The Companion Chronicles

[Dirk Gently]

Isn't that a voyeur porn classic?

[Pip Madeley]

I lost a tenner for every word/phrase Tim didn't use:

going down?
hold tight
push the button
shaft
getting off

[SiHart]

Another cover:


Si xx

[stuartdg]

Both The Great Space Elevator and The Doll Of Death are great fun,the former being very Troughtonesque

Anyone looking forward to the return of Sara Kingdom in next months Home Truths?

Plus,in another great move William Russell is back as Ian Chesterton for the seventh release The Transit Of Venus

[Mr BHT]

Anyone looking forward to the return of Sara Kingdom in next months Home Truths?

Yes!! And it didn't disappoint either. Jean Marsh was on fine form and the audio was a brilliant creepy little tale with a good twist on Sara K.

I'm loving the Companion Chronicles in general at the moment. They are a really cozy way to enjoy a Doctor Who adventure and in traditional Big Finish style they make you notice characters that didn't really impress on scree - step forward Steven Taylor!

[Rob McCow]

Listened to The Doll Of Death and The Perpetual Bond this week. Both of which were fairly good. The Doll of Death was a bit messy though, with all the backwards-time business.

[Rob McCow]

Time for a bit of a round up on a couple of trilogies I've listened to lately. They're all by Simon Guerrier, so it feels like I've moved into his head for a stint.

Sara Kingdom Trilogy:
3.5 Home Truths,
This one sets up the theme of Simon's First Doctor Stories, bleak, surreal and slightly askew from the period. They're trying to be a little more mature and sophisticated, focusing on Sara's murder of her brother and the implications of her eventual fate on Kembel. Home Truths also sets the scene for clever twists - it was a great way to give Sara a few more Companion Chronicles and solve the perpetual problem of who the companion is relating the story to.

4.01 The Drowned World,
Bleak! The Drowned World is set in a confined environment with desperate people on the edge of destruction...
There's been an earthquake on a colony world and the Doctor, Steven and Sara face up to Killer Water that Kills.

5.01 The Guardian of The Solar System
Bleak! The Guardian of The Solar System is set in a confined environment with desperate people on the edge of destruction...
The Doctor, Steven and Sara are caught up in the machinations of the evil Mavic Chen... quite literally as it happens, because they land inside the giant clock that he uses to run the Solar System. Although this is a good story, the concept sits very out of kilter with the Universe we see in The Daleks Masterplan. Still, it's decent in it's own right.

The Oliver Trilogy:
5.08 The Perpetual Bond:
Not-quite-so-bleak! The Doctor and Steven land on 20th Century Earth in the 1960's, where they uncover an alien conspiracy in the heart of London's stock exchange. Although this one breaks out of confined environments, it gets a little confusing in the second half, with people teleporting all over the place and senior Government ministers running around. Steven's comments on the 1960's lifestyle and dress are great though.

5.12 The Cold Equations.
Bleak! The Cold Equations is set in a confined environment with desperate people on the edge of destruction...
This time it's an asteroid belt where one false move could bring every asteroid into collision with each other. The inevitable happens when the Doctor's party uses an interstellar typewriter to send a message...

6.05 The First Wave
Bleak! Guess what? The First Wave is set in a confined environment with desperate people on the edge of destruction... Except that this time the people are already dead. They've been killed by The Vardans of all alien races. So the Doctor, Steven and Oliver have to warn Earth about the Vardan Menace, while avoiding aliens that can travel at the speed of thought.

Overall, these plays were extremely good. It was great to see some realistic-sounding science in there, it fitted well with the David Whittaker approach to Doctor Who. Although I have to remember that Whittaker's science was generally incorrect to a stunning degree. Here it seems far more convincing.

However, listening to these stories in a bunch together doesn't do much for any of them. Too many of them have similar settings, with similar solutions on how to carry out a two-person play. What's more, the structure and ideas become too familiar after a while. The alien menace is nebulous and unfathomable; there's a section in the middle where the heroes have to traverse a hostile environment; and in the end there's a horrible, preordained fate.

So while each story is great in it's own right, they don't work so well together as a group.

So where next?

[Rob McCow]

And I should probably add that all of the main cast, Jean Marsh, Peter Purves and Tom Allen were absolutely, staggeringly brilliant. Peter's version of Hartnell is not a precise recreation, but it's still fantastic to hear and it definitely feels like two completely different characters.

[Stuart Wallis]

Time for a bit of a round up on a couple of trilogies I've listened to lately. They're all by Simon Guerrier, so it feels like I've moved into his head for a stint.

[...]

So where next?

Somewhere you won't pay any rent?

The Zoe ones (post-the Dalek one) are building into something interesting.

[Rob McCow]

Spurred on by some fairly decent Companion Chronicles, I ventured into the Polly and Jamie double-act story: The Forbidden Time http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/...idden-time-497

Oh, but I wish I hadn't. This one was a real stinker. The Doctor, Ben, Jamie and Polly arrive in a sort of parallel Earth after tripping over a wall in space time. They get chased for half an episode by the Vist, a weird alien race who have sectioned off parts of time for their own purposes (whatever they are!). After a bit of running around, the Doctor talks the Vist to death and everything that they did (including killing Ben and Jamie) becomes undone.

It was one of those stories that starts off intriguing enough, before things get wearier and wearier until you're sitting there wondering when it's going to end.

It also has the worst cliffhanger of all time. Polly announces 'I think that would be a good place to take a break. Everyone be back in the lecture hall in five minutes.' BZZzzyzyyyYYYOOOUUuuaaaaooooooowwww dum-de dum, dum-de dum, dum-de dum...

[Stuart Wallis]

Let me get this straight - Ben and jamie are resurrected by the Doctor prattling the monsters to death. And thinking back to Remembrance Of The Daleks, it's not even remotely original!

[Rob McCow]

OMG I had a good one!

Freakshow starring Mark Strickson was fab. Well, at least by the standards of the one's I've been listening to lately. It was a good fun story with a memorable villain (remember those?) that didn't try to be too clever. Some nice interplay between Turlough and Tegan too.

That one's from the 'Special' releases, so I'm listening to Mists of Time next.

[Rob McCow]

My enthusiasm for these is drying up, sadly.

Quinnis was OK, especially considering it was a Marc 'Wibble!' Platt effort. It was a selection of rather cool ideas in desperate need of a story to be built around, but it was rather entertaining.

So when I say there was a bunch of people living on a bridge above a field of killer weeds that can be killed by saline and that their bridge flooded when the rains came so they chained their houses down to stop them getting swept away and there's this 'Bad luck' bird who they're scared of who preys on misery and grief and can hide in human form and who takes a shine to Susan and that it all ends up with a big Ornithopter chase to recover the TARDIS which is disguised as a large tent because it's set before An Unearthly Child - you may realise that the 'One Line Pitch' has got out of control.

Quinnis falls into the 'OK' bracket. Ferril's Folly, on the other hand, has a new bracket all of it's own, which falls below 'Shouting at The CD Player Because It's So Awful' and goes all the way down to 'Evaporating The Will To Ever Engage With Fiction Or Doctor Who Ever Again'.

I love The Key To Time Season. I love it's wittiness, it's winsome charm and I love Mary Tamm. This play was a carbon copy of Stones of Blood, but took all the joy and humour of that story and did them craply. It made me wonder if the Key To Time was actually this crap.

Romana bangs on about 'Level 4 Civilisations', the Doctor spends most of his time in a pub (how funny!) and the nadir came when they did a joke about Romana assuming that a 'Ploughman's Lunch' meant that the people of Earth were cannibals. It. Doesn't. Even. Make. Sense.

Even the voice acting was messed up. Mary was simply wonderful at being Romana and she narrates well. For all her brilliance, Mary cannot impersonate Tom, so why try? Why not just report his lines in Romana's voice? Worse than that though, there was this American actor playing the female villain... but also her assistant, who had a cod-Russky accent. So all these accents were juxtaposed horrifically.

So! Ferril's Folly. Flatlining. A real contender to The Forgotten Time in terms of awfulness.

[Junkyard]

My enthusiasm for these is drying up, sadly.

So! Ferril's Folly. Flatlining. A real contender to The Forgotten Time in terms of awfulness.

Thanks for the warning on Ferrils's Folly. I think I'll buy 'The Auntie Matter' instead. Have you heard 'The Rocket Men' yet?

[Rob McCow]

'The Rocket Men' is on my list, but after doing several Hartnells I've been craving something different. On the other hand, it might be worth a punt soon. Next up I reckon are The Three Companions (meant to listen to this a while ago, but a tagging disaster meant my MP3 player was lining it up in a stupid order) and Tales From The Vault (which I'm hoping is all about Doctor Who companions going pole-vaulting).

[Nyder]

I've enjoyed all the Hartnell CCs I've listened to so far (Mother Russia, Revenants & the first 2 Sara Kingdom stories). Helicon Prime (Jamie) was good too!

[Rob McCow]

Tales From The Vault was a stinker. No offence against Daphne and Yee-Jee, but it was Torchwood-lite. I don't want to be excessively negative in my comments on these Companion Chronicles, but I would like to get through a few more without losing the will to live.

[Si Hunt]

I quite enjoyed that one!

Si.

[Rob McCow]

It's comments like that Si, that make it wonder if it's just me. 'Hey!' they must have said 'With a bit more effort this Tales From The Vault thing could be the new Stargate SG1!'

The Rocketmen is better than a lot of things. Plague, syphilis, 97% of the output of Big Finish... but I wouldn't want to damn it with faint praise. It's a great piece of Doctor Who, containing a sense of wonder and emotional impact, all wrapped around a simple adventure story premise.

There's still a few things wrong with it. The way the story is told is fun at first, but becomes very annoying and confusing. You get one scene of what's happening 'Now', all told in the present tense, followed by a scene set in the past. So the 'Now' story advances while the 'Past' story catches up. Fair enough.

But about halfway through episode two, the 'Past' story reaches the start of the 'Now' story. From that point on, things get a little bewildering. To be honest it felt as though my MP3 player had mixed up the tracks (and before you ask, I did check!)

That doesn't matter too much though because the relationship with Ian and Barbara is absolutely wonderful and William Russell's reading of the story is a total joy. So a success and well worth a listen!

[Junkyard]

It's comments like that Si, that make it wonder if it's just me. 'Hey!' they must have said 'With a bit more effort this Tales From The Vault thing could be the new Stargate SG1!'

The Rocketmen is better than a lot of things. Plague, syphilis, 97% of the output of Big Finish... but I wouldn't want to damn it with faint praise. It's a great piece of Doctor Who, containing a sense of wonder and emotional impact, all wrapped around a simple adventure story premise.

There's still a few things wrong with it. The way the story is told is fun at first, but becomes very annoying and confusing. You get one scene of what's happening 'Now', all told in the present tense, followed by a scene set in the past. So the 'Now' story advances while the 'Past' story catches up. Fair enough.

But about halfway through episode two, the 'Past' story reaches the start of the 'Now' story. From that point on, things get a little bewildering. To be honest it felt as though my MP3 player had mixed up the tracks (and before you ask, I did check!)

That doesn't matter too much though because the relationship with Ian and Barbara is absolutely wonderful and William Russell's reading of the story is a total joy. So a success and well worth a listen!

Glad you enjoyed it, so did I and for much the same reasons.

[Rob McCow]

Some people like their companions single-like. But for me, I had the joy of not one, not two, but THREE COMPANIONS! On THREE CDS! (actually lots of MP3 files).

So, The Three Companions are three sort of interlinked Marc Platt Special Companion Chronicles, involving Polly (Companion), the Brigadier (Associate) and Thomas Brewster (Actually a Villain).

The first two stories are fine. They both take place on decaying worlds where weird creatures are attacking. The third story loses the plot however and things get totally complicated and overblown as a Coffin Loader (think Cthulu-like octopus with deadly tongues) lands on Earth. Except because it's a Mark Platt story, it's not that simple. In fact, I totally lost track of what on Earth was going on.

It was marvellous to hear the Brig and Polly again, slightly less marveollous to hear Thomas Brewster, who is irritating at best. Think Rob McCow from the PS Audios but played very seriously. I still don't buy the whole 'running off with the TARDIS' thing.

Courtney deserved a better send off, but then he deserved an ASTOUNDING send off, this is merely acceptable.

[Junkyard]

Quinnis was OK, especially considering it was a Marc 'Wibble!' Platt effort. It was a selection of rather cool ideas in desperate need of a story to be built around, but it was rather entertaining.

Yes, it was OK. But only that. Too many ideas crammed into 1 hour. Perhaps it might have worked better as a 2 -hour full cast? Hmm.. dunno.6/10

[Rob McCow]

Another Susan story for me, this time it's Here There Be Monsters. The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Babs arrive on a mysterious spaceship filled with foliage... and uncover a creature who may accidentally be about to tear two universes apart.

With a title like that, it promised to be the crappiest CC ever recorded, but to my pleasant surprise it was actually pretty decent. It scored high points for an authentic soundtrack, with lots of Radiophonic style beeping rather than actual music. The story was straightforward, worked well on audio and managed not to crawl up it's own backside in a flurry of gibberish. In fact, it was creepy, entertaining and felt like a first Doctor story they could have managed on screen. It took everything that's good about The Sensorites and compressed it into a much shorter adventure.

Enjoyable!

[Junkyard]

Another Susan story for me, this time it's Here There Be Monsters. The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Babs arrive on a mysterious spaceship filled with foliage... and uncover a creature who may accidentally be about to tear two universes apart.

With a title like that, it promised to be the crappiest CC ever recorded, but to my pleasant surprise it was actually pretty decent. It scored high points for an authentic soundtrack, with lots of Radiophonic style beeping rather than actual music. The story was straightforward, worked well on audio and managed not to crawl up it's own backside in a flurry of gibberish. In fact, it was creepy, entertaining and felt like a first Doctor story they could have managed on screen. It took everything that's good about The Sensorites and compressed it into a much shorter adventure.

Enjoyable!

Yes, this one does 'feel' like a First Doctor story and the soundtrack does have a lot to do with this. The captain of the spaceship was an interesting concept as well.

[Rob McCow]

I thought it was pretty clever, plus it was something I'd not really seen done before. And I've read a lot of sci-fi! Sounds like a Brian Aldiss idea, a cross between Non-Stop or Hothouse, both of which are well worth reading if you like that sort of thing.