A view from the rooftop terrace
It's a damp, dark December day up here. Insomnia led to me putting up the Xmas decorations a day or so earlier than I had intended.
The mimicking of The USA's"holiday season"- starting in November with a Black Friday for a Thanksgiving we have no cause for- means kids in school ( especially those with prelim exams next month) are in holiday mode too early for their own good. Nonetheless, the Xmas lights cheer up dank North-East days.
I have postponed my post on the Marvel Star Trek Early Voyages series until I finish the Star Trek Discovery box set. I have neglected a post on the Netflix Marvel's Defenders too; hopefully, I'll get to that before Christmas.
Regular sales at Big Finish these past few weeks have led to the purchases that soundtrack my walk in the dark to work and back.
Starlight Robbery is a comic-book space opera by Matt Fitton. It reintroduces the camp salamander criminal Garundel played by Stuart Milligan. who previously appeared in the Grendel/Beowulf story Black and White in 2012. In a typically elaborate Seventh Doctor scheme, UNIT's Doctor Elizabeth Klein and naive, junior science officer Will Arrowsmith are pursuing a stolen Persuasion machine to Garundel's illicit arms fair. Sontarans (all played by Dan Starkey, I think) are Garundel's clients but his assistant Ziv is planning a heist from under his amphibious nose.
The grating Garundel went on to appear in the first Jenny box set. Will isn't as annoying as the BBC's Jeremy Fitzoliver but little use is made of Klein and it's too long, too thin and all a bit trivial, really. (1/5 Talmars)
The Great Space Elevator has been on my "to buy" list for eleven years! It appeared in the sale coincidentally just after my S2 had been discussing space elevators and just before the Horror Channel screened the Star Trek Voyager episode "Rise".
The late Deborah Watling narrates Jonny Morris's homage to Season Five's formulaic "Base Under Siege" stories of 1967-68. Those are my very earliest memories of Dr. Who and here, we are told about guards in op art costumes, mounds of fire-retardant foam in a bleeping control room and a disembodied intelligence that electrocutes its victims. There's even a character named after George Pastell, Klieg in Tomb of the Cybermen.
It's a bit too on the nose but it's extremely faithful to the period and poignant to hear the original Victoria again. Comfort food for the ears. 4/5 Talmars.
Bernice Summerfield's fourth box set Ruler of the Universe is thematically similar to the Fifth Doctor 2017 quartet Time in Office. David Warner's irascible Doctor is the supremo of a dying universe and he plays hooky from the responsibilities of his role. Meanwhile, Benny has been dispatched to investigate the powers of the fabled Apocalypse Clock.
The Doctor's sessions with his analyst Annette Badland in Asking For a Friend is one of the best, most insightful Who scripts BF has ever produced. Amusingly, Sam Kisgart's murmuring Master actually has his ambitions realised by the Doctor's machinations and Lovecraftian behemoths rampage at the conclusion. Mark Gattis's reminiscences as Sam in the audio extras are hilarious.
I'm delighted that Warner's Doctor gets Benny home to our universe at the end of this set. Can he be the Doctor in all BF releases now, please? The scripts by James Goss and Matt Fitton mesh together very satisfyingly and I'm eager to hear the next set. Five out of Five Talmars.
Lined up on my cd player, I also have Second Doctor adventure The Home Guard ( featuring another of Big Finish's Masters, James Dreyfus. I make that seven: Dreyfus, Kisgart, Beevers, Roberts, Jacobi, McQueen- not heard from since 2016- and Missy; a jackanapes of Masters?!). Beyond that, I have two UNIT box sets and the third and final Prisoner adaption. Coming soon though, the Black Sky and Roy Thomas's Strangers on an Astral Plane...
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