The Light at the End

For the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who, Big Finish pulled out all the stops - and the Doctors. Gathering all five of the living Doctors they are licensed to use, and using clips and recast voices of the first three, they spin a story spanning the Doctor's many lives.

A red light on the TARDIS console has turned on, but the Doctor doesn't recognize it. This same scene plays out across five TARDIS and brings the Doctor in contact with himself. The primary team up occurs between Paul McGann and Tom Baker, the two extreme ends of the range, and they make a beautiful pair. Baker compliment's McGann's Victorian jacket and McGann compliments Baker's scarf. Their teaming is very reminiscent of the Smith/Tennant coupling that the BBC was putting together at the same time.

I do have a bias for McGann, but each of the other Doctors is given his due, and gets a few good moments. It's actually Peter Davison's Doctor who gets most of the key plot, as the Doctors discover their TARDIS have been pulled towards the same point in space-time (a familiar junkyard in 1963).

The companions are overshadowed (as usual) by the multi-Doctor scenes, but Ace manages to get a choice description across as she lists off all the Doctors with sarcastic nicknames (including Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, no points for guessing who she means).

The tale is just enough timey-wimey to make it feel like more than just an excuse to get all the actors in the same story, but not so complicated as to get lost in expository dialogue. It's also not as absurdly long as the 40th was, which means I don't have to feel bad recommending it for a single-sitting.

M042 - The Dark Flame

There is a variety of good banter between the Doctor's companions in this episode, but sarcastic wit in the face of being tortured by a crazy religious zealot eventually seems a bit silly. The zealot in question is trying to unleash the "black flame" of the title, which is a sort of evil thing from an alternate universe that is all black and... Flamey.

Honestly, the stakes of this episode seem to be too high to be cared about. It's an issue that has affected many Doctor Who stories over the decades; when the entire universe is in danger of blinking out of existence I find the story can become paradoxically less engaging. Its when individuals and single planets are in peril that the danger can be felt in an emotional and not just a numerical way.

One saving grace of this episode is a robot character who gets some of the best lines and is one of the better supporting characters since he serves a plot purpose beyond being a victim or bystander.

M036 - The Rapture

A hot new European nightclub called The Rapture draws the Doctor's attention when he and Ace come to Ibetha to relax after their ordeal in Colditz. An angelic DJ and his brother seem to have slipped mind control into the club music. And, at the same time, a mysterious young man has set his sights on Ace for unknown purposes.

Other than a clever introduction via radio personality to the techno remix of the Doctor Who theme music, the episode relies mostly on Ace and her developing storyline while remaining very Earth-bound.

M025 - Colditz

One of the recurring joys of these radio plays is the curious connections that exist back (or forward) to the TV series. This episode from 2001 includes David Tennant voicing a ruthless Nazi commander stationed at Colditz Castle, the famous POW prison for the most escape-eager Allied officers, four years before he was cast as the 10th Doctor.

Time travel is a tricky business, and paradoxes are even trickier. Unlike some episodes, this one manages to pull together the more complex sides of time travel without losing coherance. The Doctor and Ace are captured at Colditz and meet another time traveller, a Nazi from a future where the Allies lost, who needs the Doctor to help her make her future permanent.

The episode also blends a bit of classic Hollywood with POW officers and escape attempts. It never goes full Great Escape, but the more straightforward prison genre is a nice balance to the timey-wimey science fiction.