Good afternoon lady and gentle readers, we've done it - as all ranking lists must end we've reached the top! After 95 releases its time for the top 5 of the first 100 releases, I hope you enjoy the final entry and as usual beware spoilers and enjoy!
5. The Chimes of Midnight, we're back in the second 8th Doctor and Charley season with what is my highlight of the season and a highlight of the range. The audio medium is arguably a better fit for horror than TV and this is a case in point. We've gone down the horror route a few times during this ranking and as we reach the top there was always going to be a good horror up here. Right from the start the atmosphere is full of menace and then we're thrown a curve ball and given a mystery to solve. Time is repeating, a murder keeps happening and rehappening all inside an Edwardian mansion. The location alone pays homage to Sapphire & Steel with the added characters to Upstairs Downstairs. This is a very cruel play as time after time the lowest ranking servant of the house Edith is killed and killed again. Paul McGann is on fine form as the 8th Doctor becomes more and more frustrated as his attempts to solve the murder keep failing. India Fisher as Charley gives arguably my favourite of her performances in particular a scene where she is briefly taken over that even freaks me out a little. Also a sure fire way that this play is a hit is that it gave us a catchphrase "Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Mrs Baddeleys plum pudding..."
4. The Shadow of the Scourge, is the first the range took to other areas of Doctor Who. Over the years we've had the number of ranges expand, welcomed new Doctors, adapted novels and ventured outside of Doctor Who but this is the first time the range experimented with other aspects of the cannon. We're in Virgin New Adventures territory as we have the TARDIS team of the 7th Doctor, 'Space' Ace and Professor Bernice Summerfield. I have to say I wasn't an avid reader of the range - when it came out I was 11 - 17 and wasn't interested in reading a monthly series. I'd read one when I was in the mood for a 7th Doctor read and was reading the missing adventures due to the variations of Doctor. Up to this point in life I've read about twenty of them and am rather fond of them. This is the first time that I've heard Lisa Bowerman play Bernice and she absolutely nails her, 'Space' Ace is fun and we get a good presentation of the NA Doctor. Sylvester McCoy himself noticed differences in character, this shows the fun aspect of The Doctor that the NAs sometimes forgot, he's The Doctor, he has everything planned and mapped out and of course its about to go wrong. This is such a human story in that the listener cares about characters we have only just been introduced to which is a must as the titular Scourge have such an affect on humans. We also get a rare look inside The Doctors head - much like we did in the NAs with a woderful collection of scenes including a memorable moment where Bernice gets a look at a future incarnation and the scene with the lost memory is a highlight of the range. The strength of this story is that it takes the all powerful all knowing NA Doctor and makes him vulnerable. This is everything I wanted from an NA on audio including the depth, emotion and able to go deep on original one off characters.
3. Spare Parts, I'm going to tell a story at this point about how I listened to this story. Neverland - the preceding story in the range came out the month I left University and obviously I had a lot going on at the time meaning I stopped buying the releases as they came out as I looked to see where I was going to in life. This meant I became slightly easier to buy for at Christmas as my sister looked up what release I was up to and bought me one for Christmas. After a bit of a break and ending on a cliff hanger I played this story blind without seeing the cover or knowing anything about it and was promptly blown away. Big Finish has never been afraid of continuity weather starting afresh, ignoring it or embracing it - this story is steeped in lore from the series. Essentially this story is 'Genesis of The Cybermen' something the series hadn't got around to doing at the time and now including this story its done three times. With this being a 5th Doctor story the shadow of Adric hangs over the story and adds an extra element to proceedings. This is a tragedy where the majority of listeners going in know how the story will end and it still works. The play even manages to throw in a few surprises - at one point it looks like The Doctor has been converted! The main strength of this story is seeing how world changing events happen through the eyes of the Hartley family, a route that TV Doctor Who would go down years later. Without doubt this play is a bleak triumph.
2. Bang-Bang-a-Boom, yes a story set during season 24 is the second in this ranking! This is the odd one out of my top five, its a comedy, Deep Space Nine / Babylon 5 pastiche, murder mystery set during the future version of the Eurovision Song Contest. The jokes are fantastic, the mystery is brilliant and theres even a nice nod to Terry Wogan. A lot of the entries near the top end are along the darker aspects of Doctor Who but this is high camp fun at its best. I'm going to refrain from going into a deep dive on this one though due to the fact its a mystery and that its become a troublesome release as its co-written by a transphobe. There are plenty of other entries on this blog where I tackle transphobia and I'd like to keep these entries in the fun category.
1. The Holy Terror, in life you reach a moment where your fandom is there for you - and this was the time Doctor Who was there for me. We've taken another sidestep here, not into the books but into the comics as we get the team up of the 6th Doctor and the shape changing penguin Frobisher. Its not a part of cannon I'm familiar with and cards on the table I was considering skipping this release until I heard the trailer at the end of the previous release and thought it sounded fun - which it is. This play is without doubt the funniest Big Finish have released however as we've seen in this ranking as with a lot of other plays in my top ten it has a dual nature. What starts out as a camp comedy in an isolated castle takes a turn as The Doctor realises something isn't right and starts investigating. Of all places for the plot to go we venture into child violation - typing this out twenty years later its still an uneasy thing to admit to. The play turns on its head we've set up a lovely bunch of stereotypical characters - one of the things that sets The Doctor off on his investigations - who are ripped to bits following this. Its a melancholic version of a family who try to keep going after a tragedy but are unable to, something else that echoes this is that somewhere along the play the jokes stop and when you realise its a sledgehammer to the heart moment. This play is not only the top of Big Finishes first 100 main range releases, sometimes its my favourite Doctor Who story battling it out my favourite TV stories and books.
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