Big Finish Review - Doctor Who 161 - "The Butcher of Brisbane"
So that said, I went into this story with some high hopes, and I’m pleased to say those hopes were not dashed.
rating 4.5
(WARNING: Significant spoilers follow!) Ah, The Talons of Weng-Chiang. Its the gift that just keeps on giving in the Doctor Who universe. Widely regarded as one of the best episodes of the entire series, it has spawned a spin-off set of audio stories starring the characters of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot, it served as the jumping-off point for the first of the Fourth Doctor audios, Destination: Nerva, and now we have this, which, Doctor Who being what it is, accomplishes the neat trick of being both a sequel and a prequel to that great episode. In short, the TARDIS, with the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison), Tegan (Janet Fielding), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), and Turlough (Mark Strickson), goes through your basic timey-wimey ball, which results in the Doctor and Tegan landing in Brisbane, Australia, in the distant future, with Nyssa and Turlough landing in Bhutan three years prior. By the time the Doctor and Tegan catch up to the other two, they find out that lots of fun things have happened, including a wedding engagement. They also run afoul of the Minister of Justice, one Magnus Greel (Angus Wright), and his nasty little puppet, Mister Sin. Im one of the fans out there who really liked The Talons of Weng-Chiang. It had a great period setting, had some really good production values, and some very memorable characters, of which, it must be said, Magnus Greel was not really one. Oh, he was ok, but frankly pretty much everyone else in the cast was much more memorable; so much so that Id even forgotten who he was until I watched the episode again recently. So that said, I went into this story with some high hopes, and Im pleased to say those hopes were not dashed. Wright does a good job making the character more interesting than he was on the TV show (though, it must be said, not much more), and all the principle cast are their usual great selves. Special mention also goes to John Banks, who made Chops a far more enjoyable character than he might have otherwise been. As for the story, well, aside from the timey-wimey ball, it was actually a pretty standard, the Doctor fights evil dictator kind of story. Thats not bad, because its a very-well done example of the genre, but thats pretty much all it is. I am also wondering how Big Finish plans to explain the fact that Turlough has aged three years, but in his final episode doesnt look really any older. Id make the same comment about Nyssa, but over the course of the audios shes aged and youth-inized quite a bit, soyeah. Basically, I think that if youre someone who is a fan of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and you like the Fifth Doctor, this is probably an excellent story to pick up. It doesnt really factor into the larger Fifth Doctor story arc, at least not currently, so you dont need to worry about being lost at sea story-wise. Next month, the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex arrive in 1980s England. Just in time for a nuclear war!