Free Audio Drama Download From BIG FINISH: UNIT - The Coup

Big Finish are kindly giving away free downloads of the UNIT story - The Coup, originally given away with Doctor Who Magazine 351. Starring Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

CAST: Nicholas Courtney, Siri O'Neal, Scott Andrews, Matthew Brehner, Sara Carver, Michael Hobbs, Joseph Lidster, Mark Wright

SYNOPSIS: London, the near future; UNIT is finished. The UK division of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce prepares to cede its authority to a new organisation... But who is attempting to sabotage the hand-over?

AUTHOR: Simon Guerrier
DIRECTOR: Ian Farrington
SOUND DESIGN: David Darlington
MUSIC: David Darlington
COVER ART: Adrian Salmon

Download here. Right-click and select 'Save Target As'

http://www.bigfinish.com/UNIT

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 5 - The Poison Sky

I’ve got nothing but praise for the second part of this story, everything just seemed to be right. From the episode title to that ending, everything was as perfect as a Doctor Who episode should be.

After (doing the obvious) smashing the car window, to save Bernard Cribbins, (the best ever guest star in Doctor Who!) The Doctor heads back to the UNIT base and Donna heads to the TARDIS.

But as the Doctor tries to plead with the Sontarans, Mad Martha helps them to ‘transmat’ the TARDIS onto the Sontaran ship. Of course, The Doctor had all this planned, as was the glimpse of Rose on the TARDIS monitor, I think!

This episode was a reference heaven. From a mention of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart being a ‘fine man but he’s stuck in Peru’ to the Rutans and The Doctor’s ‘Are You My Mummy’ quip. It was all there!

Sadly Doctor Who still can’t do soldiers. British soldiers always wear their berets in the correct manner and never ‘retreat’ – they ‘withdraw’! By comparison, the Sontarans were done brilliantly. I enjoyed the interaction of them and that war chant, I think that Helen Raynor has finally shown us what the Sontarans are really about.

I don’t know what kind of home video RTD has got of the head of BBC commissioning, but the effects are once again, simply breathtaking. All those wobbly sets and plastic Dinosaurs are a thing of the past!

Back to the episode, as The Doctor twigs that Mad Martha, isn’t Martha and Donna goes around whacking Sontarans. Luke ‘the boy genius’ finds out that the Sontarans don’t need him and as The Doctor builds an ‘atmospheric converter’, in record time (?), he sets fire to the sky, removing all the poison gas, which as engulfed the earth.

The Doctor wants to become a suicide bomber but its Luke who transmats to the spaceship and replaces The Doctor, to blow up the ship and himself.

A wonderful two-parter, one which I’ll be watching over and over again. The Sontarans where simply superb and credit goes to Christopher Ryan.

9/10

The ending was unexpected to say the least. The Doctor, Donna and Martha being trapped in the TARDIS as it sets off into space. Who is waiting, yep, it’s The Doctor Daughter, but is she? Well, yes, she’s actually the Daughter of 5th Doc Peter Davison. I can see this is going to get confusing!

Next Week: The Doctor’s Daughter is set to become the ‘most perved’ by Doctor Who geeks, young and old!

'The Doctor's Daugther' Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 4 - The Sontaran Stratagem

I generally judge a good Doctor Who episode on how much I can moan about it. In this instance, it was almost a perfect 45 minutes of Doctor Who!

Okay, despite the UNIT boys wearing their berets wrong, I found it thoroughly entertaining! I’m not sure what Ryan Sampson was playing it, with that accent, but he played the kid-genius-you-just-want-to-slap, with perfection!

That’s where the story begins. Basically the kid genius has designed these new carbon-cutting devices, which have a free sat-nav system and clothes vouchers, apparently. Yep, you’ve guessed it – Primark! Anyway, despite being a qualified Doctor for less than a year, UNIT officer Martha Jones rings the Doctor to help out.

It was a rather clever plot to be honest. Gone are the days where the aliens would just turn up from nowhere without any explanation of how they got there. This is a lot better.

We learn that Martha is now engaged to Tom Milligan (the bloke who helped her out in ‘The Last of The Timelords’). I say engaged, I reckon she’s got some blackmail on the go, as he won’t know about the whole ‘lost year’ thing! So after a few well placed awkward moments, our trio head to a mobile base, which has been set up outside the ATMOS Sat-Nav factory.

The factory’s workers don’t seem to be in control of their capabilities, so Martha investigates. The Doctor goes to find Luke, where Ross’s (the young solider) description of the academy (which Luke runs) as a ‘type of Hitler youth camp’ is bang on. I suppose the Catholic Church have their pick of future Pope’s then! Donna buggers of home for a chat and a brew with ‘Gramps’!

Back to Luke’s, where The Doctor stumbles across a teleport and is transported to the Sontaran ship but as he quickly travels back, he is followed by their leader – General Staal. I was mightily impressed with these Sontarans, in fact, I would go as far as saying they are the best ever! The Doctor and Rambo Ross escape and as Staal fails to kill them with the Sat-Nav, they arrive at Donna’s house.

Meanwhile back at the base, Martha is kidnapped by the badly dressed soldiers and cloned, into ‘Mad Martha’ (I presume)! You would of thought that being on the run for a non-existence year, Martha would be more cautious, wouldn’t you? So as our MM totally ignores the Doctor’s warning, she lets events take their place and the sky is filled with poison gas, from the ATMOS machines. And as Bernard Cribbins steals the show again (It’s them aliens Donna!), he is trapped in one of the poisonous cars…

I hope next weeks’ will be just as good. I’ve normally panned Helen Raynor’s episodes, but she’s done a good job here! The effects where superb once again, it was nice to see the old Sontaran spaceships! And did anyone notice the ‘Turn Left’ references? You heard it here first, folks!

9/10

Don’t forget to watch the confidential too, they are very informative! And can I just say – Helen Raynor – any chance I could take you out for a drink?

Next Week – General Staal is caught in his underpants, ‘up to no good’ with Donna’s Mum.

The Poison Sky Trailer