The All Encompassing Big Finish Thread

[Sid Seadevil]

Title says it all. Any and everything Big Finish related welcome.

[barnaby morbius]

i sold all mine

still got dr who and the pirates mind. no one wanted it.

[Dave Webb]

I'm a bit of a BF aficionado. Mind you, it's the only place I can get my 7th Doctor fix these days.

[Dave Webb]

...and it occurs to me that there is a massive lack of BF related material, and that people don't know how good some of it is. I love the stuff, for the most part, because it makes ideal listening material as I plough my way through another wretched spreadsheet.

So, I thought, some capsule reviews of the current collection in no real order, and a completely arbitrary "out of five" rating.

Primeval: 5th Doctor and Nyssa. Nyssa gets ill, the Doctor violates the Laws of Time and takes her to Traken in order to find a medic. However, an ancient evil lurks at the edge of the Traken union and...err...blah blah blah, really. It's worth listening to for Sarah Sutton and Peter Davison, and a bit of Traken backstory. It also has Nyssa in a bikini, although this is audio (thrice curse it) and therefore it's only really worthwhile for the banter it causes between Nyssa and the Doctor. 3/5

Assassin in the Limelight: 6th Doctor and Evelyn Smythe. John Wilkes Booth! Leslie Phillips! Messing around with established history! Unconvincing Yankee Accents FTW! 3/5, for the presence of Phillips alone.

Bang Bang a Boom: 7th Doctor and Mel. A sendup of DS9, Babylon 5, the Eurovision Song Contest and a few SF cliches that frankly had it coming. Guest stars Graeme Garden and an uncanny impersonation of Terry Wogan. The actual plot is pretty good and there are even a couple of science fiction ideas lurking in the background that make sense. The comedy elements are mostly funny, too. 4/5.

Bloodtide: 6th Doctor and Evelyn. Charles Darwin! Galapagos Islands! Silurians! Utterly forgettable! 2/5

Caerdroia: 8th Doctor, Charley, C'rizz. The penultimate episode of the 'Divergent Universe' saga, and one of the better episodes. Paul McGann gets to play the same role three times (and sound great doing it), there are a lot of Welsh accents for no apparent reason and certain elements seem rather tacked on, but the interaction of the cast is great and there's a good twist on the Multi Doctor story. 4/5 based on the regulars and semi-regulars being fab.

Circular Time: 5th Doctor, Nyssa. Four short stories in which we see the Doctor meet rogue Time Lord Cardinal Zero, the Doctor meets Sir Isaac Newton (and is tortured by him), the Doctor plays cricket (and Nyssa writes a novel and gets laid) and the Doctor regenerates. Each story more or less corresponds to a season. The the last two stories are, for various reasons, a lot more interesting than the first two but all are worth a listen. It's hard not to stress that Peter Davison can carry these things on his own, given a capable supporting cast and a decent script. 3/5

Colditz: 7th Doctor and Ace. Guest starring David Tennant and David Tennant's German accent, which has also appeared in Every War Movie Ever. In between the 7th Doctor being the 7th Doctor and Ace being a pain in the arse, there's actually some good history in here. There are references to the board game, which don't cast Ace in a favourable light, and a rather troubling ending, and then David Tennant's German Accent which should probably have taken some acting lessons from David Tennant. 2/5.

The Dark Flame. 7th Doctor, Ace, Bernice Summerfield. Could do better, 2/5.

Davros: 6th Doctor, Davros. Guest stars Wendy Padbury as a Davros apologist. In which we discover that Davros is a genius, but also mental, and in which the mental genius behind the Daleks also almost saves the galaxy...but is stymied in his attempt by the Doctor, and the fact that he is mental. As character flaws go, the whole "one handed maniac in a wheelchair" bit really boils down to the "maniac" part being the actual flaw and everything else being a circumstance. 4/5.

Dead London: 8th Doctor and someone who isn't Charley. An excuse for lots of historical periods with near accuracy and the repetition of what sounds like "sistermystica" (which should be an all female goth band, but isn't). 2/5.

Eye of the Scorpion: 5th Doctor, Peri, and introduction Erimem. Doctor Who in Egypt. It's been ages since I listened to this and have had no pressing reason to do so, therefore 2/5 but don't take my word for it.

Flip Flop: 7th Doctor and Mel. So this is why the 9th Doctor didn't want to cross his own timeline! It comes on 2 CDs which you can listen to in any order (in as many combinations as you can wring out of two CDs. For a really confusing time, convert to MP3 and listen to both at the same time on "shuffle"). It's an innovative, but brain wringing, story and it's done well. 3/5

Frozen Time: 7th Doctor. Ice Warriors! Sylv is good. Not much else is. 2/5.

Invaders from Mars: 8th Doctor and Charley. Written by Mark Gatiss, guest starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, featuring Orson Welles and the legendary War of the Worlds broadcast, and nearly everything about this audio is right. It's got aliens, spies, Mafia, glitterati, Mark Gatiss's acid wit, the Doctor involving himself a little too much and nearly no mention of the 8th Doctor's "arc plot". There's comedy and peril, there's...oh, just go and buy it. 4.5/5

Jubilee: 6th Doctor and Evelyn. If you already know that this is the story which Dalek was based on, you'll want to give it a listen to see how much the two stories diverge. This is nothing like Dalek; but you can see how individual elements were carried from one to the other. It's also rather good. Martin Jarvis guests, the story is really good...what more could you want? 4/5

Live 34: 7th Doctor, Ace, Hex. A Doctor Who story told through an assortment of radio broadcasts from "Live 34", a station on Colony 34, in which the Doctor gets involved in a little regime change and Ace decides to take a page out of the Weather Underground's book. And it's so nearly brilliant. 4/5, and well worth listening to.

Loups Garoux: 5th Doctor, Turlough. Brazilian werewolves. This one got lots of good reviews, and I can't imagine why. Yes, it's really nice to hear Davison and Strickson together, but the story is a bit...err...up itself. 3/5.

Master: 7th Doctor, the Master. Phillip Madoc is in it, as is Geoffrey Beevers, and it's really good. An exploration of what it is to be evil, what evil really is, why people do what they do. NA territory as far as certain motivations go, and yet another origin for The Master (and The Doctor, for that matter) so it's a good thing this is all 'Personal Canon Only' ground. But the Master is really well written and played, and the whole story might owe a bit to the original Human Nature. 3.5/5

Max Warp: 8th Doctor, Lucy Miller. A lame attempt to cash in on the success of Top Gear. Graeme Garden is in it, and very good too, but if you want to spoof Top Gear there are so many better ways to have done it. Having Jeremy Clarkson involved might have helped. No sign of The Stig either. 1/5.

[sheringham]

I absolutely adore Big Finish. Most recently I listened to Brotherhood of the Daleks, which was superb.

[Dave Webb]

Recommended Listens:

Scherzo
The Apocalypse Element
Spare Parts
The Natural History of Fear
Urgent Calls
Night Thoughts
The Settling
The Kingmaker
Omega
The One Doctor

[Sid Seadevil]

I actually have all but two of those. I must make the effort to give the a listen sooner rather than later.

[dsyst]

I finished listening to The Kingmaker for the umpteenth time last night. It just doesn't get tired!

Oh, and I'd go along with the recommendations the others have made.

Such a shame BBC7 haven't bought the final couple of McGann's second season with Lucie - they're great.

[sheringham]

Why haven't they bought them?

[dsyst]

Why haven't they bought them?

I really don't know. I gather that one of the BF staff confirmed that only part of the series has been bought, but so far as I'm aware no further information has been given. I think they're broadcasting everything up until the final two-parter. There's speculation that BBC7 don't want

Spoiler:

. Still, they're readily available on the shiniest of compact disks and quickest of downloads from BF.

[sheringham]

But they are utterly superb! Especially Sam. And Bashir.

[dsyst]

Hurrah!

Forty Five is available for subscriber download.

*downloads*

[Graymalkin]

There are two main problems with Big Finish - there are as many awful plays as there are good ones, and there's just too many of them* to start collecting now.

So I just have the 'New EDAs'...

*Never mind the spin-offs - a Companion Chronicle every month?

[barnaby morbius]

There are two main problems with Big Finish - there are as many awful plays as there are good ones, and there's just too many of them* to start collecting now.

So I just have the 'New EDAs'...

*Never mind the spin-offs - a Companion Chronicle every month?

i agree- they are very expensive and don't have a lot of relistening value. i sold all of mine a while ago.

on t'other hand some of them are pretty good, the holy terror, the one doctor and spare parts spring to mind.

[Dave Webb]

I think the best way to approach the BFAs is to either subscribe and get the lot or find a reliable source of reviews and pick the ones you think you'll like.

I started out being a 7th Doctor junkie and have fallen into the bad habit of wanting as many of them as possible. That said, there are probably about a score of really good ones that don't tie into an arc of some kind and actually have relisten value.

My current favourite, for example: Deadline, from the Unbound range, which isn't really a story with Doctor Who in it so much as a story about Doctor Who; plus points are Derek Jacobi as the lead and Rob Shearman doing the writing.

[Sid Seadevil]

I've just recently very much enjoyed Masters of War the new Unbound featuring David Warner and Old Nick Courtney himself.

It's absolutely terrific. Much better than most of the regular range - so I recommend it whole-heartedly and without reservation.

Although upon reflection, I'm going to have to qualify my comment re the regular range - at the moment it's going through a particularly high quality patch.

[dsyst]

The Magic Mousetrap is the best thing in the world. Ever.

That is all.

[Rich Flair]

The Magic Mousetrap is the best thing in the world. Ever.

That is all.

Best thing ever... stars Sylvestor McCoy... DOES NOT COMPUTE

[dsyst]

It's absolutely true; it's a great script which plays to McCoy's strengths, the supporting cast are good and the sound design fits perfectly. It's well worth a listen.

[Dart of Harkness]

Recommended Listens:

Scherzo
The Apocalypse Element
Spare Parts
The Natural History of Fear
Urgent Calls
Night Thoughts
The Settling
The Kingmaker
Omega
The One Doctor

Scherzo is absolutely wonderful. If only the current TV series could produce something as intelligent and unusual as that. Take a bow, Mr Shearman, take a bow.

A few other notable mentions:

The Chimes of Midnight: quite possibly the greatest Doctor Who story ever. Once again, from the pen of the mighty Robert Shearman - the best Doctor who writer around, IMO.

Master
Zagreus
The Reaping
The Gathering
I, Davros

All excellent.

[The Co=Ordinator]

Scherzo is absolutely wonderful. If only the current TV series could produce something as intelligent and unusual as that. Take a bow, Mr Shearman, take a bow.

A few other notable mentions:

The Chimes of Midnight: quite possibly the greatest Doctor Who story ever. Once again, from the pen of the mighty Robert Shearman - the best Doctor who writer around, IMO.

Fingers crossed, he's one of The Moff's team for Series 5.

[DJ Ade]

Recently listened to "Scapegoat" - an 8th Doctor adventure penned by 2000AD stalwart Pat Mills. It's absolutley bonkers, but it's also genuinely creepy, perverse and scary.

[Magister]

Interesting to see the Big Finish section hardly used by Wrinklies.

I would have thought we are the main target audience for BF.

I wonder why so few posts here.

[lucy_who]

I deeply dislike Scherzo. It's exceedingly dull. Which is a shame, cos its the first Rob Shearman audio I listened to after he berated me for not having listened to any of his BF stuff

Chimes of Midnight has been on my itunes for about two years. When I work out how to transfer it to my iphone, I might actually get round to listening to it...

[The Co=Ordinator]

I basically don't have the time, the inclination or the desire to spend my money on BF products. Having said that The Ninja likes some of them, so I look out for offers or sales on some of the older stuff for him.

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