Following the end of the Monthly/Main range in 2021, Big Finish moved Doctors 5, 6 and 7 onto boxsets, as was the case for the other Doctors.
Since then, there’s been tons of sets for all three released, so I thought it’d be nice to have a poll to see what everyone’s favourites are! Rather than one for all three, I’ve started off with the 5th Doctor specifically. I’ve put Hooklight 1/2 together, because well, its one story.
For me, I’ve done all of the sets except from the Wicked Sisters, Lost Resort & Great Beyond. My favourites from these would have to be Secrets of Telos, The Merfolk Murders and Hooklight!
Of this list, I’ve only listened to Hooklight, which was obviously excellent. Additionally, Psychodrome and Iterations of i are great stories for the Season 19 team.
I was debating including it, but I wanted to keep it as just the boxset era ones, so the main range replacement. I still need to do it in fact but I’ve heard great things!
I’ve only listened to The Merfolk Murders and Hooklight, so those two get my vote by default! Having said that, I actually think both are amongst the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time, personally. Tim Foley just utterly gets the season 19 team, and their dynamic and development in those stories is so good I’m almost disappointed that they have to tie back into Earthshock at the end - after all the depth given to Adric, Nyssa and Tegan, it’s cruel that they have to go back to their TV selves (which, IMO, were used poorly on screen), and I would really love an “Unbound” version of this team that doesn’t have to end as it did in 1982. The other great thing about these two stories is that they’re quite unlike any others in the greater Doctor Who EU - Merfolk Murders is a straightforward detective story with no aliens or sci-fi elements whatsoever, while Hooklight is an insane twelve part science fantasy epic. I think I prefer Hooklight out of the two at the end of the day, but they’re both nigh-perfect to me, so there isn’t much in it!
I do own a few other of these boxsets, and I’ve been going through a lot of Fifth Doctor audios lately. I’m very excited to get to The Lost Resort, Pursuit of the Nightjar and The Auton Infinity, as I’ve heard great things about those three in particular.
The TARDIS team obviously confront the Cybermen, and given that there’s no memory wipe at the end, it’s assumed it’s an alternative to Earthshock, given that Adric, Tegan and Nyssa all have no knowledge of Cybermen in Earthshock itself.
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