Doctor Who Reviews: 'The History of the Doctor'

It’s been a thrilling year for Big Finish’s monthly Doctor Who range. To date, listeners have been treated to a new breed of companion in Tracey Childs’ iniquitous Klein; the return of fan favourites Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot; and, more rec-ently, July the third’s “Big Finish Day” heralded the reunion of the 20th anniversary TARDIS crew, albeit with a little twist...

Stephen Cole must have thought that all his Christmas-es had come at once when Big Finish commissioned him to script the second story in their Season 20 reunion trilogy. Over the last thirteen years, Cole has written countless books and audio scripts for Doctor Who and its spin-offs, but never before has he been presented with the opportunity to...

When Big Finish first coined the idea of reuniting the 19-83 TARDIS crew, the urge to revisit the Mara can’t have taken long to follow. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Kinda and Snakedance were not only two of Tegan’s strongest stories, but cornerstones of the Peter Davison era. Surreal, subversive, and disturbing in a way that Who never really had been before that point, there...

Vortex readers visiting the site looking for our downloadable list showing where we think that the Big Finish releases fit in with televised stories (or, more accurately, vice-versa) need look no further. Please remember though - this is only our view, not Big Finish’s, and the list hasn’t been updated since June.

After spending well over a hundred years confined to the Earth, EarthWorld sees the Doctor thrown back into the unforgiving arena of time and space with only a shell-shocked Earth girl and an overconfident facsimile to keep him out of trouble. Jacqueline Rayner’s exuberant novel is therefore one that delights in celebrating the illimitable potential...

In a word, Fear Itself is unique. Unique in that it was the only eighth Doctor novel to be published by BBC Books after their flagship eighth Doctor range had come to an end. Unique in that its front cover is, at a first glance, a complete (but striking) whiteout. Unique in that it saw a debutant novelist, Nick Wallace, secure an award for best book...

From time to time, a writer will come up with an idea that seems so spellbindingly obvious that it beggars belief nobody else came up with it first, and Find and Replace is a case in point. Amongst the myriad miscellaneous personalities that bub-ble away inside Katy Manning are two of the Whoniverse’s most dearly cherished characters: the third Doctor’s faithful assistant, Josephine Grant; and his lascivious old flame and transtemporal adventuress, Iris Wildthyme...

Father Time is one of my favourite Doctor Who novels. It contains all the rich flavour of the amnesiac Doctor’s earlier adventures on Earth, yet it also has a quintessential aroma; the latter insidiously overwhelming the former as Lance Parkin br-ings us back within touching distance of the format that we all know and love. It also boasts a hell of a gimmick...

Given that it introduces both a new companion and an old one; re-establishes the Doctor as a wanderer in time and spa-ce; and manages to tell an enjoyable, if lightweight, Doctor Who adventure, it’s little wonder that Escape Velocity is one of the most enlivening novels in BBC Books’ eighth Doctor range...

After pitting faithful fans against both the Daleks and the Cybermen, the third Adventure Game tries something a little different, giving us a story set entirely within the confines of the TARDIS. Actually, ‘story’ is perhaps a little generous a term for this, the narrative of which is simplistic in the extreme. Although written by James Moran, a very talented scriptwriter...

Back in my Uni days, one Snakebite & Black fuelled eve, I got chatting to one of my mates about Doctor Who. He’s just a year older than me, and so he had also grown up with Sylvester McCoy playing the Doctor for much of his youth. I asked him if he could remember classics such as Remembrance of the Daleks and The Happiness Patrol, and he said that he could, adding that he’d love to watch them...

There are now almost three hundred original Doctor Who novels out there that have seen publication, and of them all, very few possess any true literary worth. Fans of the series love them, but generally speaking they aren’t going to be winning any prizes or facing dissection in the classrooms of the future. The Turing Test, however, is a devastating piece of literature...

Terrance Dicks was a curious choice to pen a novel in th- is heavily-stylised ‘eighth Doctor lost on Earth’ arc. Particularly when released between profound literary dramas the like of The Turing Test and Father Time, a rollicking yarn from Uncle Ter-rance was always going to feel a little blithe and a little...

Towards the end of David Tennant’s reign, BBC Audio’s range of ‘audio exclusive’ adventures went from strength to stre-ngth, providing dramatic readings of such quality that they were beginning to give Big Finish a run for their...

As random as 2 Entertain’s release schedule claims to be, it does feel like we’re wading through the dross now. Whilst there is still a handful of popular Doctor Who serials patiently awaiting release, most of the stories yet to be represented on DVD are those that even the series’ most faithful followers will struggle to get excited about. For instance, from amidst...

Turning to Doctor Who’s lauded gothic horror years f-or inspiration, Big Finish script editor and scribe Alan Barnes realised that, whilst everything even vaguely bloodcurdling this side of the pond has already been bagged and tagged...

“What is that thing in the pit?”

“We call it… THE CREATURE!”

If you aren’t instantly rapt by excerpt of dialogue above, then I would suspect that you aren’t likely to be impressed by The Cr-eature from the Pit - I most certainly wasn’t. In fact, within...

Terror of the Autons, the first serial of Doctor Who’s eighth season, may stick in the memory for many reasons. The return of the Autons, be they blank-faced or sporting creepy smiley masks and clutching daffodils. The introduction of sweet sidekick Jo Grant. The chilling use of CSO to bring an ugly...

Frontier in Space is a story that I have a great fondness for. It’s perhaps less well regarded than some of Malcolm Hul-ke’s other serials, but I find it highly enjoyable, a fine example of classic space opera, something that is quite rare in classic Doctor Who. Hulke novelised this serial himself, giving it, as with all the best Targets, an over-excitable name...

In an aberrantly frugal move for 2 Entertain, the August 2010 DVD release of Silver Nemesis did not include either the extended edition of the serial that had previously been released on VHS or the hour-long American documentary that accom-panied it. This subsequently caused a considerable degree of consternation amongst fans of the series’ 25th anniversary sto-ry, myself included...

Let’s start with the headline: the destruction of Ga-lliffrey. Well the first one, at least. The original, you might say. Looking back on The Ancestor Cell with more than a decade’s hindsight, it’s still hard to believe that it isn’t Lawrence Miles’ name sat beneath the cover’s bone-hewn...

The Burning couldn’t have been endowed with a more app-osite title. For better or worse, the preceding Ancestor Cell had purged the range of all the continuity trappings that had divided its readership clean in two, culminating in a cataclysm that obli-terated the entire constellation of Kasterborous, its...

When the idea of having the Doctor marooned on Earth for the duration of the 20th century was first mooted, one of the settings that I’m sure will have been top of the list to explore is that of the Great War. The faux-War Games of Patrick Trou-ghton’s swansong notwithstanding, prior to the publication of Casualties of...

With Doctor Who’s fortieth birthday just a couple of months away, Jacqueline Rayner provided readers with a new take on the multi-Doctor story. Wolfsbane boasts the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith in one corner, and the lone, amnesiac and Earthbound eighth Doctor in the...

I’m following the career of the up-and-coming Oli Smith with interest. There are not that many new authors breaking into the BBC Doctor Who range these days, so it’s satisfying to see someone clearly talented coming forward. Following a couple of short stories and a fun, if flimsy, audio book, here...

Releasing these books in batches of three has the unfo-rtunate effect of always making one of them look like the bottom of the pile. In this case it’s Una McCormack’s The King’s Dra-gon, which, though perfectly enjoyable, doesn’t quite match the efforts of Russell and Smith. What it lacks, compared to...

Gary Russell has been writing Who for something like twenty years now. Anyone would think that he’d be running low on ideas. Not a bit of it. The Glamour Chase is full of intriguing concepts, some of them pretty bizarre. The blurb is surprisingly misleading; although everything mentioned...

| | | | |

Typset in Arial, Assiduous, Baskerville, Cheltenham Bold, Dalek, Deviant Strain, Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed,

Gazz Regular, FuturaDisD, Morpheus, Secret Service Typewriter, Tahoma & Verdana.

This site is non-profit making and is not in any way affiliated with the BBC, BIG FINISH PRODUCTIONS, FOX, PANINI, TARGET, TELOS or VIRGIN.

<a href="http://www.timelash.com/banners/click.php?to=1&from=42"><img width=468 height=60 border=0 src="http://www.timelash.com/banners/images/bannerexchange.gif" alt="The Doctor Who Banner Exchange"><br><small>The Doctor Who Banner Exchange @ Timelash.com</small></a>

Unless otherwise stated, all images on this site are copyrighted

to the BBC and are used solely for promotional purposes.