The Big Finish Catch-up: August 2015

For those of you new to this section of the blog, I started listening to the Big Finish Doctor Who releases when they started back in 1999, getting them as they were released up to mid 2002 and release No 33 Neverland. At that time I left Uni and due to being a bit busy with life and what not I only heard one or two releases over the next few years. I started getting back into them around 2008 and was 6 years behind at that point. Due to wondering off into the Lost Doctor range and a relaxed listening pace I fell further behind. In order to catch up I'm listening to two releases a month (or more when its a 60 min single disc release, plus without seeing the cover or knowing anything about the story) and my mission to catch up continues;

Its a bit of an odd one this month as we begin with Colin Bakers 6th Doctor in the main range story 'The Acheron Pules.' From the get go we find we're in the same general area albeit a little further ahead in time from 'The Burning Prince.' Its quite welcome to get a play linked to the last one but sadly its a large down turn in quality. In many ways it never gets going, the moment we realise where we my memory went back to the bonus scene of the previous story and the antagonists are explained. The story itself never gets going and when it tries to many aspects come across weak. There's a moment during this story when The Doctor does something and the listening immediately thinks 'that will come back to haunt him' but bar that its largely sub par. In the later half of the story some of the guest cast become hard to tell apart. Disappointing 4/10

On the other hand we have 'The Shadow Heart' featuring Sylvester McCoys 7th Doctor. Absolutely brilliant story which fully absorbed me from start to finish. This one is up there with the top stories I've heard this year. I assume its the final story in a trilogy (although another story with perhaps the 8th Doctor would be welcome) as theres an air of finality about it. I could easily have played this again the following evening, theres more flair in this story than the previous one, we're thrown into situations throughout the story, given clues here and there while still giving us quite a lot of curve balls. I must say Sylvester sounds like he's having bags of fun - in fact the Doctor alternates between knowing whats going on and not having a clue quite a few times adding to the fun. The space snail is a lovely concept and there is so much happening I'm pretty sure the story takes us to about four or five different worlds. I was thinking to myself near the end that it may be possible to play disc 2 before disc 1 which made me think the writer was Jonathan Morris - it was, he's become my favourite writer on these audio's (along with the book ranges) and I fully expect him to break into TV and the mainstream in future. I give this release 9/10 and look forward to what comes next with a spring in my step.