Ken Bentley

Reviews

In Casualties of War, Wetworld author Mark Michalowski resurrects the Forge, a quasi-governmental organisation formed to study and make use of the alien technology that washes up on Earth – think “evil Torchwood”, only with more competence and less sex.

The story is beautifully acted, with the regulars on top form, and Paul Reynolds and Linda Marlowe giving earthy and believable performances as Joey and May, while Beth Chalmers is suitably cold and menacing as the operative from the Forge, Miss Merchant.

Casualties of War is an above-average story, well-crafted and well-acted, and very deserving of repeated listening.

The final episode of Forty-Five is far and away the best, offering up that rarest of creatures in the Doctor Who universe – a fresh and interesting villain. Steven Hall’s The Word Lord is set in a secret Antarctic base in the mid-twenty-first century, where delegates from nations involved in the “second Cold War” are negotiating peace... right up until one of them is murdered.

Actress Linda Marlowe does an incredible job of making the no-nonsense Commander Spencer instantly likeable, to the point that her role in the climax of the story is surprisingly affecting, both for the Doctor and the listener. Paul Reynolds is excellent as the eerily nonchalant villain of the piece, a being who has the same sort of relationship to language that Time Lords have to time. The regulars continue to be on fine form, with Hex in particular getting some guffaw-worthy one-liners.

All in all, The Word Lord is fresh, enjoyable, and thought-provoking – a real gem of an episode. One can only hope that Steven Hall will be invited back to write a longer story for his evil creation in the future.

As a whole, Forty-Five is well worth a listen, with the sort of high-quality acting and production that fans have come to expect from Big Finish.

Rachel Steffan
Unreality SF

False Gods is, quite astonishingly, Morris’ first script in a writing career spanning two decades, and the commission must have been doubly daunting for him given that the script in question was for the notoriously tricky audio medium. Fortunately though, Morris’ tale of troubled Time Lords and Osirian history ebbs and flows every bit as beautifully as his books do.

The second disc of Forty-Five kicks off with an absolute cracker – Casualties of War by Mark Michalowski. Michalowski is a writer that I have greatly admitted ever since he first burst onto the scene almost seven years ago with his riveting seventh Doctor and Ace novel, Relative Dementias. Here, he once again manages to capture that same lightening in the bottle, especially so far as Ace goes, whilst still pushing the characters forward. Aided and abetted by one of Sophie Aldred’s most polished performances for Big Finish, here Michalowski shows us a side of Ace that we seldom get to see, and what’s more he does so in the most enthralling of ways.

And Hex is not neglected, either; indeed, Casualties of War is the first story since No Mans’ Land to really toy with the secrets of Hex’s cloudy past and whet our appetites for the payoff that will doubtless follow in due course.

However, as extraordinary an offering as Casualties of War is, it is surpassed by one of the most imaginative and inspired episodes that I have heard in a long time – The Word Lord, by Raw Shark Texts author Steven Hall. In this tale, the Doctor and his companions come up against a bounty-hunting creature from another dimension.

Not only is the concept captivating, but it is also executed fabulously by all concerned. The performances – especially those of Paul Reynolds, who plays the eponymous Word Lord, and Sylvester McCoy, who doesn’t – are utterly dazzling.

All in all then, Forty-Five is yet another highly recommend release in what is proving to be a very exciting 2008 for Big Finish Productions. With stories set in the past, the present, and the future, in just four episodes this compilation manages to sum up so much of what of the series is about, and told as it is by four new distinctive voices to the range, the next forty-five years look every bit as bright.

E.G. Wolverson
Doctor Who Reviews