Big Finish, Special Release
I loved this story! The 4th Doctor and Romana 2.0 arrive on Barclow and find a tea lady delivering cakes and tea to the sides involved in a war that has been ongoing for years. A very well-mannered war indeed, where both sides await the results of a report that has been worked on for over 100 years, to determine if they should actually start lobbing real ammunition at each other. Naturally Romana and the Doctor are separated, one ending up at the Chelonian camp and the other with the humans. And the flies, the ubiquitous flies buzzing, buzzing, buzzing around certain people. Thus the war starts in earnest soon enough but there is a strange something going on at the human home world and an alien presence soon makes itself known. Naturally. Can’t go too far without finding aliens anymore!
I never read this book, or many of the Doctor Who books, admittedly. I have become a total Big Finish convert! I couldn’t imagine Doctor Who without the Big Finish stories and when people talk about things that happen to characters, I find myself saying but wait, they resolved that crisis in that one BF story… And this is a fantastic, classic, wonderful production! I really, really enjoyed the interaction between the 4th Doctor, Romana, and the characters they meet throughout. And the 4th Doctor doesn’t even have to do much bumbling at all, which is nice. Even the book-end story with the Black Guardian is fantastic. I can’t wait to hear the next one after this now! Great writing, directing, acting. Hurray for stories.
Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), John Leeson (K9), Tim McInnerny (Admiral Dolne), Jon Glover (Jafrid), Michael Troughton (Menlove Stokes), Gunnar Cauthery (Viddeas), Jane Slavin (Cadinot), Russell Bentley (Seskwa), Hamish Clark (Fritchoff), John Banks (Harmock), Elizabeth Rider (Galatea), Jessica Claire (Liris/Newsreader), David Troughton (The Black Guardian)
Writer: Gareth Roberts, adapted by John Dorney
Director: Ken Bentley
Release: April 2015