TARDIS Traveller Reviews
Doctor Who: The Next Life - Review
The Next Life holds a special place in Big Finish history. Not only was it the 'end' for the Eighth Doctor, it was a conclusion to Big Finish's first large story line, The Divergent Arc. And with the television show proper just around the corner at the time of this release, would the Eighth Doctor survive?
It's strange to look at this story now, I wasn't a listener when it was first released by surely fans must have been wondering what the significance of the title was. What did The Next Life mean? Was this going to be the story that saw McGann regenerate into Eccleston? Would Charley or C'Rizz die? Or is it referring to something else entirely?
But something interesting consider, now listening to it nearly fifteen years after its initial release is are there any developments here that have become more interesting since the new series returned to television?
But before we get to that, The Next Life deserves to be looked at as a whole story as it was a finale to an arc that had run through two-series of audio drama. There had been a lot of threads that had gone through the past two series and they all needed to be resolved before the Doctor could return to the real universe. It is lucky then that this story runs for six-episodes, two more than the usual for the Big Finish output, so with the extra time given to it, did it manage to utilise those episodes well?
Well, it does and it doesn't. Every plot thread is wrapped up neatly enough, but even with its three hour-runtime, there's a lot to take in. Going all the way back to Zagreus, there is a lot of nods and hints at what is going to happen here and it is nice to see that people were paying attention when they were writing all the stories in-between. And there are some moments which deal with various plot threads that you'll really appreciate being wrapped up!
But there a few moments that you might not be so keen on, and in some ways, many elements of this story feel last minute, in particular the inclusion of the villain, with it coming out of nowhere, yet we are supposed to believe that he had a lot to do with the Divergent arc from the very beginning?! The biggest problem here is that the villain really does come out of left field with no hints or references to him being behind the scenes in other stories and as a result, it feels very made up here. Alright, that's what all writers do, make things up, but they do it in a way that you believe it is all real. When they are really good, they make it all up, check that it makes sense and then have less sense of what is going on than the reader!
And I wasn't too keen on the story either, despite there being some high stakes, it doesn't really feel like there is. While it isn't bad, and it is never boring, the story does manage to flow through its three-hour runtime, but it doesn't match up to the incredible drama we got in the months before or after when the show came back on television. This story feels like a finale in terms of how it wraps things up, but not with how high or low the stakes might be.
But The Next Life shines in its quieter moments, especially in the opening episode where the characters are forced to look back on their lives and see how much they have changed. Its the same kind of thing that made Neverland such a great listen and it is nice to see it returning here.
What is also nice is the return of Rassilon, after his manipulation of the Doctor in stories like Neverland and Zagreus, it is nice to hear him facing off against the Doctor again, especially as they wrap up the story in a way so that Rassilon stops being a problem for the Eighth Doctor at every turn. When the story ends, it promises a enmity between the pair but we haven't heard them squaring off against one-another again yet, so it'll be nice to hear that at some-point in the future.
At the time of its release, The Next Life made for an interesting end of era story for the Eighth Doctor. While no companions died and the Doctor didn't regenerate, there are themes of life and death running throughout all of this Divergent arc. With Doctor Who returning to screens in 2005, it was clear that this had an impact on the script, and there are hints of that in terms of the story's themes. After such a long time off screen, the Doctor was finally returning home and it makes the final line of The Next Life all the more poignant: "Yes Charley... we're home..."
Doctor Who: Battlefield - Review
Battlefield sees Doctor Who take on the whole mythology surrounding Merlin and it should have been epic but instead, they managed to make a right dogs-dinner of it! Now I'm pretty certain that back in the day, this was one of the first Doctor Who adventures I ever owned on video and I remember loving every second of it! I remember loving all the talk about Merlin and Excalibur mixed with crashed spaceships, alien knights and also being confused as to why everyone was referring to the Doctor as Merlin, wondering if a chalk circle would really protect you from an all powerful sorceress and cheering as the Brigadier shot the Destroyer, despite having absolutely no idea who this bloke was! However, watching it back recently for the first time in yonks, it is clear that no matter what my younger mind thought, Battlefield just amasses to a load of tosh. It is pretty clear the series' budget went into producing the epic, Curse of Fenric and Ghost Light , leaving Battl
Legends of Tomorrow: Season 3 Episode 2: Freakshow - Review
I've said it a lot before but I really love how Legends of Tomorrow is happy to embrace its own silliness. On paper, the idea of the Legends meeting P.T. Barnum, played by Billy Zane seems pretty pedestrian but in practice, this episode really leans into what makes the Legends dysfunctional as a team and you can't help but be entertained by the results. The whole point of this episode is to prove that the Legends simply can't just do a little job without making much, much, worse before it gets better. As much as I found Rip Hunters treatment of the Legends weird in the premier, you can't help but sympathise with characters viewpoints like Agent Sharpe's. Why is Rip putting so much faith in a team who muck things up badly? Sharpe is quickly developing into a fun antagonist for the Legends and Sara in particular. She is a jerk but you really can't blame her for wanting more accountability for the Legends' actions. The brawl between Sharpe and Sara prove
Star Trek Picard: Season 1 Episode 8: Broken Pieces - Review
In my review for the previous episode Nepenthe , I said that I don't like shows to take breathers when they are reaching their conclusions and the pace is really picking up. However, Nepenthe had a lot going for it, including the return of Will Riker and Deanna Troi. Broken Pieces , which is another breather-episode despite being only two episodes from the end, doesn't have much going for it and while it should have been picking up the pace, it seemed much happier keeping things confined to a few sets and not really advancing the plot. It was a bottle episode, but it didn't try to hide it. What Broken Pieces did do though was show us the new status quo for Picard. All the characters are finally where they are meant to be with Soji finally aboard La Sirena, alongside most of the main cast and its the first time she's joined them for any reasonable length of time, though she hasn't met Elnor in any meaningful way, despite a scene a few episodes ago where he re