When the Doctor’s TARDIS materialises on Gallifrey, it seems as if something has gone seriously wrong…

Doctor Ogron is one of those ideas that you suspect someone came up with as a joke and then went… hang on a minute, this could work. Very sensibly ensuring that the events of the story include an explanation as to how this has come about (rather than, say, keeping it as an ongoing thread), this is still one of the more insane episodes that Big Finish has released (even outdoing The One Doctor for moments that you’d love to have seen on screen in that respect). Given the nature of the dialogue, you need someone playing the part who can lean in to the various quotes, and Jon Culshaw fits the bill very well.

There’s also another major guest star – the Twelve, as she has now become. Julia Mackenzie makes a fascinating new incarnation for Big Finish’s homegrown Time Lord foe, and is as convincing as Mark Bonnar in portraying the assorted previous incarnations when they are allowed to come to the fore. There are some intriguing sides to this new version and you have to wonder whether the Doctor is prejudging events (and of course whether there are elements to all this that have to yet to play out in the pre-Time War adventures of the eighth Doctor).

Add into this a highly unusual resident of Skaro, and Guy Adams juggles the various plotlines with his usual skill, delivering a strong cliffhanger into the third story in the set…

Verdict: An off the wall idea that plays out more blackly than it might have done were it not for the backcloth of the Time War. 8/10

Paul Simpson