Good afternoon lady and gentle readers, recently it was Big Finishes 21st anniversary of releasing Doctor Who output. Blimey 21 years, what better way to celebrate than with a list and for your pleasure I have ranked the first 100 releases of The Big Finish monthly range. This is the second round of the rankings taking from 15-11. As usual beware spoilers and enjoy!
15. Thicker Than Water, we're wondering into areas that I never expected Big Finish to go into here. Its an emotional story as Sixy decides to take Mel to see Evelyn and we see how and what she got up to after leaving The Doctor. Its an emotional story and an integral part of a story line throughout the main range. We get a cameo from a character who should be year and its in character that they are here. This feels like a loving bow out from Maggie Stables and at the time of writing I am reaching release number 120 and have no idea if I'll ever hear her again. Cudos to Big Finish for making me care about her.
14. Minuet in Hell, the final story in the 8th Doctors first season. Many people find this story annoying and stupid where I find it daft as a brush and bonkers. The Brigadier gets to meet the 8th Doctor and the crazyness with Gideon Crane is my kind of dark psychological horror. Daft and silly but I like it.
13. The Genocide Machine, the first appearance by the Daleks taking on the 7th Doctor and Ace in the opening part of The Dalek Empire arc. Its a lovely romp that starts with the Doctor returning some library books and escalates to the Daleks trying to take over one of the biggest repositories of knowledge in the universe. The Daleks appearing is just magic and this is the story I think of (ahead of the TV stories) when I imagine the sound design.
12. Loups-Garoux, as I said earlier in this list Mark Strickson turns up so infrequently as Turlough it still feels like a novelty when he does. Big Finish get Turlough, he's a fantastic character but a rubbish companion. Here we have a story featuring werewolves and having a companion whose first instinct is to run and lock themselves away in the TARDIS adds so much to the story. Rather than horror this release scores high because of its presentation of Brazil, the werewolf community and Peter Davison who after taking a while to get into the swing of things is in fine form.
11. The Marian Conspiracy, here we have it the origin story of Evelyn. What a fantastic character and what a fantastic performance by Maggie Stables. Those early scenes where she meets the 6th Doctor are pure magical and this is the first step of Colin Baker taking the Sixth Doctor in the direction he didn't get to go on TV. The initial mystery of what is happening to Evelyn and the journey back to the time of Queen Mary are intriguing. More importantly this is Big Finishes first deep dive into the past, they'd tip toed around historical stories before but this is the first time they flex their muscles. Without this story the range becomes more limited and we don't get a number of my favourite stories as well as at least one yet to come in this list.
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