Seagullslost's Doctor Who (and others) audio reviews

Time Lord Victorious Novel The Knight, The Fool and the Dead The Tenth Doctor travels back to the Dark Times. On a planet he visits the people are offered the chance to buy Life shrouds to protect them from death since the Kottururh are coming… Once again having listened to the TLV audios, and not feeling that I touched on the story, I’ve decided to go further. In the Enemy of My Enemy audio, the Eighth Doctor mentioned going back to the Dark times and I was a little disappointed that the following audio didn’t take him there. So here its the tenth that gets there. Its been a long time since I last read a Doctor who novel. Growing up I had copies of The Mind Robber, the Ambassadors of Death, Fury From the Deep etc. So mentions of Qr codes and such came a little unexpectedly.  I can't remember when I heard the Kotturuh mentioned first. As they seem to be the key component of the TLV series, I think I was hoping to find out more about them. However they seem to be more secondary char...

TimeLord Victorious Short Trips Lesser Evils On the planet Alexis a Koturruh woman arrives and begins to alter the lifespans of the various native lifeforms. Some one is watching.. The Master! Again Jon Culshaw narrates this story, he does a nice Anthony Ainley Master and I was hopping for more - he gets the Masters chuckle near perfect. As for the story itself, its a little slow. The Koturruh seem to be the driving point behind the Timelord Victorious storyline. So it serves as bit of backstory/setup. The Master sees to be acting for the good of the local intelligent life, the Mungello’s, and knowing the Master you are wondering what his plan is. This audio didn’t have my full attention, so I don’t think I really understood the point of it. Also having not really experienced the TLV in any specific order, its get hard to connect the dots.

TimeLord Victorious Short Trips Master thief Having listened to the Timelord Victorious full cast audios, The Daleks! Webcast, I still feel I haven’t really touched on the main storyline, so I decided to explore more. I’ve not delved into the short trips before, so this is an audio book with Jon Culshaw reading. The Master finds his way into highly secure vaults to steal its contents, however its not that simple. Jon’s Roger Delgado impression isn’t as good as his others. At first it was hard to grasp it was the Master, but there were time where he got it quite well and I wanted more. At 40 ish minutes its hardly the most involved plot, and it did seem that it wasn’t really going anywhere. Descriptive, and knowing to wasn’t a long outing, I felt that maybe it may be a waste of time. However I was surprised to find that it piqued up at the end and delivered something quite interesting It ties into events of the Timeleord Victorious and is worth a listen.

The Companion Chronicles  Series 6.4  The Many Deaths Of Jo Grant You can’t really go wrong with a Jo Grant/Katy Manning audio. Here Jo seems to go from criss to criss, almost the last few climatic minutes of an adventure before being somewhere else doing much the same. It doesn’t take much to know that things aren’t what they seem, the audio itself makes it obvious that what is being experience by Jo jsn’t real, and it does become a bit of a waiting game for the reveal. The title is slightly misleading as it doesn’t quite live up to it. Its just a few versions with reference to others. It is more on the lighter, easy listening story, so if you’ve just come off a boxset or complicated plot this serves as some light relief. To be honest I said at the start you can’t go wrong with a Katy Manning story and though this isn’t the most memorable, it forefills the requirements of an entertaining outing.

Time Lord Victorious Audio series 1.5 Echoes of Extinction I think this almost serves as a beginning and end to the Timelord Victorious event. Two episodes, two doctors. Part 1  The Eighth Doctor arrives on a spaceship/station, there’s Jasmine who wants to escape, her robot butler and a monster that just wants to kill… Its a nice enough story. Its half an hour and reminded me of one the free give aways with DWM.  So not that in-depth and as I found with the other audios, how it connects or what it adds to the overall arc of Timeord Victorious I can’t decipher. In fact you can just enjoy this as a audio by itself without any issues.  Part 2 The Tenth Doctor, a similar situation the ship he finds himself on are going to a planet, its inhabitants wiped out, they’re looking of the thing that caused it. The previous episode left on a little bit of a cliffhanger. It feels that this could have been a sequel to any Doctor Who story. There’s plenty of episodes where things are lef...

Time Lord Victorious Audio series 1.4 Genetics Of The Daleks. On the Starship Future 10 thousand people lie in status travelling to their new home, a skeleton crew is keeping things running, and a dead alien has been discovered… It is a nice start, people being woken up to to relieve or replace staff. An unfortunate even that killed a security officer. There’s a bit off mystery when one of the revived people doesn’t remember the person next to him. Not to mention the Dalek that’s been found. It takes over fifteen minutes for the Doctor to enter the story. I do feel its worth mentioning as sometimes you’re left wondering what’s going on .Love and Monsters springs to mind. The Dalek that’s been discovered isn’t as dead as is first believed. The fact is that this story is a pretty typical example of lone Dalek needing to rebuild the race using whatever resources available. Its just rehashing bits of other Dalek stories, Revelation of the Daleks, Resolution of the Daleks etc. Its not doing...

Time Lord Victorious Audio series 1.3 Mutually Assured Destruction On a damaged ship the chief Dalek and Dalek Strategist are at odds, their situation is not helped by the Doctor being on board. In the last audio things had got moving, a race who could change the timelines of planets, and mentions of the Dark times. I had, perhaps naively, thought that this episode would see the Doctor going back to the Dark Times, so I was a little put off balance when that wasn’t the case.  As far as the Timelord Victorious series goes, I played the VR game about 2 years ago, but didn’t really take a lot of notice of the plot. The Daleks! animated series on YouTube, seems to take place around here so I watched that. And it did give me some insight the the Emperor and Strategist, but in all honesty I’m not much the wiser with the overall plot.  Having started this, stopped to see if I could make out where this was placed in the Timelord Victorious ‘timeline’. Watched the Daleks! animated seri...

Time Lord Victorious Audio series 1.2 At the end of He Kills me, He Kills Me Not, the Daleks had turned up. The Doctor and the Daleks have a common desire - to understand what it is that’s changing the universe. Its a minor spoiler, but it comes early on and defines the audio. The Doctor has to work with the Daleks. It does remind me of the Five Doctors where the Master is asked to rescue the Doctor. So for me it doesn’t quite have the impact it should, not to mention we’ve had this kind of thing before, subverting the expected dynamic. Wrax is the setting for this audio, and its people shouldn’t exist. There is more to Wrax than at first meets the eye, as, though they’ve conquered many others, they seem to have no evidence of the ability to - other than a device that’s older than they are. Having listened to The Eighth Doctor time was series, this comes across as more of the same. The Eighth Doctor, the Daleks, the Dalek Strategist, issues with time etc. And with so much time war stuf...

Time Lord Victorious Audio series 1.1 He Kills me He kills me not On a remote alien planet, a couple are trying to escape from a father who is not happy about the marriage. Brian the Ood has been sent to get them, or rather one, of them back. I’ve been wanting this for a while, even though I didn’t really know anything about it. All the Time Lord Victorious stuff passed me by. Like the more recent Doomsday multi media story; to be honest I’d rather something more self contained and accessible - but that’s just me. I gather you don’t need all the various elements to enjoy it though (however I will say, that to get the most out of the audios, you need to read the two novels). The Doctor is out to see one the the wonders of the universe but what he finds is far from what should be. This aspect of the plot doesn’t get resolve here, its something that carries on the the next adventure, so its just sowing the seeds. The setting itself is something akin to a town in the wild west. We know thi...

The Monthly Adventures  236: The Serpent In The Silver Mask Arriving on a space station thats 60 minutes out of sync for tax reasons, the Tardis team find themselves attending a funeral. The Doctor came looking for crystals, but the recently deceased had a large fortune left to his next of kin.  The family are made up of part clones, an unfortunately, they keep dying… This is very much a light hearted adventure, its easy going and has a number of fun aspects. It might not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for something not too deep then this will do. It reminds me of Bang Bang a Boom! A lot of characters each with their own motives and seemingly reasons for murder.  I am a fan of murder mysteries, Columbo, Death in Paradise so for me I enjoyed this. It has been mentioned its a take on the film Kind Hearts And Coronets, I’ve never watched it but this as with that the family are all played by the same person. There’s a nice part with the Doctor confined and talking to ...

Star Cops Mother Earth 1.2 Tranquility and Other illusions Another dead body, is it murder? And are Mother Earth responsible  This episode felt more like a chance to get to know the new members of the Star Cops, namely Priya and Paul. Priya now second in command, stepping up from a part timer, and still getting to grips with her new role. Paul Bailey is finding his feet with life on the moon, the others taking advantage of his naivety about space by winding him up. There’s no Kenzy in this either. Shayla Moss, another new member of the cast, is the moonbase co ordinator. Having listened to the later series, where Nathan has taken the responsibilities of the job himself, I kind of wish there was someone else there as its another complication to Nathans life/postition. Apart from the murder, the Mother Earth group are still a concern. Trying to uncover more information. Other than that it has all the usual Star Cop, components, Box, Devis being his usual blundering self, the Star Cop...