Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: David Tennant, Jane Slavin, Joe Sims, John Banks, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Nicholas Briggs, Barnaby Edwards, Avita Jay, Kevin McNally, Leighton Pugh, Blake Ritson, Nina Toussaint-White.
It is often a surprise that for all the talk of family in Doctor Who, the thought of blood relations meeting the Doctor in different incarnations has never been truly explored.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Sean Rigby, Anton Lesser, Simon Harrison, Caroline O’ Neil, Sara Vickers, Richard Riddell, James Bradshaw, Abigail Thaw, Matthew Cottle, Michael Parkhouse, Benjamin Wainwright, Oliver Chris, Sargon Yelda, Sasha Willoughby, Sophie Winkleman, Alison Newman, Mary Stockley, Katie Faye, Robert Hands, Terenia Edwards, Alice Orr-Ewing, Blake Ritson.
To be defiant is a virtue, standing up to the lazy attitudes and closed mindedness of others is to show integrity, and yet there will always be those who seek to undermine such morality as insolent, insubordinate, they do not seek out the person who suggests with reason that something can be done a different way, preferring the hand over fist approach and the quick solution, drawn in fire and never logic.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Barnaby Kay, Beth Chalmers, Charlie Norfolk, Derek Hutchinson, Dan Starkey, Camilla Power, John Dorney, Rachael Stirling, Alex Wyndham, Blake Ritson, Nicholas Briggs, Alex MacQueen, Sorcha Cusack, Susannah Harker, David Sibley.
Arguably one of the most involved, most deliberately, and it has to be said wonderfully elaborately written endeavours undertaken by Big Finish finally comes to an end as the saga of Dark Eyes sees the Eighth incarnation battle not only the Eminence, The Master and the Daleks but also Time itself. It is a battle that sees the foreshadowing of what is to come, of the ache that will grip the Doctor as the Time War sets out to destroy all and in which the very soul of the Time Lord is challenged.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Rhys Ifans, Sean Harris, Toby Jones, Sam Reid, David Dencik, Blake Ritson, Ned Dennehy, Charity Wakefield, Michael Ryan, Kim Bodnia, Ana Ularu.
There are those that say that the great American epic is dead. That the days of the great American cinematic nature/love/natural landscape story is as over, torn apart by the digitisation and CGI effects on offer to the 21st Century audiences. It is hard to disagree with that assertion, no matter how much grief and pain it may cause when viewed from the darkness of a cinema screening of Serena.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 71/2/10
Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Gareth Thomas, Jane Goddard, John Voce, Jessica Martin, Blake Ritson.
The last of any species is one that surely deserves to be preserved for as long as possible, especially when they are the cause of the extinction of their entire race.
The Doctor and Leela arrive on the planet Colophos, a dead, seemingly barren world which is just dust and sand. The chance to relax is offered but there is something deadly lurking in the background and the Doctor and Leela, along with the crew of the survey ship The Oligarch have to fight for their lives against an enemy who revels in being unseen.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Phil Mulryne, Beth Chalmers, Tim Bentinck, Alan Cox, George Rainsford, Kieran Bew, Blake Ritson, Sophie Aldred, Colin Baker.
The murky world of forgery and counterfeit are the next in line to be investigated by John Steed and it gets all a little too close for comfort for him as the net closes in the third of the rejuvenated lost stories of The original Avengers scripts, the Square root of Evil.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Colin Baker, Adrian Lukis, Tim Bentinck, Alan Cox, Blake Ritson, George Rainsford, Camilla Power, Sophie Aldred, Philip Mulryne, Kieran Bew, Richard Franklin.
With the murder of his fiancé Peggy still haunting him, Doctor David Keel finds himself further embroiled in the plans of the mysterious John Steed and his attempt to bring down the latest in organised crime in London in the second story re-made by Big Finish’s The Avengers: The Lost Episodes.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Camilla Power, Colin Baker, Tim Bentnick, Adrian Lukis, Phil Mulryne, Blake Ritson, Anjella Mackintosh, Kieran Bew, John Banks, Richard Franklin.
Arguably The Avengers was one of I.T.V.’s flagship programmes that for its time possibly rivalled B.B.C.’s Doctor Who for its intrigue and audience adulation. Like the B.B.C. though, the television programme‘s early broadcasts were not as keenly looked after as they should have been.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating ****
Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Philip Olivier, Maggie O’Neill, Amy Pemberton, John Standing, Blake Ritson, Gus Brown, Tim Treloar, Elizabeth Bennett.
The final part of the latest Sylvester McCoy Doctor trilogy sees the real villain of the piece make his deadliest and fatal move in Gods and Monsters.
The latest three-part series by Big Finish sees Mike Maddox finish an extraordinary story line on a stunning high and with the supposed loss of a companion, something that the television version and the audio series don’t do that often but both of whom now have taken the bold step to give the faithful listeners and viewers something to ponder over.