M046 - Flip Flop

Finally a story that addresses the time loop issue. Pity it reveals just why time travel writing usually avoids it: annoying repetition. Like the film Vantage Point, which continually rewound itself to show different characters' points of view, Flip Flop suffers from repeating sequences when the time travellers return to places they have been before.

The story starts in the middle of things and the Doctor and Mel are stepping out of the TARDIS to hear their names being called out in an Orwellian police announcement. Joining up with a pair of terrorist/assassin/time travellers, the Doctor and Mel are forced to take them back in time 30 years to assassinate the President before she makes a decision that leaves the planet in the hands of unpleasant slug overlords.

The ripple effects of their actions are revealed when they all return to the present and find it drastically altered, but for the worse. And here the time loop problem reveals itself. When you change something in the past and return to the present, a new you exists. Now the terrorists are disaffected lieutenants in the military and the Doctor and Mel have to leave before the other them arrive in their place...

Which they do, in the middle of a police alert looking for them. And then they meet up with a pair of disaffected lieutenants who want to go back in time and stop the assassination of the president to undo what has gone so wrong the past 30 years, oblivious to the fact they are to blame.

It's nice to know that the writers considered this problem, and it is a clever idea to have an infinite loop of the Doctor and Mel arriving and switching the planet's history and leaving again before a past version of themselves arrives and does the opposite, but since the whole thing essentially repeats itself (with the same sort of questions being asked and the same sort of conclusions being reached by the Doctor), it all feels a bit redundant.

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."

M027 - The One Doctor

Who is Colin Baker's agent? Because he is a far better negotiator than any of the others. His scripts from Big Finish have been a constant surprise to the point that I'd say he is second only to the 8th Doctor for enjoyability. How's that for a switch? One of the least-liked TV Doctors, and the one who only appeared for two hours on American television have found a second life as the best Doctors on radio.

The One Doctor begins with a world in celebration. The Doctor has just stopped a massive invasion with the help of his beautiful sidekick. But when the Doctor steps out to speak, he's no one we've heard before.

It turns out that the Doctor's reputation has given a con man a brilliant idea, and faking an alien invasion to con a planet out of a massive reward seems like a profitable idea. That is, until the real Doctor and companion arrive in the real TARDIS (and not the STARDIS, which resembles a port-a-potty) just before a real alien threat arrives in the solar system.

This episode includes some more Douglas Adams-esqe comedy, which makes sense as it was co-written by Gareth Roberts, a regular writer of the television series and the man who novelized Adam's unproduced Doctor Who script, Shada. The zipping adventure never gets bogged down and it even manages to be a bit surprising along with its comedy. Top notch.

M012 - The Fires of Vulcan

There are quite a few TARDIS in Pompeii.

Once again (for the first time) the Doctor arrives in Pompeii just before Vesuvius goes apocalyptic. This adventure of the 7th Doctor shares a lot with David Tennants later exploration; the title being the most obvious (Tennant starred in The Fires of Pompeii), and plot revolves around the Tardis being taken away (which, honestly, describes a lot of Doctor Who plots).

Another important connection between this adventure and Tennant's is the concept of fixed points in time and the tricky way that time travel can be limited. The Doctor reveals that back in his fifth incarnation he was told by UNIT that the Tardis was found buried in the ruins of Pompeii, so when it is seemingly lost under the rubble of a collapsed building, the Doctor fears that time has caught up with him and this is the end of his journeys.

However, this is not the last journey of the Doctor, nor is it a source copy for the Tennant adventure 8 years later. This time the Doctor does not discover ancient monsters living under the mountain, but instead gets embroiled in local politics and upsets a vengeful gladiator. The gladiator is played (uncredited, so I can't be sure) by 6th Doctor Colin Baker. One of the great things about listening to these plays is catching when and where the other doctors pop up in supporting parts, and Baker does a terrific job booming with ancient indignity.

A weak part of this story is, like so many, the companion. Mel (Bonnie Langford) is a fine companion for the 7th Doctor, but in this impending disaster she does exactly the same thing Donna Noble will do on the other side of town; she becomes obsessed with trying to save everyone in the city. It's a quality goal to be sure, but it is a much less appealing storyline than uncovering conspiracies or racing against time to avert disaster.