EDA107-108 - Human Resources, Parts 1 and 2

This is the sort of story that Russel T. Davis could have done with David Tennant and Donna to great effect. But McGann and Lucie are just as good in the same roles, and it's possible that the TV budget wouldn't have been able to pull of the massive scale of the second part.

Everything was a dream, it seems, when Lucie wakes up starting her first day at the office she had been applying to work at when she appeared in the Doctor's TARDIS. Disoriented and annoyed, but willing to face reality, Lucie sets about adjusting to the Dilbert world of her new life working for Hulbert Logistics. But when she gets promoted to be an executive secretary, her new boss is the Doctor.

Back together, the Doctor and Lucie set out to discover the secret of Hulbert Logistics, which is that it isn't in Telford at all. War, it turns out, is far more effective when fought by the market research teams and number crunchers of an office environment, but an office environment inside massive walking war machines that are laying waste to an indiginous population to clear land for new settlements.

This finale two-parter takes many great twists and brings back the Doctor's other great villains, the Cybermen. A very clever story with a great mix of adventure and mystery makes this the best of the first series and a great reason to continue listening.

EDA106 - No More Lies

The penultimate story of the first season is one of those interesting tales that gets an "Aha!" moment somewhere in the third episode: a twist that would be a shame to ruin. The episode sets up a garden party where an aging couple are celebrating their anniversary. This is where the Doctor and Lucie arrive in pursuit of a fugitive.

Much like Immortal Beloved (EDA104), this episode offers some interesting moral questions. These are the episodes where Big Finish take full advantage of the limitations of the audio play form. Since there are no visuals to distract, stories with a lot of action are less effective. Running and shooting lasers and hiding quietly are not suitable for radio, so conversation and discussion often need to take center stage. By building scenarios around complex moral problems, these scripts can offer great discussions and arguments that (when well-written) end up being just as engaging as any chase.

EDA105 - Phobos

The Doctor and Lucie land on Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, which has become a hot spot for extreme tourism. Adrenaline junkies go gravity-boarding and wormhole-jumping while the local colonists try to ignore the interlopers.

Mid-season episodes like this fit in the mid-range of the Big Finish productions. The story is solid Doctor Who material, discovering a mysterious alien being that raises a few philisophical problems. The Doctor gets a few good lines, and Lucie manages to be a competent companion. Overall solid, but still not as memorable as other episodes.

EDA104 - Immortal Beloved

This episode's guest star is Ian MacNeice, best-known as Winston Churchill to Matt Smith's Doctor. He plays Zeus in a pseudo-Ancient Greek culture where a ship of human colonists have been using a combination of cloning and mind transfer to gain immortality.

The Doctor and Lucie land the TARDIS just in time to stop star-crossed lovers from diving off a cliff together. Then they discover the lovers are clones of the colony's leaders, raised until maturity when their minds are swapped with their dying older selves. But the mind transfer machine, which the Doctor says has been outlawed, is breaking down, and Zeus wants the Doctor to fix it.

This is where the EDA really finds its feet. The philisophical implications of cloning are pushed into uncomfortable new territory as the clones are raised like their originators' children, and even develop similar personalities and romantic interests, until they are forced to swap their health and youth for the dying bodies of their so-called parents.

A clever story with several good performances and plenty of conflicting interests makes this the second-best episode of series 1, just behind the two-part finale, Human Resources.

EDA103 - Horror of Glam Rock

Bernard Cribbins, who soon joined the TV series as Donna's uncle Wilfred, and Una Stubbs, better known as Sherlock's Mrs. Hudson, appear in this episode where Lucie and the Doctor are trapped with a mixed group inside a motorway cafe in 1974 as monsters prowl in the darkness outside.

One of the most impressive things about the EDA is how Lucie and the Doctor weren't friendly right away. Usually new companions have to be eager to continue the adventure at the end of the first episode, but because she is foisted on the Doctor unwillingly (and unwanted), their relationship has a bit of conflict that keeps things rolling.

Cribbins plays a semi-sleazy agent for a glam rock group. The music genre is running topic in the episode, from some of the characters in the cafe being musicians to comments on the Doctor's clothes, which it's nice to hear are carried over from the TV movie. Reasonable character development for Cribbin's character and others, and some horror movie moments make this Doctor Who's The Mist, but without the terrible ending.

EDA101-102 - Blood of the Daleks, Parts 1 and 2

Paul McGann, having proven the 8th Doctor's popularity in the monthly releases, headlines an independent series, The Eighth Doctor Adventures, which finally offer a glimpse of what could have been, had the US spinoff occurred. But it's a good thing it didn't because the stories offered through the four seasons of EDA often go beyond the capabilities of 90s US television.

The premier episodes introduce a new companion, Lucie Miller, an obstinant 19-year-old from Northern England who appears mysteriously in the TARDIS much like Donna Noble had in the TV series a few months before. When the Doctor tries to return her to 2006 England, the TARDIS bounces off a temporal shield and they find themselves on a wasteland planet called Red Rocket Rising. The Doctor and Lucie come to a reluctant alliance as they deal with corrupt scientists a newly-created race of Daleks. But when the real Daleks arrive, they want to wipe the "impure" Daleks out of existence and the remaining inhabitants of Red Rocket Rising with them.

As Doctor Who tales go, this one is well written and carries a good pace, and the Daleks are always a plus, but compared to the rest of the EDA, Blood of the Daleks is simply a solid, but mid-range tale. The best episodes are yet to come...