Banks was also understudy for the Doctor, playing him twice when Pertwee was ill. Susan after DIOE is coming out this year, with Lucy Briers taking on her mother's role as Jenny.
It's worth remembering when the Companion Chronicles came out it was essentially the first time Big Finish was doing stories for Doctor's 1-4. I'm not surprised Big Finish took the opportunity to tell stories including these neglected Doctor's rather than just stories about what the Companion's had done with their lives. Of course the balance was the companion actors and their characters got more focus than they usually did in the show. They do spend more time on the characters post Doctor lives later though, particularly Zoe and Steven.
That's a good point. Looked at that way, it makes sense. My problem is that I'm listening to these grouped by series, so I'm hearing them way out of chronological order. I'm not sure I'll get to those, since Hoopla only has seasons 2 & 3. (So I'm only getting the first 2/3 of what's apparently a trilogy of Leela stories.)
Trying to avoid spoilers too much, Zoe gets interrogated about the gap in her memory, and (following up a suggestion by Peter Purves), Steven gets overthrown and imprisoned. At cons in the 90s, Purves said he'd be interested in doing a story where the Doctor finds out that the local tyrant is his old friend Steven. Big Finish picked up a variant of the idea.
The Doll of Death was fairly interesting. It's fun to get a UNIT-era story from Jo's point of view, and the symmetrical time-reversal plot structure was a clever idea, though inconsistent in its execution. (Like the bit where the time-reversed Doctor tried leaving money for the food he took. From the perspective of the store owner, it would look like he took money and left food.) Overall the concept didn't entirely work, but it was worth it for the characters. Katy Manning did a pretty good Third Doctor, though her attempt at the Brigadier just sounded like a generic booming authority figure rather than having anything particularly Nicholas Courtney-ish about it. The Empathy Games: It's always nice to hear Louise Jameson's voice, and we had the bonus of David Warner's voice, but I didn't think the story worked all that well. It was just kind of weird, a pretty convoluted premise. And the attempt to explain the switch back to the original console room by having a random fire break out in the wood-panelled one was kind of gratuitous, since it had no connection to the rest of the story and it was never explained what caused it. Really, the most interesting thing for me in The Empathy Games was that the musical motif that writer/director/composer Nigel Fairs used two or three times to represent the Doctor was a slower arrangement of a melody Dudley Simpson used on a recurring basis in the Tom Baker era (and maybe in Pertwee too, I forget).
I was a bit wary of Home Truths, because my previous experience with Jean Marsh as Sara Kingdom made me doubt that she'd be any good at capturing the voices of the Doctor, Steven, or even her younger self as Sara. And indeed I was right about that, and the story took me a while to get into. But the second half turned out to be quite impressive. The premise about the nature of the house they were trapped in was like something out of a Ray Bradbury story, and the writing to describe it was suitably lyrical. The insights into Sara's character were pretty compelling, and the twist that explained how she was still alive so long after "Masterplan" was rather inspired, though I'm not entirely clear on how and why it happened. The frame story also took pretty good advantage of the audio format to obscure the true nature of what we were listening to -- kind of like that Main Range one about the Sixth Doctor at the sound library, which made us think a character was physically there only to reveal that it was really just one person's hallucination. You couldn't possibly do a twist like that in a visual medium -- well, you could use selective camera angles, but that itself would give away that something was being concealed -- and it'd be hard to do even in prose.
I recently listened to the John Hurt War Doctor audios, in order, the first two sets for the second time since before the great actor died in 2017. I'll be very brief, but basically: John Hurt is amazing in them. Not one of them in noteworthy or lives up to the Time War concept, at all. Fans have frequently praised Neverwhen, and it is indeed the best of the stories wherein (and I did like the couple of Leela stories, also) but... its basically a story that would have been pretty fantastic as an Eighth Doctor story, not a War Doctor one. So yeah, pretty underwhelmed. I have no hopes whatsoever for the ill-advised The War Doctor Begins, since they won't include John Hurt's incredible acting abilities. It might be the first Doctor Who range I'll actively avoid.
I didn't care for The Darkening Eye at all. A morbid and unpleasant story, built around the absurd notion of Death as some kind of physical realm or parallel dimension and nonsensical handwaving about aliens existing on the brink between life and death and somehow needing to test obviously living people to make sure they aren't dead -- what? Plus the voice used for the Dar Traders was deeply irritating. It's odd that they'd do a Companion Chronicles installment with a character who was already routinely appearing with her Doctor in the Main Range, and Sarah Sutton was a poor choice for CC, because she wasn't good at all at capturing the personalities or deliveries of the Doctor, Tegan, and Adric, barely even trying to do an accent for Tegan. The Transit of Venus was much better, a mostly historical two-hander with Ian and the Doctor on Captain Cook's expedition to Australia. It was kind of awkwardly inserted between "The Sensorites" and "The Reign of Terror," necessitating a reset button at the end to fit in the middle of that cliffhanger, but putting it at that point did allow for a nice bit of tension between Ian and the Doctor. If you're going to do a story where they're stuck together, it makes sense to do it at a point of maximum tension between them, even if it requires some narrative sleight of hand to justify it. The mechanism by which Ian was made suspicious of the scientist Joseph Banks was kind of convoluted too, but again, it worked on a character level and an emotional level. Apparently this was the first time William Russell played Ian for BF, so it was the debut of his pretty good Hartnell impression, and the forerunner of the Early Adventures I've already listened to. I'm starting to wish I'd listened to CC earlier in the sequence.
Surprising and actually intriguing you're warming towards the Companion Chronicles. Is The Prisoner of Peladon in the free ones you're enjoying?
No, that's season 4. I've only got a few left. I did just listen to another "Prisoner" one, The Prisoner's Dilemma, and I wonder if I should've skipped it, since it's a tie-in to the Main Range "Key-2-Time" miniseries that I don't have access to. Aside from the surprise twist of the narrator of the first half turning out to be the guest character instead of Ace, I didn't find it all that appealing. I did like the final twist, though, a clever and upbeat resolution to what looked like it was going to be a tragedy, and one that was marvelously, subtly set up throughout the piece. Also, I wonder... Spoiler This story was evidently based on the Virgin continuity with Seven, Ace, and Benny, but it ends with Ace getting her memory wiped and it's left ambiguous whether she'll get all of it back. So I wonder if it was meant as a way of reconciling the Virgin novel version of Ace with the usual Big Finish version, by wiping her memories of her novel adventures.
The way I see it: Spoiler Given the whole mess her timeline has been as, especially since BF decided to reboot the character post-Hex and return her to her juvenile, season 25 self, I think this story is useful in signifying that very character restart, to make her forget of Benny (and potentially all her adventures at that time, too). Specifically, for Ace, here's my preferred timeline: TV the Lost Stories Virgin (solo Ace) BF (alone, w/Hex, w/Mel) Virgin (w/Benny) as well as the two BF adventures with her (and the Novel adaptations can be seen in the same light as the Target novelizations are in regards to the televised material) Virgin's Nightshade (the Virgin book at the end of which Ace leaves the Doctor for a boy) BF's Alien Werewolf in London (w/Mags) BBC's Death Comes to Time (w/Antimony and, crucially, an TV Movie-looking Seventh Doctor) BF's The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield (two box-sets) BF's The Prisoner's Dilemma (she refers to Benny as "that dark-haired woman" or something like that, implying she forgot about her at the end) cameo at BF's UNIT: Dominion (fan-theory: Ace tries at the beginning of the story to prevent the Seventh Doctor from "dying" in Death Comes to Time but she doesn't manage to relay him that message) Time War takes her away from Gallifrey BF's Dark Universe. And that's that.
Resistance was a good one. Anneke Wills did a very good job capturing the rhythms and attitudes of the Doctor, Ben, and Jamie. I could always tell immediately when she started doing the Doctor's voice, just from the manner and cadence, despite the timbre of her voice sounding nothing like Troughton. That's good acting. And of course Ben and Jamie were easy to identify from their accents. A nice solid story too, a pure historical overlapping Polly's infancy, which I'm surprised to realize was during WWII. I guess her tenure dates from 1966-7, so that would make her about 23-24 at the time, which I guess adds up. Anyway, it was a nice examination of her character, giving her a story that hit close to home and focusing on her sense of not contributing anything useful, a bit of meta commentary on her just being a damsel in distress. But the bit at the end where the Doctor expresses his appreciation for all she's done for him (particularly just after his regeneration) was really lovely.
The Magician's Oath: meh. Didn't do much for me. I didn't care for the story, Richard Franklin's narration was just okay (he didn't do the Brig well at all, though his Doctor and Jo were at least recognizable), and I felt the story was unflattering to Jo, making her too weak and passive. Also weird that it's the second story out of three to end with a companion losing part of her memory. I'm not sure what the point of it is here, though, or if there was meant to be a larger point. But then we get to the one I've been waiting for, The Mahogany Murderers. This was excellent. Not only an effective story with a nicely bizarre and suitably Victorian mystery and good character work for Jago & Litefoot, but the first CC that really sticks consistently with the conceit that this is a story being told to a listener in the present, rather than blurring the line between that and a pseudo-dramatized approach. Well, allowing for the conceit of Jago & Litefoot narrating to each other complete with verbatim dialogue, but that's a trope used all the time in Sherlock Holmes and other period fiction, so it feels appropriate. And I loved the way the script played with the narration conceit, with the two of them interrupting each other and worrying about scene order, and Jago shooting down Litefoot's abortive attempt at a character voice (which felt like a metatextual wink at CC's own conventions). I'm definitely interested in hearing the J&L spinoff series now, what they have of it on Hoopla.
The Darkening Eye isn't great, I think Sarah Sutton said she doesn't really enjoy doing solo narration. You get the feeling that she does the audios to catch up with friends. I know she's done a short trip since then but I don't think she or Janet Fielding have done much, if any, other solo narration at all either for Big Finish or the BBC ranges. J&L is definitely worth the time, probably the most consistently strong series Big Finish have ever produced and they do a good job of mixing things up and keeping it fresh while never losing the core of the series.
And my jaunt through The Companion Chronicles reaches its end (at least for now) with The Stealers from Saiph, which I had mixed feelings about. I found the story uninteresting; I couldn't bring myself to care about the Gatsbyesque idle rich characters, the verbal descriptions of slime creatures were nauseating, and the story didn't earn my willingness to suspend disbelief about the inept astronomy (like an orbiting satellite somehow being mistaken for a "new star" despite parallax from different locations, and somehow going undocumented by astronomers except for one chartmaker). I also had a problem with how the character of Tommy, who refused to halt his romantic advances toward Romana no matter how clear she made her lack of interest, was played as sweet and endearing and ultimately heroic, which doesn't play well in the #MeToo era. On the plus side, Mary Tamm is very good with character voices and accents -- with the exception that her Tom Baker impression was awful. I guess having the skill to do different characters doesn't necessarily translate to the skill to mimic specific individuals. I guess my two main options now are Short Trips and Jago & Litefoot.
It really is worth listening just for Mary Tamm. Its so sad we never enjoyed a long-ish run with the Fourth Doctor and Romana I, but also glad we did what we did. J&L will be a ride. Even at its weakest, its still really fun.
No, wait, I discovered there's one other thing Hoopla has available, the 11-part Destiny of the Doctor miniseries with one story for each of the first 11 Doctors, done in the style of The Companion Chronicles. I just borrowed all of those. Apparently it's the first BF production to have new-series cast members, including Catherine Tate and Jenna Coleman for Ten and Eleven, although the Ninth Doctor episode is read by Nicholas Briggs.
Polly is definitely from 1966, stated in Faceless Ones, though the weekdays in War Machines don't fit with that year. So she and Ben would be born during WW2.
Sure, the numbers add up, but it's still surprising to realize. Now on to Destiny of the Doctor. Turns out it's not quite like The Companion Chronicles; it has the same approach with a companion actor narrating and a second actor playing a guest character, but the narration is omniscient third person rather than in the companion's own voice. So they're more like conventional audiobooks than just about anything else I've heard from BF. The unifying gimmick is that each story has a scene where the current Doctor gets a message from the Eleventh in one manner or another, tipping them off to something they need to know, and foreshadowing events of later stories. Which seems kind of a clumsy unifying thread so far, but maybe there's a method to the madness. Hunters of Earth was interesting. It's a nice look at the Doctor and Susan's tenure on 1963 Earth in the months before "An Unearthly Child," which is a period I don't think I've seen explored before (beyond what "Remembrance of the Daleks" retconned about the Doctor's activities then, which this story doesn't reference). It establishes that their anomalous presence did not go unnoticed by the authorities, and that questions were raised about Susan's bona fides as a Coal Hill student. The plot per se is just okay, but I do appreciate the insight into the period. Shadow of Death is pretty good. Inevitably, it's a "base under siege" story with Two, Jamie, and Zoe, but with a fairly interesting premise, an unusual danger arising from the different relative time flows on a planet orbiting a pulsar. The ending is a bit of an anticlimax, but it's a nice science fiction story. And either Frazer Hines improved his Second Doctor impression or I've gotten more used to it. There were a few moments where I had to remind myself it wasn't Patrick Troughton, though at other times it was quite clear.