Serenidad

https://www.audiowho.com/2025/11/serenidad/

#012: “The Fires of Vulcan.”

Sylvester really sells the weight of his belief that this might be it, that he might’ve met his foretold end here, but that does make me wish this was with post-“Survival” Ace instead of with Mel. Other than that, kind of a no-notes banger, this one. #doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

Evelyn also tragically underwritten — you could give 95% of her dialogue to a cardboard cutout of Peri and you’d never notice. (Come on, man, I get you wanna make a Stockbridge reference, but she’s a tenured history professor, she’d know what Stockholm syndrome was called.)

A full all-out Dalek attack on Gallifrey should be a lot more interesting than this, but I guess that’s why we never saw much of the Time War, either.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

Coming to this while still in the middle of Romana’s original era on TV really highlights just how quickly the story turns her into the angrier, shorter-tempered President Romana — it all gets hung on her having been imprisoned by the Daleks for 20+ years, but that never really feels that solid, and instead just strikes me as a device to get to the edgy post-90s status quo they want to get to.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

#011: “The Apocalypse Element.”

Featuring President Romana on Gallifrey, this one introduces elements that will be the backbone of Big Finish’s take on Gallifrey for *decades* to come. But is it actually any good? I enjoyed the Gallifreyan diplomacy story, but then it got really stuck in that latter-day mode of Dalek story, which I’ve never really enjoyed.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

#010: "Winter for the Adept."

"The Shining" by way of "Picnic at Hanging Rock." Repeated references to large unseen monsters you're told over and over you definitely wouldn't want to meet are frustrating elements of an otherwise largely enjoyable snow-trapped psi-historical.

#doctorwho #mainrange #bigfinish

#008: "Red Dawn."

The 18-minute third part betrays the problem here — though combining "Doctor Who"'s Mars and its Ice Warriors, both rooted in the 60s, with more modern ideas regarding space exploration is clever, it's not enough, and the story never really mines anything that interesting from it, leaving it feeling like just a lot of dull running around.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

This one is, of course, most notable for representing several firsts — the first "Dalek Empire" release, the first Daleks on audio, the first time Nick Briggs voices them, and, though she's thin here, the first appearance of "Bernice Summerfield" mainstay Bev Tarrant.

With those firsts looming large, it's a shame it doesn't stand on its own two feet better.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

#007: "The Genocide Machine"

Aggressively fine, in that it sets a great atmosphere, and is a solid impression of a typical Dalek tale, but is also saddled with some of the worst tendencies of the thing it's trying to be -- Ace is swapped out for a robot duplicate for much of the story, the Daleks' scheming is largely dull and unoriginal, and the supporting characters are so thin that the stuffy librarian makes the Daleks look like well-rounded bon vivants.

#bigfinish #mainrange #doctorwho

The central mystery is clever and well-built to centre the new companion without it feeling like she "becomes" the mystery. "The new companion shouldn't exist because of timey-wimey nonsense" is, of course, done much better later with Charley, and does get a bit goofy here, but not to the detriment of the story.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

#006: "The Marian Conspiracy."

Good ol' Dr Evelyn Smythe. She essentially fixes the Colin Baker incarnation just by existing — she demands to be respected and he learns to do so. Him beeping during a lecture, a great intro. The story wisely splits them up in the middle so we can hear her navigate 1555 on her own — she works *instantly*.

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

#003: "Whispers of Terror" is mostly Fine, but "sentient recording of dead politician's speeches" and "people with various political interests trying to abuse those recordings to their own ends" somehow adds up to nothing but a muddled mess.

Later efforts are far more succesful at trying to do audio-specific stories.

(Also really weird to hear Colin still playing it so aggressively.)

#doctorwho #bigfinish #mainrange

#001: "Redux" is a massive improvement over how I remember the original "Sirens of Time," but it's still kind of a chaotic mess -- it's trying to do it all like it might be their only chance to do it.

#002 "Phantasmagoria": Like every Gatiss script, "not having huge issues" isn't enough to save it from being "kind of dull." There's a reason we don't really do this kind of historical any more. (David Walliams David Walliams-ing about the thing doesn't help.)

Rocky start!

#doctorwho #MainRange

> I know I haven't heard every Main Range story
> Untangling what I have and haven't heard is functionally impossible

Anyway, I've started a listen-through of the entire Main Range.

#doctorwho #MainRange