The Big Finish Catch Up: January 2015

Hello ladies and gentle readers, excuse the lateness of this months addition to this section of the blog. For those of you new to this section I started buying the Big Finish Doctor Who releases when they originally started although over the years I've fallen behind by about ten years. In order to catch up I listen to two releases a month, however I have no knowledge of whats coming (most of the time), I don't see the cover, don't know who wrote it or which characters are in it. Without further ado here's this months first listen:

It was a nice surprise to hear Mark Strickson as Turlough, it has been ages since I last heard him along with Peter Davisons Fifth Doctor. He appears so infrequently its still a novelty when he does and he's in a wonderfully sour mood for this story The Russian setting is also rather a novelty and rather fun. As a story due to the nature of the villains (borrowed by the TV series) its quite a bit viscous with a bite Big Finish releases don't often have. The Fifth Doctors innocent charm is a good counter point to the rest of the story and is quite fun. All in all an enjoyable story perhaps raised by the darker tone, the writer isn't someone I'm familiar with and will look forward to hearing another story penned by him. 

I bought this in a recent sale and decided to insert it into my listening pile at random and it came up early! Having heard The Destiny of the Doctor range I wanted to hear more of Frazer Hines impersonation of Troughton. This is a story pitched for the TV series by Brian Hayles which never got made. Its more of an audio book format than the usual play and it stars Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury who played the Second Doctor companions Jamie and Zoe with Caroline Faber as the titular character. Its essentially a rehash of The Celestial Toymaker with a time theme instead of toys. We have a good villain, perhaps a better villain than the Toymaker himself. Frazer is fantastic as Troughton and Jamie while Wendy is also worth the price of admission. As a story its easy to see why it wasn't taken up by the production team but its fun if your looking for an audio that recreates the Troughton era. Although if you have no interest in the era its not one I'd go out of my way to recommend, decent if not great.