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 | Big Screen was Big Mistake |
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| What: | Dalek Movie box set (Miscellaneous TV spin-offs) |
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| By: | Marty Dallas, Franklin, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 11 December 2014 |
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| Rating: |   3 |
If you are a fan of classic Dr. Who television but have yet to see the 2 feature films be advised it is nothing like what you are used to, It feels (because it is) like just another movie adaption that gets it all wrong. Made by people that have no interest in Dr. Who. I LOVE Peter Cushing and all the Hammer Horror films he has played in but not these.
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| *BREAKING NEWS* another flight shot down |
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| What: | Time-Flight (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Marty Dallas, Franklin, United States |
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| Date: | Thursday 11 December 2014 |
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| Rating: | 3 |
Decided to go through all the stories lacking any type of review and/or opinions and give people a little info as what to expect on said story. So here goes........
First let me say I do not pick apart every second of the story like some that write a novel telling the enitre story ruining it for those yet to watch. I am more concerned with whether the story is fun viewing without the spoilers.
I am not a huge fan of the 5th Doctor and even less for the 6th and 7th. It is mostly due in part to JNT's dismantling the whole premise of Doctor Who turning the show into awful pantomime. Time Flight is just plain Turable! The acting is atrocious and the sets/effects even worse. The outdoor scenes where the cast is just standing in place against what is the worst background I have EVER seen. If you do get the DVD listen to the commentary. It is soooooo funny to hear the cast make fun of it themselves.. In fact some of the worst Dr. Who makes for the best viewing when commentary is on. It is for that reason I give it a 3/10.
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| The Last Great Horror Film |
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| What: | Last of the Colophon (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 11 December 2014 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
You're always sure to get a brilliant story from Jonny Morris. He has such great, bold characters! And the fact that this is truly in the vein of a Phil Hinchcliffe/ Bob Holmes horror take show, then you're sure to be onto a winner. Its also great to hear Gareth Thomas as a real nasty piece of work, in the form of Morax he's really nasty just like the best of villains from the early Tom Baker years on tv. And yet again, this take on the classic universal film The Invisible Man works really well indeed. This could have fitted seamlessly into the original series! Another great addition is hearin Jessica Martin again, I Loved her first appearance on the show in Sylvester's time and am glad to see her name again!
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| Great Concept, Poor Quality |
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| What: | Doctor Who Mad Libs (Miscellaneous activity books) |
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| By: | Andy Roberts, Melbourne, Australia |
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| Date: | Tuesday 9 December 2014 |
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| Rating: | 4 |
Positive: Great Concept for an activity book aimed at the fan who likes word play.
Negative: BUT, very cheaply put together using poor quality material.
Overall, I was not impressed with the quality and certainly would not buy it as a present for anyone
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| Essential must watch for ANY Whovian |
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| What: | The Talons of Weng-Chiang (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Marty Dallas, Franklin, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 9 December 2014 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
This is not just a good 4th doctor story. Talons of Weng-Chiang is one of the greatest Dr. Who ever produced. The last remnants of the Hinchcliffe era delivers everything we all love about Doctor Who. This story introduces the Jago & Litefoot characters that now have their own audio adventures. As this is not a formal review I don't give away spoilers because if you haven't seen this before then most likely you are a new fan. Most long time fans should have watched "Talons" many a moon ago. HIGHLY RECOMMEND
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| Monkey See then Monkey........Review! |
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| What: | The Horns of Nimon (BBC classic series videos) |
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| By: | Marty Dallas, Franklin, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 9 December 2014 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
I have never quite grasped as to why "The Horns of Nimon" is so hated that it shows up at the bottom of almost every list. The only conclusion I can come up with is that it has become so engrained into classic Dr. Who that season seventeen minus "City of Death" is the most atrocious season ever produced. With "Nimon" automatically put at the top of the list. I am by no means claiming that "Nimon" is a classic but I can think of several stories that are far worse.. The Web Planet? The Gunslingers? Most all of C. Baker and McCoy stories(not the actors themselves) are completely unwatchable to me. So being honest to those that have NOT yet had the chance to watch "Nimon" ,it isn't as bad as it is made out to be and if you want to watch all the Tom Baker stories I wouldn't get in any hurry for this or 'The Sunmakers". Depending on taste you may even find it to be a fun watch.
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| Epic Finale for The 2nd Doctor |
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| What: | The War Games (BBC classic series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Marty Dallas, Franklin, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 1 December 2014 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
The War Games is hands down the best finale of all the doctors. A 10 part epic that when first aired could have been the series finale as well. Patrick Troughton to often gets overlooked due largely to the great number of still missing episodes. Resulting in younger whocomers not getting the full package and with the ridiculous $400 secondary market price tag(which I honestly find it surreal that ANYBODY would pay that much in the era of torrents) will continue to take a pass. Something I normally wouldn't endorse but in this case I make exception when I suggest any fan of Doctor Who old and/or new that has not watched "The War Games" to find it and burn it. Avoid this temp price gouge as at some point it will make it to blu-ray with a normal price. I am not the type to re-word a description calling it a review. That can be found anywhere. I am here to say The War Games is near the top of all time classic Doctor Who and you won't be let down.
There are two words I find to be utterly lazy when writing a review: Under/Over rated. When the verdict comes in and the people speak its guilty or not guilty,like or dislike or love/hate. When I read a review that carries on about how season 13 is overrated. its a good bet I won't be reading(or take seriously) anything else by that person.
There is a very good reason why season 13 is just one shy of a perfect game. Philip Hinchcliffe!! Before all the stupid hoopla that ruined Doctor Who forcing Hinchcliffe out, be had hit the nail on the head creating some of the best Who ever. Guess what??!! This boxset extends season 13 by two more stories. The whole cast does a wonderful job and I found myself totally immersed with a giddy feeling as it took me right back to 75-76 when Tom and gang were hitting the summit of Doctor Who. No spoilers as I will leave everything a surprise except that I highly suggest Hinchcliffe presents make its way to your ears. You won't be disappointed.
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| Best New series season in a long time |
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| What: | The Complete Eighth Series (BBC new series DVDs/Blu-rays) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Monday 24 November 2014 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
What a brilliant entry Peter Capaldi makes as the new, shades of William Hartnell/Jon Pertwee role. He is superb, and he's already giving David Tennant a serious run for his money. And not only that, but Jenna is perfect as Clara. I love the character's interaction with the new, different Doctor. And what is even better is the fact that this season, at least for me, is the strongest since series 4. Only three of the episodes are below par for me, those being Listen, The Caretaker and Deep Breath. But the rest of the series boasted some brilliant ideas, I especially liked the whole mini Tardis scenario in Flatline, which made for some very amusing and original scenes. I think my favourite scene of the whole season is when the Doc knocks the TARDIS off the railway line! Seriously cool. Robot of Sherwood also has the Doctor in fun mode, a mode it seems to have lacked for a long time. Its a bit reminiscent of The Time Warrior with its great humour and great action. Time Heist boasts a very very good scenario, and also pleased this whovian in returning to the brilliantly tried and tested corridors adventure! And yet did it in a fresh, and disturbing way (that staved in head: frankly yuck!) Mummy on the Orient Express was pure class, and really seemed to echo the small confined outlet of humans under siege from a nasty threat. Which is great again. Kill The Moon was original and fresh and darker in tone. Wow, Peter really grabs thee attention. And for once, I think Steven Moffatt presents his best series finale of all, and Michelle Gomez has to be applauded for her brilliant take on a classically malevolent character! There was some great, terrific touches, great emotional depth, and great action. Flying cybermen is particularly cool in the extreme! 3 quarters of the series is brilliant, and that includes In The Forest of The Night, which is actually visually pretty stunning, and add the wolves and tiger makes a vividly colourful episode that I call really good! So, overall brilliant stuff of the highest order. An excellent return to form after several misfires....
| What: | The English Way of Death (Missing Adventures novels) |
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| By: | Trevor Smith, Nottingham, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Thursday 6 November 2014 |
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| Rating: | 9 |
If you've read any of Gareth Roberts splendid 4th Doctor, Romana and K9'novels you no what to expect with this novel.
Splendidly written, great characters, wonderful funny plot and the TARDIS crew written so well and with so much obvious love.
Another wonderful addition to the Gareth Roberts cannon.
| What: | The Book of Kells (Eighth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 29 October 2014 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
The Book of Kells worked surprisingly well. It starts like a creaky old historical, but as it goes along it gets funnier and more interesting. The last ten minutes are very interesting indeed, when we find out that an old foe is back, and perhaps that a new foe is lurking. Both the big guest stars, Graeme Garden and Jim Carter, are very good.
| What: | Nevermore (Eighth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Wednesday 29 October 2014 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
Alan Barnes reveals his background in comic books on this attempted update of Poe. It is a very comic booky idea to have a prison for one person on a planet surrounded by the red death, a prison run by an obsessed neurotic. It just really does not make much sense. How would giant robot ravens be in any way a sophisticated guard system? These would be ungainly, clunking, and pretty much useless as robots. Since when does a judge or other public official have the capital and authority to create an elaborate prison? On and on we go. The whole thing seems designed merely to get heaps of Poe into Doctor Who without actually having Poe, though even then we do get him a bit in flashback. On the bright side, Tamsin seems to be working out, as a very traditional sort of traveling companion.
| What: | The Light at the End (Miscellaneous audio dramas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 19 October 2014 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
In "The Light at the End" Nick Briggs takes on his own "Day of the Doctor" with eight Doctors involved. Now that is some task, with potential overwhelming complications. For the first three Doctors, voice actors imitate them and then they get the spectral treatment, so that one does not hear the differences overly much. Even then, they have a key role to play in the plot. For the rest, we get Doctors 4,5,6,7 and 8, in equal measure, each with one key companion. Of course, with so many leads, none of them gets significant time, but each still manages a key role in the plot. This time, the Master is out to wipe the Doctor from history, and only the Doctor can save himself. And, as usual, with all this Doctor meets himself stuff, once the damage is undone, it is as though it had never happened. Briggs does very well in limiting the amount of Doctor squabbling, opting instead for moving along the plot. It is a very tall order for a writer, and one must give kudos to Briggs for managing the job with some grace and only a few minor stumbles.
| What: | Night of the Stormcrow (Big Finish subscriber bonuses) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 19 October 2014 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
When all is said and done, Night of the Stormcrow just does not make much sense. We get an ordinary scientist who is perfectly willing to have people die just so she can keep a discovery to herself. The American observatory manager is pointlessly greedy. And so on. The stormcrow itself is kind of a strange idea. I just really was not getting much into this.
Here we have two scripts stretching all the way to 1964 and the first TARDIS crew. Sadly, that crew is at only half strength. So, rather than have new actors step in to take the old roles, Big Finish chose to have these scripts done like the Companion Chronicles series, as though these are stories being read rather than full dramatic performances. One ought, therefore, to approach these as audio books rather than as audio dramas. The stories themselves are both from the same writer written within months of each other. The scripts share some commonalities discussed a little bit later. Farewell, Great Macedon is a six-part historical centering on Alexander the Great. Though the CD extras segments emphasize the historical accuracy of the story, this is not truly the case. All the events in the story did happen, more or less, and there is much speculation that Alexander may have been poisoned. However, these events in history happened months apart and hundreds of miles from each other. For the sake of drama and TV budgets, therefore, some condensing had to take place, so that the events here happen only days apart and within the space of a couple of square miles. Alexander here is a touch more modern than probably the real Alexander was, and certainly is less brutal and hot-headed. However, the script is no more inaccurate than any other Doctor Who historical. The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, in contrast, is as peculiar as its title suggests. Fragrance is a paradise planet on which everyone who reaches maturity must be coupled with an opposite-sex counterpart or die in an actual form of sailing off into the burning sunset. Our TARDIS crew enters this world unaware of its peculiar social systems, and so Barbara unwittingly causes death and distress to the host family. It is a nice reminder that travel in the TARDIS will necessarily involve making howling cultural blunders that could have real and dire consequences. What joins the two stories is their elegiac nature. Both stories are about long goodbyes. Confronting the deaths of loved ones is a persistent theme here. In both cases, Morris Farhi has chosen to write about the matter in a Shakespearean fashion, with death drawn out by eloquent speeches that give shape to grief. I suspect that this is why Farewell, Great Macedon was not picked up for production. It has all the elements of Doctor Who historicals, with dramatic tension, recognized bad guys, and a fight scene or two. However, it and Fragile strike long, pealing notes of the death bell almost from beginning to end. The funereal atmosphere hanging over the whole script may have been deemed as too emotional for the TV audience of the time. Still, in drama, in what other way is there to have us reflect on the losses we must all go through than to give characters the oratory power to express what in ordinary life is mostly inexpressible?
| What: | The Renaissance Man (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 7 October 2014 |
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| Rating: | 8 |
The Renaissance Man has the Doctor 4 - Leela team working very well together. The premise that the Doctor is educating Leela works in moving stories from one destination to another. This story has an interesting premise, of a museum curator turned obsessive in his quest to collect all knowledge and ruthless with how he will do it. The premise allows us to go to wildly different settings and allows guest actors to show off their accent skills. The American west accents are a bit dodgy, but what should one expect? There are some problems in the concept, such as explaining just what the assistants are. They are described as empty people useful for fitting in and absorbing information, but they are also portrayed as machines. This conflict is never addressed. Likewise, the ending rather glibly has us assume that everyone is just returned to wherever and whatever they were before. This seems to be sweeping under the carpet rather than tying loose ends. All in all, The Renaissance Man is quite entertaining.
| What: | Nightdreamers (Telos novellas) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Monday 29 September 2014 |
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| Rating: | 5 |
This novella simply makes no sense. The author has tried to write a Doctor Who version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, but cannot get the mix of science fiction and fantasy right. It is a bit like some other DW novels set in worlds that operate according to peculiar logic, such as The Man in the Velvet Mask and Managra, but whereas those novels still have rules for their strange worlds, this one really does not.
| What: | Daleks Among Us (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 26 September 2014 |
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| Rating: | 7 |
At the end of the trilogy, much is happening and much is hanging. Here is poor Klein trying to figure out just who she is and discovering she is more of a time anomaly than she could possibly have thought. We get some Daleks again. We get Davros brought in just to add a complication. Of course, Davros thinks he can control the Daleks, and he can't. There is plenty of "Nazis and Daleks are very similar." It is a pacey story, with plenty of surprises.
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| Standard Army of Death Stuff |
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| What: | Army of Death (Big Finish: The Monthly Adventures) |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Friday 26 September 2014 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
With Mary Shelley, Big Finish want to do what the BBC have done with the Companions - make them fall in love with the Doctor. It has been explored and done already, so it really does not do much here. The story itself is pretty standard DW fare. A peaceful world isn't so peaceful. A madman has raised an army of skeletons so he can take over the world. It all goes King Kong at the end.
| What: | The Crooked Man (Fourth Doctor Adventures audios) |
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| By: | Matthew David Rabjohns, Bridgend, United Kingdom |
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| Date: | Monday 15 September 2014 |
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| Rating: | 10 |
I really liked the touch of feeling this story has, rare for a fourth Doctor tale.. and great to hear from the Land of Fiction once again! This is a splendid little character piece, with an unsettling villain at the centre of it. It is creepy and dark, but boasts great moments of intensity too. Everything a good Doctor Who should be. Its stories like this that reiterate why Doctor Who is such a great programme even to this day...
