What is it with Robert Banks Stewart and body horror? Of his two stories on television both Terror of the Zygons and The Seeds of Doom are heavy on people changing in some way into grotesque aberrations, the Zygon's are body snatchers and the Krynoids transform the body. The Foe from the Future does not stray far from themes of body horror, however, unlike the previous two Robert Banks Stewart stories, The Foe from the Future deals with body horror as an avenue to human insanity in the form of the Pantophagen, giant grasshopper inhabitants of the Time Vortex ripped straight out of the works of HP Lovecraft with a bit of Kafka's Metamorphosis thrown in for good measure, in that they make people insane. The idea is that time experiments in the year 4,000 has caused a rip in the space-time vortex allowing the creatures to ravage the Earth. The character of Jalnik is someone who seems to actually want to save his people, but by the halfway point he has devolved into complete insanity and let himself be taken over by the Pantophagen. He wants to see the villains succeed, even corrupting his closest friends into his brotherhood as they slowly transform closer to an insect.

Louise Jameson is a highlight throughout this story as she returns to the character of Leela close to her meeting with the Doctor (this story was meant to be the Season 14 finale in the place of The Talons of Weng-Chiang). She doesn't understand modern human society, but has already made growths in empathy, giving a touching eulogy for a nameless policeman who locked her up for breaking and entering. The noble savage is not a character who does not care about other, but puts herself and the Doctor before them. John Dorney also creates the character of Charlotte from scratch and Louise Brealey gives her life excellently and for Tom Baker's first foray into Big Finish it feels like he never left the role. This is one of Big Finish's best releases and is worth the high price tag of the Box Set.

I've always found it a bit odd that Philip Hinchcliffe wrote scripts for Doctor Who, or at least story outlines that were never used and as an experiment for a Big Finish Range similar to the Lost Stories they really work. The Genesis Chamber I think gets a bit of a hard looking at by people as it's the third story in the range of Philip Hinchcliffe Presents after two amazing entries in the first box set. The Genesis Chamber takes the standard Hinchcliffe and Holmes formula of taking a piece of classic literature and putting a Doctor Who style twist on it, this time Huxley's Brave New World with an odd Shakespeare mashup of Romeo and Juliet in what I can honestly say is an extremely enjoyable story. The biggest problem here is that a lot of the pacing seems off due to the plot starting in one place but ending up in a completely different plotline which isn't nearly as interesting. Ending in a standard alien invasion plot is not the best place to go with the story as the Romeo and Juliet/Brave New World plot ends halfway through the story and is picked up in the final scene. Louise Jameson and Tom Baker as always have amazing chemistry throughout the story, but I really don't like the idea of Leela falling in love just to have her lover die. If this was a television story I would love to have it replace The Invasion of Time and give Leela a well crafted romantic interest and then exit.

The Tsuranga Conundrum is the first episode of Series 11 in my mind which could be seen as not good, but it's really only like that because it's average. This might be because of Chris Chibnall writing his fifth script for the series and was a last minute replacement, so I can be a bit kinder for why it seems to be a lower effort and there are definitely things to like. At the top of that list is Jodie Whittaker: her enthusiasm as the Doctor is almost enough to raise this out of complete mediocrity and the way she explains things to her companions is great. The supporting cast is also pretty likable, if occasionally cliched (the pregnant man while an interesting spin on the trope still falls into the trope of characters who are pregnant going into labor in the worst possible moment). General Cicero and her younger brother have a nice little character arc going through the proceedings which is a lot of fun to watch the clashes. The alien is just a bit too cute for my liking, though it is a nice subversion of the usual cute alien threat not being totally evil and the way it is defeated is quite nice. Yaz is still a wet blanket of a character and really needs to get some development. Graham and Ryan are also highlights as usual with Bradley Walsh's comedic side really coming out this episode in some genuinely funny ways. All in all it's just average.

Nicholas Briggs is essentially an ideas man and whenever he does a story that's a passion project it is an amazing exploration. Casualties of Time is sort of a mixed bag in what it does for a story. Alright the best bits is the humanization of Cuthbert and the reveal of how his actual motivations and life. The Black Guardian while excellently played by David Troughton, honestly was not used enough in the story and the biggest issue here is the pacing problems. It's about 15 minutes too long and the ending is just a bit too weird for me with the parrot becoming the White Guardian. The story is good, probably the best finale for the first five series of the Fourth Doctor Adventures, but nothing above good.