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.