M050 - Zagreus

This is it. The big one. Five hours, four Doctors, and a whole host of former companions (mostly playing other characters).

Following the events of Neverland (M033), the 8th Doctor is infected by Zagreus, a myth of ancient Gallifrey, and he rages about the TARDIS like Jekyll and Hyde. Charley, meanwhile, finds herself back in 1900s England with her mother, who soon turns into a rabbit. A hologram of the Brigadier comes to her and she realizes she is not really back on Earth.

Where they really are is a lot of timey-wimey explanations that don't fully make sense, but if you go with it Zagreus is a various and entertaining story. The Doctor's former selves pop up as a strange trio of alternate characters, but eventually make appearances in their proper personalities. Dozens of former companions also make appearances, and some familiar voices are easy to spot, but because most of them are not playing their original characters they may go unnoticed by those of us who have not seen the entire original series.

But many good lines and clever references to classic children's literature like Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz make for a hodgepodge epic of an audio play.

M039 - Bang-Bang-a-Boom!

I'm not familiar enough with the classic series to know if the (silly) title of this play is a reference to the McCoy era Who, but I do know that playing the spoons is. And you have to be sure that a story where playing the spoons is central to the climax will not be one of the Doctor's serious moments. This is actually a good thing, because I've preferred McCoy's Doctor in the funnier stories.

When the TARDIS appears in the halls of an exploding ship with a dead crew, there is nothing the Doctor and Mel can do but run and hope. Luckily the nearby space station teleports--sorry--transmats them onboard, thinking they are the new command crew. Rather than spend the story in the brig, the Doctor and Mel take on their new roles and fall into a story that is Star Trek meets Agatha Christie behind the scenes of an intergalactic song contest.

A curious and bizarre cast of characters including an annoyingly-voiced mouse quickly become the dwindling cast of an "And Then There Were None" situation of mounting murders. The silliness of the play is amped up as every time someone gets to say, "It was murder!" a chorus of organs does the old-timey radio dum-dum-dummm. And it goes further when the organs are cut off by someone saying, "He's not actually dead."

M035 - ...ish

The 6th Doctor continues to get the bizarre and bizarrely good episodes. In this one, while visiting a lexicographers conference (an exciting start), the Doctor gets tangled up in a terrorist's plot to use the ultimate word in the universe, and the first AI dictionary to enslave and destroy people with the English language.

Colin Baker's Doctor has regularly been described as verbose, and it is very fitting that the Doctor who swollowed a thesaurus should be put against a corporeal entity birthed from the language itself. The abstract nature of the villain means the story takes some leaps in how it is solved, but the script does take advantage of the dialogue-heavy form for some meta humour about censorship.

M030 - Seasons of Fear

The Doctor has a story to tell. Who to and why will be revealed in episodes to come, but for now we hear the story of an immortal man who has made a deal with the devil.

In Shanghai, close to Charley's own time, the two separate so Charley can visit her boyfriend Alex. This is when the Doctor meets a strange man who claims to have killed him. This starts a time-traversing tale where the Doctor and Charley find the strange man in Ancient Rome, pre-Norman England, and in the witty 18th Century as his power for long life stretches towards immortality and his moral view of life diminishes to nothing.

It's a thrilling tale, and very well told. The reveal of who the devils behind it all are is a little underwhelming for anyone not steeped in Whovian lore, but the story wraps up neatly and is followed by a tease of grander mysteries to come.

Bonus - The Ratings War

This short adventure finds the Sixth Doctor visiting a TV station where a reality show about reality shows is airing its live finale. There the Doctor discovers a creature he faced in the comics, Beep the Meep, a cute furry creature who is actually a vicious budding dictator who plans to use mind control to turn the audience into murderous zombies.

Beep is certainly one of the stranger villains, but like the baby God in The Holy Terror (M014) the cute voice only makes him creepier. This also manages to jab satirically at television, and Colin Baker gets off a very appropriate (for his Doctor) line about being better suited to the radio.

M028 - Invaders From Mars

Mark Gattis, of Sherlock fame, has written several good episodes of the television series, and his foray into radio drama is no weakest link. Bringing the Doctor to Manhattan for Halloween 1938, when Orson Wells' infamous War of the Worlds radio play caused a small panic, puts the Doctor in a unique position to complimenting the medium he is in.

Gangsters, detectives, the Doctor's attempt at film noir patter, Nazis, Soviet spies, and an alien protection racket all collide alongside Orson Wells' radio play in an adventure that sometimes crosses surprising homophobic lines, but remains entertaining and inventive and one of the better monthly releases.

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.

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.

M001 - The Sirens of Time

The opening story of the Big Finish series is a perfect place to start listening. Later stories that are just one Doctor for four episodes, neary two hours, can sometimes drag on too long, adding one more cliffhanger just to make the right number of breaks. But this crossover tale begins with three half-hour stories, each one following a different doctor to a cliffhanger ending.

First, the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) is forced to land on a jungle planet where he saves a woman from drowning in quicksand. Then, following mysterious voices, they discover a hidden home where a long-isolated man is hiding a terrible secret. Next we meet the 5th Doctor (Peter Davidson) when he becomes embroiled with events on a German U-Boat. And, finally, the 6th Doctor (Colin Baker) is discovered dealing with a legendary time beast.

Throughout the first three parts we meet a Time Lord as he is trying to piece together the story just as we are, and in the fourth parth the stories all converge to see the three Doctors working together to save the day.

Crossover stories always have just a little bit more for Whovians because of the way the different Doctors behave around each other, and The Sirens of Time is no exception. The final confrontation has a number of good moments that give each Doctor his time to shine, and as a first episode it manages to establish these new (old) adventures of the classic Doctors.