Plum Pudding Reviews

  The Second Doctor Adventures Beyond War Games [DISCLAIMER: This review is kinda. like. mean and stuff?? I don't wanna be mean and stuff but this is what it is?? you know?? Anyway I'm not an asshole here I don't wish any harm on any of the writers or people involved and I hate that I have to specify that but you know this is the internet . I hope no one is offended, and if you liked it, you know, that's great!! I'm just being a reviewer person. Anyway, um. Review time] I don't know what to say. Um, first off, it's delightful that #2 finally has his own proper recast, even if Frazier Hines was doing a pretty good job with it. In terms of a recast, yeah, he's quite good. You can tell they put a lot of thought into the decision and didn't just cast Michael Troughton because he's related, he puts in a genuinely pretty great performance. Michael Troughton is a great recast, this is clearly a labor of love to him, and over the course of the set he get...

  The First Doctor Companion Chronicles Volume One This is slightly baffling, especially considering that I'm not the #1 fan of the Second Doctor, as opposed to Hartnell, but I think I preferred The Second Doctor's first outing on the whole. That's not to say the First Doctor Companion Chronicles isn't good. There's... there's some good stuff here. I don't very much like dissing the First Doctor's expanded media. I don't like Hartnell that much on television, but there are so many beautiful stories that so wonderfully evoke that boldness the start of the program had. Some of my favorite ever stories are First Doctor ones, and the original cast members still going are all pretty much powerhouse performers, frankly. That's the one big thing this volume has going for it. These amazing performers.  The Sleeping Blood by Martin Day Susan, while being up there with Ryan Sinclair, Turlough and Calypso Jonze as one of my least favorite companions, is act...

  "Folie a Something..." Suckers by Alexander Stewart I don't have much to say about Suckers other than - it's about damn time. At long last Tosh is getting her due in the Torchwood Main Range, and Suckers is one of their best installments yet. It's quite cynical and dark and Torchwoodian, but it also is completely the opposite route you would ordinarily expect. Despite the cover, it's not horny at all, but actually a rather subdued horror piece that makes some fricking hardcore choices. Suckers is one of the most bold Torchwood stories I've done, and also quite possible, provided the government discovered invisible squid entities of doom.  This is not a comfortable listen, and it's closest comparison in my mind is it is to mental institutions what The Empty Hand was to police violence. Naoko Mori gives an excellent performance of a drugged out Tosh out of her depth - which gives even more weight to the climax when we see Tosh at her best. The story al...

  Torchwood Soho The Unbegotten by James Goss  I'm not going to lie to you and say that I'm not in the least bit biased. I usually am not biased in these reviews, but when I am, I am certainly aware of it, and it's in the Torchwood Soho range that I am most certainly at my most. This is by far my favorite range that Big Finish are currently producing. So I may be biased, yes. But even if I wasn't, I still think you'd be hard pressed not to like The Unbegotten.  I legitimately cannot lie when I say that Torchwood Soho is literally exactly what every range should be doing. It's brilliant, it's clever, and every episode is sharp and magnificent while also NEVER overstaying it's welcome with bloated runtimes like other ranges. It's been so long since I've done a good Six-Parter. They don't come up often, I'll be rather blunt, and when they do, with the overlong time span of certain episodes, it can be quite a drag to get through. I love The F...

  The First Doctor Adventures Volume Three The First Doctor Adventures, up until this point, was a quite solid range indeed. I don't know what happened during the production of volume three, but for some reason or another, perhaps my patience was thinner than usual, but nonetheless, for one reason or another, set three did not excite my very soul as volumes one and two did. I think the format works for them - One sci fi and one historical - and I think the recasts have all grown in their own way to be quite uncanny. Jamie Glover as Ian, who I previously thought was one of the less convincing recasts of the range, really grew into his own in this set. Jemma Powell is as excellent as usual, and Claudia Grant really captures the original Susan quite well. That isn't to say that I very much like the original Susan characterization, but she is a good recast because she at least captures it and does very much the same thing. I really liked the whole crew. But there's something of...

  Missy and The Monk On the one hand, giving Missy a companion was probably inevitable, and making it The Monk does make a lot of sense with the vibe established in the first two volumes. On the other hand, Missy and The Monk is probably most of the problems of the first two volumes amplified, with the decreased number of episodes from 4 to 3 genuinely hindering it immensely. You can get by with having 1 clunker in a set of four, but in a set of 3, that becomes all the more difficult. Especially considering the biggest problem with this set in my opinion is the format. Slow paced comedy is very difficult, and the stories struggle to fill out their timespans. I'll get into it briefly, but they do all struggle in at least some aspect.  However, Missy remains a series that is still somewhat worthwhile merely by the virtue and elegance exuded from Michelle Gomez, without a doubt one of the best performers Big Finish has ever managed to get under their belt. These sets are stronger...

 The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series Three This is going to be an incredibly long post. It's been a very long time (since the infancy of this site, in reviews that are quite frankly, hardly accurate) that I covered a full eight part series from Big Finish in one post. If you don't care to read all of it, let me sum it up real quick - this is very similar to 4DAs series two, in that pretty much every story not written by Nicholas Briggs is excellent and worth your time. Every story that is - well, that's when it starts to vary. If any of these reviews come across as aggressive, please note that I bear no ill will towards any of the lovely people involved in the production of them. I shouldn't have to say that, but this is the internet, so, you know, a disclaimer can be helpful. Please enjoy the overlong rambles of a mad, mad, person, who lost their sanity long ago - "It's all about the moral compass..." The King of Sontar by John Dorney The King of Sontar i...

  Gallifrey: Time War - Volume One Gallifrey has long been a Big Finish range with a reputation of high tier excellence, which doesn't necessarily vibe with my feelings of Gallifreyan stories previously. I don't really love the overly political take that certain classic who stories chose to use with it. That's of course, when it's bad. I don't know how to describe it, because It's somewhat odd how good Gallifrey Time War is despite this. That's because it has a clear vision and a goal of a story arc, and even if the rest of the series doesn't turn out well, I'd still reccomend Gallifrey Time War Volume One as one of the best boxsets Big Finish have put out, as it's got a four-story arc that works excellently. It's got structure, each story intersects with the larger whole really beautifully. Gallifrey Time War One is the story of the fall of Romana and the rise of Rassilon and how that happened. And I'll be blunt - it's genius.  I was...