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The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven and Dodo to Russia in 1812, not long before Napoleon Bonaparte’s disastrous attempt to take over the country. They stay for a while, making friends, even taking up jobs, and Steven looks forward to being the best man at a wedding for one of his new friends. But then the locals are terrified by blinding lights and the sound of thunder - not the French advance, but a spacecraft exploding moments after it ejects an escape pod, though of course only the time travelers realize this. Steven and his friend rush off to see if there are any survivors, but the unfortunate answer is yes - Steven is attacked and knocked out, and his friend, the groom-to-be, is killed and replaced by a “shape-stealer,” though it’s some time before anyone realizes this. The creature assumes numerous guises to allow it to move freely among the villagers, until finally it impersonates the Doctor and sets off to steal the TARDIS - until it spots someone in a more obvious position of power which will allow it to further its mission: Napoleon himself.

written by Marc Platt
directed by Nigel Fairs
music by David Darlington

Cast: Peter Purves (Steven Taylor), Tony Millan (The Interrogator)

Timeline: after The Gunfighters and before The Savages

Review: I’ll admit that I had dared to hope for a pure historical story with no science fiction elements other than the time travelers and their TARDIS, but Mother Russia at least lets its period setting have the spotlight for a little while before getting down to the shapeshifter-trying-to-change-history business. (more…)

The Doctor and Evelyn inadvertently interrupt a key moment in history - or so they think - when they meet the parents of Julius Caesar. When Evelyn insists that they jump forward to find out if Caesar really was born via caesarian section, the time travelers think they’ve found evidence that they’ve really changed history. Later, the Doctor and Evelyn encounter Mozart on his 100th birthday, but wind up meeting someone who wishes the great musician had died young, and then go to pay their respects to a former student of Evelyn’s whose father has just died, discovering that something has planted a deadly seed in the family tree. Finally, the Doctor discovers that he has been infected with a genetically-engineered virus by an assassin, and has only 100 days to live - and he and Evelyn proceed to spend those days trying to find the moment in the Doctor’s history when he was infected, and prevent it from happening.

written by Jacqueline Rayner (100 B.C.), Robert Shearman (My Own Private Wolfgang), Joseph Lidster (Bedtime Stories) and Paul Cornell (The 100 Days Of The Doctor)
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by ERS

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn Smythe)

• 100 BC: Will Thorp (Gaius Julius Caesar), Lucy Paterson (Aurelia), Susan Brown (Midwife)
• My Own Private Wolfgang: John Sessions (Mozart)
• Bedtime Story: Will Thorp (Jacob), Frank Finlay (Old Jacob), Martha Cope (Talia), Susan Brown (Mary), Lucy Paterson (Julia), Alex Mallinson (Patrick)
• The 100 Days Of The Doctor: Nicholas Briggs (The Assassin)

Notes: 100 was added to Big Finish’s Doctor Who schedule late in the proceedings, replacing a six-part story, Earthstorm by SF novelist Stephen Baxter, which was originally slated to be the 100th release. Earthstorm was suddenly withdrawn from the schedule with no explanation offered, and has yet to be rescheduled for a later release date at the time of this writing.

Timeline: After The Nowhere Place and before Assassin In The Limelight

Review: Very much like Circular Time, 100 is a collection of four not-very-linked single-episode adventures for the sixth Doctor and Evelyn, in a slightly self-celebratory vein: 100 is, appropriately enough, Big Finish’s 100th regular monthly Doctor Who audio story. For those expecting a multi-Doctor extravaganza, you do get one, after a fashion, in the fourth episode, but on the whole I was very pleased that the sixth Doctor/Evelyn team landed this plum assignment. With the shortest reign as the Doctor until Paul McGann came along, Colin Baker is the Doctor who was benefitted the most from his work with Big Finish, and here he’s paired with the very first companion created for audio only, Evelyn Smythe (Maggie Stables). This pairing is somehow fitting. (more…)