Jamie Revell

This is the first half of a two-part story, concluded in The Thief of Time. I am reviewing both parts here.

This is relatively high-concept for a Doctor Who story, being set on a paradoxical planet with a surface that doesn't quite obey the normal laws of physics - an ocean world where it's possible (with some difficulty) to walk on the water. A spaceship chartered by a video blogger has set out to explore its mysteries and make contact with the natives. As one might expect, not everything has gone as planned.

The story is as much about the crew of the ship as it is about the mystery itself, which turns out to be an extension of existing DW lore. It starts out fairly slow, giving us time to get used to the unusual culture of the locals, but things build up in the second half as we discover what the villain of the piece actually wants.

The strength of the story is largely the treatment of Romana, whose backstory turns out to be relevant to events. She's rather put through the ringer in places, but it's her personality and insecurities that are at the core of the final act, giving her as much a role in the resolution as the Doctor himself, and perhaps more so.

On the other hand, a weakness is that the planet itself seems to be largely devoid of women. In fact, I did wonder at one point whether there were any at all, until one turned up around the half-way mark. That's arguably a weakness in portraying its culture, making it feel less like a real place than a random oddity (of course, it's meant to be weird, but not, as it turns out, in that way). Even the strength of Romana's role is offset in the third act by her being temporarily reduced to a damsel in distress. And, because the mood is based on Four's final season, there aren't a lot of laughs in it, which one might otherwise expect from this particular Doctor.

I came close to giving it four stars based on the originality of the setting and some of the imagery it conjures up, but, in the end, the flaws just add up to too much.

This is the second half of a two-part story, commenced in The Skin of the Sleek. I am reviewing both parts there.

This release follows the usual format of two hour-long episodes, one featuring UNIT, and one set in space. Both give a good imitation of the relevant TV era, with Treloar getting better at imitating Pertwee (though not perfect, obviously) and the incidental music being done in the style of the original without being intrusive.

The Conquest of Far – Set immediately after The Planet of the Daleks, this sees the Doctor and Jo arrive on a remote human colony world shortly after it has been conquered by, once again, the Daleks. In fact, the Daleks' plan here turns out to be remarkably similar to that of the TV episode it is said to follow, although the secret weapon they are devising is a different one. Indeed, the whole story very much comes across as something that could be part of the relevant season, albeit with more space battles than a ‘70s TV budget would likely allow. About the only other difference is that Jo doesn't scream at anything, although she does at least get captured and held hostage (a trope cleverly subverted in one of the earlier 3rd Doctor releases, but not here).

Another feature this story has in common with much of the Pertwee years on TV is its relatively militaristic tone. Here, an Earth Alliance armada (the date is, unsurprisingly, never specified, but we're presumably post the fall of the original Earth Empire) and a squad of alien marines take the place of UNIT, but their role is much the same. It's a very typical Dalek story and, beyond the fact that the Daleks here can fly, modern series style, one that fits right in with the era it's emulating. If you want a typical Pertwee Dalek story that doesn't stretch any boundaries but is well made and has that ‘70s ambience, this is a good place to look. 3 stars.

Storm of the Horofax - As in the previous release, the UNIT story deals with the absence of the other regulars by placing Jo and the Doctor well away from headquarters. It also introduces a new character, in the form of a UNIT major (well, it always seemed odd that the organisation didn't seem to have anyone between the ranks of brigadier and captain).

The story starts on a naval ship in the North Sea, which has just picked up a damaged alien spacecraft. The pilot seems harmless enough, but the Doctor is suspicious that there's more going on than meets the eye, and soon the Earth is, indeed, under threat. There's a twist on the usual theme in that the hostile aliens don't actually want to invade, and have a different objective in mind - and one that fits right in with the '70s setting. The nature of their abilities is also interesting, tied in with a background that's unusual, at least for the classic series.

Combine this with a story that gives Jo quite a bit to do and has a poignant ending and we've got something that's rather better than the regular Dalek story that precedes it in the collection. 4 stars.

The final ‘season' in the horror series consists of four hour-long stories, the first three of which are told from the perspective of characters seen in episodes from earlier seasons. Each story has a different tone and they are unconnected beyond the fact that here, it's somebody else, not Gray, who is making the ‘confession'.

• One Must Not Look at Mirrors – We begin with a story told from the perspective of Oscar Wilde, recounting how he first met Gray and his memories of the year Jack the Ripper stalked Whitechapel. The story portrays the then-young Gray as particularly amoral and includes some grisly imagery as well as explicit sexual references, but for the most part it's about Wilde's conflicted feelings. I found it rather rambling, a tableau of graphic scenes that don't really go anywhere, but it's undeniably atmospheric and well-acted. 3.5 stars.

• Angel of War – This time we seen Gray from the perspective of a former lover, previously seen in the episode The Prime of Deacon Brodie. Like that episode, it's largely set in World War I and gives a relatively positive view of Gray, although, as the title indicates, he's no angel. In many ways, it's a love story, as well as a journey of self-discovery for the narrator, with the supernatural elements only here for window-dressing. The horror elements instead come from the personal experience of trench warfare and what it does to people. 5 stars.

• The Valley of Nightmares – The third story is set in Hollywood in the 1940s, and is told from the perspective of Dorothy Parker, who we last met in Murder on 81st Street. That was a monster story, but this time we're on the trail of a possible murderer amidst the shallow glitz and greed of the movie industry. The supernatural elements, while hinted at earlier on, only turn up right at the end in a story that's largely investigative, with the force of Parker's personality coming to the fore as much as Gray's. 4 stars.

• Ever After – Here we are at the final episode, which, unlike the first three, lacks a narrator. It follows on from the end of the previous season, being set in the present day. Here we see Gray tormented by memories of his past, the return of his conscience driving him towards insanity as he apparently encounters numerous characters from previous seasons that he has wronged in some way. How much of this is real, and how much delusion is a question left open, but it's an emotional and thought-provoking way to end the series and one of its better episodes. 5 stars.

This story is a sequel to the TV story Warriors of the Deep but is thankfully entirely Myrka-less. It's set just a year after that story and, as one might expect from the title, it shares some plot elements with The Manchurian Candidate.

The Doctor is being at his most mysterious in this, obviously planning something that will benefit the Silurians, but refusing to tell Ace or Mel what it is until we're almost at the end. A lot of trouble could have been saved if he'd bothered and he doesn't really have much reason for not doing so, since, as plots go, it's far from his most involved. This, one suspects, might put a number of listeners off and one has to say that is an overall weakness, given that we know the Doctor's real plan can't be anything bad and one would have thought that Ace would realise this, too. It's perhaps a case of Elliott writing for a version of Seven, and a stage in his relationship with Ace, that's set much, much earlier than it actually is.

But, if we leave that aside, it's a good story. The main guest character, Professor Drexler, is a complicated character whose own motives are also unclear, at least to begin with. There's some good interplay between the Silurian characters that brings to mind the intraspecies conflicts we see in the original Silurians story. These are, of course, clearly the subspecies we see in the classic TV series, not the more humanoid version represented by Madam Vastra, and there's some use made of the powers of that early version. Obviously, we're also building on the theme of Cold War paranoia in Warriors of the Deep, with a somewhat wider look at the world of 2085/

Mainly, though I just found it fun. There are, for instance, some good one-liners here and there, even though the story itself is serious. The feminine security robots (“very Fritz Lang”, apparently) with their emotionless delivery make for some good moments, as do some of the limitations of their late 21st-century technology - they've obviously not achieved full AI yet. The leader of the Western world, once he turns up with his terrible toupee, does have some resemblance to a certain leader of the free world in our time without being a blunt caricature, although I grant you that that too might be a matter of taste.

The upshot is that I liked this more than the previous two releases in this trilogy, which seems to be the opposite of most other listeners' experiences. I found those rather dull, but this is actually quite fun. Much will depend on whether you can get past that inconsistent characterisation, and treat it as a more standalone story than, realistically, it probably should be.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Pathfinder is an iteration of the popular game Dungeons & Dragons. In recent years, there has been a trend for game sessions to be broadcast on the internet; this is quite a different thing, a scripted audio play that uses the setting of the game to tell a fantasy story. There are a few pieces of narration, delivered in character by the party wizard as he writes in his journal, but, otherwise, it's a regular full-cast audio, with sound effects, music and so on to tell the story alongside the actors.

The acting is good (although I found the fighter's accent rather odd), and the script effective, with some good lines here and there. But, for me, at least, it suffers because what it's trying to do isn't something the format is suited for. And what it's trying to do is adapt a published scenario (of the same title) and turn it into a play.

So what we get feels very much like a low-level D&D scenario - because that's exactly what it originally was. You can tell that it was probably quite a good scenario; there are some good NPCs in here and opportunities for more than simply bashing the monsters. But as a play, this approach results in two main failings. For one, it's difficult to follow what's going on in the fight scenes, which, as is the nature of D&D scenarios, comprise a significant chunk of the story. Audio isn't terribly well-suited for action, although this makes a good effort, and it doesn't detract as much as it might.

The bigger issue, though, is that a scenario, by its nature, has to be agnostic as to who the central characters will be (beyond them being adventurers). And so it is here; the story isn't really about the protagonists, and it's hard to care about them. A couple of them do get a few lines about their background, so they aren't entirely cyphers, but the villain gets more backstory than they do. Moreover, it's unlikely we're going to get much more in future instalments because the format itself precludes that. They're unconnected from the plot because that's how the original source material had to be written.

In fairness, this is probably about as good as it could be, given that it's trying to adapt something written for an entirely different medium with different needs. The production values are good and the story decent... but as an audio play, it just falls a little flat.

The Early Adventures series moves on to season four of the original show again, with Anneke Wills providing the third-person narration. (Honestly, I'm not sure why; the cast is large enough not to require narration, and it doesn't add anything to the story). It's a good team, with Wills and Hines showing their age less than some of the other actors from the era, and Elliott Chapman effective in re-voicing Ben.

The story is a straight historical, which sees the TARDIS landing in the countryside outside of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942. There, the team encounters the eponymous Night Witches, a (historically real) group of all-female Soviet bomber pilots whose survival is now under threat from the advancing panzers. The result is an adventure story, that also takes the time to show some of the desperate situation that the Night Witches are in.

Ben and Polly are the primary focus here, with Jamie and the Doctor (both, of course, voiced by Hines) entirely absent for one lengthy chunk of the narrative. The key plot point around which much of the action hinges is one that is, to be fair, a bit of a stretch... but it's a plot device used quite a few times during the classic run of the TV series (including once in Troughton's era) and so entirely in-genre.

Other than that, the lack of any science fiction elements adds verisimilitude to the tale, and the portrayal of the different personalities among the Night Witches is also well done. Yes, one is the villain (the Nazis are almost entirely an off-screen threat), but another is shown as heroic and a third as somewhat more ambiguous. Sure, if you were wanting a straight good v. evil war story, this isn't it, but it's a good evocation of the historical stories of the era and a particularly fine showpiece for Ben and Polly as characters, giving them more depth than they often had on TV.

In a story set not long after the events of The Five Doctors, , the Doctor is once again recalled to Gallifrey to reluctantly take up the mantle of the presidency. What follows are effectively four 30-minute stories featuring his having to deal with affairs of state and trying to get out of his responsibilities so that he can return to wandering. Many of the characters we'd plausibly expect to see here, were this a novel with no casting limitations, are handwaved as elsewhere (Turlough is presumably locked inside the TARDIS for the entire duration), but we do have a welcome return for Leela alongside regular companion Tegan.

The result is unashamedly a comedy, albeit one where the humour is played against a serious backdrop (as most good comedy is) and where there are some moments of genuine peril. Along the way, we encounter fake deities, a planet made of toothpaste, a couple of ineffective wannabe rebels, and a number of references to events from the classic TV series. Tegan is particularly strong here, the character being in her element with her natural spikiness given free rein. The increasingly exasperated Castellan responsible for the Doctor's security also comes across as a notably memorable character.

It's a spoof of political thrillers, arguably including Big Finish's own Gallifrey series, and, despite the references mentioned earlier, doesn't delve too deep into the show's lore. It's standalone, requiring no knowledge of the rest of the range, or, really, of the classic TV series itself, with some great one-liners and unexpected turns of dialogue, taking itself just seriously enough to get away with it without seeming absurd. Recommended even for those who only dip into the BF monthly series occasionally.

The second in the set of imagined episodes of a fifth season of the Torchwood TV show, this once again takes the format of four individual stories with a season-long plot arc and its accompanying ‘Big Bad' in the background.

• Love Rat – We're firmly in first-season Torchwood territory here, as something begins making the inhabitants of Cardiff sexually promiscuous. Or, in Jack's case, more promiscuous than usual. Although Jack obviously features rather heavily (and innuendo abounds), the focus is perhaps more on Gwen. That's obviously particularly significant in view of what happened in the previous volume, which, at this point, we're no closer to solving. It's not all bonking, though, with a number of scenes taking place in the morgue and, per the title, some nasty alien sewer rats, both of which add some gruesome elements. The subplot with Gwen aside, though, it's fairly standard stuff. 3.5 stars.

• A Kill to a View – This is a rather strange story, taking place largely inside a luxury apartment complex and featuring Mr Colchester's husband as much as any of the regulars. In fact, Colchester aside, the others are barely in it, and Orr is really only used as a plot device. It is effective in showing another side to Colchester's life, but perhaps less so in terms of the main story – it's clear enough at the end what the villain is trying to do, but much less clear on how he is managing to do it. It's lifted above this by the drama of the final scenes, which work well in terms of both action and emotion, but it's perhaps not the sort of story that its protagonist is really suited for. 3 stars.

• Zero Hour – It's the turn of Tyler Steele to take the foreground in a story that doesn't feature Jack at all and gives only minor roles to Orr and Colchester. It's a satire on the gig economy, seen through the lens of a company that's not unlike Amazon's delivery service. The mystery unfolds bit by bit, playing up the meaningless drudgery of the work long before we discover what the villains are actually up to. The result is topical, and more effective as a creepy satire than the story which precedes it. There's a strong LGBT element, too, something that's very evident in this box set as a whole. 4 stars.

• The Empty Hand – Sergeant Andy wakes up with no memory of the previous night to discover that he has been accused of cold-blooded murder. Is he really a racist killer, or is there a stranger explanation? (Go on, guess which). It's a dark and tense story, especially given the racist overtones, although the relevant language is toned down, since there's a limit to how far even this show is prepared to go. It's also unintentionally topical right now, riffing on BLM themes, despite having been written at least three years ago. The plotline with Gwen is also continuing in the background and Jack is starting to get a little too ruthless and out-of-control as the situation escalates, so there's presumably something going on there, too. The story ends on a dramatic cliffhanger, which is certainly going to require some explaining in the final volume... 4.5 stars.

For the second time this ‘season', the series explores a past period of Torchwood's history, featuring entirely new characters than the ones we're familiar with. It's presumably an experiment that failed, as it hasn't really been tried again, despite an open ending here that's clearly being set up for more. Having said that, it is better than the previous attempt, which went for entirely the wrong tone.

This time, the story is set in occupied Paris during WWII, where monsters are suddenly stalking the streets to the consternation of locals and Germans alike. The twist is that the story is told partly in flashback as an SS officer from the German equivalent of Torchwood interrogates a witness caught up in the events. This results in an ‘unreliable narrator' situation, where it's not entirely clear how much of the truth the witness is really telling, leaving the true nature of events as a puzzle that isn't revealed until the penultimate scene.

It's not one of the strongest Torchwood stories, not least because of the lack of any familiar characters... although it's not one that would have worked with any of them, even if the setting were switched to something more modern. But it's still pretty good, taken as a standalone story, and does have some of the themes that we expect for the TV series. The torture scenes aren't protracted, although they're certainly not pleasant, and the science fiction elements are often in the background (the monsters are mostly off-screen). So, a change of pace, and one that isn't too ill-judged (unlike The Dollhouse) but nothing special for this audio series.

3.5 stars, rather than the full 4, and it's probably a good thing that, for the next ‘season', BF reverted to doing stories based solely around existing characters from the corpus.

This is a collection of vignettes (4-10 pages each) about some of the Asian heroes of the DC Universe, of whom I have to say there are more than I thought. The art is variable, as one might expect given the wide range of contributors, but part of the point of an anthology is to showcase different styles in this way. The stories are mostly pretty good, although they're too short to do anything very much, with many of them consisting of little more than a fight scene.

For me, the ones that stood out the most were those with Cheshire Cat (which apparently ties in with an upcoming story in the Catwoman comic, so that's good), the Cassandra Cain Batgirl, and Red Arrow. More notable, perhaps, is the introduction of new hero Monkey Prince. He's tied in with Shazam, so the story is largely in that mould. There's potentially some interesting stuff there, with the authors clearly making a lot of use of Asian themes... most obviously, of course, Journey to the West. Whether his new comic is going to work out is harder to say, but it probably depends on what you think of Shazam.

Mind you, given the ethnic mix where I live, I can't help but notice, that for all these east Asian characters (and, as I say, there's more than I thought), there's just one from the Indian subcontinent. Who gets a one-page art splash and a short paragraph in the appendix to remind us who he is...

The TARDIS arrives in 19th century London (Polly guesses at the 1860s, but not based on any particular evidence) and is almost immediately stolen, as it so often was during the black-and-white era. The Doctor and his companions soon become sidetracked in their attempts to get it back and what follows is a relatively sedate supernatural mystery story.

Much of the story consists of the characters trying to investigate the provenance and nature of a strange necklace that may somehow be linked to a “locked room” murder. As a result, two out of the three episode endings are just regular story beats rather than genuine cliffhangers, although some real peril does get introduced around the half-way point. Even that isn't due to the “monster”, despite its appearance in the opening scene (which would be the pre-title teaser in a modern TV show), but to an entirely different twist in the plot.

Whether you like this may well depend on what you think of the pace. It came across to me as rather like a Call of Cthulhu scenario with investigators spending most of their time piecing together the background to the real threat. Or, to take a more appropriate analogy, I could also liken it to Black Orchid, a story that's similarly low on action and horror, and does, in fact, have some overlapping themes with this. There's also the rather major issue of what the nature of the monster eventually turns out to be - it's quite a twist on the usual Doctor Who ending and, while I found that refreshing, others might find it too much of a departure.

I found the narration less intrusive than in the previous two releases, although it's still not truly necessary, and there's a really limp romance subplot that's so weak that even one of the characters involved doesn't notice it's there. But all of the characters have significant parts to play and they're generally well written, with the companions arguably playing a bigger role in the resolution than the Doctor does. All of this makes for a good, if somewhat unusual, DW story with a number of turns to the plot along the way.

Once again Anneke Wills provides the narration in this Second Doctor story featuring Jamie, Ben, and Polly. It's set in the far future (there's an Earth Empire, although when the date is eventually given it's far enough ahead that it probably isn't the one we usually see) in artificial caverns beneath the surface of an alien world. For much of the duration, it's a mystery story, with the monster remaining ‘off-screen' until the final 30-minute segment.

The first half of the story is building up this mystery and its setting; there's evidently something deadly going on, but we don't know what or why. In fact, here, there are some parallels with the Third Doctor's era with corporate greed as the primary motivation for the villain - who has a habit of using so much management-speak that the TARDIS has difficulty making anything meaningful out of what he's saying at times. Obviously, the existence of an Earth Empire also fits with Three's era, although, here it's tied in more directly with a certain element from The Power of the Daleks.

There are a couple of weaknesses in the story. For one, it seems overly reliant on narration and, like the previous story in the series, has a large enough cast that that doesn't really seem necessary. There are also some inconsistencies in the setting itself; in particular, it's unclear why it's so difficult to get off the planet once it becomes clear that the deaths aren't the mere “outliers” in the statistics that they're originally made out to be. After all, nobody seemed to have difficulty getting on to it, and they must have regular supply runs, not to mention shipping the “product” off-world.

Set against these, however, are a number of good points. Jamie is more used here than he was in the previous story although, again, it's Ben and Polly who are more the focus. The flooded setting is also atmospheric, especially in the third part, taking advantage of the audio format to do things that would be difficult on TV. Keeping the monsters in the shadows for so long is surprisingly effective, and they're particularly original and interesting when they do turn up. In fact, their manner of communication provides some interesting scenes in and of itself, even if Ben's are the only ones we ‘see' firsthand.

This isn't quite the semi-hard SF that Guerrier often writes, but the last segment in particular is relatively high-concept for DW and there's good use of the various characters. There may be some shades of the Third Doctor's era in the story's themes, but it's undoubtedly a Second Doctor story that would be very different with a different incarnation or different companions.

Unlike the previous releases in this series, this consists of four hour-long stories, three of which are linked by a loose plot arc, but which are otherwise standalone. Colonel Shindi makes a return, but Sam Bishop fails to make his usual appearance, his absence being used more as a running gag than anything else.

• The Dark Transaction – The first story sees the UNIT team travelling to a fictional South American country where guerrilla forces are holding an injured Dalek captive. The result obviously has a lot in common with the TV episode Dalek (itself based on a Big Finish audio, and 12 years old by the time this came out), which it directly references. It does, however, ring a number of changes on the story, presenting a Dalek foe having to resort to rather different tactics. It makes a few hints at a larger plot arc, which I gather is properly followed up on in the next release. 4 stars.

• Invocation – Entirely unconnected to anything else in the collection, this is essentially a ghost story. Sightings of terrifying spectres spread across London and are somehow linked to an old UNIT facility in southern Scotland and a ‘60s era space satellite that has started transmitting again. The science behind what's going on makes little sense even by the standards of Doctor Who and I'm rarely a fan of supernatural elements in the show (yes, I know; The Daemons... not one of my favourites, I'm afraid). It's atmospheric in places, I suppose, and Osgood is used effectively, but it's one where I find it hard to suspend my disbelief. 3 stars.

• The Sontaran Project – Colonel Shindi rather obviously takes the Sam Bishop role in this story (one wonders if it was originally written for the latter) as UNIT follows the trail of a stranded Sontaran soldier from Belgium to, well... Sevenoaks in Kent. To my mind, it's the best story in the set, making good use of the Sontarans' unusual biology to tell a tale that, in some ways, is rather dark, despite the amount of action. The Sontarans are antagonistic here, and the events of The Poison Sky are not forgotten, but it's clear from the opening teaser that they are not the true villains in this particular tale. 4.5 stars.

• False Negative – Of the original UNIT stories from the ‘70s, one of the hardest to do a follow-up to is surely Inferno, given how it ended. Nonetheless, Dorney has a crack at it here, in an alternate reality story featuring an ‘evil' mirror universe. Although not, presumably, the same one. The story focuses on Josh and Osgood (whose relationship is very different in the mirror universe), but has fun with the alternate versions of the other regulars, too. I'm not a huge fan of Inferno but that's largely due to the rather dull Primords, and by cutting them out, this story leaves itself with the good bits. Arguably, it's as much Star Trek as DW and there's perhaps a bit too much snogging, but there's quite a bit of comedy in it, which helps. 4 stars.

A straight historical set in 18th century Somerset, this is very much a story of two halves. The first half is, for the most part, a fun romp through Georgian England, with Constance and Flip trying to fit in as they take the waters and attend a high society ball. Certainly, there is action involved, not least from the titular “behemoth” causing havoc. But there are also humorous elements with an errant lap dog and the Doctor's apparent romantic interest in a wealthy widow. Other than that, it's fairly serious, poking at the restrictions of the society of the time, but not really bringing them centre stage - the focus is more on low-stakes adventure and on introducing some of the key characters.

And then, in the second half, as we move from Bath to Bristol, the theme changes radically. A much darker thread that's been bubbling away in the background comes to the fore as the villain makes his move and places Flip in danger. As is probably clear from the picture on the cover, the theme here is slavery. The story is set some years before Mansfield's judgement in the Somersett case, let alone the Abolition Act, so slavery was perfectly legal at the time, if uncommon in mainland Britain. But the Empire was a very different matter, and people like the villains here clearly did exist.

Of course, it's easy to dislike these villains, slave traders being up there with Nazis in that regard. (Indeed, I write this less than three months after the statue of real-life slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and thrown into Bristol Harbour, where some of this story is set). And you're not going to get a detailed analysis of the transatlantic slave trade in a Doctor Who story, although this does go over many of the basics. It does, however, draw parallels with the situations of some of its other characters, including the one in the title, showing them as well-treated in comparison, but still lacking in freedom and at the mercy of their captors' whims.

Arguably, that does reduce Flip's role in the final 30 minutes, although she has been fairly active up until that point. And, while there are some speeches against slavery, it's a point that's sufficiently obvious that Platt doesn't bother belabouring it; it reminds me a little of the way that 4th Doctor TV story The Sunmakers rails against the taxman. But, still, it's a worthy topic to visit, and, being a historical rather than a story of slaves on some alien planet, puts the Doctor in the situation of not being able to put the world to rights, just save a few individuals.

The brief summary of this would be “Doctor Who does Logan's Run.” Which probably explains why one of the characters is called Mr. York. Now, if that had been all the story was, I'd probably have given it just the three stars. But, despite the initial points of resemblance, things take a left turn at the 30-minute mark, albeit one that has parallels with another, much more recent, SF work, Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

That isn't even the last twist, although I spotted one of the others quite a way in advance. The result is, though, definitely DW, reminiscent of a number of classic stories in which the Doctor faces off against some tyrannical society - Vengeance on Varos being perhaps the archetypal example for Six. There are also aliens and, of course, we're on some far future colony world, rather than Earth, but that's not really what the story is about.

It's difficult to say too much more without giving away the reveals, but it's far to say that this in, part, a story about age and, in particular, about how society treats its elderly. There's perhaps a limit to how deeply one can explore those themes in a 2-hour DW audio play, but Chapman certainly has a good stab at it. As a result, there is a good mix of actors employed, representing various different ages (in this society, The End comes at 70, not 30) - veteran actress Sheila Reid being particularly notable.

So, it's really much more - and, in particular, more original - than the basic premise would suggest. Yes, it's partly borrowing from some of the greats, but it's very much putting a unique spin on them, and our initial impressions of the society depicted turn out to be not quite what we think. A good story, tackling a theme that we don't often see.

To be honest, while the first release in this series wasn't bad, it didn't inspire me to listen to any more. As it happens, though, I bought the set of six together at a discount, and it seems a waste not to try the other five. And it turns out that this is rather better than its predecessor.

Without having read the original on which this is based, I'd guess that the reason for the improvement is that the adaptation is freer with the plot. (The Goodreads entry currently states it has the same scriptwriter but the credits say it doesn't; it's by Cavan Scott, not Mark Wright). This time around, the party's rogue, Merisiel, is the main viewpoint character, and we don't have the narration by the wizard. For much of the story, she's separated from the rest of the party, making the story rather more personal, with the kind of emotional drama that audio is better suited for. There's also some decent characterisation of her companions, although the fighter really doesn't come across as very likeable.

Having said which, some of the problems of the basic concept are still on display. None of the central characters have a backstory here, so that we know more about the villains than the heroes, and the fight scenes still tend to be difficult to follow. Even so, the more character-based story that forms the core of this would have inclined me to give it a higher rating... were it not for the final segment.

The problem here is that the main plot - the investigation titular murders - is basically resolved about three-quarters of the way through with what should have been the story's big climactic scene. But the original scenario, which presumably wasn't as much based around the travails of one particular PC, continues on after that, with the heroes following a clue to find and fight the level boss who's behind it. This part reads much more like a typical D&D encounter, moving on to a more powerful villain (one assumes the PCs are supposed to have gone up a level and need something tougher to fight). That would work in the context of the original, but here it feels tacked on, an extra bit after the real story has concluded.

Skipping over the fifth TV season due to the passing of Deborah Watling, the Early Adventures series jumps to the final black-and-white season for a story featuring Zoe and narrated by Wendy Padbury. In fact, the narration is used rather better here than in the previous few releases, mostly being employed when there's a particularly neat visual to describe, enhancing the atmosphere rather than feeling like an unnecessary add-on.

The story series the TARDIS crew encountering the wreck of a vast colony ship in deep space, its human crew long dead. It's a horror story beginning with a slow-burn exploration of the abandoned hulk and with the ‘monster' not turning up until the half-way mark. When it does, it's more supernatural than alien, which, while not inappropriate for Doctor Who in general, is less of a fit with the Second Doctor's era on TV. I'll also add that the nature of the spaceship's power supply is particularly implausible, although whether that dents your suspension of disbelief or not is likely a matter of taste.

The science fiction setting puts Zoe centre-stage, keeping her at least as active as the Doctor, although Jamie gets rather less to do. Atack plays up Zoe's unusual background and gives her plenty of chances for her to display her scientific and technical skills. There are even a couple of fun scenes where she's using technobabble to flirt with a similarly inclined character and a theme that fits in with her arc through the course of TV series (which was, to be honest, more implied than stated at the time, this being '60s TV). Her interactions with that computer specialist and with a diagnostic robot of limited vocabulary give the story heart that counterbalances the horror elements and make you care about what happens to them.

Speaking of which, there are twists and turns along the way, especially once the initial wandering-through-spooky-half-lit-corridors element is over. For me, these, and the strong use of Zoe more than made up for the few weaknesses mentioned above and kept the story going despite its relatively limited setting. This is a good story, especially for fans of Zoe, who has generally been well-used in the Big Finish audios.

The first play in the “Locum Doctors” trilogy, this starts with Jo and the Doctor being whisked away from UNIT headquarters on a top-secret mission. But the more immediate question for Jo is why the man claiming to be the Doctor is suddenly short and Scottish...

Aside from that key mystery (which isn't resolved here, being left open for the other two parts of the trilogy), this is in many ways a typical UNIT-era story. To emphasise this, it uses the '70s theme music, and the incidental music is also reminiscent of those episodes, without being directly imitative. The Doctor and Jo are taken to a mysterious island where it's clear from the get-go that something is very wrong, but that nobody else seems to notice.

In this respect, it feels rather like a spy thriller, albeit in a fantastic vein; The Avengers or even The Prisoner seem as if they might be templates. Indeed, the Cold War looms rather large in events, even if the explanation for events is very much science fiction. The mystery works well, with the oddities piling up, and there's a fair amount of action even after the big reveal. And then there's the question of what the Doctor should do about it, something to which there is no easy answer.

Obviously, however, the main gimmick here is pairing up Seven with Jo Grant, which is certainly an interesting change of pace. As often with these things, Manning's voice no longer sounds like that of a 20-year old, something which might put some people off. Mike Yates also makes an appearance, but it's only a cameo, as he's mostly off-stage, and gets only a few lines. But it's the kind of story I like, with mystery in a broadly familiar, but off-kilter, setting and a good dose of moral ambiguity. For me, this nudges it into five-star territory.

The problem with audio stories based around the black-and-white era of the TV show is that few of the original stars are still with us. With this pair of 4-part stories, Big Finish have taken the plunge and recast all of the recurring roles. Naturally, some listeners won't be happy with that, and if you're one of them, this isn't for you.

If you are okay with it, though, perhaps the first thing to say is that the actors here aren't impressionists, and there's no mistaking that they're not the originals. It's more like the Star Trek films with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, although the First Doctor's mannerisms, for example, are in the script. For those who are primarily fans of the new series, of course, there's the benefit that the Doctor is played by David Bradley, who took on the role in the TV episode Twice Upon a Time.

It's perhaps for this reason that the release is being marketed as part of the new series range, despite being obviously based on the format of the first classic TV season from 1963-64 and with the show's original line-up of characters. Among other things, each 30-minute segment has its own title (for what that's worth when nobody reads them out) and each 4-part story ends by teasing the opening segment of the next one. For me, the new voices took a little getting used to, which may have affected my opinions of the first story, but I had no problems by the end.

The Destination Wars – In the first story, the TARDIS lands on a colony world whose technological progress is being advanced by a mysterious figure known only as The Inventor. It's a far more grandiose setting than we'd ever have seen on TV in the ‘60s but, equally, the plot is longer and more involved than a typical 45-minute episode of the modern era. In fact, the beginning is quite slow, revealing key details of the background, as was quite common in some early Hartnell serials.

Although there are some clever ideas about time travel (vaguely reminiscent, perhaps, of those in The Space Museum) the story is mostly notable for the villain. He's hiding a secret that's actually pretty obvious almost from the point he turns up but isn't revealed until the second cliffhanger, so I'll avoid mentioning it here. I have to say that he's played well, with a suave menace that breaks down when things don't go his way. But... there's an unfortunate controversy here, in that the actor who plays him later made some transphobic comments on social media that resulted in a number of complaints. Whether you can separate the artist from the work in this particular case is obviously a matter for the individual listener.

Leaving that aside, this is a decent story, with a premise that fits in with the classic series. Having said which, it's arguable how well it fits with the specific era it's supposed to be emulating, beyond a few lines (and, to be fair, one significant plot point) that reference episodes in the show's first season. Susan gets to play a more prominent part than she often had at the time, which is a good thing, but, while Ian and Barbara do get a moment of heroism they're less effectively used overall, being somewhat out of their depth. 3.5 stars.

The Great White Hurricane – The very first season of the classic TV show had stories that alternated between science fiction and historical settings (barring one half-length extra inserted at the last minute for budget reasons). So it makes sense that the first pairing of this new collection includes one story of each type. If there really is anyone listening to this who has been drawn into it by Bradley and isn't familiar with the original era they might be surprised that this means a straight historical, without any SF elements beyond the time travellers' presence. But, in all honesty, there can't be many.

The story sees the TARDIS arriving in 1880s New York, giving a great opportunity for British actors to dust off their best New York accents. It's an adventure tale in the “history is cruel” mould seen in stories such as Marco Polo and The Aztecs, although the travellers are only in the past for less than 48 hours, rather than the lengthy sojourns more common in the actual Hartnell era. The main threats come from rival street gangs and the increasingly bad weather as one of the worst snowstorms in history hits the city.

There's plenty of drama amid the snow, with Ian and Barbara helping out a Puerto Rican immigrant, and Susan and the Doctor separately encountering different aspects of the gang rivalry. In places, it's fairly grim, and there's precious little humour, although the story ultimately shows faith in humanity coming together against adversity. The Doctor is more grumpy than charming, although he does get a few good speeches and his tone is appropriate for this sort of story anyway. As a straight historical that doesn't include any historical celebrities, it's also something of a change of pace, which is worthwhile in itself. 4.5 stars.

The TARDIS lands on a world with a medieval social structure but futuristic technology, where a recently-married duke and duchess are at each other's throats. Soon, the Doctor is mistaken for an assassin sent to resolve the situation and has to go along with the ruse in order to have any chance of escape.

The result is a mixture of comedy and court politics in a setting that has a number of unusual features. Much of the comedy comes from the TARDIS crew's attempts to appear as cold-blooded killers - although it turns out there's a logical reason as to why their explanations are accepted. In fact, the story has a number of twists in the second half that make sense of events in the first (I did spot one coming in advance, but appreciated the way the misdirection was done, so that it actually enhanced things for me).

Tegan is also paired with Adric for the first half of the story, giving them a chance to bicker, although this is less of a feature in this release than in some others. While I can't say I'm particularly warming to Adric's presence in the series, he's written more reasonably here than he was on TV, and it seemed to me that Waterhouse is getting better at faking a teenage voice than in some earlier audios. Interestingly, while all the companions do get plenty to do, the story is as much about the (larger than usual) guest cast as it is about them, with the enmity between the duke and duchess lying at the core of it.

It's a fun romp, and certainly not to be taken too seriously, with some changes of pace in the third and fourth acts that prevent it from feeling overly long. The comedy typically works, although it's not as strong as in (say) Peri and Piscon Paradox or The Kingmaker and this isn't one of the greats. 3.5 stars, perhaps, but I've given out a lot of 4s recently, so I'm rounding down.

Four more hour-long stories, unconnected beyond being set (probably) in the same year. This was the last ‘season' of the series to be released as a single set, with Big Finish switching to individual releases thereafter. This, it seems, was due to poor sales, which is a pity as it's generally been strong and the ‘60s/'70s ambience provides a contrast with, say, Torchwood, which otherwise has a similar premise. Whether by coincidence or design, three of the four stories in this collection involve themes of mind control, although they're done rather differently.

The Splintered Man – A weakness of the previous ‘season' was that most of the stories didn't really evoke the 1970s setting. The first offering in the new set, however, is rather more clearly set in the era (1976, so far as I can tell, which is three years after the previous season) although it's probably more identifiable as such to Brits than to listeners of other nationalities. This is because it's partly based around the boom in Spanish holidays at the time – complete with half-finished hotels. The main theme also has connections with the concerns at the time about solving world hunger (also a key element in, for example, the Doctor Who story The Claws of Axos).

The team are tasked with investigating an explosion at a partly British-run laboratory in post-Franco Spain. Naturally, this turns out to be connected with the top secret project the laboratory was running, which is initially elusive but soon becomes of deadly significance. It feels quite a lot like an episode of The Avengers (which is hardly unusual for this series) that just happens to be set near a holiday resort. As a result, it's a lot of fun, even though it doesn't do terribly much new with the main characters, beyond introducing a limp subplot with an old flame of Rachel's that doesn't go anywhere. 4 stars.

The Ship of the Sleepwalkers – We're on holiday again, as the story starts in media res on a cruise ship in the mid-Atlantic where the team wake up with no memory of how they got there. Although this adds an air of mystery to the initial investigations, it turns out to be a plot device to get us quickly into the action, rather than anything to do with the main story. Unfortunately, it's clear to the listener what the bad guys are up to from the teaser sequence before the theme tune, meaning that you're mainly waiting for the protagonists to catch up and figure it out.

This is certainly a spy story and does make references to Cold War paranoia and a certain real-world CIA operation, although the main story would probably work as well in the modern day. (In fact, the ship is owned by a billionaire businessman running for President, despite the fact that we're well before Ross Perot, never mind the current outgoing incumbent). It's a decent enough tale, and fits with the general theme of the series, as well as luxury cruises being a relatively new thing in the 1970s, but it doesn't have much that's special to it. Characterisation is largely limited to pitting Gilmore's old-fashioned chivalry against the stereotyped American villain, leaving the episode feeling rather like filler. 3 stars.

My Enemy's Enemy – A villain from the previous ‘season' turns up at Counter-Measures, claiming that they are the only people who can save her from somebody more dangerous. What follows is a story about infiltration and betrayal as we question to what extent she's telling the truth and whether Counter-Measures itself may have been subverted. The science fiction elements are relatively limited, with the focus being more on the characters, but there's plenty of peril especially once the details of the plan become clear.

The ‘70s theme here is the inclusion of a subplot about the arrival of the punk rock scene in London. Of itself, it's more atmosphere than anything else, although it does eventually feed back into the main plot. More importantly, it provides a contrast between the differing attitudes of members of the team towards change, even if Alison's pro-punk attitude is a little hard to swallow (she's in her mid-30s and her rebellion has always been middle-class). Sir Toby, of course, fits rather better as the voice of the establishment and is, perhaps, closer here to the version in the first four seasons than we've seen for a while. 4.5 stars.

Time of the Intelligence – Although Counter-Measures has always been set within the Doctor Who universe, it has only ever used new threats, with direct references being kept to a minimum in the main series. That obviously changes with this concluding story, presumably in the hopes of boosting the sales. As is clear from the cover, it's a sequel to The Web of Fear with Yeti once again loose in London and the Doctor nowhere to be seen.

It works surprisingly well, given that we know what the threat is before most of the characters (Sir Toby, perhaps unsurprisingly, turns out to have been involved behind the scenes in the previous London incident). The ties with the Second Doctor story are strong, with one of the characters making a repeat appearance, albeit played by a different actor. More importantly, the story has a real sense of menace, playing up the mind control aspects of the Intelligence and its sinister repercussions more than the Yeti themselves, which don't work so well on audio. 4.5 stars.

The second in the “Locum Doctors” trilogy, this sees Jamie and Zoe paired up with the Sixth Doctor on a distant planetoid a few decades in Zoe's future. As in the first of the trilogy, there's an attempt to make this feel like a Second Doctor story into which Six merely happens to be intruding. This, however, is less successful this time around.

That may partly be because there's less of an obvious template to follow for the Second Doctor's stories than the Third's, at least if, as in this case, you want to avoid straightforward base-under-siege narratives. Instead, we have the '60s theme music, rather than the '80s version, and a story that, to begin with, is loosely modelled on Tomb of the Cybermen, but that breaks away from that mould for something slightly more space opera in the second half. Perhaps aware of this, Barnes includes a lot of references to the Second Doctor's run in the dialogue, and there's fun to be had spotting them all.

Another feature of the era was that a number of stories, especially including those featuring Cybermen, were, by the standards of Doctor Who, quite hard science fiction. This story, too, tries to get the science right, but, unfortunately, doesn't really succeed. In particular, the Kuiper Belt gets referenced a lot, but I'm not at all convinced that Barnes actually knows what it is.

Fortunately, for me, a couple of points raise this story above the average, even if they aren't anything typical of this era of the show's history. First, there's a nice focus on Zoe, making good use of her backstory in ways that are directly relevant to how the plot plays out. The second plus is the complexity of the story, which relies heavily on time travel, and at times is non-sequential, with effects playing out before their causes. For many people, this “timey-wimey” approach is a negative, and it's certainly true that the story isn't one to listen to casually if you want to understand what's going on. But it works for me.

But does the pairing of characters from disparate eras work? I felt that it did, and there's less of the prolonged suspicion from the companion(s) that we had in the first part of the trilogy - Zoe, in particular, works out what's going on almost immediately, and has no trouble accepting it. It helps that Hines and Padbury's voices have changed less than those of some other actors from the era, keeping things sounding authentic. The differences between Six and Two are played up, of course, but the interactions with the companions are convincing, and there's a good line up of guest characters.

Including a Cyberman with a Lancashire accent. Can't beat that.

This is a set of four hour-long stories set during the Time War and featuring not the Doctor, but the Master. Yes, the Master is the protagonist in these stories, although he can hardly be described as the hero. This is achieved largely by having him be on the run from the Daleks which, if it doesn't exactly make him sympathetic, does at least mean that what he's trying to do isn't fundamentally evil; this is a story about his attempt to survive, not about his usual schemes of conquest (or is it...?)

The four stories follow on from one another sequentially, forming a single arc, but are still distinct. Significantly, the Master is played by Derek Jacobi, who does some magnificent acting in this that sees this particular incarnation switching from an avuncular old man not unlike his Professor Yana persona in Utopia to the callous schemer that he is underneath and making it all work. You really get a feel for the Master's intelligence, not just his menace, which is something not all other versions have managed so effectively.

I also want to give a shout-out to the theme tune, which is a sinister-sounding techno piece with recognisable elements of the regular Doctor Who theme underneath. Nicely done.

• Beneath the Viscoid – The first story is set on a undersea resistance base on an alien planet conquered by the Daleks. Thus, this starts out like the typical base-under-siege story so often seen on DW with the obvious exception that it's not the Doctor who turns up to apparently save the day. It soon becomes clear what the Master is doing on the base, but there are a few twists before it's apparent how he expects to go about it. As a result, it's a twist on a standard trope of the series (and references a certain 4th Doctor story while it's about it) with the listener often being uncertain as to the true motives of its central character. 4 stars.

• The Good Master – This time we start with the Master working in a hospital helping to save casualties of the War. It's a long time before we discover why he's doing this (or what it has to do with the previous episode) but there's an intriguing question as to whether we're seeing a different side to his personality than usual being brought out by the unusual situation, or the entire thing is simply a subterfuge. It's a great story with mounting tension, a hellish planet besieged by the Daleks and an unusually complex portrayal of its central character. 5 stars.

• The Sky Man – A change of pace for the third story in the set as we follow a character who has crossed the Master's path in the previous episode. He arrives in a bucolic low-tech farming community, aware that, at some point, it will be touched by the Time War, and tries to save them from the coming disaster. It builds slowly, with scenes of country life and easing the natural suspicion of the locals to the man from the stars. And then things start to get darker, while the Master (for the little he's even in it) stands by and basically twiddles his thumbs. It all seems very uncharacteristic of him, except... 4.5 stars.

• The Heavenly Paradigm – ...except that we find out in the final episode what he's actually up to. It's a brilliant conclusion to the arc, linking to the TV series and giving us a real insight into how this particular Master operates. Which is all I'm going to say about this one. 5 stars.

A collection of eleven short stories and some nice splash art, this is a decent decadal anniversary piece, but no more than that, and hardly somewhere you'd want to start reading the line. Some of the stories are simple fights, albeit dealing with some of the typical themes of the comics such as marine conservation and the rulership of Atlantis. But there are a couple of character pieces in here, too, one for Aqualad trying to come to terms (again) with his estranged father, and the other showing Aquaman and Ocean Master's differing perspectives on a tropical storm.

The desire to cover a wide range of styles means that the whole is disjointed, with radically different costumes and looks for the main character indicating that they're scattered over his timeline/reboot history and without the space to provide the necessary context. (The one set in the Bombshells universe is fun, though, with Arthur and Mera dealing with Rhine Maidens enslaved by the Nazis). But it also means that Tempest and Aqualad get their own stories, even if there's no appearance by Aquagirl or Dolphin, leaving Mera as the only significant female character.

The last two stories are teasers for upcoming series. Each has differing strengths and weaknesses – one works as a short story in its own right, but doesn't seem to be heading anywhere especially interesting, the other is more promising, but is clearly just the first few pages of something larger and ends abruptly without anything approaching a resolution.