A little further along the fourth dimension, we return to Doctor Who as presented in TWO dimensions.
The Doctor and Lucie battle bionic centipedes, face the Sisterhood of Karn, and must stop the regeneration of Morbius.
Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
An audiobook sequel to ‘The Brain of Morbius’, this double-feature pins the Doctor and Lucie against billionaire madman, Zarodnix (played by Kenneth Colley of Star Wars fame, see screenshot below), and his army of bionic centipedes, the Trell. Zarodnix wants to resurrect formerly alive and insane Time Lord dictator, Morbius (played by Samuel West, who’s not without a Doctor Who credit… see below), but he needs to kidnap a Time Lord first to do so.
Turns out, aside from Doc and Lucie, two other factions are hell-bent on stopping him: Gallifrey by grabbing every Time Lord in Time and Space and forcing them back home, and the Sisterhood of Karn (you remember them from the 50th anniversary, right?) by grabbing every Time Lord in Time and Space and executing them. That’s some crazy sh*t, eh?!
To make matters worse, Doc and Lucie get separated; Time Lord d-bag, Straxus (Nicholas Grace, see below, reprising his role from Human Resources), is caught by Zarodnix; Lucie is arrested by a Trell police officer (played marvellously by Alexander Siddig of Star Trek DS9 fame); and The Doctor is plonked in a Molecular Dispersal Chamber by The Sisterhood of the Teleporting Pants!
Thoroughly enjoyed these two stories. You have to love Big Finish to base the grand series 2 finale around a villain who appears in but one (brilliant) Tom Baker story. Morbius is nothing but a threat in the entire story, menacing in voice and action and playing off McGann beautifully. Kenneth Colley acts as an excellent villain in the first part as the imperious Zarodnix but Morbius steals the show, played by Sam West.
The cliffhanger of the second part is one of my favourites of the entire Who-canon, even if I wasn’t a big fan of the resolution in Orbis. This story is everything one could want from a Morbius story, it builds on the backstory of the original but never seems bogged down by it, creating a speedy, yet tense, two-parter that’s a lot of fun to listen to.
I’d give this two-parter a 4.6.