Plum Pudding Reviews

  Shadow Planet by AK Benedict Delightful in it's fast pace and clever plotting, Shadow Planet reminds me quite a lot of an Eleventh Doctor era story by Steven Moffat - and to my surprise, this quick and fun rendition of a classic who team really really worked. The plot is slightly complicated in bits, but the simplified version amounts to the Doctor taking Ace and Hex to the planet Umbra, a therapy resort where the people there are supposed to confront the parts of their personalities they dislike made flesh. Ace (somewhat out of character, but hey, we have to have a plot) volunteers for this process and soon enough, stuff goes wrong. Because of course. Essentially, it's the Rick and Morty episode "Rest and Ricklaxation," - and funnily enough they came out around the exact same time. I prefer this story though, to that episode, though, as I am a sucker for 'fast paced and clever' stories like this one. This story's introspective nature on how Ace really h...

  Maureen Martins, Commander in Chief of Torchwood Four, is having a rubbish day. One of her fellow agents, Tom Richardson, has gone rogue and issued a temporal displacement charge. She's currently been taken out of time, existing in a halfway spot somewhere between Glasgow and the end of the universe. Torchwood Four is dying in agony, and from outside, Maureen is forced to watch every last bit of it burn. No one is going to remember her when she dies here in the gloom and dark. Whether out of starvation - or something whispering from beyond the void, in the heart of the rift... 

  Maker of Demons by Matthew J Eliott For a series that is remarkably inconsistent, I am really tending to enjoy these Seven, Ace and Mel adventures so far. This isn't a great one, to be fair, but it held my attention and has enough good moments to stay just an inch away from a negative review. Whilst I wasn't necessarily enthralled with it, it really has quite a few good moments, and sometimes you just want to put a story like this on. Something non-threatening and entertaining for a few hours - I'll take average over piss poor 100% of the time, simply because Big Finish's average is so high. The hook in this one is the best thing it's got going for it: A flashback to a younger Seven and Mel in the TARDIS when they first travelled together, saving a planet where two factions are warring against each other, blah, blah, blah. It's almost parodic in the way it goes through all of the Doctor Who tropes of a generic planet with generic human colonists fighting gener...

  A quick cover for my friend Riley's recent fanfiction - Baxters and Autons! 

  Jago and Litefoot Series Ten I am hesitant to remark upon Jago and Litefoot series ten as a return to form, as it was abundantly clear that neither set eight or nine were remotely bad - set eight had a singular appalling moment, and set nine was average yet enjoyable fair. Yet all the same, Jago and Litefoot Series Ten caught me in a way I was not expecting, especially considering that it's general hook of Jago and Litefoot having a guy who wants to write their biography is ... incredibly dull. At first glance you would think that after "Jago and Litefoot face literal vampires," "Jago and Litefoot meet Leela and the Sixth Doctor," "Jago and Litefoot are on the run from Queen Victoria," and "Jago and Litefoot fight off the motherfucking Scorchies," that this would be a sign of seasonal rot. No, far from it. Jago and Litefoot Series Ten is top form - and I am especially excited to see where the series goes from here. The Case of the Missing G...

  Fiesta of the Damned by Guy Adams "History Hurts, Mel."  "You told me. It...It also Inspires."  Fiesta of the Damned is an odd story, as I at times wished it would go in different directions, but to be frank, at the same time, I really love it for what it is. The first actual good Seven/Ace/Mel adventure, it really starts to show you the potential of this TARDIS team, and how good a pairing it is. The ultimate highlight of Fiesta is the historical aspect however, and the atmosphere it conveys. This doomed battallion fighting on against the odds is an incredible hook, and I found myself getting really invested in them - far more than I usually ever do with any other guest characters. If this was a Hex arc story, it would take something from No Man's Land and then make all these characters suffer as visceral an end as possible, but to my surprise, it doesn't do that, while still having a powerful conclusion. The era is immaculately constructed in this piece....

  Night Thoughts by Edward Young The Fourth Hex Adventure - third, perhaps, if you skipped Dreamtime, as I did, and there's already quite a common theme of them being among the darkest Big Finish adventures there are, to an almost oppressive extent. The lack of variety in tone, this consistency is something to both be applauded, and also the arc's greatest downfall at the moment. Especially considering Night Thoughts is probably the darkest and scariest of the lot (I know the BBC say it was LIVE 34 that made them freak out, but there was worse before and since.) When I say scary, I mean, scary. Night Thoughts is just - holy fuck. I had to pause the thing to breathe before pushing on around three times. Don't listen to this at night, kiddos. It will be two hours of regret. All the same, it's an interesting one to be sure, and a really good script, filled with brilliant psychological horror as well as some more visceral imagery too - it really goes for the jugular, and ma...

  The Harvest by Dan Abnett I completely adore the Harvest, and I think in part that is because it is essentially An Unearthly Child 2. In 25 minutes, it has a completely astonishingly good opening episode, it endears us to Hex viscerally, and really gets us to love his character nigh immediately, and in the vein of Rose or The Eleventh Hour, you could pick up the Harvest having no knowledge of the program. Granted there are references to "Just McShane," a thread that started in Colditz and pooped about rather egregiously for a bit before being unceremoniously dropped in LIVE 34 - but even so, it's completely irrelevant to the tale. For the record, I'm no fan of the Hex arc, (I dropped it when the stories quadrupled in price, to be honest), so that may color me, but The Harvest has a perfect tone to it - dark, yet not emotionally taxing to the point it's defeating it's own purpose like some of the later Hex stories could get, and purposefully remembering when ...

 Compilation Post of the first Eight Judi Dench Doctor Covers Compilation Post:

 A Crossover with Sebastian R. We Burn The Day:  Upon discovering the woman responsible for her stardom, the Doctor is enraged. Until she realizes that she's a rather lovely gal.  The Doctor has a new companion, a middle-aged theatrical agent named Estella DuVais. She may or may not be a manipulative bastard, and she may or may not know more than she says. Especially about the Doctor - and especially about the Doctor's What If's...  One of these What If's...and his companion Tom - have hopped universes and are arriving in London just as the Doctor and Estella arrive. But that's not all, folks... Tom has the exact same appearance as the Dench Doctor's old enemy, the Not-Doctor, a Valeyard timeline where the Doctor went mad and attempted to destroy the universe. So it's a pretty average day for the Doctor. Can the Doctor put these alternate timelines into balance? Or is she bringing the origin of her greatest enemy into fruition?... 

  The Rapture by Joseph Lidster Inviting confusion at every turn, the Rapture is in particular one of the oddest tales that Big Finish put out under the Doctor Who license, which is by no means a small feat from the company that put out Zagreus. Even by appearance of the cover, you can tell it's off the chain. It's blisteringly experimental and mad and honestly by most degrees actually rather dumb - but I am overjoyed that it exists, because it's very existence is a sign of bravery by the company. Big Finish was quick to realize that putting out a Doctor Who play each month was going to be quite a task for their small team, and knew very early on that they needed to figure out what worked by being bold and adventurous in their Doctor Who - doing bonkers things that most of the insane people who wrote the wilderness novels would balk at. This endeavor led to dozens and dozens of classics, often made by a direct shoeing off of the Doctor Who mold - the return of the pure hist...

 NCBBDAS: The Day of the Goat  Starring Brenda Blethyn and Linda Hamilton Featuring John Hurt but he’s a Goat Note that for the record I actually love Steven Moffat, I'm so sorry, these things have to be done Chapter One The TARDIS crashed. It shook, and shook, and careened through the sky like a bat out of hell, and it really couldn’t be bothered to stabilize itself at all. The inside appeared on the outside, and the outside was the upside down inside, inside another TARDIS that was upside up, right over again. Dimensions are tricky like that when you’re falling through dimensions.  “What’s going on?” Sarah Connor screamed as the TARDIS fell. “We’ve fallen into a charged Vaccum Emboitment!” The Doctor called back, desperately hanging onto the TARDIS console, her floppy hat clinging likewise onto her head with difficulty.  “What’s that?”  “A CVE! A portal between universes created by the Logopolitans! Granted, they’ve gone rather shit since the Logopolitans went...

  Nightshade by Mark Gatiss and Adapted by Kyle C Szikora I can't help but feel that Nightshade lost something in the adaptation to audio format, because somehow, despite the wondrous cast (Seven and Ace!! Carole Ann Ford! Louise Jameson! Samuel Barnett! Tom Price!!) it just doesn't pass into the glorious zone. It tries, it just doesn't. Mark Gatiss wrote a brilliant novel to start with. There's something about the original concept of the novel that doesn't play well in modern times. The Seventh Doctor is exhausted, and he feels like he's going to end up retiring. Which at the time, was ridiculously apt meta-commentary on how this came out in the Wilderness Years. The show was spent. The Doctor seemed, at least from the perspective of the time, a character that was old as fuck, considering whether or not he wanted to go on. This texture somehow doesn't fit with the way McCoy plays it, especially now since we have gotten around Six new main Doctor's since...

  Okay so I don't know what's with this cover but McCoy just looks wrong in it... is it just me? You are The Doctor and Other Stories It's been a while since I've listened to an anthology Main Range release - I think the last one was Circular Time. I'm not amazingly familiar with them, but to be honest - they're the absolute best. I can't help but love these stories - essentially short stories in audio format. Short form story-telling is oddly suited for Doctor Who, and as a particular lover of short stories, (I WRITE LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE) I find them far more engaging and frankly brilliant on average than some of the behemoth serials you can sometimes get (Whoever came up with stories longer than six parts can shove it!) Yeah, I'm rambling almost inconsequentially, but these one-part episodes are great ways to explore ideas in a quick format. Check out the Big Finish website's Freebie zone, and you can sometimes pick out some of these. Stories lik...

  We Run The Night:  The world has fads - the world has overnight sensations that are gone (pun intended) overnight. And The Doctor has been wicked lately. "Accidentally" defiling the laws of time left and right - and so she's trying to lay low. Which makes it especially weird that she's been given a record deal by an unknown source. Even more weird is no one seems to notice what a rubbish singer she is. At gunpoint, the Doctor must perform to crowds of thousands, innocent people unaware of the danger they and their favorite new artist are in. And despite the danger, the Doctor can't help but adore it. As the deaths start, the Doctor is unsure if she can leave this world of stardom and vice, where for the first time, she feels loved. Never before has someone used her own ego against her, the Doctor realizes. Will she even be able to get out if she tries? 

 The Death of Dr. Who When the Judi Dench Doctor decides to rewatch Jodie Whittaker's era of Doctor Who, she becomes livid at this insipid character assassination! Clearly the solution is to become a violent maniac and threaten the members of staff behind the program! This is the entirely healthy response to such a scenario and is definitely a thing people should do As Jodie Whittaker and Chris Chibnall are preparing to film Timeless Children 2 Electric Boogaloo, the Doctor arrives and insists at the inclusion of proper Doctor Who - her. 

  Terror of the Sontarans by John Dorney and Dan Starkey For the first two episodes, and most of the third, Terror of the Sontarans understands absolutely exactly what it's trying to be. It's a gothic horror Hinchcliffe tale that happens to feature the Sontarans in a supporting role to engross the main point of the story. Which is smart. And it nails it. Terror of the Sontarans is a story that I like almost in spite of the Sontarans rather than because of them, which is an interesting thing to begin with. The Sontarans are actively the least interesting thing about it, when they're actually alive, that is. Dead Sontarans are quite interesting. It has an astonishingly good hook, of The Doctor and Mel showing up on an empty mining place filled with dead Sontarans that have quite evidently gone mad, and it goes on to explore this concept in a really rather excellent manner. It's really so amazingly, absolutely blisteringly good, I almost can't put it into words - it...

  The Cardboard Dimension  FUCK its the cardboard dimension When the TARDIS lands in the cardboard dimension, the Judi Dench struggles to fucking  oh my god escape the fucking cardboard who-standees? or something? Oh my god 

  Terror of The Veil:  The Doctor remembers Clara Oswald. Her best friend. Her dead best friend. The friend who travelled the universe with her for years - and died - only to come back. The friend that travelled the universe in a TARDIS shaped like a diner for so many more years - and died again.  There's no way Clara is back.  But she is - or at least something is. Something that's killed a man. And The Doctor's never been this mad in all her lives. 

  Killer Queen Queen Victoria has woken up this morning in a foul mood. She is unrecognized by anyone, and has been thrown out of the palace in rags to live on the streets as a common wastrel. Meanwhile, a different woman, one that she has never met before lives in the palace. Queen Doctor reigns supreme over Britain and all it's Colonies, and she's expanding fast. Whatever's going on, the former Queen and Torchwood believe it all having to do with a strange sphinx cat on the new Queen Doctor's shoulder... Sphinx Cat aliens by Sebastian  Queen Victoria suggestion by Shay 

  Customer Service The Doctor keeps getting calls. "Hello. We're wondering about your new car warranty." Day in, day out, a scummy insurance scam involving an arabian prince has gotten into the TARDIS's translation buffers. The Doctor is going crazy, of course, but Roman doesn't believe anything is wrong. Until she disappears. The Doctor soon finds herself employed in a company, calling, calling and calling. The New Car Warranty calls are everywhere, and they aren't benign. Everyone gets them. And if they picked up the phone and paid attention for more than a few seconds, they'd discover just how in danger they are. Danger from The faceless artwork design that's being used by every single business in the country. Because they're aliens. And they're holding her hostage. With a faceless force of mindless orthodoxy forcing her to make calls, the Doctor has to get a hold of Roman. But how can she when no one even listens?  A remake of my very first...

A Lighting and effects experiment cover Starring Judi Dench as The Doctor  Naughty Girl: When the Master escapes from Prison, the Doctor is willing to do absolutely anything to track her down. She's a dangerous woman, after all.  The Master has nothing. No weapons, no TARDIS, no alien allies. No Plan for the conquering of the world whatsoever. As the Master adapts to the world of humanity, getting a job as a contract killer to bide her time, she realizes that even if she can't bring herself to kill the Doctor, she can ruin her.  As a list of the Doctor's companions goes public, The Doctor's friends are the target of the Master. The Great Game begins...

  Torchwood Parody Among Us 7.16 The Children's War Starring Natalia Cordova Buckley, Ian Alexander, D'Arcy Carden, Jason Hughes and Scarlett Johansson Featuring Tom Price, Paul Clayton, Ben Mendelsohn, Uma Thurman, Lisa Kudrow and Cher Disclaimer: It's been yet another Two Months since the last episode and this is still continuity violence. I apologize. I am an absolute wreck * * * And then the city shook. Or at least the building did. "Oh, no." Hunter said, reaching for his gun, as the Torchwood Hub door slid open. An Assassin had gotten in - someone had - Rainn, and 3 armed Guards, in dangerous black uniforms. Hunter recognized them as "slabs," programmable mercenaries used by criminals across the quadrant. "Torchwood." Rainn smiled. "The Committee has sentenced you to die." And then the guards raised their guns and fired. Sometimes Andy could get really absorbed in his own thoughts during a crisis. As he freaked out a bit on the o...