Customer Reviews

Land of the Dead (Dr Who Big Finish)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the depths of Alaska the Doctor and Nyssa enter the unique home of millionaire Shaun Brett, a place where no expense has been spared to bring the majesty of the landscape indoors. Both the house and its inhabitants are hiding secrets from the past, secrets that are about to come to life...

Despite the intervening years, Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton reprise their role flawlessly. You really do believe they've just left Tegan back on Earth at the end of "Time Flight".

This is one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who audios. It's got an exotic locale, a bit of a mystery, a fair amount of Inuit mythology and monsters that would be at home in an episode of Primeval. It also has a lot of humour courtesy world-weary interior designer Monica Lewis (played by Lucy Campbell) who provides virtually non-stop commentary as she runs for her life.

4.5 stars

Land of the Dead is the first of the Nyssa adventures in the Big Finish audio release series.

Three of the First four releases featured Peter Davidson's 5th doctor and it shows as Davidson is clearly comfortable in the role that has followed him for since he first took it in 1981.

Sarah Sutton however had been absent for nearly 20 years from the role that she first took in her youth. The fact that her character always seemed to be older than her years clearly helps her continue in the role as if she had not left it, however this episode unlike quite a few that would follow it doesn't give her character the development that the series would eventually take advantage of.

A lot of the credit goes to the writing as the Doctor Tardis materializes in Alaska twice two decades apart and uncover an alien creature once frozen but now active.

It is in many ways a old fashioned Monster story quite fitting for the 5th doctor, it doesn't try to be too much more than that as the series was just getting kicked in. There is the conflict over fathers and sons and a subplot over the people at the station.

It was a decent but pedestrian start to what has been more than a decade of a relationship with big finish for Sarah Sutton. For Doctor Who fans it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.