Doctor Who overview: Fourth Doctor Adventures: season seven

This year’s season of the Fourth Doctor Adventures has given us a great mix of monsters old and new, as well as stories that were both traditional and radical. But how strong was season seven as a whole?

When season seven of Doctor Who: the Fourth Doctor Adventures was announced, I must admit, it did grab my attention. Particularly the new format it was to be released in.

You see, with previous seasons, the Fourth Doctor Adventures had been released individually, month by month, on CD and download.

This year, however, the format was changed to releasing two box sets of four stories each, with a gap of several months in between. The stories were also released individually on download too, so listeners could still pick and choose, if they wanted.

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What made this more appealing than the monthly releases? Honestly, the fact that the box set format made getting the complete season a lot cheaper. Getting a subscription of season seven comes to about half the price of subscribing to previous seasons. So there was greater incentive there to get the stories.

Not that the stories really “adapt” to the new format, as such. In fact, it’s quite possible that Big Finish had initially planned to release them on a monthly basis, before deciding to release them primarily as box sets after production had completed.

After all, in each of the two volumes for the season, there’s no particular “arc”, as you might usually expect from their standard box set format.

But what about the stories themselves? Is season seven a particularly strong one?

A strong season

The answer is definitely yes. Honestly, this season of the Fourth Doctor Adventures is quite possibly one of the strongest in the range yet. Certainly, it’s the strongest I’ve heard since the first season, which really was a decent start to the series.

It’s not just the fact that all the stories across these two box sets are very strong. It’s also the fact that we get a lot of development for our characters. Particularly with Leela.

The best example of this is The Crowmarsh Experiment, which features one of Louise Jameson’s very best performances in the role. Leela’s world is turned upside down in that story, and you really feel like she’s been through quite the ordeal by the end.

However, we also get great character exploration for her in other stories, too. For example, in Kill the Doctor, when she learns about the widespread problem of homelessness, she also learns the hard lesson that the Doctor can’t always save everyone. It’s difficult for her to accept at first, but it’s a hard lesson she eventually comes to accept.

Great variety

What was also so enjoyable was how diverse the stories were. They ranged from the clever and confusing with Dan Starkey’s The Bad Penny, to the horrific and epic scale of The Demon Rises.

We’ve had a couple of sequels to Tom Baker classics like The Robots of Death and Pyramids of Mars. But in between the sequels for those two serials, we’ve also had a great deal of original and fresh storytelling, too.

And all of the stories are very strong. It’s very difficult for me to pick a favorite out of all of them. The Bad Penny appeals to my love of timey-wimeyness to a massive degree. While The Mind Runners/The Demon Rises feels like a perfect mix of both the epic sci-fi of the Graham Williams era with the dark tone of Philip Hinchcliffe’s.

However, I think The Crowmarsh Experiment stands out as the strongest of the season. It’s emotional and sometimes challenging to listen to.

Louise Jameson is particularly amazing in the story, and gives one of her greatest performances as Leela. (And considering this writer has listened to the spin-off series Gallifrey, that’s saying something.)

Season seven of the Fourth Doctor Adventures just might be my favorite season of the range yet. All the stories are very strong, and there’s a great mix of storytelling in there. It captures the era just right, but it also adds plenty new to it, too. A highly recommended season, overall.

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Have you listened to this year’s season of the Fourth Doctor Adventures? What did you make of it? Did any stories in particular stand out to you? Let us know in the comments below.

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