Ohhh, this was so good!

The tone shift as things started to click was brilliant and I'm so looking forward to seeing how they resolve all of this in the final two stories!

I laughed so much at this - another great continuation of this story.

Very much appreciated the Nun's rant about the songs... asking many of the questions that I've had about Year 3000 and Milkshake for years!

Review: Love & Monsters

I like this Episode but not the End. The idea of showiing how normal people search the Doctor is really interesting. At the begin you think that it is a funny episode about people who met the doctor and try to find him again. I like Elton as a main character and the others from LINDA. The scene where Elton wants to talk to jackie is very funny. But the end is very Random, it feels like someone else. The Abzorbaloff looks very weird. I find it also strange that except Elton and Ursula everyone from LINDA dies. The way the kill the Abzorbaloff is also so strange and i thnik that the way Ursula is saved is also bizarre. But if you forget the end you get a fine episode.

Review: The Christmas Invasion

I really like this Episode. I think that for the short time that we see the Tenth Doctor he is really good. I think that the thing with the blood control is a very cool idea. I also liked the christmas tree that wants to kill Rose and the Doctor. The sword fight at the end was also cool. I would have wished to see more of the Doctor. But the story is not very special because it is just in anlien invasion but it could have been worse.

I really wanted to like this more than I did but it did not feel like it leaned enough into the tension and suspense of what was going on and not being sure who to trust. despite that the final scene with the TARIDS crew was really lovely almost makes the whole thing worth it.

The two big issues here is the pacing which not great for the most part it feels ok up until episode 6 where it hits a wall and the Thals not being interesting as individuals. On the plus side the Daleks themselves are incredible well realized in the story, watching it you can really understand why they become so popular and the actual macro level conflict with the Thals and Daleks works well enough.

The first episode is a legitimately great and while the cavemen stuff is a bit weaker it never gets to the point of being unwatchable.

Fun story! I really like the slightly domestic feel to Missy & The Monk here, they have brilliant back and forth & Regeneration as a product was an interesting idea too. It doesn’t do much with these ideas tbh but I had a fun time so… eh I don’t really mind too much.

also Bi Monk??? He was freaked out this story my goodness. (Not that I’m complaining more freaks in DW plz)

I don't like it when people use the word "beast" in a positive or neutral way. A beast is something feral, or evil. It's a word used to highlight how monstrous something is, and applying it to just a normal animal muddles the word in a way that makes it rather useless.

I really hate Rouge (the episode). And for some reason this retelling just highlighted how Rouge (the charicter) and The Doctor are a pairing I just cannot see.

Oh Gallifrey, I know you'll find your way back eventually. This one just doesn't do much for me. We're still just taking a (very) extended detour from Gallifrey with all this alternate timeline stuff as far as I'm concerned, but this one doesn't really offer much. For one thing Maris just isn't a character I understand, as she just seems so egger to join a cult for seemingly no reason whatsoever. It's not even that I distrusted Hector, I just don't she why she had a sudden and intense tunraround.

The rest is just kind of... there. We don't really do anything with the question of scientific knowledge gained at the expense of unethical experimentation, and I find myself just waiting around to get back to the primary Gallifrey (and with some future knowledge here, despite knowing how disappointing I find the resolution to the Pandorica situation. Really I'm just waiting around for the Time War and the series to get some direction again)

Such a stupidly strong opener, Martha is wonderful

i always love when torchwood stuff shows up

i’m glad i’m not the only one who felt like freema hasn’t really managed to rediscover the role quite yet. it’s like how billie’s first return was stilted, but now she convincingly pulls of a 2005 era rose

The Telos novellas were a series of short books that covered a variety of Doctors. At only a hundred pages or so, with just a handful of chapters, the novellas are too brief to be full novels but too long to be short trips. They're something in between, hence why I'm covering one in this section of the marathon.

This particular novel involves the Seventh Doctor and his new companion Catherine being embroiled in an interplanetary religious war in the far, far future, after being accused of being witches by the Catholic church.

So good things out of the way first.

There's a lot of nice world building and a very interesting and layered look at how religion might evolve in a futuristic space setting. Unlike other Doctor Who stories, or even other science fiction in general, the church in question isn't treated a thinly veiled criticism of religious beliefs in general nor is it used as a means of taking pot shots at current authority structures but an actual realistic look at how religion intertwines in daily life for both good and bad.

As someone who is religious myself I deeply appreciate the thought and respect that went into this story.

The central mystery that carries the story is also intriguing and the character work is good. Especially for the Doctor. Even if Cat does come across as Ace-lite sometimes, but that might be intentional given her origins.

Which leads to the down sides of the book.

There's just not enough time for the story to develop it's plot and bring things to a satisfying conclusion. It's ironically too short and the ending too abrupt.

The story just stops when it reveals it's big twist at the end and as such there are a lot of unanswered questions. Not just unanswered mysteries, like what happened to the malfunctioning Tardis at the beginning, nor unexplained basics, like why would androids need to eat or breathe, but it also leaves with the question of what's next?

Where do the characters go from here now that they know the truth?

There's more to the story and there just isn't room to tell it.

It feel less like a short story and more like a full novel that was edited down to fit the page count.

Especially when it starts to jump from scene to scene with little transition after about the half way point.

That said, wanting more of the story, is basically praising with faint criticism. This is easily the best Seventh Doctor prose story that I've ever come across. Not just for the marathon, but just like in general. I highly recommend it.

All Over is a foreboding and marvelous tribute to Frankenstein, elevated heavily by Daphne Ashbrook’s killer performance as the best incarnation of Heironyma Friend yet — a difficult task, especially considering Niky Wardley and Conrad Westmaas gave phenomenal performances as well. It’s just gothic vibes and fascinating ideas all the way down, and McGann relishes getting to perform with Ashbrook again, giving his best performance in Uncharted yet. When you have a story this excellent, you end up with not much to actually say in a review. Only flaw is the character of Cassie, although thankfully, she’s not in much of it, and this is likely her final appearance.

Council of Susan is a lovely diversion, never once pretending to be a story of intense arc importance. I’m not much of a Susan fan but this is an intensely interesting way to utilize her, a story where she is incredibly important because of her absence. That being said, Carole Ann Ford still shows up, and delivers a great performance, but the character of the original Susan herself is distant. Her absence makes these character moments all the more startling You could say it’s all just fluff, but there’s also some marvelous Alex characterization to distract from that fluff. And besides, it’s also very nice fluff, it’s a very funny and moving story to see a religion having grown out of Susan of all people. The story is aware of the silliness of that concept. It’s a very good time, if nothing special special. Bit too long though, and I still really can’t stand Cassie.

This was a serious roadblock. While I ultimately do understand this story, it took me an earth-shattering *four* listens to get to that point, an amount of listens that I’ve never had to give a Big Finish audio to understand it. The more and more I delved deeper the more I felt that I wasn’t even missing anything — there isn’t much to understand here. That’s not to say it’s an entirely unfortunate story. I think most of that confusion is a result of unfortunate scripting, yes, but the basic ideas are good and the performances are good too. I love these kinds of surreal bizarre acid trip stories usually. You just have a few large problems:

First, the dialogue is bizarre, and not in the intentional mushroom samba oooh surreal abstractness way, but more the characters speak with such an intense specificity that it just feels clunky. Friend’s cameo in this is especially victim to this, where she has a long speech about how she’s a manifestation in the Doctor’s mind, information that is so specific that one, no one would ever say, and two, is incredibly difficult to follow.

Second, It’s not weird enough. We have Daleks who are hanging from leaves from the first forest that are possibly a manifestation of the Doctor’s fears, but they don’t do enough specific or psychological to be evidence of that. They have mostly normal Dalek dialogue, minus two weird lines where they ask the Doctor if he would like a herbal infusion and another weird line where upon questioning why they are on leaves they reply JUST GO WITH IT. The trouble is, just going along with the ride only makes you more confused, because most of the dialogue is on the borderline of technobabble. It’s not a surreal VIBESY experience, it’s highly damn specific. It expects you to keep up, while also trying to throw you off. This should be more about the characters, more about the emotion of this strange nightmare, than about the logistics of it.

Third, Cassie is an enormous weak link here, as she will continue to be throughout the set— she is a flat character compared to the original Cass, and she constantly goes on about her destiny and how she will cut things with her sword. She’s basically a worse Leela and the stories are not interested in explaining why she’s this domineering. She just is flat. When the Doctor says the plants span fourteen billion light years, she doesn’t change tact, she keeps insisting she has to cut them. She has one reaction to everything. Her being different from Cass isn’t used for any dramatic purpose. She just makes you want Cass back.

It is very difficult to do surreal stories correctly in an audio format, so despite all that, I lean upon the forgiving — look at the marmite reaction to Zagreus, a story I very much adore. The experiments that the Time War’s Uncharted range has been doing are uniformly admirable. But by the nature of experimentation, you will have the occasional misfire. This story took up a lot of my time trying to dissect, and while it’s not a terrible story, I don’t think that time was worth it.

The Sontarans were first introduced in the Third Doctor serial The Time Warrior, so it only feels right that Big Finish's Sontarans vs Rutans story would include this incarnation. However, this story doesn't actually feature the Sontarans. Instead, we're treated to a Rutan story. The idea of the Third Doctor facing the Rutans has always been a tantalising prospect, as he never faced them onscreen, despite being the Sontarans' greatest enemies. Finally, thanks to writer Tim Foley, we get to hear a Third Doctor encounter with these green shapeshifters.

Their eventual crossing of paths doesn't disappoint. The Children Of The Future sees the Doctor (Tim Treloar) working with a military group who claim to be human survivors of a Sontaran invasion of Earth, which takes place in the 90s. They have been transported here via a time tunnel to strategise a way to defeat the Sontarans. Sarah Jane (Sadie Miller) and the Brigadier (Jon Culshaw) are not convinced, however, and believe there's something further going on. It's a strong premise for a Rutan story, which feels very much like a story from 70s Doctor Who.

Much of The Children Of The Future is centered around the mystery of the Doctor acting strangely. The Doctor's odd behaviour is immediately an engaging hook, and keeps you wondering why he is being so out of character. After all, the Doctor does not normally ally with military organisations outside of UNIT, or salute soldiers. I'm also glad they didn't go the obvious route of revealing the Doctor as a Rutan. It would have been too predictable and the idea that he is playing the Rutans to find out their plans to wipe out the Sontarans plays into the Time Lord's manipulative streak, seen in his second and seventh incarnations.

The Doctor takes a backseat for most of the story, with the Brigadier and Sarah Jane taking centre stage. This is a wonderful means to give Sarah and the Brigadier more agency in the story, tasked with working out the reason for the Doctor being so noticeably unlike himself. It's great that Sarah gets to use her investigative skills as a journalist, discovering the soldiers at the military base are Rutans because they have taken the forms of celebrities in the newspaper. Sadie Miller and Jon Culshaw give their best performances here too, seeming identical in their vocal tones to Elisabeth Sladen and Nicholas Courtney.

The Children Of The Future contains one of my favourite moments in a Big Finish audio, which is when the Brigadier fights himself as a Rutan. Obviously, it's not the first time there has been a Brigadier doppelgänger, given that the alternate universe in Inferno has one, but it's still an undeniably cool scene to hear two Brigadiers fight it out in the Rutan base.

The Children Of The Future ends on a hopeful note, when Stanley is revealed as a Rutan himself. He decides to stay behind on Earth to help as unlike the other Rutans, he has good intentions. The Brigadier being accepting of a human-Rutan alliance affords some very nice character development for the Brigadier, given how he has gone from destroying the Silurian base in The Silurians to being willing to work alongside an alien refugee. It shows just how far he has come, thanks to the Doctor's influence.

Overall, The Children Of The Future is one of the finest Third Doctor Big Finish audios. It's a captivating, mysterious story which pushes the Brigadier and Sarah Jane into the limelight, and ends with a lovely piece of hope and optimism for Earth's future, when the Brigadier accepts the Rutan refugee Stanley to share the Earth with the human population.

This is a pretty charming Time War story, that if not perfect, and a little confusing, at least feels fresh and creative. Major pros are Nicholas Briggs’ pitch-perfect performance as Karl, a character that’s very different to his usual work, McGann’s narration, and the character work given to Alex. The time jumping can be a little too confusing, but I feel satisfied with the ultimate explanation given, and McGann’s charming narration is self aware enough to be aware of this flaw. The last scene with Karl is a delight and I wish the story had more of that madness. Decent start to the set, fun listen.

This is defo not the best Benny story but it's really fun at least

Summut about this just made me seriously happy maybe it's the fact I've not had 2 in so long

6th Doctor, Mel and Hebe respond to a distress call from one of Hebe’s friends and discover a plot to take over the minds of humans by making them behave very nicely.

Not quite as absurd or funny as you might expect for a Paul Magrs story (despite a genuine belly laugh about Elise and Ron’s marriage near the end), but it’s gently whimsical with a very strong first showing for Imogen Stubbs as Patricia McBride: her false modesty and irascibility making her a good approximation for a female 6th Doctor analog. A relisten also reveals hints of her private beliefs: that wokeness is making her students weak, that humans can and should pursue perfection, and that she knows what is best.

There’s also a good role for Colin Baker as the Doctor is quizzed about whether he’s wasted his life, subjected to the mind conditioning and apparently brainwashed. Obviously the contrast to Ol Sixie is less striking than it might have been had Baker been playing the 6th Doctor, but even so it adds peril to the story when the main character seems reduced to being an amiable buffoon.

The only problem with the story is that most of these ideas don’t get developed. In part that’s to be expected - there is some subtle seeding of McBride’s arc that will develop over the next few stories - but even so for the Doctor to reveal he was just bluffing and to fix it all with a quick download of Emily Dickinson poetry and a phone call to UNIT is flimsy.

It’s good enough, but it serves more as an appetiser for the characters in this set than a satisfying meal in itself.

Okay Lisa I loved how you can sell this story to me

Okay quite a heavy story hear and the chapter length was meaty