Audio CD/download review
AudioGo / Big Finish
Release date Out now

The Second Doctor finds a chunk of time being protected; the Sixth encounters a growing technological menace; the Eighth fights to the death; the 11th copes with a plague; and Torchwood have problems with freezers and fridges…

A very mixed bag of audios this month kicks off with the latest 11th Doctor release, Jason Arnopp’s The Gemini Contagion, read by Meera Syal. It’s a fast-paced story, which captures both the Doctor and Amy’s personalities well, aided by some enjoyable voice characterisation by Syal.

There’s a certain inevitability about the progression of the narrative, but it maintains the current strong standard of AudioGo’s range.

VERDICT: 7/10

The Sixth Doctor’s latest trilogy for Big Finish comes to a close with Industrial Evolution, a clever title for Eddie Robson’s 19th Century tale.

A lot of plot threads are juggled, with plenty of time devoted to the fate of Thomas Brewster, as well as developing the relationship between him and the Doctor. If this is Brewster’s farewell appearance, then he goes out on a high, with some excellent sound design really selling the story.

VERDICT: 7/10

The Eighth Doctor’s final adventure in his separate range, To the Death, is, quite simply, a stunning piece of Doctor Who. To say anything about the resolutions given to the various plot strands that have threaded through the entire four seasons would be to spoil it for the listener, but everyone involved gives their all.

Hopefully, given some time elapsing, writer and director Nick Briggs will go back and deal with the repercussions of this story, and for those who wonder how the happy-go-lucky Eighth Doctor became the man who ended the Time War, take a listen to this. Highly recommended.

VERDICT: 9/10

The Companion Chronicle, David Lock’s The Forbidden Time, has to be chalked up as one of the few misfires of the range. The various conceits used (Polly addressing a contemporary audience; Jamie’s voice on a recorder) don’t work: the end of episode cliffhanger seems to try to emulate the end of Vengeance on Varos’s opener, but comes across as “I’ve run out of time, come back for the next bit”, which fails to entice.

There are some good ideas at the heart of this, and Anneke Wills and Frazer Hines do their bits (although why Hines wasn’t voicing the Doctor still baffles me), but this isn’t vital.

VERDICT: 4/10

Two Torchwood releases, both set prior to Children of Earth, are written by James Goss and read by Kai Owen. Department X sees the team go undercover in a department store which seems to want to kill Jack, while Ghost Train is a timey-wimey tale narrated in the first person by Rhys.

The latter is by far the more successful: Owen is comfortable as his own character, and there are some well-written asides for him to deliver.

In Department X, Owen is a straight narrator, and there are a few moments where emphases are misplaced, and the pace feels off. However, both are good adventures for the reduced team with some laugh-aloud dialogue.

VERDICT: Department X: 6/10; Ghost Train: 7/10

By Peter Quentin