Was recently thinking about the utterly brilliant Eleventh Doctor Chronicles, specifically the Alfie Shaw run in Volumes 3 through 6 and was wondering what the general consensus on the best story was, considering there are so many.
Pick your favourites:
1.1: The Calendar Man by AK Benedict
1.2: The Top of the Tree by Simon Guerrier
1.3: The Light Keepers by Roy Gill
1.4: False Coronets by Alice Cavender
2.1: The Evolving Dead by Doris V Sutherland
2.2: The Day Before They Came by Daniel Blythe
2.3: The Melting Pot by Christopher Cooper
2.4: A Tragical History by Tessa North
3.1: The Inheritance by Alfie Shaw
3.2: The House of Masks by Georgia Cook
3.3: The End by Rochana Patel
4.1: All of Time and Space by Tim Foley
4.2: The Yearn by Angus Dunican
4.3: Curiosity Shop by James Goss
4.4: Broken Hearts by Lisa McMullin
5.1: Spirit of the Season by Georgia Cook
5.2: All’s Fair by Max Kashevsky
5.3: Sins of the Flesh by Alfie Shaw
6.1: Didn’t You Kill My Mother? by John Dorney
6.2: Daleks Victorious by Felicia Barker
6.3: The Last Stand of Miss Valarie Lockwood by Alfie Shaw
6.4: Victory of the Doctor by Alfie Shaw
0voters
Personally, my favourites are Broken Hearts and The End, although I listened to half of the sets back to back on a very long flight from the US and slept through the last few.
Finished the whole thing in about a month but as i neared the end i listened to it faster and faster. Just one of the best thing they have ever realesed, it’s that simple. Whatever i can say it have been said here dozens of times, a complete masterpiece.
Honestly Broken Hearts might straight up be my favourite 11th Doctor story in any medium, which is wild considering it wasn’t even originally planned when they started the run.
Sins of the Flesh, what can I say. Wow. Sometimes sci-fi is used allegorically but here Alfie Shaw has pulled no punches in putting the important issue front & centre. Incredible stuff.
Recently finished a relisten of the Valarie Lockwood run. None of my pre orders were out at the time and I had a couple of long journeys for work so I decided to listen through again, this time without having to wait months between boxsets.
It’s repeating much of what’s already been said but I do think it’s one of Big Finish’s triumphs, this series. With me being a bit hot and cold with Series 6 and 7, this run does stake a claim to being one of the Eleventh Doctor’s best seasons for me.
Valarie is an excellent companion who starts off incredibly well drawn and just gets deeper and more rounded as the series goes on. Dudman’s impression on a technical level alone is impressive but would have been exposed pretty quickly if he couldn’t also deliver the goods performance wise.
Which he can. I don’t hear a recast, I just hear Eleven. I don’t have a problem with Noonan or Troughton Jr or Treloar or Culshaw and think they actually all do great work but here I forget Dudman isn’t the ‘real’ Eleventh Doctor.
(I missed out Carley because, like Dudman, I forget I’m listening to a recast with him)
And they’re more than backed up by the scripts. The season was built excellently by Alfie Shaw and the writers he used did an excellent job with the stories.
I had such a good time relistening to this series, it really was astonishingly good and even better the second time around as a binge listen. Story beats made more sense and the connective tissue was more effective. Some of my pre orders started to come out while I was part way through but I didn’t care, just wanted to finish Eleven and Valarie’s adventures.
So I got £100 amazon voucher from my class and when I get back from holiday I’m going to order the first two, maybe three, sets (and then ask for whatever I don’t have for my birthday in September). I can’t wait!
You’re in for a treat. I have one final boxset to go & this has been one of my highlights in all my BF listening. Actually already looking forward to listening to it all again.
Completed it! Overall this was a fantastic audio season of Doctor Who, great characters, exciting, emotional, engaging. The only major downside for me was the daleks. That’s down to personal taste but I find them hard to listen to, scenes of daleks shouting at each other & firing their lasers is just off-putting to me. I switch off. But Valerie, what a wonderful companion.
I agree with you there, I kinda wish it wasn’t the Daleks at the end, although I do appreciate that it’s the New Paradigm Daleks, finally they did something with them!
Yeah and I think the opening of the final episode leading into the titles is hilarious because it’s the Daleks.
I completely understand Dalek fatigue (I have it myself) but when they’re used well they’re great, plus the warm feeling that they have been used well rather than just gratuitously thrown in.
I think this run of stories used them better than any Doctor Who has used them in years.
