Audio CD / download review
BBC Audiobooks / Big Finish
Release date: Out now (Hornets’ Nest); 31 December 2009 (Big Finish releases)

The Fourth Doctor's battle with the Hornets comes to a head; the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa encounter a time-lost group of Daleks; his former companion Thomas Brewster has to decide which side he's on; the Sixth Doctor and Peri encounter the Ice Warriors; and the Eighth has an unpleasant Christmas in Blackpool then reunites with his granddaughter...

Two releases bring Tom Baker's return as the Fourth Doctor to a conclusion, with much sharper scripting in the fourth part of Hornets’ Nest, A Sting in the Tale, than heretofore. It's almost as if the story had been plotted over six instalments, then brought down to five – there's more development in this play than in the previous two discs combined.

VERDICT: 6/10

Part five of Hornets’ Nest, Hive of Horror, shows most clearly that the story was originally intended to feature the Brigadier rather than Mike Yates, since the reason the Hornets enticed Mike to the Doctor's cottage just doesn't make sense. There are also some attempts to retcon the set up of the piece, as well as references to adventures in multiple media.

Hornets’ Nest has been an interesting experiment, but needed much stronger script editing, and, one suspects, a firmer hand on its star's contributions.

VERDICT: 6/10

The Fifth Doctor's Stockbridge Trilogy for Big Finish comes to a close with Plague of the Daleks, which doesn't introduce the eponymous metal monsters until nearly halfway through the story.

Given the plot's similarity in places to The Waters of Mars, it seems surprising that the BBC allowed it to be released so close, but this is an effective little mystery thriller, albeit with some clichéd elements.

VERDICT: 7/10

This month's episode of The Three Companions is a play, rather than a reading, and starts drawing all the threads together neatly. At this stage, it is worth digging the discs out and listening to it as one complete tale – it works much better than you might otherwise think.

VERDICT: 6/10

The next Lost Story, Mission to Magnus, should have stayed lost. It didn't work as a Target novel 20 years ago, and it doesn't work now. There are too many villains for the 6th Doctor and Peri to face – matriarchs, bullying Time Lords, Sil and the Ice Warriors – and dialogue that really doesn't flow naturally.

The sexism may be "of its time" – but that time was the 1960s, not the 1980s. Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Nabil Shaban try their hardest but this needed some serious reworking before it was recorded.

VERDICT 2/10

There's no Companion Chronicle this month, but the start of the Eighth Doctor's fourth season, which thematically, anyway, is really the last story of the third.

Death in Blackpool is one of those tales that is easily spoilt with too much discussion, but suffice it to say that some of the Doctor's past misdemeanours catch up with him, leading to a powerful scene between McGann and Sheridan Smith at the end. Alan Barnes apologises for spoiling listeners' Christmas cheer on the CD extras – and so he should!

VERDICT: 7/10

Big Finish subscribers also get a bonus disc: An Earthly Child, by Marc Platt. Reuniting McGann's Doctor with Carole Ann Ford's Susan, this finally overwrites the appalling Legacy of the Daleks novel from 10 or so years back with an intriguing tale of alien contact and family reunion. Worth subscribing for!

VERDICT: 7/10

One final point. If you're an audio fan, it's worth checking out Big Finish's new Sherlock Holmes range, with Roger Llewellyn and Nicholas Briggs as the Great Detective in three adaptations of Holmes stage plays. Just the thing for a cold evening round the fire...

Peter Quentin