Year: 2012

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Rebel Magic – Part 2

Wizards vs. AliensTom and Jackson Hawke return to Jackson’s house, finding that Benny followed Tom there – and so did the Nekross hunter Varg, who is holding Benny at gunpoint. Jackson urges Tom to use a darker magical force to banish Varg, and then Jackson himself uses the same kind of magic to erase Benny’s memory and send him on his way. The two young wizards plan to wait until sunrise for their magic to recharge, and then launch their own offensive against the Nekross aboard the Zarantulus. Benny, thinking that it’s that morning, goes to Tom’s house, where Ursula recognizes the spell that he’s been placed under and reverses it, learning of Jackson’s use of grim magic. At sunrise, the two wizards attack the Nekross ship with a spell, drawing the aliens’ attention enough to earn an invitation to deep space. Jackson plans to use grim magic to eliminate the Nekross forever – even if his continued use of it burns out his own mind.

Order the serieswritten by Joseph Lidster
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Andy Rush (Jackson Hawke), Claire Cage (Julia Hawke)

Notes: On the surface, it would appear that the concept of grim magic is interchangeable with the more familiar concept of “black magic”, though the latter term was probably omitted to avoid offending anyone (particularly those who are likely to protest any mention of magic in children’s entertainment to begin with).

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Friend Or Foe – Part 1

Wizards vs. AliensAt the bidding of the King, Lexi devises an impressive disguise allowing her to pass for a human – so well, in fact, that her brother thinks an unauthorized human has boarded the Zarantulus. She plans to use this disguise to capture Tom, unaware that she’s competing with someone to control his power: a secret organization of Earth is trying to prove the existence of wizards, and has spotted Tom using his powers on London’s ubiquitous closed circuit TV cameras. Men in black capture Tom and the disguised Lexi, shove them into black vans, and take off…and before the day is out, the human race is aware of the Nekross as well. Now Benny and Varg have to join forces to find them.

Order the serieswritten by Clayton Hickman
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Manpreet Bambra (Katie Lord), Connor Scarlett (Quinn Christopher), Ruthie Henshall (Stephanie Gaunt), Chuk Iwuji (Adams), James Barriscale (Mr. Fisher)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Friend Or Foe – Part 2

Wizards vs. AliensMs. Gaunt’s shadowy organization isn’t part of the government; she’s trying to harness magic to help her commit crimes. When she discovers that Lexi is an alien with technology beyond the human race, it’s all the better – and she begins interrogating Lexi, something to which even Tom takes offense. Varg, looking for his sister, reluctantly turns to Benny and to Tom’s grandmother for help, though Varg’s definition of “help” is “submitting to an excruciatingly painful brain scan”. With Ms. Gaunt trying to enslave them both, wizards and aliens form an unlikely alliance to defeat her.

Order the serieswritten by Clayton Hickman
directed by Griff Rowland
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Ruthie Henshall (Stephanie Gaunt), Chuk Iwuji (Adams)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Fall Of The Nekross – Part 1

Wizards vs. AliensTired of living under constant Nekross threat, Ursula casts an obscure spell to repel the Zarantulus using Earth’s own gravity…but it barely causes the ship to budge. Benny suggests fighting Nekross science with perfectly ordinary Earth computer science: he hacks into a global distributed computing network intended for educational purposes, and uses it to transmit an Earthly computer virus to the Nekross. Barely spaceworthy, the Zarantulus withdraws to conduct extensive repairs. They contact Benny, demanding merciful treatment instead of ann attack that leaves their ship unable to sustain life. But Ursula, having praised Benny for fending off the Nekross without bloodshed, decides this is no time for mercy.

Order the serieswritten by Gareth Roberts
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Tom Bell (Jathro)

Notes: Apparently technomages – wizards who achieve their “magic” by using technology and science – exist in the Wizards vs. Aliens universe as well as the Babylon 5 universe. The Nekross really need to install McAffee or Avast or something, or at least learn some IT best practices while they’re observing Earth.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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Season 1 Wizards vs. Aliens

Fall Of The Nekross – Part 2

Wizards vs. AliensWith the Zarantulus mere hours away from falling apart in deep space, Benny is wracked with guilt over what he has done, and is shocked to find that the entire Crow family seems to be all in favor of killing the Nekross. But Tom, feeling equally guilty, rushes to help Benny find a way to deliver help to the Nekross, in the form of Benny himself. Tom plans to use a stone circle to magically “remember” how the Nekross’ teleport works, so Benny can eliminate the virus from their ship, but for the use of such powerful magic, the stones exact a punishing price on whoever uses them.

Order the serieswritten by Gareth Roberts
directed by Joss Agnew
music by Sam Watts

Wizards vs. AliensCast: Scott Haran (Tom Clarke), Percelle Ascott (Benny Sherwood), Annette Badland (Ursula Crowe), Michael Higgs (Michael Clarke), Jefferson Hall (Varg), Gwendoline Christie (Lexi), Brian Blessed (voice of the Nekross King), Tim Rose (Nekross King puppeteer), Dan Starkey (Randal Moon), Tom Bell (Jathro), Gabriel Woolf (voice of the Stones)

Notes: Gabriel Woolf provided the voice of Sutekh in the classic 1976 Doctor Who story The Pyramids Of Mars, a role he has also reprised for Big Finish Productions.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

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4th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Night Of The Stormcrow

Doctor WhoAfter colliding with something in the time vortex, the TARDIS lands at an isolated observatory in Hawaii, where the staff has already suffered casualties at the hands of an alien force. Professor Cazalet, the astronomer currently booking telescope time at the observatory, obsessively talks about her discovery of something she calls the Stormcrow. Once the Doctor gets a look at the Stormcrow, he realizes that he knows it by quite a different name – and that it has come to feed on what it thinks is a dying planet. Not everyone will survive the fight to fend off the Stormcrow, but failing to fight it at all will spell doom for the entire human race.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Tom Baker (The Doctor), Louise Jameson (Leela), Chase Masterson (Peggy Brooks), Ann Bell (Professor Gesima Cazalet), Jonathan Forbes (Trevor Gale), Mandi Symonds (Erica MacMillan)

Timeline: after The Talons Of Weng-Chiang; after The Oseidon Adventure and before The King Of Sontar

Notes: The CD cover for Night Of The Stormcrow was redesigned at a very late stage to bring the Big Finish audios’ cover art in line with the BBC design guidelines for merchandise released during the 50th anniversary of the television series, and was the first cover to have the anniversary logo (basically the Hartnell-era video feedback title sequence framed within the Pertwee/McGann style lettering) applied to it. Originally released as a bonus for subscribers only, Night Of The Stormcrow was given a general release in December 2013.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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5th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

1001 Nights

Doctor WhoIn an Arabian palace, the Doctor languishes in the dungeon with a feeble man claiming to be the Sultan, while another man claiming to be the Sultan forces Nyssa to tell tale after tale of the Doctor’s exploits, without ever questioning the Doctor’s talents, his TARDIS, or his otherworldly nature. As the Doctor tries to escape and to free the real Sultan, he begins to realize that the phenomenon that has affected the Sultan’s mind is beginning to affect his as well. He suspects that the palace is now being run by a creature which can replace any living being about which it gathers enough information. As the fake Sultan compels Nyssa to tell it stories of her travels with the Doctor (under pain of death), it’s gathering all the intelligence it needs.

Order this CDMy Brother’s Keeper written by Emma Beeby and Gordon Rennie
The Interplanetarian written by Jonathan Barnes
Smuggling Tales written by Catherine Harvey
1001 Nights written by Emma Beeby and Gordon Rennie
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Jamie Robertson

My Brother’s Keeper Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Teddy Kempner (Prisoner), Malcolm Tierney (Warder)

The Interplanetarian Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Debbie Leigh-Simmons (Elizabeth Spinnaker), Oliver Coopersmith (Hill)

Smuggling Tales Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Kim Ismay (Lottie), Debbie Leigh-Simmons (Bessie), Christopher Luscombe (Balladeer), Oliver Coopersmith (Archie)

1001 Nights Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Alexander Siddig (The Sultan), Nadim Sawalha (The Old Man), Teddy Kempner (Nazar), Kim Ismay (Woman Stallholder), Malcolm Tierney (Gantha), Debbie Leigh-Simmons (Crying Woman), Christopher Luscombe (Alien Psychiatrist)

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Voyage To The New World

Doctor WhoPromising to take Jago and Litefoot from the wild environs of Venus to a decent pub, the Doctor brings the TARDIS in for a landing… near Roanoke, Virgina in 1590, a missing British colony in the Americas, and decidedly bereft of pubs… or, for that matter, people. The expedition sent to check up on Roanoke has found nothing except for three suspiciously out-of-place Englishmen and a group of Native Americans believed to have massacred the missing colonists. Jago falls ill and begins to fade away – quite literally, gradually turning transparent. It’s a fate that he shares with many others, both British and Native American alike, as a mysterious translucent being and a swarm of spectral children routinely appear to claim new victims. None of this is in the history books, because something has caused a major diversion in history… namely, the arrival of the TARDIS. The Doctor must set history right with little more than the power of persuasion on his side.

Order this CDwritten by Matthew Sweet
directed by Ken Bentley
music by Andy Hardwick / ERS

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Christopher Benjamin (Henry Gordon Jago), Trevor Baxter (Professor George Litefoot), Philip Pope (John White), Ramon Tikaram (Wanchese), Mark Lockyer (Sir Walter Raleigh), Emerald O’Hanrahan (Eleanor Dare)

Notes: Litefoot’s exclamation that Jago vanished “like breath on a mirror!” precedes the eleventh Doctor’s use of the same phrase just prior to regenerating in The Time Of The Doctor by two years. The Doctor eventually deposits Jago and Litefoot at the right pub, but in the wrong era, dropping them off in 1968, setting the quintessential Victorian paranormal investigators up for the adventures in their fifth box set “season” of audio tales.

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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Doctor Who New Series Season 07

The Snowmen

Doctor WhoForlorn and bitter after the unexpected departure of Amy and Rory, the Doctor has retreated into hiding in Victorian London – actually, a cloud hovering above it – refusing to lift a finger to alter the destiny of the world. The human race is on its own, at least until a barmaid named Clara draws the Doctor’s attention to snowmen that seem to appear out of nowhere, during one of the Time Lord’s infrequent visits to London. Despite encountering Strax the Sontaran and the Silurian Madame Vastra, Clara unflinchingly asks for the Doctor’s help when she learns that the snowmen are made of snow that responds to the deepest fears of those around them. The Doctor follows Clara to her second job – as a governess taking care of the children at a mansion in the heart of London – and finds that something else lurks beneath a frozen pond on the estate. The mysterious Dr. Simeon is determined to claim it for himself, and he seems to command the slowly growing army of snowmen. But who is Simeon working for – and is all of the mystery finally enough to draw the Doctor out of his melancholy?

Order the DVDwritten by Steven Moffat
directed by Saul Metzstein
music by Murray Gold

Cast: Matt Smith (The Doctor), Jenna-Louise Coleman (Clara), Tom Ward (Captain Latimer), Richard E. Grant (Dr. Simeon), Catrin Stewart (Jenny), Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Dan Starkey (Strax), Joseph Darcey-Alden (Digby), Ellie Darcey-Alden (Francesca), Liz White (Alice), Jim Conway (Uncle Josh), Cameron Strefford (Walter), Annabelle Dowler (Walter’s Mother), Ben Addis (Bob Chilcott), Sophie Miller-Sheen (Clara’s Friend), Daniel Hyde (Lead Workman), Ian McKellen (voice of the Great Intelligence), Juliet Cadzow (voice of the Ice Governess)

Doctor WhoNotes: The second Doctor encountered the Great Intelligence in Tibet, 1935, and again in the London Underground in the late 1960s. By showing the Intelligence a lunchbox with a map of the Underground, the eleventh Doctor could well be ensuring that the disembodied being well attempt its fateful takeover of the London subway system (an incursion which leads to the Doctor’s first meeting with Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart, later promoted to Brigadier). The Intelligence’s usual minions, robotic Yeti, do not appear in this episode. A 1995 fan film, Downtime (referenced once already this season), depicts a third attempt by the Great Intelligence to gain a foothold on Earth via the Yeti. Clara first appeared in the season premiere, Asylum Of The Daleks. Doctor WhoGuest star Richard E. Grant was the ninth Doctor in an animated alternate universe in 2003’s Scream Of The Shalka (a web-based story that, while produced by the BBC’s interactive wing, has generally been relegated to the “unofficial” column), but is much better known for Withnail & I, in which he co-starred with Paul McGann. This episode debuts a new TARDIS interior (the second major rethink of the vehicle’s console room in Matt Smith’s era) and a new title sequence, only the third time in the show’s history that a new title sequence has premiered in the middle of a season (the other two occasions were the late-in-the-season transition from the fifth to sixth Doctor, and Patrick Troughton inheriting the William Hartnell titles for several episodes). The Doctor now says he is over a thousand years old, which lines up with the unofficial pre-publicity line that hundreds of years of isolation may have elapsed for him since The Angels Take Manhattan.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green