Hornet's Nest & Demon Quest

[Toothy Grin]

I've now got all of Tom's recent new audio releases for the BBC, the Hornet's Nest and Demon Quest series and have listened to each one a couple of times. When they were first announced and released I was incredibly excited and rushed to buy each new story as soon as they were released. It was just wonderful to hear Tom back in the role again and I think this one fact biased me towards the whole series. Both series are superficially enjoyable but there's soemthing about them that just doesn't feel "right" to me. I think it's mainly because somehow they just don't capture the feel of Tom's televised stories. There's none of his tv companions, no alien planets to speak of, the TARDIS features very little, and the tone of the stories just seems wrong. The fourth Doctor never met Mike Yates, and it almost feels like this is some alternative universe where the fourth Doctor never regenerated and decided to stop his travels through time and space to live in quaint old Nest Cottage with housekeeper Mrs Wibsey. As I said, this set up is still quite entertaining but it's not really "Doctor Who". Another detracting factor to this series is the mix of spoken narration and audio drama. I''d rather have one or the other to be honest, and various stories in the series have different narrators which becomes a bit jarring. Then having the same villain in almost every story becomes tiresome and setting them all on earth is also very limiting.
I found the most enjoyable episodes to be "The Dead Shoes" (quite bonkers but fun and a good companion for the Doctor), "A Sting in the Tail" (creepy and the only one to feature inside the TARDIS), and "A Shard Of Ice" (very atmospheric and evocative), whereas the weakest were "Circus of Doom" (dull), "Relics of time" (slow and uneventful) and "Starfall" (cheesey, silly and poorly written).
Thankfully Tom is about to embark on a mammoth set of adventures for Big Finish which seems like it will rectify all these problems. It will be all audio drama, feature his tv companions (and hopefully some classic monsters) and (going by other big finish audios) should feel a lot more like classic televised Doctor Who stories.

[tracy]

im just waiting for the demon quest part 3 4 and 5 to come in at the shop then allwillbe complete with the demon quest audios

[Prydonian]

Thank you for the heads up about the BBC Audios, Toothy Grin. I was considering getting them but think I will save the money for the Big Finish episodes instead. I am sure they will not have the problems the BBC Audios had.
I just cannot wait to see what type of adventures the newly-reborn 4th Dr is about to go on! I wonder about continuity of course and when the episodes will be set. For example, I would not, I think, want an audio adventure set during the Key to Time season, but maybe the episodes with mary tamm can be fit between that season and the subsequent one which saw Romana regenerate (sort of) into Lalla Ward. Surely there are loads of ideas and storylines that can be developed from the end of Season Sixteen. We do not know, after all, how long it took until Season Seventeen's Destiny of the Daleks takes place and the aforementioned regeneration. I just hope the audios are a massive hit across the board. Does anybody know when he starts recording and when the first release will debut?

[metalheadjay]

Too bad we can't actually see Tom in the flesh(scarf and all) playing the role. I'm still holding out hope that he'll at least do a one-off movie as the Doctor. Maybe for the anniversary.

Jay

[Prydonian]

Oh absolutely, that would totally rock like nothing has rocked before...

[Graceful Leonard]

I agree with most of your evaluation, Toothy Grin. Perhaps we might view these as a sort of warm up for the forthcoming recordings.