Doctor in Discomfort.

TV  You will have heard the news about Doctor Who going out to tender for  a new production company, with RTD2 and Bad Wolf walking away after cancelling Schrödinger's Christmas Special. The BBC says they "have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode," whereas Russell says via his Insta:

There's no point trying to litigate whether anyone was lying about there being a Christmas Special. With no new Doctor announced or news of a special and a series, it was becoming pretty clear that it was a placeholder in the schedules, just in case, easily filled with another hour of Strictly.

But to the point: I'm pretty positive about the whole thing. The BBC hasn't said they're shutting up shop: no more Doctor Who for now, see you in a couple of decades. They're asking for presentations from other production companies, which will all have their own ideas on a new direction for the show, and it'll be recommissioned like any other series. Perhaps the choice of showrunner and actor will be included in those pitches, alongside the kinds of stories they'll want to tell.

Here are some of the things I hope those pitches will include, and yes, this is a rare occasion when this blog's usual format goes out of the window and I allow bullet headings to darken its door:

• A soft reboot.  Don't ignore what's been seen until now, but don't refer to it either. Make this a proper jumping-on point for new young viewers and those who may not have watched the show recently.

• No major story arcs.  Make it largely standalone again. If there's a throughline, it could be as simple as the developing friendship between the companion and the Time Lord. Make things lower stakes again—no global or intergalactic catastrophe every other hour.

• Longer seasons. Facilitated by a return to the old format of twenty-five-minute episodes and cliffhangers. This will help with the budget because it'll help to amortise costs across multiple episodes.

• None of the previous showrunners. We've had more Prime Ministers in the past twenty-odd years than Doctor Who showrunners, and all of them burned out eventually—some of them before they'd even had an episode produced. Give it to someone younger and perhaps not a white male. Someone with a different perspective. Can someone check if Abi Morgan is still interested?

• Spin-off writers. One of the best decisions RTD1 made right at the beginning was to hire writers who worked on Doctor Who in other media, all of whom, in fact, had helped launch the Eighth Doctor at Big Finish. Do something similar again, with the newer crop who might not have written for TV before but understand how Doctor Who flows.

• A consistent timeslot. Make it the show which kickstarts Saturday evening, and with a shorter individual runtime, it's less likely to interfere with whatever else might be on.

• No iPlayer premieres. That was just asking for trouble.

• Romola Garai as the Doctor. There's still time.

Plus let us not forget, Doctor Who is currently in production for television: 52 x 11-minute episodes over two series for CBeebies, which happened through a similar tendering process to the main show. We don't know what that will look like. Who will voice the Doctor? Their companion? Who's writing the thing? Will it have returning monsters? How much story can you actually tell in ten minutes plus credits? Is it canon?

Rendition (Rutans vs Sontarans)

Audio  Charming. One of the results of listening to a concentrated number of Eighth Doctor stories in the past few weeks, with so many set during the Time War, is forgetting the sheer pleasure of hearing a version of the Time Lord and his companions when there are minimal psychological stakes and the characters are drawn along much simpler lines: a Doctor who shambles about until he doesn't, a naïve but brave Scot, and a haughty but loyal mathematician. Here, they find themselves on a medical ship where a group of Rutan war-wounded are in danger of being obliterated by the Sontaran battlefleet. But, overseen by a nurse who is part Ratched, part Mary Poppins, they find solace in war poetry influenced by Wilfred Owen. Into that tumbles the Eighth Doctor to help Zoe get the engines repaired and distract a Sontaran spy. For most of it, he's in a Tiggerish mode, but he also has the Web of Time on his mind and doesn't want to be discovered in a way which suggests he'll be appearing on a few more covers in this series yet.

Placement:  This and the next two inlays in the series have the Eighth Doctor in his TV Movie costume with the fourth also featuring Charley and C'rizz.  So I'll put this after The Battle of Giant's Causeway in what seems like is going to be a mini-era.  For now.

Ahead of Time (Short Trips Volume 13: Tales from the Vortex)

Audio  At the centre of the story is a killer idea. What if there were a substance the destruction of which sends a person one year into the past, and the way to fix any changes made is to find exactly the same ounce of the metal and destroy it again in the past? What if that happens over and over and over again? As Paul Booth's story proposes, it would probably end up in the breakdown of a society. But what if someone does all of that on purpose? Foreshadowing the destruction witnessed by the Eighth Doctor during the Time War, and echoing the fate of Bliss's planet in Volume 12, Ahead of Time is propulsively told, with some excellent material for Charley—clearly enjoyed by India Fisher—especially one scene which is as good as anything in the mainline audios. It's especially moving when it speaks to memory and trying to recapture what's been lost.

Placement: Though I was somewhat distracted by how much knowledge Charley has about the Time Lords and trying to square that in the timeline, going back and looking at Neverland, she's already pretty knowledgeable of their existence right at the start. The Doctor's already made her very aware of who they are, or she's been reading the TARDIS Databank during some idle moments.  So between Minuet in Hell and Invaders From Mars?

Salvage (Short Trips Volume 12)

Audio  Bliss!  Wiped from existence in the Time War boxsets, an ignominious fate brought about due to Rakhee Thakrar's work schedule prevented her from appearing in the boxset which would ultimately be called Cass, it's an absolute pleasure to hear from her again, albeit in a Short Trip set between previous stories.  Unlike some Short Trips too, this feels like a vital part of her story and goes to the heart of who Bliss is and her origins, another of the Eighth Doctor orphans in time, either due to paradox or as in this case because her entire timeline was destroyed behind her.  Where does all of that lost matter go?  The people?  The places?  The things?  Salvage goes some way to at least explaining what happens to some of it, although it's a story best experienced without much foreknowledge so you won't hear any more of the story from me.  Max Curtis's text captures the era and characters perfectly and it's read extremely well by Adèle Anderson, who digs deep into the heartache of what unfolds.

Placement: Salvage explores the psychological weight of timelines that have been rewritten and people that have been "lost" to the war. This serves as a perfect thematic prologue to Volume 3, which opens with State of Bliss—an episode specifically dedicated to exploring the multiple, shifting timelines of Bliss's existence created by the conflict.

It's a Wonderful War (Christmas: It's a Wonderful War and Other Stories)

Audio  Happy Christmas. Again. One of the results of your blogger catching up on Eighth Doctor stories in a bunch is the number based on special occasions, particularly Christmas. The effect has been much like bingeing through the revival television series with a festive special every two to thirteen episodes (depending on increased production costs at the time and if there was a gap year). This was clearly an extra-special challenge: set a Christmas story during the Time War. Taking inspiration from Frank Capra's magnum opus, Jonathan S Powell's script sees mining foreman Galen Smith dreaming of leaving the planet and making for the stars. But like George Bailey, events continually keep him from leaving, and he even has a guardian angel—but probably not the one you're expecting.

Stunning, and I use the word carefully. The Time War at Big Finish has become a multi-stranded affair with dozens of characters and ongoing storylines, almost its own franchise, so entering a one-off story set within it isn't without some trepidation. Unlike some stories, however, it keeps the focus on an ordinary man in extraordinary times. He serves as our viewpoint character as elements of the wider mythology are delivered to us. I do tend to enjoy war stories that show the effects such conflicts have on the victims rather than generals and politicians vying for power. Although the Eighth Doctor's intervention is rather more complicated than Clarence's in the original text, it still keeps George's—sorry, Galen's—sacrifices in focus. There's also a brilliant twist that causes you to rethink everything you've heard and makes you want to listen again.

Placement:  Feels early.  Perhaps set before the Eighth Doctor's own Time War stories?

Part Three (Dark Gallifrey: Master!)

Audio   Baffled.   In the olden days and actually still in recent days, this would have been released as boxed set so I would have listened to the first two instalments before discovering what the Doctor's involvement is, as was the case with something like Hooklight.  But without an infinite budget, I decided to just buy the episode with Paul McGann on the cover and although this has a "previously on", it's more of a refresher for listeners who're already wearing the t-shirt.  I got the gist though and this has the Bruce Master at his dastardliest, which is the notion of the Dark Gallifrey series, to show some of the greatest villains at their most playful (similar to the Omega/Davros/Master series in 2003).  The Eighth Doctor first appears speaking backward via radio link before revealing the plot to the protagonists of the story then having a sword fight with the Master.  It's quite a cameo.  Few machinas have deus-exed with quite this aplomb.

Placement:  He's in his leathers so perhaps just before Time Lord Victorious just after discovering The Truth About Peladon?

The Force of Death (BBC Audio Exclusive).

Audio  The last of the four BBC Audio Eighth Doctor stories written by Andrew Lane (so far) does not provide the showdown between the Time Lord and the journalist the finale of the last adventure promised, which probably for the best because I don't know what that would look like.  Instead the Doctor is genuinely pleased to see MacFarlane as the two of them investigate the prototypical elements of an alien encounter: mutilated cattle, zombies and a giant mythic sea creature.  But the enemy isn't Zygons or Homo Aqua, it's something even more dangerous.  Dan Starkey's version of the Eighth Doctor has become more Beatles with every reading and now its reached full McCartney, which is honestly perfectly fine, the scouseness of McGann's own interpretations has oscillated subtly over the years anyway.  For the rest of it he's called upon to offer a Fouracresathon of Irish accents which just goes to show how talented he is.

Placement:  What's the perspective the Doctor suggests has caused him to forgive or at least understand what MacFarlane did in the previous story and the suggestion he's going to have to choose a side?  I think that put this squarely in the close to Night of the Doctor territory, just after The Silent Priest.

The Teeth of Ice (BBC Audio Exclusive).

Audio  The third in the annual Andrew Lane-scripted Eighth Doctor stories for BBC Audio sees the regular viewpoint character, the indomitable reporter James MacFarlane, visiting a remote base at the South Pole to interview an explorer, the intimidatingly named Pentius Rochdale. Predictably, all hell breaks loose, with bodies starting to pile up and wild animals as the potential aggressors. So far, so John Carpenter's The Thing. Fortunately for the denizens of this base, the chief of medicine is the Eighth Doctor, and he's typically suspicious of the gap between what seems to be happening and the reality. Produced again by Big Finish veterans Gardner, Darlington, and Ainsworth, the Eighth Doctor—as you'd expect to hear in those rival audios—is present and correct, and well realised by Dan Starkey in his voiceover. At the length of a CD, it gallops along like the team of huskies in a BBC Four slow TV special (which is paradoxically very fast) right through to a pretty dark ending with echoes of Storm Warning and a wedge driven between the Doctor and MacFarlane. The fourth and (so far) final instalment in the series, The Force of Death, feels very ominous indeed.

Placement: The cover has the same photo of Paul McGann as the second, in a smaller circle, but it still feels like there's been a gap between the two. So, let's place this just after the Titan Comics, when his sense of humour is still intact.

Sunset (Planet Krynoid: Nightfall)

Audio  If you'll excuse the blasphemy, Jesus, this is grim. Nick Briggs pops in at the start of each episode to repeat the content warning from the website, "This release contains adult material and may not be suitable for younger listeners"—which you would think wouldn't be required for something on audio where you can't actually see anything, but parts of this are absolutely horrible and would obviously give children nightmares. If the Hinchcliffe era worried Whitehouse, this would have put her in Cromer—sorry, a coma. At one point, I had to stop the tape and walk away for a bit. Congratulations, folks; this is horror Who at its most heinous.

The first episode, Jonathan Morris's Sunlight follows a similar path to parts of the Alien franchise, which it might well do given that they're both about eggs of sorts. One of the Krynoid seed pods is found during the maintenance of the satellites that keep the lamps on at the otherwise dark and cold colony planet of Sunlight. The local representative of this story's equivalent of Weyland-Yutani wants to keep the thing intact in case there's anything they can take advantage of, even though the Governor of the colony says (rightly!) it should be destroyed immediately, with Reece Shearsmith giving this otherwise cowardly individual his most officious voice acting.

Structured like a disaster film, we're introduced to citizens who are affected at all levels. Which means that when the Eighth Doctor arrives in the second instalment, Sunset by Jonathan S Powell, via unconventional means, it's into an already established group of characters. Although he absolutely fulfils the obligations that might usually be expected of him during a colony-under-siege story—explaining who the monsters are, suggesting how the people in charge have fucked things up, and outlining what could potentially be done to save the day—the various families at the heart of the story remain central. Although for most of them, things still don't end well.

During VHS clipshow The Tom Baker Years, the actor behind the teeth and curls infamously misnames The Seeds of Doom as Invasion of the Krynoids or The Krynoid Invasion, which always conjured in my mind seed pods bombarding a planet, with the sentient vegetable biomass overwhelming the population. That is exactly what the final episode, the fittingly titled Darkness by Chris Chapman, gives us, with scenes straight out of John Wyndham. It's during one particular scene here that I needed to take a break. There are Threads levels of hopelessness on display—or rather, on speaker—and although it does end on the potential for hope, a sequel boxset is incoming. Like I said, Jeeeesus.

Placement:  The Eighth Doctor was apparently travelling with Liv when his end of the story kicked off. Given that he's wearing his leathers on the cover, and assuming that Helen isn't chilling somewhere, this intriguingly puts it between Dark Eyes and Doom Coalition. They both appear in the next Planet of the Krynoids boxset, so I'll also see what we learn there and move it if necessary.

Tuesday (Short Trips Rarities)

Audio  Probably, most people listening to this story would just be happy to hear Harry and the Eighth Doctor interacting. But obviously, this human was wondering if any of it would contradict Wolfsbane.  Fortunately, since this is set after Dr Sullivan travelled in the TARDIS and seemingly before the Earth arc in the novels (when this Jac Rayner story is set) when the Eighth Doctor has amnesia anyway, it works perfectly fine. This is aided somewhat by Harry initially forgetting who the Time Lord is, thanks to an alien visit that changes his and everyone else's memories in the south of England, causing them to forget that even Christmas exists. The Harry we meet is a much harsher figure—the person he might have been without the Doctor's influence. But as you might expect, all is right in the end. Beautifully read by Stephen Critchlow, this also has a lovely piano score which made me feel a bit Christmassy in the middle of May.

Placement:  See above.

Death Will Not Part Us (Short Trips Volume 11)

Audio  It is just the sort of experimental story Short Trips were invented for, and on this occasion, one which would have difficulty working as a full-cast audio or even having the same impact on the page. On a planet caught in the middle of the Time War, a victim, Viola Wintersmith, comes into possession of an experimental gun that utilises the user's own time stream as ammunition to alter the timeline elsewhere. On each occasion of its firing, the user finds themselves reliving a key point in their existence, but it changes because of the other moments which are lost in the gunshot residue. It's a time loop story, but—and this is the twist—when the rifle is discharged, the whole story begins again, with the Time War theme music and the narrator, Adele Anderson, introducing the title, author Alfie Shaw, and her own name over and over again. For much of the duration, the Doctor's participation is minimal, although he is ultimately, eventually, the reason why everybody lives. Absolutely scrumptious.

Placement:  Could be any time in the Time War period, but I'll tuck it in the period when he's travelling alone after the boxsets.

Five Hundred Ways to Leave Your Lover (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Faithful Friends)

Audio  Time to admit something to you, faithful reader: I haven't rewatched most of television Doctor Who since about halfway through Series Eight. I've caught smatterings here and there—the odd Whittaker, a smidge of Gatwa. But most of it has sat on the shelf, sometimes unwrapped since purchase. Much of this has to do with time; the content pipe grows ever larger, and there's a century or so of cinema to catch up with. Some of it is also to do with not enjoying parts of it. There's also the fact that I am so behind with Eighth Doctor material that the 50% of my brain which deals with ridiculous guilt looks at something like the blind Doctor trilogy and wonders if I shouldn't be listening to a five-year-old Short Trip instead, only to end up doing neither.

Five Hundred Ways to Leave Your Lover

Which means going into this story, I had little to no memory of who the Monks were or of their motives. Fortunately, Tim Foley's script fills in enough details: they invade planets by changing the population's perceptions so they believe the Monks have always been there. This attempt is based around utilising a holosuite to gain a foothold on the planet through a computer programmer who, for various reasons, is convinced that he's dating the Doctor. He is trying to break up with him, but the simulated paradises are forever intervening. It's a romance, which, as the director Barnaby Edwards says in the extras, isn't something Big Finish does too often, with the Eighth Doctor being the only one of the old guard who is mostly likely to work in this kind of story.

It's immensely entertaining. We get to hear the Eighth Doctor properly having fun for the first time in a while, which isn't something he's had much of lately across the ranges, and Paul McGann is clearly enjoying the chance to show that side of him. However, rather like a Companion Chronicle or one of those first-person, hour-long audiobooks that BBC Books produced in the 00s (usually written by James Goss), it puts Charlie Condou's Chris front and centre. The action occurs around him, and he mostly reacts until he has to take control of his own destiny (egged on by the Time Lord). The tiny cast also includes Rise of the Cybermen's Andrew Hayden-Smith as the other love interest, alongside the original voice of the Monks, Tim Bentinck.

Placement:  Ah well, spoiler, but as we discover at the very end, this isn't the Eighth Doctor. It's a digital echo of the Eighth Doctor injected into the system by the original to fight the Monks and help Chris—an alternative Eighth Doctor in a similar way to the microscopic versions of the Fourth Doctor and Leela in The Invisible Enemy. On the cover, he's wearing his leathers, so this could have happened at any time in that period, even when he was travelling with friends. But for clarity, I'll put this at the end of the era with some of this era's solo stories.

Empty Vessels.

Audio  Back in the world of stand-alone Eighth Doctor adventures. Like the previous couple of boxsets from this era released back in 2022, there isn't an underlying arc playing through these releases other than the ongoing expectation that at some point, Liv is going to leave the TARDIS to go be with Tania in post-pandemic London (it's wild that COVID-19 has become part of the events of the Whoniverse to the point that it has its own incredibly detailed  TARDIS Wiki entry). This doesn't make them feel less essential: it's refreshing to have the Doctor, Liv, and Helen just along for the ride without being on some mission for the Time Lords or having some existential threat to the universe to cope with.

Eos Falling

In the first story, we meet Jankar, who is characterised as an emergency service for hire—a soldier of fortune, if you will. She listens out for distress signals from populations in need, then rocks up and offers to help the poor unfortunates for a price. She is looked upon with disdain by the TARDIS Team—who, as the next story illustrates, essentially do the same thing pro bono—with Liv describing her as an ambulance chaser, and her portrayal is not sympathetic for the most part. She even threatens to abandon the job because the destruction of the world means she's unlikely to be paid. However, she is also an expression of similar services in the UK and around the world where private ownership of vital services has led to similar outcomes.

Lure of the Zygons

Non-binary actor Maddison Bulleyment plays the similarly non-binary character Wren, and also the Zygon who attempts to copy them, Vorgol. They are a great example of a character who is so fascinating they almost overpower the rest of the story. Roy Gill has clearly enjoyed writing them, as they very much become the fourth companion, gifted agency in a way that isn't often the case in these audios. There are scenes in which Wren and Vorgol must find common ground, which is achieved by their shared experience of having multiple identities. For Zygons, this includes both shapeshifting into other species and, as described in some stories, the way they are born feminine and then become masculine later in life.

Hooklight.

Audio  The audio equivalent of one of those missing adventures or past Doctor novels that head off into directions the TV series couldn't possibly have gone, Tim Foley's Hooklight has the Fifth Doctor and his companions wrapped up in a 12-part story which gives each of them a character progression which will almost certainly be forgotten by the end of the story. So, we have Adric overcoming his nervousness around everyone, Tegan shacking up with a male love interest on some backwater planet for three years, and Nyssa being given the Mara treatment from the titular beastie. Even the Fifth Doctor is emotionally frayed around the edges in a way which he simply wasn't given latitude for on television, even after the teen mathematician died. All four of the regular actors are well up to the challenge, and it's a genuine shame that the practicalities of gap-filling mean that we don't get to see more of these slightly wearier versions of the characters going forward. But arguably the MVP of the whole story is Celia Imrie, who gives one of the best performances from a guest actor Big Finish has ever seen.

The Eighth Doctor's participation is complex and not completely explained by the closing moments. Taking the mantle of the "Oracle", he seems to spend decades, even centuries, on the planet at stake, Morning, nudging events and people in a way which would make his Scottish-accented prrrredecessor prrrrroud. The eye patch might suggest that he's some sinister refugee from an alternate reality, but the injury occurred during a nasty encounter, and, even though he says the Fifth Doctor wouldn't approve of who he's become, this is the real Eighth Doctor. Knowing us completists will have PayPaled our fifty quid for this, they do at least also toss in references to Charley, C'rizz, and Audacity, with a hint that her storyline won't end well either, this Eighth Doctor having already experienced their adventures together. Speaking of which, are we to get future stories featuring him and Davlin Crux (an obvious parody of Captain Jack in the mould of Becky Lee Kowalchik?).

Placement:  Given the references to who the Time Lords are at this point by Eighth, this feels like Hooklight from his perspective happens during the Time War era, and late on when he's in the thick of things.

Branches.

Audio  Yes, I've actually heard a brand new release.  The cover is a bit of a tease, suggesting that this version of Cassie in the Uncharted universe is also some kind of version of the Doctor, what with the velvet jacket, waistcoat, and cravat. Even the sword isn't a dead giveaway, what with the fighting hand in some incarnations. But this Cass or Cassie is a very different creature to both the Time Lord and their friend, much more independent and singular in mission, and certainly wouldn't have taken any of Alex's crap in the last cluster of stories. Alternative versions of companions and friends appear to be another theme which has emerged since the start of the revival, and now it's happened twice in this narrative thread, something the four stories are quick to lampshade.

The Only Girl in the World

Hello there, Doctor. Literally. This is a rare example of the Time Lord breaking the fourth wall and acting as the storyteller, but not—as is sometimes the case—with a later explanation that they're being interrogated or having a fireside chat. He's talking to us. Which is lucky, because writer John Dorney is deploying a similar narrative structure to (500) Days of Summer and 21 Grams, without the benefit of captions that the visual medium provides. There's also the audio equivalent of those occasions when the appearance of a particular race is treated as a complete surprise despite their name being in the title of the adventure. One of the first characters to appear is played by Nicholas Briggs and is called Karl.

False Dawn

Welcome back, Daphne Ashbrook. The Grace actress has been buzzing around Big Finish for a few years, mostly as Capt. Ruth Matheson of UNIT, but beginning as Perfection in The Next Life, the story which ended the Divergent Universe saga. Now here she is in a similarly weird set of stories. She's the latest actor to lend a voice to Hieronyma Friend, who I now realise is taking on the appearance of some of the Eighth Doctor's deep-cut companions, which is why Lizzie Hopley was in for Niky Wardley last time—they were swapping Gemma of all people for Tamsin (also of all people). Anyway, it's a way for Grace to make an appearance without any rights issues (even if the way the character is written doesn't reflect the outer shell).

The Council of Susan

Suddenly Susan. The title might suggest that, like The Council of Wells in the Arrowverse, Carole Ann Ford would be playing dozens of different versions of the Doctor's granddaughter from across the multiverse. Instead, and perhaps more understandably, we find a group of women all calling themselves Susan as a sort of title adopted when joining an order which worships the original. Of course, Jane Asher who plays Mother Susan also appeared in Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman? (the Radio 4 series catching up with fictional characters) as an alternative Susan Foreman, which can't be a coincidence, surely? Similarly, at what point in the scriptwriting did it occur to someone that the twist was very similar to a TV story, necessitating the insertion of a reference to that same TV story?

All Over

A couple of years ago, Reddit user MetalPoo complained, on the occasion of these further Time War stories being announced, that when the original Time War boxset was announced, it seemed it was going to be "Four stories that would lead up to The Night of the Doctor," and "if Big Finish love stories so much they should really know how important endings are," with another user, The Omnivirgin, suggesting that "big finish should start doing some definitive endings" because there's nothing to stop them filling in the gaps later. Neither realises that The Night of the Doctor is the definitive ending, and that these stories are filling in the gaps, albeit much closer to that terminal moment. I might complain about the cost, but on the strength of these four stories, long may they continue.

Pursuit.

Audio  The title above the blog post in these Eighth Doctor Time War releases is really starting to vex me. Pretty much every other release has a single title, with or without a number—for example, Connections or Ravenous 2. That was even the case with the first four in this series: Time War 1, Time War 2, Time War 3, and Time War 4. The next set along was Cass, but on Big Finish's website, it is listed as Time War 5: Cass, even though it seems like it is starting a whole new strand of stories. Okay, fine—even though it only says Cass on the front cover: Time War 5: Cass. This should lead to Time War 6: Reflections and now Time War 7: Pursuit. Instead, we now have Time War – Uncharted 1: Reflections and Time War – Uncharted 2: Pursuit, even though the spine numbers also list them as parts 6 and 7. Anyway, I am just going to stick with the short titles for these stories, if it is all the same to you.

Spoils of War

There are shades of Alien Bodies here, as Alex and Cass become wrapped up in an auction between alien foes over a mystery artifact. Said MacGuffin is rather more abstract than the Doctor's mortal remains, and it is arguable that if this had been a straightforward Doctor Who story, it would have been slightly less interesting. Instead, we have the Doctor's—not exactly great—grandson trying to do things differently than his "old man," even though he inevitably falls into the same patterns. The story does much the same to Cass; she has essentially been kidnapped and should be quite cross about it, but because of the needs of the narrative, she is somewhat forced to fulfill the companion role. Honestly, I found the sniping between the Doctor and Hieronyma—as they try to hold her ship together while pursuing Alex—to be more my cup of tea.

The Tale of Alex

This serves as a complicated synecdoche for the whole conflict, as the Doctor and Alex move backward and forward in time trying to fix an original sin. They remain suspicious of each other's motives, causing a colony to become temporally unstuck as competing causalities fight for supremacy. Finally, the two meet, and it is clear that their irreconcilable difference is down to the betrayal of the Doctor wanting his great-grandson back in the universe, yet keeping Alex's true origins from him. Meanwhile, the Doctor covertly makes Cass aware of her own origins and how her death is in flux. This also presents the intriguing idea that when she and the Eighth Doctor met "for the first time" in The Night of the Doctor, she might have been well aware of what was about to happen—and what needed to happen—which explains why she refused to fly away with him in the TARDIS.

See-Saw

This is superficially similar to Head Over Heels, the 1980s computer game by Ocean Software (or at least the opening part of it), with the competing TARDIS teams on different time tracks solving the same mystery and helping one another. How have they managed to land on Earth, a time-locked world which no one should be able to visit during the war, and what is the significance of the nursery rhymes? This inevitably leads to the same discoveries being made by both groups, which is tricky to do on audio without becoming repetitious, but it mostly happens simultaneously for various reasons; cross-cutting between groups of characters largely prevents annoyance from setting in. Something I only noticed on a second listen (don't ask) is that Hieronyma is recast in this installment, with Lizzie Hopley filling in for Niky Wardley, who plays the character across the other three episodes. Was it a scheduling issue, perhaps, or an illness?

The First Forest

After two stories that hinge on two realities occupying the same space and time, here is a tale about a place where numerous time zones are occurring in the same area—à la Voyager's brilliant "Shattered"—featuring a Tom Bombadil-type character who spends his life trying to avoid bumping into himself (rather like the Doctor). Caught in the middle of all this is Sharon, one of the Time Lord Sontarans, who has found himself lost in the forest; goddamn if Dan Starkey doesn't once again manage to give us yet another very individual example of the clone race, using the same voice as the others but remaining perfectly distinct. I particularly love how, when the Eighth Doctor and Alex finally do (sort of) reconcile, it is like many family members after an argument: calmly saying the things they may have said when bawling at each other, but previously lacked the ability to listen to.

Odeon Rochdale

For The Devil Wears Prada 2.  Originally opened by ABC Cinema is 1998, it was bought by Odeon in 2000 and rebranded.  But most of the decor doesn't seem to have been updated, including the small red dot matrix displays pointing to each of the screens with the titles of the films on them (which in modern Odeons has been replaced by a boring old PC monitor).  Saw the film in Screen One, the largest auditorium I've been to so far outside of Leicester Square and alone, my own private screening room the size of a church.  The screen itself is huge, as big perhaps as the ABC Cinema on Lime Street and so I moved back into the middle of the stalls.  Both the projection and sound quality were perfect, and this was one of the best cinema experiences I've ever had, so much so that at the end I asked to speak to the manager to tell her as much.  She was thrilled, pointing out that most of the time she's only on the receiving end of complaints.  

The Silent Priest (Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Broken Memories)

Audio  The stories in this fourth anthology of this series are all tonally pretty dark, with each incarnation of the Doctor on several backfeet, all of them illustrating Clive Finch's warning to Rose that the Time Lord's constant companion is death.  In the first story by Jonathan Morris, the Fourth Doctor comes face to someone else's face with the Harmony Shoal from The Return of Doctor Mysterio as they possess their way through a human colony.  The second has the Sixth Doctor and Mel defending a castle against the clockwork droids from The Girl in the Fireplace with Jac Raynor's script becomes darker and darker with each passing moment.  Both are, of course, utterly brilliant, and I applauded in my lonely room at the end of both.  But, wow, did I need to give it a day before I launched into the final two instalments.

The Silent Priest/The Silent City

This David K. Barnes two-parter doesn't offer much levity either.  We meet the Eighth Doctor at a point in this incarnation, in the midst of the Time War, in which he is done.  As the Time Lord describes, he thinks he's saved the day, then finds that everything he did has been reversed or worse that the planet on which it happened disappears from existence.  It's got the point where he's visiting a priest on the regular, looking for some kind of mental clarity but as the cover art reveals, said holy person is a member of The Silence, so he doesn't just forget he's met the man; that's why he keeps coming back.  This is the version of the wanderer who's working towards his regeneration, perhaps around the time of Lies in Ruins.  He's a professional actor, of course, and it's his job to know, but I remain impressed by the way that Paul McGann keeps track of which version of this Doctor he's playing, at the beginning, middle, and end of his journey.

The same guest cast continues into the final story with the Seventh Doctor, who's left to cope with his later incarnation's actions in trying to unite the warring factions which are breaking the city apart.  Barnes is very keen to show the different approaches of the two Doctors, the mastermind and the universally challenged, notably by putting Seventh also late in his timeline in the TARDIS, in the days or weeks before San Francisco.  There's a chilling moment when he says off-handedly that he'll shut down a casino he's surveying on behalf of the local constabulary "in the morning" as though it would be nothing for him, the kind of action that the Eighth Doctor has been trying to run away from since The Dying Days.  But like Eighth, he makes a number of catastrophic mistakes and like Eighth, he doesn't remember any of them by the end of the episode.

Odeon Preston

 

For Akira (1988).  Classic out of town multiplex, though it has few facilities in direct vicinity other than the Burger King opposite.  Originally opened in March 1990 as part of the UCI chain but it was taken over by Odeon in October 2004.  As the photo on Cinema Treasures shows, it apparently hasn't changed much since then other than some landscaping, particularly the removal of two boulders from outside the front entrance.  The duty manager says there is some refurbishing going on, including the replacement of seats in Screen 5.  There were three of us in the auditorium for Katsuhiro Otomo's masterpiece: me at the front, someone in the back row and an older gentleman, who knew the names of all the staff and just seemed to turn up in the afternoon to watch whatever was on, the usher explaining the basic plot of Akira to him beforehand.  The cinema is opposite a housing estate; frankly if I lived in one of those houses, I'd probably do the same.

The Caves of Erith (Short Trips Rarities).

Audio  Happy Christmas!  Originally releases as a subscriber special in December 2015, this is another out of season listen for me in which the Doctor has a festive faceoff against a race of Welsh bats and attempts to talk them into not destroying humans by demolishing their fertility rates.  Just the sort of weird Who I'm a huge fan of then.  Although much of the duration consists of the Time Lord engaging chiropteran in Socratic debate, there's something immensely appealing about a sentient bat throwing out place names in Southern Wales like an overworked Torchwood script editor.  Perhaps the most effective conversation is between Lucie and the human helper of the bats, in which we're given a glimpse of the trauma she experienced in her first few days in the TARDIS, meeting the Daleks on her first trip.

Placement: After Late Night Shopping.

Master! Planet Doom: Hellbound

Audio  It's fair to say during the first couple of instalments of Planet Doom, I was concerned that the cover with its Axon Eighth Doctor was going to be an over-promise.  However enjoyable this redo of Aliens (1986) with the Bruce Master filling in the Ripley role as he's involuntarily tasked with investigating a Time Lord prison containing the parasitic multi-form entity.  As with similar stories, it just about finds the balance in making one of the worst people in the universe sympathetic enough for us to care about his safety by having him connected to one of Big Finish's other long-running anti-heroes Vienna, who is better than she's ever been here (even though he spends most of it saying he wants to kill her.

Hellbound

Then, some way into the third episode, the Axon Doctor finally turns up with Paul offering his monotone take on the best Doctor before the best Doctor himself turns up and this boxset elevates itself from Alternative Eighth Doctors section of the timeline to somewhere before (see below).  As he and the TARDIS are released from the Axon's grip, the Eight Doctor immediately steals the flow of the story from Vienna and the titular character, defeating the monsters and saving the day.  Quite honestly its brilliant and elevates a story which until that point is pretty grim and nasty in a way which isn't to my tastes.  If only Vienna had stayed with him at the end.  They could have some wild adventures together.

Placement: The cover art suggests he's wearing his Time War clothes and he makes a reference to there being much to do, so I'm putting this between All Hands on Deck and Mr. Eighth.

Half Human (Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #73).

Magazines  After deciding to boycott the movies this week because almost every local screen is filled with the Jackson sub-hagiography, I decided to make a special trip to the TG Jones on Allerton Road and buy this week's special edition of the parish circular dedicated to the Eighth Doctor and particularly the TV Movie with the Pertwee logo, on the occasion of its forthcoming 4K release. Sitting on the back balcony this afternoon, I read it cover to cover, captivated by the new information running right through its pages, including the enthralling interview with Dee Jay Jackson, who has had a busy life both before and after playing the security guard that bars the Doctor and Grace's early entry into the New Year's Eve Party. 

The cover also promises a new short trip from Matthew Jacobs, although if you're expecting a short sequel to the TVM he wrote, or some other piece of soggy nostalgia, you're going to be surprised to find instead a writer seeking an explanation for the controversial moment when the Doctor says he's half human "on his mother's side". With some prodding, he soon realises that... it doesn't matter. The various ideas he's been having about who the Doctor's human mother might be are probably a bit much for this assignment, and that, like everything else in this mad franchise, it's always worked best when it doesn't explain anything. Much as I like The Timeless Children (which he references), all it does is give the Doctor a different mysterious origin.

Placement: The Eighth Doctor does appear briefly, but it's mostly in a similar capacity to the Bogart ghost in Play It Again, Sam or Elvis in True Romance, setting the protagonist right on some things. So, into the Alternative Eighth Doctor section it goes.

The Battle of Giant's Causeway (Sontarans vs Rutans)

Audio  Sontarans vs Rutans is a four-part release which has all the hallmarks of having originally been conceived of as a themed boxset à la Peladon, but thank the maker, it has been split into three separate releases which makes it a bit cheaper for those of us with a particular set of interests.

As with the Time War, it's Big Finish filling in the gaps around moments in the timelines which were only hinted at on television, the ongoing war between the potato heads and the squids (terms which this audio also uses so it isn't racist) (although it probably is).

It's one of those wimey-blimey stories which is told out of order from the Time Lord's perspective but falls into place for the listener. But this release is pretty standalone with the Eighth not seeming to be bothered enough to chase up any mysteries himself.

The Battle of Giant's Causeway

... could be a proposed prequel to TV's Flux's War of the Sontarans. In that story, the clone race took advantage of the Flux and planted themselves into human history so they could battle their way through human history. Well, here they are on the Giant's Causeway in mid-last century BC but crucially unaware of their origins and under the impression they're Roman legionnaires. As you can imagine, actor Dan Starkey as the main Sontaran, deep breath, Commander Caecilius Crassus Procullus (which translates as dim-sighted fat alien), has much fun with this duality with writer Lizzy Hopley providing him with a number of excellent lines. This is a very funny script and his banter with Charley is a clear highlight.

Hello again C'rizz. Long-term readers will know I wasn't a huge fan of the Eutermesan and not just because I could never remember how to spell his name, once spending a whole review typing Cerys. I was always clear that it wasn't because of Conrad's performance but because as a very visual character there were always moments (as happens here) when a guest star has to remark on the change if he walks against an unusually coloured wall. There was always the third wheel syndrome of him getting in the way of us enjoying the Eighth Doctor and Charley's banter without him and the other two really having much to say to each other when they were alone, especially after they'd left the Divergent Universe.

The Battle of Giant's Causeway solves that issue by having him split off from the other two and being taken in by the Rutans (in more ways than one). Hopley makes good advantage of his naivety as he sees his own identity struggles in the Rutans' shape-changing abilities and Conrad's performance, picking up again after fifteen years, is fresh and honest. Perhaps one day I shall go back and reappraise his earlier instalments but there's so much other Eighth Doctor nightmarish stuff to be caught up on, it won't be for a while. I've set myself on a course of being completely caught up with Eighth Doctor stories, all of them, as soon as possible. Possibly.

Placement: Arbitrarily between Time Works and Something Inside.

Project Pendulum

Project Pendulum is a collection of digital recreations of television clocks from across the decades.  Seems like this could be an ideal use for an old phone or tablet as a wall clock.

Echoes.

Audio  As I write this, the world, or at least our tiny corner of it, is ecstatic about the news that the previously missing Doctor Who episodes The Nightmare Begins and Devil's Planet (or first and third instalments of The Dalek Masterplan) have been recovered and will be viewable via the BBC iPlayer on the 4th of April. You can read about the news via this oddly worded BBC article. Perhaps Toby springing the surprise on Peter will be part of a documentary on some future physical release of the episodes, although the teary moment was on BBC Breakfast this morning (and can be seen via YouTube). None of which has anything to do with this Eighth Doctor boxset, but I needed something to put in this opening paragraph and it makes a change from moaning about release schedules.

Birdsong

Obviously, with my highbrow brain, the title of this doesn't go to the Sebastian Faulks novel championed by William Hague on The Big Read, but to the bits of sound used to cover up the swears and unauthorised chatter from when Kermode and Mayo's podcast was at the BBC. None of which has anything to do with this audio, which has a similar story to The Rescue with the TARDIS team finding some scouts waiting for the rest of their colony to arrive, and nothing being as it seems, although it's probably not a spoiler to suggest birds have something to do with it. It features former Susan Foreman actress Jane Asher as one of the survivors and is just a very pleasant listen.

Lost Hearts

Another run-out for the celebrity historical as Monty James helps the Doctor investigate ghosts on a university campus in what ends up ploughing through a whole Moffat season of time dilations in about fifty minutes. Nicola Walker is on particularly great form as Liv finds herself seeking a solution alone whilst trying to convince the TARDIS to move using its telepathic circuits. Best in show is Tim Bentinck as the very Zaroff-like Professor Alistair Gray, whose rich voice and ripe delivery pit him against some of the show's best villains, and whose intellectual shell masks a personality which is completely unhinged and without a particularly rational motivation (the best kind).

Slow Beasts

On his website, the writer of Slow Beasts, Dan Rebellato talks about how "this is a culmination of a 48-year journey with Doctor Who" having been a fan since childhood.  He's written about it loads on his blog and clearly understands the thing, so it's no surprise that this is the most original of the stories on the set. In the "slow beasts", he conjures images which might not be credibly created on screen and that can probably only really work in our imaginations. There's also some brilliant writing for the Eighth Doctor as he finds a way to communicate with these colossal statues which involves something we could all do more of: listening. There's also an imaginative use of Derek Griffiths, playing on our expectations of him as a piece of casting.

Placement:  The usual.

Odeon Oldham

For EPIC: Elvis Presley in Concert.  It's another Odeon with a statue in front (see also), on this occasion Annie Kenney, the suffragette who seems to have partly inspired Carey Mulligan's fictional character in the film Suffragette (2015).  Possibly my favourite suburban Odeon so far.  Opened in 2016 at about the time of the AMC takeover, it was built as an extension onto the existing but derelict Oldham Town Hall, retaining the fixtures of the Grade II listed building whilst still installing cinema screens into the interior, along with a massive Costa Coffee on the ground floor.  It's most noticeable in Screen Two, which used to be the old court house.  An usher allowed me to nip in and take some photos which I've haphazardly collaged together here:

So as not to affect the existing fixtures, the screen is a massive version of the pulldown kind you often find in conference centres, lecture theatres and people with big living rooms.  Behind is the original crest or coat of arms.  There's a much better image here, along with some history of the scheme.  If I'd known about this I would have booked whatever film was showing here, but instead I'd opted for Screen One, which has a more traditional auditorium with stadium seating.

In the corridor leading up to Screen One is a small display of items from Oldham's original Odeon on Union Street, including these actual advertising banners.

 

All of these films date from 1967 when Rank still had ownership of the chain and were in the process of expansion.  The rest of the areas are littered with old leather chairs from its time as council chambers.  There's also an old door attached to the wall (not pictured) with no explanation of where it came from.

Odeon Bromborough

Film  For Crime 101.  Part of the Croft Retail Park, this is some way from actual Bromborough which made it a tricky cinema for visit, necessitating a long walk from Bromborough Rake Station.  This was mostly along a street called Mark Rake (translated from Old English as "boundary path") and there are several people in the world for whom that is their name, including this surgeon who was interviewed for the Royal College of Surgeons' oral history project.  Originally opened in 1991 as an eleven-screen multiplex, Odeon Bromborough was remodelled in 2019, with the number of screens reduced to seven. Perhaps this was to make way for some of the restaurants in the same block, including the Popeyes next door. No complaints about the film viewing: the large screen was not too close to the front row, although the speakers rattled a lot during the louder bits.

Odeon Warrington

Film  For "Wuthering Heights".  Warrington's original Odeon on Buttermarket Street in the city centre was a typical Oscar Deutsch art deco special designed by John Gummersall and opened in 1937.  After several refurbishments, it closed in 1994 and was demolished to make way for a Yates's Wine Lodge which is now a Wetherspoons (Chester Cinemas has a shot taken during its closing week).  This current building opened as an AMC in 1988, though it quickly rebranded to UCI after the takeover (h/t to Cinema Treasures for the history and a photo which includes the original ridiculous glass canopy).  In 2004, it became an Odeon and in 2019 it was refurbished to become the current Luxe offering with a smaller capacity and many more recliners.  The interior also manages to include a bar area and a sit-down Costa Coffee.

All the films featured in the theatrical review section of every issue of Empire Magazine as Letterboxd lists.

Film  With apologies for the slightly SEO title but I didn't know what else to call this.  For the past few years I've been creating Letterboxd links for every issue of the film organ Empire Magazine and now they've busted past their 450th issue, I thought it would be handy to put link to all of them in one place, so find that below.  There's a lot of them so I've spaced them out for easy clicking. They also start at the top and work their way down.