Plum Pudding Reviews

Like any other anthology, Time Apart has it’s highs, and it’s lows. It’s another anthology release where bafflingly, they decided to make the best part of it a freebie (Ghost Station) so you almost don’t even need to pick it up, but it’s much more consistent than most anthologies, there was only one story I didn’t really like. I’ll try to be brief here - this is a Main Range, not a boxset, and I could probably waffle on, but the point is is that each story is thirty minutes, not an hour, and as such, each is a lot more tightly compressed. Plus these stories are a bit surface level, they are good, but there’s less to analyze than you might think. Ghost Station by Steve Lyons This is a two-hander. I don’t think I’ve ever disliked a Big Finish two-hander. They’re very deft at what they do, and they do sort of have their own formula now in that one of the characters will probably be the secret villain of the piece or something, but Ghost Station is very moody and eloquent in what it’s doin...

  Cry of the Vultriss by Darren Jones The thing is, Cry of the Vultriss, despite it's gorgeous gorgeous cover and brilliant TARDIS team of the immaculate Sixth Doctor, Flip and Constance, it only proves to me that I find Ice Warrior stories unbelievably dull. I quite simply don't find the Ice Warriors interesting. They literally are green monsters with a very generic alien culture - they're less interesting Klingons! I just don't know why so many people like them, and they just aren't what I like in a Doctor Who monster - the Sontarans are better Ice Warriors because essentially they're the same thing but with a better design that has an inherent humor to it. I just don't like them - and while this is a better version of them (you know, like the Peladon version, not the shooty shooty ones.) It can be sort of difficult. There's some good character stuff, most of it is The Doctor and Flip while Constance is sidelined, but she gets some nice moments at the ...

 Warzone by Chris Chapman Immediately gripping from the first scene, Warzone is a triumph unlike any other. It's a story that evolves perfectly as it goes on, one of those rare Doctor Who tales that there isn't a single issue with the pacing of. There can be too often a irritating lack of balance when it comes to Big Finish audios. Parts can either have too little happen or too much, but Warzone balances out it's plot beat by beat, and it has some really interesting things to say. The trouble is, It's an audio that's brilliant because of it's surprises and what it does, so I won't go in too much depth, but I feel it singlehandedly makes the Marc arc work retroactively - the whole point of the series is that Marc is a rebound companion, roughly a replacement for Adric. His lack of much of a point in the prior two stories makes a lot more sense from a metatextual point now. This whole audio is fucking brilliant, and it's so deep and it's got a brillian...

  A Seven-Part Story

hahahahah, what a story nyssa  oh, hai marc this joke was stolen, now to the review Interstitial by Carl Rowens  Let's start with a direct quote that summarizes everything wrong with this tale: "You are caught in a small fracture of interstitial time that touches every other aspect of interstitial time." Oh no, it's one of those. Interstitial is a mess, quite simply because it's time nonsense without a point to it. Time nonsense is really great, but the thing about Interstitial is the time nonsense isn't used to do anything fun,  like loops, or anachronic order or different eras in a story overlapping, or literally anything fun with time. It literally uses it only to split the characters up. A sliding door could be as effective. And all the while, the story blabbers on on technobabble on Interstitial Time - a concept it's not fully willing to define, and the nature of Evolution - a concept that it doesn't even understand, it's essentially a POKEMON...

 The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Old Friends The Ninth Doctor Adventures so far have been in my opinion, delightful. Yet, there's still this aura around them, because those who have been waiting for the Ninth Doctor to return for so long, have sort of built it up in their head as essentially the second coming of Christ. As someone who liked the Ninth Doctor a good deal on television, but didn't adore them more than life itself as some did, I'm more willing to accept these stories as they are, I haven't been building them up in my head for 17 years as some have. At least, that's the only explanation I can come up with, because recently the bile I've witnessed for the Ninth Doctor Adventures has immensely confused me. I don't think these sets are bad. I'm not going to say that they're PERFECT or anything, but this is Eccleston's first year with the company. It's easy to see that something like Ravagers is much better than Destination Nerva or Sire...

  The Diary of River Song Series Nine How wonderful it is, that Professor River Song's tales should be so enduring at Big Finish - it was my first actual Big Finish purchase to get The Diary of River Song Volume One, and although some consider that first set to be flawed, I saw stars from the beginning. That single first purchase still feels like a whole new world was opened up...Even now the illustrious "Signs" remains one of my favorite episodes of Big Finish. River works perfectly, and is one of the few Big Finish spinoffs that I shouldn't like to change a thing about. While the Paternoster Gang or UNIT struggle with formula, something like Tales From New Earth is completely irrelevant and smaller scale releases like Donna Kidnapped or Martha Jones are difficult to consider as spinoffs (at the moment I believe they're more one-shots) The Diary of River Song has long been a series that knew it's identity. Some criticize the continuity being overblown or Rive...

  Tartarus by David Llewellyn Tartarus is perfectly acceptable. It's hard to say more what it does wrong than what it doesn't do, because really, it's a Big Finish play that I'd slot pretty firmly in "fine." The Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan pick up a new companion in this one, Marc, and there's also a celebrity historical aspect. It's a play that thrives on character interaction rather than plot, and it's also a two-parter with each part an hour long, a choice I don't understand when there were already pretty clear points in the story where the part one and part three cliffhangers would go. There's a pretty decent shift in each, and so the story almost loses a bit for not having them there. Nonetheless, It's a romp with a phenomenal cast, and the characters do shine. The story puts a little too much focus on Cicero and not enough on Marc in my opinion, seeing as Cicero is a guest star and Marc is the actual companion you want to establ...

Inside No. Nine is an anthology series that generally does whatever the hell it wants, but it also has a strict formula to it. That might sound contradictory, but it's true. Inside Number Nine has this sort of weird energy to it, it's got this format, where the entirety of the thing takes place inside a single location with a small cast of characters, usually tied off with a very sick sense of humor and a lot of twists. It has a style to it that makes is recognizable from other shows, which is sort of necessary when your audience has no characters to latch onto outside what the series gives you this week. Which makes it all the more surprising, frankly, this show got popular. Inside Number Nine feels like something that was destined to be a really niche series that would have a dedicated cult following but not have mainstream appeal, because quite frankly, it's an forbidding anthology show, that doesn't necessarily like it's audience, and minus The Twilight Zone or...

 Harry Houdini's War by Steve Lyons  Harry Houdini's War is a story that never really skyrockets over the "mm, that was enjoyable" tier. It's not got many flaws, but also isn't ever really truly engrossing. Mostly a character piece that sort of stars Harry Houdini as the main character and the Sixth Doctor as, in a rather clever way, the antagonist, without making either of them unappealing. It almost feels like a more well-done version of one of Seven's more Machiavellian plans, in that while the story fakes you out briefly, it is clear that ol' Sixie still has good in his heart all the way through. They really have something in this version of Houdini that stars in this story, and it does very nice things, by having realized that Houdini is referenced frequently in the DWU and so sets up Harry and The Doctor as two old friends, with Harry well aware of the Doctor's time travel shenanigans. This also works to the story's benefit. It's a di...

 Emissary of the Daleks by Andrew Smith Emissary of the Daleks is one of those rare Big Finish plays that although good, you know is indeed probably made for monetary reasons - Dalek plays do sell well, and Briggs probably wanted to play the Daleks again this month, and if you look at the shuffleboard, uh, um, Peri hasn't met the Daleks in a while. I think! See! It's a no brainer! ...Yeah, I suppose that does sound rather thin, but to be fair, that is my point. I've done plenty of Dalek plays by now and I don't see much that makes Emissary stand out. It's got a good idea, but it's one of those classic who stories that is more about events than ideas. Technically, I see no reason, no real passion behind it, but it isn't abysmal, it's clearly trying to be as interesting as it can, it just wants to do that and also not really have any point other than "this is our Dalek story this month." The plot of the story is essentially that on a secluded pla...

  Protect and Survive by Jonathan Morris On the one hand, from a writing angle, Protect and Survive is quite frankly, the most beautiful story in the Hex arc. It is harrowing. It knows what it's doing, it really does. On the other hand, it cements my problems with the Hex arc as a whole, because it utilizes them as a bit of thematic resonance. It proves the writers were aware of the problems. Protect and Survive is an allegory in general for how far the Seventh Doctor has fallen, how every story is bleak and awful, and how Hex suffers while Ace is unwilling to see a single issue. In my eyes, while it's got a brilliant first half, when we reach it's second, and the Seventh Doctor walks in, it loses the point of the Doctor's character in general, and makes him seem quite frankly, unidentifiable as Doctor Who.  That's a hell of an insult I just made, but honestly? Protect and Survive is a brilliant story. It's excellent, at least for the most of it. And even the pa...

  Time Shenanigans, a Doctor Who boxset themed around the various ways history can go wrong... Day of the Goat When The Doctor and Sarah Connor accidentally stumble into an alternative timeline inhabited entirely by Goats, they're forced to go through the entirety of the Day of the Doctor but with goat noises overlaid over all of the dialog. Truly, the most thought provoking and deep NCBBDAS episode. The Inevitability of Chris Pratt Introducing Hollywood's New Leading Man - Chris Pratt, the next Doccy Who! Presented to you by Faction Hollywood, home of the best recasts.  Revisionist History A run of the mill murder case in the 1800s devolves into The Doctor and Sarah Connor having to placate the legendarily shit time travellers known as the Clockkind.