When I was pondering on doing Audio Club Extra for the Excelis trilogy, I don’t think I’d appreciated that this would be the first experience of Katy as Iris for many of you. She’s so ingrained in BF now I assumed everyone had already encountered her somewhere.
I do recommend people seek out her solo series - mainly for the marvellous Panda. Season 2 is particularly good (better than her two initial releases).
And Series 2 to 5 are all free on Spotify.
Seconded, Iris is so delightful and she’s brilliant in her solo stuff. If you like her in this, you’ll love her in her solo series!
I’m fairly sure that this was my first encounter with Iris too. I’ve since heard The Wormery and Muse of Fire from the Main Range, as well as Plague Herds of Excelis. I think I find Iris a bit to weird. Don’t get me wrong, Katy does an excellent job playing her, but as far as drunkard characters go, I much prefer Bernice Summerfield, I find her a lot more fun than Iris.
So I’ve started listening to this and am just at the point where our party is boarding Iris’s bus. Couple things I’ve noticed this far. First, Iris comes on very strong. That said, pairing her against the Fifth Doctor is a stroke of genius. Second, this very much feels like a D&D campaign (a barbarian, a scientist, a bard and a nun are tasked by the Mother Superior to follow a map to a mcguffin). I’ve also never been that much a fan of Paul Magrs’ writing. Of the handful of things of his that I’ve listened to (never read any of his prose), the only one that I’ve really enjoyed was Stones of Venice.
To each their own of course but all you Iris haters are wounding me 
I love her so dearly that it makes up for all the haters 
She’s just so special to me; I know she’s bonkers but that really works for me. Plus she’s from Darlington just like me <3
Bonkers often can work for me. I just don’t care for the form of bonkers that Iris emits. I don’t know, she’s just not for me. I’ll take Benny over Iris any time.
Looking at the wiki, this is the first time Iris appeared on audio. She had previously featured in novels and short stories after having been introduced in the EDA The Scarlet Empress.
Just listened to the scene of the Doctor and Iris discussing Adric. This is the kind of scene that should’ve appeared in the TV series. Big Finish has done wonders over the years in dealing with the emotional fallout of Adric’s death for various characters.
I really like Excelis Dawns! It’s the only story in the arc I find memorable, I really enjoyed it and loved Iris in it.
This is the key thing to me. I left this thinking it had potential and hoped the rest of the series would build up on it, but looking back it’s kind of just all downhill from here (at least until the Benny audio IMO).
The Benny audio is my least favorite lol. It’s a straight downward slope imo
Finished this this evening. It’s a decent story, I remember finding it the weakest, though it’s been a while and I may find my opinions changing. I found parallels between the Relic and the One Ring from LOTR (my beloved/my precious). I think that Anthony Head was better in the later installments (more refined) but he does a decent job here playing a primitive barbarian warlord. I think this was a really good Fifth Doctor story, but Davison and Manning are great together. The other characters didn’t do much for me. I look forward to seeing what you all think of the rest of the these.
Also 2002 - eek!!
Catching up on this: it’s fine but not anything to trample over and praise. Iris and Five are incredibly fun together here. It’s a solid slice of comfort Who that dips into a fun little fantasy quest and then dips out.
Just finished my relisten of this and more or less agree with everyone else on its strengths and weaknesses.
A couple of things that struck me though:
The Doctor talking about Adric’s death is a lovely piece of writing.
There are two scenes which foreshadow ‘lore’ developments in the modern series: Iris is stated as not being a Time Lord but ‘benefitting’ from their science of regeneration and time travel. This ties in neatly with the Timeless Child and the idea that regeneration is something which can be given to people (which of course was always hinted at with things like the offer to the Master in The Five Doctors).
Secondly, the Doctor comments about how his previous incarnations in The Five Doctors were all older as if they had carried on living their lives - which rather neatly fits with the idea of bigeneration.
I actually picked up on both of those things also! I figured the first was just a bit of vague language; regeneration has always been a Time Lord science, I think really ever since they established the 12 regen limit. In my head Iris is a Time Lord, just one that nobody talks about.
I also basically said out loud “Did this just confirm bigeneration 20 years before it happened”.
First time I’ve listened to anything with Iris (though know about her as a character from being in fandom spaces and watching things that talk about her). Katy Manning is a delight, and you can just tell from the performance how much fun she’s having playing Iris.
All the cast in this are incredible to be fair, Antony Stewart Head plays Greyvorn spectacularly, especially in the scene where he sees the future of the planet, and of course Peter Davidson always knocks it out of the park with the scene of him and Iris talking about Adric’s death being a highlight.
It’s also interesting some ideas that it brings up that then get used by the new series, especially curious to me is what The Doctor says about being in the death zone with older versions of himself. I think the implication is meant to be that he’s just talking about the events of The Five Doctors, but the fact he mentions that he was with himself “four, five, six times over” (where he’d only be with himself three times over in The Five Doctors), him talking about how they all looked older than him as if they’d kept on going, and him mentioning it after talking about the fourth doctor’s regeneration leads me to my own personal headcanon. That being that he’s talking about the Fourth/Fifth Doctor’s versions of the Guardians of the Edge, and that when The Fourth Doctor regenerated, the version of the edge he saw took on the form of The Death Zone and he saw his previous regenerations as if they’d kept going (possibly including pre-hartnell ones given how many times over he mentioned seeing them).
Not sure if that headcanon really works, but hey, it’s a fun one.
Overall though, the story itself was enjoyable and while i like the character stuff a lot, I don’t think anything really leapt out as really good to me.
7/10
Finished this yesterday and thought it was okay? I loved the interactions between Iris and the Doctor, the highlight of the story.
And the Doctor describing the Watcher and the other Doctors appearing older in the Five Doctors was really interesting
But other than that a day later and the story is not really in my head much already.
I thought that bit was very interesting in light of bigeneration.
