The First Doctor Adventures Volume Two

 

Please note the lack of Dreyfus 

The First Doctor Adventures Volume Two

The First Doctor Adventures Volume One is a strong contender for my favorite Big Finish set ever, alongside The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series Eight, Doom Coalition Three, and Bernice Summerfield Missing Persons. There is something to be said of consistency, and the first set had it, and by and large, I preferred four hours of 9/10 stories that were all incredibly fun and good (Dreyfus aside) to other sets like say, UNIT: Cyber-Reality, which has two stories that recieved better scores, and two that received far worse. And by and large, the appeal of The First Doctor Adventures remains the same the second time around, with David Bradley and his TARDIS team pulling their all to make some pretty amazing stories. But as I said, the First Doctor Adventures Volume One is perhaps more consistent across the board than volume two, so how does Volume Two shape up?

The Invention of Death by John Dorney

The Invention of Death is quite marvellous indeed, and out of the four stories in the first two boxsets, by far the most Hartnellian. The Invention of Death does a really quite brilliant job of taking the way the program used to function back in the day, and basically does the equivalent of doing something as ambitious as The Web Planet, but without the sloppy 60s sets, and with even more emotional weight.

Unlike the first set's breakneck pace for it's adventures (Something which I almost preferred, as it gave these classic characters a modern taste), Invention of Death is slow and methodical, without being plodding, all adding up to a fascinating thriller, but it really sparkles in the slower moments, because as it's a Dorney script, it's brimming with incredibly well realized character drama as well as this weird Hartnell sci-fi concept. The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian even sit down by a campfire and sing together in a lovely scene. We rarely see this togetherness in a TARDIS team and it's without a doubt a highlight. Not worth missing by any means, Invention of Death is simply and utterly phenomenal. I may prefer the Destination Wars on a (this story is more fun and exciting to relisten to, as well as less emotionally draining) sort of basis, but come on, it's a John Dorney script, it is objectively better than Destination Wars. The more I think of it, the more Invention of Death just sparkles: 10/10

The Barbarians and The Samurai by Andrew Smith

I've never been a fan of "The Doctor meets angry historical king person who doesn't like them and tries to cut off their heads" pure historicals. There are quite a lot of the former (and with Marian Conspiracy existing, most will pale in comparison) and in part one, I was quite worried for how the story would develop.  I am very proud of Big Finish for getting actual Japanese Actors in to voice these Japanese characters instead of pulling a "Talons of Wheng Chiang" scenario. It elevates the material greatly. Not all of the actors are really on the same level, but the authentic accents actually do help evoke this environment the story is making. Early scenes made me worry slightly, as our first impression with the Samurai is incredibly hammy and almost stereotypical, but the story rarely reaches this height again. 

It seemed to me, the longer Barbarians goes on, the better it gets, the last part being the best, and it does have some fascinating unexplored historical background. Andrew Smith is very smart for this historicals threat being so well based in reality. Foreigners in Japan before the 19th Century were all enemies of the state, and that is SUCH a good set up for this historical that adds an extra dimension to "the king hates the doctor" pure historicals that one tends to get. and despite not really being the best of the range so far, and actually quite possibly the worst, even the worst First Doctor Adventures story is kind of comparable to a great story in any other range. 8.5/10