Doctor Who: The Phoenicians
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2019)
It’s easy to envisage this historical adventure as part of Doctor Who’s first season. Platt spends time developing Ian and Barbara’s relationship, and pays some attention to women’s search for independence. David Bradley is on form, his interpretation idiosyncratic yet not unfaithful.
Doctor Who: The Silver Turk
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2011)
Mary Shelley encounters badly damaged Cybermen; thus, Frankenstein. The idea would later find its way to television in The Haunting of Villa Diodati (2020), but Mary also echoes Rose Tyler’s empathy from Dalek (2005), the resonances circling back through TV and literature.
Doctor Who: Loups-Garoux
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2001)
Werewolves are given some welly for a change, Platt anticipating Glen Duncan by a decade in substituting patrician cold-bloodedness for mere savagery. The Fifth Doctor and Turlough are treated as characters, not cut-outs. The only flaw is the deus ex machina ending.
Doctor Who: Planet of the Rani
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2015)
Colin Baker remains a powerful presence but the plot and character motivations are all over the place. Platt has latched on to the conceit that the Sixth Doctor can defeat all the evils of the universe solely through dint of supercilious speech-making.
Doctor Who: An Earthly Child
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2009)
Platt does a good job envisaging Susan’s future life and a reunion with her grandfather (in his eighth incarnation)! Carole Ann Ford and Paul McGann work well together but the Doctor—not uncommonly in Eighth Doctor stories—contributes little to the resolution.
Doctor Who: The Thief Who Stole Time
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2017)
A wildly imaginative audio drama that successfully sacrifices exposition for immersion (assuming it is meant to stand alone). While Tom Baker cruises and Lalla Ward adds depth to Romana, Sartia (Joannah Tincey) emerges as one of the audio series’ more endearing villains.