Categories
Companion Chronicles Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Fear Of The Daleks

Doctor Who: Fear Of The DaleksLong after her travels with the Doctor and Jamie ended, and after the Time Lords wiped her memory and returned her to her own timeline, Zoe Herriot experiences disturbing memories of meeting the Doctor. She also remembers him showing her one of his terrifying adventures with the Daleks, and his subsequent reassurances that he had rendered the metal monsters extinct. But in her first trip in the TARDIS, Zoe and her friends find themselves embroiled in interplanetary politics, captured and used as pawns in a conspiracy to sabotage a peace conference. But as if that wasn’t bad enough, Zoe comes face to face with the very terrors that the Doctor said were no more.

Order this CD written by Patrick Chapman
directed by Mark J. Thompson
music by Lawrence Oakley

Cast: Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Nicholas Briggs (Dalek voices)

Timeline: after The Wheel In Space and after The War Games

Logbook entry & review by Earl Green

Categories
5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Key 2 Time: The Judgement Of Isskar

Doctor Who: The Judgement Of IsskarThe Doctor is whisked away from his adventures with Peri, deposited on a world where time itself has been brought to a halt. Here he meets a young woman who claims to have been brought into existence mere seconds ago. Her mission is simple (to her): find and reassemble the segments of the Key to Time. The Doctor, in his previous incarnation, carried this mission out and inadvertently set this new quest for the Key in motion. The woman, who he names Amy for lack of any other name, is a tracer in humanoid form, capable of “smelling” nearby segmets of the Key. She has picked the Doctor to be her assistant. Their first stop is Mars, at an earlier stage of the planet’s development, when its native life forms are about to meet a destiny that will reshape their peaceful society into the form in which the Doctor knows them better: the Ice Warriors. And the Doctor – and the Key to Time – may be responsible for that drastic change.

Order this CDwritten by Simon Guerrier
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Ciara Janson (Amy), Laura Doddington (Zara), Nicholas Briggs (Isskar), Andrew Jones (Harmonious 14 Zink), Raquel Cassidy (Mesca), Jeremy James (Thetris), Heather Wright (Wembik)

Timeline: between The Bride Of Peladon and Mission Of The Viyrans

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories

Leviathan

Doctor Who: LeviathanThe TARDIS experiences problems in flight, and lands at the earliest opportunity so the Doctor can try to effect repairs. The scanner shows that the TARDIS has landed in medieval England, complete with a mythical hunter who stalks the locals “when their time comes.” If that isn’t strange enough, evidence of energy weapons and robotics are barely hidden from view as well. The locals are instantly suspicious of the time travelers, especially when the Doctor decides to take up the cause of freeing them from the terror that stalks the land. But the Doctor and Peri are in too deep before they discover that it isn’t land, and it’s not inhabited by locals… and that the hunter is among the least of their problems.

Order this CDwritten by Brian & Paul Finch
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Simon Robinson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Howard Gossington (Gurth), John Banks (Herne the Hunter), Beth Chalmers (Althya), Jamie Parker (Wulfric), Derek Carlyle (Siward)

Notes: Leviathan was written by the late Brian Finch (1936-2007), who had a strong connection with Colin Baker’s career – he was a frequent writer of The Brothers, the early 1970s prime time soap which Baker joined as its chief villain halfway through the series’ run. (Baker’s stint as unscrupulous banker Paul Merroney was his claim to fame prior to Doctor Who.) Leviathan was originally submitted for season 22, not the cancelled season 23, but Finch’s son, also a writer, pitched the script to Big Finish just as they were about to wrap production on the planned Lost Stories releases, leading to the mysterious lack of announcements about which titles were forthcoming in that range.

Timeline: after Mission To Magnus and before The Hollows Of Time

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
8th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Prisoner Of The Sun

Doctor Who: Prisoner Of The SunHaving left Lucie on 22nd century Earth with Susan and Alex, the Doctor has been imprisoned in a facility where he is charged with maintaining a notoriously unreliable system preventing the local star from destroying the planets in its solar system. He is given artificial “assistants” – all of whom he quickly programs with Lucie’s voice and personality – and has made several jailbreak attempts, but is always drawn back into captivity by the responsibility of keeping billions of people safe from their own sun. Elsewhere in the universe, the Doctor’s help is needed, but how much blood will be on his hands if he pursues his own freedom?

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Paul McGann (The Doctor), Sheridan Smith (Lucie Miller), Antony Costa (Hagan), Jeany Spark (Jelena), Richenda Carey (Gliss), Pandora Colin (Fash), Beth Chalmers (Shill / Computer)

Notes: The Doctor has been imprisoned for years on end in other audio adventures (Return Of The Daleks) and in print (“Seeing I”, which also saw the eighth Doctor locked up)

Timeline: at least six years after Relative Dimensions, and immediately before Lucie Miller

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories The Audio Dramas

The Foe From The Future

Doctor Who: Valley Of DeathThe TARDIS arrives in Devon, 1977, near the grounds of an estate called the Grange. The Doctor’s arrival coincides with the latest in a series of unexplainable appearances of highwaymen from the past, terrorizing the locals. With all of the apparitions centering around the Grange, the Doctor decides to pay the lord of the manor a visit, only to find an uncooperative butler (named Butler) covering for the enigmatic Lord Jalnik. Suspecting that Jalnik is exploiting a weakness in the time vortex, the Doctor continues his investigation despite Jalnik offering some deadly deterrents. With a local girl named Charlotte in tow, the Doctor and Leela follow Jalnik’s trail of mystery to Devon in the distant future, finding the human race on the edge of extinction. The last of the human race regards Jalnik as a savior for his mad plan to open an escape route to the past. The Doctor realizes that Jalnik is also the cause of their predicament, and that he intends to move up the timetable for humanity’s extinction to the 20th century.

Order this CDwritten by Robert Banks Stewart
adapted by John Dorney
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Paul Freeman (Jalnik), Louise Brealey (Charlotte), John Green (Butler), Blake Ritson (Instructor Shibac), Mark Goldthorp (Constable Burrows), Philip Pope (Father Harpin), Jaimi Barbakoff (Supreme Councillor Geflo), Dan Starkey (Historiographer Osin), Camilla Power (Councillor Kostal)

Timeline: after The Talons Of Weng-Chiang and before The Invisible Enemy

Notes: The Foe From The Future was commissioned an written for a six-episode slot in season 14, but was deemed impossible to produce with the budget constraints on hand. Elements of the story were reused in a completely new replacement script written in a rush by script editor Robert Holmes, which became the all-time fan favorite The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. Guest star Paul Freeman has also dabbled in forces beyond his control as Belloq in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, while Dan Starkey’s Doctor Who resume includes numerous Sontaran roles in both the new TV series and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Valley Of Death

Doctor Who: Valley Of Death1873: Renowned explorer Professor Cornelius Perkins ventures into the Amazon rainforest to follow up on clues that might lead him to a legendary lost city of gold. He, his assistant and the locals they’ve hired to haul their supplies are never seen again, though a diary chronicling some of his discoveries turns up at a later date in surprisingly good shape.

1977: Edward Perkins, great-grandson of Cornelius Perkins, announces his intention to follow up on the lost expedition, using his great-grandfather’s journal as a guide. The Doctor, with Leela in tow, pulls rank as a UNIT observer and gets himself added to the new expedition. A freak storm brings the plane down near the Amazon River, requiring all of the Doctor’s piloting skills to bring the plane to a survivable crash landing. As the Doctor and photojournalist Valerie Carlton go exploring on foot and find what appears to be a downed (but not destroyed) UFO, Leela and Perkins discover signs of advanced technology and are taken to a creature called Godrin, worshipped by the natives but careful to conceal himself since he’s obviously not from Earth. Godrin has another surprise: thanks to a time bubble he has erected around his crashed spaceship, time is dilated, and Cornelius Perkins is still alive, the only survivor of the 1873 expedition and the last person Edward expected to find. Godrin proposes a peaceful exchange with the people of Earth, but once the Doctor brings him back to London, he realizes that Godrin has been far from truthful about his real intentions. Godrin and the last of his people are ready to begin the stealth colonization of Earth, and by bringing him into modern civilization, the Doctor has made this invasion possible.

Order this CDwritten by Philip Hinchcliffe
adapted by Jonathan Morris
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Nigel Carrington (Emissary Godrin / Dr. Summersby / Announcer), Delia Lindsay (Overlord Saldor / Newsreader), Jane Slavin (Valerie Carlton), Anthony Howell (Edward Perkins), David Killick (Professor Cornelius Perkins), Richard Bremmer (General Hemmings / Valcon / Taxi Driver)

Timeline: after The Horror Of Fang Rock and before The Invisible Enemy

Notes: Originally devised by producer Philip Hinchcliffe as a story for Doctor Who’s 15th season, The Valley Of Death was shelved when Hinchcliffe’s successor, Graham Williams, was given orders from the BBC brass to tone down the gothic horror elements that characterized the much-acclaimed but occasionally controversial tenure of Hinchcliffe and his script editor, Robert Holmes. Leela mentions that she has been blinded once before, a reference to the conclusion of The Horror Of Fang Rock (a scene added to that story at a late stage sees Leela temporarily blinded, resulting in her eyes turning blue, allowing actress Louise Jameson to ditch the brown contact lenses that were causing her considerable pain), so Valley Of Death a la Big Finish happens at some point after that story and, due to the absence of K-9, presumably before the television story that immediately follows it, The Invisible Enemy.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
Discovery Season 2 Star Trek

Point Of Light

Star Trek: DiscoveryStardate 1029.46: A Vulcan diplomatic ship registered to Sarek catches up with Discovery, but rather than welcoming Sarek aboard, Burnham finds herself welcoming Amanda aboard. Having stolen encrypted files related to Spock’s internment in a mental care facility on Starbase 5, she wants Burnham to break into them, since no one at the facility is willing to divulge anything related to Spock’s condition, even to his next of kin. When Captain Pike contacts the commander of Starbase 5, he learns that Spock has supposedly murdered his caretakers and fled – a claim that neither Burnham nor Amanda believe…and neither does Pike. Ensign Tilly’s behavior is becoming increasingly erratic as she continues communicating with what appears to be her childhood friend May, someone who no one else can see. Tilly’s unusual behavior puts her command-track career in jeopardy.

On the Klingon homeworld, Ash Tyler is an outsider by any measure. As consort to recently-crowned Chancellor L’Rell, his very presence is constantly challenged by her political rivals and allies alike. What no one outside House Mokai knows is that Tyler is Voq, the former Klingon torchbearer remade in the image of a human and given a new set of memories. Tyler is stunned when he discovers that L’Rell and Voq had a child, a baby boy whose skin is the same unusual pale white as Voq’s. This news – gleaned from a microscopic listening device – is also a surprise to Kol-Sha, the father of the Klingon leader who died in the battle at Pahvo during the war. Kol-Sha intends to use this information to force L’Rell to abdicate her throne, allowing him to ascend to the head of the High Council. Another damning piece of evidence Kol-Sha intends to use is that Tyler has recently contacted Burnham, warning her that L’Rell’s position as Chancellor – and therefore the tenuous peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire – are in danger. But while help does arrive for Tyler and L’Rell, it comes from an unexpected source – one with an unthinkable list of its own demands.

Order DVDsStream this episode via Amazonwritten by Andrew Colville
directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi
music by Jeff Russo

Star Trek DiscoveryCast: Sonequa Martin-Green (Commander Michael Burnham), Doug Jones (Lt. Commander Saru), Anthony Rapp (Lt. Paul Stamets), Mary Wiseman (Cadet Sylvia Tilly), Wilson Cruz (Dr. Hugh Culber), Anson Mount (Captain Christopher Pike), Michelle Yeoh (Philippa Georgiou), Mia Kershner (Amanda), Alan Van Sprang (Leland), Mary Chieffo (Chancellor L’Rell), Kenneth Mitchell (Kol-Sha), Bahia Watson (May Ahearn), Hannah Chessman (Lt. Commander Airiam), Emily Coutts (Lt. Keyla Detmer), Patrick Kwok-Choon (Lt. Gen Rhys), Oyin Oladejo (Lt. Joann Owosekun), Ronnie Rowe Jr. (Lt. R.A. Bryce), Julianne Grossman (Discovery Computer), Xavier Sotelo (Captain Diego Vela), David Benjamin Tomlinson (Linus), Pay Chen (Starfleet Psychiatrist in Recording), Damon Runyan (Ujilli)

Star Trek DiscoveryNotes: The Klingon monastery on Boreth will later be the site of the apparent return of Kahless himself (TNG: Rightful Heir, 1993), as witnessed by Worf among many others. In the purely speculative department, it may or may not be significant that, after Voq, the only albino Klingon seen in the Star Trek franchise is the one hunted down by Kor (a relative of Kol and Kol-Sha), Koloth, and Kang to assert their right of vengeance for the Albino’s killing of each man’s firstborn son (DS9: Blood Oath, 1994), with help from Jadzia Dax. (At the time Star Trek: Discovery takes place, the Dax symbiont is part of Torias Dax, a thrill-seeking Starfleet test pilot, and not Curzon Dax, the diplomat who would help negotiate peace between the Klingons and Federation in the late 23rd and early 24th centuries, and who joined Kor, Koloth, and Kang in a pact to seek out the unnamed Star Trek: Discoveryalbino Klingon to avenge their sons’ lives). L’Rell and Tyler are revealed to be the architects of the Klingon D-7 battle cruiser, a design first glimpsed in Elaan Of Troyius (TOS, 1968), carried through the animated series and the Kirk-era movies, and even seen briefly in Star Trek: The Next Generation (Heart Of Glory, 1988), though this may be the D-7 Mark II as a completely different design was identified as the D-7 in Discovery’s first season. Kenneth Mitchell played Kol in the first season of Discovery, returning to play the role of Kol’s father here. Alan Van Sprang first appeared as Section 31 operative Leland in a short scene released directly to YouTube following Discovery’s season one finale in 2018.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Orville, The Season 2

A Happy Refrain

The OrvilleConvinced by Lt. Malloy that he’d look good with a moustache, Bortus boldly goes where no Moclan has gone before – to Dr. Finn, to have hair follicles stimulated on his upper lip. Dr. Finn, however, has other things on her mind: asking the Orville’s resident Kaylon science officer, Isaac, out on a date. Her children already love spending time with him, and despite his being an emotionless artificial life form, Dr. Finn has slowly grown to enjoy his company as well. Isaac, however, has one major problem: being an emotionless artificial life form, not only is he devoid of any feelings for Dr. Finn, but he regards human dating as a primitive mating ritual to be studied for a while, and then abandoned. Only after putting Dr. Finn’s romantic feelings for him through the wringer does Isaac realize that human relationships can be much more long-term – and that breaking those relationships off can cause major rifts in normal working relations with his shipmates.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Seth MacFarlane
directed by Seth MacFarlane
music by Andrew Cottee

The OrvilleCast: Seth MacFarlane (Captain Ed Mercer), Adrianne Palicki (Commander Kelly Grayson), Penny Johnson Jerald (Dr. Claire Finn), Scott Grimes (Lt. Gordon Malloy), Peter Macon (Lt. Commander Bortus), Jessica Szohr (Lt. Talla Keyali), J Lee (Lt. John LaMarr), Mark Jackson (Isaac), Chad L. Coleman (Klyden), Mike Henry (Dann), Chris Johnson (Cassius), Norm MacDonald (Yaphit), Kai Di’Nilo Wener (Ty Finn), B.J. Tanner (Marcus Finn), Blesson Yates (Topa), Kyra Santoro (Ensign Turco), Mark Graham (Conductor), Aaron Goddard (Waiter), Brent Alan Henry (Bartender)

Notes: Both Mark Jackson and Norm MacDonald appear “in the flesh” as, respectively, Isaac and Yaphit, thanks to the environment simulator’s holographic overlays.

LogBook entry by Earl Green