Pointless Witterings

A modulated frequency wave cancellation signal isn’t something that the Doctor and Romana expect to detect in 1960s London. But then they don’t expect to find Professor Lanchester, the man who invented it, lying unconscious. Or MI5 investigating. With the help of MI5 Agent Miller, Lanchester’s daughter Jill, and his nephew a pirate radio DJ called Mark, the Doctor, Romana and K-9 investigate. They soon discover that there is more at risk than they imagined, and an alien invasion is about to begin. Can the Doctor identify and defeat the aliens in time? Will Romana manage to find a recombinant transducer before it’s too late? And how will K-9 cope with his new job? After three seasons of Leela in the Fourth Doctor Adventures, it certainly nice to get a bit of variety. Sure, Leela's been pared with K9, and we had a season with Mary Tamm's Romana, but other than that, we've not had much change in the Fourth Doctor line-up. However, after the great success of the fo...

The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe are leaving Earth after having successfully defeated a Cyberman invasion… The Cyber-fleet is still exploding… But something is escaping through the mass of vaporising debris. In hot pursuit, the Doctor and his friends find themselves drawn to a mysterious planet where strange beasts slither through the streets of a deserted city… And an old enemy lurks beneath the streets. As a force of heavily-armed aliens arrives, a battle to save the entire galaxy from invasion begins. The Isos Network does come off the back of two Cybermen stories from Big Finish that haven't quite worked that well. Last Of The Cybermen (which virtually featured this TARDIS team) was perhaps one of the most average Doctor Who stories ever, despite it being placed in the Locum Doctors trilogy, and Return To Telos (which was written by Nicholas Briggs) managed to convolute the hell out of a story that was naturally going to play around with time-twisting elements. Quite simply, ...

Written by Jonathan Morris Directed by Ken Bentley Starring Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford & Nicholas Briggs I just thought that I'd write some thoughts on this story, since it's recently released, and since little has been put on this blog recently, so I've decided to post something about a recent story to keep the blog ticking over. One thing that I really liked about We Are The Daleks was how it felt really fresh and original. After all, this is the 201st Main Range release, and it has been made clear that this is meant to be a new start to the range. And I think that this is really well put across, because even though this story is made up of certain elements that have been seen before e.g. video games that aren't what they seem, Daleks who are pretending to be something there not, people being persuaded by the lure of economic power etc., etc. But Morris doesn't simply use these tropes to fuel a story, but rather uses them as a very powerful vehicle...

Main Range: 1. The Sirens Of Time  Cast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Peter Davison (The Doctor), Colin Baker (The Doctor), Sarah Mowat (Elenya/Helen/Ellie/Lyena), Anthony Keetch (Coordinator Vansell), Michael Wade (The President), Colin McIntyre (Sancroff), Mark Gatiss (Captain Schwieger/Captain/Knight 2), John Wadmore (Commandant/Lt Zentner/Pilot Azimendah/Solanec), Andrew Fettes (Commander Raldeth/Schmidt), Maggie Stables (Ruthley), Nicholas Pegg (Delegate), Nicholas Briggs (The Temperon) Crew: Director: Nicholas Briggs; Writer: Nicholas Briggs; Music: Nicholas Briggs  Released: July 1999 Précis: Three different incarnations of the Doctor are locked out of their TARDIS' and face a deadly danger, while an alien race threaten the Time Lords themselves... Observations: Big Finish had tried to secure the Doctor Who licence in 1998, but the BBC didn't allow it. However, after they released four audio plays based on Bernice Summerfield books, the BBC relented, and...

Released: June 2010 Range: The Main Range Range Number: 135 Starring Colin Baker, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Steven Kynman, Abigail Hollick, Ian Gelder, Charlie Ross, Alexander Siddig & Nicholas Briggs  Written by Mike Maddox  Directed by Nicholas Briggs  The Cybermen are on the march through the Land of Fiction, killing and converting as they go. Resistance is useless. Trapped on the outermost fringes of the battle, the Doctor and Jamie are astonished to encounter an old friend: astrophysicist Zoe Heriot.  It's the happiest of reunions. But what hope is there of a happy ending against the unstoppable Cybermen? Legend Of The Cybermen had a lot to live up to. It had to resolve this whole trilogies arc, provide an exciting conclusion for the older Jamie's story, bring Zoe back into the fold, bring the Land of Fiction back into the fold, and provide a nostalgic thrill ride for all those with hazy memories of the second Doctor's era. All that, and telling an exciti...

Released: June 2011 Range: The Lost Stories Range Number: 2.05 Starring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Beth Chalmers, Angela Bruce, John Banks, Anthony Lewis, Dannielle Brent, Amy Pemberton & Alex Mallinson  Written by Andrew Cartmel  Directed by Ken Bentley  Margrave University in 2001, and Raine Creevy is enjoying her first trip into the future. For the Doctor, there are mysteries to solve: what are the alien creatures imprisoned in the science labs? And what are the true motives of the student Scobie and his followers? With enemies on all sides, the Doctor teams up with his old friend Brigader Bambera and the forces of UNIT in a battle for the future of the whole world.  Out of the four missing 'season 27' stories, Animal is the one that we, as an audience, knew the least about. It's also the one that, to me, seems to me to be most reminiscent of the seventh Doctor's era. It's so much like the sort of story that would have been told on television at the time...

Released: June 2014 Range: The Main Range Range Number: 187 Starring Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Rebecca Night, Victoria Hamilton, David Chittenden, Andrew Dickens, Sean Brosnan & Francesca Hunt  Written by Stephen Cole  Directed by Ken Bentley  France, the year 1770: by special invitation, the famous 'Doctor', friend of Voltaire, arrives at the lonely of the lovely Marquise de Rimdelle - once a hostess to the highest of high society, now isolated by the strange, pernicious mist that lingers round the countryside. But there's more in that fog than mere vapour, confesses the Marquise's strange niece to the Doctor's ward, Nyssa. She senses some uncanny machine circling the fringes of the estate, in the space between the shadows. Watching. Always watching. She's given it a name: 'The Steamroller Man'. Meanwhile, the man in the cellar talks to the Doctor; a dead man, trapped behind the cellar walls. The Steamroller Man is coming, he says; coming to smas...