedly it's a pretty STUPID way to kill her.) She even helpfully tells them that they'll have to kill her.

So, having successfully blown up the Houses of Parliament, the plotters a) drink champagne b) come up with various ways of killing Ria, and c) plan to scarper. Shouldn't they be kidnapping Princess Elizabeth and trying to take over the country or something? (And did champagne even EXIST in those days?)

Why do Ria and the Doctor think it'll work to nip back and warn their previous selves when they know - they remember - that this happened and they didn't understand the message. Oh. They DON'T remember that till later? SERIOUSLY? Have they both got Alzheimer's?

'How could I be so stupid' - simple answer: you can't. NO ONE could be THAT stupid, least of all a Doctor. And OGRON would have worked out the your-message-caused-this-in-the-first-place thing, at SOME point during Ria's one-syllable explanation. If not before.

So it's off to the biological engineers on Tersurus. Haaaaaang on, isn't that the farting planet from Curse of the Fatal Death?

Yes, but first it was a throwaway reference in The Deadly Assassin.

AV14: Enclave Irrelative:

Why start with half an hour of music?

'The Model 40 doesn't have a voice response capability' - it's TYPE 40, you moron, and it SO does. (Even if the Doc inexplicably only uses it in Let's Kill Hitler.)

'I have been your slave for too long' - *sigh* SEXY ISN'T A SLAVE. She wanted to see the universe, so she stole a Time Lord and - oh, what's the USE.

'Did you see the way the snow stopped? Like magic!' - er, yes, cos after spending ages TRAVELLING IN THE TARDIS, of course Ria would instantly think 'MAGIC!' the moment anything mildly surprising happened.

Why does the Doctor assume his host is a 'man of science'?

Why is Ria so surprised at all the magical paraphernalia? Which bit of I'M A MAGICIAN did she just not get?

Ria realises that the whole planet is 'wrong, like a dream' - so how come the Doctor doesn't?

Blimey, Truman is pretty bad at picking up on whatshername's 'If I'm still a virgin the monster will eat me!' hints.

Look, I know this isn't the real Doctor. But if you're trying to convince the misfortunate audience that he is, claiming he's lived for 700 years believing in science and logic, that 'without logic I'm nothing, Ria, nothing', having Eternals bet eons of their lives that 'he is physically incapable of making an illogical decision' etc etc is REALLY SILLY.

Oh look, now the Doctor's been sent to hell to writhe in everlasting torment. I know exactly how he feels.

Ooh, Truman's been ripped to pieces by wolves!

Oh. Truman's alive.

'A nerve gas from the planet Gallifrey...cost me an arm and a leg to get it out of the Time Lords' - sorry, I'm finding that hard to swallow. Even after the Gallifrey audios.

The Doctor can hold his breath cos he studied with yogis in Tibet. Or something. Does the guy not have a respiratory bypass system?

'We did so enjoy watching the drama unfold' - come off it. Even an Eternal can't be THAT bored.

The Doctor doesn't even know if his Companions take milk or lemon in their tea?

Wipes the floor with every other AV in terms of surpassing ghastliness. I pathetically attempted to console myself with the thought that at least all those riddles the Doctor faced didn't include a couple of robots, one of which always lied and the other of which always told the truth, when...well, take a wild guess...

AV14 (yes, AGAIN. It seems the AVs can't count up to 20 without removing their shoes and socks, an amusing deficiency that will carry over to BF): The Secret of Nematoda:

'Humans exhibiting their usual love for the animal kingdom' - oh, so THIS Doctor's a vegetarian, is he?

That's one pretty laid-back reaction of Posedor's to being told the Doctor's a time-traveller. If he was addicted to hash instead of tea it would be a lot more believable.

If Stone killed a Nematodan, the rules are clear: he's to be relieved of duty and returned to Earth for trial. What period of Earth's Empire is this, that they care so much about native scum? And why go to all the trouble and expense of shipping him back to Earth, so far from the scene of the crime, the evidence, the witnesses, etc? Shouldn't colony worlds have their own legal systems set up?

And isn't it pretty stupid of them to let Stone KNOW they know he's a killer...and then let him go? OF COURSE he promptly launched a coup - what did he have to lose?

'You're being led by a murderer! Two days ago he killed a Nematodan!' - yeah, like a bunch of colonial troops will care. He'd do better to say they'd be court-marshalled for treason.

The Doctor's incredibly bad at pretending to be an engineer. He should be better at lying by now.

Mr Crouch joins the TARDIS crew? Just like that? I didn't even notice his existence before...

The CD extras are very annoying. Not so much because they give away the plot resolution after the first half of the story (let's face it, I'd guessed anyway) but because they sound like they're having considerably more fun making these things than I am listening to 'em.

AV15: More Than a Messiah:

It has one advantage over the spin-off video it was inexplicably turned into: we don't have the embarrassment of Sophie Aldred pretending to be a planet that's fallen in love with the Doctor.

So Truman has been stuck in the TARDIS not seeing the Doctor for WEEKS and has only just got round to finding Ria and having a whine about it?

Who thought it would be a fun idea to spend hours showing the Doctor throwing a tantrum for no readily apparent reason?

'A crystal ball? You never told me you were a witch' - fortune-tellers are more associated with crystal balls than witches, surely?

The Doctor loves Ria? Since WHEN! (And yes, I know he's talking about good old-fashioned Old Who-style affection towards one's assistant, but still...)

Well at least it's pretty short.

And why go to all the trouble and expense of shipping him back to Earth, so far from the scene of the crime, the evidence, the witnesses, etc?

I think that question pretty much answers itself.

Shouldn't colony worlds have their own legal systems set up?

Historically, colonial nations on Earth have always exported their legal systems to their colonies, with legally sworn in judges, prosecutors and attorneys working on location and sometimes even recruited from the local population. I see no reason why that pattern would change for space colonies.

And why go to all the trouble and expense of shipping him back to Earth, so far from the scene of the crime, the evidence, the witnesses, etc?

I think that question pretty much answers itself.

But whoever made up the law MUST (fairly unusually) care about the slaughter of natives or they wouldn't have made up the law in the first place! And there'll be a lot more media on Earth - a murder case, even if the murderer gets off (ESPECIALLY if they get off due to insufficient evidence due to stupidly sending 'em to Earth in the first place) would get a lot of unwanted publicity...whereas if it was dealt with quietly on a colony, most likely no one would even NOTICE.

Historically, colonial nations on Earth have always exported their legal systems to their colonies, with legally sworn in judges, prosecutors and attorneys working on location and sometimes even recruited from the local population. I see no reason why that pattern would change for space colonies.

Yes, THAT'S what I meant - not their own legal system invented from scratch, their own system that had been imported from Earth.

Of course, I don't know how big this colony is, but it does seem to have quite a few extras living on it (more than BF can usually afford - I'm impressed) and it HAS been set up for FIFTY YEARS, and it HAS got the fussy ineffectual tea-loving NICE kind of Governor who you'd think would be pretty keen on law and order, rather than the Mutants Marshal type.

But whoever made up the law MUST (fairly unusually) care about the slaughter of natives or they wouldn't have made up the law in the first place!

They don't care about that, they only care about appearing to care about that. As soon as the law puts someone in actual danger of going to jail, it is to be circumvented in any way possible. I'm sure whoever made the law put in many convenient loopholes for just that purpose.

And there'll be a lot more media on Earth - a murder case, even if the murderer gets off (ESPECIALLY if they get off due to insufficient evidence due to stupidly sending 'em to Earth in the first place

The media is totally irrelevant. It can be manipulated easily enough. And even if it is not, it still won't matter. Authorities will much prefer facing the protest of the people rather than condemn one of their own for such a trivial matter as the murder of an alien. And if you think this is not very likely, I refer you to what happened to Rodney King in Los angeles in 1992.

But whoever made up the law MUST (fairly unusually) care about the slaughter of natives or they wouldn't have made up the law in the first place!

They don't care about that, they only care about appearing to care about that.

So presumably SOMEONE is watching, or they wouldn't have to pretend to care about the natives...

There's ALWAYS someone watching. When the Mau Mau were raping and torturing and slaughtering their way through the British population in Kenya, the British Army's raping-torturing-and-slaughtering response was utterly condemned in Parliament. By - of all people - ENOCH POWELL.

There's always someone watching.

ESPECIALLY if you're thick enough to make it easy for them by NOT holding the trial LIGHT-YEARS away.

I'm sure whoever made the law put in many convenient loopholes for just that purpose.

In which case, Stone shouldn't be so worried by his misdemeanour as to launch a coup.

The media is totally irrelevant. It can be manipulated easily enough.

Only in The Long Game. And the end of World War Three. And...OK, so the media CAN be manipulated. But in post-democratic, post-Internet, everyone-except-me-has-a-phone-that-can-take-pictures-of-police-brutality era...it takes beings of DALEK-style power to keep a lid on things.

And even if it is not, it still won't matter. Authorities will much prefer facing the protest of the people rather than condemn one of their own for such a trivial matter as the murder of an alien.

I disagree. Earth is a democracy (most of the time) and people protest •••• near toppled that nice Frontier in Space President - even though she was right and the people were all wrong.

And if you think this is not very likely, I refer you to what happened to Rodney King in Los angeles in 1992.

Didn't the beaters of Rodney King get an unprecedented and illegal second trial due to the riots after their first acquittal?

AV17 (yes, they've noticed the duplication of numbers and skipped one to make up for it): Sword of Orion:

Vastly improved by its cheek in nicking the PROPER Cyber-music from Real Who. And by the absence of Ria and Truman - interesting how much more Doctorish Nick Briggs seems without his so-called Companions. In fact, the thing is probably no worse than the real, (i.e. Eighth Doctor) version.

So the Doctor's addicted to some Sargol drug that's invading his mind with shadows since some evil man made him take it...sorry, am I supposed to be REMEMBERING any of this?

'Just a few seconds in a zero environment have doubled my mental reserves' - why wait till you collapsed to build one, then, if you know you're addicted to this drug?

'He could be an android - a genetic construct on the run from the Orion War' - not the most subtle info-dump in the world...

'It won't be long before the whole Cyber-unit is revived' 'Then we'll be in trouble' - you don't say!

The Doctor seems terribly keen on telling Diva to fire her gun all the time.

The Doctor doesn't know anything about the Orion War? The Doctor knows everything, especially where his precious humans are concerned.

Why is the Doctor obsessing about Diva - making her mutinous crew suspicious of her just when they'd rallied round her to fight Cybermen? (And it's not as if he realises the TRUTH about her, despite the blatant 'The Cybermen will turn all of YOU into Cybermen' clue she dropped.)

Why is everyone so sure there are no androids outside the Orion system?

I'm sorry...EMOTIONAL TRAUMA makes you UNSUITABLE FOR CYBER-CONVERSION? Actually come to think of it, that's quite sensible - after being mad-as-a-hatter enabled Cyber-Yvonne to overcome her conditioning - but how many humans DON'T get traumatised when stuffed in a Cyber-conversion chamber?

Why didn't the Cybermen just delete the Doctor when he told them he had a proposition for them...and then spent five minutes ranting and info-dumping at 'em before mentioning said proposition? I felt like deleting him...

If you're nicking ideas from Proper Who, DON'T nick 'em from Destiny of the Daleks - it isn't very GOOD.

History taught the Earth authorities not to do deals with Cybermen? (Tell that to the Cybermen audios - set in this exact time-period - where the Earth authorities did deals with Cybermen...cos they'd never heard of 'em.)

And yet said authorities are prepared to nick the technology and turn entire regiments into Cyber-troopers? Why not just...y'know...agree to pretend to treat the androids like human beings and end the war THAT way?

Why on Earth would Diva totally unnecessarily •••• off the Doctor - on whom she's become rather reliant - by announcing the androids might as well use their human prisoners of war as Cyber-conversion experiments?

'We're people, not machines' says the Doctor. Vis-a-vis himself and his ANDROID chum.

Rather odd note to end a story on - the ship the Doc's on getting blown up. Of course, I daren't hope that he's actually DEAD...

AV18: Carny:

The Doctor miraculously gets picked up by the TARDIS?

Diva is floating around out there, dead? (the Doctor doesn't point out that SHE'S AN ANDROID so would of course LOOK dead but MIGHT NOT BE and SHOULD BE RESCUED?)

The Doctor happens to have the right coinage for this crazy carny about his person? (Don't tell me he has bigger-on-the-inside pockets - he's not a PROPER Doctor.)

'I'm not afraid of heights!' - how can the Doctor NOT be - post-Logopolis?

Why does the Doctor YELL 'But they'll catch us!' while he's HIDING?

'You're still an abhorrence to all that is good' - the Doctor just doesn't talk like this. (I know he's drugged. But he STILL shouldn't talk like this. Plus...am I supposed to remember this nutter with a damaged TARDIS (or something) who he's addressing...?)

Oh gods. Hours on how the Doctor should stop being LOGICAL cos that's not the way this world of dreams works. Just like a couple of audios ago with that godawful magic world...

Um, is Truman torturing the TARDIS or the TARDIS torturing Truman? This is likely to be QUITE SIGNIFICANT, but PLEASE stop expecting me to CONCENTRATE well enough to pick up such plot-points.

Ah bless, the Doctor MENTIONS GREG! Almost as if he gave a •••• about him! Of course, Truman has no idea who he's talking about so this is no doubt the result of drugs rather than the Doc actually fondly remembering an ex-Companion.

Lots of echoes of other Who stories - Interference, Scapegoat, Midnight, Snakedance - not adding up to anything at all.

CD Extras:

'What we've had to do yet again folks is recast the part of Ria' - blimey, how many times have you done this?! And why not just invent a new boring Companion instead? (Well, don't worry. It's not like I NOTICED.)

'It wasn't supposed to end that way but it's a nice dramatic ending anyway' - oh. Right. They screwed up with the timings and THAT'S why Sword of Orion stopped so abruptly and its ending had to be stuck on the beginning of Carny.

AV19: Planet of Lies (TWO cassettes, people! TWO! That's FOUR SIDES of cassette-y...stuff!):

Why spend hours trudging across the desert if you have a short-range tracker that tells you there's no one within a day's walk?

Why is Truman so desperate to stay on this planet? Aha! Perhaps it's part of an evil masterplan! (The previous audio having revealed that he's REALLY REALLY evil. Or that the TARDIS is. One or the other, anyway.)

Have to admit, that Dalek cliffhanger was quite a nice surprise. Possibly my FIRST nice surprise Dalek cliffhanger, what with Who's propensity for putting 'Daleks' in the titles and all...and the Radio Times give-away covers. And the Dalek extermination beam in Fear Her's 'Next Week' trailer...

The Daleks SHAVE THE DOCTOR'S HEAD? Don't be silly! You can't POSSIBLY have a bald Doc - oh. Um. never mind.

Keep Ria in a well guarded cell, why don't you...but just LEAVE THE DOCTOR UNATTENDED DURING HIS SURGERY, you metal morons.

Ah! I take it back! It's all part of a Cunning Plan to let the Doctor escape so he'd blow up a totem pole for the Daleks. Quite why they couldn't just BLOW IT UP THEMSELVES is anyone's guess. Not to mention that the DOCTOR should have been a bit suspicious of his convenient rescue...

'As far as I understand Dalek caligraphy' - Sexy's not translating WRITING any more?!

Since when has the Doctor wailed about how he's never been so helpless...in the middle of an adventure after just escaping from the Daleks?

The Doc's the only survivor of a Time Lord catastrophe? You heard it here first...

'Shaman, what say you?' 'I have nothing to say. Prepare the ritual. Let the Doctor's soul be drained to the dregs.' - That's actually saying QUITE A LOT.

By the second cassette it deteriorates into complete wailing gibberish (of course, it doesn't help that the sound quality is so poor I probably wouldn't understand what they were saying even if it did make any sense).

Why don't the Daleks EX-TER-MIN-ATE the primitives sooner instead of giving 'em twenty generations to dance round their totem pole? Especially once they realised said totem pole had the power to destroy them all?

To think I complained about Sword of Orion ending on a cliffhanger. Well, no doubt the next story will resolve the question of whether the Doctor, Ria and Truman are dead/alive/Dalek Replicants, and whether Gallifrey is really destroyed and if so how...

AV20: Deadfall:

...Oh. Maybe not. Still, the Doctor does helpfully restate the problem: 'I got shot by Ria while driving a ship of bombs into my homeplanet.' AND...??

The Governor asks everyone to stop shouting. No one's shouting.

How touching of the Doctor to bequeath his TARDIS to Truman. Shouldn't she go to the TARDIS graveyard (Omega) or sit around gathering dust (Parting of the Ways)? Oh, and also TRUMAN CAN'T FLY THE TARDIS and TRUMAN CAN'T EVEN GET INTO THE TARDIS, you cretin.

Lots of echoes of other Who stories - Interference, Scapegoat, Midnight, Snakedance - not adding up to anything at all.

Most of which didn't exist when this was made...

Yeah, but that's entirely beside the point.

AV21: Requiem:

OK, what the HELL just happened?! I...enjoyed...that! A strong storyline simple enough to follow while doing the washing-up but with enough twists to keep you hooked, interesting characters, well-written...*shakes head in bewilderment*

'If we rescue her, she'll only die in another way in a short space of time' - well, that's what happened in GodEngine - and Waters of Mars, with Adelaide at least - but since when has the Doctor KNOWN time works like this?

'You'll walk out. They all do' - the Doctor's Companions all walk out on him after losing arguments about going back in time to save dead comrades? Don't remember Tegan doing that in Timeflight. And when Steven did it the circumstances were different, they wouldn't necessarily have been defying the Web of Time to save Anne Chaplet.

'How do I know you're the real Truman. I don't.' - So why not drop him off somewhere safe just in case? It's not as if - Dalek Replicant or no Dalek Replicant - the two of them get on, these days.

'Wherever you are, Truman, I hope it was an easy death' - since when has any death-by-Dalek been EASY? And if the Doc's so sure Truman's dead why keep the fake one around? And since when has the Doctor believed in an AFTERLIFE?

So Truman trying to bring the TARDIS back to Gallifrey means he's GOT to be a Replicant? I don't follow the logic. If real, he's obsessed with saving Ria - last seen on Gallifrey. And again - if you're so bloody sure about him why not kick him out.

'Whoever builds a spaceport close to the ocean' - why the hell shouldn't they?

The Doctor has loads of fresh apples in his pockets. REAL Doctors only have apple CORES.

All the Conglomerate's board are men?

Why is the perfectly reasonable robot so sure that the Doctor destroyed this planet - just because he's THERE?

The Doctor 'wants to clear my name' - not to save the planet, then.

Pity about that 'Earth is the next victim!' announcement - just like Pirate Planet. Gods forbid we should CARE about the destruction of any world that isn't Earth.

'I must admit, I find the Doctor's arguments persuasive' - it's Fionara who thought up all those arguments! How sexist ARE these people?!

'The Doctor thinks you're a murderer' - mass-murderer, surely. The Doc thinks he's wiped out, what, seven entire planets?

Glasst seems surprisingly uninterested when the Doctor claims to have spoken to Mahler, who died 3000 years ago. And when the Doctor announces that he's not human.

The Doctor's never heard of compact discs?

NO ONE notices that every planet Glasst plays on on his grand tour promptly DIES? (And how soon does he get OFF said planets, for heaven's sake?)

The Doctor doesn't destroy Glasst's machine just to be on the safe side? 'The new piece should be alright - I checked it through quickly' - Geez, don't STRAIN yourself Doc, it's only the universe at stake, after all...

'Ladies, gentlemen and aliens of indeterminate gender' - ah, bless! DECADES before the New Series!

'We can't afford to get involved in a murder inquiry' - so THE DOCTOR just ALLOWS the BRUTAL MURDER of his BRAND NEW COMPANION to go TOTALLY UNPUNISHED? Because he's, what...SCARED?

'Whoever builds a spaceport close to the ocean' - why the hell shouldn't they?

Well, close to oceans you get hurricanes and tsunamis, and of course lots of sea salt that corrodes your spaceships and infrastructure. Those are things you might want to avoid. However, Cape Canaveral is built near the ocean and it doesn't seem to have affected its operations much, so far.

'The Doctor thinks you're a murderer' - mass-murderer, surely. The Doc thinks he's wiped out, what, seven entire planets?

That's small potatoes for the Oncoming Storm.

Well, close to oceans you get hurricanes and tsunamis, and of course lots of sea salt that corrodes your spaceships and infrastructure. Those are things you might want to avoid.

Oh.

I just thought that if you're a tourist world then landing everyone next to the ocean would be a good selling point.

However, Cape Canaveral is built near the ocean and it doesn't seem to have affected its operations much, so far.

Ha! Plus in the future they can surely build, um, anti-salt anti-tsunami invisible barriers. Or, um, something.

That's small potatoes for the Oncoming Storm.

This guy is SO not the Oncoming Storm.

AV22: Cuddlesome:

Starting off with hours of bickering children is an unwise move. Kinda reduces the impact when someone eventually gets round to mentioning that, oh, by the way, the British rug-rat population is dropping like flies - it's impossible not to think 'Good'.

Sorry, the Doctor realising there's another member of his species out there after Gallifrey's destruction is pretty feeble compared to The Doctor's Wife. As is his reaction when said member of his species promptly dies. (Especially compared to Last of the Time Lords.)

Still, it's impressive how much of New Who the Audio-Visuals actually foresaw. This even chucks in a 'With the Time Lords gone, the few of us who are left can meddle as we please.' (Though again it doesn't exactly blow your brains out with the concept, a la Waters of Mars. (Also, the Doctor doesn't even bat an eyelid to be told there are several more survivors.)) All this time, I've been giving the NOVELS credit for blowing Gallifrey to smithereens first...

Ooh look, we've got a 'The Doctor left me stranded for months and I had to get a job in a shop', now...

A Time Lord dies - his TARDIS dies too? The HELL it does!

The Doctor doesn't spot that Askran isn't really dead? Shouldn't he at least have wondered why the guy didn't regenerate?

Gallifrey has last rites? Surely they'd just involve attaching some electrodes to your head so you'd end up in the Matrix?

So there's some fatal disease from the future unleashed on London's ickle kiddies...and the Doctor just wants to leave?

'Any decade now this planet will be engulfed in nuclear war.' - Geez, thanks for the cheery optimism. And not according to the REST of the Whoniverse (e.g. Warriors of the Deep) it won't.

'Dolphins with the brain of a cat' - and where did they GET those cats' brains, I'd like to know?

Since when do police phone a mother's home and ask if she can come and identify the body of a boy that they've found? (Well, possibly the greater numbers of casualties in the Whoniverse mean they can't afford to go round politely knocking on victims' families' doors and breaking the news gently. Though probably not, judging by all that time Torchwood's PC Andy spends on one missing teenager case...)

Plus, Sally hadn't even rung the police to report her son missing, I was just wondering why not. And later, she accompanies the Doctor to the Pleasure Palace cos he tells her her late lamented son is probably alive and there - and she doesn't ask WHERE THE •••• IS HE? God, I miss Jackie Tyler.

NO doctor noticed the injection-in-the-eyeball of every single plague victim?

Why does it take the Doctor so long to think of the toys? He's lived through a couple of Auton invasions, he knows how these things work.

'You're tampering with the lives of thousands of people!' - a rather odd way of describing genocide.

'Wiping out a generation is a contravention of the First Law of Time' - blimey, how many First Laws of Time ARE there?

OK, I've met some mad scientists in my time (well, seen 'em on Who anyway) but 'I'm genociding children to make a monster that will live in peace and harmony with humanity, honest' really takes the biscuit. WHY, for heaven's sake?

The AVs are certainly not pulling any punches. I never doubted that the Doc would save the missing kid, so was quite chuffed when said child was turned into a hideous monster who promptly murdered his mummy.

So did the Doctor KNOW he was lying when he told Sally and her remaining ankle-biter that they couldn't possibly be operating on her Ickle Kiddie yet before the equipment arrived? It was all part of his cold-blooded plan to traumatise the surviving kid enough for it to fulfil its journalistic destiny? (Look, he could've revealed the Cuddlesome boys were made from REAL boys without having to see his brother mutilated and his mother murdered.)

CD Extras:

By the end of Planet of Lies, the Doctor's hair will have grown back? Look, I know that particular audio FELT like it lasted eons, but...

They DELIBERATELY created a lovely, popular Companion so they could shock the audience by killing her off the moment she joined the TARDIS crew (Requiem)? Fair enough, but it does rather beg the question of why - if they CAN create the perfect Companion - all their OTHER Companions are so much less engaging.

'There is a lot, lot worse yet to come' - someone needs to give these guys a hand with their sales pitch.

Gallifrey has last rites? Surely they'd just involve attaching some electrodes to your head so you'd end up in the Matrix?

Casually attaching electrodes would be far too plebian for the Time Lords. They'd be attached with all the ceremonial pomp Gallifrey could muster - special robes with extra high solid gold collars, hours of chanting in High Gallifreyan, electrodes crafted in the heart of the time vortex, etc.

Yeah, I suppose I could picture that (losers!) but in THIS case there aren't even any electrodes - a (pretend-) dying Time Lord, on Earth, post-Gallifrey's destruction, is asking the Doc to give him the 'last rites'. Consisting of WHAT, for heaven's sake?

in THIS case there aren't even any electrodes

You checked the Doctor's pockets? They could easily contain the special electrodes, a full set of Time Lord ceremonial robes, and 5000 tins of cat food, all without any obvious bulges.

I don't think he carries all that stuff around normally, but I can see a (fake) Time Lord expecting him to.

You checked the Doctor's pockets? They could easily contain the special electrodes, a full set of Time Lord ceremonial robes, and 5000 tins of cat food, all without any obvious bulges.

Oh. Fair enough. Of course, Nick Briggs is No True Doctor, but he and his pockets (judging by him having the right coinage in Carny) seem to be doing an adequate imitation.

AV23: Endurance:

What an apt title. Two cassettes to say, well, nothing original whatsoever about the Silurians.

Though I suppose I shouldn't complain too much - the (proper) audios, the novels, Old Who, and even New Who all struggled desperately to find something interesting to do with the ridiculous reptiles post-The Silurians...it took QUITE SOME TIME for the BLATANTLY OBVIOUS solution of A LESBIAN VICTORIAN DETECTIVE SILURIAN to spring to mind.

It's 'impossible' for the TARDIS to sink?

They don't bring their own physician on this dangerous voyage? The Captain does, however, bring his daughter? (A FEMALE! On a 1929 (or something) trip to the Arctic! (Or Antarctic. Or something. Look, I'm not writing a synopsis so I wasn't really bothering to note down the details.))

The Doctor spots Justyce, recognises him (how if he's never seen his face?) and says 'I hoped he was a bad dream...a phantom...no face' - since when has the Doc pretended that baddies were just dreams? What's Justyce done that's so scary anyway? Of course graffiti-ing Sexy is a blasphemy for which the scumbag should pay with his life, but the Doctor's encountered worse. The destruction of Gallifrey a few audios ago, for instance...

'This means something to me, I know it' - which bit of HUMANS SUDDENLY SUFFERING FROM RACE-MEMORY fails to make the penny drop for the Doctor? And why is the audio trying to drag out the 'surprise revelation' for hours afterwards? This 'Doctor' may be thick as two incredibly thick planks, but it's a fair bet that any misfortunate listening to this audio will have some pretty good memories of a certain Doctor Who story.

'You apes only developed because of our absence' - and not because a Silurian mad scientist genetically enhanced 'em? This may be (even) less canonical than Bloodtide but in many ways I prefer it. (Plus - no Myrka. Good move.)

'Homo reptilia - sometimes known as Silurians' - OMG!!! THIS is responsible for New Who's 'Homo reptilia' blunder!!!

Can everyone PLEASE stop dragging in God, Christ, Jesus, Mary etc all the time?

These Silurians think that talk of other worlds is insanity - which bit of building a massive Silurian spaceship and taking off in it (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship) did they somehow not notice?

'This is more than your race has achieved' says the Doctor, totally unnecessarily, to a Captain who's already suspicious of him. And - excuse me - humans CAN melt Arctic (Antarctic. Whatever.) ice, thank you very much. And are doing so even as we speak. I'm just unsure why the Doctor thinks that flooding planet Earth is so desirable.

How nice of Justyce to fly the TARDIS back to Our Heroes for a miraculous rescue. Some villain HE is.

How convenient of all the extras to die and not give the Doctor the trouble of getting 'em home. Ditto for the Silurian base explosion.

These Silurians think that talk of other worlds is insanity - which bit of building a massive Silurian spaceship and taking off in it (Dinosaurs on a Spaceship) did they somehow not notice?

The bit that happened 22 years after this story was made...?

What's THAT got to do with anything?

And since when would such a technologically-advanced race capable of millions of years of suspended animation, underground cities, ray-guns, and dissolving/growing walls with their eyeballs be so disbelieving about the existence of OTHER PLANETS? They spotted a rather large rock heading towards Earth fast enough, they've obviously got telescopes...

AV24: Mythos:

Look, I love wizards and dragons and suchlike as much as the next person (well...considerably MORE than the next person) but all those 'Know ye's made my heart sink. And then it just got worse and worse and worse. (Second cassette is subtitled 'Nadir'. Never was a truer word spoken...)

'Humans exhibiting their usual love for the animal kingdom' - oh, so THIS Doctor's a vegetarian, is he?

Evidently not - he didn't mind drinking dragon-bone tea.

'She? The Changeling's a woman?' - why is Truman so surprised? He's not from the DARK AGES.

So Truman's unicorn-bait but the Doctor isn't...surely the Doc's a virgin too? THIS one, anyway?

'There's nothing we can do' - since when has THAT been the Doctor's attitude?

'Little invention of mine' - the Doctor INVENTED Everlasting Matches? I thought The Resurrection Casket said - well, actually I can't quite REMEMBER what it said, but it definitely implied the Doctor didn't INVENT them.

So the Doctor's all upset about getting a rug-rat killed? He didn't bat an eyelid over Sally's ankle-biter biting the dust a story or two ago.

Truman must leave cos 'I can't risk your life too' - and not because the Doctor still suspects him of being a Dalek Replicant? Whatever happened to THAT subplot?

Having sat through three cassette-sides of embarrassing, tedious, nonsensical, utterly unWhoish drivel involving unicorns and necromancers and stuff, awaiting an explanation for ALL THE BOODY MAGIC, I get THIS: 'Science - magic - what's the difference? They're just different words for the same thing.' Thanks, Doctor!

Truman's Excellent Adventure:

On the one hand, I don't have the slightest interest listening to Truman drone on about his previous adventures (it was bad enough hearing 'em the FIRST time) and working in a cafe. Still, the important thing is that we've GOT AWAY FROM MYTHOS. Plus there's a cat.

Though it has to be admitted - I found Sam Jones homeless and stranded out of time in Seeing I deeply affecting. Truman...not so much.

The National Health Service in the 1980s is so easy-going that it can wait days to discharge someone because his doctor happens to be off on holiday?

After working for a while in the cafe, Truman doesn't know about months of the year? What the hell ELSE doesn't he know about? How come his new boss/landlady/granny doesn't notice how WEIRD he is?

Over two hours of interrogation and the police only just get round to asking Truman where he's from? And as they're investigating him, why don't they notice his total lack of background? And if they DO notice, why don't they SAY OR DO something about it?

Didn't one of Sally's brats survive Cuddlesome anyway? The one with the journalistic destiny? What the hell's HAPPENED to it?

So Truman's unicorn-bait but the Doctor isn't...surely the Doc's a virgin too? THIS one, anyway?

The Doctor has a granddaughter. That means he has at least one son or daughter. That means he is not a virgin. Unless regeneration also regenerates virginity.

The Doctor has a granddaughter. That means he has at least one son or daughter.

Or that he adopted the Other's Granddaughter. Or grew her in a Loom. Or something.

That means he is not a virgin. Unless regeneration also regenerates virginity.

I don't see why it shouldn't.

AV25: Subterfuge:

The subtitle of the second tape is 'Ordeal'. SOMEONE at Audio-Visuals obviously feels the same as I do...

'If you're goint to kill us, why don't you just get on with it' - gosh, how I (haven't) missed Ria talking in boring cliches.

Justyce is suddenly 'he, she or it'?

'Public transport's bound to be more efficient without passengers' - also rather unprofitable, surely?

'The whole universe throughout time will be ours' - pity that Cuthbert, who was a mildly successful villain, has suddenly got boring.

'I don't care how you overcame your conditioning or duplicated yourself' - why interrogate him about it for half an hour then?

Ria is remarkably unperturbed about the revelation of her torture and death.

'I will do it' - So...er...the Doctor agrees to help Justyce to wipe out humanity? Do I really have to list the reasons THE DOCTOR WOULDN'T DO THIS? We're his favourite species. He has a lot more respect for the Web of Time. Justyce is a fithy TARDIS-vandalising Companion-murdering nutcase.

Oh, and the Doctor says that he's only got Justyce's word for it that the Solardans (or whatever that alternative race he's trying to replace humanity with) were really nice (which as it happens isn't true cos he, er, sensed their goodness or something) - but you know what ELSE the Doc only has the word of his deadliest enemy for? The claim that Ria and Truman would still be alive after he'd ensured that their ancestors had NEVER EXISTED.

Cretin.

AV26: Geopath:

The Doctor can't even open a magnetic locking device before the guards arrive? What the hell's HAPPENED to the sonic screwdriver?

'I want the top man at Cartel' - sexist git.

The Doctor talks remarkably freely to Truman when they're in a cell together on the most monitored and controlled planet EVER. Does it not occur to him that their captors will be listening?

'There's a sense in me that an ending is near' - since when has the Doctor talked like this?

So the implants embedded in the hearts of every member of the human race are routed through ONE ROBOT? Geez, this is even worse than that T-Mat scenario...

Right. So the head of the Cartel claims that the implants are NEVER used to kill anyone. And the Doctor totally fails to point out that his captor informed him a few minutes ago that he'd been trying to kill the Doctor and Truman by detonating their implants, foiled only by the fact that said implants didn't exist.

The universe is self-aware and left big diamonds on various planets to draw us together or, um, something. And the Doctor has always suspected whenever he lands on a world that it's self-aware and, um, stuff. Yeah, RIGHT.

Why does the Doctor believe that the guards were shot when there are no bullet-wounds?

'It's ancient history to me' - Truman. Really? Cos I got the impression that he's only from a few hundred years in the future. So this hitherto-unsuspected Cartel-controlled Earth can't be TOO far in his past.

'You needed me to keep up your spirits, bring back your optimism' - Truman to the Doctor. TRUMAN to THE DOCTOR?!

So. That's that then. The series that spawned various Big Finishes, BBV audios and Benny novels, that blew up Gallifrey and invented the term Homo Reptilia...it's not very good. But it's certainly historic.

pity that Cuthbert, who was a mildly successful villain, has suddenly got boring

But within a couple of years he'd overcome that and reinvented himself as Mr Blobby.

???

What Cuthbert actor Barry Killerby did next:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Blobby

Emily, if you can stand to listen to something that is only extremely tangentially related to Doctor Who, do listen to: http://www.ministerofchance.com/ The Minister of Chance (Which I see Matthew See brought up above) It's good. And it has two Doctors, one companion, and Avon (well, the actors, anyway): Paul Darrow, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, and Sophie Aldred.

Oh god. I know I SHOULD...I know I WILL...one day...but its very NAME brings back such ghastly Death-Comes-To-Time memories...

What else have you got to do between now and August whatever?

Hmmm. Well, I'm aiming for four Who novels and six Who magazines and two Who reference books a month (failing dismally on the reference books), plus, whilst I haven't got a specific target for the audios, anything fewer than ten a month would be pretty disgraceful, at least until I've worked my way through the Spin-Off backlog...Oh, and I thought it would be fun to ensure that all twenty-seven subheadings in the Original Series section were updated this month.

How long is that Minister of Chance thing...?

Six episodes. The prologue is 10 minutes long, the other five are between 35 and 50 minutes.

Look on it as a palette cleanser.

Knock a novel a month of and point virtuously to Minister of Chance as your reason.

UP TO FIFTY MINUTES AN EPISODE!!!!

I'm not going NEAR the thing!

It's obviously the duty of you and Matthew to give it a thorough going-over in the nit department.

3.7 hours total.

Prologue: 9:01
Episode 1: 35:15
Episode 2: 36:47
Episode 3: 47:22
Episode 4: 42:33
Episode 5: 51:50

Any better?

NO! WORSE! That's 3.7 HOURS of my life I'd NEVER get back!

But they are a good 3.7 hours.

I've listened to it 4 times, so far.

I'm only occasionally a nitpicker,so here is the FanboyNation review I wrote, in which I was very happy about things like production value, actors, acting, and story.

The main nit:
Professor' Cantha's speeches are better in report than in presentation--I've heard the basic argument she uses before, and I've not seen it convince anyone, on either side, of anything. I do love the idea of her speeches rallying everyone, just not the speeches themselves.

An oddity:

I spent the whole time listening (more than once) thinking it was Professor Canthor and (on the first listen) the terror planet.

Then I looked things up, and it was Cantha and Terra

This is what happens when you only mostly speak the same language.

All I'm saying is, I don't see how you can resist 2 former Doctors and one former Blake's 7 crewmember (the crewmember, at that!). It's two fandoms in one go!

But they are a good 3.7 hours.

They are for YOU...

I've listened to it 4 times, so far.

EEK!

All I'm saying is, I don't see how you can resist 2 former Doctors and one former Blake's 7 crewmember (the crewmember, at that!). It's two fandoms in one go!

I don't give a toss about Blake's 7 (notwithstanding Kaldor City's attempts to merge the two universes) and the so-called 'Doctors' seem to be calling themselves Witch Prime and suchlike. And personally I don't think ANY former Doctor should degrade himself by pretending to be anyone else, ever. They should just have themselves cryogenically frozen until they need to be wheeled out for anniversary shows.

Anyway...tell you what...since you found so many nits for Urgent Calls...there are SEVEN MORE free Big Finish audio stories at:

https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/sets/complete-free-big-finish/

I'll inflict an episode of Minister of Chance on myself for each one of those you nitpick here...bargain?

I don't give a toss about Blake's 7 (notwithstanding Kaldor City's attempts to merge the two universes)

You used to bost on the B7 boards!

there are SEVEN MORE free Big Finish audio stories ...
I'll inflict an episode of Minister of Chance on myself for each one of those you nitpick here...bargain?

You have a deal.

You used to bost on the B7 boards!

I posted about Doctor Who on the B7 boards ONCE during TSLABYOD. Things one was driven to during TSLABYOD should NOT be held against one...

there are SEVEN MORE free Big Finish audio stories ...
I'll inflict an episode of Minister of Chance on myself for each one of those you nitpick here...bargain?

You have a deal.

Oh my god! SERIOUSLY? That's WONDERFUL! We only need to get nineteen more posts (well, eighteen more NOW) in the Audios section before the end of the month and we'll reach an AVERAGE of NINE posts per audio! NINE!! I never DREAMT such an achievement was REMOTELY POSSIBLE -

- yeah, I probably should get out a bit more.

Not that I did any searching or anything, but yours is the first post on the Kerr Avon board.

By Emily on Tuesday, August 03, 1999 - 8:39 am:
I loved Avon (well, not literally, obviously). I'm so used to Doctor Who that when the spaceship was crashing in 'Orbit', I half-expected Avon to volunteer to nobly sacrifice his life for his friend, hurl himself from the ship, build a parachute on the way down, and break his fall by landing on top of Servalan, accidentally killing her and saving the entire universe. Well, something like that anyway. Instead of which Avon tries to throw Vila overboard. Wonderful.

Ok, time to go listen to some more Big Finish.

Minister of Chance: Prologue: The Pointed Hand:

'This is the start of something terrible' - oh, it's like shooting fish in a barrel...

McGann is...surprisingly Doctorish. (At least until he starts threatening to wipe out an entire nation with biological warfare.) Especially as I'm so much more used to HEARING his Doctor than SEEING him.

'Her Majesty Princess Didi' - Princesses are Highnesses not Majesties.

Why would a warlike race where EVERYONE is a fighter not have guns?

Episode 1: The Broken World:

Oh. Suddenly there are some Pertwee-yokel sound-a-likes bleating on.

Sylvester McCoy is deeply unconvincing as a Supreme Military Commander. Also, since when did ANY culture call their Supreme Military Leader a Witch?

It's not just the world that's broken, it's iTunes. It cuts out abruptly (just when some professor is being told to grind some glass or something?) I've tried replaying it SEVERAL TIMES, it ALWAYS stops there - how do I make it WORK?

It's not just the world that's broken, it's iTunes. It cuts out abruptly (just when some professor is being told to grind some glass or something?) I've tried replaying it SEVERAL TIMES, it ALWAYS stops there - how do I make it WORK?

I downloaded an mp3, so I can't help you there. Try redownloading it?

Ah, Jessica, you're the reason for this sudden surge of activity here in the Audio section.

Well, Emily should not have to suffer alone

•••• right I shouldn't! Is she not a shining example to you all?

How many bargains are you prepared to make?

However many it takes to get the audios up to an average of TEN posts per thread!

One down, two hundred and ninety-nine to go...

Bookwyrme How many bargains are you prepared to make?

Emily Carter However many it takes to get the audios up to an average of TEN posts per thread!

One down, two hundred and ninety-nine to go..

Do you know, it's rather tempting to take you up on that...

"Rise and Fall" by George Mann whose Newbury & Hobbes series I rather like.

Kind of hard to nitpick this one as it's not quite precisely a Doctor Who story. It took a little adjusting to listen to this one since I was used to the audio dramas and this is just read.

The Doctor's hands were like bony spiders? Look, I do like Mann's writing, on the whole, but as a comparison, that doesn't really work.

The First Doctor seems the Doctor least likely to be cheerful about the fact that an entire civilization grew up around him & his TARDIS, though there really isn't anything he could have done about it.

Rather unfair to leave Barbara and Susan trying on clothes in back when an entire civilization is out there being born.

Incidentally, this does mean the TARDIS has a wardrobe. Maybe she routinely hid it during those days just to give her Thief practice in thieving?

Side note: Mann has written an essay on the First Doctor. Thought you might enjoy it.

And that finishes the freebies!

Still at them, are you Jessica.

Yep. Hey, this lot was free, and Emily has promised to listen to Minister of Chance now.

I knoooooooooooooooooow! I'm so sorry about the delay, I'm just not used to people being so EFFICIENT! Anyway, now that I'm back at home with a better computer that doesn't seem to go on strike every time it's forced to play Minister of Chance (not that I can altogether blame it) I will pay up forthwith.

I'm not nagging you Just pointing out that I had a slight ulterior motive here.

I was given a few other Big Finish recordings, by the way.

I'm not nagging you

WHY aren't you nagging me?! In your place I'd've been screaming I SURVIVED CUDDLESOME YOU CHEATING SCUM! I EVEN - MAY THE GODS HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL - ENDURED AMERICAN ROBOMEN! NOW GIVE ME MY PAYBACK! (Or, um, words to that effect...)

I was given a few other Big Finish recordings, by the way.

WONDERFUL news!

Well, not for YOU, obviously...

The Minister of Chance: Episode 1: The Broken World (continued):

'Science has been outlawed for your sake' - says the ambassador from gun-toting plague-creating civilisation to the country that didn't have guns. But still had science. Apparently.

'Run, Kitty, run' - just in case the people arresting her didn't know her aider and abetter's name - very helpful.

Episode 2: The Forest Shakes:

Why is there boring bickering between two boring characters? If they're trying to give me that Doctor/Companion vibe, they're failing.

How come these people from other planets understand each other?

It's all quite disjointed. What's with the arena stuff? I mean, ON SCREEN no doubt it would make a fine visual spectacle...

'Kantha's an insurgent leader' - what, just cos she ran away and hid instead of getting rounded up with the rest of the professors?

'There is nothing you can do to me and my people that would make me kill' - whatever happened to every single person in this country being a warrior? What's with the prof's pacifism?

And how come she practically talks the enemy soldier over to her side without being able to give him a decent answer about what to do to stop the bad stuff if you can't HURT anyone?

Why make Kitty go to another world when she doesn't want to?

I'm not nagging you

WHY aren't you nagging me?!

Because you do such a good job of it yourself?

In your place I'd've been screaming I SURVIVED CUDDLESOME YOU CHEATING SCUM! I EVEN - MAY THE GODS HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL - ENDURED AMERICAN ROBOMEN! NOW GIVE ME MY PAYBACK! (Or, um, words to that effect...)

See what I mean?

The Minister of Chance: Episode 1: The Broken World (continued):

'Science has been outlawed for your sake' - says the ambassador from gun-toting plague-creating civilisation to the country that didn't have guns. But still had science. Apparently.

The conquering folk have a less-than-consistent attitude about science--and they know it. And, to do the Witch Prime justice, he wasn't the one who planned or carried out the invasion.

The conquered--we never really got to find out how many guns they actually had vs. what they claimed. Also, people do strange things for honor.

'Run, Kitty, run' - just in case the people arresting her didn't know her aider and abetter's name - very helpful.

You have a point.


Episode 2: The Forest Shakes:

Why is there boring bickering between two boring characters? If they're trying to give me that Doctor/Companion vibe, they're failing.

Which characters do you mean?


How come these people from other planets understand each other?

Magic? Or super science? Or, like Stargate, all settled from the same place originally. The last is what I assumed.

'Kantha's an insurgent leader' - what, just cos she ran away and hid instead of getting rounded up with the rest of the professors?

Because they want her and calling her an insurgent leader ups the urgency in the chase.

'There is nothing you can do to me and my people that would make me kill' - whatever happened to every single person in this country being a warrior?

You expect the king to say "Everyone except the occasional strange professor"? While he's conversing with an ambassador he doesn't like, yet.

And how come she practically talks the enemy soldier over to her side without being able to give him a decent answer about what to do to stop the bad stuff if you can't HURT anyone?

She doesn't persuade him to be a pacifist; she does persuade him that she's not the one personally responsible for killing his friends and maybe he should rethink this whole conquest and invasion thing.

Why make Kitty go to another world when she doesn't want to?

I assume the professor thought it would be safer than staying with her as a wanted woman in occupied territory.

The conquering folk have a less-than-consistent attitude about science--and they know it.

Yeah, but why do the CONQUERED folk have a less-than-consistent attitude towards science? Why don't they MAKE THEMSELVES SOME WEAPONS?

The conquered--we never really got to find out how many guns they actually had vs. what they claimed.

I don't remember anything that implies that the NO GUNS WHATSOEVER claim wasn't true.

Also, people do strange things for honor.

Yeah, but I've never heard of any warrior race that felt its 'honour' precluded having the very best in killing-technology.

Which characters do you mean?

Kitty and whatever bloke she's hanging around with.

whatever happened to every single person in this country being a warrior?

You expect the king to say "Everyone except the occasional strange professor"?

But it's inconceivable that a pacifist COULD have made it to 'professor' status in such a militarised society. It would be like a gay black female conchie running a university during World War One. Or something.

She doesn't persuade him to be a pacifist; she does persuade him that she's not the one personally responsible for killing his friends and maybe he should rethink this whole conquest and invasion thing.

Well, he certainly sounded like he was asking her for orders about how to fight his own people to ME.

Admittedly I haven't listened to this thing NEARLY as much as you have...

I assume the professor thought it would be safer than staying with her as a wanted woman in occupied territory.

Couldn't she have asked Kitty what it was LIKE on that OTHER PLANET? The poor girl got chained up in an arena to get eaten by wild beasts! And had to roll around in dung! And, um, stuff.

Episode 3: The Paludin Fields:

'I don't want to fornicate...I'm looking for a specific woman' - not NEARLY as funny as Eccy's 'I'm looking for a blonde in a Union Jack...a specific one, I didn't just wake up with a craving.'

Minister has one coin of this planet's currency for bribery/drinks but no more?

Ooh, is that Sophie Aldred?

'I had no knowledge of this' - Witch-General at the first sight of assassin he sent. I hardly think he'd've made it to Top Dog if he was so THICK.

What, that's IT? A lot of squealing about having to face a potentially-planet-destroying horse (horseman. Whatever), and one pathetically-failed assassination attempt? That's 47-and-a-half minutes of my life I'll never get back...

'The Minister of Chance is funded by you' purrs someone sounding suspiciously like Avon. It SO isn't.

That's 47-and-a-half minutes of my life I'll never get back...

Yes, that last 30 seconds just pushes it over the edge, I'm sure...

Ooh, is that Sophie Aldred?

I did tell you she was there

not NEARLY as funny as Eccy's 'I'm looking for a blonde in a Union Jack...a specific one, I didn't just wake up with a craving.'

Granted.

Yes, that last 30 seconds just pushes it over the edge, I'm sure...

•••• right it does!

Ooh, is that Sophie Aldred?

I did tell you she was there :-)

I can't possibly be expected to remember that far back! And I don't think she was in that list of people naming themselves in those bizarre opening credits...

Episode 4: The Tiger:

What tiger?

Why is the Professor screaming at someone for taking Kitty to another world when SHE was the one who told him to take Kitty to another world?!

And for someone who goes round lecturing people on the importance of looking at the evidence, she sure doesn't bother to get an answer about whether or not Kitty is actually DEAD before going into 'Kitty is dead!' hysterics.

Plus, she must be the least convincing motivational speaker EVER. She can't even convince her own people - the ones who don't believe in magic - not to believe in magic.

Why does the Witch General resign instead of fighting back against McGann? If he was THAT much of a cowardly weakling he'd never have made it to the top, surely?

The revelation of who the REAL bad guy is isn't quite as much of a shock as it's trying to be. Let's face it, Avon can out-evil the Eighth Doctor with both hands tied behind his back.

Episode 5: In a Bark on the River Hex:

'Everything I had has been confiscated' - ex-Witch Prime. Since when! I thought he had an honourable 'voluntary' retirement.

Oh, now there's a magical mystical river. And magical talismans you can put your power into. Or something. It's REALLY not trying to hang onto its Whoniverse roots, is it.

I really have no idea how the invincible bad guy was defeated. (There was a gun-shot or two...?) Or why some Irish jig is played for hours at the end.

It's funny, under all the incomprehensible mess was quite a decent adventure struggling to get out. Well, better than Death Comes to Time, anyway...

Bookwyrme: Yes, that last 30 seconds just pushes it over the edge, I'm sure...

Emily: •••• right it does!

Next time fast-forward through the opening credits.

And I've now listened to "The Stones of Venice."

I'm not even making you listen to Welcome to Nightvale in return.

Emilly: Ooh, is that Sophie Aldred?

Bookwyrme:I did tell you she was there :-)

Emily:I can't possibly be expected to remember that far back!

It's only a few posts back!

Episode 4: The Tiger:

What tiger?

The one you're supposed to watch. There's that saying both the Minister and Lord Rathan use.

Why is the Professor screaming at someone for taking Kitty to another world when SHE was the one who told him to take Kitty to another world?!

She's screaming at him for leaving Kitty there which was rather inconsiderate.

And for someone who goes round lecturing people on the importance of looking at the evidence, she sure doesn't bother to get an answer about whether or not Kitty is actually DEAD before going into 'Kitty is dead!' hysterics.

She's distraught.

Mind, I don't understand why, however alien he is, the Minister didn't interrupt to say "She's not dead!"

Plus, she must be the least convincing motivational speaker EVER.

Yup. I did mention that her speeches were better summarized and reported than actually given.

Why does the Witch General resign instead of fighting back against McGann? If he was THAT much of a cowardly weakling he'd never have made it to the top, surely?

I don't get the impression that these folks had really done much by way of actual conflict in quite a while. Also, he knew that Durian now had Lord Rathan at his side, and even if he didn't know quite what Rathan was, he did know that he was ruthless--and maybe the main reason WG had stayed in power anyway. He did seem to rely on him in the first episode.

The revelation of who the REAL bad guy is isn't quite as much of a shock as it's trying to be. Let's face it, Avon can out-evil the Eighth Doctor with both hands tied behind his back.

I'm not sure how much of a shock it was meant to be. The Minister didn't figure it out, but he was busy suspecting someone from another planet entirely for most of the episode, and I don't think he listened to either individual's speeches.

Episode 5: In a Bark on the River Hex:

'Everything I had has been confiscated' - ex-Witch Prime. Since when! I thought he had an honourable 'voluntary' retirement.

He clearly still has a house, garden, and guards, so I'm assuming he only thinks he's lost everything.

Oh, now there's a magical mystical river. And magical talismans you can put your power into. Or something. It's REALLY not trying to hang onto its Whoniverse roots, is it.

Nope.

I really have no idea how the invincible bad guy was defeated.

Trickery, mostly.

It's funny, under all the incomprehensible mess was quite a decent adventure struggling to get out.

Coming from you, that is high praise.

And I've now listened to "The Stones of Venice."

You have my sincere sympathies.

Even I would not have asked such a thing of you.

I'm not even making you listen to Welcome to Nightvale in return.

What the hell is Welcome to Nightvale?

It's only a few posts back!

I have an INCREDIBLY bad memory.

She's screaming at him for leaving Kitty there which was rather inconsiderate.

I'm sure there was some 'How could you TAKE her there' stuff amongst all the screaming. Plus I'm not even sure he had to confess to abandoning Kitty, thanks to the prof's total disinclination to listen to a word he said.

(Oh, speaking of Kitty, who was she talking to when she decided they were her dad?)

she sure doesn't bother to get an answer about whether or not Kitty is actually DEAD before going into 'Kitty is dead!' hysterics.

She's distraught.

She's supposed to be a bloody Resistance leader! Plus she's supposed to actually CARE whether Kitty's alive or dead!

Mind, I don't understand why, however alien he is, the Minister didn't interrupt to say "She's not dead!"

Also, a slap round the face is supposed to be an EXCELLENT cure for hysteria. And almost irresistible in these circumstances. I nearly slapped my computer.

Yup. I did mention that her speeches were better summarized and reported than actually given.

Yeah, you were spot-on there, not to mention the Terror/Terra thing...(And why did they have to totally unnecessarily drag bloody EARTH into it anyway?)

It's REALLY not trying to hang onto its Whoniverse roots, is it.

Nope.

Well, WHY NOT!

It's funny, under all the incomprehensible mess was quite a decent adventure struggling to get out.

Coming from you, that is high praise.

Yeah, even when it's rubbish - which is, let's face it, most of the time - it's rubbish in a much...fresher way than Big Finish. Which has been churning out the same old stuff practically in its SLEEP for ETERNITY. (And I'm not the only one complaining, Gallifrey Base is full of people unsubscribing until BF is actually prepared to take a few RISKS.)

What the hell is Welcome to Nightvale?

Welcome to Nightvale is a series of humor-horror (or horror-humor, the balance varies) set in the small town of Nightvale, where the residents accept the deeply weird happenings around them--the local dog park which NO ONE must enter or look at, the lights in the sky, a mysterious cloud that rains small animals down on the town, demands worship, and joins the local PTA, occasional angelic visitations (though angels aren't real; they all know that), phantom cars, and mysterious government agents. It's told as a series of broadcasts from the local radio station. There are several storylines developing through the series, though each broadcast works fairly well as a standalone.

It has no relationship to Doctor Who whatsoever, unless you count the occasional temporal anomaly.

However, you did offer to bargain with people for more audio reviews, so I considered holding you to that.

It's only a few posts back!

I have an INCREDIBLY bad memory.

I was thinking more a reread, rather than that you remember my every scintillating word while you also read through the TARDIS Eruditorum, nitpick everything in site, and play never-ending catch-up with the audios.

Plus I'm not even sure he had to confess to abandoning Kitty, thanks to the prof's total disinclination to listen to a word he said.

I think he mentioned leaving her there with an arrow in her. The professor's conclusion wasn't entirely random.

(Oh, speaking of Kitty, who was she talking to when she decided they were her dad?)

The Minister during their brief period of memory loss. They both concluded it wasn't true.

She's supposed to be a bloody Resistance leader!

No, she's an ideological figurehead. Sunflower is the leader.

Yeah, you were spot-on there, not to mention the Terror/Terra thing...

Oh, so they were mixing the two up? I had assumed it was just me mis-hearing, since I had already misheard Cantha as Canthor.

....

Well, WHY NOT!

Maybe in the interests of being much fresher than BF?

Yeah, even when it's rubbish - which is, let's face it, most of the time

I intend to face no such thing!

(Oh, speaking of Kitty, who was she talking to when she decided they were her dad?)

The Minister during their brief period of memory loss. They both concluded it wasn't true.

Ah. I'm beginning to see why you listened to it four times. There was quite a lot I just didn't NOTICE.

She's supposed to be a bloody Resistance leader!

No, she's an ideological figurehead. Sunflower is the leader.

Yeah, but in order for Sunflower (SUNFLOWER?!)'s cunning plan to WORK, the prof had to seem like a vaguely PLAUSIBLE Resistance leader...

not to mention the Terror/Terra thing...

Oh, so they were mixing the two up?

Well, I'd never have suspected it WASN'T 'the terror planet' if you hadn't written that review.

Well, WHY NOT!

Maybe in the interests of being much fresher than BF?

LAWRENCE MILES Benny books and Faction Paradox audios and suchlike manage to be fresh and new and COMPLETELY INSANE, full of gods and hollow planets and voodoo and universes-in-bottles...and STILL be utterly and totally saturated in Who-y goodness.

Yeah, but in order for Sunflower (SUNFLOWER?!)'s cunning plan to WORK, the prof had to seem like a vaguely PLAUSIBLE Resistance leader...

Are you implying that Sunflower is a kind of strange name for the head of resistance?

I don't think she was presenting Professor Cantha as the leader; I think she was trying to help stir up support and unity using Cantha as a speaker.

So, Jessica, what are you impressions of the audios so far. Are they great? Total rubbish? Somewhere in between?

Ah, well, at least you're keeping Emily busy until the Capaldi season starts.

They're a mixed bag. Some are quite good, some are entertaining to listen to while doing something else, some are truly dire.

Are you implying that Sunflower is a kind of strange name for the head of resistance?

It's a pretty odd name for ANYONE in an intensely-militarised society, even before they start leading the Resistance...

I don't think she was presenting Professor Cantha as the leader; I think she was trying to help stir up support and unity using Cantha as a speaker.

But surely the POINT of the Resistance is to, well, resist. Presumably using force. So getting a pacifist to stir up support and unity isn't an enormously bright idea.

Ah, well, at least you're keeping Emily busy until the Capaldi season starts.

Yet STILL I caught myself trying to gnaw off my own fingers...

Someone is trying to sell Death Comes to time for $146.64 + $3.99 shipping via Amazon.

(Yes, there are more reasonably priced versions. This is just what popped up first).

To be honest, spending $150-ish on purchasing Death Comes to Time barely seems insaner than actually listening to Death Comes to Time for free...

Welcome to Nightvale is a series of humor-horror (or horror-humor, the balance varies) set in the small town of Nightvale...It has no relationship to Doctor Who whatsoever, unless you count the occasional temporal anomaly.

However, you did offer to bargain with people for more audio reviews, so I considered holding you to that.

Alright *starts sobbing hysterically* I give in! Where is this abomination? How many episodes do I have to listen to before I get a Light at the End review - I KNOW you've heard it! GIMME SOME NITS!

Alright *starts sobbing hysterically* I give in! Where is this abomination? How many episodes do I have to listen to before I get a Light at the End review - I KNOW you've heard it! GIMME SOME NITS!

*Pats Emily on the back.

There there.

My reviewing and site-managing duties elsewhere have kept me rather busy, but I'll try to get a few nits or at least mild comments up in the next couple of days, ok?

Welcome to Nightvale is on Commonplace Books. I usually save them as MP3's through the RSS feed, but they're also on iTunes. I'd give you those links, but Nitcentral is picky about the number of links it allows.

Tell you what: You listen to the first two (for two nitpicks, naturally) In the (unlikely, but I can dream) chance that you like them, go on. If not, all debts are paid.

Side note: I just got Sapphire and Steel: The Passenger from Big Finish, having only just discovered that the series has an audio continuation. Does the company always hide the second CD in a case so cunningly?

Brave heart, Jessica

Welcome to Nightvale is on iTunes, Emily. The first two episodes are down at the bottom there. Just saying...

Also, my player decided that "I Am the Doctor" was a good musical choice for the moment.

Welcome to Nightvale is on iTunes, Emily. The first two episodes are down at the bottom there. Just saying...

You're very tactful. I'm well aware of my debt. I have, as it happens, listened to the first episode, about which I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say as it doesn't have anything to do with Who. (I like the deadpan delivery. I ADORE the 'guns don't kill people' joke. Also, being easily amused, I like the fact dogs aren't allowed in the dog park. I freely admit it's FAR better than the vast majority of Big Finishes. But...IT DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHO!!! So what's the POINT of it??)

Also, my player decided that "I Am the Doctor" was a good musical choice for the moment.

Your player has EXCELLENT taste...

You're very tactful. I'm well aware of my debt. I have, as it happens, listened to the first episode, about which I have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to say as it doesn't have anything to do with Who.

Hm, yes, I suppose a board for "Lesser Programmes Emily was persuaded to watch to gain Doctor Who reviews" might be a tad out of place--and just a bit long-winded.

(I like the deadpan delivery. I ADORE the 'guns don't kill people' joke. Also, being easily amused, I like the fact dogs aren't allowed in the dog park. I freely admit it's FAR better than the vast majority of Big Finishes. But...IT DOESN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WHO!!! So what's the POINT of it??)

1)It got you some Doctor Who reviews

2) It amused you.

Try looking on it as a palette cleanser, like the sorbet served between courses at a high-end restaurant.

Does the company always hide the second CD in a case so cunningly?

Yes. And you generally have to snap the CD case in half to get to the second disc. It's not just the contents that's ••••, it's the actual packaging too...

Just to let you know I've belatedly fulfilled my duty vis-à-vis the second Night Vale thing. Floating cat or no floating cat, it wasn't nearly as much fun as the first. I'd say they're running out of ideas, only there seem about fifty million more of 'em...

48 more, so far, and 2 specials, and they're just getting started.

Yes. And you generally have to snap the CD case in half to get to the second disc. It's not just the contents that's ••••, it's the actual packaging too...

Guess I'm lucky that only the Sapphire & Steel actually came as CDs, then.

I didn't even know there WERE two CDs per case until the first one ended mid-tale.

Ah bless, Jim Mortimore has stuck all the Audio Visuals up on line for us to...um...enjoy.

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/gyaitjmygjf0i/AVP%20-%20separate%20files

Even I draw the line at urging my fellow Nitcentrallers to actually LISTEN to 'em, but maybe someone (Bookwyrme?) is open to bribery and corruption...?

What are they?

Fan-made audio plays from the Eighties with Nick Briggs as the Doctor. Some of the stories ended up being rewritten for Big Finish.

They're unlikely to be any worse than Stones of Venice...

*Nods agreement*

Also, their version of Minuet in Hell is considerably better than the real thing, but then there are few experiences in human history that AREN'T better than BF's Minuet in Hell.

AV21: Requiem was my favourite, just in case anyone wants to try one of 'em...though of course you need to listen to the lot to get the full amusement of watching 'em repeatedly kill off or recast Companions as they realise what godawful actors they all are...

Imagine my feelings on discovering hundreds of David Segal Doctor Who Audio Dramas available for free on iTunes. Why, gods, WHY!

Dreamscape: An asteroid is crashing into Earth in the 1970s, and the Age of Aquarius is dawning:

Bit of a cheek to use Pertwee's 'I am the Doctor' as your theme music.

The 'Doctor' has to explain to his not-at-all-new Companion what the sonic screwdriver is.

The 'Doctor' has a really weird voice. Like he's pretending not to be an American through a mouthful of gravel. (Everyone else seems to be American. Also really bad at acting.)

'What are we going to do' asks the Companion. 'Investigate, my good man' says the Doctor. MY GOOD MAN?!

'Before we alert Parliament, we must find out some definite information about it!' says the Doctor re the asteroid. What's wrong with alerting UNIT?

'Is your meteor necklace radioactive?' 'No' - how would you know?

'And who exactly are you supposed to be?' 'I can be any number of people, my good man. As it happens I am the Doctor.' 'Oh, really. Doctor Who?' 'Smith. John Smith.' 'I see. Well, Dr John Smith, allow me to introduce myself. I am Pope Pius IX.' 'Pleased to meet you, your holiness.' - Oh god. The dialogue's terrible, the plot is excessively flimsy, the 'Doctor' is a pompous American, and no one can act.

Joshua is perfectly keen to share his new super-powers with others after HE'S been promised mastery of Earth (or whatever) WHY, exactly?

'I can answer for myself quite well, my good man. I'm not 400 any more' - oh god.

'Right now we humans only use 10% of our brains' says the professor. Hasn't that been thoroughly debunked? (Plus isn't human civilisation in danger of being smashed to bits by a meteor any minute so should they really be yammering on about his stupid mind-experiments? Except, of course, that the two will prove to be inextricably and rather clumsily linked.)

The Doctor has dedicated himself to tasting each one of the galaxy's hundreds of hibiscus teas? What a loser.

The Doctor defeats the aliens cos they hadn't realised he wasn't human despite having taken over his Companion?

'A great loss for the galaxy' says the Doctor, a tad hypocritically in the circumstances. 'But they were evil!' 'But they had the capacity for such good' - please don't do 'morality' if you can't do it properly.

Joshua is perfectly keen to share his new super-powers with others after HE'S been promised mastery of Earth (or whatever) WHY, exactly?

Maybe he is one of those rare humans who do not care about personal power and are more interested in making life better for everyone?

'Right now we humans only use 10% of our brains' says the professor. Hasn't that been thoroughly debunked?

It has, and it has not. All of our brains is used for something. Brain tissue is expensive to make and maintain, so evolution would not have produced more than we absolutely need. However, not all of it is used at full capacity all of the time. It's like our lungs for instance. We normally use them only at around 15% of their capacity, but we can push that to 100% when we really exert ourselves. If we were to use our brains at 100% capacity all the time, we would quickly exhaust them and burn them out.

What is a David Segal?

Maybe he is one of those rare humans who do not care about personal power and are more interested in making life better for everyone?

He seemed pretty interested in personal power when the aliens offered it to him on a plate. And of course he'd want to make life better for everyone, all the worst dictators do. That doesn't mean they'll SHARE their new superpowers, after all, the new guys might not be so, um, altruistic...

What is a David Segal?

*Helpless shrug*

Take a look around http://www.dwad.net/ and if you work it out, be sure to let me know...

The Most Dangerous Game: The Doctor gets hunted by, um, a hunter:

Oh. You've just got a NORMAL theme tune? But I Am The Doctor was the only thing I ENJOYED about your last audio!

Ah bless, they've got K9!

Well, OK, so he's never mentioned again, even when the Doctor could REALLY have done with summoning the mutt to his aid...

'We had quite an amusing time didn't we' - Kevin the Companion. 'We sure did' - the Doctor does not say 'We sure did'.

'I'm using the primary bridge now' - the Doctor does not refer to the TARDIS console room as a 'primary bridge'.

The Companion used to fly the TARDIS? Since WHEN!

'It's a good place for a vacation' - the Doctor does not use the word 'vacation' for a holiday.

'I have some [fishing] gear in my room' - Kevin left fishing stuff in his TARDIS room when he left WHY, exactly?

'You guys' - the Doctor does not refer to his Companions as 'you guys'.

Who the hell is Tosha? Apart from a Companion and a Princess, apparently. Whose likes hunting. And whose father got killed. And who the Doctor helpfully said 'Hold on to the good thoughts' to. (Getting the feeling I'm missing something. Like, several audios that have tragically not been shared with iTunes for some reason.)

'A Leesure planet' - the Doctor says 'Leisure' not 'LEEEEEEEsure'.

Can the Doctor and Kevin stop waffling on about poor Tosha and her bereavement? No TRUE Old Who Doctor would give such matters a second thought.

Can't Tosha talk to herself a bit less specifically: 'I can't sleep. I'm hungry. I feel like some chicken. I wonder if they have any in the refrigerator. Oh, there's the kitchen. Wait a minute. That door over there. It was locked the last time I came here...*Gasp* The heads! They're human heads! He doesn't hunt animals - he hunts people!!'

The Doctor was ASLEEP?!

'It's time for me to hunt again. Maybe one of your friends' - oh yes PLEASE. Or, better, still, both of them plus their 'Doctor'...

Princess Thingy has several video screens in her TARDIS bedroom? The Doctor gives her the sonic to mend them with? When RIVER had a sonic he assumed she'd prised it from his cold dead hands...

'I just hope this works' - what, as opposed to hoping this doesn't work, you half-wit?

'If I go back to the TARDIS I might be able to get a weapon' - the TARDIS doesn't have any weapons! (Give or take the bizarre claim in Gunfighters that Hartnell has a gun collection...)

'That volcano looks like it's ready to burst' - fair play to you, every OTHER volcano in Who history DOES promptly blow its top, whereas, in a shock twist, THIS one does...bugger-all.

'Oh no, it's not holding my weight! If I lose my grip I'll fall!' - and I thought MCGANN talking to himself was embarrassing...

'Trusty old scarf...' - don't you DARE claim this American Creature has a Sacred Scarf!

'Sure is dark in here...' - the Doctor does not say 'Sure is'. The Doctor ALWAYS has a torch in his capacious pockets.

How come the dog doesn't take the blindest bit of notice of what the Doctor says to it (until it rather nobly takes a bullet for him for no readily apparent reason). Don't these people REALISE that a Doctor who can speak Cat, Horse and Baby can almost certainly speak Dog too...?

'We can use some of the weapons Tosh and I found in his armoury' 'Where did you get that' - IN THE ARMORY YOU GIBBERING IMBECILE GOD I WANT THE REAL DOCTOR BACK.

'Go back to the TARDIS and get it to the beach' - look, it's a Companion and it confessed a few hours ago to not remembering how to fly the TARDIS...

It's great that the villain keeps giving an evil chuckle and saying 'Die, Time Lord, die!' Just in case, y'know, we forget he's the villain or something.

The Brown Death: An evil company is producing pollution!:

16 minutes long - this is MY kinda story.

Well, aside from the fact it's so bad I'm actually pining for the Audio-Visuals...

The Doctor doesn't know what K9 means by 'H₂O'? Even I know what H₂O is!

'The Herald Tribune? Do you know a Sarah Jane Smith' - don't be stupid of course he doesn't! She has nothing to do with any American Herald Tribune thing! 'Yes, she's assistant editor' - oh.

'Is she your secretary?' 'No, I'm her secretary' - OK, let's be honest, the blatant sexism is about the first Doctorish thing about these fakes...

'Do you remember Susie-Jo?' 'Long red hair, hourglass figure, could make a Catholic priest sweat' - oh how sweet! People thought Catholic priests were all innocent in 1984!

What's the point of a character whose vocal chords have been destroyed? These are (painfully obviously) non-professionals - paying actors shouldn't be the big deal it is for Big Finish.

So the Evil Industrialist poisons everyone and sends an assassin after a journalist who asks questions! But sees the error of his ways as soon as his own son plummets to his death! Happy ending or WHAT!

Oh gods, there seem to be LOADS more fake-Who audio series on iTunes - DarkerProject...Legacy...Crossover...Broken Sea...why would anyone DO this to me!

DarkerProjects: Time Tales: The Thought Eaters: A Thought Eater wishes to sup on Our Hero's delicious Time Lord mind:

'Ahhh, that was delicious, Raine. I've always preferred the coffee from these small local shops as opposed to the mass market commercial blends. They always offer roast beans.' - Ah, just listen to those words of wisdom! Let us amend our evil capitalist ways IMMEDIATELY!

'This is amazing, Doctor. Even after all our travels, I still can't get over the fact that we can land in any point in time as well as space.' - Worst. Info. Dump. EVER.

'I think I've actually missed my family' 'Been there, done that' - come off it. The Doctor has NEVER missed his family, never given those dead kids a second THOUGHT (at least until he was trying to put Donna off making him a father again).

What kind of sick freak likes dining with Edgar Allan Poe?

Why does the Companion saying she wants to catch up with family mean she's leaving the TARDIS forever?

'I need to take some aspirin' - what, you're trying to KILL yourself?!

Why does the Doctor assume he's lost his mind because a metal spike starts talking to him? It's just a Xeraphin robot-thingy. Cos if there are two things fandom have been crying out to see (um, hear) again it's a Kamelion-wannabe and the Xeraphin...

The Doctor doesn't find it REMOTELY SUSPICIOUS that his new robot pal takes its time to casually mention that something 'much worse' than the Master has invaded their homeworld?

The Thought Eater doesn't find it REMOTELY SUSPICIOUS that the Doctor generously agrees to let them eat him?

Time Tales: Ghost: Some ethereal wind is out for blood:

To whom is the Doctor suddenly narrating this? And why?

The Doctor gets possessed by a stupid spirit called Diva? Creatures capable of possessing the Doctor should be of Sutekh-like power, at least.

'George is a splendid chap...for a shape-shifter - that's just RACIST!

'A very real and fearsome evil' - yeah, like THE DOCTOR says that sort of thing.

'I sense a very gentle soul' - you WHAT! Look, if you're ripping off Hide (admittedly several years before Hide actually existed) with the psychic spending the night in the haunted house, you might at least have her say that the Doctor has a splinter of ice in his heart, or something. Gentle soul my ****.

James is 'scratched to buggery' (well, to death anyway) by cats? SLANDER!

Why claim the Doctor is the escaped murderer when said murderer's face is well-known via the newspapers?

Doesn't George know better by now than to tell people s/he can grow a new shoulder?

'I am now the most fearsome force this planet has ever known!' - yeah, whatever.

'But now I tire of this useless banter' - NOW you're talking, Sunshine.

'A mind of purest evil' - NO ONE describes THEMSELVES this way. Give or take the Black Guardian.

'It is beginning to bore me' - this may be the most clichéd villain EVER but it does talk a lot of sense.

'You'll be as short-lived as the Roman Empire' - as threats go, that's the worst I've ever heard. Don't these people know any HISTORY?

'You sound like every megalomaniac ever' - YES! EXACTLY!

What, there are MILLIONS of Divas about the place but this is the only one that's broken through? Yet it's so powerful it can take over the DOCTOR?

'I don't believe in self-harm' - well you certainly seemed to in Amy's Choice.

'Die, Doctor, die' 'Get some new material' - I'm not sure the fact the author relentlessly highlights the flaws in their own script is A Good Thing.

Time Tales: Materia:

Why has George suddenly gone all robotic? S/he was pretty good at faking sounding-and-looking-human earlier.

'That's the thing about being a Time Lord - you see everything that was, is and ever could come to pass' 'I'm the last of the Time Lords. My planet died long ago, in the Great Time War' 'Useful thing, psychic paper. I once used it to slip past security at the end of the world' – hang on! I knew this was PUT on iTunes in 2007 but I didn't realise it had been MADE then too! I assumed it was one of the products of The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair (well, we ALL did things we weren't proud of to survive in those unbearable days). Why would you do this sort of thing when you could be WATCHING DAVID TENNANT instead?

'I don't know about you, but I've had just enough excitement for one night' says the Doctor. After being BRIEFLY LOCKED UP.

'I see you've fixed the doors' – after the police kicked 'em in, arrested all the rebels, and they made a daring escape from prison, they found time to MEND THE DOORS before making their next suicidal/homicidal raid? Paradise Towers FINALLY has competition for Most Efficient Door-Replacement Ever.

No one thought that the rebels would suspect that Pataki-the-traitor was a traitor if he was immediately released from prison?!

None of the rebels DO suspect that Pataki-the-traitor is a traitor when he's immediately released from prison?!

'When someone dies, their spirit is released from their body, George' says THE DOCTOR. Since WHEN!

'Then we'll just have to be real quiet-like' – THAT'S the rebels' response to being told that their latest raid is expected...?

'I thought you said last night that the TARDIS was in perfect working order' - you're psychically linked to him, can't you TELL the Doctor is ALWAYS deluding himself when he says the TARDIS is in perfect working order?

OH MY GOD YOU'RE STEALING THAT MUSIC. THE DOCTOR-HAS-JUST-LOST-ROSE MUSIC. This should be against the LAW!

Actually, it IS against the law, isn't it.

Why haven't these people been ARRESTED!

Why isn't everyone BOYCOTTING this thing!

Why aren't I boycotting this thing!

'You've...killed her!' – which bit of you were specifically ordered to do anything EXCEPT kill her did you people somehow not understand? Plus, her gun isn't even working! (And STILL the rebels don't suspect a traitor in their midst...)

MORE stolen Sacred Music! STOP IT!

Pataki suddenly feels the need to confess he's a traitor to the Doctor. Whereupon...'It's not my place to judge you, Pataki...If I were to judge you I would be no better than those who used you for their own ends in the first place...I forgive you'...!!!!

Oh, Jesus and Rassilon and the gods of Ragnarok - the Doctor is now telling the rebels to 'Turn the other cheek'!!

I mean, quite APART from this being utterly antithetical to EVERY Doctor's philosophy...their planet's gonna nuke itself sky-high in a day or two unless they do something about it...

OK, that's a REALLY embarrassing scene between the Minister and the rebels in which he decides to Save His Planet By Standing Up For Truth And Justice Against Evil Corrupt Corporations.

'It would seem that, through our interference, we have indeed changed history' the Doctor announces smugly.

Sorry...what...that's IT?

A planet was due to nuke itself and now it's not and there's no COMEBACK? I'm not usually a 'You can't change history, not one line!' kinda gal, but if THIS Doctor can swan in and save everyone from destiny just cos he feels like it...why the •••• isn't he shooting Pol Pot RIGHT NOW?

Time Tales: The Wedding of Doom:

It's 50 minutes long. At least half of which seems to be the theme tune.

'Most inbred royal since the British Royal Family' - I'm no defender of the British Royal Family, but compared to the Spanish/Portuguese royals...

If you're going to list loads of Who monsters, at least pronounce them correctly.

'Zog the Destroyer' - not THE Zog! From Beyond The Ultimate Adventure?! (And, presumably, from The Ultimate Adventure...?)

Why does Zog kill the star-pirest without whom the wedding can't happen instead of the Doctor?

There are Alpha Centurians present - yet they're NOT squealing their cowardly heads off?

Why doesn't Zog just KILL the Doctor? Cos I'm feeling like killing him about now and I'm not even a tentacled genocidal maniac.

'The TARDIS - my blue box' - if they've encountered each other loads of times before, why doesn't Zog know about the TARDIS.

Gods, all this vomiting - it's worse than Exile.

Even when the Doctor addresses the groom as 'George', Zog fails to smell a rat?

'Man and wife'? God, weddings are just so SEXIST. What's wrong with 'woman and husband'?

George is SEMI-sentient?

Oh, whatever.

Nick Briggs on Sword of Orion (Audio-Visual version): 'Quite annoyed at [Bill Baggs'] rejection of what I thought at the time was a great script...I thought, "You want traditional ••••? You'll get traditional ••••!" I wrote Sword of Orion as a total cliché...' - well, doesn't THAT explain a lot.

Time Tales: The Long Road:

Time Tales does Human Nature. Once I'd got over burn-the-blasphemers, I have to admit that if you're a shameless rip-off you might as well rip off the best. Even if the comparison is...embarrassing.

Though it does have the guts to go the whole hog - an entire LIFETIME as a human, up to and including knocking up his girlfriend.

Plus calling his cat K9 is quite cute.

His dream 'matches the Christmas '05 incident' ('I got my hand chopped off. And grew a new one. And defeated him with a Satsuma') - except that you're forgetting Rose's Gap Year - it's the Christmas '06 incident.

Why do we get a whole irrelevant lecture on the Forge?

There's a 'Truth About Torchwood' independent film?!

The Lords of Time:

'And yet without them we would die. We need them to nourish ourselves' - can the Vampires just STOP explaining their situation to each other? And why WOULD they need Time Lords to nourish themselves? And if they do, why try to kill 'em all in the first place, and then sacrifice Romana to the Great Vampire?

Torchwood London build themselves an enormous underground base AFTER Doomsday? I don't think so, Sunshine.

'We searched the cosmos for eons and found no trace of the Duck-tor' - you must be pretty thick, then.

'Traces of artron energy' give the Doctor away. So disguising himself as a human NOT that bright an idea, then.

'Crossing into established events is forbidden.' 'Yes it is. And for very good reason. It could shatter the Web of Time completely.' - oh yes, please do swap more exposition with each other.

'We can summon the TARDIS. You're the only one who can open it.' - Torchwood can summon Sexy HOW! And how can they not get in when the key's RIGHT THERE? Don't tell me they BELIEVE any nonsense about isomorphic locks/twenty-three different lock-melting combinations?

The Legacy of Gallifrey:

'You and it are inserted into the machine' - what's wrong with just opening a fobwatch?

'There must be something we can do to help' - and Torchwood doesn't take this opportunity to say YES YOU CAN TURN BACK INTO THE DOCTOR YOU SELFISH GIT.

'It's like Canary Wharf all over again' - you've got a cheek. The Battle of Canary Wharf was EXCITING. And NONE of its invaders said 'Resistance is futile.' And none of the defenders said 'Bite me, Bat-Boy.'

'I love you Jason' - but she doesn't mention the baby to try to stop him?

Uses his sonic screwdriver to hold off the vampires.

'It will take you several eons just to find me again' - really? Even though he's no longer disguised as a human?

I suppose running away is an original way of defeating them. Though gambling Earth that they won't leave some vampires to destroy it whilst chasing after him is...pretty unDoctorish.

'I'm not Jason Tate, I'm the Doctor. Believe me, I'm not any happier about this than you are' - well you SHOULD be relieved to be Himself again instead of some loser human!

Time Tales: Summer Cutaway:

'How do you know they'll come after you Jason' - er, because they've been hunting him across the universe for eons?

The Vampire Lords would be able to track the psychic aroma of people the Doctor/Jason had been in contact with. But the Doctor doesn't think this is an issue BEFORE he discovered his, sorry, Jason's girlfriend is knocked up? (Though if he's taking a 'Let them eat Emma' attitude towards his ex I can only sympathise. Joan Redfern she ain't.)

The Dreamers:

Ghostly horses are abducting the people of London. And no one understands the power of ley-lines. Apparently.

'Goodbye Earth and hello galaxy!' - so why were you just enthusiastically talking about PARIS?

Why is Emma hysterically upset about being back in London when she never wanted to go into space in the first place?

What's with the Doctor's sexist cries of 'WOMEN!'?

It's a mistake to split up the Doctor and Emma. They're intensely annoying together but them talking to themselves is even worse.

So what's the REST of the country doing about half London disappearing on New Year's Eve (and since when has half London been on the tubes on New Year's Eve anyway)?

'You're a...shrink?' well at least that's a fairly original response to 'Hello, I'm the Doctor.'

Which bit of 'Keep your voice down' and 'They'll hear you' does the Doctor not quite grasp?

Pregnant Emma effortlessly beats up all the all-powerful alien horses HOW exactly.

'I can take you home' - since when!

Hearing this fake called 'the Doctor' is really annoying, but the horses calling him 'Omadon' is EVEN MORE annoying.

OK, I realise you haven't got enough plot to fill three (!) episodes, but do you HAVE to fill the running-time with sex scenes involving THE DOCTOR? (Jason. Whatever.)

'A breach is imminent soon' - as opposed to imminent in a few years, I suppose?

'I'll skip to the end rather than go through all the tedious angst in the middle. If I'm going to win then I'll do it straight away' - you're kidding me, right? I've been WADING through tedious angst for THREE EPISODES! You've even got DREAM SEQUENCES, for heaven's sake!

'Many people across London have been committed to psychiatric hospitals' - of course, cos psychiatric hospitals always have loads of spare beds.

Pregnant Emma effortlessly beats up all the all-powerful alien horses HOW exactly.

She's a mother defending her child.

She's not a MOTHER, she's just some cretin who can't use contraception properly.

Time Tales: The Christmas Message:

Well it's nice and short, at least.

'I always get an empty stomach after outrunning security guards' since when!

'What are you doing here' asks the President instead of, say, calling security on the Doctor.

The Doctor knows all about prostitutes?!

'How much would it cost to buy your silence?' asks the President...when he KNOWS the Doctor's just broadcast the truth to the entire planet!

Santa punished naughty little boys by giving them coal? I think you're underestimating how poor families were a century ago - and how many kids they all had. MY adopted-granny and her hordes of siblings got a stocking full of coal with an apple and orange on top not because they'd been NAUGHTY but to make their stockings excitingly full.

'Like I said - iPhone, Betamax player, brilliant combination' - actually what you SAID was that it was a really difficult combination.

The Doctor sets a mob on the President 'Because you've been a naughty boy'? I'm assuming he gets RIPPED TO PIECES. That's quite...unDoctorish.

Blue Caribbean:

Look, I don't expect to derive any ENJOYMENT from these things. I DO expect them to actually a) provide me with a few half-decent nits, and b) NOT waffle on for two incredibly dull, irritating and pointless hours before not even bothering to finish the story. Am I being unreasonable?

Emma opens the locked TARDIS door of a mysterious voice. Even invites said voice out AFTER it tells her the Doctor locked it up. She's thick but she's not THAT thick.

Also, there's NO WAY the Doctor could keep the Master locked up in the TARDIS for more than ten minutes. Though admittedly Last of the Time Lords implies otherwise.

The Doctor 'lands' in deep space nine out of ten times, due to there being lots of it. Yeah, right.

Well, at least that seems to be it for free downloadable DarkerProjects: Time Tales. They obviously lost the will to live in the middle of Blue Caribbean, and I shouldn't REALLY blame them.

Strangeness In Space: Featherheads:
Strangeness In Space is an audio space comedy series starring Doctor Who luminary Sophie Aldred.

It begins here with Featherheads.

Featherheads provided a very funny beginning to this space comedy.

It was especially funny with the narrator what is on the script but isn't stated in the presentation itself like "Interior", "Exterior" and other such script direction and settings.

It was also the meaning behind the episode title.

A very amusing take on a space comedy and a very good beginning to it.

Time Tales: The Silver Spiral:

Oh god, how embarrassing, it's a ten-minute physics lecture. To be fair, I probably learnt more than in five years of physics lessons, but that's not the POINT.

'Ah, we'll be fine...Trust me, she's tougher than she looks' - regardless of how cretinous the Companion is to think that Sexy's made of wood, you should still get the Old Girl out of way of THE STAR THAT'S ABOUT TO EXPLODE. Cos it's not likely to be GOOD for her health.

'Look! It's about to go!' - yeah, take a good long look at the exploding sun with your naked eyeballs, great idea.

Re The End of the World: 'I should know, I was there' – ugg, the Time Tales Doctors are claiming to be post-rather than pre-New Who? Not that they make any sense EITHER way.

Embarrassing amounts of narration. And positively blasphemous amounts of New Who music. Still, it was over nice and quickly.

The Iron Legion:

This is terribly confusing. In that I actually ENJOYED it at first. (Luckily, I got over this quite fast.)

'I stopped believing in coincidence five minutes after I met you' says a Companion to the Doctor. So how DO you explain all those outrageous coincidences? Divine destiny?

Dunno why the Doctor stupidly gives him and his friends away as strangers by asking 'There's another service?' when told that, um, 'There's another service'.

'Well that's odd' says the Doctor...of a man being burnt alive. Before giving his Companions a lecture about different cultures cos if there's one thing you can say about our Doctor, he's no neo-colonialist, he TOTALLY respects a different culture's right to exterminate you or roast you alive...OH WAIT! NO HE DOESN'T!

Dunno why the Doctor starts PROTESTING when told 'You are to wait here until the time of your annihilation' instead of just quietly thanking non-existent deities that these people are quite THIS stupid.

How can this fanatically hard-working society have the TIME to send teams to the lake to debunk Loch-Ness-Monster-style myths?

'Faith isn't about rejecting the truth, Lance. It's about understanding that our limitations sometimes prevent us from being able to see the whole truth' says that well-known god-botherer THE DOCTOR.

The Doctor can spot that a buzzing sound has a pattern that repeats every millionth of a second since WHEN!

'It seems that our obedience was for naught - the Dauphin are returning' - actually they're returning cos the Doctor's Companions DISobeyed so your society was spot-on about the whole 'obedience' thing, all these centuries...

'If you were to put all the Dalek fleets together they'd be visible to the naked eye from another galaxy' - is that PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE?

How likely is it that the word 'Dalek' would mutate into Dauphin', for heaven's sake?

The Doctor announces that Daleks used to sweat?!

The Doctor considers the Kaleds 'a once-noble people'. How would he know? Did he ever pop in on them pre-War and if so why didn't it cause lots of angst, a la Genesis and Witch's Familiar?

The Doctor announces that honour is selfish and stupid. Hmm...

Oh god, just STOP the endless blather about whether the Doc should sacrifice two Companions for one planet.

If the Daleks come back 'then we'll come back – that's a promise' says the Doctor. Yeah, RIGHT.

'If you were to put all the Dalek fleets together they'd be visible to the naked eye from another galaxy' - is that PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE?

You'd need a AWFUL lot of ships for that, but yeah, I suppose it's TECHNICALLY possible. Although, if there are so many, they would have overrun Gallifrey in the first seconds of the Time War.

The Lost Doctor:
https://soundcloud.com/the-lost-doctor/the-lost-doctor

The Lost Doctor is a fan produced audio adventure that was released on Doctor Who’s 53rd anniversary on November 23 2016.
This explores the scenario of what if Ken Campbell had been cast as the Seventh Doctor instead of Sylvester McCoy .
Not bad adventure and interesting how this Doctor got presented in this story.
Quite atmospheric in places and enjoyable enough romp to celebrate the said anniversary.

The Mechanical Planet (free CD attached to Vworp Vworp magazine):

That's IT? You're JOKING. I shouldn't complain about it being approximately five minutes long owing to its extreme levels of rubbishness but guess what? I'M COMPLAINING.

'All conflict requires sacrifice' - since when has THAT been a Dalek attitude? If they were so keen on sacrifice they'd just come in gunsticks blazing every time, not sneaking around offering people cups of tea in the hope of a green-blood-less victory.

Yeah, like the Mechanoids could build mechanical killer-planets...

'Daleks have no fear or pity. We leave human emotions to humans' - Daleks don't realise there are any OTHER species in the universe with these 'emotion' things? Say, THALS?

CD Extras:

Desperate and unsuccessful attempt to pad out this pathetic excuse for an audio. Though as a redeeming feature, it HAS got the bloke who played Professor Kerensky. 'I was lucky to get that part, it was a lovely part' - well, SOMEONE hasn't read the novelisation and discovered that said part actually involved a near-eternity of torment for poor old Kerensky.

Asking him if Tom Baker is deranged in a Mechanoid voice doesn't make the question any less distasteful, you know.

The Mechanical Planet (free CD attached to Vworp Vworp magazine):

That's IT? You're JOKING.

Bloke Behind Vworp Vworp in DWM: 'One of the things we've become infamous for on Vworp Vworp! is our elaborate free gifts. However, on this occasion I think we've set the bar so high I have no idea where we go for Volume 4!' - SO not a problem, Sunshine.

Not sure where your short trips section is but I'm reviewing the latest one called The Authentic Experience read by Nicola Bryant. It's the first one I've ever heard.....

Ah. Actually I thought the Novels: Short Stories section would be good enough for the short trips since that's what they ARE even if they've inconsiderately mutated into audio form at £2.99 a pop.

Still, if you want (and if you're gonna make a habit of listening to and reviewing 'em) I could create an audio section, I suppose?

I don't know how many I'll review. How about I just link the review here and if I wind up doing more you can set up a page?

Fine. I shall continue reviewing 'em in the novels section for the present.

I was going to float an idea for a Three Who Rule audio, telling the backstory of how they became servants of the Great Vampire.

Alas, only Rachel Davies, who played Camilla, is left alive.

William Lindsay, who played Zargo, was only 40 when he died. What happened? TARDIS Wiki and the regular Wiki have no information at all about the cause of death.

Cancer would be a good guess. That's what killed that Time-Flight actress in her forties...

Ah bless, Big Finish have written the Kaldor City audios out of history when talking about their Further Adventures of Lucie Miller box set:

'And in the final adventure, Island of the Fendahl, the classic Doctor Who creature the Fendahl makes its first appearance on audio since the original TV story Image of the Fendahl (1977, starring Tom Baker and Louise Jameson).'

Island of the Fendahl

A reference to the famous "Island of Fandor" mis-hearing? Oh, FFS, BF!

What Island of Fendor mishearing?

It's probably just a reference to the Fendahl being on an island. Well, we shall see.

"For years after the broadcast of Season Fifteen, Doctor Who fandom was led to believe that a story called “The Island Of Fandor” had been dropped from the schedule at the last minute. In fact, Gordon Blows -- editor of TARDIS, the leading fan publication at the time -- had simply misheard the title of Image Of The Fendahl during a telephone conversation."
http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/4x.html

Strangeness in Space

Finale Part 1: Home Is Where The Heart Is:
Fascinating first part of this season finale as it presents how Sophie’s father Nigel got to where he is now in which he is 15 years behind (or ahead) of her.
Not bad the song “We Really Want New Trainers”.
Funny about the explanation of the top floor being at the bottom.

Strangeness In Space

Finale Part 2: Dark Meta:
Funny on hearing about a robot Doctor Who as an idea!
Funny on the fourth wall being broken.
Quite a dilemma about that heart.
Funny how Ed Sheeran is mentioned here.
Unfortunately there are still things unresolved with the end of this season finale.
Hopefully the second season is that far-off.

Is this where you'll destroy the 8th of March set, Em?

Certainly not. It has its own section under 'Worlds Of...' since it fits nicely with the other two box sets (Worlds of Big Finish and Worlds of Doctor Who) as they're all collections using a different BF series per story.

Exploration Earth - The Time Machine:

Well, that was spectacularly awful.

Since when has Sarah Jane produced lines like 'The great Doctor in travail, hmm?' or 'Four thousand five hundred million years back down the wastes of space-time'? Or the Doctor lines like 'Those gases, churning and burning...they're space gases!' or ''See how it opens yawning wounds of fire!' or 'High Lord of Chaos, I banish you from planet Earth!' (Also, what's with his repeated mention of 'Your Earth' like it's not HIS real home? And don't get me started on him saying 'Earth years' like he's one of those invading alien monstrosities who/'s considerate enough to use native measurements...)

'Just step into this capsule...I'll just atmosphere-inject it' - why not just open the bloody doors, Doc!

No mention of the Racnoss ship while you're watching the creation of Earth?!

'Don't provoke him Doctor!' says the woman who was happy to provoke the hell out of Chop Suey the Galactic Emperor.

'Trees and flowers everywhere, all sorts of flowers' Sarah helpfully tells the Doctor who's STANDING RIGHT THERE. *Sighs heavily and adds mental note to the list starting with Colditz's 'There's some grass over there.'*

Oh, and apparently the sun the Doc chucked it into only made the Fendahl grow stronger.

LIES ALL LIES!

According to Island of the Fendahl anyway, which is considerably more canonical than Kaldor City cos it's got a Real Live Doctor in it and stuff.

(Obviously this doesn't apply to Fourth and Seventh Doctor Sutekh stories being more canonical than Faction Paradox Sutekh stories, you've gotta take QUALITY into account too.)

Night Terrace: A Verb of Nouns:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008b25

Season 2, Episode 3.
Fun episode in which the travellers find themselves and the comment that it is like Game of Thrones.
A much simpler explanation is that it is history.
The queen is a doppelganger of Anastasia which made me think of Androids of Tara.
The beast in the castle felt very akin to Aggedor from the Peladon stories.

Night Terrace: The Edification of Anastasia Black:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008x19

Antepenultimate episode of season 2.
Fun episode in which Anastasia and Sue having to rescue the missing Eddie.

Night Terrace: The Retirement of Horatio Gray:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000946c

Penultimate episode of season 2.
Fun episode in which Eddie has an adventure with the said Horatio Gray on a ship where they meet Francis Drake before reuniting with Anastasia and Sue.

Night Terrace: Home Again:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009cnh

Season 2 finale.
This felt similar to The Wedding of River Song.
Just as Home Again ended Night Terrace season 2, The Wedding of River Song ended Matt Smith's second season as the Doctor.
Bizarre way to end the second season of Night Terrace with multiple Anastacias and Eddie as a singer!

My Big Finish Who inventory (so minus B7, which also fall into both categories). Some of these were freebies.
Seems long drives are the only way I can listening to these. Trying at home or out and about doesn't work well for me. But at least I'm making progress these days.

Listened to:
The One Doctor (but about 20 years ago)
Fearmonger (ditto)
Daughter of the Gods
The Sontarans (Yawn)
Light at the End (Enjoyable enough)
Cobwebs (quite good)
Circular Time (various levels of good)
Spare Parts (good but need a relisten)
...ish (ugh)


Have but yet to listen to (or started but fizzled out*)
Short Trips: The Best Laid Plans
Wreck of the World*
River Song: Five Twenty-nine
The Veiled Leopard
Dark Eyes: The Great War
The Demons of the Red Lounge+
Project Destiny* (Gave up because there was so much continuity to other audios I hadn't heard)
The Bride of Peladon
The Game
Faith Stealer
Last of the Titans
The King Maker
Seasons of Fear
Storm Warning (bought on audible, so hard to listen to in my car as I'm using my phone for navigation on long trips)


Another long drive today or tomorrow (avoiding my usual bullet train), so I should knock out one full adventure and one shorter one.

Excellent! You have much suffering ahead of you, but just remember, it's all for the good of Nitcentral!

Red LODGE rather than Lounge, btw...

Background to Project: Destiny: The Forge is yet another top-secret-organisation-fighting-aliens-and-nicking-their-tech. Run by EVIL Nimrod and more ruthless and amoral if not notably more efficient than UNIT, Torchwood, Broadsword, Counter-Measures, etc etc. They employed a vampire called Cassie who the Sixth Doc's Companion Evelyn got absurdly attached to. Cassie abandoned her son - LITTLE TOMMY!!!! - who later became the Seventh Doctor's Companion, Hex. Naturally Seven hasn't mentioned the whole vampire thing to him yet. Oh, and Hex got shot in the previous episode Angel of Scutari, though it literally took BF years to get round to resolving the cliffhanger with Destiny.

Short Trips: The Journey:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=b54SKyw1T70&t=789s&fbclid=IwAR109Ik6X6t8Nyrn2STRHf4nU6fX4BR4ydSweSFp1iV5im05bLEzar4S7sc

The Journey is a fan made Short Trip written by John Davies.
Featuring the War Doctor and read by Jonathon Carley.
This was posted on March 8 2019 and it was more than 18 months before Carley was announced as the new War Doctor for Big Finish.
The Journey is told as entries from a diary of a young man as he meets the Doctor.
Intriguing what this young man writes in his diary and his encounter with the Doctor.
Carley makes a remarkable impression of the late Sir John Hurt.

The Journey:

So basically...an endless dreary voice is on an endless dreary journey. Sadly by the time he gets to meet the War Doctor I'm practically catatonic so can't really judge whether whatshisface would make a good John Hurt. (I seem to remember, however, that he makes a good old person which is no way helps reveal whether he'll make a good YOUNG War Doctor.)

'The trees are giving adequate shelter from the rain' - riveting. 'My destination is greater than any field could ever be' - gosh! 'Mother would be proud' - I'm sure she would, dear. 'I have started looking around for food to forage' - yes, yes, you've already generously appraised us of this fascinating fact.

'Apparently, when you look into [the War Doctor's] eyes, you can feel the fire of a million men burning your soul' - yeah...no.

'The fact that the promised village may not be true is dawning on me' - and it didn't occur to you BEFORE, like, when NO ONE EVER CAME BACK FROM LOOKING FOR IT?

'Care for a jelly baby? I've gone a bit off them myself' - somewhat hypocritically, I find myself outraged by War displaying such blatant Doctorishness as offering jelly babies, and by War displaying such blatant unDoctorishness as going off jelly babies. (Of course, Tom CLAIMED to in Invasion of Time but that was all part of his Cunning Ruse to lie to everyone and let Vardans and Sontarans invade Gallifrey to save the Matrix or, um, something.)

There's a room in the TARDIS that looks like a primitive native hut? Since when has she bothered making people that at home?

'I had my mouth full' - with one yellow jelly baby?! Does your species have REALLY TINY MOUTHS or something?

The Tank-Men are DALEKS? And THIS half-wit escaped them ALL without too much trouble?

'I could not just leave everyone there to die' - you SO could, you've done it before as Doctors who WEREN'T born to be ruthless warriors - 'I did the only thing I thought I could do, I took someone with me. Taking one person at a time doesn't disrupt the timelines too much' - HELLO! FATHER'S DAY! ('Rose, there's a man alive in the world who wasn't alive before. An ordinary man. That's the most important thing in creation. The whole world's different because he's alive.') - 'So I swore that every regeneration I would take someone from your village and displace them to some time when your planet was peaceful' - Jeez, man, GO FIGHT A WAR! If you keep neglecting it for such petty reasons you'll end up pressing big red Gallifrey-destroying buttons, you mark my words...(Also, he did SAY 'generation', right? I've got 'regeneration' written down but I'm sure that's a Freudian slip and I'm damned if I'm gonna go back and check, I've more than done my duty by this thing.)

The narrator SAW HIS VILLAGE BURNING BEHIND HIM as he left but somehow forgot to mention that in his travelogue all about the fascination of, y'know, trees and stuff?

The Garden At The End:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJqmXhCt0kk&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2Q7HfDnUf4HpKB9LQgR75Yk43oFDR4RTl1T0f00-I9j4HOHZ9TgrEUv_o

The Garden At The End is a fan made audio adventure.
This has the Doctor played by Ross Wilson and the companion here is Robin Taylor played by Laura Jayne Hunt.
Written by Joshua Carpenter.
The Doctor finally gets to the planet Barcelona (mentioned by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors in The Parting of the Ways).
Giant flowers are growing out of the skies above Barcelona and this leads the Doctor to investigate.
Fascinating of what this leads to as the giant flowers represents something ominous.

Dark Dimension Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA4QE2H4wyw

This is the 2021 audio adaptation of Dark Dimension, the unproduced 30th anniversary Doctor Who story.
Starring Matthew Toffolo as the Fourth Doctor and Laura Jayne Hunt as Ace.
Chris Walker-Thomson plays the villain Oliver Hawkspur, the character that was intended for the late Rik Mayall.
Walker-Thomson incidentally had played the Second Doctor elsewhere.
Enthralling first part of this story which Hawkspur has gained power as Prime Minister but was not satisfied with his landslide victory and how her achieved victory is not that different to how the Master became Prime Minister in The Sound of Drums.
Also Ace finding the Doctor but not the one that she was expecting (!) and funny the code name that she was given.

The Scarifyers

The Gnomes of Death:
Tenth story.
Crow and Dunning meets the Gnomes of Death in this fun installment of The Scarifyers.
It was certainly funny when the so-called gnomes disputes on being gnomes as they are certain something else.
Interesting how Morris dancing comes into this.

Mirror Mirror 1: Monsters of the Sphere:
https://twitter.com/walsallmatt/status/1361407881887776769

Featuring the Doctor, the Brigader and K9.
The Brigadier is played by Jon Culshaw who also plays him on Big Finish.
This is a fan made audio adventure.
Intriguing adventure which involves a character named Tori who the Doctor and Brigadier has noticed has appeared in curious places.
All this in the midst of a mysterious sphere turning up.
Funny the Doctor sent K9 to talk to Tori because she would find K9 to be cute!
Funny when the Doctor figures why Tori calls herself that due to it being a shorten form of Victoria.
Intriguing revelation of the Mimics and what they do.
Fascinating cliffhanger with the Mimic at the end.

The Scarifyers

Mr Crowley's Christmas:
Aleister Crowley is a foremost satanist and Christmas is not something that he enjoys in this short piece of The Scarfyers.
Mr Crowley sure expressed his dislike of Christmas in this twist of A Christmas Carol.
This ends with Crowley getting a visit from Lionheart and Dunning but surely not to celebrate Christmas or is it?

The Core of Destruction Episode 1 - The Planet of Uncertainty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGNq7r2YOeE&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2nqYlxbMxKVGCB-dcEdv3bW4GY9l7LPHgNYrlrItNXpX7LS7kKMVKGMrs



Written by Josh Snares, this is an audio drama presented as a missing episode reconstruction!

Featuring the First Doctor and Steven with Snares playing the Doctor.
The Doctor and Steven arrive on the distant planet of Kadel where they meet Rebek who was stationed there.
Intriguingly we learn what the story title means at the cliffhanger.

Dalek Tales: The Experiment:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTXq8lICkbw

Enthralling tale (pun intended) with Davros and the Daleks.
All the more intriguing this ultimately ties in with The Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar as Colony Sarff appears at the end as he embarks on his mission to fetch the Doctor.

The Core of Destruction Episode 2 - The Core of Destruction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX8Gr7pfsAM&t=903s



Conclusion to the story written by Josh Snares, this is an an audio drama presented as a missing episode reconstruction!
Very enjoyable conclusion as the Doctor, Steven and Rebek thwarts the Daleks' plan with the Taranium.
Somehow I should not be surprised by what happens to Rebek.

Waaaay back in 1999, on the 'Virgin/BBC/Penguin/Charity Short Stories' board, the Nitcentralers of the day had to practically twist Chris' arm off to get him to share a short piece of fiction he had written. He finally did, but I never really understood his trepidation.

Until now. Now I totally get it. Because I'm about to unleash a little creation of my own.

There are imperfections I'm really tempted to catalogue right now, but that would make a horrible prelude. But I can't post this without apologising for my acting. I'm not an actor and never wanted to be one. I'm perfectly okay with some teasing about it, but any serious criticisms would probably reflect more poorly on the criticiser than on me. I know I'm not an actor, so let's just leave it at that. Were I ever to revise this or do an episode 2, I might well get someone from Fiverr.com to do the voice for Skeks at least.

If you're wondering about the 'why,' it's partly because I wanted to use my toys for something recreational rather than work-related, because I wanted to try my hand at (audio) character design and soundstaging as well as mixing and mastering, and because, well, sometimes I listen to BF and think, 'I could do that'--and not in a snotty 'Even I could do that!!' way. (Well, maybe sometimes...) Still, from conception to mastering and release, this is all me, not a fair-sized team of professionals.

The story will make clear that this is set in the Whoniverse, but the characters are original. No explanation on why the main male character has a Southside Chicago accent.

Go ahead and nitpick it. (And I must say, knowing I'd be sharing this *here* probably overly influenced the script.) Any feedback given in a 'What you may want to do next time...' manner would be welcomed, and I mean that.

https://youtu.be/ztBSHJmd5BY

(And feel free to move this if there's a better place.)

But I can't post this without apologising for my acting

You really shouldn't, you make an excellent gravelly space...person.

Go ahead and nitpick it. (And I must say, knowing I'd be sharing this *here* probably overly influenced the script.)

'You're the only life-sign' 'That's all I'm asking. How much further?' - so...NOT all you're asking, then...

'Cyberman!' - AT LAST! It felt more ordinary-space-opera than Who up till then. (Actually...it STILL feels more ordinary-space-opera than Who, dammit.)

High praise indeed. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm aware of the space operaness, but without trying to imitate a Doctor or create a future one with an American accent (neither of which I'm willing to do), there's no viable way around that, especially with me the only actor.

The Cyberman was originally intended to be the kind from Tomb (hard to understand though they are). I thought, 'Hey, I got vocoders and ring modulators. I can do this.' But it turns out they used a mechanical larynx before even getting to other things.

Yeah, I'm aware of the space operaness, but without trying to imitate a Doctor or create a future one with an American accent (neither of which I'm willing to do), there's no viable way around that,

Oh I dunno, things like Cabinet of Light and Blink and Death of the Doctor (Episode One) managed to be very Whoy indeed by concentrating on the Doctor's absence...

especially with me the only actor.

You really did Fatty (or whatever-it's-name-was) FEMALE voice yourself too?

The voices that aren't mine were produced by AI. Feed in the script, select a few options, download the audio. I had precious little control over inflections, etc, but I could at least make them British. This was only done for computer voices.

'Little invention of mine' - the Doctor INVENTED Everlasting Matches? I thought The Resurrection Casket said - well, actually I can't quite REMEMBER what it said, but it definitely implied the Doctor didn't INVENT them.

As does Cabinet of Light, only it goes a lot further than implying:

'"PROMETHEAN" EVERLASTING MATCHES
A PRODUCT OF THE ETERNITY PERPETUAL COMPANY
"What a wonderful idea, what terrible business sense," the Doctor declared.'

'Little invention of mine' - the Doctor INVENTED Everlasting Matches?

Going on a very old memory here, but I think the novelisation of The Daleks said he did.

Of course, it also implied the Tribe of Gum story didn't happen. No crime there, but its canonicity is suspect.

Meanwhile, I've realised how hard Dalek voices are to do. The audio processing is no problem, but:

a. although I have a private office (yes, I do these at work), screaming with that level of hate is going to attract serious attention from colleagues;

b. you don't realise how British the Daleks sound until you hear them with an American accent.

Anyway, something is coming, not Skeks and Chubby but something far more Who-y, but not until the holiday season. I'll keep these Dalek attempts for the blooper reel.

I think the novelisation of The Daleks said he did.

Of course, it also implied the Tribe of Gum story didn't happen. No crime there, but its canonicity is suspect.

Suspect canonicity IS a crime!

Meanwhile, I've realised how hard Dalek voices are to do. The audio processing is no problem, but:

a. although I have a private office (yes, I do these at work), screaming with that level of hate is going to attract serious attention from colleagues;

Pah! You Who colleagues will realise what's going on and your non-Who colleagues deserve any terror your screaming hatred causes them.

b. you don't realise how British the Daleks sound until you hear them with an American accent.

An American Dalek would be even more of an abomination than an American Doctor.

Anyway, something is coming, not Skeks and Chubby but something far more Who-y, but not until the holiday season. I'll keep these Dalek attempts for the blooper reel.

Looking forward to it.

Come to think of it, mine are probably better than the ones in the telemovie.

Just keep away from helium gas and you'll be FINE.

A decent fan-made audio. Not perfect, but good, with a mostly convincing sound-alike as the Doctor.

https://youtu.be/JGEVGUisWlA

In lieu of a 'Lesser Audios' section...

I'd never listened to a BF audio that wasn't Doctor Who, a spin-off, or Blake's 7, but I wanted to try something of theirs that wasn't part of a franchise and therefore bound by certain continuity aspects or the necessity of keeping the main characters alive at the end.

Enter The Human Frontier.

I won't lie. I don't hate Nicholas Briggs, but I was disappointed to see his name as the author. And in trying to understand that disappointment, I realise that he's basically to modern Who what Terrance Dicks was to 70s (etc) Who: the king of a peripheral medium within the franchise. Try to imagine Uncle Terrance creating something new, something unrelated to Who (which I don't think he ever did, did he?), and you'll probably understand why I was a bit let down, before listening, given my goal of wanting to try something completely different. Basically, it's going to feel like a Doctorless Who.

And it does, to some extent. The basic premise is moderately interesting. (No spoilers. This can all be found on the blurb.) A future Earth discovers a life-supporting planet and sends a crew there on a 1000-year journey, but while they're in hibernation, humans from their future discover faster space travel and get their first, with both parties completely unaware of the other.

To me, there are two kinds of science fiction: franchise SF and real SF. I'm aware there are other kinds, but these are the two I'm interested in. Franchise-wise it's Who and B7 for me, and the latter is pretty much a closed universe. Real SF is represented in my collection by Rivers Solomon and the late, great Octavia Butler and others. I've not read all of Butler's books yet, but while most of them are part of one universe or another (with only two stand-alone novels), each book is a complete story.

The Human Frontier, while interesting, is 'franchisey,' and that's where it starts to lose me, though I'll admit my expectations, or at least hopes, were unreasonably high. The various sci-fi elements are things we've seen before: cryogenic space flight, warring factions from the same race, AI issues, etc.

But let me say that if you go in with the right expectations, this is actually pretty good. I can imagine a visual version of it being a moderately successful Netflix series. I did, however, follow along with the scripts as it is chopped up and reassembled into non-linear storytelling (because Briggs), which I find harder to follow in audio than I do in visual media.

Will I buy season 2? Yes. Will I understand why the two seasons will be released three years apart? Maybe not, but I didn't jump onboard when it was first released, so my wait isn't all that long.

I've heard good things about BF's ATA Girl set, which is masterminded by Louise Jameson. I may try that.

Terrance Dicks created Moonbase 3 with Barry Letts for television, created the three-book series The Mounties (about Royal Canadian Mounted Police), the three-book Star Quest series and the 10-book series The Baker Street Irregulars, among various others - all non-Who related.

I'd never listened to a BF audio that wasn't Doctor Who, a spin-off, or Blake's 7, but I wanted to try something of theirs that wasn't part of a franchise and therefore bound by certain continuity aspects or the necessity of keeping the main characters alive at the end

Why? WHY?

(I mean, you SAY why, but...there are THOUSANDS of Who audios you should be doing your Nitcentrally duty by before you indulge in this anti-continuity agenda!)

it is chopped up and reassembled into non-linear storytelling (because Briggs)

Hey, he only really did that for Creatures of Beauty...

I've heard good things about BF's ATA Girl set, which is masterminded by Louise Jameson. I may try that.

Please read my thoughts on her Fourth Doctor audio The Abandoned before doing anything as reckless as buying an audio written by Louise Jameson.

Thanks, Chris. I've heard of Moonbase 3 but if it ever aired in Chicago, it wasn't popular enough to get my attention. Baker Street Irregulars wouldn't count since, while not part of the Whoniverse, it's part of another established continuity. (I assume these are Holmes' street urchins.) But even without that one, you listed other valid instances.

Here is my review of that set Kevin. I’ve reviewed a few of the BF non-Who audios.

ATA Girl is worth a listen although I haven’t herd season 2 of that one.

I also adored Timeslip (based on the early 1970’s children’s show).

BF know where their bread is buttered though…..

Here is my review of that set Kevin. I’ve reviewed a few of the BF non-Who audios.

Et tu Brute!

Yes I knew you’d take it personally…..

A fair and accurate review. Good, but not quite living up to its potential (the story, not your review). You can also wrap things up and still have a second season.

As promised, here's my review of 'Rowen', the audio freebie included with the latest issue of Vworp Vworp! This adapts the pilot script for the Nelvana animated series of the early 1990s and is apparently quite faithful to that draft - to the extent that the Daleks are referred to a couple of times as "salt shakers" rather than the more anglophonic "pepper pots"

According to the liner notes the main addition to the script for the adaptation is descriptive dialogue that obviously was necessary for the change of medium. Unfortunately this draws attention to how awkwardly different audio and animation are. The result is very wordy and sluggish, where the TV version would have zipped along to fill 22 minutes.

The story itself is a fairly basic set up for the series introducing the eponymous new companion and other background stuff such as the presence of a council of Time Lords to whom the Doctor would have semi-regularly answered - plus K9-alike robot dog "Orson" (the dialogue makes a couple of references to the idea that Orson thinks he's a real dog but this doesn't feature as much as it could, thankfully). The Daleks are also present, up to no good behind the scenes of a planetary evacuation, with the plot revolving around the engineering of a new breed of super-Dalek. This seems to have been an obsession for 1990s Who revival attempts but could have been more successful in cartoon form than live action. But this is audio so we don't really get the idea.

Some of the flaws of the story are inherited from the script: the opening sequence doesn't have much to do with the rest of the story* and feels like an attempt to kick off with some action rather than talky Time Lord scene that follows. Surely it would have made more sense to skip these bits and start off with the Doctor diving into the main storyline - with the Time Lord stuff in flashback.

* Until a final revelation about Rowen, which a) everyone could see coming, b) is oddly similar to Andrew Cartmel's ideas about a new companion for Season 27, and c) makes the Doctor seem either a bit insensitive or slow on the uptake. It's also not clear if this was going to be the start of a storyline running through the series or just a throwaway character moment and it's quite frustrating that this production can't follow it up.

On a production level, the story lacks the zip of a cartoon but also the larger than life acting the animated series would have required. Everyone feels a bit subdued, with Claire Dean not making a huge impression in the title role, which is unfortunate. As a result most of the story is carried by Arthur Bostrom, whose Doctor seems to be pitched roughly halfway between Colin Baker and Paul McGann, which is probably the way it would have had to be played on screen. (Bostrom also gets a 25 minute interview after the story finishes, talking mostly about his memories of Doctor Who in the 1960s.)

Andromeda Warren's music is also a bit languid - some of it sounds like Jack Trombey's 'Girl in the Dark' or bits of Michael Kamen's score for 'Edge of Darkness' - which doesn't help dispel the sense of slowness. Overall, 'Rowen' is a curiosity rather than a successful story in its own right, and fails at the likely impossible task of conveying what Nelvana Who might have been like.

Some actual nits:

In a move that won't surprise the listener at all, Time Lord Roki turns out to be working with the Daleks. But when the Doctor finds out he seems to be more annoyed at Roki's attempts to spin his public image than the actual betrayal.

The Supreme Dalek orders the Doctor's dissection, and the Surgeon Dalek is quite gleeful about the Doctor's potential suffering during this process - even though you can only dissect something that's dead. (But maybe "vivisection" was considered too strong for a kid's cartoon!)

It's not actually a mistake but the Doctor comparing Dalek mutants to "jelly babies" is just wrong!

K9-alike robot dog "Orson" (the dialogue makes a couple of references to the idea that Orson thinks he's a real dog but this doesn't feature as much as it could, thankfully).

Oh. Dear. Gods.

Until a final revelation about Rowen, which a) everyone could see coming, b) is oddly similar to Andrew Cartmel's ideas about a new companion for Season 27

I got the impression the only idea Cartmel had about the new Companion was that she was a safe-cracker who found the Doctor in a safe. Faithfully reproduced by Big Finish in Crime of the Century, naturally.

It's also not clear if this was going to be the start of a storyline running through the series or just a throwaway character moment and it's quite frustrating that this production can't follow it up.

I'm sure we can all live with the frustration more easily than we'd've lived with said series in animated or audio form.

whose Doctor seems to be pitched roughly halfway between Colin Baker and Paul McGann

How do you DO that! They're diametric opposites.

Time Lord Roki turns out to be working with the Daleks. But when the Doctor finds out he seems to be more annoyed at Roki's attempts to spin his public image than the actual betrayal.

To be fair, at least half the time the Doctor encounters a member of his own species they're a Crazy Renegade, it can't exactly come as a surprise, in fact Eight's audio Companion Liv has taken to saying 'Can I ask up-front - are you evil?' whenever she meets a Time Lord.

It's not actually a mistake but the Doctor comparing Dalek mutants to "jelly babies" is just wrong!

Actually it might explain WHY Our Hero is so obsessed with what are actually the most miserable type of sweet (bar anything coconut-related). S/he IMAGINES they're Daleks as she bites their sodding heads off.

I got the impression the only idea Cartmel had about the new Companion was that she was a safe-cracker who found the Doctor in a safe. Faithfully reproduced by Big Finish in Crime of the Century, naturally.

This uses his other new companion idea.

How do you DO that! They're diametric opposites.

Wouldn't that make it easier to find a halfway point?

Actually it might explain WHY Our Hero is so obsessed with what are actually the most miserable type of sweet (bar anything coconut-related). S/he IMAGINES they're Daleks as she bites their sodding heads off.

The sweets he offers are usually not jelly babies anyway. Though obviously licquorice allsorts are quite coconutty and therefore even more miserable to the picky sweeter.

This uses his other new companion idea.

Oh god...WHAT other new Companion idea?

How do you DO that! They're diametric opposites.

Wouldn't that make it easier to find a halfway point?

CERTAINLY NOT COLIN BAKER IS NO TRUE DOCTOR!

The sweets he offers are usually not jelly babies anyway

Well, they are THESE days, it only took a few thousand years but CAPALDI certainly knows what a jelly baby is.

Though obviously licquorice allsorts are quite coconutty and therefore even more miserable to the picky sweeter.

There's only ONE of those delicious treats that's remotely coconutty and it's so mild that I'm actually graciously prepared to eat 'em. Second-to-last.

Oh god...WHAT other new Companion idea?

The idea that she would [SPOILERS!]first appear as a baby then reappear as the companion in another story set a couple of decades later[/SPOILERS!].

it only took a few thousand years but CAPALDI certainly knows what a jelly baby is

So he learned something from 'Heaven Sent'?

Oh god...WHAT other new Companion idea?

The idea that she would [SPOILERS!]first appear as a baby then reappear as the companion in another story set a couple of decades later[/SPOILERS!].

Oh THAT, sure, Big Finish did that too, in Thin Ice because THEY JUST CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES. I thought you meant a DIFFERENT New Companion.

it only took a few thousand years but CAPALDI certainly knows what a jelly baby is

So he learned something from 'Heaven Sent'?

Hopefully he learned not to torture himself for four and a half billion years for no readily-apparent reason. He knew all about jelly babies before then, in Mummy on the Orient Express.

Exploration Earth:

Oh. Didn't realise I'd actually heard it before. That's ANOTHER nineteen minutes of my life I'll never get back.

'Just step into this capsule' - what, the two-person capsule that the Doc happens to have lying round the console room?!

Sarah waxes awfully sarcastic about the idea of opening the TARDIS doors to watch planet Earth forming...given that that actually HAPPENS in Runaway Bride. Also foresees Hide's fast-forwarding through Earth's development. Doesn't get any points for the pitting-our-strengths-by-telepathic-will-deployment stuff, as this came out a few months after Brain of Morbius.

'Tiresome isn't he' - YES. 'Shall we go?' - the Doctor just ABANDONS the forming Earth to the Lord of Chaos who's insisting it must never be allowed to become...unchaotic?

'Oh, sweet air! Oh, it's flooding in!' - does TARDIS-air stink or something?

Megron, High Lord of Chaos is banished from planet Earth pretty easily.

[Moderator's Note: Moved from the Daleks! Genesis of Terror ex-thread:]

Haven't heard this one, but I also haven't heard a single good word about it. Even the BF fan boys are bashing the hell out of this one.

Hopefully The Ark will be the last of these first-draft stories.

Really? EXCELLENT. Revenge, sorry, Return of the Cybermen was taking the ••••, two more was...whatever comes after taking the ••••, please GODS Big Finish getting a good slagging-off will put a stop to it. They DO listen to Fans after all, that's why the godawful Divergent Arc got cut short.

Since it obviously wasn't a proper audio by any remotely sane definition, the Daleks! Genesis of Terror comments have been despatched to Miscellaneous, its very-own thread wiped off the face of the universe like it's the War Lord, and now I WON'T HAVE TO BUY AND LISTEN TO IT!!