I must concur. It's a fantastic story, and done very much in the vein of Season 22 (including the double-length episodes instead of the standard 25 minutes). Was very glad they got Dan Starkey to do some of the Sontaran voices in that one; it helps tie things to the new series (and he's just so good at it). The plot goes pretty screwy in the middle, but the beginning and end of the story are superb.
I got a tickle when River Song used her Sonic Trowel The Diary of River Song. Moffat actually communicates and coordinates with the Big Finish team?
Destiny was not "originally" made by Big Finish alone. A different company "Audio Go" who had a license for the new era, went bankrupt , Just after episode 10 came out. It's probably more complicated than that, but there was a small period where some thought that 11 was not going to be released. I listened to The Prisoner by Big Finish last night. Three adaptations, and one original story. Not bad.
Finished Only the Monstrous today. Pretty good and i like the War Doctor's theme tune. It's a pity he wasn't given a name when he was on screen because BF are left dancing around the fact he doesn't have a name.
Bought the CD recordings of The Curse of Peladon (third Doctor) for cheap and listened to it while driving.
Finished listening to the trio of stage plays today. The first, The Ultimate Adventure is the weakest even though it has Colin Baker in it. I wasn't keen on the songs and it had a pantomime feel to it. The second Seven Keys to Doomsday was pretty good although it steals the Kirk method of defeating a computer I am a liar, I am lying, word for word. The cast was good though Trevor Martin was an excellent Doctor and I think it was the inspiration for the Key to Time. The last one is my favourite The Curse of the Daleks, no Doctor in it but a good cast it was nice to hear Michael Praed as Ladiver. I am still a big fan of Robin of Sherwood. It had a real 50's/60's flavour and was reminiscent of the excellent Journey into Space.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Ultimate_Adventure Oh! It's a Companions Chronicles! http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/beyond-the-ultimate-adventure-506 Yes it's a sequel, yes Colin is in there, yes Terrance wrote it.
I listened to All-Consuming Fire, Guy Adams' adaptation of Andy Lane's Sherlock Holmes crossover New Adventures novel, with Nick Briggs as Holmes. I don't remember the book that well -- I read it when it came out, and not since -- and several of the scenes that I do remember (the third and seventh Doctors in the Diogenes Club, the meeting with Mycroft) weren't present. I thought the audio play worked though; its first half is, basically, a Sherlock Holmes story guest-starring the Doctor, and the second half reverses that. I wasn't really that taken with Briggs' Holmes. I'd only heard his Holmes performance once before -- a Christmas freebie in which Holmes investigates Santa Claus -- which didn't leave much of an impression. I found him to be overly mannered, like Matt Frewer on quaaludes. All in all, I enjoyed it. As a mystery it's not much, but it's generally fun. And Watson, you sly dog, you!
I've been focusing on BF's Blake's 7 audios lately, and I'm caught up with both the Liberator Chronicles and the Classic Audio Adventures. The last Doctor Who audio was probably The Kingmaker a few weeks ago, which was a blast. If you can say, "to me, canon is X" then you're not talking about canon, you're just talking about what you like.
I've just listened to the first two of the three stories of that set and I like it, so far. Its not anything grand, but I enjoy John Hurt's performance so much that I can forgive it for being basically sub-par stories. And it is a treat to listen to Hurt's Warrior on audio. That said, I really, really, really don't like the Warrior's DW tune. Its way too overproduced and, ultimately, not very enjoyable.
It's very simple. Anything on TV is Canon, even if it's rubbish and/or contradictory. Anything else is non-Canon, even if it's brilliant.
That doesn't work with the good ol' Doctor. Its the rare show that actually has never declared a strict canon, beyond the specific exclusion of the animated Scream of Shalka as part of the main narrative. If anything, audio is the most specific instance of canon beyond the show, as the BBC basically allows Big Finish to use all relevant DW elements to create stories based on them, using the same actors and actresses in many cases, even adapting old, unused TV scripts.
But.. Anything non-TV can be contradicted by later TV. As is, often, stuff on TV, admittedly. Oh, and Shalka is implied to be an alternative reality in the last 8th Doctor novel ("He has at least three next incarnations...")
Except the PTB in BBC and BF have worked in tandem ever since the show re-started in 2005. In fact, you don't see a lot of overlapping storylines in both for a very specific reason, and that is because they have an understanding and are working in tandem. Its that simple.
Big Finish until very recently wasn't allowed the new era. Cardiff doesn't mine the old series as much as they should, because it's slightly cheaper to use the stuff outright owned by the BEEB, than to continually negotiate with estates, trusts and old grumps with axes to grind, positive that they are not recognized of the geniuses they know they are, or maybe are.
That's the canon rule for Star Trek. As Emperor-Tiberius points out, it's not a universal rule, and it doesn't apply to Doctor Who. Not because everything is canon, but because there is no canon. There's no canon keeper. There's no one who's going to say that the Eighth Doctor never had a companion named Fitz Kreiner, that the Sixth never travelled with Evelyn Smythe, that Faction Paradox, Bernice Summerfield, Izzy, and Iris WIldthyme were never part of the Doctor's adventures.
1963: Fanfare for the Common Men - I really enjoyed it. Before I listened to that I went through both Klein trilogys which were excellent. Fanfare for the Common Men made for a much more fun story to go on to.