Philip Hinchcliffe

Meh, this is a serviceable adaptation I suppose. I find the cover art super creepy and don’t like that the Doctor Who logo is absent. It makes the story look pulpy (which it is, but shhh). This is one of those Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane ones where they get captured about four times and Sarah Jane nearly gets killed twice (not through anything she did, just the fact that she’s travelling with the Doctor). It’s a quick read and probably better if you’ve watched and enjoyed the TV version.… (mehr)

This Big Finish box set contains two stories, both of which feature the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

In The Foe from the Future, they go to Devon, where a haunted estate called The Grange is creating apparitions and people are dying. But forget ghosts: the real horror is the owner of the estate, the titular foe. He has a time-warping plan that may end the universe as we know it. This was a Gothic horror that felt close to the spirit of the Hinchcliffe era of Who (e.g., The Talons of Weng-Chiang).

In Valley of Death, the Doctor and Leela end up joining an expedition to retrace the steps of Cornelius Perkins, a Victorian explorer who disappeared in the jungles of South America. The expedition, led by Cornelius’s great-grandson Edward, encounter what appears to be a giant spaceship. And then there are giant creatures lurking in the valley. This story was a bit more melodramatic and had some colonial trappings; it was of a piece with Doyle’s The Lost World, if Doyle had written about aliens.

Both stories were structured a lot like the actual TV show, being broken up into four or six smaller parts instead of being a single hour-long drama. The action was breathless, the lines occasionally cheesy, the technobabble babbly, and Leela fierce and brilliant as she usually is. There was also a LOT of screaming.

These were a little bit too silly for me to give them a full four stars, but Doctor Who is usually a reasonable use of my time.… (mehr)

The Doctor goes into the Gallifreyan matrix to prove his innocence in an assassination conspiracy.

I'm not sure why I liked this one. There's a nice sci-fi concept or two, but the story is kind of a mess that doesn't tie them together or clearly explain them. There's an almost Rambo-like action sequence, but it takes place in a virtual universe with no established physical rules. It's been a few months since I've seen a good Tom Baker story, though, and I guess it's just what I wanted to see.… (mehr)