Doctor Who Big Finish Audios

   

4) The Land of the Dead, 2000
— Five and Nyssa are in Alaska and find themselves hostage to a reanimated prehistoric life force.
This audio seems to have fans evenly divided between those who can see the point and those who can't, and the skull of John Merrick on the cover is entirely misleading. For me this showcases how Peter Davison can still put across so many of Five's best characteristics: his energy, intelligence and capturing that rising sense of panic that he does so well. It's a rather one-dimensional story (and another thin plot) but because of that aspect it's also rather refreshing because there's not a huge amount to have to think about while the story works itself out. It's only Davison's rattling performance that carries it through: all anyone can do is run while Five figures out how to turn the situation around. There is one downside: one character has way too much sarcasm-in-the-face-of-death that, while sometimes clever, eventually just becomes irritating. Far better than it deserves to be, thanks to Davison.

5) The Fearmonger, 2000
— Beneath the rise of the racist British political party New Britannia, Seven and Ace encounter a hidden alien being that creates and feeds off fear.
jblum has written elsewhere about the trials he underwent to turn in this script, but the end result is engaging and complex and deserves repeated hearings. There is some great dialogue that's true to Seven and Ace (who's clearly in her streetwise element) and a few big surprises. Big plus point: Jacqueline Pearce (Servelan from Blake's 7) as the convincingly disingenuous party leader (like Thatcher on steroids); minor minus point: the annoyingly upbeat music that accompanies Mick Thompson's hard-hitting talk radio show. Sylvester McCoy seems to just breeze comfortably through this one despite being given plenty to put across.

6) The Marian Conspiracy, 2000
— Six and his new companion Evelyn Smythe venture back to Elizabethan London to fix a nexus point in time – and uncover some family history.
A wonderfully intemperate Colin Baker has found a perfect foil in Maggie Stables, who plays the unlikeliest but also one of the most likeable of companions, the scholarly historian 'of a certain age', Evelyn Smythe. Stables' casting was a small stroke of genius and her delivery is convincing and entertaining, although Smythe does enter into this time-travelling lark perhaps a little too credulously. This story by Jacqueline Rayner is a straightforward 'Hartnell historical' like they used to do, something that tries to take on the difficult task of getting inside the heads of Queens Mary and Elizabeth I. It did engage my curiosity further, despite being what is a fairly humdrum story without the SFnal elements. It's refreshing that Colin Baker's performance shows that Six will treat Evelyn as an equal, not as a something annoying stuck to the bottom of his shoe that he can't be bothered to shake off.

Lives of Photographs, 60.1

This aerial photo of mountains and valleys in Afghanistan (best viewed larger, definitely), which I sent to Getty Images in May, has just been licensed. By what company I don't exactly know, as the royalty statement only says "David Lim, New York". Getty sold it as a 'royalty free' image as opposed to 'rights managed'; they got $229 dollars for it of which I get $46, as my percentage on royalty free images is a mere 20%. But I still don't get paid yet: I'm still $4 short of Getty's minimum payment level of $50. I'll also just have to imagine how it's being used... a double page background spread in Time or National Geographic would be cool... though if that's the case I'd like rather more than $46 for it...