Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez, Julian Bleach, Jami Reid-Quarrell, Joey Price, Nicholas Briggs, Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg.
Two-part stories within the world of Doctor Who have a habit of being lost in the storm, the build up can be a let-down or the finale such a disappointment that the whole structure of the tale becomes a series of woes and misbegotten anecdotes struggling to breathe in the weight of expectation.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez, Julian Bleach, Jami Reid-Quarrell, Jemma Redgrave, Jaye Griffiths, Harki Bhambra, Daniel Hoffman-Gill, Joey Price, Benjamin Cawley, Aaron Neil, Clare Higgins, Nicholas Briggs, Kelly Hunter, India Ria Amarteifio, Dasharn Anderson, Stefan Adegbola, Shin-Fei Chen, Lucy Newman-Williams, Demi Papaminas, Barnaby Edwards, Nicholas Pegg, Jonathan Ojinnaka.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Frazer Hines, Michael Cochrane, Veronica Roberts, Bernard Holley, Nicholas Briggs.
The name Telos is enough to have long term fans of Doctor Who reaching for the nearest bottle of glee and asking their friends and neighbours to pour it all over them without hesitation or complaint. Telos, the stuff of legends, it’s up there with Mondas and St. Paul’s Cathedral in terms of iconic homes for the Cybermen.
Revisiting Telos though is problematic for The Doctor, for a start getting in the way of a previous incarnation is always going to stir up agitation.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Colin Baker, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Lucy Liemann, Kieran Hodgson, Nicholas Farrell, Nicholas Briggs.
The Cybermen are never more dangerous than when completely and utterly defeated. Time and Time again from the edge of extinction, from the void between realities and the darkness of space they have survived, regrouped and in some cases have even nearly rivalled the Daleks for their natural predisposition to conquer and enslave; for they are a monster that never quite knows when to finally give up.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Barnaby Kay, Beth Chalmers, Charlie Norfolk, Derek Hutchinson, Dan Starkey, Camilla Power, John Dorney, Rachael Stirling, Alex Wyndham, Blake Ritson, Nicholas Briggs, Alex MacQueen, Sorcha Cusack, Susannah Harker, David Sibley.
Arguably one of the most involved, most deliberately, and it has to be said wonderfully elaborately written endeavours undertaken by Big Finish finally comes to an end as the saga of Dark Eyes sees the Eighth incarnation battle not only the Eminence, The Master and the Daleks but also Time itself. It is a battle that sees the foreshadowing of what is to come, of the ache that will grip the Doctor as the Time War sets out to destroy all and in which the very soul of the Time Lord is challenged.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Geff Francis, Maggie Service, Derek Ezenagu, Robert Duncan, Jacqueline Boatswain, Geoffrey Breton, Jessica Martin, Nick Hendrix, Mark Goldthorp, Nicholas Briggs, Angus Wright.
The art of political assassination is one that still holds the weight of intrigue in the modern world, perhaps more so than at any point since the 1960s and the deaths of two of the Kennedy brothers, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King and countless others hit the headlines and stunned the world over.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10
Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Dan Starkey, Miranda Raison, Peter Barrett, Derek Hutchinson, Emily Joyce, Sarah Lark, Mark Goldthorp, Geoffrey Breton, Philip Pope, Nicholas Briggs, Nick Hendrix, Angus Wright.
The third volume of stories from Big Finish concerning The Avengers team of Dr. David keel and John Stead starts with the premise of a prison break out. It is a premise that has been done before the 1960s series first aired and has been done perhaps more successfully since, notably in one of the best films ever in the Shawshank Redemption and in the highly popular Prison Break television series, and yet there is something nostalgic and homely about revisiting an idea when you take away the modern bells and whistles attached to a story.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Mark Lewis Jones, Julian Wadham, Sinead Keenan, Rory Keenan, Nicholas Briggs.
The glass is never half full for the Doctor. There should be a point in the Doctor’s life where someone sits him down and examines in depth, just what would happen if boredom ever got the better of him! For even in the smallest detail of finding himself cut off from his Tardis on a stretch of lonely beach, there is always a house on an island in which the allusion to an Agatha Christie novel will appear.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Tracy Wiles, Brian McCardie, Sean Biggerstaff, Hugh Ross, Damian Lynch, Nicholas Briggs.
It can be a staggering thought at times, that even after over 50 years of storytelling, filmed adventures and audio escapades, that there is still moments in which to find a large, near timeless thrill in a new tale set in the world of Doctor Who. Masters of Earth is one of those audio dramas so beloved of its makers Big Finish, that it allows the listener to sit back, relax, to a point and remember why they might have fallen in love with Doctor Who in the beginning.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: India Fisher, Michael Maloney, James Joyce, Nicholas Briggs, Louise Bradley, Nadia Kamil.
The solution is always part of the problem it seems. No matter how grand the answer, another dilemma will pop up in its place. Just as The Doctor faced being able to eradicate the Daleks from all time and space by placing two wires together, the quandary appeared that he would be as evil as them for not letting nature take its course. The solution is never the utter final truth. For the Viyrans and Charley Pollard, the solution is even more complex and for Charlotte Pollard the stakes have never been higher.