**Disclaimer -- yes, this is coming out technically before the official release! But Big Finish released these audios for this season in two part stories on Saturdays so the run was really over by May or June, long before the last CD was ever sent out.**
Big Finish 8th Doctor New Adventure, October 2009
This audio tale was not quite as good as part I of the story. Somehow that tends to happen a lot – part one is full of dread and scary moments (Will they make it? Of course but how!!??) then part two is almost a letdown in comparison. Not a bad story but it just didn’t have the power and fear factor of part one.
Yeah, Lucie’s taken over by the queen spider but not quite. Things are going haywire but never quite so haywire that there’s no way out. There are no repercussions from part one where “the Doctor is dead.” Lucie doesn’t believe it but she did at the end of last season. Does she now think he’s indestructible? Being blown up is less permanent than falling off of a cliff? So when the Doctor is fixing it all, why don’t the spiders figure it out and try to stop him? They had to overhear his plans as he’s just walking along, saying them. Some odd moments like that throughout.
The hive mind and the eight-legs as gods concepts definitely were intriguing. If the spiders are gods, how would our society change? Would a definitely belief in a deity for everyone make things better or worse? Is there no way for people to really resist? It’s a case of the fuzzy physics that sometimes come into play in Doctor Who for me. Would a hive mind really burn out with the stellar manipulator’s unlimited power available? And just how is there really unlimited power in the stellar manipulator? There’s an explanation in the story but when there’s a certain level of jargon thrown in, my brain just tunes it out to a certain extent. There’s more story rolling my way so I don’t take the time to figure it all out.
It’s a good ending but nowhere near so dramatic as the previous two seasons. I’ll definitely still subscribe to next season as I like the Lucie—Doctor dynamic. More of a Doctor – Donna thing instead of a fawning Rose or Martha dynamic. Feisty companion who loves the Doctor as a person and not as a guy? Bring it on! Christmas in Blackpool it is!
Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith
writer: Eddie Robson
director: Nicholas Briggs