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| What: | Dark Eyes 3 (Dark Eyes audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 16 September 2017 |
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| Rating: |   7 |
Dark Eyes 3 picks up a bit after the end of Dark Eyes 2. In that one, the Master had nabbed Molly O'Sullivan, though we did not know why. Here, we find out that he is planning to use her retrogenitor particles to infect the Eminence and take over all of humanity so that he can create his own destructive armada obedient only to him. We begin with "The Death of Hope." Narvin from the Gallifrey series steps in as CIA director to turn The Doctor into an agent so the CIA can undo the error of using The Master to stop The Eminence. To convince The Doctor, Narvin uses the Matrix to show The Doctor one of The Master's experiments in using the remainder of a destroyed human colony as a petrie dish to cultivate retrogenitor particles. Convinced, The Doctor then collects Liv and we head off to another colony for The Reviled. Here, human colonists who abused the local intelligent insect life have the tables turned. Now the humans are the prisoners, just waiting for The Master to use them. The Doctor tries to save everyone. Failures occur. The Doctor, now angry as a swarm of killer bees decides that he is going to change history and prevent The Eminence from ever happening. In Masterplan, The Doctor tries this and fails. The Doctor and The Master get locked together in a doomed spaceship. They trade insults. The Master escapes with an idea for a new plan to accomplish his goals. In Rule of the Eminence, it seems that The Master has won. A desperate Doctor desperately tries to undermine him.
The whole set has a greater coherence than Dark Eyes 2. There are still some problems with it. First, I must say it again that The Eminence is one of the most boring villains devised for Doctor Who. This is why The Master must be here. If it were just The Doctor vs. The Eminence, there would not be much story. Alex Macqueen is a great Master. He has a kind of campy effervescence that makes people think "I really dislike this guy, but I can't say why." Paul McGann is great as usual. Nicola Walker is outstanding, a great study in how a little goes a long way in acting. This really comes through in Masterplan, where we get the argument between The Doctor and The Master that seems to come down to two children arguing on the playground. There is much psychologizing. Meanwhile, Dr. Sally Armstrong is revealed as also childish, constantly seeking approval. Liv comes across as the adult, a person who has reconciled herself to the facts of the universe and that those facts are not always nice. The Rule of Eminence should get demerits for plagiarizing, with a heavy combination of the Master's plot for dominating humanity in both Last of the Timelords and The End of Time. The Doctor's working behind the scenes is also reminiscent of The End of Time. In the whole, for reasons we find out in the bonus disc, Molly O'Sullivan does not get much to do, and we get her sent off with a "you can never see her again" ending that's just a bit like Donna's ending, though Molly gets to keep her memories.
So, some good acting all around, good sound and production. The story is a little flat and has that deja vu just a little too often.
The final set in the War Doctor series takes the ideas for the series to about as far as they can go. The Time War really is a limited domain as far as the kinds of stories that could be told. In this last set, we get the return of an old friend and the Doctor who doesn't want to be the Doctor almost gets what he wants. Things start where they left off with set 3 in "Pretty Lies." The Doctor and Ollistra are now stranded fugitives hunted by the Daleks. The title refers to the war correspondent, which is logical to bring in if one is telling war stories. This is also the desperate last stand of the small town against the massively armed invaders story. Many things go bang and many lies are told. "The Lady of Obsidian" turns out to be Leela, but a Leela who is a casualty of the Time War, who is both dead and alive thanks to a malfunctioning time weapon, and so has all the memories of all her possible lives, leaving her without any way to determine which are true. She has now become leader of rebel band fighting the Daleks, but the Time War has created a new enemy, those who are merely possible lives, escaping into this universe to take out their vengeance on the living. Many things go bang. In "The Enigma Dimension," the Doctor, Ollistra, and Leela return to Gallifrey. The Daleks perfect a weapon that rewrites history, replacing the Time Lords with Daleks. Is the Time War truly over? Have the Daleks actually won? Fewer things go bang.
The series works hard on developing the Doctor - Ollistra relationship, which John Hurt and Jacqueline Pearce play to the utmost. They make a great double-act. Louise Jameson is excellent at bringing out Leela's torment.
There are some problems in the storytelling. For instance, the big showdown between The Doctor and the Dalek Time Strategist, which has been building for three series, doesn't really happen. It's a bit of an anticlimax. There is a problem with conveying just how otherworldly the otherworldly dimension is. It really isn't all that otherworldly. Given the types of stories on offer, there is a certain predictability.
Nevertheless, we have some great acting, some truly intriguing ideas, and some rounding off of the Time War saga.
| What: | Shada (BBC prestige novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 20 August 2017 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
Gareth Roberts really loves the Williams/Adams period of Doctor Who, perhaps more than just about anyone on the planet. He tries very, very hard to attain the same flavor of that period in his novelization of the unproduced (in its originally intended form) season-ending epic from Douglas Adams. The 1992 VHS fix-up of Shada and the Big Finish cd audio substituting Paul McGann for Tom Baker both stay very faithful to the original shooting script. This was problematic because, as Roberts points out in his afterword, Adams had rushed the script after holding out in a lost battle for a different story he had in mind, and Adams was quite dissatisfied with the script he turned over to be filmed. With access to production notes and a shooting script incorporating last-minute changes to Shada, Roberts set out to write the story as he thought Adams might have liked it to go. This meant changing several scenes, beefing up the character of Clare Keightly, adding a few scenes of his own, and straightening out some of the script logic. The resulting novel is more satisfactory than a straight Terrance Dicks' style novelization of the script would have been, and probably more satisfactory than a finished episode of Shada would have been. Because Roberts is so in love with this period of Doctor Who, the dialogue of the novel would easily have fit the episode. There are no lines where the reader would think, "Hey, Doctor 4 would never say that." He softens Romana's character a little, making her just a little more fond of The Doctor than what we saw on TV. He throws in numerous in-jokes and references for fans, changes the character of Skagra's ship quite extensively, but keeps the sensation that everyone barring the villain responds to stress with light sarcasm. Indeed, very often in the Williams/Adams era what made the villain a villain was his/her total lack of a sense of humor more than that character's evil intentions. Roberts has kept this and worked it hard, constantly reminding the reader of how humorless and unaware of his own ridiculousness Skagra is.
For all the virtues of Roberts' version, the same sources of the virtues are the sources of the flaws. The scenes are often played too jokey, and some scenes are there purely to deliver the joke after a long delay. If the audience is not meant to take the villain seriously, then it becomes very hard to believe that The Doctor and Romana are taking him seriously, or to think that he was ever any real threat at all. Thus, many parts of the novel that should be intense and suspenseful lose that aspect in favor of a few punchlines. Those who love the Williams/Adams approach to Doctor Who will undoubtedly love this novel. Others who come to Doctor Who without introduction to that period, or who were always dubious of the value of the Williams/Adams approach will likely find this novel to be an excellent homage to that period, but less-than-satisfactory because of it.
| What: | Series 10: Part 1 (BBC new series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Sunday 6 August 2017 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
Its so sad that this is Peter Capaldi's swansong season as the Doctor. To me he has totally reinvigorated the show. The stories during his era for me on the whole have been far more enjoyable and far more brilliant. Matt Smith suffered from some of the most uneven writing in the universe during his era, but on the whole Peter has had a far far more memorable time as the Doctor, and story wise a far more successful one. He is incredibly assisted by the wonderful and funny Matt Lucas as the lovable android Nardole and the wonderful Pearl Mackie who made an instant hit with me with new companion Bill Potts. They all come together and make a far far more likeable Doctor/companion brew than some of the other more dubious additions to new Who since it was revived back in 2005. And so what exactly goes on in his finale season: well, for a start his best season of all for a start!
The Pilot opens the new series and feels very fresh and the show feels truly invigorated and Pearl makes a very impressive debut. Her character is at once likeable and not annoying in the slightest, a role she manages to inject with so many aspects from the word go. She's feisty, and the story here in parts is pretty creepy and is one of Steven Moffatt's better stories. She immediately connects with Peter and Matt that already just within this episode they feel like a proper team. Heather is an interesting creation too and the Movellan cameo is welcome indeed from this nostalgic fan.
Smile then has the Doctor and Bill get to really know each other. Most of this episode is just with these two and the mystery of about the best robots to have been on the show for a long time. Frank Cottrell Boyce again does a great episode and this story has its really good scares and despite their slightly comical look somehow the robot interfaces manage to be creepy at the same time The story has very good pacing and is a really really great story and Pearl just gets better and better.
Thin Ice was highly enthralling and the Doctor's treatment of a certain lack wit in this story are absolutely winning. I loved what he does to the racist moron and the story itself too is very diverting and well plotted and both the Doctor and Bill continue to win me over and go so well together. This series so far is just going from strength to strength I really like the design of the huge fish in the Thames too. She looks mean and impressive.
Knock Knock has a dream come true in the form f guest star David Suchet who was an incomparable Hercule Poirot for so many years I always wished he had been in a Doctor Who story and now that he has he did not disappoint whatsoever in fact his character of the Landlord was one of the creepiest in the whole news series so far. And Knock Knock is a great debut script for the show from Mike Bartlett, and his story is a great good old fashioned creep fest that really delivers and kept this fan well and truly hooked indeed.
Oxygen was very bold and about one of the best Doctor Who stories I have seen set in the deep vast well of space. The zombies in this episode look truly disgusting and nasty. And the story itself is electrically charged so that so far the series has had no dull moment whatsoever. And the shock reveal at the climax of the show was totally unexpected and Peter Capaldi plays the Doctor to absolute perfection yet again. This episode is tense, claustrophobic like the best classic series episodes of old.
For me in the whole series ten Extremis is the only boring and convoluted episode of the run. It just suffers from being boring, and aside from the introduction of the weird looking and unsettling Monks it has nothing that attracts me as a story. It also has yet another Missy apparently killed and then come back to life again thing and this is a bit boring and old now as every time she's been in a story she's had this so far. Gladly to say though that the other two parts to the Monk trilogy are far far better written. But Extremis is just very excruciatingly protracted and dull even in just 45 or so minutes. But this is only one little snag in a series that otherwise just gets even stronger after this first part of the Trilogy.....
The first half of the season is amazing overall and Peter shines as my favourite new series Doctor by far....A superb return of the greatest time traveller there has ever been.
| What: | I.D. (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 9 July 2017 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
I.D. makes up 3 parts, with a 1-part story, Urgent Calls, added on. I.D. is post-apocalyptic, quasi-cyberpunk story in which various factions go searching through the wreckage of high-tech cities for salvageable technology. It turns out that a scientist of dubious morality left his personality and research on mind alteration in some of the wreckage. This turns up and starts converting robots into killers and then people into killer robots. This has Doctor 6 has agent, which works rather well because he doesn't have to waste his time trying to rescue someone special. The 1 parter is perhaps better. It again involves rogue technology, in this case a manufactured alien virus transmitted by telephone. It is told entirely in the form of telephone calls between one young woman in 1974 and the Doctor, with one exception at the very end. This is good use of the sound medium to tell a story.
| What: | The Widow's Assassin (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 19 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
The Doctor finally gets the urge to check up on Peri now that he has lost Flip. Peri, though, is not quite so thrilled at seeing the Doctor again, and immediately has him locked up. Thus begins a convoluted and comical story of royalty and assassination, bluff and double bluff, and mind control. This is typical Nev Fountain (Omega, The Kingmaker), poking holes in narrative conventions for humorous effect and playing around with one's sense of who is who. The aliens get those annoying sounds from The Daleks' Masterplan. If you like silly voices, you will love The Widow's Assassin. It is quite amusing and works well for the first three parts. The story reaches a logical conclusion by Part Three, but has one more part to go. This one gives us one plot twist too many and extends the story mostly because it needed extending. If it had remained three parts, the score from me would have been higher.
| What: | The Drosten's Curse (BBC prestige novels) |
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| By: | Trevor Smith, Nottingham, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Friday 16 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
I really struggled with this. I've never read any of Kennedy's novels so I didn't know what to expect other than she's a well respected writer. I found her writing style very repetitive and dull. I didn't care for any of the characters and the story is to fantasy for my tastes. On the plus side I thought the description of Tom Baker's Doctor is spot on. She must be a fan as she gets his nuances and personality spot on. Not for me I'm afraid.
While I can't pretend the Shalka is a favourite, I do have a bit of a soft spot for it. It is at the very least, interesting and this really well written, well researched book, really adds to the interest.
This book covers all aspects of Shalka. What it was, what it was meant to be, what it turned out to be and, most interestingly, what it could have been had it not been strangled at birth by RTD's rebirth of the series in 2005.
Most interestingly, it contains 'Blood of the Robots' the complete story that should had been the follow up to Scream.
An excellent book.
| What: | The Brood of Erys (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 12 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
Generally, I like Andrew Smith's dramas. I didn't much like this one, though. The story seems to be a variation on the New Who TV story "The Doctor's Wife." This involves a living planet that can talk, take over minds, cause hallucinations, and so forth. This time, the planet is parent to a bunch of spoiled, uncontolled "children" who just love playing mind tricks for fun and who desperately want to go out on their own because, well, you know, adolescents and all that. The story has all the problems that go with relying on mental superpowers. If something has these superpowers and can create whatever it wants real or imaginary just by thinking about it, then there is no way of stopping it from doing whatever it wants. The writer is stuck with little cheats so that the hero can overcome the monster. And what differentiates mental superpowers from magic? At the end of the story, characters do very stupid things, mostly so that we can have a good parent/ bad parent dichotomy, ended with a long conversation on how to be a good parent. It just does not grab my fancy.
| What: | The English Way of Death (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 12 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
The English Way of Death follows the joking, send-up style of the 1979 Doctor Who to a fault. Basically, a pastiche of 1930s society novels, this one has The Doctor, Romana, and K9 fighting a living, green cloud that smells like rotting vegetables that wants to destroy the Earth just because it can, and goes to enormous lengths to accomplish it, mostly by creating zombies. Joining our crew are a writer of mediocre detective novels looking for "artsy" types to boost her social life, a bunch of time traveller illegal aliens - humans who have decided to settle in 1930s Britain for a quiet life - led by a milquetoast who thinks he's the life of the party, an Italian countess turned master criminal, a self-important scientist, and a stuffy colonial ex-officer. They run through their various character clichés, so that the reader can take none of the characters seriously. Roberts does have a way of writing for Doctor 4 and Romana II that avoids the habit of overly emphasizing their eccentricities. These characters talk and act as they would have in the TV series.
| What: | Voyage to Venus (Jago and Litefoot audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 6 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
Doctor 6 takes off on an exciting adventure with Jago and Litefoot, arriving on Venus in the far future and tangling with the haughty Queen of Venus. The whole thing is intended as a throwback to Victorian and Edwardian science fiction, with hints of Wells, Verne, Burroughs, and others thrown in. The Jago and Litefoot team work well with Doctor 6. The story has a bit of an environmental message, but not too heavy that it drags down the action. It's enjoyable, but not mind taxing.
| What: | The Fifth Doctor Box Set: (Fifth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 5 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
The Fifth Doctor Box set contains two adventures featuring Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan. This set includes the first performances of Matthew Waterhouse as Adric in a dramatic format since 1983. Big Finish has gone all out to get the feel of Doctor Who 1981 in the stories, production, and soundtrack music. Indeed, this soundtrack music will leave you swearing that Peter Howell had returned. The stories are provided by Big Finish regular writers Jonathan Morris and John Dorney. Morris is up first with "Psychodrome," a kind of combination of Eric Saward and Christopher H. Bidmead. The Bidmead influence comes in the way the story plays with reality, while the Saward influence comes with the way characters are violently dispatched one by one. The story itself involves the TARDIS crew landing in a strange, large structure that gradually develops people and different realms, something like a video game. The story has a nice psychological twist to it. Dorney's "Iterations of I" is equally a concept piece, a haunted house tale where the ghost turns out to be a living number. The ending is a bit "by the numbers" [no pun intended, well almost] for a Doctor Who ending, so disappoints there. Both stories have plenty of snappy dialogue, though "Iterations" has some long spells of the Doctor delivering exposition. Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding are fully comfortable in the audio drama environment. Matthew Waterhouse is a little less so, trying a bit too hard to sound young, which gets in the way of some of the emotional delivery of the lines. Nevertheless, the stories work well in exploring some of interactions between characters that were not explored in the TV series. This is a very entertaining pair of stories well worth getting.
| What: | Endgame (BBC Eighth Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Austin Samuel Archer, Ottumwa, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 1 June 2017 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Endgame is a fantastic book. It keeps your interest and keeps you guessing the howl time. The only down side is the large number of: Spelling, Grammatical, and use of the wrong name/spelling. In 243 pages there are over 50 errors.
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 | Interesting Time Paradox Plot |
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| What: | The Paradox Planet (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 31 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
"The Paradox Planet" is the first half of a story finished in the next "episode." It's a cracker of a setup story. The basic idea is of a war between worlds, but rather than different worlds, it is the same world in different time periods. The warriors of the future, when the planet is a burnt-out wasteland from over-use of fossil fuels and lack of environmental care, travel 1000 years into the past to the era they believe caused all their environmental catastrophe. Descendants at war with their ancestors is a superb idea. Mistrust, blame, and misunderstanding abound, with plenty of people doing the wrong things for the right reasons. The story provides a good pretext for splitting The Doctor and Romana, giving her quite a bit to do on her own. Romana comes across very strong here, a bit arrogant and very clever. Jonathan Morris has also created a very plausible role for K-9. There are a few clichés and short-cuts that mar the story a little, but overall this is a quite enjoyable time romp with a message that never becomes overbearing at the expense of the story.
| What: | Illegal Alien (BBC Past Doctor novels) |
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| By: | Trevor Smith, Nottingham, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
Despite some pretty poorly written characters and a slow start, this is a pretty good, enjoyable book. The seventh Doctor and Ace are well written. Throw in nazis, cybermen and Second World War Britain and you have a fun read.
| What: | The Silent Scream (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Tuesday 30 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
What I love about Big Finish is they always get the tone of a season right when they place new stories within it.
The Silent Scream truly feels like a season 18 story indeed. Tom Baker is as ever reliably mesmerising as the Doctor. I love how he stops the deviant freak in this excellently produced story. Lalla Ward is always brilliant as the more aloof Romana and its great to see and hear that she is not beyond falling into traps herself. Many times in her seasons she was so up herself at times, but lovably so.
Pamela Salem also makes a great return to the Doctor Who world proper, she's amazing in Counter Measures and its always a pleasure to hear from her whenever she appears in the show, be it in TV or the radio. Big Finish always know how to pick a cast.
This really does feel like authentic 1920's Hollywood. The air of American oozes from the script which is faultless and highly engaging. This is probably my favourite story by James Goss so far. He's always an intelligent and original writer and he always somehow weaves some great light touches of humour to an otherwise very dark and grim story.
The last season of Tom's on TV seems to be overlooked and labelled weak although I do not agree. It was packed full of highly imaginative yarns with an increasing reliability on real science and not just fantasy. And the Silent Scream is the perfect mix of action, humour, horror and very good pacing so one is hooked all the way through.
So far season six of the Fourth Doctor adventures continues Tom's epic return to the role of the amazing and brilliant Fourth Doctor! And its wonderful that K9 too is used well and not just busted or blown up like season eighteen and seventeen seemed to do quite a lot with him. He is a great character and John Leeson is always superb as the robot dog.. It is little wonder he is so fondly remembered.
The Silent Scream comes very highly recommened. Its a great slice of "period history with sci fi twist" indeed. I wasn't disappointed by this story.
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| Nostalgic, But Too Simple |
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| What: | The Sontarans (The Early Adventures audio dramas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 24 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
Simon Guerrier has written a story in the tradition of the Doctor 1 series in a way, but with bigger effects. Slotted between episodes 7 & 8 of The Daleks' Masterplan, this story finds Doctor 1, Steven, and Sara arriving on a curious asteroid a few decades before Sara's time, but close enough for cultural reference. They soon find themselves attached to a military squad on a suicide mission to take out a cannon operated by The Sontarans. The Doctor knows nothing about Sontarans, but Steven knows about them in a general way and Sara knows about the success of this particular mission. The story itself is made up mostly of battle sequences, running away, getting captured, getting tortured, and inspiring the local populace to rise up against the Sontaran occupation. Peter Purves does a pretty good Doctor 1 imitation. The story is just fairly basic and not terribly inspiring.
| What: | The Eternal Battle (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Monday 22 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
This is a very good story indeed. Mark and Cavan have woven a tale with some very good and forceful moral food for thought. And everyone's favourite potato heads are back and mean as ever. But here is yet another Big Finish story that explores new angles with the inhabitants of Sontar. The sound design and directing in this story are first class and really give this war story the bite and gravitas it truly deserves.
Tom Baker is again on sterling form as the Doctor, and gets to be his moral best when trying to save the day yet again from a mad computer. In fact this story actually does make you feel more than just loathing for the war clones for once. As even they are faced with a situation that no sontaran would call an honour to face. Its really really strong writing and Dan Starkey does his magic again as the Sontaran leader. He is such a great sontaran, and able to make these sontarans the classic warrior clones and not just the lovable stupid wally Strax from the new series!
Lalla Ward again is effortlessly brilliant as Romana too. And John Leeson again doesn't get given the worst of the story as he isn't damaged like season eighteen TV stories did with him far too often. Its great to hear the season eighteen team back and appearing in such great new stories.
Nick Briggs is to be commended as ever too for his amazing direction, he always knows how to get the best from all the actors involved. And its great yet again to hear Jane Slavin again in a story. I am so looking forward to when she becomes the Fourth Doctor's companion in 2019!
The Eternal Battle is in turns scary, bleak and overall extremely satisfying as a war story with a very good moral undertone that doesn't come over as too over the top but will make you stop and think at the total uselessness of war and its effects on people. Cavan and Mark deserve top points for this very very strong Doctor Who adventure. Thanks for writing this guys, its a winner!
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| Another Jago and Litefoot hit!!!!!!!!!!! |
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| What: | The Beast of Kravenos (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Monday 22 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
Justin Richards may not be the worlds greatest writer in the universe, but what he does is always solid and reliably enjoyable, and The Beast of Kravenos is no exception at all.
I was waiting for the day we'd get stories set in Tom's final season from Big Finish and here at last is the beginning of a whole series of stories set in that era of season eighteen brilliant series! To hear the Peter Howell arrangement with Tom again is magic for a die hard Whovian like me.
Tom is excellent yet again in this story, and he gets to be at turns delightfully playful and a tiny bit devious so much as to annoy Romana a little bit, who is as ever, perfectly played by Lalla Ward who never seems to age in the slightest. And its great to have K9 in a story without him being disabled for once.
But the real selling point for the Beast of Kravenos is yet again the wonderful return of those gentlemen Victoriana Jago and Litefoot. Trevor Baxter and Chris Benjamin are always and ever scene stealers as the brilliant characters created by the late great Robert Holmes. They dominate the scenes they are in and make every single story sparkle. Its hard to believe that both men are still so keen about characters created over fourty years ago now. But its wonderful and magical and The Beast of Kravenos is all the stronger for it.
This is a wonderful beginning to the sixth run of Tom Baker fourth Doctor adventures, and it only gets better and better from here on in too. This is a real love letter to the late eighties and a thorough pleasure from beginning to end. There is liberal and charming humour and some great scares too. Ed Stoppard too impresses as the misguided villain of the piece.
There is nothing not to love about the Beast of Kravenos. Its pure classic eighties Who at its best!
| What: | Underworld (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Jared Harr, St. Marys, United States |
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| Date: | Saturday 20 May 2017 |
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| Rating: | 1 |
The story itself is rubbish, and they rely on the blue screen too much. It's 90 minutes of walking around poorly computer animated caves. Absolute rubbish, that one is.
