A 2024 of Spurious Morality

You're listening to a podcast of Spurious Morality. You're listening to a podcast of Spurious Morality. Hello and welcome to a podcast of Spurious Morality. I'm Johnston and with me this week I have Connor. Hello, Connor. Hello. And we are just taking a little look back at Big Finish over 2024. We've picked a favourite release each from each month. And we're just going to kind of work our way through that, discuss some of our particular favourites and basically just round off the year.

It's been an interesting year. I feel as though we've got some fairly different stuff out of Big Finish this year. And there's been a few little experiments and changes to format. And we've had things like Sontarans vs. Rutons that were essentially a four episode box set, but they were spread out over a few months. And they've done the same with Dark Gallifrey. They've kind of drip fed a release each month. Up Beneath Summerfield's done it too. To great success, I think.

I'm quite enjoying this release schedule, but I am finding I'm having to go back and listen to these series as a whole once I'm done. So I feel as though I've re-listened to a lot more stuff this year after not too long. I don't know if that's something you've found as well, but it's definitely been a year of listening to new releases more than once. Which I don't tend to do. I like to give them a break normally. I'd like to try and give them maybe roughly about a year.

So I'll listen to a lot of stuff from last year again this year. But I always like doing a little bit like a wee... My last week of the year, I like to listen over to what I consider the best of the Big Finish releases from each year. So I had a list picked out this year with stuff like Goth Opera, The Murfolk Murders. A lot of what's on our list today. And I really enjoyed doing that as a sort of year in, you know, like a year in and reviewed a little playlist. It's always quite fun.

So you've kind of accidentally planned for this episode. That's the only planning that ever goes into this podcast accidental. I know. I know. If our listeners knew how much we'd win, that would be quite surprised. But nevertheless, we've got our list. We've got a list. We've got a release from each of the 12 months of the year. And we're just kind of going to work through them. We're going to do it as a bit of a countdown.

Every now and again, we'll kind of stop to talk about something in a little more detail if we want to. But otherwise, let's go. Let's go for it. So as tradition dictates, the year began with January, which we had a couple of things. January felt like a good start. It felt like it was sort of launching the year in style. Like I like the fact that the First Daughter Adventures come out in January. There's something very, very nice about beginning the year on the first Doctor.

But my pick for January was Torchwood. It was Poppett, which was a nice little horror release featuring Reese and involved people disappearing and people forgetting about them. It was relatively standard Torchwood, but it was it was just a nice strong start. And I do like the Torchwood range. I think that it's consistently rather excellent.

So this was just a nice one to kind of get the year rolling with just a strong, nice, strong story that kind of does what the Torchwood monthly range does quite well. What about you, Connor? I was a big fan of the Soltarans vs. Rootin series. It's one of the ones that you mentioned they did the monthly releases with, which I'm a big fan of. I think that sort of thing works really well for a big finish. I like like an event listen, something that we can follow along as a community almost.

And and speculate because that's that's the closest. Like analog to television, Doctor Who I think we get is when they do these monthly releases for the series like Soltarans vs. Rootin and Benny Summerfield. Because Doctor Who's never been dropped as a box set. I know a lot of stuff is on my legs at Disney and Netflix now, but Doctor Who's never been like that. And we watch it long week by week and we get to speculate and talk about it each week.

So I like big finish doing that on a monthly basis with stuff like Soltarans vs. Rootin. And my favorite story from that, because I'm incredibly biased, was the Battle of Giants Calls Me. And it's just it's it's maybe not the best story in the whole world. It's maybe not the most exciting in the whole world. I think it's pretty good. And it's really special to me for a couple of reasons. First of all being Doctor Who comes to Northern Ireland is going to take every box in my book.

You know, I'm not just in a matrix projection. I'm not just in a matrix projection, Danny Chibnall. No, I love how you're still not over that. I'm so cross. The one time it looked like it was going to be on TV. No, we get Doctor Who comes to Northern Ireland. I have spent a lot of time up around that part of the world. I spent a lot of time at the Giants Calls Way over the years. And it's a place I really, really love. And it's it's a place I'm proud is in Northern Ireland.

There's not too many things that you can be proud of as far as Northern Ireland's conferred. You know, as far as Northern Ireland is concerned. But the Giants Calls Way is one of my favorite places in the world. And I got my favorite doctor, you know, coming to it in this adventure. So it's a really special release to me. And I will treasure it for a long time. I like there's a big gift shop up at the Giants Calls Way.

And I like to imagine that they keep this CD there because, you know, Doctor Who comes to visit the National Landmark. You'd think it would be a pretty popular one for them. Yeah, it's always nice to see something relatively local or hear something relatively local in this case. Rather sadly, I think the nearest sort of Doctor Who related place to certainly from where I'm from, not where I live now, but where I'm from, is Jodrell Bank, which obviously Tom Baker fell off in the logopolis.

Not that he was ever actually there, but it's quite interesting to sort of whenever I go for a walk in the hills or whatever happened to drive past it, can you go, huh, logopolis? But I think yours is yours is more positive, like no doctors were harmed during the visit to Giants Calls Way. Yeah, we didn't kill a national treasure. Yeah, we kind of did. Speaking of national treasures, Tom Baker has gotten an MBE. He has, yes. Which is fairly major news. Yes, and much deserved as well.

A lot of people are saying it's come a lot too late, and I think that's that's probably quite reasonable, to be honest. He should have got it years ago. He should have got it in the 80s. It's good that he receives that recognition. I think it's good that that has finally arrived. I personally quite like the sound of Sir Tom Baker. I don't know about you. You think he's due an upgrade at some point? Yeah, at some stage, yeah. Apparently they can make people lords in the New Year's Honour as well.

So I don't know, Lord Tom Baker, Time Lord Tom Baker. They could actually make him Tom Baker Lord of Time. Yeah, yeah. They should do that. Meanwhile, though, we'll move on to February, which came after January. And it saw the end of a very, very successful sort of mini series that Big Finish had been doing, which was the 11th Doctor and Valerie. They still called them Chronicles, but they were full cast. They were adventures. They were we essentially got a new series of 11th Doctor.

And I thought it was a very good run. I didn't think it was flawless. I've seen a lot of people sort of go, this is the best thing Big Finish have ever done. I'm not quite that hyped about it. I did find it a little bit hit or miss. Enjoyed it overall, though. I thought Dudman was very, very good. I thought Sapir Ingar was very, very good. And it's definitely a nice thing to kind of fit in that halfway through series seven after the ponds before Clara Gap.

And the release in February was Victory of the Doctor. It was the sort of finale or the final box set in the range anyway. And it did feel like a big proper Doctor Who season finale. And it worked really well. And it definitely stuck the landing and tied together quite a lot of threads that had been sort of woven through this series. I really, really admire what this series did. It was very well produced. It all sort of fit together nicely and did what was required.

And I'd like to see more of this kind of thing from Big Finish just, you know, essentially trying to produce a new series of Doctor Who as opposed to just adventures that fit in elsewhere, that kind of thing. And, you know, Big Finish has done it before. We had something similar with Dalek Universe and, you know, the fourth Doctor Adventures have done this kind of thing. But I just I think this did it really, really well.

I think it kind of balanced the need for a running storyline and two very, very strong leads. So, yeah, it was it was a good release and finished off a good series. What about you? Yes, I picked the ninth Doctor Adventures Buried Threats for this month for February. It's coming to the end of Christopher Eccleston's time with Big Finish. We get an adventure with Benny Summerfield.

Perfect. I like that they sort of drop down old companions and the likes of the Brigadier and Benny Summerfield throughout this run, because it was it was just really cool to see that doctor catching up with some of the old faces. It works in that way that School Reunion worked where you're getting the old meeting the new and a bit of a catch up. It's quite cool. I don't know if Benny Summerfield has ever really encountered a time war too much.

Not that I'm aware. I'm not the biggest follower of Benny Summerfield. I've done the new adventures of with the unbound doctor, but I've not heard any of her other stories. If Benny has met the doctor, I've probably heard it, but I haven't heard a lot of her own stuff. So it's nice to hear the doctor dropping in on her in the same way that you get that school reunion with Sarah Jane in series two on TV. So I was a big fan of that. There was another great story in that set as well.

I'm a big fan of The Running Man, which is the one in Halifax. I think that's a great one. The police character in that Ambika reminds me an awful lot of Yaz, which is quite cool. It was nice to hear proto Yaz on audio. And then this year, obviously, we're going to hear actual Yaz on audio. So I quite like that one as well. It sort of gets overshadowed a bit by the Benny Summerfield story, but it's good and deserves praise in its own right.

Yeah, Benny was definitely the headline of that set, but it was a really, really solid set throughout. Yeah, a lot to enjoy there. Let's go to March and March was a strong one. I found I think March was perhaps the month where this year really started to kick in in terms of, you know, the good, the really good releases. My pick is the Quint Dilemma, which was the sort of first of two sets this year celebrating the Sixth Doctor.

We've talked about the Quint Dilemma in depth when we did while we were away again, so we won't go too much into it now. But great release, really, really strong, really enjoyable stuff. What's your pick? For March, it's Classic Doctors, New Monsters, Broken Memories, which I think had a great line up of monsters. The last two Classic Doctors, New Monsters sets, I think have been really strong.

There's two reasons for this. The first couple of sets, they went for big iconic tentpole monsters like the Jadoon, the really iconic, recognisable ones like the Weeping Angels and the new series, Sontire and stuff like that. With the third and fourth volumes, they've sort of gone into, I want to say more niche, but maybe less A-list monsters or fewer A-list monsters.

You've got the Silence in this one, and that's a pretty big one because I know the Silence have been a big finish before, but they hadn't met the Doctor before, the Classic Doctors. So it was really cool to hear two Classic Doctors going up against the Silence. That was on my big finish bucket list for a long time. But you're also getting the Harmony Shoal Brain things from the Twelfth Doctor's era.

And they're being put together with the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith, which is one of the reasons why I like this set so much. It's the first time that Big Finish released an original, not adapted from a first draft TV script story with the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. And it gets huge props for that. That was really special. And they sounded amazing.

So I'm looking forward to hearing a lot more from Tom Baker and Sadie Miller in future because they just work so well, definitely on audio, as well as Tom Baker worked with Elizabeth Slayton on TV. So it's just a joy to be able to hear the most iconic guitarist team on audio again. So that's really lovely. And I think we say this every time Sadie Miller's in a release, but she just sounds more and more like her mother with every single go. And it's fantastic. Absolutely brilliant.

April then. And I think we're agreed. I think we've picked the same release for April, which is the Fifth Doctor Adventures, the Dream Team. I know it's not often you agree on something. I know it feels kind of weird, to be honest, but here we are. Let's muddle through this awkward situation. I thought The Merfolk Murders was one of the best stories of the year. It's nothing big or clever. It's just a really, really well put together four-parter that genuinely does keep you guessing.

It has twists and turns throughout, and it's a really good use of that Season 19 team. And it shows that one of them doesn't necessarily have to be sidelined for a four-part to work, which I think is probably easier to do on audio than it was on TV. But yeah, it's just it's a really nice dip into that era. It's sort of reminiscent of Black Orchid in some ways, but definitely doing its own thing.

And then, of course, in the other story, they meet the Dreamcrabs and it's nice to see sort of a it's almost like a bonus classic Doctor New Monster story, isn't it? And it's it's kind of nice to just have that in a set. I thought it was good. I thought it was a really, really good, good set. Like I said, I thought Murfolk Murders was exceptionally good and it was a nice, a nice listen, a nice surprise.

But I do I have really liked what the Fifth Doctor Adventures have been doing for the last few years. They've not been they've not really been any big headline releases. They've just kind of been quietly getting on with it and going, here's some really good Doctor Who. Yes, absolutely. And I think Murfolk Murders, I think it was its influences, you know, very proudly on its sleeves.

And like Agatha Christie, I think it was as much the Agatha Christie novels as it does to the, you know, almost the Poirot TV series as well and stuff like it's like that sort of 1990s ITV murder mystery thing that you see repeated now on drama and, you know, infinitely on the drama channel here in the UK. I really enjoy it. It's nice to get, you know, what is genuinely a pure historical for the Fifth Doctor and crew.

As you say, none of the characters are sidelined. Everyone gets their own little story with this and they get the side characters to match, you know, almost a compliment, like certainly Andric does. And I think its head story stands out the most in the Murfolk Murders. This one got praised a lot and very rightly so. It's an excellent story. And it was one of the ones I did, as I said earlier, in my little end of year review playlist. So I'm a big fan of that one.

It's not one I've re-listened to yet, but at some point over the next year I'm going to jump on and do like the box set era Fifth Doctor stuff so far. So, you know, 40 and then the various sets we've had. Because, like I say, I think it's just been, I guess, quietly very good Doctor Who. And I'm happy to look forward to a Fifth Doctor set, which traditionally I wouldn't really. So, yeah, that's good. Very awkwardly, we've agreed again in May. Oh, not again.

I know, it's terrible this. We're going to have to stop doing that. But it's the ninth Doctor Adventures again, Starcrossed. And it was great to have Bernice Summerfield in an episode with the Ninth Doctor in the last set. But in this one, we've got an entire River Song and the Ninth Doctor set. Three adventures where the two meet. And it's, I mean, it's just as much a River Song set as it is a Ninth Doctor set. And I really like that. It feels like a sort of big Finnish event crossover.

It works well. It's three really, really strong stories. So what are your thoughts on that one? Like I say, we've agreed. I can't quite get over that. I really enjoyed it. Definitely, you know, my pick as well. So I think we'd all have been slightly disappointed if the Ninth Doctor hadn't met River Song. While Christopher Eggleston was doing Big Finish, I think that would have been a missed opportunity.

I'm delighted that we got this. And I remember being ridiculously excited when it was announced. And it absolutely lived up to it. I can't think of a better story for the Ninth Doctor Adventures to end on than Archipelago, which was the Tim Foley one right at the very end of that set. It's just this beautiful love story where the Doctor, the Doctor has been pretty antagonistic towards River Song. And yet over the course of this story, they have to spend time together.

They're in quite a predicament. He genuinely falls in love with her in the same way as later incarnations do. And it's beautiful. And I just think it's the most fantastic story. A very, very worthy end to that line, if the end of this. I know Chris Ferguson has said it's an hour of war, a big finish and not a goodbye. But even if he never came back, I don't think Archipelago is a bad place to end up. I really don't.

It's a set as a set. It's out of the norm for the Ninth Doctor Adventures because they're very, very arc light. And you do get this arc over the course of this set with him, as I say, falling in love with River Song. I just. Brilliant, brilliant set. Brilliant to get two actors of the caliber that Christopher Eggelson and Alex Kingston are playing the Doctor and River Song together. So I can't wait to get this. I've just started a Ninth Doctor Marathon because it's 2025.

And it is 20 years since I started watching Doctor Who with Rose. I wanted to do a complete Ninth Doctor Marathon. So I'm not going to hear Star-Crossed until, you know, getting pretty near the end of the audio leg of that marathon. So I'm not going to hear it for a wee while, but I'm really, really looking forward to it again. And we are going to be talking about the Ninth Doctor Adventures in a lot more detail in in future podcasts.

So I'm looking forward to doing that because I'm going to re-listen to them all as well, because it's it's genuinely been a few years since I listened to that first series now. And I'm really looking forward to revisiting it. Well, listeners will be glad to hear that we have gone for different releases in June. Normality's restored. I've gone with Blake Seven. I've gone with Tarrant and I was kind of concerned that Big Finish were now done with Blake Seven.

I was we hadn't had anything at all in 2023, if I remember correctly, when there was no sign of anything. So I sort of just thought maybe they've they've just quietly finished. They've sort of, you know, we've lost quite a few regulars now and it's becoming increasingly difficult to just squeeze in little solo adventures, all that kind of thing. But Tarrant was a character they hadn't explored as much as they had others.

And I really enjoyed this set. Tarrant had quite an interesting backstory in the in the series. He was a Federation pilot and then switched sides to join the Liberator. So it was nice to kind of explore that a little bit and it harked back to some Liberator chronicles and just gave us a few really, really good stories. So I'm hoping that this isn't the end. I'm hoping that we are going to get surprised with Blake Seven every year. And I really do enjoy these worlds of Blake Seven releases.

They're not the continuing Blake Seven adventures that we were getting when we still had more of the regular cast with us. But I'm very, very happy that we're definitely getting something set in that universe, because I think it's a universe that we should continue to explore. If I had to pick a Blake Seven sort of wish list, it would be carry on the Avalon series that they did two releases on a few years ago.

And they were very strong, very enjoyable and had some nice ongoing storylines and kind of took place on the periphery of what went on in the series. So, yeah, I'd like to see more of that. And that's perhaps a way that Big Finish can keep the Blake Seven universe alive. What was your pick? I picked a torture release for June. I picked The Restoration of Catherine, which is a Norton Fulgate and Andy story,

which, as we know, are never anything less than literal perfection. This one's a bit of a farce. It's a comedy first and foremost, I think. And it's a genuinely very funny one. It does go into a bit of almost carry on film territory at a couple of stages, but it does it in a very Torchwood way. And it was nice to get a little standalone adventure with them again, rather than a six episode box set. Or the more of those as well. Please, Big Finish.

Yeah, I definitely never want to see Norton and Andy leave the monthly range, even though we have got Torchwood Soho, which seems to be a sort of consistent one release a year series now. But I absolutely want them to keep going in that monthly range and keep getting stuff that's as good as this. Let's head to July. And we've sort of agreed in July, but then just for the sake of not, you've added another release anyway.

I think we've agreed that Goth Opera is one of the highlights of the year, let alone July. So we've talked about Goth Opera quite a bit already, so we don't need to delve into it again. But needless to say, the headlines are it's wonderful to have novel adaptations back, even if it is just a one off. And it's a very, very good, very solid adaptation. You've picked another release as well, because we've had two really good releases in July.

I thought this one deserved an honorable mention because it's again, it's one of those firsts that Big Finish have had a few of recently where this is. Well, it's Operation Werewolf, which is a lost story with the second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. And it's the first full cast second Doctor story set during his original run. And we've had the second Doctor adventures, which are sort of season six B, Big Finish style.

But this is the first story set during the second Doctor's original era with Michael Troutman playing him. And it is superb. I thought it was I thought it was a great wee story. Reminiscent a little bit of the war games in some ways, but it goes into that sort of pulp science fiction. You know, what if Nazis, but time travel or what if Nazis, but teleport exists that the pulp so often do? I'm a big fan of that vibe. And it's nice getting a second Doctor story set in that in that territory.

I do have to say I saw a lot of people disappointed and I must admit I was as well, because when you look at the title and when you look at the cover of this set, you're led. Did you want a werewolf story? You're led to believe certain things and you're listening for waiting for someone to turn into a werewolf and it doesn't happen. So I do feel slightly robbed by the lack of werewolves, by the lack of Nazi werewolves.

But it's a good story in its own right. And I cannot fault Michael Troutman and Fraser Hines and Wendy Padbury for re-igniting that team. And just fantastic. I certainly hope we get more stuff set in and around season six. And I suggested it in a previous episode that maybe now is the time to start talking about recasting Victoria and having some season five stuff as well.

I want them to explore the second Doctor's era a little bit more. And this, this has just kind of made me want that even more. It was a fantastic release. Let's go to August. August, I'm gone with a set that I've talked about repeatedly already, so I won't dwell too much on it, but it's Morbius the Mighty. Really, really strong, solid, kind of nuts and bolts time war story. It's just the war doctor versus Morbius with the time war as a backdrop.

Really effective, really nicely done, solid, enjoyable three-parter. And it does show that the time war doesn't always have to be big and clever and timey-wimey. It can just be, you know, a simple but well done war story. And this is definitely that.

Honourable mention as well. I'm mentioning Torchwood Endgame. I feel like I've picked a few Torchwoods here, so I'm only honourably mentioning this one. But Torchwood Endgame was an awful lot of fun, really good tosh story with some, you know, going to start that again.

Really good tosh story with just a nice, again, simple idea at the base of it, but it works really, really well. It's one of those stories that uses the format, you know, one, maybe two, in this case one main Torchwood character just in a situation that they have to get themselves out of.

And I thought it was really enjoyable and would like to see more releases like this. It's bread and butter Torchwood, but it's done really well. It was really gripping and engaging. And I enjoyed this an awful lot. What have you picked?

I have picked Trials of a Time Lord, which we talked about in our While We've Been Away, which wasn't too long ago. But this one, just to recap it very quickly, felt like the single most 1980s Doctor Who thing ever. Just between the music, the sound design, the characters involved and the monsters involved.

It hit that era so perfectly and really evoked it for me in a way that not all big finish does. So I thought that was a lot of fun. I think it gets a lot of props for having Terry Molloy as Dav Ross and David Banks as the cyber leader. It's fantastic to hear them in the story again and want to hear a lot. See, as far as the 80s Doctors meeting the Cybermen goes, I know we've had the Invasion. I know we've had

the Invasion Cybermen turn up a couple of times and things and Nick Briggs sort of defaults to his new series sound quite a lot when it comes to playing the Cybermen audio. I would like to hear a lot more David Banks because he's really, really good still as the cyber leader.

We haven't yet had a Seventh Doctor Cyberman story with him. And I would like to hear a Seventh Doctor Cyberman story with David Banks playing the cyber leader. That would be good, please. But trials and trials at the time were a lot of fun. It's a bunker story and it doesn't ever stop to take a breath. But I just think it's a lot of fun.

I really like the 80s Cybermen. The 80s Cybermen are very unique and very underexplored at big finish. And I'm definitely up for more of that. And Briggs can do them well. Briggs has done them well. He did them very well in, was it the Gathering or the Reaping, whichever the Sixth Doctor one was. So it's, I definitely like more 80s Cybermen stuff. But David Banks involved is always something that will draw me to a release and give me reason to be excited by it.

So next up, September. And I have chosen September, Bernice Summerfield, The Eternity Club 1. I'm kind of like choosing this to represent all of The Eternity Club. It was a great series, really good way to relaunch Benny and move her into a new direction. Harked back quite nicely to the sort of collection era.

We've got a strong set of regular characters here that support Benny on her adventures. And I really, really like what this set did to just establish that. It sort of set all of these other characters up nicely. Most of them are sort of from races we've seen before in Doctor Who. We've got the Dravins, we've got the Trees from The End of the World, we've got a Sontaran. And it's just, it's a really good set. It's a really good ensemble. And it's what I want from my Benny.

I'm absolutely gutted that we no longer have David Warner because I'd have listened to The Unbound Doctor and Benny forever and ever and ever if that was an option. But this is a good new direction to move in. And we've definitely got more to come. The last, or the series ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. So roll on even more, Benny. What about you?

I have picked The Stuff of Legend. It feels like there was an awful lot of The Eighth Doctor and Charlie Pollard this year. I sort of had a bit of a renaissance at Big Finish recently. So yes, I enjoyed this. This was the studio version that I've heard. I haven't heard the live version and I probably won't for quite a long time. But I thought it's just a great wee story. It's pulpy. It's basic pulpy fun, I think, which is sort of what you want on stage.

Certainly whenever, you know, from Big Finish's point of view, I think they were looking for quite basic Doctor Who with this because maybe that's the easiest to realise on stage. You don't want to get into having to recreate too many weird and wonderful sound effects on stage.

So I can understand why they went for this sort of story, but I think it works. And it's a lot of fun just as a wee fun anniversary story with the Doctor, Charlie, the Daleks and the Master. So it's got a great wee double act in the bartender and the captain who sort of formed this Robert Holmes-y double act throughout the story, which I quite like.

And I just think all the guest characters are great. They're nice people. They're well played. And I just think it's a nice chilled out release to listen to whenever you need a wee bit of Doctor Who. So I'm a big fan of that sort of thing. And I like this a lot.

I think you're quite right about it being sort of a bit Robert Holmes-y. It's just got that sort of nice, charming, basic Doctor Who as it should be thinking about it. Yeah, absolutely. At some point, I definitely will get and listen to the live recording, but I think I'm waiting for it to go on sale before I do. But yeah, it'll be an interesting listen.

October. And October saw probably my favourite not Doctor Who big finish release of the year, which was Vamp D. We've got a second set coming in a couple of months time, but this first set was a lot of fun, established a new universe for big finish to play in, has an exceptional cast.

And I'm really looking forward to more. I hope this runs for more than two sets. I hope this becomes an ongoing series because this is probably my favourite not Doctor Who, not established universe release since transference, I would say. Very different to transference, but an awful lot of fun. So yes, looking forward to set number two of Vamp D. What about you, Connor?

I've picked the third Doctor quintessence box set. I thought that was unexpected in terms just of the story that it told. And I really enjoyed it. I like the idea of the Cybermen sort of going into, you know, trying to take over the psychic realm as well as the physical one. I think that's a nice marriage of Doctor Who sometimes doing these stories with a human race has this latent psychic ability and marrying that to the Cybermen. So that's quite cool. I think that worked really well.

And I said this in our While We Were Away episodes as well, but it sort of revisits the tone of the world of spare parts and using the Mondasian Cybermen and going back to Mondas. And I think it plays on the spare parts connection deliberately and it was quite nice to get that bit of a throwback. So I really enjoyed that one. And it was nice for them to continue the sort of older Joe returning to travel with the third Doctor Strand that started in the turn of Joe Jones.

They keep their own internal continuity as well because obviously Joe never met the Cybermen on TV, but she did. You know, the younger Joe did meet the Cybermen with the third Doctor at Big Finish. And they harken back. They mentioned burnt salt from the earlier Cyberman story in the third Doctor adventure. So I like that they did that. I like that that wasn't brushed under the carpet as I sort of suspect that it might be. It was nice to get that wee call back as well.

Yeah, that was nicely done. So looking forward to more from this, this particular strand. Definitely. Let's do November. And November I have gone with the seventh Doctor and Karnacki, which I have to admit when it was announced I had absolutely no enthusiasm for whatsoever. Like I'm not not particularly familiar with Karnacki outside of the popped up in a pattern of the sets years ago. The character did. That's pretty much the only the only time I've sort of met this character before.

And it wasn't my favorite pattern of the episode. I don't particularly remember what happens in it, to be honest, but nevertheless, got the set, listened to the set and was more than pleasantly surprised. This was really good. Sort of gothic seventh Doctor stuff. McCoy's definitely on form in this set and enjoying the material. And again, just really good solid Doctor Who. I'm actually open to more stuff like this, more kind of crossover sets, I guess.

You know, let's let's have seventh Doctor knocking about with Briggs's Sherlock Holmes for a bit, something like that. Let's see what happens. Over to you, Connor. Yeah, I was going to mention it's been on my list for a long time for another Sherlock Holmes crossover, after all, Consuming Fire. That's great. I know it's based on the novel. That's one of my favorite audios.

But I, it's the sort of hint at the end of the Doctor and Sherlock and Watson might meet up again. I think it would be pretty cool. You could get, I think there'd be mileage in the seventh Doctor meeting like the retired Sherlock Holmes when he's going down to Sussex to look after his bees. I think there's mileage in that with the seventh Doctor coming to the end of his life, meeting up with Sherlock Holmes again. That'd be fun.

For November, I picked the CODA, which was the last episode of Once in Future. And it's one of the episodes that works best for Once in Future for me. It's very, very, very cool to get the fugitive Doctor on audio for the first time. It's very cool to hear her meet the other forgotten incarnation in Jonathan Carly's War Doctor. And you get this sort of, you know, it's not, it almost becomes a battle between the Doctors. It doesn't quite reach that stage.

Because they never totally go into all that warfare. They come to the brink of it, but they don't. But they realize they're being manipulated by this greater force. And it's, it's, it works. It's, it's, it's just great. It's a great ending to that series. And it's a great celebration of these two Doctors. And it does genuinely manage to celebrate them both. So I'm very excited to hear more from Jo Martin and bring on her own series this month.

Yeah, it was, it was great to just get this sort of taste of what's to come with Jo Martin's Doctor. And she was, she was immediately fantastic. Yeah, looking forward very much to, to the actual Fugitive Doctor set arriving this month. So December, let's do December. And I'm going to have to start with an honorable mention because when, when we first started to plan this episode and discuss what we were going to do, there were still a few releases to come.

And my pick for December was the eighth Doctor Adventures Deadly Strangers, particularly Puccini and the Doctor. What an excellent episode. What like, you know, just a wonderful eighth Doctor episode. And it sort of caught me off guard. I didn't really know what to expect with Matthew Jacobs returning to write Doctor Who to write the eighth Doctor.

But it definitely, definitely worked out. However, as the month went on, another release arrived that kind of has pipped that to best release of the month. And that would be Torchwood, Torchwood Reflect, which is an Ace and Mr. Colchester story. And what a pairing. These two characters are just absolutely fantastic.

And this is a slightly different kind of story. It's kind of, it kind of picks up the sort of short trips, Chronicles format a little bit. It's the two, the two characters telling each other basically ghost stories. Certainly, you know, stories. It's a Christmassy release and it's really, really done well, nice and dark. Joe Lid's script and we do love those, not just because he keeps coming on this podcast with us, but also because he is a rather good writer.

So yeah, that's, it was kind of a last minute change to the lineup of what we're going to discuss today, but I'm sticking with it. What a great release and the sort of accompanying Christmas card from Mr. Colchester was great as well. I do love these sort of little freebie shorts that they occasionally do. And it's worth it just to have Mr. Colchester in a Torchwood Christmas jumper on the cover, if nothing else.

What about you Connor? I have picked the Curse of Time with the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan. So this is the fifth, this is the Fourth Doctor's, it's sort of their take on 40 with the Fifth Doctor and whatnot, but it's done in a slightly different way. It's not a big blowout celebration, it goes back to season 12 and puts this coda on the end of it. A wee bit of a sequel to The Ark in Space and Reviver, a wee bit of a sequel to the whole season really.

It works, it's just a great, it's a great season 12 story. It fits into that continuity perfectly. And I like that it picks up with, you know, the Doctor and Sarah and Harry finding out what happened to Earth after their involvement before and what sort of, what sort of culture took place on the Earth in the wake of all that. I like that story an awful lot. As I said earlier in the year, we got the first Sarah Jane Smith and Fourth Doctor story in the Classic Doctors New Monsters set.

But this feels like the first proper one because it's not got a new series monster, it's back to their era and it's tying in with the story of season 12. Perfect casting on that TARDIS crew. Genuinely. They couldn't have done better in getting a new Sarah and a new Harry. And it's wonderful to finally hear a brand new story with that crew and a brand new serial, a brand new four-parter with that crew.

For any Fourth Doctor fans, you can't skip the curse of time. It's what I've been looking for from Big Finish and the Fourth Doctor for years. And I'm really looking forward to hearing more stories with the Doctor and Sarah and with Harry as well.

I mean, this has definitely been a long time coming and just, you know, the way that they record Fourth Doctor adventures so, so far in advance. It really is great to get this and to know that it's a fairly recent recording as well, you know, it's great to know that Tom Baker is still recording and is still really just the Fourth Doctor in such a brilliant way.

So yeah, what a great little release. And I also like the fact that it sort of hints that maybe they don't go straight back to Earth for Tera Red the Zygons as well. There's definitely room left open for further adventures with this TARDIS team without Harry rejoining the TARDIS yet again, because he's already done it twice at Big Finish in the last few years. So yeah, really, really good, really good story. Good.

Well, there's the Scratchman gap for Harry because I think the novel establishes that it's after the Android invasion. I see. I've never read it, to my shame. So the Doctor lists off some of their recent enemies that they've faced and one of them is the Android. So Scratchman is actually set after the Android invasion where Harry has rejoined the Doctor and Sarah. There is a gap that they can exploit there if they choose to. What we're saying is more of this TARDIS crew, please Big Finish.

Definitely. We don't care where it fits in, just more Fourth Doctor, Sarah and Harry because they are beyond iconic. It was a great release to finish the year on as well. I think is the other point to make. It was a really, really nice farewell to 2024. And it's a good one for us to end on as well. Are you able to pick out one standout release for the year? Can you think of anything that? Definitely Goth Opera in a heartbeat. Fair enough. No hesitation.

I love, whenever I was getting into Big Finish was around sort of 2015 or so. Oh my God, it's 10 years. And the novel adaptations were a big thing around that time. It was a big part of my early listening was the likes of Damaged Goods, All Consuming Fire, Cold Fusion. So getting a new novel adaptation and it being a book that I have, it was the only time I've gone into one of these audios and I've already read the book it's based on.

It's a brilliant story. I love Goth Opera. I know it had been requested for an awfully long time and I'm glad that it got done. I'm really glad that it was finally made and it was made so well. So I'm a huge fan of that release. I definitely in a heartbeat pick that as my release of the year. I just wish they'd have done, is it Blood Harvest? It's sort of system. Yeah. They'd have done both. I wish that it kind of released it as a two story set.

That doesn't take away from how very good Goth Opera is. The cast on Blood Harvest would be stacked because there's tons of the villagers, there's tons of vampires. There's the Doctor, Ace, Benny and Romana. I don't think you could adapt Blood Harvest and in any way shape or form turn a profit on it. Just deploy Kulshur. It'll be fine.

I'm not finding it as easy to you to pick a highlight of the year, but my current right here right now instinct is telling me that I enjoyed the dream team the most. And I really did enjoy Murphote Murders. So I listened to it on a plane. I was on the way to Berlin for a weekend and listened to it on the plane and just really like the flight just didn't happen at all. Like we took off, we landed, I blinked and that was pretty much it just because I enjoyed that story so much.

So it's yeah gut instinct at this point is telling me my highlight of the year was Murphote Murders but I reserve the right to kind of remember something else and change that to any point. But we've had some great stuff this year. You know we've not talked about a bad release here whatsoever. And I do hope that Big Finish continue to explore different ways of releasing stories because like I said I've really enjoyed having monthly stuff again.

They kind of did it in 23 with the new Torchwood series they kind of released the three sets over three months. And I think that the way this has been done, particularly Sontarans versus Rutans you know when you compare it to, let's say Peladon I suppose it's a reasonable comparison anniversary celebration for stories. Peladon being dropped as one box set and this being dropped across four months. I definitely enjoyed this because I had something to look forward to.

I kind of wish that's how they'd have done Peladon now. So definitely more of that please more monthly stuff to look forward to. And we have because we've got two runs of Dark Gallifrey coming this year, if nothing else. That was the year that was? That was 2024 and here's to 2025 where there's an awful lot to look forward to. There's an awful lot to look forward to.

That's going to be the highlight of the year I think. But we've also got Joe Martin arriving properly and that should be in the next few weeks. We've got another Classic Doctors new Monsters and we love those. So even just in January there's there's quite a lot to anticipate. So roll on what promises to be a pretty good 2025. Absolutely. And on that note we'll leave it there. So thank you very much for joining me and dashing through 2024 like that. Picking out some really really good releases.

Yes thank you very very much. Always a pleasure to be on and look back at what we've been listening to this year. Yep. We've just got one bit of 2024 wrapping up to do now which is talking about Joy to the World, the Christmas Special and I think we're going to talk about some other Christmas TV as well. So that's going to pop up in an episode very very soon. But for now we'll leave you and say goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. It's like who can get the last clap isn't it.