Big Finish Main Range
Nicholas Briggs has written a plethora of audios, from the very first Big Finish audio, Sirens of Time, to one of the latest, Frozen Time. His best are Sword of Orion, Embrace the Darkness, and Frozen Time. This adventure is better than Mutant Phase, Sirens of Time, and Creatures of Beauty but it’s not as good as the other three he wrote. The premise is tidy and the characters good, Captain Oswin in particular is a rather nice character of a military captain faced with losing hundreds of her crew to a mysterious door in space. Each piece of the story is fun but as a whole, it’s a bit weak. The villain is trying to save their race, keep humans from progressing any further because of anger that the universe isn’t fair. But they don’t consider that the consequences of erasing so many possible creatures on Earth may cause their own erasure from the time line. They become consumed with this unfairness idea and cannot see other possibilities.
It’s an interesting idea and it plays out well enough but the adventure on the train seems quite separate. Were there really trains that ran with just 2 people on them during the war? I understand the purpose but it doesn’t really work that well for me. Pieces of this adventure or fun or interesting to listen to but there isn’t really anything that stands out. It’s good but not great. The characters have their own quirks but don’t really stand out much past their caricatures of their job—the captain being the exception, to a certain extent. She still reacts predictably and lobs bombs at the threat. Evelyn doesn’t trust the Doctor to come back for her by now? I don’t buy that for a minute. She’s scared and Maggie Stables does a marvelous job of portraying that. But the fear, the anxiety, the tension behind this as a threat to all of humanity just doesn’t suck me in and make me afraid things won’t work out. So, ultimately, this audio is good but not outstanding. I did like the option of two different covers and they both appear to be really cool covers. And I wanted the other one and it wouldn’t’ve mattered which cover I got, would’ve wanted the other one too as I liked them both!
Colin Baker and Maggie Stables
Writer: Nicholas Briggs
Director: Nicholas Briggs
Release: July 2006