I LOVE DOCTOR WHO & I LOVE BIG FINISH'S DOCTOR WHO AUDIO ADVENTURES. Like the TV show, I have a decided preference for the spookier stories (Hiya, Philip Hinchcliffe!!!!). Luckily, Big Finish has it's share of spooky audio adventures and here are some of my absolute favourites:
One of my early favourites is THE SPECTRE OF LANYON MOOR starring Colin Baker as Ole Sixie, Maggie Stables as Evelyn and Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. This was only the ninth Doctor Who Monthly Adventure from Big Finish but already Colin Baker was well on his way to erasing his "they done him wrong" TV tenure as the Doctor and proving to be one of the best Doctors ever with his audio adventures. Team him with one of the best companions ever in Maggie Stables' Evelyn AS WELL AS the return of the beloved Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier and place all three in the sinister fog of Cornwall (Pengriffen to be exact) where the moor is possibly haunted by a "demonic host of imps" and you've got a terrific spooky adventure!
LOUP-GAROUX stars Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Mark Strickson as Turlough. We all know what a loup-garoux is so you won't have to guess what this adventure is about: the Doctor meets the Werewolf! I'll tell ya, if Peter Davison's original TV adventures were all as fun and interesting as this, I probably wouldn't have found them so dull. We have reports of a werewolf attacking people in 1589 Cologne, Germany. Then in 1812 Russia, a merchant's daughter is rescued by a kinda wolfy stranger while retreating from Napoleon's army. Finally, in the future Brazil of 2080, the Doctor and Turlough arrive for carnival in Rio . . . .any guesses what they find there???
PROJECT: TWILIGHT stars Colin Baker as Ole Sixie & Maggie Stables as Evelyn. We also have Cassie played by Rosie Cavaliero who will bring a tragic note to this adventure. We have a sinister casino called "The Dusk" down on the docklands of South East London and a killer stalking the night streets and alleyways kinda sorta maybe resembles a vampire.
INVADERS FROM MARS is a really good Halloweeny-type DOCTOR WHO audio adventure simply because it references Orson Welles' night-before-Halloween old radio broadcast of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS in 1938. Paul McGann stars as the Eighth Doctor with India Fisher as the wonderful companion Charley. David Benson plays Orson Welles himself while Jonathan Rigby (author of ENGLISH GOTHIC and AMERICAN GOTHIC) plays John Houseman. Simon Pegg (SHAUN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ) appears in the cast as well! The premise of the adventure is "what if" the Martian invasion of Earth wasn't actually just a radio programme by a naughty Orson Welles but may have actually happened. The story itself takes place on Halloween 1938 (the day after the broadcast) so what could be more Halloweeny?!?!?! This is another of the superb early run of Paul McGann for Big Finish which are now considered classics.
Generally considered one of, if not THE best, Big Finish DOCTOR WHO audio adventure of them all is THE CHIMES OF MIDNIGHT starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and India Fischer as Charley. Here, still in his early days with Big Finish, McGann is proving himself probably the second best Doctor of all in the audio adventures with India Fisher proving herself another of the best companions ever as Charley. 1996 movie be damned; Paul McGann is a superb Doctor and proved it in these audio adventures. I'm convinced that the return of DOCTOR WHO to our telly screens in 2005 was quick to establish Paul McGann's Doctor as "canon" was down to his fine showing at Big Finish; which also led to the superb "NIGHT OF THE DOCTOR" mini-episode in 2013 which gave McGann a proper death/regeneration scene. Charley, who was introduced in McGann's very first audio adventure for Big Finish "STORM WARNING" has also become one of my fave companions. CHIMES rightly deserves it's stellar reputation and it's chilling, ghostly perfection!
SON OF THE DRAGON stars Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Nicola Bryant as Peri and Caroline Morris as Erimem. I Am Dracula. Or at least Prince Vlad III. And what would Halloween be without a Dracula of some sort? It's a shame that this is the story where we say goodbye to Caroline Morris' Erimen because she was also a great companion. SON OF THE DRAGON culminates a run of about five superb DOCTOR WHO historical adventures Big Finish provided for Peter Davison. And James Purefoy's magnificently sinister turn as Dracula also adds to the overall excellence of this adventure.
I just love the back cover blurb/website synopsis for THE HAUNTING OF THOMAS BREWSTER. "Thomas Brewster is haunted by the ghost of his drowned mother. But she is not the only apparition to disturb his dreams. Every few years, he is visited by a mysterious blue box...". And if you REALLY want some Halloweeny spookiness, the synopsis concludes with "Meanwhile, lost in the stews of Victorian London, Nyssa must face a host of spectral creatures gathering in the fog.". How great does that sound?!?!?! HAUNTING stars Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa with John Pickard as Thomas Brewster . . . .whom we will encounter again in the future.
Now we have one of the scariest, creepiest audio adventures in STATIC starring Colin Baker as Ole Sixie. I went into this one in depth in a previous post but rest assured it's a creepy classic!
And then there's the just released Halloweeney-appropriate adventure THE LOVECRAFT INVASION which is so new it's still in the post en route to my eager little claws! So needless to say I haven't heard it yet; all I have to offer now is the cover blurb: "The Doctor, Constance and Flip join forces with 51st-century bounty hunter, Calypso Jonze, to hunt down the Somnifax: a weaponised mind-parasite capable of turning its host's nightmares into physical reality. Chasing it through the time vortex to Providence, Rhode Island in 1937, they arrive too late to stop it from latching onto a local author of weird fiction... Howard Phillips Lovecraft. With time running out before Lovecraft's monstrous pantheon breaks free and destroys the world, the Doctor must enter Lovecraft's mind to fight the psychic invader from within. Can he and Flip overcome the eldritch horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos? And will Constance and Calypso survive babysitting the infamously xenophobic Old Gentleman of Providence himself?"
So this is just a handful of DOCTOR WHO audio adventures that would be wonderful to listen to during the dark nights of October.
I get nothing out of it by why not take a hop over to the Big Finish website where you can find these audio adventures and more: they're available for really great prices and they're soooooo good that every DOCTOR WHO fan probably already knows about them already!
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