The Wishing Beast & The Vanity Box (#97)

    Big Finish Main Range


Somehow the writers just don’t write the best stories for Colin Baker’s Doctor.  Or maybe I just don’t like the 6th Doctor as much as I thought…  Though I do LOVE The One Doctor but somehow those writers caught the spirit of chaos that is the 6th Doctor without moralizing him too much.  Perhaps that’s my issue—his soliloquies and moralizing don’t quite fit with his chaotic nature.  They fit but he needs a companion like Evelyn to balance his blustering with their own witticisms.  Mel is fine but she does much better when she goes on her own adventure while the 6th Doctor goes on his.

With this story, there’s a lot of blustering and condemnation but the Doctor really can’t DO anything until he gets to meet the monster.  Then he wins by winning over the monster, which is a bit of a change of pace for him.  Normally the bad guys never listen!  Though the monster isn’t really a bad guy but I don’t want to say too much on that.  The story seems like an attempt at a fairy tale for the who universe but too standard, as well.  The bad guys and girls are standard fairytale bad guys and girls and the good guys are standard good guys.  And what happens to all the good guys at the end?  They’re just kinda left hanging, I guess.  There’s no real resolution.  I like the superpowers idea but it all just doesn’t quite go far enough for me.

I do love the extras at the end of the CDs that Big Finish includes lately.  Fun stuff for the most part!


Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford

Writer: Paul Magrs

Director: John Ainsworth

Release: July 2007

© Laura Vilensky 2019