Jamie Revell
This set of four hour-long stories are apparently sequential, but each is individual, like most episodes of the modern Doctor Who TV series. For that matter, while it follows on from the end of the previous volume, the collection as a whole is largely standalone and could just as well be appreciated without having heard that first, should the listener choose to do so. Yes, there's the mystery of Jenny's companion, Noah, but that's not solved here, so arguably it's enough to know that his origins are a mystery and leave it at that.
Inside the Maldevarium – As the title hints, this story features Dorium Maldovar the blue-skinned information-broker first introduced in A Good Man Goes to War but here seen before the events of that story. Here, Jenny turns up at his bar for reasons that she hasn't told Noah, and that the listener is also initially unaware of. The result is relatively slight, but it moves along at a brisk pace with a well-realised setting and a feel that mirrors the modern TV series. It's arguably more about Maldovar's schemes than it is about Jenny, but the latter proves entertaining, trying to do what her “father” would do but without the experience to back up her sometimes cocksure attitude. And there's the question of just how much (if at all) Maldovar can be trusted at this stage of his life... 4 stars.
Altered Status – The second story is much closer to that of a typical Doctor Who episode as Jenny and Noah visit a planet that's supposed to be a utopia but (unsurprisingly) is anything but. Asa is clear even before the theme music starts up, this is the Cyberman story promised on the cover which, again, emphasises the ties to the parent show. There's a slight twist on the usual formula, however, in that the cyber-technology we see on display here is much more limited than we usually encounter – for reasons that become apparent as the plot unfolds. The real difference, however, is that Jenny is not the Doctor, once again showing off the mixture of sassy confidence and relative inexperience that's at the heart of her portrayal. There's also a great guest character in the form of a sword-wielding scholastic warrior queen who the Cybermen seem to have misjudged as badly as Jenny herself. 4 stars.
Calamity Jenny – As often in these anthologies of time travel stories, one of them has to be set in Earth's past, and here that's the Wild West. This is the most comedic of the four stories, as Jenny becomes the focus of a series of unfortunate coincidences and extreme bad luck. It turns out that there is a reason for this – although at least one of the coincidences is of a type that both Big Finish and the BBC have used before with a straight face. While the story itself is good, making use of time travel directly, the story suffers a little from the slapstick elements. Not because they're slapstick, since that fits with what's going on, but because it's often hard to figure out what they involve; too many sight gags in a story that has no visuals. Unusually, the story is also narrated but this is worked into the story in an effective way and enhances rather than feeling like a limitation. Furthermore, the American accents sounded (at least to me) more realistic than usual, probably because the narrator at least actually is from the US. 3.5 stars.
Her Own Worst Enemy – The concluding story is slightly strange, mainly because it ends on a mid-story cliffhanger without any resolution. Moreover, it had been three years between the release of volume 1 and this and, three years on from that, there is no sign of a volume 3 that's likely to conclude the story. So that's disappointing. Otherwise, it's promising, starting in media res with Jenny being pursued by a killer cyborg and then figuring out how to use her vortex manipulator to travel back down her attacker's timeline to try and change its history. That's basically all before the title music, with the rest of the story being a clever jumping back and forth to try to disentangle what's happening and put a stop to it. Despite this, it's not as timey-wimey as one might expect, being more a set of flashbacks that elaborate on the guest character's backstories and, as a result, it's as much a character piece with shades of It's A Wonderful Life as it is a story about cyborgs and a dystopian future. But it needed an ending, or at least, a rapid follow-up. 3.5 stars.
This set of four hour-long stories are apparently sequential, but each is individual, like most episodes of the modern Doctor Who TV series. For that matter, while it follows on from the end of the previous volume, the collection as a whole is largely standalone and could just as well be appreciated without having heard that first, should the listener choose to do so. Yes, there's the mystery of Jenny's companion, Noah, but that's not solved here, so arguably it's enough to know that his origins are a mystery and leave it at that.
Inside the Maldevarium – As the title hints, this story features Dorium Maldovar the blue-skinned information-broker first introduced in A Good Man Goes to War but here seen before the events of that story. Here, Jenny turns up at his bar for reasons that she hasn't told Noah, and that the listener is also initially unaware of. The result is relatively slight, but it moves along at a brisk pace with a well-realised setting and a feel that mirrors the modern TV series. It's arguably more about Maldovar's schemes than it is about Jenny, but the latter proves entertaining, trying to do what her “father” would do but without the experience to back up her sometimes cocksure attitude. And there's the question of just how much (if at all) Maldovar can be trusted at this stage of his life... 4 stars.
Altered Status – The second story is much closer to that of a typical Doctor Who episode as Jenny and Noah visit a planet that's supposed to be a utopia but (unsurprisingly) is anything but. Asa is clear even before the theme music starts up, this is the Cyberman story promised on the cover which, again, emphasises the ties to the parent show. There's a slight twist on the usual formula, however, in that the cyber-technology we see on display here is much more limited than we usually encounter – for reasons that become apparent as the plot unfolds. The real difference, however, is that Jenny is not the Doctor, once again showing off the mixture of sassy confidence and relative inexperience that's at the heart of her portrayal. There's also a great guest character in the form of a sword-wielding scholastic warrior queen who the Cybermen seem to have misjudged as badly as Jenny herself. 4 stars.
Calamity Jenny – As often in these anthologies of time travel stories, one of them has to be set in Earth's past, and here that's the Wild West. This is the most comedic of the four stories, as Jenny becomes the focus of a series of unfortunate coincidences and extreme bad luck. It turns out that there is a reason for this – although at least one of the coincidences is of a type that both Big Finish and the BBC have used before with a straight face. While the story itself is good, making use of time travel directly, the story suffers a little from the slapstick elements. Not because they're slapstick, since that fits with what's going on, but because it's often hard to figure out what they involve; too many sight gags in a story that has no visuals. Unusually, the story is also narrated but this is worked into the story in an effective way and enhances rather than feeling like a limitation. Furthermore, the American accents sounded (at least to me) more realistic than usual, probably because the narrator at least actually is from the US. 3.5 stars.
Her Own Worst Enemy – The concluding story is slightly strange, mainly because it ends on a mid-story cliffhanger without any resolution. Moreover, it had been three years between the release of volume 1 and this and, three years on from that, there is no sign of a volume 3 that's likely to conclude the story. So that's disappointing. Otherwise, it's promising, starting in media res with Jenny being pursued by a killer cyborg and then figuring out how to use her vortex manipulator to travel back down her attacker's timeline to try and change its history. That's basically all before the title music, with the rest of the story being a clever jumping back and forth to try to disentangle what's happening and put a stop to it. Despite this, it's not as timey-wimey as one might expect, being more a set of flashbacks that elaborate on the guest character's backstories and, as a result, it's as much a character piece with shades of It's A Wonderful Life as it is a story about cyborgs and a dystopian future. But it needed an ending, or at least, a rapid follow-up. 3.5 stars.