Fourth Doctor Series 7B


The Shadow Of London by Justin Richards

The Shadow of London is an average story with an excellent central conceit. It’s a bit by the Numbers, but the atmosphere, and very weirdly British side characters entertain, and Four and Leela are certainly on form. It’s best at the start, and the more things are revealed, the more by the Numbers and generic it gets.
Care For A Jelly Baby?: Tom Baker is distinctly casual here. I love his and Leela’s we do this crap everyday chemistry. It’s not that he doesn’t seem like he cares about the proceedings, no, as he goes on, he gets as serious as the 4DAS get, but how quickly The Two Of them adapt to ”fake London” is brilliant.
Move Aside, Bent Face: Leela holding a knife over a dead body is exactly how Leela would act. The fact that she isn’t suspected goes to both the stories detriment (Wait, really) and credit (thank god that would have been predictable)
The Monster: Despite the degree of tragedy to it thanks to it's backstory, it’s as senseless and predictable as Who monsters get.
Overall: Shadow Of London is Average, Much Like This Series so far. 7/10

The Bad Penny by Dan Starkey

This is the weird crap I like. Very similar to the Renaissance Man, it makes next to no sense and is all the more enjoyable for it. Bad Penny plays with so many time travel complications and has certain bits out of order. A lot of Bad Penny is exceedingly confusing, as I said. I’m not sure if I understand the full plot outline/series of events from the first time I’ve listened to it: but I’ll give it this, its audaciously entertaining, and probably one of my favorite 4DAS. 
Care For A Jelly Baby: The Future Doctor talking to Past Doctor two times in the story, once in both positions is one of those ball ideas that hurts your head in such a beautiful way.
Move Aside, Bent Face: Good Leela material, she gets to mess around with the monster in an interesting way. 
The Monster: Not as interesting as our fantastic main Villain, the future self of our Hotel owner. It’s like Moffat’s Christmas Carol to a further level, where the past self is disillusioned with the future version. I adore this.
Overall: It's rare that these get so bonkers. It’s equally rare I like them when they’re this incomprehensible. 9.5/10

Kill The Doctor/Age Of Sutekh By Guy Adams

Kill The Doctor/Age Of Sutekh perfectly characterizes Sutekh and writes him in all of his evil eloquence perfectly, so if you come into this looking for that, you will not be disappointed. I’m weird, I don’t think Pyramids Of Mars is the best TV story of all time like a lot of people do, so I roughly think this one is equal to it. The cast is still great. 
Sutekh is as horrifying as he was before, and that’s what this story sets out to do, and it achieves it. 
Care For A Jelly Baby?: ‘Welcome To Drummond. It has shops.’ Never has a Planet been set up so well by a Doctor’s exposition. Tom Baker is on fire here. He is so good. He is so so good. Drummond is an interesting setting, being an excellent demonstration of the failings of technology, pointing those out, while getting close to but never falling into “ok boomer phone bad” territory. The way Baker gets serious when everyone’s trying to kill him and he realizes Sutekh is responsible, is great.
Not to mention: ‘I am The Doctor and I Bring The Gift Of Life To All Humanity.’ 
God, this story has some sparkling dialogue.
Move Aside, Bent Face: Leela roughly does as much as she should be doing here, and has some absolutely stunning material involving the homeless people, plus she gets to fight off plenty of people and just generally kick butt.
You Look Like A Horse In A Dress: Sutekh is very good. I don’t know what else I should say. He’s still Sutekh. He’s still terrifying. He’s still eloquent and has great speeches about how he just wants to kill everything. And the best thing about him, is the same as Pyramids Of Mars. He’s believable. He wants to destroy everything, and you believe he will do it given the chance. He’s not a one dimensional stupid villain, he just wants to destroy it all. That’s brilliant. And although the Daleks would leave the universe intact to rule it, with Sutekh, it just goes.
Overall: With some stunning dialogue and fantastic ideas, Kill The Doctor/Age Of Sutekh has been called the High Point Of The 4DAS. I’m not sure, but I’m struggling to find a flaw with it the more I think. The fourth part may be a little bit of a mess, but that only brings it down slightly, and both parts can be preachy, but it’s overall another story that brings The Fourth Doctor into a new age, while calling back to his beautiful past. 
Kill The Doctor!: 9.5/10
The Age Of Sutekh: 9/10

 Update:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cobwebs

Image
  Cobwebs by Jonathan Morris Now stop me if you've heard this one before...  The Doctor and Companions arrive in Location X where they discover evidence that something bad is going to happen in the future (i.e. their deaths, the TARDIS not working, etc) and have to fudge the rules of time so they live. It's a Doctor Who stalwart, I should think, I can't count how many stories I've done with it, but the Fires of Vulcan and the entirety of Matt Smith series 6 come readily to mind - and quite frankly, Cobwebs is no exception. It's a complicated time puzzle of a story that will never really surprise you (I figured out the twist a solid hour before it happened.) The story's chief selling point is that for the first time ever since like Mawdwyn Undead and Terminus for two seconds, Tegan, Nyssa, and Turlough are in the TARDIS together. It's other chief selling point is Tegan is in it - this was her second Big Finish audio ever, and she had previously said she would...
Read more

Torchwood: Aliens Among Us 2

Image
  Love Rat by Christopher Cooper Trust Big Finish to remake Day One, and not only make it good, but also make it somewhat heartbreaking. Of course, Day One is a terrible and horny bit of TV, and Love Rat is also sort of that way, but it makes up for it (in my book) by dealing with the aftereffects of what this kind of story would actually do to the team. Jack's actions in this episode, although prompted by the parasite, aren't even out of character, and the way he seduces Tyler and Ng and the fallout of that is dealt with in a surprisingly mature and emotional manner. Unlike Day One, which strives to be mature, Love Rat is actually mature, and the Gwen and Ng arc is actually a gutpunch to hear, especially the final few scenes with Rhys, as throughout this series, Ng has taken over Gwen's life and utterly ruined it. It's amazing what Eve Myles can do with just a few words, the emotion she can convey that this isn't what she wants, how horrified she is at not being in...
Read more

NCJDDAS: Dark Page

Image
NCJDDAS: Dark Page Cover by Arbrax  This episode of the NOW CANON Judi Dench Doctor adventures was Inspired by Robert Shearman listing a brilliant idea for a short story that wouldn’t work in Doctor Who. I say utter Rubbish. I’m taking that story and writing it in Who. Fight me. It also helps that I haven’t read the story he wrote that I’m utilizing, making this even more of a simple writing prompt thing. Featuring The Twenty Second Doctor, Elizabeth Olsen, as created by Arbrax Chapter One In the town of Broughstershire, at 5:27 AM, the postman came by every house in the neighborhood and gave every single person a letter.  The letter was different for each person. For instance, Mr. Layton got a letter that said May 5, 2027, and below that, in slightly aggressive font, Gangrene. Mrs Curbishley got a letter that said June 18, 2053, Car Crash, and Little Timmy got a letter that said October 9th, 2081, Natural Causes. Of course, these are merely examples, those people don't e...
Read more

(MAIN RANGE): Dinnertime Part One

Image
MAIN RANGE: Dinnertime Part One This Story Stars Judi Dench as The Twenty Sixth Doctor and David Tennant as The Tenth Featuring Danny Devito as Danny Devito and John Simm as The Master This Story Takes Place Between A Storm Is A Comin and The Countryfile Conundrum Chapter One "It is said that in the final days of planet earth, everyone had bad dreams. To the west...of the...north... of this world...everyone did...gather? What even is that sentence- um, Sorry, Ah, here we are. IN THE CELEBRATION, of a Pagan rite to banish the cold and the Dark. Each and everyone of those people had nightmares of the pretty mild (for the human race) terror to come (I mean, I think the Dalek invasion was way worse). Everyone except Fred. There's nothing special about Fred, he's not really important to the story, but all the same, he had a dream about shopping, and it was rather average. Okay, so, to sum up. Everyone had bad dreams on Earth, except Fred. They all forgot...Except for one....
Read more

Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers

Image
  The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Ravagers Ravagers is such a weird choice to start the Ninth Doctor Adventures with because in terms of plot, this really feels like an Eleventh Doctor story. It’s convoluted and “timey wimey” and quite possibly disorienting for newcomers. In fact, no, it seems definitely disorienting for newcomers. You think a River Song flow chart was required? Nahh, A Ninth Doctor Ravagers flowchart is required, man. As an audio fanatic, it was quite confusing, and well, perhaps indicative of NuWho Three-Parters, because like most of them, it borders on the shit. And one would expect, me, as not really the worlds hugest Ninth Doctor fan, that I’d hate it, right? Nope! I love it. Really do, I mean, it’s not perfect (first releases for Doctors never are: Sirens of Time, Destination: Nerva and Only the Monstrous are all trash, and Technophobia is just okay) But on the whole, I felt it was a consistent set and the quality never really went up or down much in either dire...
Read more