A Wisp of Thought

EEEEEEEEEE~. The upcomming Sixth Doctor specials are going to have Jago & Litefoot as his companions! THIS PLEASES ME TO NO END. (I already preordered them like, last November. I still need to pre-order Love & War and The Eighth Doctor Dark Eyes boxset.)

• Voyage to Venus - Out in November 2012
• Voyage to the New World - Out in December 2012

It’s £5 for the CD, and £1 for the download of each release!

My Top Ten Main Range Big Finish Stories (#51 - 100)

—-> (#1-50)

1.) Arrangements for War/Thicker Than Water (#57 & #73; Six, Evelyn & Mel)

This is another great set of audios written by the same author: Paul Sutton  (not to be mistaken in relation to Sarah Sutton!) and it’s far more difficult to pick just one. Both are spectacularly written pieces of drama, and they can be listened to back to back since they both reside on the same planet. (It’s even better if you listen to Project Lazarus before all those, since Arrangements for War takes place right after the events of Six’s story arc). Thicker Than Water marks sort of the end for the Doctor and Evelyn’s travels (at least for Six) and it’s quite a nice leeway for people who haven’t warmed up to Mel.

2.) The Kingmaker (#81; Five, Peri & Erimem)

Probably the best story involving this TARDIS team (and probably one of the most famous and remembered stories from Big Finish), and also one of the greats in the Fifth Doctor audio range. Nev Fountain penned (no pun intended!) this little mystery concerning a conspiracy involving a murder mystery with Richard III and his ties to Shakespeare’s play! It’s sprinkled with Fountain’s dry wit and fast paced execution that will make people re-listen several other times to link all the ties together, or just re-listen to their favorite scenes. (And it’s probably the closest to New Who that Big Finish will probably ever get - with a small hint of “a Northern chap with big ears”.)

3.) Red (#85; Seven & Mel)

If you want to be terrified, yank your headphones off and hide in a corner in a fetal position - this audio will fit your needs. Sylvester McCoy practically steals the show portraying a much more terrifying (and even murderous!) side of the Doctor. Mel is also written as a strong, independent companion in this one as well, since she’s separated from Seven for half of the story (and also left paralyzed from falling from a high level of the prison complex that the two materialize in).

4.) Scherzo (#52; Eight & Charley)

If Zagreus overcompensated with guest cameos (actors and characters), Scherzo is the complete opposite - it’s just Eight and Charley talking to each other in an endless void for the entire story. It’s a great piece of character development for the two characters, accompanied by equally great performances by India Fisher and Paul McGann. A lot of the love has to go to the sound team for making this story so creepy and tweaks with all our senses. (Hell, even Eight’s fairy tale is downright disturbing!)

5.) Circular Time (#91; Five & Nyssa)

The first of the 4-parter short story format releases, the seasons are what guide the story along in mood and content. There’s some great character development for Nyssa in the last two stories, while the first two are more like generic adventures.

• Spring - The two meet a renegade Time Lord on an avian world.
• Summer - After being accused of forgery by accidentally paying the wrong currency, the two face judgement by Sir Issac Newton (played by David Warner!).
• Autumn - A gentler, more Earthbound story surrounding Nyssa meeting a boy in Stockbridge (and slowly falls in love with him), while Five is participating a cricket tournament.
• Winter - Spoilers for the end of The Caves of Androzani, but considered the best of the compilation (IMHO) with a nice bit of closure between Five and Nyssa. The events of this story would be brought up later in the new Team Five stories involving an older Nyssa rejoining Tegan and Turlough fifty years in her future.

6.) Exotron & Urban Myths (#95; Five & Peri)

This was the story that warmed me up to Peri (at last!). Exotron is a good piece of drama, which involves Five flaunting his control over telepathy LIKE A BOSS. Urban Myths is even more fun, since the plot involves 3 Time Lords from the C.I.A. meet at an Earth restaurant and each try to decipher what actually happened in an incident involving Five and Peri on a diseased planet (one of the 3 versions of the story portray Peri and Five as badass mercenaries. PFFT.). Not to mention Five wearing a chef’s uniform is something not to think about. :D

7.) Caerdroia (#63; Eight, Charley & C’rizz)

3 versions of the Eighth Doctor? As Captain Jack once said: “I can’t tell you what I’m thinking right now”. One of the better stories in the Divergence Saga and with this TARDIS team, this story faces the three in a strange dimension where Eight is somehow split into 3 personalities (all lovingly nicknamed by Charley after characters by Winnie the Pooh). This is merely a great listen just for Paul McGann acting as 3 different versions of his Doctor.

8.) LIVE 34 (#74; Seven, Ace & Hex)

Once in a while, Big Finish likes to play around with their presentation of the stories the Doctor Who audio range with experimental narratives (i.e. Creatures of Beauty, Flip-Flop, The Natural History of Fear). In this one, you have to piece together what exactly is going on between Seven, Ace and Hex through the means of selected radio broadcasts. It’s pretty intense in some scenes, especially near the end when Seven has to rescue Ace (who was brutally beaten while she was captured and held under government custody as a terrorist) from being publicly executed. It’s on this list for being a fresh way to listen to Doctor Who without the reoccurring pattern of recaps or the same Act 1 - 4 process.

9.) Son of the Dragon (#99; Five, Peri & Erimem)

I think why I like this story so much is that it’s a pure historical serial, which is something seriously lacking in some of the later Classic Who stories, and it involves Vlad the Impaler (THE Dracula)! It’s also quite dark and gruesome in some places via the subject matter, not to mention at the beginning of the first Act where the Team discovers that the TARDIS has landed on a Turkish battlefield littered with slaughtered soldiers. It’s probably one of the better character-driven audios involving the development of Peri and Erimem’s close relationship, especially when Erimem has to accept her fate of Dracula’s bride and pushes Peri away to save her life, as well as the Doctor’s.

10.) Urgent Calls (#94; Sixth Doctor)

In all of the 3-part + 1 short story main range releases, this is still my absolute favorite due to it being extremely creative story-wise and in the pacing. Being such a short story, I still wish that the character of Lauren Hudson would be brought back to be a future companion. She sounded like a very sincere person and it would be kind of interesting just for her to meet the Doctor in person, since they met over odd circumstances by a virus which made wrong phone calls to people.