Big Finish now represents perhaps the ultimate Doctor Who
factory. I started collected Big Finish releases back in 1999 with The
Sirens of Time and in twenty years have never looked back. Of the thousands
of CDs to adorn my shelves, I can think of only one or two which haven’t quite
hit the mark. The astonishing quality of the company’s output is even more
incredible when one takes a step back to think about the astonishing quantity
of the company’s output. By the end of December, 2019’s Doctor Who and
Torchwood related releases will have amounted to an incredible 146 CDs.
So where does a newcomer start? I’m always advocating Big
Finish and fans I meet who haven’t tried a dip in the audio pool, I feel
obliged to push in headfirst. Over the last few years, I’m delighted to say
I’ve made a few more loyal subscribers, one now a rampant Jago & Liteoot-phile,
another an Eighth Doctor and Lucie aficionado! But with the ever-increasing
nature of the collection, there’s a possibility it might seem a little imposing
to even begin to start buying anew. Some of the ranges are of such a particular
niche that some fans may feel a little excluded before they even begin,
latecomers to the party, as it were. (The upcoming Robots series, for instance,
is a spin-off from the first episode of the second boxset of Ravenous,
itself an extension of the Dark Eyes and Doom Coalition boxsets
and harking back originally to Robophobia and before that the TV
classic: The Robots of Death. That’s a very particular niche!
Incidentally, I expect it will be magnificent!)
And so, for the first time in a hopefully annual tradition,
I’ll be looking back at 2019 and talking briefly about my personal highlights.
Hopefully, it might encourage one or two new listeners to dive into the pool!
10. RAVENOUS 3
Specifically, Companion Piece by John Dorney: a story
with an almost impossibly long cast list, considering its hour’s length. The
adventures of the Eighth Doctor, Liv and Helen feel like a parallel, ongoing
new series, Big Finish’s equivalent of the Jodie Whittaker series. McGann feels
as fresh and new as he did back in Storm Warning and his boxsets feel
like real event audio. Occasionally though, something as fan-pleasing and
indulgent as Companion Piece comes along, reminding us that we’re still in the
same universe as Tom Baker, William Hartnell and Peter Davison. Whilst the
Eighth Doctor takes a back seat for the most part, this is the tale of the
leading ladies to end all tales of leading ladies. To avoid spoilers, I won’t
go into details but this is a particularly special story with some lovely winks
to the past. It’s also worth picking up Ravenous 3 for Deeptime Frontier:
a frightening showcase for a terrified Paul McGann with plenty of
spine-tingling moments to excite fans of more horrific Doctor Who.
9. THE THIRD DOCTOR ADVENTURES Volume Five
Despite the sad passing of our heroes: Jon Pertwee, Caroline
John and Nicholas Courtney, the series of Third Doctor Adventures feels
utterly authentic to the era it emulates and here, with the addition of Jon
Culshaw as a tremendous Brigadier, alongside Tim Treloar’s Third Doctor and
Daisy Ashford’s Liz Shaw, Big Finish ramps up the nostalgia yet further.
Primord is a sequel to Inferno and goes in unexpected directions. The end of
Episode Three is stark and as the Twitter generation might have it, a real WTF
moment. The Scream of Ghosts is similarly strong, with the Home Counties
England of the Pertwee years as palpable as the era’s Chromakey fringing.
There’s also a nice surprise for fans of another 70s tale but to say too much
would invoke the ire of River Song. If you’re a lover of the Pertwee era, you’d
do far worse than to pick up this set of brilliantly well-written, superbly
performed and authentically sound-designed stories.
8. THE SYNDICATE MASTERPLAN
It might seem like a bit of a cheat to choose a two-boxset
eight-story arc of an adventure in the ninth spot, but at only £45 per CD
bundle, the tales of the Fourth Doctor and Ann Kelso are an absolute steal. For
anyone who loves The Daleks’ Master Plan (And let’s be honest, who
doesn’t? It’s brilliant!), this Syndicate sequel is essential. It
includes all the planet and time-hopping shenanigans of the original, as well
as a police-drama in some ways akin to the first half of The Feast of Steven,
a trip back into history alongside Ada Lovelace, and a Jurassic Park
style Drashigs adventure! For all the shocks and twists along the way, as well
as the call-backs to the past, what is perhaps most surprising about The
Syndicate Masterplan is that these eight stories form one, quite isolated
adventure: that of new companion Ann. It starts and ends here and feels
complete, satisfying and at every turn, thrilling.
7. NIGHTMARE COUNTRY
Steve Gallagher – the renowned 80s writer of Warriors’
Gate and Terminus produces his third idiosyncratic, high-concept
sci-fi thriller for the Doctor Who world. Admittedly, after fifteen minutes,
this felt a little heavy, the story setting out its stall across the first
episode in such as way as to feel non-user friendly. But prog rock albums are
non-user friendly and usually by the last few bars, the listener wants to go
back to the beginning and hear it all over again, unpeel the layers and feast
in the intricacies, unpick how it was put together. Here, at the close of the
very last scene and in the sting of the theme tune, one feels the same. This
was something clever, something rich and was always aiming for this precise
moment. It’s a beautiful, haunting, strange ending, even for Doctor Who. Second
time round, like Warriors’ Gate, like Terminus, it’s easier to
appreciate the hand Steve Gallagher is dealing, and Nightmare Country is
a royal flush: Gallagher’s best.
6. THE TENTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES Volume Three
This is the best David Tennant set yet. Although it seems to
have been far less remarked upon than its immediate predecessors
(understandably, it being Volume 3), for my money it’s streets ahead in terms
of quality than the already strong boxsets before it. What makes these stories
even stronger are the bolder, headline-grabbing concepts from which the three
adventures springboards: DR WHO MEETS MOST HAUNTED; DR WHO IN THE UNDERWATER
CITY; and DR WHO AND THE GREAT FOG OF ’52. The pace and mood of each of the
stories is as breakneck and exciting as Tennant’s TV era. The narratives are
neat and streamlined and end with a giant dinosaur skeleton rampaging through
London. The lavish boxset too is a glorious thing: June Hudson costume designs,
Mike Tucker storyboards and beautiful artwork and photograph make this a
must-have!
5. TORCHWOOD: NIGHT OF THE FENDAHL
The Torchwood range is one of Big Finish’s best. Inventive,
schizophrenic and on occasion delightfully distasteful, one never knows what to
expect from the monthly releases. This year we’ve had an anthology horror story
in Dead Man’s Switch, an X-Files (specifically the episode Arcadia)
homage in Serenity and a murderous screwball in Sync. The Hope
was bleak and disturbing. But the stand out of the year is Night of the
Fendahl, as dark and nightmarish as it’s possible for Torchwood to get and
that’s saying something. Deliberately provocative, Tim Foley perhaps proves
himself as the most manipulative of Big Finish’s writers. Walking to work in
the dark, this really got under my skin and I put it to anyone to try to listen
cynically. This release, like the Fendahl itself, will fill you with
dread.
4. TARTARUS
Composed of two enormous episodes, Tartarus feels like
a Ray Harryhausen movie through a Doctor Who lens: there seriously can’t be many
better things than that! The two longer instalments give the story a feel of
the epic and its channelling of Jason and the Argonauts makes the
visuals easier to imagine. David Llewellyn conjures a vivid, rip-roaring world
and even manages to stay true to his series Cicero, one of 2018’s
crowning glories in the Big Finish gamut. On the surface, this might look like
a straightforward, rollicking adventure but they’re harder to come by and
harder to write than one imagines, and this eminently listenable yarn is a rare
beast.
3. WARZONE/CONVERSION
The conclusion to this year’s Fifth Doctor trilogy is a
worthy sequel to Earthshock and finally, after all these years, the
Doctor and his companions manage to properly discuss the shocking death of
Adric. Even after almost 40 years, the scenes here feel raw, full of emotion.
Janet Fielding does some of her finest work as Tegan and Peter Davison, even in
the trailers, displays a near-mania when it comes to tackling his feelings
towards the maths wizard. The conclusion to Warzone is nightmarish and
springboards us into the events of Conversion. It looks as if the events
of Conclusion is are about to push Big Finish listeners into even more
unfamiliar and difficult territory: a Fifth Doctor TARDIS crew more at odds with
one another than ever before.
2. DAUGHTER OF THE GODS
Billed as the fifth anniversary special that never was, Daughter
of the Gods, is very definitely that: special. Easily the best single-story
release of the year, David K Barnes comes up trumps again after delivering last
year’s seminal Dalek Occupation of Winter and the best UNIT story of all
the eight box sets, Breach of Trust. The greatness of Barnes’s writing
is that is completely unshowy. There are no needless gags or structural gimmicks;
just a confidence and brio that drags the listener along with it. The pitch for
this unusual story, complete with its many leading regulars, must have been
daunting but Barnes makes it look easy. Each piece of this jigsaw puzzle of a
plot tessellates perfectly with those either side. It is neat, clever and
eventually and rewardingly, heart-breaking. Just as Conversion deals
with the death of Adric in as rich and powerful a way as is imaginable, here
the death of Katarina proves the richest source material for an adventure which
proves dangerously close to the Doctor’s hearts.
THE LEGACY OF TIME
The number one spot then. Of course, it seems obvious and
easy, but The Legacy of Time, Big Finish’s biggest adventure of all
time, is also one of its most successful. It is grand and important, Lies in
Ruins featuring a Gallifrey in a state of planet-wide demolition, but each
of the six episodes is focused on its own strong story. The Split Infinitive
is a strong Counter-Measures tale with a callback to one of Big Finish’s most
successful original villains. The Sacrifice of Jo Grant is possibly the
apex of the set, its closing few minutes surely able to move the most
stony-faced of long-term Who fans. There are surprises aplenty here. Those who
have been with Big Finish for the last twenty years are amply rewarded here and
the last twenty minutes feel like a true celebration in a way that The Light
of the End strangely didn’t. Of all the Doctor Who that have ever been
made, in any medium, The Legacy of Time seems to sum up the very essence
of the programme. I’d put it up there with Steven Moffat’s definitive Day of
the Doctor novelisation or the original transmitted version of The Five
Doctors as one of the greatest celebrations of our show to ever see
fruition.
In celebration of its release, and as a failed entry in the
recent Big Finish competition, I produced this piece of art. I hope it captures
the wonder and excitement of such a terrific story!
JH
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