Doctor Who: Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Volume 4 from Big Finish Review

The Classic Doctors, New Monsters series has been a strangely enjoyable trip, this time returning for its fourth boxset with as the title suggests, classic Doctors fighting monsters only seen in the modern series. This time around, the set focuses entirely on monsters from Steven Moffat, but with a different writer tackling these villains, each story feels as wholly unique as their original appearances, even monsters like the Silence who lost their scare factor throughout the Moffat era get a grand comeback this time around.

Things kick off with Jonathan Morris’ Invasion of the Body Stealers, which sees the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane facing off against the villainous Harmony Shoal. I was interested in the other monsters in this set more than these but to his credit, Morris takes one of the stranger monsters and makes them the real threat they never got to be in the television series as the Shoal begin to put their brains inside other people and slowly take over a small community on the planet Systalzyn.

With a lot of the body horror of these monsters removed because of the audio format, Morris must have felt it an impossible task to give them any threat, but he skilfully plays with the idea of not knowing if anyone has been switched or not, gleefully playing with the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers in a pleasing enough manner so not to rip it off but give us some great homages to the popular film.

Tom Baker and Sadie Miller do a terrific job of recreating the original dynamic of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It’s also quite surprising that ignoring the few Lost Stories and Once and Future stories they both had together, this is the first proper Series 13 release they’ve had so hopefully we get some more soon. To his credit, Baker does a great job of making the Shoal feel like a credible threat despite them not being one of his monsters. However, the B-Movie-ness of the creatures and their body horror suit his era well and it’s clear that Baker is still having a ball with these stories.

Sadie Miller is effortless as Sarah Jane, stepping into the shoes of her late mothers with ease and giving a terrific performance. It’s clear how comfortable she is now in the role, honouring her mother while starting to be brave enough to do her own thing, always careful to keep the heart of the character the same.

I remembered the Clockwork Droids from The Girl in the Fireplace. The visual imagery in it was very dramatic. And then when I read this story, which is written by Jacqueline Rayner, one of the masters of the best Big Finish stories ever, I knew it was gonna be good, and of course it is – it’s got drama, deception, lots of pathos, and it’s got Bonnie Langford, what more can you want?

Colin Baker

If there is anything that lets Invasion of the Body Stealers down is that its sadly a story that doesn’t go anywhere. In their television series, they are after universal finances but here there isn’t a lot of threat to them beyond that of the colony world they crash land on. But that doesn’t mean that the hour-long tale isn’t a lot of fun with Juliet Aubrey devouring the dialogue and delighting in getting to play the villain once again.

Jaqueline Raynor’s, The Queen of Clocks is easily the best story of the set, seeing the Sixth Doctor and Mel finding themselves stranded on a planet surrounded by Clockwork Droids. It is a hauntingly beautiful story, which starts right in the middle of the action, a move that sometimes can work to the detriment of the story, here though it works, allowing us to skip the whole “Where are we Doctor?” trope and allows Raynor to get us to the heart of the story.

Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford as always are on top form, Langford in particular gets much of this story to herself and she is the one who discovers what is going on here and she delivers a heart-breaking performance as she realises all her efforts where sadly for nought. Baker too really delivers in the emotional ending of the story, and while he doesn’t get too much to do here, he seems happy enough to allow a lot of the story to fall to his companion in contrast to the Droid’s last two outings which were all about they could mess with the Doctor, this time its the turn of the companion to face off against them.

Raynor is great at giving us pretty unique storylines. Her work on the Sixth Doctor Purity range has been great and she was also the woman who gave us the first Doctor Who musical in Doctor Who and the Pirates. Here her strong character works well and while the true revelation as to what is happening won’t be a huge surprise to anyone who has been focusing through the rest of the runtime it doesn’t stop it from feeling like a real gut punch, helped in its delivery from strong performances and tight script.

The final two stories form a loosely connected two-part adventure from David K Barnes. The Silent Priest & The Silent City sees solo travelling Seventh and Eighth Doctor’s meeting the Silence in Silent City. Told in a non-linear order, Barnes does a terrific job of selling the terrifying nature of these monsters even if this time they aren’t strictly the villains. It’s an interesting take on the monsters who this time have to do some not-nice things because of the circumstances going on around them.

The Silence are properly spooky, because there’s something melancholic, deeply sad and weird about them. Of course they’re scary and threatening, but kind of heartbreaking as well. I like that, that’s a good mix, that’s a proper Who mix.

Paul McGann

Of course, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann deliver some excellent performances, McGann in particular gets some excellent exploration as he goes to visit the Silent Priest because of his involvement in the opening skirmishes in the Time War. But the real star of this set is Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Silence and it’s interesting to learn that he wasn’t the voice of the monsters on the television series. In fact, no one knows who the voice belonged to but we now know it wasn’t Briggs. And yet his voice is perfect for the role so there isn’t much difference between the monsters on screen and audio.

There could have been an easy route Barnes took where the Silence was trying to take over a world by force, but he goes at things in a much more interesting way, making the Silent a victim of his surroundings and gradually becoming the main antagonistic force in Silent City because of the actions of others. He can keep the peace even if he has to do some not-nice things sometimes. Barnes gets what these creatures are capable of when some thought is put into them and as a result, these final two episodes are an excellent conclusion to the set.

Broken Memories is a fantastic fourth volume in this range, I might even go so far as to say the best of the range so far, with four extremely strong scripts and some fantastic performances from all involved. Moffat’s creations work so well here, with their potential beginning to be explored I wouldn’t be averse to hearing from some of these creatures again in this format. And hopefully, the range will continue with maybe the First, Second, Third and Fifth Doctor’s next time.

You can pick up Classic Doctors, New Monsters Vol. 4 – Broken Memories from Big Finish on both digital and CD now.