Short Trips: Volume II:

Remarkably consistent. None of them are dreadful and none of them are brilliant, they all chug along nicely enough.

1963 - I find it exceedingly hard to picture Barbara dating a flick-knife-carrying boy during her 'rebellious phase'. She knows everything's frozen, so why risk cutting herself by messing around with the knife? Since when has Ian called Vicki 'Victoria'?

The Way Forwards - Why does the Doctor help with the equations? When was Troughton EVER travelling alone with Victoria? Can we cut down on the number of 'said's here, please? They'd be fine on the page but they're really grating on audio. 'I gave you the formula but I didn't expect you to understand it. It was foolish of me, my boy' - oh, YA THINK?! 'To his credit, Sherman didn't say "It's bigger on the inside"' - how DARE you imply it's WRONG to say 'It's bigger on the inside'!

Walls of Confinement - Jo is narrating a Liz story? As if the Brigadier would ever be stupid enough to tell the Doctor that he had to do as he was told. The Doctor comes to the zoo 'a lot'? (Not the impression he gave in Carnival of Monsters.) Since when has the Brigadier attempted to give the Doctor a glimpse of what this planet is all about - ankle-biters? And if he's happy to lumber the poor guy with baby-sitting duties, why a godson - how come the Doctor never met KATE? The Doctor is only now demanding 'expenses' from the Brigadier? The Doctor would seriously tell Liz that he can't imagine ever getting seriously attacked to Earth? Wasn't the fact HE WAS ALREADY SERIOUSLY ATTACHED TO EARTH one of the reasons the Time Lords sent him there?

Chain Reaction - Leela is narrating a Sarah Jane story? The Doctor crosses his own timestream to nip back and stop a pound coin rolling around to change the history HE'S ALREADY SEEN?? 'The Doctor stares up at the blue sky - "Test me, would you"' - oh, great, he's suddenly taken to god-bothering. I suspect this would have repaid closer attention than I was prepared to give it.

Sock Pig - Nice to hear a real Doctor after all these Companions. The 'sweet and weird' one.

The Doctor's Coat - So the Doctor thinks he should go and check on Peri post-Yrcanos (oh, YA THINK!!) But then decides not to cos she'll be too busy to go round the universe with him. He honestly can't just go for a cup of tea with an old friend without attempting to drag them round the universe? I wish BF would stop doing stuff to their monsters' voices that makes them incomprehensible.

Critical Mass - Ace is so blatantly furious about the whole imploding-your-enemies thing - she really ought to be better at not blowing her cover by now. High Commander Louise seems less miffed than I'd be at being told to 'run along' by the Doctor. 'If it was just this planet that was affected [i.e. IMPLODED], that would be one thing' - Doctor. Since WHEN!

Letting Go - Isn't Charley ENOUGH of a tear in the Web of Time ALREADY? Does the Doctor HAVE to go against THE ESTABLISHED HISTORY OF A FIRST OCNTACT WITH AN ALIEN RACE to suit her whims (sacred promise to a dying hero. Whatever.)? 'They couldn't have made us more welcome' - apart from HITTING you, you mean?

Short Trips Volume I:

Rise and Fall - My Doctor's hands are NOT 'like a pair of bony spiders'! Steven is trying on holograms in one of the wardrobe rooms - SERIOUSLY? So you'll study the TARDIS crew for generations and yet STILL refer to them as 'strangers'? Isn't this caught-in-a-different-time story suspiciously similar to Volume II's First Doctor story?

A Stain of Red in the Sand - Zoe is re-constituted from Memory Meat? Ugg! (Plus, it's been done before. Peri in the Shell Shock novella, for example.) What kind of cretin would not sleep for a week in order to make a sculpture of Zoe?

A True Gentleman - Slightly odd choice, getting Katy Manning to relate a first-person-Scots-boy's story. The Third Doctor's TARDIS materialises inside a Scottish holiday cottage? Regularly? The Doctor couldn't MOVE the TARDIS in those days. Plus why didn't he just DRIVE to Scotland? And he's driving around now so did he stash Bessie in the TARDIS or what? And why are the aliens more concerned about their family not being able to go to the royal court again rather than the FALL OF THEIR CIVILISATION? The kid never saw the Doctor again even though the cottage was rented for another few years - did he even bother to TRY? If so, WHY didn't he see the Doctor again and if not, WHY not!

Death-Dealer - Nice and short. And hey, at least they weren't those godawful Death Collectors from the audios.

The Deep - Davison would never call it a 'cloaking device'! Only stupid half-American, sorry, half-HUMAN Doctors call it THAT! Nyssa's no good at swimming? Didn't she go swimming in the Primeval audio? The TARDIS turns into a whale? I DON'T think so.

The Wings of a Butterfly - The Doctor drops into Gallifrey to attend a lecture? The Time Lords subtly guide other planets' empire-building? The Doctor incurs the 'corporate wroth of the Time Lords' several times? The Doctor crosses his own timestream by returning to Gallifrey one second after he left? How does the Doctor know about all the tiny invisible events? There's no mention of the Web of Time when putting things right?

Police and Shreeves - A fake BRIGADIER fools the Doctor?

Running Out of Time - Isn't Dorothy Koomson a bestselling Not We author? Interesting that she shouldn't be any better at writing a Who story than COLIN BAKER. At least HE knows that the Whoniverse doesn't have SPELLS.

Short Trips Volume III:

Disappointing. None of the stories seemed to have much point to it, and they were all interspersed with a stupid little vignette involving a Doctor falling into a hole because two Celestial-Toymaker-rip-offs were testing 'em and only Hartnell (??!!) was smart enough to pass.

Seven to One - Don't pretend this is a First Doctor story. (Also, get someone who can actually do a Scottish accent if you're dragging the Seventh Doctor into it. Though this seems extraordinarily difficult, going by what 'Amy' has to put up with sounding like in the Eleventh Doctor audios.)

The Five Dimensional Man - The TARDIS is ultramarine? Since when!

Pop-Up - Jo doesn't know better than to bring strange robots into the TARDIS? Plus the horrors of advertising was done better in Tenth Doctor audio The Forever Trap.

The Wondrous Box - Why is Leela dictating a Sarah Jane story? Why doesn't Sarah Jane have a TARDIS key? Since when would the Fourth (or to be fair, ANY) Doctor take him Companion to the Circus whilst lecturing her that 'You have to accept the ways of the people at the time, you just have to accept it'? Whatever happened to the Miniscope Crusader?!

Oh, nice. Murder an elephant, why don't you. And blame the Doctor.

Wet Walls - Um, yeah. I don't see why a single woman of independent means in the Bad Old Days wouldn't just marry her lover instead of have him pose as a female housekeeper. Also, the Doctor seems remarkably un-upset about the alien getting gunned down. As do the aliens conveniently-twinned descendants.

Murmurs of Earth - It took THREE PEOPLE to write this?! A race capable of such advanced technology couldn't just kill you quickly and painlessly?

The Riparian Ripper - I'd hardly say a 9-year-old is 'hardly more than a child' - he IS a child! And why does the Doctor assume the alien is a 'he'? And an out-of-control alien medical programme - like we haven't seen THAT before.

All the Fun of the Fair - Um, remind me why the TARDIS is dematerialising and dumping these people all the time? And why Charley is narrating a Lucie story?

Short Trips Volume IV:

A Star is Born - The HARTNELL TARDIS can follow SOS calls?

Barbara refers to Christianity as 'our religion'?

Barbara 'dare not ask what the matter was' just because the Doctor's glowering? She called him a stupid old man to his face when he was doing a lot more than glowering at her.

'I think our ranks must number a mere few dozen' - you haven't bothered to count the remainder of your species?!

Radiation that's supposed to murder the survivors actually mutates their genetic code to reverse their sterility? Is that plausible?

That woman doesn't notice she's nine months (or however long it is for her species) gone?

The TARDIS materialises on the planet below? HARTNELL learned to STEER it WHEN, exactly?

'He had managed to put the ship into a slow descent, meaning it would burn up over several months' - a spaceship wouldn't take MONTHS to burn up, surely? And wouldn't it come down fast once captured by the planet's gravity well (or something)?

Would a few dozen people make for a viable breeding population?

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish - Why would Troughton send a mass-murderer to exile on a lovely planet?

Lost in the Wakefield Triangle - THAT was NOT an 'uninhibited yell'.

Farmers had mobile phones in the Pertwee/Jo era? For heaven's sake! Top secret world-saving paramilitary organisations had crackling walkie-talkies!

The Old Rogue - ••••. I'd practically forgotten what it was like to ACTUALLY REALLY ENJOY a chunk of Who-y goodness. (And TomDoc agreeing that dogs are FILTHY CREATURES was merely the icing on the cake.)

Hitherto unsuspected misery planets for holding overthrown dictators and Romana's tea cup still being full after lots of it was thrown over her are minor matters I'm happy to TOTALLY IGNORE. Whatever the hell this John Grindrod creature is, it must be captured and tortured until it writes more Who.

The Lions of Trafalgar - How come those lions chase Tegan and Nyssa for ages without CAPTURING AND DEVOURING them?

To Cut a Blade of Grass - The hospital swears it had NEVER employed a dark-haired American-accented nurse?

NO ONE knows that Walter's in the hospital after a stroke except his daughter? Why doesn't he have any FRIENDS bar (bizarrely) the Sixth Doctor?

How does Old Sixie know all that this-bloke-smiles-on-tube-so-history-of-humanity-is-changed stuff? The only one of him who shows any signs of such magical powers is just-after-regeneration Eight.

Walter makes the lives of people he knew better in comforting and crucial ways...by giving them pasties to eat? Wouldn't that, in the long run, make them FAT AND MISERABLE? (Maybe THAT'S why none of 'em gave a •••• when he had his stoke...)

The Shadow Trader - The Doctor's met loads of Shadow Traders before?! Who can, er, chop your shadow off with a silver knife? Look, Sunshine - shadows are Faction Paradox business. Don't mess with 'em.

Quantum Heresy - I suppose it WOULD be rather missing the point to complain it's really repetitive...

Radiation that's supposed to murder the survivors actually mutates their genetic code to reverse their sterility? Is that plausible?

Well, it's possible in the same sense that it's possible to win the lottery jackpot a hundred times in a row, but it's not very likely.

Would a few dozen people make for a viable breeding population?

Yes, with a carefully planned breeding program.

How come those lions chase Tegan and Nyssa for ages without CAPTURING AND DEVOURING them?

You know cats like to play with their food.

Well, it's possible in the same sense that it's possible to win the lottery jackpot a hundred times in a row, but it's not very likely.

Ah! Well, to be fair, only one of the cretins managed to get up the duff, but the Doctor seems to think that cos ONE of 'em could do it, it would be extraordinary if the others weren't all suddenly miraculously fertile too...

You know cats like to play with their food.

They DO, the ickle preciouses...of course these are stone lions being remote-controlled by evil megalomaniacal aliens but there's no reason their essential feline-ness shouldn't assert itself...even if their darling paddy-paws are apparently all wrong. (Though they've always looked JUST FINE to me every time I've visited Trafalgar Square or watched Dalek Invasion of Earth.)

Oi slacker! No review of Astrea Conspiracy yet?

I was waiting to see if anything other than 'Don't screw around with Aphra Behn after (Daniel O'Mahony's Faction Paradox novel) Newtons Sleep cos YOU'RE GONNA LOSE' would spring to mind. Also if I could work out what the •••• was going on to avoid looking incredibly stupid but I'm fairly sure it's not me it's Astrea Conspiracy that doesn't bother explaining how the (staggeringly unoriginal!) wiping-writers-from-history thing is resolved...

...Um, anyway, should have Astrea and a few other BF narrated short stories typed up in a day or two...

The Last Day at Work:

Very slow.

Since when has Troughton had the correct change? Or ANY money at all? Or expected to pay for water anyway?

Tuesday:

Rather weak.

Harry saw 'a young man in his late thirties' - YOUNG isn't late thirties!

I really don't think Harry would be so rude to the weirdo. He's just too...British and polite. Also as a doctor should bear mental illness in mind.

Harry wants the Doctor brought in dead or alive?!

The Doctor doesn't mention SARAH as one of the things Harry should have remembered, like Scotland and Christmas.

Harry doesn't give a •••• about himself and his world being rewritten?

Forever Fallen:

'I won't be lectured by a girl who needs a jacket to remember her name' -

If you're the great genius of human history why not get out of being labelled with a fake ID?

'It's not a question of when but if' - the other way round, surely?

Only one journalist asks what the hell that guy was doing with a giant mind-control machine?

The Smallest Battle:

An actually-not-bad imitation of the Fourth Doctor is utterly ruined when he uses the word 'gotten'.

'Surely everyone knows about whip-bombs' thinks Trevin, the guy who can tell that the Doctor and Leela ARE ALIENS.

Leela says 'there is no honour in killing the nearly-dying' - she really takes her time in realising that 'maybe it would be better to put him out of his misery' for the woman who was demanding the Doctor put HER out of her misery about two seconds flat after she was blinded.

Why does the Doctor keep demanding tea from these aliens? SUCH a cultural imperialist.

The Doctor lectures leaders for hours about compassion and how this may be the beginning of the end of the war cos it always starts with one BOY standing in front of his leaders and saying 'Enough!' Or something.

Taken for Granted:

You got a MAN to narrate a Jo-POV story?!

'Most men she encountered were limited by their sexist assumptions' - and since when has MS GRANT shown the slightest sign of being aware of this fact?

Why does Jo obediently put on the handcuffs - behind her back?

Mission Improbable:

Ah, another male is narrating an Evelyn-POV story.

'I'm just an old lady with a dicky ticker' - Evelyn didn't go round TELLING people about her heart condition! She just decided she'd RATHER DIE than even tell THE DOCTOR for, er, no readily apparent reason.

'You haven't got all day' - yes she has cos she's gonna be executed tomorrow.

So one minute Evelyn denies knowing the Doctor, the next she's boasting that he's coming to rescue her?

Why does the guard waste hours lecturing Evelyn - who's gonna die tomorrow - about the impossibility of breaking into the prison?

The Doctor's been wearing a blue frock coat for YEARS?

Somewhat interminable. Also rather pointless. Evelyn admitted it had all been am-dram for the twerp but frankly why bother?

The Astrea Conspiracy:

The Doctor didn't know that Aphra's code-name is Astrea? Even I knew THAT!

All this 'English literature is vanishing from history!' stuff has been done to death already - most recently in False Coronets but there was an entire SERIES of Eighth Doctor audios leading up to Time of the Daleks...

Aphra has an emerald brooch that will PERHAPS pay for the voyage back to England? Sorry, how much does staying-on-the-deck-of-a-boat-for-a-few-hours COST!

AND she's got a pearl necklace? Really quite careless to end up in debtors' prison, in the circumstances.

She's looking for ANOTHER husband? Hah! She LIED about having a husband in the first place! (According to Newtons Sleep which is a LOT more convincing than THIS.)

Surely anyone would see right through her ludicrous 'I was Charles II's lover but he dumped me when Nell Gwyn came along and I want revenge' cover story - Charles II wasn't exactly renowned for sticking to one mistress at a time.

The Doctor's excuse for betraying her to the plotters - 'I was helping! You're a terrible spy, sooner or later something terrible was bound to happen!' is somewhat...lacking.

I wonder if I should invite the author of that last story to come here and respond......

On the one hand, more writers around would be great, on the other, they'll actually see what I said about their work...

There used to be writer, Daniel something, that used to come here. However, he vanished ages ago.

Daniel O Mahoney. He got sick of Emily slagging offhis Dodo/JFK novel.

No, he just got sick of everyone misspelling his name.

Actually he wasn't the 'Dodo gets her brains blown out' JFK novel, he was the 'Dodo gets a sexually transmitted disease involving brain-eating maggots' novel.

No wonder Dodo's the only Companion who's refused to come back for any audios.

(And yes, the ashes of Katarina HAVE made a recent appearance, in case you were wondering.)

Speaking of Katarina, Adrienne Hill was not only a beautiful woman but had a really beautiful voice. Now, I know i can't say how she'd sound if she were still alive today at 82 but it might have held up.

She's passed away then? There was some confusion about whether she had or hadn't because she basically did the few eps of Who and then nothing...

She died in 1997.

Short Trips: The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius:

The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius is the tenth episode of the seventh season of Big Finish's Short Trips series.

Featuring Adric with brief appearances by the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan.

Read by Matthew Waterhouse (Adric).

Written by Julian Richards and released in November 2017.

During an adventure Adric gets separated from the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan and found himself as the squire of Sir Keeyoht of la Koura and they are on a quest against their enemy, the Doctor.

Things became really interesting when Sir Keeyoht mentioned Romana and made me wonder why he knew her name and the value she has to him.

All this got revealed when Sir Keeyoht joined Adric with his friends in the TARDIS, the revelation being that Sir Keeyoht is in the form of the Fourth Doctor.

Sir Keeyoht is the manifestation formed as a result of Adric missing the Fourth Doctor.

This is a fascinating story especially with the Fourth Doctor, albeit as Sir Keeyoht, meeting his successor.

A superb story for Adric which unfortunately is not the kind that he got in the TV series.

Waterhouse delivered a fine narration and his impersonation of Tegan was certainly surprising!

Sir Keeyoht is the manifestation formed as a result of Adric missing the Fourth Doctor.

Ridiculous. I miss the Fourth Doctor ALL THE TIME (well, all the time I'm not watching one of his DVDs and even then there's a lot of 'Oh Tom! Why did you leave me!' going on) and NEVER ONCE has he manifested himself to ME as any Sir Keeyoht thing...

Short Trips: The Shadows of Serenity:
The Shadows of Serenity is the sixth episode of the fifth season of Big Finish's Short Trips series.
Featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri.
Read by Nicola Bryant (Peri)
Written by Nigel Robinson and released in June 2015.
Sixie and Peri arrived on the planet Malgar where the Malgarians are known as a very violent species.
However when Sixie and Peri meets them they are devoid of violence.
Fascinating story on why the Malgarians are non-violent and how it involved the Sisters of Serenity.

There is however one thing I found perplexing about the story is when Peri says that she would like to eat a hamburger as I thought Peri is a vegetarian!

I thought Peri is a vegetarian!

If this is set pre-Revelation of the Daleks...no she isn't. If this is set post-Revelation of the Daleks then yes she is, but only because the ABUSER she's shacked up with declared that it was so. She didn't get a say in it. Of course she'd sneak the odd hamburger while the git wasn't looking. (I'm assuming he wasn't looking?)

Ycranos made Peri a vegetarian?? When!?

Peri says that she was a vegetarian in The Eye of the Scorpion when she and 5 met Erimem.

5 reminded Peri of this in The Church and the Crown when she says that she could eat a horse.

Ycranos made Peri a vegetarian?? When!?

Her OTHER abuser. In Two Doctors.

Peri says that she was a vegetarian in The Eye of the Scorpion when she and 5 met Erimem.

5 reminded Peri of this in The Church and the Crown when she says that she could eat a horse.

You have a way better memory than me. Well, if Peri's been a vegetarian all along it's odd she wasn't a bit more supportive of the Doctor's nut roast rolls in Revelation...

So apparently in order to fully appreciate the Susan's War audio I have to listen to the short trip called "All Hands On Deck".... I think this one escaped our illustrious moderator as she doesn't appear to have listened to it....

Hell. No of course I don't pay £2.99 for a half-hour's download narration, I've managed to pick up the odd one as a Big Finish subscriber and by getting a free trial on Audible (try to cancel and they'll give you ANOTHER one!) but they're not gonna blackmail me into coughing up YET MORE cash, the Short Trips are where I draw my line and my fanatical-completest genes lose the battle with my thrift genes.

good thing I bought it then......
Nudge, nudge, wink, wink....

Oh!

Short Trips:

All Hands on Deck:

Someone planted an oak tree in memory of Barbara and Ian? They DIED? They aren't supposed to die! (See SJA: Death of the Doctor and First Doctor audio The Invention of Death.)

Susan sleeps for 4 or 5 hours a night? That's surely a lot more than usual for a Time Lord? Could this have some bearing on her son's peculiar human-centric DNA (she says, desperately searching for an answer to Alex's only-7%-Gallifreyan-DNA, years after Alex went splat).

Speaking of Alex...no one speaks of Alex. No 'How are you getting along after your son got killed the last time I turned up' from the Doctor, for example.

Were all these 'bubble' taxi-things mentioned in this era before? (Well, obviously not in Legacy of the Daleks, when they had knights on horseback.)

Susan can't run as fast as she used to? She can't possibly be Time-Lord-middle-aged just yet.

'Susan' - in Hartnellian tones - 'good to see ya' - obviously by the 'ya', Carole Ann Ford's narration is considerably less Hartnellian. But he STILL blatantly obviously made more of an impression on her than all those recent McGann audios.

'Travel with me again. I don't have anyone right now' says the Doctor to HIS GRANDDAUGHTER, clearly implying that if he DID have another Stray about the place he sure as hell wouldn't bother rescuing her from the Time War.

Couldn't the Doctor have thought up better ways of distracting Susan than launching a spider-invasion and an imminent-asteroid-destruction-of-Earth? These people are TRAUMATISED you git, they've lived through two Dalek Invasions. TWO! And not the type where they whizz around adorably in the sky for an hour till the Doc wipes 'em out, we're talking about YEARS of occupation, YEARS of genocide. Both times.

Couldn't the Doctor and Susan have managed a better fighting v pacifism debate? If she's prepared to risk her lives in this War shouldn't she have been more outraged that her Granddad - y'know, the UNIVERSE'S PREMIER DALEK-KILLER - couldn't be arsed due to some moral qualms about the Time Lords getting a bit ruthless? (Admittedly the only Docs she's known are Hartnell n'McGann, they're not exactly prime Oncoming Storm material, but they get the Dalek-killing job done...eventually.)

Foreshadowing:

Everyone's very quick to accept that this is Harris regressed to infancy - OK, so he says he's Harris, he's wearing Harris's uniform, has Harris's accent etc - but most people in the Whoniverse tend to be more sceptical, pathologically so.

Time-roaches live in the Vortex and latch onto ships and get inside the TARDIS since WHEN!

The Lieutenant doesn't blame the Doctor and Charley for bringing the time-leech here after they ADMIT to it?

Bog-standard plot but as it's written in a lively and enjoyable matter it doesn't matter that much.

Lieutenant MIKE YATES?! Aw, nice twist.

Funny Yates never mentioned this, says the Doctor - YES ISN'T IT.

The Way of the Empty Hand:

A teleportation beam leaves scorched grass since when?

Troughton is GOOD at playing the recorder since WHEN!

Not overly amusing or plausible, dependent on coincidence and a beyond-cliched villain. Which is a disappointment after Foreshadowing, also by Julian Richards.

The Other Woman:

Jo is tingling about the TARDIS being a doorway to other space n'times if only the Doctor could get it working again since WHEN! She simply didn't believe it was for ages, and when she found out the hard way she HATED travelling in space and time, the philistine.

'Kalandra and her ex-husband had built a ship to travel between dimensions.' As you do.

Mike's straight this week, then.

'My duty is to UNIT and the general public' - since when has the Brig been happy to throw the Doctor to the wolves? Even when they'd only just met in Web of Fear and he was in the middle of a nervous breakdown the Brig was clear that he wouldn't force Troughton to sacrifice himself to the Great Intelligence, even to save the world.

Someone planted an oak tree in memory of Barbara and Ian? They DIED? They aren't supposed to die!
SJ said they hadn't aged (or that RUMOUR was they hadn't aged) that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't die. Maybe they didn't want to be immortal and they topped themselves.

Speaking of Alex...no one speaks of Alex.
Emily after season 12 finale: People who whinge about continuity don't understand that continuity has never been a strong thing for Doctor Who.
Also Emily: LOOK HERE IS AN OBSCURE REFERENCE TO A BIG FINISH AUDIO THAT ONLY I'VE HEARD AND THEY HAVE COMPLETELY IGNORED IT!! THIS AUDIO SUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!

She can't possibly be Time-Lord-middle-aged just yet
Why not?

Carole Ann Ford's narration is considerably less Hartnellian
Because she's not playing Hartnell Doc and is, in fact, portraying McGann Doc? I mean, I would have thought that was obvious given the cover image of....the McGann Doctor....

SJ said they hadn't aged (or that RUMOUR was they hadn't aged) that doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't die. Maybe they didn't want to be immortal and they topped themselves.

First Doctor audio The Invention of Death explains their non-ageing, and not-dying was definitely part of the package. They'd've had to be pretty thorough on the whole suicide thing, I'm not sure even lopping each other's heads off would have done the trick.

On the other hand, at least we didn't spot them at the end of time with the other immortals. Not that I'm going to make Captain Jack's mistake in R & J, assuming that if he isn't RIGHT THERE with Ashidr-and-her-chess-set and Pink-in-his-ship that he didn't make it to the end of the universe.

Speaking of Alex...no one speaks of Alex.
Emily after season 12 finale: People who whinge about continuity don't understand that continuity has never been a strong thing for Doctor Who.

I'm sure I didn't say anything of the sort.

I was outraged at the violation of continuity and dammit that's forty years of my life screaming THE MORBIUS FACES WERE MORBIUS!! that I'll never get back.

But it might just be worth it...*gazes adoringly at Ruth*

Also Emily: LOOK HERE IS AN OBSCURE REFERENCE TO A BIG FINISH AUDIO THAT ONLY I'VE HEARD AND THEY HAVE COMPLETELY IGNORED IT!! THIS AUDIO SUUUUUUUUCKS!!!!!

Susan's only child Alex was exterminated by Daleks. This is the first time she's seen Grandfather since they shared that traumatic event. Some sort of acknowledgement that ALEX HAD EVER EXISTED might have been...appropriate.

She can't possibly be Time-Lord-middle-aged just yet
Why not?

Because even though Companion Chronicle Here There Be Monsters claimed that Susan is older than Ian and Barbara put together, everything else implies she was a genuine teenager when travelling in the TARDIS. And even if she WAS older-than-Ian-and-Barbara-put-together, she's only spent a few decades on Earth - at a guess, twenty-five years maximum - which would still make her a child by Time Lord standards (Tennant in Stolen Earth: 'I was just a kid, ninety years old.').

Of course, Susan's War then grossly contradicts its own prequel, having Ian say it's been fifty years for him and Susan says longer for her but I can't really see how this would work, given that she's been on the slow path for a lot less than fifty years.

Carole Ann Ford's narration is considerably less Hartnellian
Because she's not playing Hartnell Doc and is, in fact, portraying McGann Doc? I mean, I would have thought that was obvious given the cover image of....the McGann Doctor....

Yeah, I know that but Carole Ann Ford seems to start every line of the Doctor's that she's narrating sounding just like Hartnell before apparently remembering and sounding, well, if not remotely like McGann, at least less Hartnellish.

Dammit, aren't there enough Fake-first-Doctors about the place* without accidentally turning a fake-McGann into one?

*If 'fake' is the right word when we've seen Hurndall and Bradley on-screen in all their canonical glory.

Waiting patiently for Emiky's thoughts on the latest short trip featuring Docs 11and 12......

*Nods approvingly* It is right and proper that you should spend your life waiting to hang on my every word...

Regeneration Impossible:

That is a seriously brilliant Matt voice. I actually had to check it wasn't The Real Thing, not a problem I've ever had before with Big Finish's thousands of recasts.

Sexy rings the Cloister Bell cos there's some regeneration energy in Victorian London?

'Oh brilliant, me-splaining' - and Matt still doesn't get it...Alright, he seems convinced about this whole LAST REGENERATION thing, even obsessed by this issue-he-seemed-blissfully-unaware-of-pre-Time-of-the-Doctor...

So where is this in Matt's timestream? He says he's DYING?

'I don't want dumbo or the flower-obsessive popping in' - and WHICH of his previous selves is Twelve being so HORRIBLE about?

'2017: alive, three centuries earlier: dead' - um...you said it was the Victorian era. 1717 isn't the Victorian era.

'Know any time-travelling murderers with a passion for the convoluted?' 'Two off the top of my head but I locked one in the basement and we married the other' - BLESS!

'Every decision tempered by the guilt you feel' says Eleven while trying to persuade the baddie not to kill off the Time Lords, somehow forgetting a) HE'S the Man Who Forgets re all those bloody Time Lords and b) this guy's the BADDIE, he WANTS to kill the Time Lords.

'Not that I've ever had a tan' - OMG the Doctor's never had a tan!!

OK, I kinda lost a bit of interest when the Doctor was doing the rather-long-drawn-out defeat-the-villain thing by, um, nicking a ring? Magically transporting him to a desert? Ah well, I'll definitely be relistening at some point.

'You'll remember though, won't you, Old Girl? Watching over me...every dark day, every great triumph, even the ones I can't remember' - hell no Doc, she only remembers the last seven hundred years (The Doctor's Wife), not those millions of years Ruth was burying her alive and stuff...

They shouldn't have wasted this on a short trip, it really needs to be rewritten for, say, our Sixtieth Anniversary...('Things are bad enough without you sticking your chin in..')

Flower obsessive is Five and Disney's Dumbo has big ears...

Thanks!

Though honestly, celery isn't a FLOWER and poor old Five mentioned the pleasure of smelling a flower, like, ONCE. And he never actually DID it any more than he ate a well-prepared meal or watched a sunset...

I thought Dumbo was Ecclestraitor for the ears. Flower obsessive? Not a clue.

As for where this is in 11s timeline he mentions this is when he’s sulking in the clouds in Victorian England- which of course doesn’t make Emily’s nit any less valid....,

As for where this is in 11s timeline he mentions this is when he’s sulking in the clouds in Victorian England

He DOES? Why the hell does he also claim he's DYING then? 'Sulking' and 'dying' are two distinctly different things, last time I checked.

Yeah, but they can feel very similar to those experiencing them.

Plus, technically, we are ALL dying, all the time. It's just a question of how long it takes us to get there.

Stuff n'nonsense.

THE DOCTOR WILL NEVER DIE.

Tom Baker will shortly....

You've been saying that for decades.

Tom has quite rightly failed to oblige you.

Someone planted an oak tree in memory of Barbara and Ian? They DIED? They aren't supposed to die! (See SJA: Death of the Doctor and First Doctor audio The Invention of Death.)

On the other hand, there's always the Susan's War: Sphere of Influence audio...in which Ian is REALLY REALLY OLD.

Speaking of Alex...no one speaks of Alex

When will I learn to JUST KEEP MY GOB SHUT?

*Shudders in direction of Eighth Doctor: Time War 4: Restoration of the Daleks*

What's an Alex?

The Doctor's great-grandson.

No, really. The Eighth Doctor audios introduced us to Susan Campbell nee Foreman's moronic xenophobic son Alex. As played by Paul McGann's son. Mercifully, he died in another Dalek Invasion. Less mercifully, the Doc's just been handed an Alex from an alt-uni...

(If you're thinking the audios are getting desperate, I'd have to agree. Especially the Eighth Doctor: Time War ones where they're desperately attempting to have McGann totally involved in the Time War whilst not contradicting Night of the Doctor's claims that he doesn't fight in the Time War...)

How many relatives are the Audios gonna haul out of the woodwork?

Well, one has to admit, relatives are an under-explored area for Old Who Companions.

And however many relatives the audios haul out of the woodwork, it is as nothing compared to how many illegitimate descendants our Brig is acquiring in the novels...

Audio short trips:

Methuselah:

Is it a 'blazer' if it comes down to your knees?

The American accent for Peri...isn't great.

Mephistus insists he's an educated man who doesn't want to be a prophesier - so why does he go round publicly prophesying?

A twenty-second-century hyperdrive ship was kicked all the way to the end of time, facing the heat-death of the universe? Haven't we kinda done this before, with Orson Pink (more amusingly in The Lives of Captain Jack: R & J than in Listen)?

The Doctor deliberately left Peri alone with a lunatic bound to go violent when the voices stop - whilst promising that the voices wouldn't stop. Even though he was going off to stop the voices...

'Let's get you home, Jennifer' - and change history?! The crew are all disappeared presumed dead! This sort of thing was a REALLY BIG DEAL in Waters of Mars...

Mephistus apologises to the Doctor for mistreating Peri...but doesn't apologise to Peri.

The Best-Laid Plans:

Good idea, but didn't hold my attention till the Doctor FINALLY turned up properly. Though I'm definitely going to give it another chance sometime I'm less tired.

And don't insult the Sacred Eyebrows.

'What's so interesting about dinosaurs, they're just big lizards with anger issues' - I'm not saying he has to be WILDLY enthusiastic about dinosaurs, a la Matt on a spaceship, but no Doctor would have such a jaded attitude! And wouldn't Capaldi of all Doctors have bonded to dinosaurs, given that one that swallowed Sexy that was about the first thing he saw post-regeneration...and he found her VERY sexy...

The Shrine of Sorrows:

I was thinking that this was a better-than-usual Scots accent for the Twelfth Doctor when he said 'I'm the Doctor and this is Ace.' Ah well...

'The Doctor didn't seem to sleep' says Nut. How would she know? SHE sleeps on a regular basis...

'Are you sure we're safe?' - since when has Ace asked such stupid questions?

So the baddie's taken a thousand thousand years, a thousand thousand minds...without evolving at all?

And now it requires only one more mind? After a million of 'em, how would it be able to calibrate to such a degree?

There were no more fears, and no more sorrows - are you ••••••• KIDDING me!

Free Speech:
Featuring the Tenth Doctor.
Read by Jacob Dudman.
Released in December 2020 by Big Finish and written by Eugenie Pusenjak.
The concept of free speech is something we always hear about and Pusenjak brilliantly took this concept and made it into this Doctor Who story.
This is about a world where speaking costs money literally and hence why there is no free speech.
Free Speech is really a Doctor-lite as this centres on Aymius Todd as he is brought in for questioning on his links with a criminal organisation and someone called the Doctor.
In the midst of all this he is about to get married so hardly a time for him to experience something like this.
Enthralling as Aymius struggles to answer the questions without going broke and what this society is like given the story's premise.
All this leading to the climax to what Free Speech is truly about.
A well done character piece for Aymius with minimal appearance by the Doctor.

This is about a world where speaking costs money literally and hence why there is no free speech.

Awww, that sounds like a nice Who-y idea. Though you'd think answering-police-questions would be free...

Sounds like a world that Trump would like.

The Man Who Wasn't There:
The Man Who Wasn’t There is the eleventh story of the sixth season of Short Trips from Big Finish.
Featuring the Eighth Doctor and Charley.
Written by Ian Atkins and released in November 2016.
Read by India Fisher (Charley).
The Man Who Wasn’t There was also apparently the working title for the final Sarah Jane Adventures story The Man Who Never Was.
For the Short Trip story, the man in question was quite a mystery and fascinating that the Doctor and Charley followed him around to learn who this man was.
Fascinating and intriguing story about a man who truly wasn’t there.

The Man Who Wasn’t There was also apparently the working title for the final Sarah Jane Adventures story The Man Who Never Was.

Well they should have stuck with it as it actually made SENSE. The man in question HAD once existed, he'd just...died and got replaced by an alien-slave-owning hypnotic hologram. As you do.

The World Beyond the Trees:
The World Beyond the Trees is the season 7 opener of Short Trips from Big Finish.
Narrated by Nicola Walker (Liv Chenka).
Released in January 2017 and written by Jonathan Barnes.
This has Liv narrating story in a tape recorder to her father
The story concerned is set in 1972 when her, the Eighth Doctor and Molly were staying in Baker Street.
Liv tells her father about the Damascus Project as mentioned to her by the Doctor.
It was only after listening to The World Beyond the Trees, that this links to an earlier Short Trip with the Third Doctor, Damascus which I had not listened to.
Without knowing about Damascus beforehand, I did find The World Beyond the Trees a fascinating story to listen to with the account that Liv.
It especially prescient for the Doctor to tell Liv to listen to four knocks.
Liv's account culminates with her meeting an alien called Lilla and the strange atmosphere that she has noticed.
Not bad the resolution that this story provides.

Regeneration Impossible:

That is a seriously brilliant Matt voice.

Yes. I couldn't check, being driving, but I probably wouldn't have anyway as I just assumed it *was* him, though I did start wondering why, if he's done work for BF, I don't remember any big announcement or box sets.

Twelve, however, sounded like a decent-enough sound-alike--clearly not Capaldi but good enough to sustain the illusion.

Then I was surprised that there was only one actor in the whole thing.


OK, I kinda lost a bit of interest when the Doctor was doing the rather-long-drawn-out defeat-the-villain thing by, um [...]

More agreement. I tuned out then too.

Shouldn't these be in the Audios section?

Just curious.

Took me a long time to find this one, I must say.

I could create a Short Trips section in the audios if that would make everyone happy?

Go for it

Though you'd think answering-police-questions would be free...

That turns out to be a plot point. When you run out of words, the police take your silence as an admission of guilt.

But it should have been more of a plot point. It was quickly brushed aside and would have been a good rallying cry for their crusade but wasn't brought up again.

Very Doctor-lite as Matthew says, with a reasonable approximation of Tennant.

Tries to be a meditation on the value of free speech but ultimately says more about capitalism. But then it's never stated who is profiting from people talking, whether it's the government or a private monopoly, and that's a pretty big detail to omit.

it's never stated who is profiting from people talking, whether it's the government or a private monopoly, and that's a pretty big detail to omit

Maybe the government IS a private monopoly?

Could be, but it needed to be stated.

One Small Step...:
One Small Step... was a short story that was originally published in Short Trips: Past Tense featuring the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe and written by Nick Briggs.
I listened to Briggs' reading of his story which was released on the Big Finish Podcast in January 2009.
The title is in reference to the Moon landing which is used as its backdrop and was written way before 2011's The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon which uses the same backdrop.
The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe arrived at a beach where the Doctor meets a young boy.
The boy was at the beach after he got bored on watching the Moon landing on TV.
Tragedy strikes after the Doctor had a conversation with the boy.
The Doctor feels guilty about it and fixes this tragedy.
The music for the reading is very haunting and fits in well with consequence of an action that was made at the moment. The title is really about that than the Moon landing.

The Switching:
The Switching was originally a short story published in Big Finish's Short Trips: Zodiac anthology book.
Written by Simon Guerrier, Big Finish subsequently made an audio reading of the story and this what these remarks are about although I had read the said story a long time ago.
The audio reading was by Duncan Wisbey
Featuring the Third Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier, Benton,Yates and the Delgado Master.
The Doctor and the Master suddenly found themselves in each other's bodies hence the name of this story.
In regards to the Doctor and the Master, this mainly focuses on the Master in the Doctor's body which enables him to move freely within UNIT.
Quite interesting how this all played out and the Master in the Doctor's body which saw the Master being able to pull off being the Doctor to the Doctor's colleagues.
Interesting premise that gets explored here.
A particular high point of this story is that this had Jo in a bikini and that would have been a sight to see. Thanks you so much Mr Guerrier.

The Switching was originally a short story published in Big Finish's Short Trips: Zodiac anthology book.

I can't BELEIVE they're reselling us the sodding short stories we've already read...

Someone planted an oak tree in memory of Barbara and Ian? They DIED? They aren't supposed to die! (See SJA: Death of the Doctor and First Doctor audio The Invention of Death.)

On the other hand, there's always the Susan's War: Sphere of Influence audio...in which Ian is REALLY REALLY OLD.

To hell with Susan's War, we have now been blessed with Power of the Doctor...

Chibnall does seem to ignore anything that isn't televised with the Doctor Who name.

Did he ever make reference to anything that happened on Torchwood or SJA which was never referred to on Who? Did Captain Jack say anything?

I thought the reference to Gwen was a reference to Torchwood...until I remembered she'd popped up in Stolen Earth/Journey's End.

I s'pose Ace's apology to Seven in Power kinda confirmed a lot of the NA angst...?

The Lichyrwick Abomination:

Quite a good Eccy-voice.

'I don't want to upset her' is Malcolm's excuse for not talking to his mum about his sister. It's probably more not-wanting-to-get-the-blame, what with him being the one who got her KILLED.

'Human beings - you're a funny old bunch' - shouldn't Malcolm, y'know, REACT to a statement like that?

Rather dull.

Landbound:

Henderson 'didn't mind' the breeze...'he relished it' - so a lot more than just not minding it, then.

Since when has the Third Doctor noticed, cared, or wanted to APOLOGISE for 'being rather churlish'?

The muggers aren't worried about two witnesses in broad daylight?

Henderson doesn't think of calling the police on his attackers?

'Would it be too much to ask for a decent vintage of Bordeaux?' - the Doctor in a PUB. Dammit, he wasn't too much of a snob to order three pints of Hob's Old Peculiar beer in Deadly Reunion...

So the Doc just leaves for months, without investigating the whacking great metal-eating alien in the harbour?!

And there are mere MONTHS between The Silurians and The Three Doctors?!

The Doctor takes Henderson back to see his ship get destroyed and his crew murdered? This guy has a WEIRD idea of what constitutes a fun day out.

Oh, and then rubs salt into Henderson's wounds by telling him the murderer is a 'poor fellow'?

Still, Henderson gets more of a follow-up from Our Hero than he ever bothered doing with, say, Jo or Sarah or Liz...

So Henderson's name isn't cleared re the destruction-of-his-ship but refusing to leave the office until he gets his command back works anyway?!

An Ocean of Sawdust:

Hours of tedious 'mystery'.

The Doctor seems oddly confused about whether he or the kid is mad/hallucinating.

'Even if the Time Lords would allow it' - WHAT Time Lords! Oh wait *checks* this is supposed to be Eight? Fine, whatever.

The Authentic Experience:

Why does Olaf show Perry his expensive and extremely stealable watch?

Why does the woman who shoved Peri into her dangerous machine threaten to call the police?

Drearily goes on much longer than most Short Trips.

Mel-evolent:

The Space-Time Visualiser has 'not been used in several lifetimes'? Hmm. It's used in Fourth Wall but I'm not gonna risk damaging my brain trying to work out where the two stories are in relation to Mel's two Sixie Eras AND Flip's two Sixie Eras...

Since when does an Old Who Doc provide his Companions with earrings to communicate via microsonics into your mastoid (or, er, something)? They didn't seem to have heard of MOBILE PHONES in those days!

You can mine the Vortex for its riches since WHEN!

Why does the baddie confess she's gonna kill 'em all, destroy the universe, etc? Gives them absolutely nothing to lose by opposing her.

A Type 2 TARDIS just sounds STUPID.

Since when have Time Lords BOWED to each other.

'Well, that's that. No more space-time visualising' - well, what's Eleven doing with it in the City of the Daleks computer game, then.

Turn of the Screw:

UNIT trains its people to resist truth drugs? How unusually efficient of 'em, judging by the endless stream of traitors in SJA, the audios etc they forgot to train anyone NOT TO BE TRAITORS, even after Mike Yates...

'"How do I know you're the Doctor" I asked. "You don't" he said' - come ON, let the poor guy grope your hearts or something, he HAS just stood up to hideous torture in order to prevent alien tech falling into the wrong hands, even (inexplicably) the worthless stuff...

Since when has any Doctor been efficient enough to have a spare sonic screwdriver?

Erasure:

The Gallifreyan House of House of Hartshaven isn't fortified against tremors - except its wine cellar? Astonishing how every fact one discovers about Gallifrey LOWERS it in one's estimation...

'You do have the most devastating smile, you know' - yeah, I'm REALLY not getting THIS Narvin/Leela vibe in any of their interminable number of Gallifrey audios.

Narvin thinks it's RARE for a cover-up to benefit all of Gallifrey?

Narvin yearns to be Leela's favourite Time Lord?!

Ooh, Vansell! I'd forgotten about Vansell! Whatever happened to -

- Ah. He died. That WOULD explain his absence.

Narvin knows nothing of other cultures cos he's never been off-world?! I'm pretty sure he HAS been off-world and also, Time Lords have LIBRARIES and stuff with all that INFORMATION they're doing nothing but sit on their backsides gathering...

Narvin tells the Doctor all about the Oubliette of Eternity and threatens to use it on him?!

'You mediocre troglodyte!' - DARLING Doctor! Slightly misfortunate that the guy he's taking that entirely-accurate view of happens to be the centre of several thousand Gallifrey audios...

'I promised Adric, when I took him away from the Terradonian starliner, that I would look after him' - er, no you didn't. He STOWED AWAY for heaven's sake.

Narvin can casually access the Matrix by remote-control?

The alien has a bomb with a big red detonator button? Not...say...MAUVE?

The baddie just stands around letting Narvin get out his staser and shoot him?

'Dear, sweet Leela' - BLOODY HELL GIVE IT A BREAK HAS NARVIN BEEN HIT WITH UNDERWORLD'S SOPPY-LOVE-BEAM OR WHAT!

'You've made me so much better over the last few years' - WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU NARVIN!

'It was the President who signed off on it...Leela must never know or she'll never trust us again' - wasn't Romana godawful ENOUGH in the Gallifrey audios without suddenly retroactively claiming she non-existenced AN ENTIRE PLANET?

Trap for Fools:

'If you want to change the future, Turlough, why use a time machine...use a school' - why is the Doc WRITING this sort of stuff to Turlough instead of telling him in person?

A school-in-space hasn't invented colour photography?

Doesn't really hold the attention.

The Siege of Big Ben:

Harriet Jones has merged Torchwood and UNIT? I guess that makes sense, it just feels...weird.

Jackie LOVED the Doctor since WHEN! (Yeah, I know she SAID that in Parting of the Ways but I didn't take her LITERALLY.)

'There's only ever been Pete for me. Even when he was dead' - bless!

'People think I'm a lady of leisure' - with a job in Torchwood/UNIT AND a four-year-old child?!

Jackie's job is serving chips not, say, striding from parallel to parallel exterminating Daleks?

Why would Torchwood-UNIT base themselves in Big Ben which is small and, y'know...really noisy?

Jackie reckons the Doctor hates it and would dump Rose and leave if he could? Way to ruin a happy(ish) ending.

The TARDIS smells ancient and like metal?

Aliens were afraid to invade this Earth because of CYBUS?

'Did you say I was just a dinner-lady' - well, you ARE just a dinner-lady. Admittedly in stark contrast to us SEEING you striding from parallel to parallel hunting Daleks (Journey's End), not to mention hearing several audios to this effect (Rose Tyler: The Dimension Cannon).

Jackie thinks the old Doctor was always about the peaceful solution and this one is always wanting to blow things up? Second time she met the 'real' Doc he was torpedoing Downing Street...

Why does the Doctor stay in the base instead of going with the rest of the team to deal with aliens?

The Doctor didn't think to scan for lifesigns earlier?

'You do have the most devastating smile, you know' - yeah, I'm REALLY not getting THIS Narvin/Leela vibe in any of their interminable number of Gallifrey audios.

Narvin yearns to be Leela's favourite Time Lord?!

'Dear, sweet Leela' - BLOODY HELL GIVE IT A BREAK HAS NARVIN BEEN HIT WITH UNDERWORLD'S SOPPY-LOVE-BEAM OR WHAT!

'You've made me so much better over the last few years' - WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU NARVIN!

OK, to be fair to this bizarre little audio's sudden retconning of the entire Leela/Narvin relationship...War Room 2 DOES have Narvin suspiciously flustered about getting squished in a small space with Leela, and then of course - when she's trying to persuade him not to sink into despair - 'I'll try, Leela. For your sake, I'll try' - not for the UNIVERSE'S sake or anything...

AWOL:
AWOL is the second episode of Volume 12 of Big Finish's Short Trips.

Written by Angus Dunican.

This has Jon Culshaw playing three characters the Third Doctor, the Brig and briefly Captain Munro from the Third Doctor's debut Spearhead from Space.

I have long known that Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney had passed but I had looked up on original Captain Munro actor James Breslin who sadly had also passed, in his case in 2009.

This is set in the immediate aftermath of The Silurians which left the Doctor angry and appalled with the Brigadier blowing up the Silurians and the episode title refers to the Doctor doing just that.

The Brigadier ultimately tracks down the Doctor in Peru and they have a long talk about the Silurians and their recent demise thanks to the Brigadier and the Doctor coming back to UNIT.

Notwithstanding that they both played here by Culshaw,, this is a very good two-hander between the Doctor and the Brig as these are very beautiful moments with just the two of them. The kind of moments we never saw in the TV series as they are mostly surrounded by other people.

I would even go far to say that this is the best two-hander that Pertwee and Courtney never had.
While I wouldn't necessary say that I am a big fan of the Pertwee era. AWOL certainly reflects well from that era.

Aww, sounds like this is the sort of thing BF should be doing - filling in the gaps in the TV series WELL.

The World Tree:
The World Tree is a special release of Short Trips and the winning entry in The Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip Opportunity.

Featuring the Eleventh Doctor.

Released on December 29 2022 and written by Nick Slawicz.

Read by Lisa Bowerman.

This centres on an old woman Nora Wicker and she was at home when all the sudden the Doctor turns up.

It is eventually established that Nora's home is in a Time Bubble and hence why the Doctor is there to deal with it.

Ultimately throughout all this is quite a moving tale about Nora whilst the Doctor deals with the problem at hand and the story definitely has a lot of heart to it that makes it easy to warm up to.
During The World Tree, The Archers gets referenced. The Archers also got referenced in one of Eleventh Doctor's TV episodes that of A Town Called Mercy.

Curiously I read this on TARDIS Wiki:
"The story has an unintentional reference to The Archers. Nora’s mention of the programme was written without Nick Slawicz realising that Lisa Bowerman, who would later be chosen as the narrator, appeared in it."

Also on TARDIS Wiki, it says it was implied that the Fifteenth Doctor, who had yet to make his debut on television at the time of this story's release, had briefly turned up here.

To be honest I didn't get a sense that it was the Fifteenth Doctor who had briefly turned up here.

A Small Semblance of Home:

Ian n'Babs' clothes from home have worn out? Why would they wear 'em relentlessly when the TARDIS wardrobe has such fab gear...well, most of the time anyway (mentioning no Crusades)?

The Doctor calls Barbara 'Barbara' and not, say, 'Miss Wright'?

Barbara saw her mother every Sunday for lunch?!

Barbara is weirdly obsessed with what day it is. And why does she think it feels like a Sunday when Sundays were INCREDIBLY BORING in those days (I know whereof I speak, everything was bloody shut for religious reasons on Sundays during MY childhood!).

Since when has Hartnell been infatuated with tea?

The Mistpuddle Murders:

Nyssa and Tegan are VERY cute together. Especially Nyssa's long-suffering 'Thank you, Tegan's. It's rather a shame when the Doctor turns up to smugly save the day.

The Devil's Footprints:

Costume Room? Sexy has a WARDROBE Room, thank you very much.

The Doctor can't imagine why the nineteenth century reverend hasn't been in touch with him? HOW?

Mel doesn't drink tea?

The Doctor didn't notice that his friend was possessed by a cloven-hoofed-alien?

Bonnie Langford's Seventh Doctor is unbearable. (The Eleventh n'Twelfth Doctor narrated audios can't manage Amy or Capaldi to save their lives, there's obviously SOMETHING about the Scottish accent...)

Isn't there a Third Doctor audio about the Devil's Footprints...? *Checks* Ah yes. The Devil's Hoofprints.