Tenth Doctor Adventures Volume Two
Allon-sy!
A strange beast, Volume Two of the Tenth Doctor Adventures is without a doubt, one of the strangest sets ever in terms of quality. David Tennant and Billie Piper were an average team on television, one of which annoyed many classic series fans, and yet somehow enthralled certain helpless romantics. Their series is one of ups and downs, and really, volume two is par for the course. It feels like series two at least, for all it’s good and evil. Somehow, the scripts feel unpolished, as if it was a “we can get Billie and David on these days only, here’s your really close deadline” scenario. Nonetheless, it’s still more enjoyable than several other audios.
Infamy of The Zaross by John Dorney
The highlight of the set, John Dorney pitches a pretty amazing opener, which is focused on being meta, and fun. It’s very fun in that all of the fourth wall breaks that it throws at you make sense in universe. It’s just simply and plain, great, but it doesn’t feel like a true Dorney classic that you usually get. Nonetheless, it’s a sharp and simple story with a pretty great guest cast, and plenty of characterization given to Jackie (who is somehow even better than she was on TV) but at the same time, for a story that’s made around pushing the borders of narrative, I can’t help but hope that they actually pushed it a bit further. Although, to be fair, you can’t go much further than Theatre of Dreams did in Jago and Litefoot. 8.5/10
The Sword of The Chevalier by Guy Adams
Sword of the Chevalier is definitely the one that feels most like an RTD episode, but It’s rare that I enjoy it when Big Finish put too much effort into making something that is supposed to be similar. It can be a problem in the story if not done well, and although it will give you that nostalgic pang, it also can make it difficult to give the story an identity of it’s own. Chevalier is the exact usual RTD era historical figure episode, with the bonus of the character being one, not well known, and 2. Relevant to the 13th Doctor’s recent regeneration, as they are A trans woman, making it relevant to Tennant’s own future, and what his Doctor thinks of that now. Brilliant move. However, that angle isn’t explored as much as I would like, and also the first 8 minutes of the story is the Doctor Essentially reading from a Wikipedia page about the Chevalier because she’s pretty obscure. It doesn’t matter as much though, as this one has a pretty wickedly cool villain which relates well to the duality of the Chevalier’s identity. The Chevalier is treated with the correct relevance, and she isn’t misgendered either, (unlike that one time in Torchwood). I tended to like this one more than Zaross, but it is blatant that it’s the worse story in many ways, the resolution is particularly poor. 8/10
Cold Vengeance by Matt Fitton
I’m not joking that the most fun I had with this story was hearing the Tennant era theme tune. Cold Vengeance was the first 10DA I did, and I’m surprised it didn’t sour me on the range forever, it’s pretty pathetic. The Ice Warriors have never been my kind of villains, they are simplistic green monsters, with the characterization of worse Klingons. But they can be written with dignity and interest, as seen in many other Big Finish stories. Cold Vengeance hardly tries. It’s clear this one was one of the selling points of the boxset, the inclusion of old villains, but this one is a solid nope, boring in most spots where it needs to be exciting, and uninteresting in several others. Billie Piper in particular seems like she’s falling asleep. 4/10
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