The Big Finish Main Range: Top 50

In the past month, Big Finish have reduced their Doctor Who Main Range CD output by making every release from 51 – 100 available to download only. Once the CDs are gone, they’re gone! At only £6 each, many of them are an absolute steal!

The Main Range began in 1999 with The Sirens of Time and was followed in October by Phantasmagoria and in November with Whispers of Terror. From January, the CDs went monthly and a treasure box of unheard Doctor Who stories was tantalisingly opened. Like the TARDIS, the box is infinite, as those stories are seemingly never to end.

These days, Big Finish are a powerhouse of production with every single month offering a Main Range CD (sometimes two!), a Short Trip, a box set of some kind and either a Tom Baker release or an Early Adventure, amongst many other spin off releases and deluxe box sets. This November sees the release, for example, of The Tenth Doctor Adventures (Infamy of the Zaross, The Sword of the Chevalier and Cold Vengeance), The Middle, The Morton Legacy, The Ingenious Man Adric of Alzarius, and the 4-story boxset UNIT – Encounters. This is far more Doctor Who than is sensible – and could ever be produced for TV - but also an irresistible treat for the Big Finish addict.

It seems opportune, given the current focus on the Main Range (and the whittling down of the CD stock) to have a look back at its successes, of which there are a great many. It may even help newcomers to the audio world choose a few stories to begin their aural odyssey! I set out to do a Top 10 article, which became a Top 20 article, on the Main Range. Using my personal ratings spreadsheets (yeah, get me) I tried to decide which stories ought to be placed in such a list. The number of stories I’d awarded 10/10 ratings was unexpectedly enormous. These are stories I genuinely wouldn’t change a thing about and the list has grown to a Top 50! I’ve put them in something of an order, counting down from 50 before the reveal of my favourite Big Finish Main Range release. Enjoy!

50.       We Are the Daleks by Jonathan Morris

200 releases would have seemed like an impossible amount of Doctor Who in 1999, but in We Are the Daleks at 201, Big Finish prove that they can still innovate and are absolutely not resting on their laurels. Doing the Daleks at 201 feels a little strategic. As if Big Finish were expecting fans to think of 200 as a suitable point of departure after 15 years’ worth of releases. Given the consistent quality of their output, however, they really needn’t have worried. And if We Are the Daleks proves anything, it’s that there are still new stories to tell. Jonathan Morris is a master at scripting Doctor Who tales and it is a credit to him that no two scripts of his are the same. We Are the Daleks is not like any other Dalek story either and it uses them in a fun, avant-garde and thrilling way. 

49.       Castle of Fear by Alan Barnes

Not since the arrival of the Nimon in Seasons of Fear was I as surprised by a monster reveal as here in the similarly titled Castle of Fear. What is so brilliant about the revelation as to what is going on is that the story itself is so whimsical, funny and enjoyable that it doesn’t really need any big reveals. The idea of the Doctor and Nyssa going to see a Mummers play feels fairly outlandish whilst at the same time being just the sort of thing this English gentleman of a Doctor would enjoy. Comedy is a perfect fit for Davison’s hero, sadly missing from his TV era, and Susan Brown is absolutely astonishing.

48.       Faith Stealer by Graham Duff

I can't be the only one who thinks the Divergent arc was a bold but flawed misadventure, chiefly because the concept of a universe without time is simply impossible to imagine. But right in the middle of it all comes Faith Stealer by Graham Duff, writer of sitcom Ideal. He’s never written for the show again but on the strength of Faith Stealer, he’s a perfect fit. As you’d expect, the story is light and funny, which feels like a breath of fresh air within the morose Divergence epic, but also finds time for genuine scares and some philosophy. “He pulled a diamond out of my head,” says Bishop Parrash after losing his mind entirely. It’s a brilliantly creepy moment, brought into focus by the breezy fun it’s surrounded by.

47.       Red by Stewart Sheargold

 This is hard sci-fi. Red is very adult and philosophical, asking questions about the nature of violence and it could only have been told during the wilderness years when Doctor Who adventures were for fans of old. Like …ish, only more straightforwardly told, Red explores its theme to the ultimate limit and treads the difficult balancing act that is the Seventh Doctor’s persona somewhere between Seasons 24 and 25 with aplomb. It may be unspectacular, without pomp or ceremony, but Red has a very specific agenda which it sinks its teeth into and tackles furiously well.

46.    Minuet in Hell by Alan W Lear and Gary Russell

I don’t understand the hatred thrust in the direction of Minuet in Hell. It is long, admittedly but it’s also strikingly odd, strikingly new and strikingly bizarre. It includes a demon who sings, “Charlie is my darling, my darling, my darling!” It’s got a weird guitar soundtrack and some of the best sound design: Just what is going on in the Doctor’s head at the start of Part Two? The cliff-hanger ending of the first disc is a heart-stopper. Paul McGann was astonishing from the outset and this last story of his first season is a promise that there is so much more for him to give. As he bids adieu to the Brigadier (And Nick Courtney is brilliant!) he’s saying hello to the fans. In a story asking questions about who exactly the Doctor is, we are assured at the finish that Paul McGann is the Doctor. Here’s the proof.

45.       The Star Men by Andrew Smith

A recent hit for me, The Star Men is a story which feels like H. Christopher Bidmead is still on scripting duties in terms of its intriguing concepts and hard sci-fi but has the action-adventure varnish of a top-end Eric Saward finish. What’s not to love? The first episode is a mini-movie, an Earthshock style run-around with a scientific sprinkling. Then, we meet the intriguing Star Men themselves voiced by the utterly evil sounding Peter Guiness. The story never stands still and keeps morphing into new narrative threads. There’s a strong role for Adric and Peter Davison is, as ever, at the top of his game. The Star Men is rip-roaring, mind-bending fun.

44.       Gods and Monsters by Mike Maddox and Alan Barnes

This is the true culmination of the Hex story, despite the fact he managed another four stories as Hector (rather embarrassingly). The moment at the very climax, when Hex thinks of his mother, is abruptly moving and packs a huge emotional gut-punch. In much the same way, the pre-titles sequence is shocking and visceral. “Let the chains of Fenric shatter!” Indeed. What is so clever about Gods and Monsters is how it makes sense of a complicated story which has managed to continue way beyond its natural sell-by-date, and allows it to feel fresh, dynamic, unpredictable and poignant. 

43.       The Raincloud Man by Eddie Robson

When Eddie Robson burst onto the Big Finish scene, his voice was loud and very, very welcome. He hasn’t made many contributions to the Main Range, spending more time with the Eighth Doctor, but The Raincloud Man stands among his best offerings. It feels modern, the dialogue is zippy and the tale races by. Its changes in location ensure that the narrative can never stand still. At a time when the Main Range was perhaps struggling to find its way after Gary Russell left the company, Robson was proof that there were so many stories left to tell, in such new and exciting ways.

42.       Masters of Earth by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright

Like Project: Twilight by the same writers, the only agenda Masters of Earth has is to entertain. This story of a race across Scotland during the Dalek-occupied Earth is as tense and exciting as any Big Finish play whilst at the same time being straightforward and uncluttered. Its locale changes keep it fresh and the Doctor’s assertion that he cannot interfere with the outcome of the Dalek plan give the story an urgency and unpredictability. The arrival of another 60s villain at the mid-point is a terrific piece of engineering and gives the play another narrative threat to exploit. Scott and Wright feel like restless writers, always trying to jump ahead and get to the next exciting instalment. It’s what makes their plays so very entertaining.

41.       Robophobia by Nicholas Briggs

A Nick Briggs script and an absolute corker at that, Robophobia does that rare thing of almost equalling the story it’s a sequel to. When that story is The Robots of Death, this is no mean feat. The lasting image of a person surrounded by Voc Robots holding hands is the stuff of nightmares and Briggs acknowledges the paranoia this would induce amongst all his guest characters. He also introduces us to Liv Chenka whose life with the Doctor would go on to be much more complicated. Robophobia also manages to be a whodunnit in a way that The Robots of Death doesn’t and its crowning achievement is that the listener becomes one of the crew members: suspicious, frightened and in the end, robophobic.

40.       Legend of the Cybermen by Mike Maddox

This tale of the Land of Fiction is quite, quite surreal. Not everything about it works. There’s the odd cameo from Nick Briggs as himself, directing in the studio, which feels a little too much like patting oneself on the back, but it’s such a bold and imaginative piece. In no other story could you find a Cybernised Oliver Twist! The final moments of Part Four are heart-breaking and we feel the Doctor’s sorrow vividly. But it is Legend of the Cybermen’s willingness to experiment and throw caution to the wind, its utter chutzpah, that sets it above its peers. 

39.       A Thousand Tiny Wings by Andy Lane

Andy Lane’s sole contribution to the Main Range is a quiet tale, rather beautiful in its intricacy and delicateness. The all-female cast feels fresh, with rich and nuanced performances in abundance, and it’s a delight to have Klein back, one of the great successes of Big Finish’s early days. A Thousand Tiny Wings has a distinct sense of place and the atmosphere of the veldt pervades the play. It is as if the unknowableness of the environment is creeping ever closer to the little wooden hut which stands as the colonists’ only protection. The story builds slowly across its four episodes but never stops looking forward, layers of character unpeeling as we listen. A Thousand Tiny Wings is quietly wonderful.

38.       The Secret History by Eddie Robson

It seems rather perverse that to celebrate the Main Range, with their 200^th release, Big Finish give us a sequel to the Eighth Doctor adventures. It requires the listener to know a lot of narrative history beforehand and understand the subtleties of the Doctor’s audio relationship with the villain. But for those who have followed absolutely everything from the very beginning, A Secret History is richly rewarding. In fact, the very title gives us a clue as to what to expect, only the listening elite who know their history getting the fullest enjoyment from this complex and intriguing yarn. Aside from its sense of repaying the faithful, the story does an amazingly evocative job of recapturing the Hartnell years with Peter Davison in his shoes, much more so than the other stories in this trilogy managed to recapture their respective eras. As always, Davison is excellent, and special mentions must go to Peter Purves and Maureen O’Brien who manage to sound as if they’ve been beamed into the studio from the 60s. If A Secret History’s job is to reward the loyalist of listeners, it succeeds on every level.  

37.       The Shadow Heart by Jonathan Morris

Since the arrival of Steven Moffat at the Doctor Who helm, out-of-order stories have become something of the norm. But Jonathan Morris started the ball rolling: His novel Festival of Death was a Season 17 story with time travel. Flip-Flop was a never-to-be-repeated Big Finish release in which the two discs could be listened to in either order. The Shadow Heart is even cleverer, the story being experienced from two different perspectives in terms of chronology. It is also the end of a very successful, galaxy-spanning trilogy with a love story at its heart and Morris achieves that rare thing of an ending that truly rewards those who have stuck this epic out. It also features a giant, space-hopping snail.

36.       Heroes of Sontar by Alan Barnes

A caretaker friend of mine spoke to me before finishing Heroes of Sontar and said, “The Sontarans do seem very stupid in this.” What is great about this extremely well-structured script from Alan Barnes is that the stupidity of this particular bunch of clones is what the story is all about. Barnes writes such a taut tale but leaves plenty of room for laughs along the way. All told, Heroes of Sontar is hugely enjoyable and unusually for Barnes, rather linear and direct in its purpose. If you want an exciting, fun, action-packed Sontaran story from Big Finish, choose this one.

35.       The Fourth Wall by John Dorney

John Dorney’s first script for the Main Range is an absolute corker. It’s little wonder he is such a regular writer these days. Free from continuity references, The Fourth Wall entirely inhabits its own world and feels like a breath of fresh air amid the Davroses and Wirrn of this particular trilogy. Flip is characterised extremely well and to my mind is one of the unsung successes amongst Big Finish’s audio-only companions. Here, she is reckless and impulsive, making events happen. As well as being exciting, The Fourth Wall also makes for a great satire and one is left laughing not just at its sense of fun but at its modest cleverness.

34.       And You Will Obey Me by Alan Barnes

Alan Barnes cannot settle. Not one of his stories is scripted in a traditional way. From the dizzying bafflement of Zagreus to the two-time-zone The Girl Who Never Was, through the larking merriment of Castle of Fear, he is an unpredictable writer of the strongest calibre. And You Will Obey Me is a story which similarly never settles and is un-guessable as to its intent. Its third part – an 80s indie horror film set in a barn and a farmhouse with a few teenagers and their frightening, mutilated “Daddy” figure is as weird as Doctor Who gets and a million miles away from the wonderful opening scene in the auction house. There is so much going on here that it’s impossible to review in a paragraph. But it’s bloody brilliant and though its parts are many, And You Will Obey Me actually manages to be more than their sum.

33.       Live 34 by James Parsons and Andrew Stirling-Brown

There's found footage. There's a narrator. There isn't a theme tune. But this is not Sleep No More. Live 34 is a political thriller, unafraid to dip its toes into the worlds of torture and terrorism. The news broadcast conceit serves to heighten the reality of the planet which ends up feeling more alive, complicated and interesting than many other alien societies. The Doctor, Ace and Hex are guest stars in other people’s lives here. It’s the reality that is important. Not every story can be like Live 34 but this masterful tale is cherishable in its uniqueness.

32.       The Entropy Plague by Jonathan Morris

After Terminus, we didn’t really need another closure story for Nyssa, but here we have one. It was a great joy to hear Nyssa, Tegan and Turlough together again, but given the narrative circumstances, their travelling had to end. The Entropy Plague is unusual, every episode told from a different lead’s perspective. There is a sense of inevitability, much like that which pervaded Warriors’ Gate at the end of the original E-Space trilogy. In the end, The Entropy Plague is a truly moving play and those last few moments offer Sarah Sutton some of the best material she has ever had. 

31.       Patient Zero by Nicholas Briggs

When Nick Briggs and Alan Barnes adopted the Main Range, there was a brief period of instability as they reacted to what had come before, rules being set down perhaps arbitrarily (the 25-minute maximum episode plus deleted scenes was an odd one). Patient Zero feels like a mission statement. The concept feels fresh, the developments grand and for the first time it feels like Briggs and Barnes are doing what they want to do, free of any self-imposed shackles. Patient Zero rocks along, telling its own story and moving the Charley saga forward in a new and interesting way. This is where the Briggs and Barnes team comes of age.

30.       The Assassination Games by John Dorney

A friend of mine described The Assassination Games as “the real 50^th anniversary story.” Infinitely better and more mature than The Light at the End, much more nostalgic and yet, entirely its own thing, The Assassination Games leaves a stark impression. It’s not much like any other Doctor Who story; it’s more like an episode of the original House of Cards. But it’s confident in its slowness and intrigue. It builds skilfully to a gripping climax and it introduces the Counter-Measures group in a stylish, contemporaneous fashion, feeling like a real celebration of the 1960s spy-action thriller. John Dorney weaves his magic once again.

29.       The Burning Prince by John Dorney

This feels like the sort of story Eric Saward was always trying to write. It’s an action-packed thriller up there with Earthshock and Resurrection of the Daleks, but with a much stronger plot, and a much bigger heart. Part One alone is terrifically exciting and ends with the revelation that there’s more, much more, where that came from. It delivers on that promise. Peter Davison, companionless, is able to be the star of the show and he’s given great material here. With John Dorney’s name again on the cover though, it’s only to be expected. The Burning Prince is thrilling.

28.       Equilibrium by Matt Fitton

Matt Fitton is all over everything that Big Finish do at the minute. He gets the big moments. In fact, he got Dark Eyes 3 – The Doctor Vs The Master - all to himself! But in Equilibrium, he tells a smaller story, about one tiny, icy world in E-Space. It is quite special in its intricate, snowflake-like beauty. It’s not a showy story. Like its cover art, it’s about the cogs working together, the listener figuring out what’s going on at precisely the time Fitton wants us to. Annette Badland and Nickolas Grace give pitch-perfect, off-kilter performances and the musical score is bloody gorgeous. Equilibrium may not be Big Finish at their most showy but that’s not the agenda here. Fitton wants to tell a story a tight, beautiful tale which works thematically. Even the title fits. 

27.       Project: Lazarus by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright

At the time I found Project: Lazarus disappointing, promoted as it was: a multi-Doctor story. Sylvester doesn’t turn up ‘til the mid-point and even then he’s not even facing a real version of Colin. But as the DWM review noted at the time, what Project: Lazarus does so well is subvert expectation. When I’d stopped feeling short-changed about what the story wasn’t, I realised what it was: rollicking and visceral and emotionally vivid. The first two episodes in particular hurtle along at a fair lick, and end in a truly horrific and brutal fashion. The final episode ends on a downbeat note and is as strong a depiction of the Seventh Doctor’s melancholy as anything seen in the TV series.

26.       The Widow’s Assassin by Nev Fountain

Nev Fountain is certainly an off-beat Who writer. His Companion Chronicle Peri and the Piscon Paradox is an absolute joy, and features nothing less than Old Sixie dressed in his usual colourful cossie, as well as a giant, flappy fish outfit. Here, his imagination is similarly outlandish and just as much fun. The cliff-hanger to Part One is a laugh-out-loud cracker. But there’s a heart to the tale as well as a few jaw-dropping twists and turns. Both Parts Two and Three end with a new understanding of what and who the play is about. The only thing wrong with it is that cover: seriously, what is that all about?

25.       The Fearmonger by Jonathan Blum

Given the 18 years that Big Finish have been producing Doctor Who plays, it is surprising that the very first full-cast McCoy story (at release number 5) is perhaps the only story that feels as if it could be set immediately after Survival. (This includes the Lost Stories scripted by Andrew Cartmel; Jonathan Blum doing an even better job of catching the script editor’s voice than the script editor!) The arrival of the Doctor in the lift in Part One (“Going down?”) feels like precisely the sort of entrance he might have made in Season 27. The politics of the show are refined here, and become more of a narrative motor than they were on TV. Still, with another season of televisual adventures, they may well have culminated in something like The Fearmonger. Its world of radio station booths, inner city flats and car parks feels like exactly the sort of mise-en-scene the Cartmel years were heading towards. 

24.       The Harvest by Dan Abnett

A year before the show came back to our TV screens, Big Finish produced a pilot of their own. It mirrors Rose in the way we meet the Doctor and Ace from the new companion’s perspective, the modern setting (the hospital) is as much a character as the Powell Estate, and the alien activity is presented in such a way that listeners new to sci-fi would be almost tricked into recognising its allure. It should also be noted how very, very successful Big Finish’s history with the Cybermen is. Here, again, they go back to their roots as uncanny once-humans but with a modern twist: these guys are trying to turn themselves back. Abnett shows his skill as a writer in that the story feels like an effortless, thrilling romp but is actually, in its structure and shape, innovating, looking forward…

23.       The Two Masters by John Dorney

It’s difficult to imagine a Big Finish without John Dorney among the cavalcade of writers, so entrenched is he now in their output. And everything he touches turns to gold. Who else then to give the big one to? The Two Masters is grand. Like many of the best stories mentioned here (A Death in the Family; The Widow’s Assassin: And You Will Obey Me) the story refuses to follow the traditional four-part structure of TV Who. It’s is all over the place; it’s properly epic. Best of all, the dialogue between the two Masters is funnier, more alien and unpredictable than any dialogue between two Doctors has ever been. Give me Geoffrey Beevers and Alex McQueen bickering over who’s doing the killing bit over Matt Smith and David Tennant on screwdrivers and sandshoes. The Two Masters is astonishingly good.

22.       Doctor Who and the Pirates by Jacqueline Rayner

So: the Gilbert and Sullivan story. It’s a trite way to describe Doctor Who and the Pirates and it’s only really Part Three which features songs, but so memorable is the idea of the Doctor singing that it’s hard not to think about …and the Pirates as the G and S story. Of course, there’s much more to it than that. Evelyn is the emotional core of the story and acts as our guide through its various presentations. In the end, it’s got a beating heart and is the story of a little boy who died, which lifts it entirely from the G and S story to a true classic.

21.       Project: Twilight by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright

Project: Twilight features a man exploding on a pool table in a casino. Do I need to say anything else? Probably. It’s got short, snappy episodes which hurtle along at a tremendous lick. It’s got Colin Baker and Maggie Stables being wonderful; a rich, vivid vampire tale and a gritty, urban feel with cars in rivers and properly dangerous mobsters. This is Doctor Who for the fans of 2001: It’s adult and grim but with a sense of fun. Scott and Wright set themselves up here as a pair of Big Finish’s best hands and they continue to impress with the likes of Masters of Earth and The Many Deaths of Jo Grant. Project: Twilight still feels new and fresh, its pace and directness two of its most quietly impressive features. 

20.       Neverland by Alan Barnes

Before Doomsday, we had Neverland. This was the climax of an epic two-story adventure. Beginning in Storm Warning the story of Charlotte Pollard remains one of Big Finish’s finest achievements. Its apotheosis in Neverland should really have been the end of it, just as Doomsday should have marked a finale for Rose. Nevertheless, the following stories take little away from the scene in which the Doctor refuses to kill Charley because she’s his friend and he loves her. Its presentation as two giant instalments is also perfect and the end of the first episode feels like a proper finish to an Act One. As for the end of Act Two: We’d have to wait 18 months to find out what happened next. And didn’t we just know it!

19.       Thicker than Water by Paul Sutton

Arrangements for War was a staggering piece of work. In Thicker than Water, Paul Sutton hits the jackpot once again with a similar set-up of characters and a return to Vilag. Gabriel Woolf puts in a beautiful performance as Rossiter, a million miles away from his Sutekh. Best of all though, as ever, are Maggie Stables and Colin Baker. Had A Death in the Family never been made, Thicker than Water would serve as a beautiful send-off for Evelyn, the last lines of the play echoing in the memory long after the closing theme has finished.  

18.       The Marian Conspiracy by Jacqueline Rayner

The first of Big Finish’s “pure” historicals is still one of its finest. What it amounts to is essentially a conversation between the Doctor and Queen Mary. So leisurely is its pace and so profound its subject matter that The Marian Conspiracy stands out as something very different from the norm. The performances throughout are suitably majestic and we also get to witness the birth of Evelyn Smythe, the finest of the audio-only companions and the perfect foil for Old Sixie. This story of how the two leads meet is joyous. We meet a very different Sixth Doctor, free of the post-regenerative irritability that plagued his television persona and a companion more cantankerous than even he is but with just as much warmth. The Marian Conspiracy is something very special indeed.

17.       The Gathering by Joseph Lidster

It has since been made public that Janet Fielding didn’t enjoy recording this “one time only” Tegan story. Oh, how grand she did seem! But for my money, it’s incredible. This is an embittered Tegan, who reacts to her tumour in a way that is recognisably the same character we knew in the 80s. There is a direct through-line between the Tegan that leaves in a huff in Resurrection of the Daleks and the Tegan we get here. This is no romanticised School Reunion, but a real-life meeting between two very old friends who had left each other acrimoniously. There’s also some incredibly clever plotting linking this story to The Reaping and The Harvest, with extremely satisfying results. It’s little wonder that Joseph Lidster would go on to write for Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. 8687.

16.       Whispers of Terror by Justin Richards

The third Big Finish release and still one of its best, chiefly because Justin Richards goes out of his way to write a story which could only be told on audio. Surprisingly, many of its neat tricks have never been repeated. There is a character who isn’t physically there; a sound creature using different people’s voices over the intercom and some of the most exciting opportunities for soundscapes the company have ever attempted. The end of Part One is amazing: it’s like the culminating minutes of a concept album, the drama no longer simply based on actors reading from a script but a crescendo of sounds, music and voices. This was the story that first showed the wild ambition at Big Finish. The sound design is not up to BBC standards; it is a thousand times better. We are inside these stories, Whispers of Terror more than most.

15.       The Silver Turk by Marc Platt

Marc Platt’s other Cyber outing is rightly lauded. The Silver Turk deserves similar praise and acts as a companion piece in its exploration of the true horror of the Cybermen. The relationship between the Doctor and Mary Shelley is fun and breezy, the Viennese setting is rich and magical. The piece de resistance though comes at the end of Part Three as the Cybermen ascend the outside of the cathedral in a lightning storm. There is so much that is Gothic and arresting about that image that were it a painting, it would be enough. The fact that it comes at the climax of such a Gothic and arresting story is more than just a bonus.

14.       The Emerald Tiger by Barnaby Edwards

Even the trailer was great. What is not to love about this Indian-set Jungle Book of a yarn? Look at the booklet art: it’s the Doctor atop a train heading for a cliff edge below a hot air balloon. Surely, this is absolutely the stuff of rollicking adventure? Part Three ends with Tegan riding an elephant. Come on, were this a TV story, it’d be ranked amongst the very best. Can Barnaby write some more please?

 

13.       Invaders from Mars by Mark Gatiss

Mark Gatiss has written 9 episodes for the TV series, from The Unquiet Dead to Empress of Mars, encompassing all four new series Doctors. His second Big Finish foray is better than each of them. It’s wittier, funnier, bolder and more freewheeling. The cast are tremendous, with special mentions to Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg. It’s got a distinct sense of period, it’s full to the brim with gags and to tell a story on audio about a radio broadcast is a masterstroke. And David Benson as Orson Welles is to die for. Ironically, Invaders from Mars feels more modern and fresh than any of Gatiss’s television efforts. He’s allowed here to do whatever he likes here and, just as in The Crimson Horror, wherein he was given a similarly free hand, he reaps the rewards. Invaders from Mars is glorious.

12.       Arrangements for War by Paul Sutton

Arrangements for War was very unusual at the time. Big Finish had begun to tell sweeping stories across various releases and in those early days none was more successful than the Evelyn Smythe arc. Here, given the events of Project: Lazarus, I was convinced that this would be Evelyn’s finale, her last stand and that her relationship with the Doctor could never be reconciled. Rather beautifully, this is the story of their coming together again. It is heart-breaking that it takes such a tragedy in the last act for Evelyn to realise the depth of the Doctor’s compassion.

       11.       The Wormery by Stephen Cole and Paul Magrs

It’s surprising that the crack team of Cole and Magrs haven’t worked together since because The Wormery is a fairly astonishing tale. It includes a song, it’s set in a brilliantly funny, sleazy bar and there’s a beautiful, saddening cameo at the very end. It’s also a thinly-veiled and compelling take on the fall-out of the Doctor’s 14-part trial and we see, unusually, a bruised and emotional Sixth Doctor, upset with the injustice of the Time Lords’ scheme. It’s almost a metaphor for Colin Baker’s feelings on the injustice of an era not so well-spent. And Colin is majestic.

      10.       Creatures of Beauty by Nicholas Briggs

This is Nick Briggs’s best work. It is his most ambitious piece and his most inventive – to tell a story out of order is one thing; to make it moving and distressing is another. Whereas a usual Briggs script is more often than not populated with archetypes and “sci-fi” dialogue of a more traditional kind, Creatures of Beauty is all about structure and he allows himself to experiment with the surreal, ending three of the four episodes with the refrain “Beautiful.” When we find out in Part Four to what the “Beautiful” refers, there is a cruelty to it. It must also be noted how majestic Part One is in its brutal, unsettling way: a beaten-up Nyssa in a police cell undergoing the most rigorous of questioning ends with a horrifying accusation and a frightening, noisy, confusing montage. Nick Briggs should aim higher generally, because here, he pulls off a stunning tour de force.

9.       Davros by Lance Parkin

Two slow, epic episodes: Davros feels different. Although scripted as a four-parter, the length works. We’re in the Doctor and Davros’s company for a long while and the insidious nature of the villain is brought into sharper perspective thanks to our spending the time to see his long-term manipulation of those around him fall into place. The reveal that he has been planning for an economy system built around war is a sudden shock and his true colours, which we always knew were going to come out, are suddenly even more vital and frightening than ever. Davros is incredibly well-structured and feels like the most potent exploration of this multi-layered and complicated villain.

8.       The Chimes of Midnight by Robert Shearman

It had to be there, didn’t it? All the praise it garners is deserved. So lauded is The Chimes of Midnight, it feels like there is nothing left to say about it. Every Christmas, one should listen to The Chimes of Midnight. Instead of a review, I’ll share my story of Chimes: When I first heard it, I was babysitting for my little cousin. She fell fast asleep and I turned the CD player on. I suspected it would be frightening so I turned the lights off. Shortly afterwards, creeped out and uneasy, I turned them back on.

7.       …ish by Phil Pascoe

Every now and again, Big Finish serve us up a Warriors’ Gate, a Ghost Light, a Kinda of the audio variety. …ish is just that. Its interest is in wordsmithery and in its exploration and indulgence of sesquipedalianism, …ish remains a triumph. Every character, even the Doctor and Peri, talk as if they’re aware of being in a thematic play and …ish is all the better for it, every word adding to its poetic, lyrical world. It’s also got a soundtrack like no other, which in itself is thematic and odd. …ish is a thrill of a play, so far out of the ball park is it playing.

6.       A Death in the Family by Steven Hall

Maggie Stables’s final appearance as Evelyn is breath-taking. In terms of structure, A Death in the Family is like nothing else. Every episode opens with a curve-ball, propelling us in a different direction and it is only in Part Four that the pieces come together and we realise what a clever, clever game Steven Hall has been playing. The fact that Evelyn’s last moments are spent with the Seventh Doctor is a cruel irony given her history with Old Sixie but no less upsetting. Ian Reddington as the Word Lord is virtuoso casting. One of the great villainous actors from McCoy’s television era, plays a completely different and no less frighteningly bonkers one here.  A Death in the Family feels like a novel. It positively balks at Doctor Who’s usual rules to tell a story all of its own: a strange, impeccably crafted masterpiece.

5.       Jubilee by Robert Shearman

Robert Shearman really is the perfect fit for Doctor Who. He gets the peculiarities of the series, the characters are just the right side of real. There is a definite sense of the uncanny in all his stories, people behaving almost like normal people, the world being almost like the real world. The President and his wife daring each other to contract their words at the beginning of the play is unnerving, until he slaps her when it becomes horrific. The cliff-hanger to Part Two subverts expectation and I wonder if a Doctor with severed legs would meet with BBC standards since the 2005 revival. Speaking of which, Jubilee is so much better than Dalek. It’s cleverer, more complex and imaginatively exciting than its TV counterpart. Weirdly, since Dalek, it seems to be less celebrated which is a travesty. It’s probably Shearman’s most intricate script and in Martin Jarvis certainly contains one of the best performances in a Shearman script. As Doctor Who fans, we should be shouting about Jubilee from the rooftops.

4.       Terror Firma by Joseph Lidster

Terror Firma is the story that cemented Joseph Lidster as a trail-blazer when it came to risk-taking in Doctor Who. Here, we find an ailing Davros, almost completely insane begging for hypodermic needles to ease his pain. Just as we begin to sympathise with him at his most fragile, we experience the height of his cruelty: he has taken the Doctor’s friends from him. Paul McGann screaming, “I remember!” has got to be one of the most spine-tingled and horrific moments in the whole gamut of Big Finish adventuring.

       3.       The Holy Terror by Robert Shearman

With Doctor Who, more than perhaps any other programme, timing is everything. The Holy Terror came at just the right time. Big Finish had started off arguably with a fan-pleasing check-list: The Sixth Doctor meets the Brigadier? Check. Ice Warriors on Mars? Check. Daleks on Gallifrey? Check. In The Holy Terror, Big Finish first begin to flex their wings and tell their own stories and say hello to Rob Shearman. The Holy Terror is a surreal beast. For the most part, it’s an off-beat comedy and in its final act becomes a tale with more heart than any story Big Finish put out that year. It was an instant hit and remains funny, peculiar and in the end, truly distressing.

2.       Loups-Garoux by Marc Platt

When the writer of controversial TV story Ghost Light was announced as writing for Big Finish, I was overjoyed. So rich a brew had Marc Platt’s TV story been, that I expected Loups-Garoux to be the same. It was nothing like it. The only similarity it had to the seminal Sylvester McCoy story was its strangeness. Running through its narrative is a centuries-old love story with a carnivorous bite. The violence of the relationship is suggested and is counterpointed by its beauty. “How many fat moons since I pulled you from the snow?” asked Stuiber Peter in the message he sends with a severed head. Despite being set in both Brazil and the Amazon Dustbowl, Episode 2 is a bottle story in a train and is as claustrophobic and relentless as Ghost Light at its very best. In fact, compared to Ghost Light, Loups-Garoux has perhaps even more poetry.

1.       Spare Parts by Marc Platt

It has to be said, Mr Platt has a definite affinity with the Cybermen. Both this and his Silver Turk reveal the true tragedy of the Cybermen and present them as beings so close to humanity and yet so removed. They are unnerving in a way that perhaps they have never been on television, not even in the modern series which focuses more sharply on the threat of conversion. What is so memorable about this audio play is, paradoxically, the imagery. The Christmas tree with its baubles representing “the old Earth which one day we’ll get back to;” the city under the ground with its tramlines and boarded up picture houses; the civilians, queuing for conversion, ready to be signed up. Spare Parts is a grim tragedy with a family at its centre and is one of the crowning achievements of Big Finish. Also, in its final part, the company sets out its stall for the next decade in a terrifying and relentless refrain: WE ARE THE FUTURE.

JH