Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 2

The second set of four episodes in this 16-episode series heads off on something of a tangent. This time around, the focus moves away from the Big Bad (or at least, the character who appeared to be the Big Bad in the first instalment) and on to another villain who is, perhaps, less interesting, if seemingly rather more deadly.

• Beachhead – The Doctor and companions arrive in present-day Somerset in what proves to be an entirely standalone story that's only tangentially connected to the rest of the arc. What we get here is a fairly standard alien invasion story, although connections to the Doctor's past do make it a little more interesting. As is clear from the cover, the villains here are the Voord, making their second appearance in a Big Finish release. That previous story expanded considerably on their culture and society, making them more interesting than they had been in their original TV outing, but here they're just back to being generic baddies. There's some nice background with the guest characters, but nothing to raise this rather rushed-feeling story above the mundane. 3 stars.

• Scenes from Her Life – A complex story, set on a decaying structure deep in the Vortex. This turns out to have a rather deeper connection to the story arc, since it includes a series of flashbacks from the point of view of a character who appeared in the first episode of Doom Coalition 1 which both explain her background, and how the situation in this episode came to be. It's a somewhat surreal story, and initially quite confusing, although it does make more sense as it progresses and what's really going on is uncovered by the Doctor and his companions. Liv comes across well here, but it's more an exploration of the weird setting and a missing piece slotting into the larger arc than it is about the regular characters. 4 stars.

• The Gift – The TARDIS arrives in San Francisco on the eve of the great earthquake of 1906 and is immediately assaulted by a psychic force that makes him act strangely. This puts some of the focus back on the companions, at least for the earlier parts of the story. In the latter parts, there's some sense of the devastation of the earthquake and the resulting fires, although the threat from the villain tends to overshadow it. Admittedly, the villain's plan is intimately connected with the quake (although, for what it's worth, that's a ‘fixed point in time' and not something they've directly created) but, even so, it does take something away from the scale of the real tragedy. Perhaps that would have been a little too dark for what's essentially an adventure story, though. 3 stars.

• The Sonomancer – The story climaxes on an alien planet beset by evil mining corporations and a partially dormant volcano. The Eleven does turn up in this episode, even if he's rather playing second fiddle, but there's no real further exploration of his complex character, and he's mainly just a crazy guy. The other villains are somewhat better, if not stunningly original, and the story is too strong on action that's difficult to follow on audio, so that at times I wasn't clear what was happening when I was obviously supposed to be. The main selling point of the episode, though, is probably that it has River Song in it, playing as large a role as the Doctor, but doomed never to meet him since their first encounter is still in his future. The result is a flawed, but still reasonably satisfying, conclusion to this section of the series, leaving things open for the next instalment without rushing headlong into it. 4 stars.

So, 3.5 stars on average, which is rather lower than the first instalment, but at least rounds up to a 4.