The Best of Big Finish in 2021

0:00 hi there everybody sophie aldridge here aka ace from doctor who and you are listening to the sirens of audio podcast i don't know who you are or what you are but we've got doctor who fans all over the world poised for a new season if and if we don't act now the required number of episodes for the new season will have to be cut back to eight those episodes will not return why not it is unimportant now but we must get them back there really is no point they could never be made now but don't you care care no why should i care because we're fans and without new episodes we're going to die

0:47 i do not understand you there are fans dying on the inside all over your world yet you do not care about them you will be wondering what has happened your rss feeds must have just discovered a new podcast is that not so yes that's right that is where we come from it is called the sirens of audio the sirens of audio but isn't that one of the ancient names of a nick briggs story yes eons ago our show was cancelled and we drifted away on a journey to another medium now we have returned but who or what are you we are called audio files audio files yes audio

1:34 files we were exactly like you once but our creative community realized that our hunger for new material was getting stronger stronger how tv stories had disappeared so fan writers and producers created spare parts for our imagination until our first four good stories could be almost completely satisfied but that means you're not like us you're potential showrunners our brains are just like yours except certain weaknesses have been removed weaknesses what weaknesses you call it bad taste do you not but that's terrible you mean you wouldn't care about someone's poorly created entertainment

2:20 that would be no need we have far better things to do but we don't we know that is why we have come to assist you prepare for audiophile conversion [Music] so [Music]

3:08 g'day audio files it's 2022 how are we all my name's dwayne and my name's philip g'day during today audiophiles and our special guest kenny g'day kenny good to meet you that was very good you've been practicing haven't you i did actually i'm not lying i didn't and uh sirens of audio we are the podcast that explores the universe of doctor who in the audio medium uh it's a great privilege to have you on the show this time kenny as the man on the on the ground in terms of big finish there's some great things coming up ahead for 2022 in there oh absolutely i mean just as we speak i'm i'm really excited for the eighth doctor and charlotte pollard the further adventurer is to drop yeah and oh

3:54 there's plenty of great stuff coming up there's avengers there's more space 1999 more ninth doctor more tenth doctor just oh so much to look forward to and i am second doctor i'm so excited about the second doctor let's not forget that because i called that in october 2020 i said yes i think big finish should be casting michael trouten as the second and i've always thought that ever since i heard that reading of the patrick trout and biography if you haven't heard that make sure you give it a listen because it's his his i don't know about his doctor impressions so much but his pat trout and impressions which is probably not too different are sensational it's spot

4:40 on um so yeah that's that's definitely something very excited about and i didn't expect to be getting that so soon in the annihilators only next month yeah it's one that i've known about for a while and it's one of those ones where you've got to like because obviously there was the folks cover and then we had the real cover reveal uh on the first so yes that was that was quite good fun and uh yeah i i like it when i know these wee things and just well i was looking forward to nicholas briggs doing that analytics and i know he loves the third doctor but i thought it doesn't seem like a really big enough thing to begin to be spending so much time on and of course once i realized oh the second doctor's there too i thought no wonder he's taking it he can't help himself and uh on

5:26 as we speak as we record this i'm downloading uh doctor who 40 the peter davis and 40 year anniversary special part one uh featuring what's the first one featuring us worries you know uh it's got ice warriors and oh my goodness gosh i did this i did this preview a month about four months ago and it's just so it's funny how it's stuff like you so you're working on the current thing and then as soon as you move on to the next one clunk it's gone um phillips phillips looking it up i can see him i'm trying away i know i'm gonna be a while yet though are this supposed to be here i'm all set up for somebody else i have to look mia let me have a look what's on the camera i'm downloading 40 as we speak as well it's i just guess

6:11 ice warriors and cyber men how could i forget the cybermen of course tell us that's been done it's the secrets of telos isn't it that's it yeah awesome stuff but we're not here tonight to talk about 2022 so much as a retrospective of 2021 because that as well was a rather eventful year for big finish an exciting year too some exciting things happened throughout the year some great releases and going to go through some of the standouts for each of us throughout that particular year so uh of course in 2021 we had the debut of christopher eccleston as the ninth doctor we had dalek universe with david

6:57 tennant that was an epic spanning spanning the year so i wonder if any of those stood out to us as we go through so i think what we'll do is we'll we'll pick out each of us for each month we'll pick out a standout release and we'll talk about it just for a few minutes we'll see if philip and i kenny are notorious for going way longer than we promised ourselves but we're gonna try and be very strict today and stick to stick to two to three minutes so do you think you can do that philip he's not he's not answering he's not answering he's not committing he's not committing do you want to lie do you wait that's okay we'll go as long as it takes but we've

7:43 got at least 36 releases we're going to go through and uh a wax lyrical about and and rave about and gush over plus a couple of honorable mentions as well in there so we better get started with january uh 2021 and as you're the guest kenny we'll go to you first what was your standout release for for january 2021 well that was really tough to pick because i think we'll all agree that every single month that was really really hard to pick out one standout release but i have gone for masterful the 50th anniversary celebration of the master strangely enough bringing together various incarnations and adding john simmon to the mix as well

8:30 which was something new for us through big finish and i thought it was a wonderful tale you've got the master the vast stairs and missy all up to their mischievous machinations and it's just such a wonderful wonderful mix different masters being paired off i love the fact that we got the return of alex's mcqueen's ma alex mcqueen's master who i'm a big fan of i love alex and just to have this celebration lots of masters and we don't need to worry about the doctor showing up the fact that the master is front and center multiple times over i think you've got a very clever script from james goss and the master pairings are just masterfully selected you've got such a a wonderful

9:16 contrast between them all you've got wonderful geoffrey beavers being so cold and calculating and then you move on to the likes of as i said alex mcqueen are indeed missy who are larger than life and over the top and then throw in johnson making his big finished debut and wow what a performance he's just you can tell he's absolutely relishing it and having the chance to work with derrick jacoby at long last because obviously when they did the regeneration it was a couple of weeks apart so they finally got the chance to meet up and i just thought the the dynamic between them is great and it just shows you that if you cast the right person you cannot go wrong with the master if they've got that level of malevolence and playfulness and it's just for me it's just a very

10:02 clever strong release that just has is just punch after punch after punch and it's so funny as well because well the master usually tends to take himself or herself very seriously here there's so many laughs and the master is aware of how ridiculous they are at times and for me it was just that i was just such a damn good release and i actually think i feel like putting one to listen to actually remember listening to it exactly a year ago i went for a walk uh for me it's the morning it said it's just gone 10 39 a.m and i was out for a walk two hours ago doing exactly the same route that i listened to masterful and i've just realized so yeah i thoroughly recommend it to anyone who's not got it yet absolutely the standout performance in that for me was uh

10:48 was eric roberts he sold me like he'd never done before i think he was only in one release prior to that wasn't he um and his he was so nasty to jeffrey beavers is that right phillip am i getting that right yeah no you are that that to me was a standout because jeffy b was actually had some sympathy for he sort of fell in love and you actually had hope for him and eric roberts just totally destroyed him just for the joy of it and yeah it was it was an amazing yeah great release we we devoted an entire episode to it last year dwayne because we were so impressed by it we did yeah i think we did we've got i'd say eric roberts is great i mean he was great when he did his uh river song and then okay maybe perhaps wasn't quite as active in

11:34 proceedings in ravenous but he was very very good in that just that i think he's gay you think he's finally people understand how his master works now and i think james was absolutely too able to go to town on it and have such fun with him and just real relish into his nasty side which we get glimpses of in the tv movie and here he's just able to just he's honed it to perfection beautiful excellent choice thanks kenny let's move over to you phillip what was your choice for january well it was very hard because there's so many good choices but i'm actually going to do a sort of a representative one for the year i've chosen some coffee by torchwood uh tortured of course is our final monthly series that survived because one of the things that ended this year quite

12:20 sadly but i think it was time was the monthly range so after 20 years or so there's no more monthly doctor who's uh classic range coming out anymore but tortured is the one range that has continued with its monthly releases and it is always such an amazing high standard and it kicked off as a brilliant example with coffee um this was for anyone who loves torture it was it was a perfect show to kick things off with gareth david lloyd is just wonderful in this play planto jones there's only two other members of the cast it's basically all sitting inside a coffee shop and it's set over several years and if you know the tortured history of the tv show it keeps coming in and out of the torture history so you just know that's happening so in

13:07 terms of you know every major event that happened young people would come over and talk coffee or the room would explode as aliens invaded or so all the different story lines so it was a lovely homage to the whole tv show but more than that as i said it's torture just shows what you can achieve with a very small cast but being unbelievably inventive um nearly everything has been written by james goss i don't know how he manages to write what he's writing in terms of every month plus he's doing other ranges as well um and he keeps changing his style so coffee was fairly light-hearted on the whole but it did get quite serious and you know very emotional at times which you know james is able to do so yeah i just want to pay homage to the whole total range um i'm sure some other torture may get popped up along the way

13:52 but i just thought it was a good way to start with the monthly range and coffee fantastic thanks phillip i think that's your that's your three minutes isn't it all right so for my release uh that stood out to me very similar to you kenny comes from the masterful set but the deluxe set of masterful and this is the only place that this particular release can be found and that is an audio book reading of terror of the master it was written by trevor baxendale performed by john cole shaw it's a third doctor and roger delgado master story and it runs for about three and a half hours i think from memory and it it seems like it goes for 30 minutes it is it takes it took me right back

14:39 to the years that were well he was my doctor the the repeats in the early 80s at the years that was what hooked me on doctor who so the way john colshaw does these readings is absolutely sensational we'd had the announcement that he was going to be coming up with a scourge of the cypherman later in the year so this was like a bit of a taster of what was to come and if anyone had any uh hesitation of an audiobook so audiobooks you've got to invest a bit more time in so particularly the full length ones go for about seven eight hours but this was about half that as a taster this was absolutely perfect i wonder if big finish at some point are going to release this separately because

15:26 it definitely deserves it's a separate release i believe i think it's just a matter of time before before they do maybe they're waiting to see what the what the other audio book rangers do we've only had one so far we've we've got another one coming out uh this month but uh but tara of the master was the standout for me it was just i came away from that just going wow uh i don't know what you felt has thought of of that one as well yeah magnificent i think it's the fact you've got a first-class narrator and john cultural who absolutely draws you in the fact that you can do the voices helps as well and the music sound design on it and everything it really is a special package the fact is it's echoing terror of the autons and so many of its themes and even its title

16:11 it's very very well done and i think trevor is such a really good underrated writer when it comes to these books he's definitely got a nice wee skill there particularly i don't know if you've heard this blake seven which came out at the end of last year it's very very good and i loved it and it's it's no it's not being skill reading a bit of text as you know having done the short trips yourselves over the christmas period which were great to listen to love parliament or rats and even just adding a wee bit sound design music here and there even if it's from somewhere else it takes ages to do so there's a real skill in it and i loved it yeah i looked at the credits was it joe cramer that did that on uh terror of the master do you recall um i couldn't see any other sound designer so i'm assuming that the whole thing was done by joe cramer and

16:57 to have such a accomplished uh sound designer and musician uh to be working on big finish i think that's absolutely thrilling you interviewed joe kramer recently didn't you i did yes i had him on an episode of power three when we were talking about the missy box set and he's just absolutely amazing really really laid-back fabulous friendly chatty bloke because i've interviewed him a few times by email and that was the first time we'd spoken in person and it was like speaking to an old mate and yeah it was fab lovely lovely guy and as well but i think this guy's doing big finish he's done a tom cruise mission impossible film and i think he's done another tom cruise one as well but yeah fabulous i love the effect what did you do jack reacher

17:43 yeah that's the other one as i'd love the fact that he talked to you already the fact he was helping his son was getting involved too so he's using big finish to train his son up so that was a nice touch i i just thought the um the whole mass episode caught me up because it felt like a full cast production and then i kept getting caught up in the story feeling like it was full cast and going oh no it's just one narrator it was yeah it was so well done it was brilliant okay so let's move on to february we'll stay in the same order hey let's go with uh kenny what was your standout for february 2021 hi i'm a big forced doctor fan that was the year of the show where i started watching back in 1978 when i was four years old and sitting on my mum's knee actually the thing for tom baker

18:29 i don't quite get it but there we go anyway the tribulations of thaddeus nuke is my choice which was previously known as thaddeus nukes time tours that was his working title and i just thought it's fantastic it's very much swept me up in the journey you've got the doctor and galila and the encounter a gentleman by the name of thadius nuke who's offering time tours and leela gets swept up and got along with his tour and the doctors got to pursue him and obviously we all know what happens when you and human beings meddle with time things don't tend to go too well so you've got the doctor chasing after uh in pursuit and i think it's a great story plenty of laughs along the way andrew smith i'm not just i've not just

19:15 picked this one because andy's a good pal of mine um i think andy's such a clever writer and i think this is one of his funniest scripts today usually stories can be a bit more serious but this one i thought was hilarious made me laugh in the right places and just great characters and i think daddy's new himself was brilliant it's that sort of um wheeler dealer sort of bloke who's to sort of come across this wonderful piece of technology and he's out to make a few quid out of it and tom baker louise james in in top form as ever and i just it just swept me along and i think i listened to this in one go as i recall i went out for a walk and i enjoyed it so much i just kept walking kept on finished it all in one goal oh very good excellent

20:01 yeah it really is a great range and it's it's it's nice to know that there are many many more years of fourth doctor adventures to come because we all know tom baker's getting old so if anything should happen uh it's not the end of him we've we've got lots to go so it's it's really nice that that he's done that for for us as famous the moment has been prepared for exactly exactly all right philip what about you i'm going to pick the uh another one which is an end of a range so maybe we'll see gallifrey um so the the gallery time war box set came out uh in february um once again one of the things i've appreciated gallifrey recently is the fact that they're using uh it's lesser known authors but new

20:46 authors or building people up but it's amazing that just looking through the authors so there's um lisa mcmullen who during the course a year has become one of my favorite writers because she's just writing more and more and her stuff is very powerful lou morgan who i'm going to actually refer to again later uh also did an another favorite in a couple of months because um that writing is just so powerful and emotional uh david llewellyn's always reliable and matt fitton so it's sort of a box set of kind of new people but they don't feel new anymore after a year of having so many out as much output from them and others um but just trying to end up the time war with gallifrey trying to leave it in a helpful spot which doesn't contradict the tv series which was nice but it's just a cast of characters that i've just grown so fond

21:33 of over the time so yeah lala ward louise jameson is just amazing as always um also it's just great sean carlson i think sean kelsey is one of my favorite actors in terms of when gallifrey started i hated him and um we had sean on during the year actually said to her i really hated you know your character everything about you i hated and how he's managed to turn this obnoxious overconfident overbearing civil servant into someone that we care so much about over the course of the seasons is a real power to his acting and i guess i also said about how young he was because to me always seemed you know old autocrat but you know he's actually still a young man even after however many years have been doing gallifrey so i just think he's our age we're young

22:19 men aren't we yeah exactly yeah yeah that's what meant 40 some things yeah so once again scott hancock i mean there's gonna be an awful lot of stuff i'm gonna be referencing that scott hancock directed sort of the young upcoming director who is um doing a lot of edgier stuff and i think gallifrey time time will went more edgy this time so they're saying it's the end i'm hoping not there's still bits to happen but yeah maybe like survivors they'll put it aside for a few years and it'll come back yeah it's one of those things that often ends and comes back but you know all of gallif was amazing the first three seasons in particular are astounding in terms of political intrigue and just clever twists and gary russell's in his element

23:05 of soapy writing for dynasty forthcoming west wing come everything else but just have to see how it's progressed on in the box sets and where scott hancock's taking it to um really worth the listen and yeah you do need to listen to all the time war box sets don't dive into this one but really worthwhile if you want to understand the time when it's full of us gallery is a great place to start you know at the time that came out i just recently watched the hobbit too so with richard armitage playing wrestling i was interested to see how he was going to do that i i did feel that he was a little bit underused so i felt a little bit disappointed there but apart from that a fantastic fantastic release and i certainly hope there's more to come i'm sure nick nick has dropped a hint in a podcast that he's that he's

23:52 looked at future scripts i'm sure he has unless i'm imagining things we'll see what about you duane what did you like in february uh february for me we had the first full box set release of space 1999 and this absolutely blew me away when i was a kid space 1999 used to be on i think i was even watching it before i went to school because it was on at 10 30 11 o'clock in the morning do you remember that philip years and years ago i used to watch every and do the holidays yeah i think that's when i got it during the holidays and so i try and get off school after i went to school too and then i'd always try and put on space 1999 and it's the sounds it's got such unique sounds in the original series and they've managed to replicate

24:38 these that in a way that takes you right back and not only that but they've improved it too and uh one of the one of the best things about that is the is the title theme benji clifford redid this and he he just he didn't really change it too much but he just added a couple of extra little things there that when you put when you're listening to it with your headphones it it makes just thinking about i'm getting goosebumps that's how it sort of got into my head and it sort of got me right in the mood for those for those stories um three stories on the box set altogether the siren called by andrew smith and goldilocks was by andrew smith so they're two original ones but they're doing sort of a a combination of originals plus reworkings of tv episodes

25:23 so roland moore did death's other dominion which i hadn't seen for a long time so i i listened to that first and then i went and got the original back out and you know what i've enjoyed the big furnish big finish version much more than the tv version even though it does have brian blessed in it i still like this one better i did the other way around i watched it first and then i listened and i went big finishes better it actually made more sense and more logic and yeah did you did you do that too kenny well i discovered it in saturday morning repeats on scottish television her local sort of itv station and they used to show them saturday morning so i first discovered 1999 and i've actually done own the originals on dvd or blu-ray or

26:09 anything but they have been repeating them on one of the satellite channels here and i've watched a few but they tended to be season two yeah that i've caught up with and as we all know season two just isn't quite as good as the first um the first half is a different got a different feel about it not sure yeah but i really enjoyed the audios i think they're great they just feel fantastic and i think mark bonner's brilliant and declaring interest mark bonner's a friend but yeah i'm absolutely love what he's done with it and i know that he's having a ball because he was a big fan he watched the repeats when i was watching him at the same time obviously not at the same house or anything like that but yeah both big fans of it back in the day awesome so do all you scottish people just get together once a week or something so you all have to know each other is that just how it works yeah we do we have a kaylee uh we go and chase

26:56 some haggis stick them out we murder the wee haggas we choose them up a hill and then we stick them over a fire roast them and then we drink whiskey and iron brew so yeah that's that's basically what we call thursday night i never be in scotland all five million of us get together to do that so it's great fun great on that note kenny tell us what your pick for march 2021 was well again it's the fourth doctor release and this one was really nostalgic for me it's the doomsday contract by john lloyd which was adapted and developed by nev fountain uh season 17 was is probably one of my most favorite classic series series and i've thoroughly enjoyed getting the box set uh on blu-ray just before christmas so fingers crossed you

27:41 guys get it very soon too and yeah i love it early next month yep awesome it's bad there's it's just i love the whole tone of that era it's quite flippant just the whole dr romana k9 team and the fact they're just untouchable and they're just having such a good laugh as they go about and laughing in the face of terror and tweaking the nose of the spindly killer fish and that sort of thing as to borrow a black address and but they're just there was such a land in style and the doomsday contract is absolutely perfect for that season 17 style with people wanting to destroy earth to make way for uh pretty much basically it's the basic plot is hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy but there's far more to it than that and

28:26 it diverges hugely we've got courtroom fun and the doctor and romana just going off and it's it's people haven't heard it i'd hugely recommend it particularly with season 17 coming out i would go out and get it because what nev has done he's obviously a huge fan of that era he's a comedy writer and he just makes it it just is so vivid and you can picture it guitar just being impounded things like that and it's there's some wonderful legalese stuff at the start just playing in the ridiculousness of the british court system and yeah i i i'd recommend it hugely i don't want to spoil it for anyone i know it's been out for a few months but yeah it's very funny very clever and tom and lala are just on top

29:14 form hugely hugely recommended we had nev on the show earlier in the year talking a little bit about this and because it hadn't been released when we were speaking with him but uh he was he was talking about the relationship between douglas adams and john lloyd isn't it that's right john lloyd and listening to this it's amazing how hitchhikery it is and it made me think how much of john lloyd must be in hitchhiker's guide the galaxy because he was so uh he contributed so much with douglas adams particularly the radio series i think so yeah absolutely sensei it would it's it's kind of hidden because it's released not too long after another

30:00 uh lost story that got a lot of hype the return of the cybermen but uh a lot of fans might go for the cyberman one over this because it's cybermen but um i think this one came out uh a little better than return of the cybermen and um it was it's certainly a bit of a hidden gem in 2021 it would have to be probably my top five if i had to pick definitely huge laughs i got out of it yep uh who's next phillip what about you for march well you you kind of stole the one i was going to have but what i'll i'll do my my second choice which is simply up there i'm actually choosing master um so we spoke at eric roberts before um he came back from masterful he'd been

30:46 you know featured in a river song and uh ravages earlier but this is for his first own box set uh so he and chase masterson um playing the assassin i think what her name is vienna salvatore yes thank you vienna celebratory um they sort of team up it's once again it's it gives a good reason for why something eric roberts is in human form or well maybe the gallifriend form how he gets pulled out of the ether or whatever it is but there's a there's a real growing sense of disaster and impending doom as he at first seems so sweet so nice but just how he manipulates and control situations so

31:32 i'm yeah once again so impressed by eric roberts he didn't get to do it anywhere near enough on the show and it's just lovely seeing him bit by bit coming back it left with a cliffhanger so i'm hoping there's going to be an announcement soon about a second box if i've heard nothing coming so i don't know hoping sales were good but in terms of different qualities of the master eric roberts brings a whole new side really worth listening to um once again yeah the cast all great i mean chase matt chase masterson is just wonderful as always um howard carr does the music score so he's that's always brilliant um and jamie anderson did the directing well jason hague ellery obviously directed in america so and i think that's i think both chase madison and um eric roberts were directed in america

32:20 and then over here jamie anderson did the the rest of the cast and then as they do their usual mashup now it's interesting because i know that so many of these people never performed together so you know tom baker lala ward have never been in the same room haven't seen each other haven't spoken to each other and yet you would not have a clue that's going on when you listen to the cds i guess the cds i'm trying my old age aren't i the audios um because they're just the way the sound technicians just do their work is just brilliant uh and yeah as i said how card has done the sound design as well as the music i can't fault how he manages to put together different countries different people months apart and yet it just forced together the sound design is spotless and you get

33:05 this ripping story so yeah i still stay as near the big fish managed to do it i can't imagine the painful process of cutting it all together track up line after line and merging them but it also actually i think that just shows when we spoke to um benji during the year that actually the sound design has a lot of power in terms of um pacing how things sound the pauses and so an entire performance can be totally altered and changed for the better or for the worse by the sound designer i don't think we give them any win enough credit for the part they play in making your story really work where are you dwayne what are you gonna recommend for this month uh for me uh it was a sad month for me phillip i know you weren't so sad about this but uh it was it was

33:53 a very long time that i've been subscribing to the monthly adventures and this was the very last one the end of the beginning rob valentine wrote this uh great story and uh to wrap everything up uh as far as the monthly range was concerned i've got to say sitting here now uh nine months later i i have missed them i really have and i will say for those who were very excited with kevin mcnally being in the tv series a couple of months ago well we we're big finish i say we the royal we a big finish had him not once but twice and this was his first appearance in a big finish adventure so far unless he was in more than two but i know two off the top of my head i can think of uh playing the the main protagonist in in this

34:40 and uh it was it was great it was and it was also nice to have that little scene with sylvester mccoy because it looked for a while as if sylvester was not going to be able to take part but at the end of the day he did get a bit of a scene and that was marvellous so to have those four doctors who had started off the monthly range and kept it going for 20 years it was absolutely amazing i'm still sad about it but that was the stand out for me for for for march so i don't know if you guys have anything to say about the monthlies and that one i do miss them i i particularly enjoyed the end of the beginning a wonderful title as well and with a

35:26 nice double meaning but i think it's quite it's wonderful the way it echoes the structure of the sirens of time whereas every doctor has their own episode before they all come together at the end and the fact that there's such a wonderful trick be honest with kevin mcnally's character i won't say what it is but i did not expect that and yeah i wonder and of course he did that i think he did a one part one back in the days of when the monthly range went to the trilogies and he did a one-part story when it was at a three-parter and a one-parter and i can't remember which one it was off to head but i'm sure he did one so yeah he's been coming back to big finish long before the tv series came a calling for him so yeah i really enjoyed it and i do miss them i do miss them

36:11 yeah it's interesting that yeah reflecting on my 12 episodes i actually don't have a traditional doctor who show in my top 12 for the monthly range um except this one you did pick this one yeah i did pick this one and as much as i i was i did agree that i thought the monthly range was coming to its natural conclusion um i've become more fond of the one-hour episodes and keeping them tight and brief and what you can do with that i nostalgically i'm looking back now going oh yeah i've missed it and also i think because we've just i'm so used to always having colin or pete or sylvester uh in my ears every month and of course yeah they they did some good things but we really did lose the regularity and the length of having them like we used

36:58 to so i'm i'm missing those doctors a bit even though i'm not denying we've had a marvelous output anyway yeah well that's why 2022 is uh they're they're back so we're looking forward to that and it's about time exactly exactly from big finish productions it was the end of everything finally i realized the purpose for which i had been chosen i declared war on the universe before we die can we at least agree that this was all your fault if it makes you happier not really

37:44 the city it is said to house a great jewel known as azalam the darkness good grief by all that's holy don't be alarmed this is simply an artifact of another civilization it's a lot more impressive than yours isn't it size isn't everything well mrs clark welcome to heigen's end spaceport life is fast and short in these parts so be careful sounds like the wild west from my obsidian throne in the fortress of night i assembled the means to begin my war doctor mrs c welcome aboard the black star charming i'm sure

38:30 i am a time lord until the lord oh is that supposed to impress me they're following us can we outrun them they've taken out my starboard thruster doctor you better think of something oh rather dark isn't it don't worry love you'll be safe with me there's a new child of the night in town another one like you when i started setting off my paintings i thought i was being completely discreet i should hope so herget artists do usually tend to stop painting once they're dead oh no we might very well be standing on all that's left of you know the lost moon of batoya

39:16 doctor hello doctor and charlie isn't it you remember tello no i don't believe we've met is that really a future version of you indeed it is oh you become awfully what tasteful there is a legend a prophecy if you will of a great unravelling and it's said to have started here to me it sounds more like a weapon no wonder the ancients hid it in the wrong hands it would be a terrible thing what have you done isn't it obvious my boy [Music] we love stories

40:04 funny thing time travel isn't it all right so april uh there was another end of a series of stories kenny um what stood out to you in april my choice for this one is time lord victorious echoes of extinction i thought i'd try and make it sound slightly more epic there by saying it like that uh i really enjoyed the big finished timelord victorious run three fab tales plus also you've got to add in the tom baker one as well which fits in there quite nicely and then we have the ones that top and tail it all in echoes of extinction written i think it's just fabulous fabulous stories from alfie shaw

40:49 his name just popped up my head for a minute sorry alfie and wonderful eighth doctor story to start it all off throwing and it throws up a wonderful possibility of potentially even a new companion in there that i doubt it will happen but that's my thing because i'm a big fan of two pints of lager and a packet of crisps and one of the sheridan smith's co-stars joins the tardis group briefly uh of course she was also bliss in the tv episode blink um no it wasn't blink it's loving monsters um so yeah i'm i was a big fan of this one and then of course you've got the b side with david tennant taking it over and sort of topping and telling the story i think it was a very clever release it's one that you definitely have to listen to

41:34 and follow it carefully it needs your full attention i think alfie did a great job on it the fact that even though the doctors don't meet which i'm sure a lot of people were hoping for i think it's actually quite nice that they don't there is an entertainment doctor hearing the eighth doctor and remembering and sort of thinking all the things you've got ahead of you but it will get better and i think that was quite nice to be touched and the really nice thing is that i can exclusively reveal that we will be chatting about echoes of extinction in series three of the pieces of eighth podcast series as we've got a couple of episodes all about time lord victorious and native doctors involvement in there so there we go uh something just to plug in i've just got one interview still to do for that and then it'll all be sorted but no

42:21 i really enjoyed it i enjoyed the fact it was on vinyl i did obviously listen to the download version first but it's really nice having it done you get that nice nicely crackle and i think that the mcgann david arnold team just lends itself perfectly to vinyl release with a little bit of crackle on it kenny i i congratulate you uh on sheridan smith not being in any release for this year but you got to mention her anyway oh yes of course you did very good yeah and i would recommend anyone who hasn't tested the waters in terms of time lord victorious the big finish audios are great but i would also recommend some other media that comes with that get the two novels as well

43:06 particularly all flesh's grass that one ties everything up very nicely gives you a much bigger picture where these all these stories are are on the one canvas but uh the novels uh pretty easy pretty easy reads uh but it just ties everything up nicely i think that's that's i appreciated that much better when i when i uh read the novels yeah i didn't name him in person catherine drysdale i didn't actually named as the actress because she's in two paints lagging back to christmas show yeah also got to you guys really enjoyed your thoughts on time lord victorious the audios so i'm tuning in and listening to those elsewhere and around the console so yes i've thoroughly enjoyed your your thoughts and interjections so yes so thank you for those

43:57 all right who are we up to all right phillip what about you for the month of april what stood out to you oh what an amazing month this was because there's so much stuff actually i was very the the um dalek universe started but i'm going to sort of talk about it later so i'll jump in later with with the last one but tom baker's first universe was brewed as well but i'm going to go a bit a bit more out there in terms of go for the avengers so one of the tv shows that i used to watch with my dad uh was the avengers and even even still every thursday night at about 2 a.m in the morning dana rigg and patrick mcnair on in the color just the one they only show the one season over and over again the fifth season i think picture is the fifth it must be the sixth season well the fifth is the first color one

44:43 wasn't it yeah it's the first color season and they just played over and over again but it's on it's been on for years at 2 am and i still occasionally record it but i mean i own them all i actually just bought the tara actually because of this release i bought the box set because the ones i had everything except for the tire release so the estee and tara king came out this month and i said i think there's the one taro king episode you have in the forget me not which is diana rigg's last episode but it's as much a tara king episode this is down the rig episode but everything's just getting crazy and crazy about that that final dino rig series and so i've got the box set of tara king and it really goes crazy like the show is just bizarre um which it's i love i i it's like

45:30 nothing else and these audios capture that whole idea and so um i've been getting the avengers strips from for ages um julian warden is playing john st he's done it throughout the different seasons um but emily woodward is now playing tara king um it's not is it tara king she hasn't quite got tara king's voice but she's not trying to do that but in terms of the essence of who tara king is she really gets that uh and then christopher benjamin's playing mother and so anything christopher benjamin's in is just hilarious mother is the most bizarre character um and no spoilers but really it's worth it's worth the whole all the episodes are worth just for christopher benjamin because he's just having a scream and what this i love is

46:16 on the tv show his stories tara king was rigidly played by linda thorson and they've actually got her coming back to play a villain and she's unrecognizable she's putting on accent yeah one of the things that avengers does is the most atrocious accents somewhere probably eastern european but it's so bizarre that's not supposed to be any proper um it's sort of a lower low kind of comedy character baddies um but yeah they're just just really well done um so john dorney uh did the first one and anything john donny does he just has a passion with this um dan starkey he's actually in one but also he he writes one which is how does your garden grow which is just

47:02 bizarre as uh roland moore does another one and then sarah actually i think i pronounced her name right sarah also what is it brocolla so yeah so i don't really know sarah stuff but her her episode of mother's day is really great so the four episodes all have to bring something different and unique they're all crazy as but they make a lot of sense the sound design is 60s brilliance um it's just so well done the music is spot on it just feels like the real show so i can't can't more highly recommend them um really really worth getting hold of so jeremy robertson the music and the sound design too so brilliant

47:48 excellent i agree it's brilliant but but like nothing else i mean it's it's like no other range so yeah i can't say if you like this you'll like it because if you like the avengers you'll love it um but it's really worth giving it a go and this is a because it's you can just drop into this this box set fine you don't have to listen to the previous ones you'll pick it up perfectly from episode one yeah that's what i did i've not got all the avengers box sets myself but i did jump into this one because i was i'm actually still i haven't got through it yet but i'm still on series six so i was very interested when linda thorsen was announced as guesting on there so um i got it for that and yeah very pleasantly surprised as i always am when

48:33 with anything big finish does really the social issues that the comic strip adventures are fun if you the original first i forget how many box sets the other original avengers which is all based out of season one there's some season one episodes and written that style i think might be seven box sets originally seven box sets yep um that that is a very different feel that that is 60s black and white spy drama and it feels like it i mean once again really worth having there's still little twists and quirks in terms of characterizations they're still often unknown european countries who are the baddies um assassination plots but it's not like these these comic strip adventures once it gets to tyra king and daddy rig it goes crazy so what about you dwayne what have you listened to in this month well a

49:18 surprising favorite of mine from the month of april well maybe not surprising but you know there's lots of critics of of big finish out there that say oh another spin-off they're doing something else and oh that really drives them bonkers when people say that because they've never even heard them so i think people should hear them before they say things like that and this is one of those ones that would get that kind of criticism before it was even released the lone centurion so chronicling the life of uh one of my favorite companions from the new series rory played by arthur darvill and it is absolutely incredible it's a laugh a minute and the stories let me just see who the stories are written by um okay yeah three two two writers that i

50:06 was very familiar with um jack rainer and david lewellen so i thought i saw them you go yep okay but the one the episode that stood out to me was the one written by sarah ward who i'd never seen write too much before i think i'd seen a bit just before that i'd seen a short trip perhaps written by sarah ward she wrote an episode called the unwilling assassin and that's all about rory uh being assigned to to kill people and uh doing everything he can to get out of it and it was just one of the best pieces of entertainment i was chuckling all the way through this and by the end of it i was so into this that uh i thought is the next one coming out next month um it was it was that good so for me the standout uh for april is uh the lone centurion and i think arthur darvill is

50:52 such a such a quirky guy anyway he injects his own brand of quirkiness into this and it just it's magical it's magical don't know what you guys thought loved it i thought it was one of the funniest releases of the year very understated i would have actually probably picked this one but you nicked it so i'll let you have it you're the boss and uh yeah i thought it was great just so much fun throughout it arthur darvill absolutely engaging and wonderful character i like you i'm a big fan of him rory one of my favorite 21st century companions so just everyday guy caught up in a mad crazy world yeah it's stunning but stunning production really done very good let's move on and we'll go to may now this

51:41 kenny this was a big mouth wasn't it it was huge this is one that i think we'd all been looking forward to since the previous autumn with the arrival of the ninth doctor on audio in ravagers by nicholas breaks i think that we let's be honest we probably never thought this would happen that would get ninth doctor adventure starring chris eccleston given the way things worked out for him on tv we know that he didn't have the happiest of times working on the show but then to find him on audio and absolutely relishing it the fact that he's thrown himself into it wholeheartedly he's been involved with the scripts and the content and things like that and here we go we've got him back and it was just such an incredible feeling just

52:27 that opening opening couple of minutes when we hear him he's in the tardis the adventure is already underway and of course we do get flashbacks just to explain what's going on and it's just incredible just to hear him and it's i actually had to listen to the whole thing twice particularly i think i didn't listen to the first episode three times just to take it all in because i was still in that this is christopher eccleston doing doctor who again and and it's a very very complex story to get underway but i think that's what chris wanted he wanted something that wasn't going to be an easy up here's the doctor here he is going about having fun adventures and the fact that there's quite a quite a hard edge to it and good sci-fi um angles to it and just gives you

53:15 something to really sink your teeth into and it is definitely worth the repeated listens just to get over the fact that you've got christopher reckless in your ears once more as the doctor and he's definitely having a ball and considering this is the the first one he'd done it's quite incredible because he absolutely finds that rhythm from the word go getting those laughs in there and just yeah i just love it i'm just so so pleased that christopher eccleston is back in our lives as the doctor once more yeah the the thing i appreciate this show is big finish doesn't just play things safe it could have gone nice and safe in terms of you know a story set in the present stories in the future stories in the past um following the traditional what the what russell set up in the movie

54:02 which we'll see now we'll go a bit more radical we're going to choose a story which is unbelievably complex over three stories backwards and fourth and you it's going to really pay you to listen again and again so extra value because you've got you've got to listen several times but it's through some people but boy it's been worthwhile you've tried it for a lifetime you've got to keep in mind that this uh now i saw another reviewer make this point so this doesn't come from me but it made a lot of sense this is the first time we've ever seen the ninth doctor outside of the production influence of russell t davies the very first time so it's it's exciting that we that we have that we get to see the ninth doctor separately

54:48 but when when i heard it i found it a little bit complicated myself to listen to uh i'm i'm not so much in i'm more into the character stuff not the tiny why me stuff so much however as far as a character of the ninth doctor goes it's like he's never been away he it that's what blew my mind about this it was like this is the ninth doctor that captured everybody's hearts back in 2005 exactly as he was back then with his fantastic news story and you know new production whatever on audio but i could visualize everything and it was uh it was absolutely beautiful to to hear chris eccleston sounding like he was enjoying himself and after hearing what we've heard about

55:35 how he didn't enjoy himself and you know even some people were criticizing some of his interviews saying i wasn't very exuberant but he certainly let loose for the for the uh for the production side of it it was uh it was like he'd never never been away so that's what i appreciated from from that particular release okay can you may know this but i suspect russell t did at least have a look over the scripts beforehand because i i think he keeps his hand into everything that's happened from his era is that fair to say can you know i genuinely have no idea if that's the case or not i really don't know okay we'll find out sometime somehow it wouldn't surprise me if he did but he's a little bit further removed than like he's not he's not responsible for

56:22 it at the end of the day really was the first one he didn't write certainly he didn't write this for chris and all the others he would have had a major hand in writing by the stephen moffatt one ones absolutely yeah good stuff and there was more to come much more to come philip another new series that that we got to experience that month so you picked a new newbie well kind of a newbie in terms of yeah the the worlds of blake seven um i guess new format new format where we tragically lost por darrow i think many of us thought that was it there'd be no more we lost we lost gareth we lost was paul we lost jackie we just lost too many people to in some ways to feel like the show could go on i was kind of hoping they might go back to

57:08 the uh liberated chronicle styles i love i love the chronicles it would be what they are and so that's what i thought they'd go back to but they actually came up with a style which i wasn't expecting which was they found ways of tapping into the show history and bringing just one or two of the visual cast but also gives new ones and so this is the first this is the first of the new worlds of black seven avalon which of course is a character that appears in a black seven episode from season one called project avalon um when we meet her there it's jenna already knows her and so it's natural that you you bring jenna into the first episode so once again three amazing episodes uh we get selling the vet at the as jenna and her youngest and we actually find out how she was captured and how she first met blake because at

57:54 the end of her episode that's what happened so in terms of getting set up for the show to start so this is set just before black seven we have gary russell has returned as an author it's been a long time since he's been writing for big finish and he has come back as a powerhouse so throwback is just mainly two characters there's a third one as well but it really focuses on steven grife and an interrogation scene and it is just brilliantly constructed so gary russell has just written this beautiful piece of work um and then finally black waters by trevor baxtendale so three really great stories and it could be another box set with other avalon adventures along the way but just really really really clever i think peter let me just double check myself i'm pretty sure it's peter and julius

58:42 as we're the ones constructed with this that's the one yeah good i pronounce his name probably kenny angelidis um so he's it's his his brain work his his powers bring it all together there's been a few box sets i'm going to mention i want another one later but if you're into blake 7 if you're not into black 7 listen to these because you won't become so but anyone who loves black seven it's just marvelous and you know we've got a chat we've got a chance to chat with both sally and steven throughout the course of the year they're excited to be back and they just bring so much to their roles very excited so i mean i am after doctor who blake seven is certainly my big big passion and so it's it's yeah i'm so excited that what big finish has

59:27 done and hopefully we'll have yeah many more years and the cast will survive a bit longer what about you dwayne what's your pick for may uh i want to choose a story from a box set it's from although i should shout out to the other story as well it's the third doctor adventures volume seven uh there's two stories on there the anzal incursion uh featuring daisy ashford as liz and the golf featuring sadie miller as sarah jane smith now what was good about the golf was the fact that sadie got a lot more to do than she did in uh return of the cybermen earlier on we'd already had a taste of what sadie could do with sarah jane and she was really coming into into

1:00:13 her own in this one so i enjoyed the goal for for for sadie's performance uh well everything but the sadie stood out to me um as far as the unzal incursion goes i i said at the outset that uh john pertwee was was my doctor and particularly season seven uh so anything that big finish does that harks back to season seven uh is a winner for me and this one just took me right back it was nice to see nick briggs and benji clifford working together on the sound uh because we often hear them in the podcast uh it's not too often that they work together and yeah so so nick was on music benji was on sound and

1:00:59 this is one of those stories where you really get a good is if you're a fan of an era and you can pick up what the sound designers are doing to recreate that era in your mind and they do it well this is what sells big finish to me uh it is that that sound design at the end story was fantastic too uh interesting concept there with we had a female sergeant coming in as well uh it was a different would different from what we would have got in season seven um and but overall it's the sound that stood out to me i mean that's what big finish is all about isn't it it's all about sound so uh that's what i that's what i love about that one um i think we had another third doctor adventures later in the year and we've got uh a third doctor adventure coming

1:01:45 up very soon so i'm always excited to to hear what they do with these and uh i just want to give a shout out to nick and benji for for what they did on that particular release it blew me away um yeah the third doctor was saying to the authentic getting that radiophonic workshop sound is something i know something that nick absolutely loves doing and he just gets it absolutely perfectly a little bit of malcolm clark but to dudley simpson yeah on the nose that's perfect love it absolutely okay what are we up to boys are we up to june almost almost halfway there okay let's uh let's throw over to you kenny what did you go for for june this was a really tough month to choose

1:02:31 from because there were so many great releases i mean literally it was which i was thinking which one made me laugh the most and that was what ultimately got me to choose the five people you kill in middlesbrough which is a town in northeast england and it's got a bit of an industrial sort of heritage and here we've got a story which has got tracy ann obermann at the heart of it as a born hartman and there's an alien spaceship crashed there and pretty much she grows around ensuring that it is basically a typical torchwood job trying to cover up what's happened but she finds got a few problems along the way and it's just wonderfully done

1:03:18 written apparently by the character herself not tracy anne but actually written by vaughn which is a nice touch but i think it's very much tracy ann and james goss working together with an idea and spinning it off and it is just so funny i it just made me laugh throughout and she goes around pretty much having anybody who gets in her way wiped out to try and cover up the fact there's a crash daily spaceship spouting radiation that will kill everybody and it it's just a wonderful release very subtly funny and great cast in it as well we've got dennis lawson showing up wedge until he's in star wars and who i actually once saw in glasgow wondering about looking at a street puppet show um of course you do

1:04:03 yeah i didn't go because it was it wasn't actually the night of the big five million get together chase the haggis and drink whiskey and catcher and drink iron brew as well um yeah i just think it's a fab story and if you haven't heard it it's just it's so funny i'd hugely recommend it i think particularly if you understand the political situation in great britain at the moment it has a lot more bite to it so i mean you know out in australia we do follow a lot on twitter and yeah it's our doctor connections we hear a lot about what's going on over there and i think a lot of the a lot of the comments were very biting towards the current situation and politicians and how people react and yeah i laughed and laughed it was as i said tortured the whole year has just been amazing

1:04:49 yeah definitely agree okay philip what about you yeah well i'm going to go there once again there's lots of gone for but i'm going to assist the martha dalek uh universe started as well no no that was that previous that was previously i mentioned it last i mentioned it before um so that started i think last month i'm going to mention the robots so i've just adored this season once again you know people criticize the spin-offs too far but nicola walker anything you can have her in it's worth listening to what an amazing actress i still get blown away that you have a british icon like nicola walker who is just the powerhouse of acting over there in amazing series and big finish hammer and it's amazing enough that she does

1:05:35 the eighth doctor stuff but this spin-off series with the robots has just been amazing um her and claire rushbrook together sisters exploring the world of caldor it is just so rich and so powerful and it just gets more and more intriguing um originally supposed to be four box sets this is the fourth box set there's another two thank goodness but just seeing what they've done and then this is of course david collins's final work before he passed away um which is a bit tragic because he's it's just marvelous and wonderful and of course pamela salem who who's been a crush of mine since i was about 10 years old and saw in romans of death um she's still a huge crush of mine i got to be honest and just you know once again seeing what's happened with her character and what they've been doing with her

1:06:20 very clever not what i expected there was a lovely twist in this in the last box set and i'm looking forward to seeing where it goes to from here and i'm assuming there's issues just in terms of recording um and being able to get all the casts together which is why i think the delays happen i don't know that but you know when we spoke to palmer salem she's not particularly technically savvy and i assume they're having some issues with um yeah just travel and be able to record her to do her parts one thing that i concerned me about the robots and we spoke about it with john dorney himself because i'm a huge fan of the kaldor city uh series as well

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