Review: Doctor Who: The Finished Product issue 8

An indepth look at selected editions of the Big Finish Companion Chronicles.

Kenny Smith’s unofficial fanzine hearkens back to the early days of such magazines: an A5 black and white, stapled 40 page offering that is produced for love of the show. It’s where a lot of people who are big names in Doctor Who fandom started from – even glossy mags like The Frame began life in this way…

And this is a labour of love. As a result of his work on this series, Kenny Smith is stepping into Richard Dinnick’s shoes for the second Big Finish Companion, due out later this year, and it’s very clear why Big Finish turned to him. He knows Doctor Who, and he knows the audio output, so he’s asked the various participants the right questions about the derivations of the stories, and their production.

With only one notable missing participant (former Companion Chronicle producer Sharon Gosling), these chapters fill in the gaps in earlier issues with some new insights into the creation of the second series of the line, as well as some of series three. These include Resistance, where the thorny issue of Anneke Wills’ dislike of the original draft is tackled head on, and the two stories that ended up as pilots for Big Finish spin-offs, The Mahogany Murderers and The Prisoner’s Dilemma.

Well worth picking up.  7/10

Paul Simpson

 

Issue 8 can be ordered by emailing thefinishedproduct@hotmail.co.uk