For reference, Dogbolter is a character from the DWM comics that introduced Frobisher who has popped up here and there over the years.
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The Monthly Adventures #034 - “Spare Parts” by Marc Platt
Unsurprisingly, this one’s really good. A beautiful and tragic story of a society in its death throws that gives us a suitably horrific origin for the Cybermen. The pacing’s not all there but an incredible cast and world make for a magnificent tale of death and denial - 9/10
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The Monthly Adventures #035 - “…Ish” by Phil Pascoe
So, it’s been a little while. Got burnt out, but here’s the review for …Ish, an absolutely insane whirlwind of brilliant ideas and concepts that makes the English language its villain and a talking dictionary one of its main characters. Some really fascinating stuff that loses steam in the second half - 8/10
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The Monthly Adventures #036 - “The Rapture” by Joseph Lidster
Joseph Lidster, the revered and beloved writer that he is, arrives onto the scene with a messy and misguided story about Ibiza and PCP. There are some really great ideas here and Lidster works his magic wonderfully with Ace’s character but this story just falls flat in too many places for me to like it - 5/10
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I agree that there are some good ideas in here, and while it’s very much not my thing or style of music, the clubbing scene as a Doctor Who setting is interesting. Good review.
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The Monthly Adventures #037 - “The Sandman” by Simon A. Forward
An incomprehensible bore. An incredible idea set in a fantastically strange alien landscape that is squandered by really poor conveyance of ideas and a story that just refuses to move. An unfortunate failure - 4/10
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This has been a great thread to read! Thank you for doing it.
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The Monthly Adventures #038 - “The Church and the Crown” by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
A fun and light comedy with a great cast of characters and some stellar performances. Erimem is slowly going up in my ranking of companions and, whilst it struggles a little with its story, The Church and the Crown is at the end of the day a good time - 8/10
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One of my favourites.
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The Monthly Adventures #039 - “Bang-Bang-a-Boom!” by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman
A zany and idiosyncratic murder mystery with a great cast and an imperfect sense of humour. Bang-Bang-a-Boom! is another unfortunate outing for Gareth Roberts that, whilst not being quite as good as his previous effort, is a very fun listen with some real great moments - 7/10
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The Monthly Adventures #040 - “Jubilee” by Robert Shearman
Do I even have to say it? Jubilee is a masterpiece, just like all of Shearman’s work (The Maltese Penguin isn’t real, it can’t hurt you). A brilliantly sombre take on the Daleks that doubles as a biting destruction of baseless fascism. I don’t even have to tell you that this story is a - 10/10
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The Monthly Adventures #41 - “Nekromanteia” by Austen Atkinson
And we’ve made it to Nekromanteia, often considered the worst Big Finish audio story. Is it? No, not really. Take out that scene and you have a serviceable if overwhelmingly average story. I’m not defending that mistake of a moment, but I don’t think 2% of a script makes it the worst thing ever written - 5/10
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I would agree tbh - on a purely, purely story level, Nekromanteia is just kind of boring at worst. I remember almost nothing of it now after listening many years ago, and I do remember being unimpressed, not least with the Scene. I’ll be interested to see what first time listeners make of it when we get here in audio club - to me, it feels very much like a case of many early BF audios where they’re trying to be edgy and dark for the sake of being edgy and dark. And here, that utterly falls flat.
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I think for me, the only thing I vaguely remembered from my first time listening to it was the cricket-themed afterlife and a centuar sort of related to that. The second time I listened, that Scene was just part of a maelstrom of noise and confusing plot and shrillly annoying witches. It’s not so much one scene that drags it down for me as much as just not being a fun listen aurally.
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The Monthly Adventures #42 - “The Dark Flame” by Trevor Baxendale
A bog-standard, bland as vanilla and uninspiring little story to round up the oddly place side steps trilogy of stories. Seven, Ace and Benny run around an enjoyable if somewhat dull story in the same vein as the VNAs and that’s about it for The Dark Flame - 6/10
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Um… I actually prefer The Dark Flame to Shadow of the Scourge.
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The Monthly Adventures #043 - “Doctor Who and the Pirates" by Jacqueline Raynor
It’s not my sort of thing. Which is a shame, this seemingly is a really well liked one, and I just can’t see why. It has the same humour and depth as a lower school production. It’s got a lot of merit, but it’s really just not my sort of story - 5/10
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The Monthly Adventures #044 - “Creatures of Beauty” by Nicholas Briggs
A near Shakespearean tragedy centered around a dying planet that is of an unheard of quality for Nicholas Briggs. It’s not safe from all of his consistent faults, but is truly unique and meaningfully miserable - 8/10
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The Monthly Adventures #045 - “Project: Lazarus” by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
The sequel to Project: Twilight is an oddly melodramatic action set piece with Bond style secret organisations and dream logic. A couple beats of excellent characterisation don’t change what is an, if fun, messy story - 6/10
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The Monthly Adventures #046 - “Flip-Flop” by Jonathan Morris
A really great sci-fi concept that uses the time travel element of the show effectively is squandered by an endlessly confusing right-wing allegory that was apparently accidental. An absolute oddity that just fails to save itself from its own morals - 5/10
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