Doctor Who: Circular Time

Big Finish: Monthly Range #91

by Paul Cornell, Mike Maddox, Peter Davison (Narrator)

Summer to winter, the seasons turn.

In the springtime of a distant future, the Doctor and Nyssa become embroiled in Time Lord politics on an alien world. During the stifling heat of a summer past they suffer the vengeful wrath of Isaac Newton. In the recent past, Nyssa spends a romantic golden autumn in an English village while the Doctor plays cricket. And finally, many years after their travels together have ended, the two friends meet again in the strangest of circumstances.

Four seasons. Four stories.

Now close the door behind you, you're letting the cold in...

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook, Science Fiction, Time Travel, Anthologies, Short Stories

Audio CD

First published January 20, 2007

About the author

Paul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.

via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...

Reviews

[Polly Batchelor · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I do not like fools, forgers…or Catholics! Which are you?"

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part 1: Spring ~ Well, this looks like it could be a fun trip. (4/5)

Part 2: Summer ~ Sir Isaac Newton by David Warner? Brilliant! (4/5)

Part 3: Autumn ~ WOW! This one was powerful, poignant and brought tears to my eyes. (5/5)

Part 4: Winter ~ As this chapter started, I wasn’t expecting to like it all that much, but at the narrative progressed, I found myself increasingly interested and engaged. (4/5)

Interesting that the placement of this story occurs during the closing moment of the 5th Doctor’s incarnation. So even though Nyssa is present, she not actually there and Peri is nearby. (4/5)

[Nicholas Whyte]

In Circular Time, Paul Cornell and Mike Maddox take the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa through four separate half-hour adventures. While I couldn't declare this to be the best ever Big Finish release, it is certainly among the very good ones. The first of the four, "Spring", is the weakest, a story of renegade time-lords and bird people that gets a bit confused. But then we are into "Summer", a confrontation with Sir Isaac Newton in the Tower of London due to the Doctor pulling out the wrong coins, which is rather fun. The best of the four is "Autumn", which is a rather pastoral account of Nyssa's romance while the Doctor enjoys playing cricket. And that then feeds into the last of the four, "Winter", set long after the Doctor and Nyssa have parted company, but with Nyssa having these very strange dreams...

[Scott Haworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

My only complaint is that most of these stories could have been expanded into 45 minute episodes for the modern series. Being so short, some were a bit anticlimactic. But they were good while they lasted. The final two stories definitely worked best.

[Eli Seibert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spring- 4.5 stars
Summer- 4 stars
Fall and Winter- 5 stars
These stories were phenomenal. Nyssa is such an underrated companion, and her and 5 are honestly one of my favorite tardis teams to listen to. They just work so well off each other. And having stories not dealing with the usual battle against evil, but dealing with ideas such as the possibility of domesticity (which really are alien in the world of the doctor)...
I just loved all of it.

[Vitor Frazão · Rating 3 out of 5]

Três história. Uma parece ser pouco mais que uma introdução. Outra é simples mas mostra uma aventuras mais... quotidiana e caseira das habituais. A última é uma estranha trip-regenerativa do Doctor.

[C S · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exploration of and meditation upon the complex relationship between the Doctor and Nyssa and the very nature of time's linearity itself.

[Nigel Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Autumn, the 3rd story in this set, is the best doctor who big finish audio story ever released. it is a truly beautiful thing. I cried at the end.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great use of The Doctor and Nyssa. We even get The Doctor seemingly wanting to have a domestic life, and he and Nyssa trying to figure out what's actually going on there.

[Tabitha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories were better than others, but overall as a group weren't terribly strong

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four unrelated stories, all featuring Peter Davison as the 5th Doctor and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa. None of them grabbed me.

[Jamie Revell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of four 30-minute stories featuring the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, united by the loose theme of the seasons.

Spring: A fairly straightforward jaunt on an alien world, albeit one that would require more CGI and prosthetics than is likely on TV. Quite a good story, and one well suited to the 5th Doc, but one that would likely have dragged if spread out further. (4/5)

Summer: For my money, the weakest of the four, this is a straight historical featuring an ageing and cantankerous Isaac Newton. The summer theme is really just limited to the fact that it happens to be hot, and the prison guards are rather over-played for laughs. It works, but that's about it. (3/5)

Autumn: Another change of pace, as we get a rare glimpse into what the Doctor and his companions do between adventures. As a result, this is a pure character piece, with no villains or monsters, and the Doctor and Nyssa have essentially separate stories within it. It's probably exactly the right length, but it works beautifully, with pathos and a true warmth for the characters. (5/5)

Winter: An older Nyssa encounters the Doctor again some time after she left him, but to say more would be to give away too much of the plot. As with "Autumn", both Nyssa and the Doctor have a strong part to play, and the story builds on their emotional bond, as well as expanding on the events of a particular TV story in a way that feels entirely natural. (5/5)

I wanted to give the overall CD a rating of 5/5 because, with the best two stories at the end, that's the way you feel after listening to it. (No offence to Mike Maddox, but you can tell which two stories were written by Paul "Father's Day" Cornell). However, taken as a whole, I've given an average of 4.25, so four stars it is...

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag. Circular Time is four short pieces instead of the usual four-part story, based around the four seasons. Spring is the weakest of the four, being a strange, somewhat menacing story of renewal (in the manner one might expect of Time Lords) on a planet of highly-evolved flightless birds. Summer is a bit of a comic tale of an encounter with Isaac Newton.

It's the last two stories that make this audio drama worth your effort, and which are most affecting. Autumn finds The Doctor and Nyssa enjoying an extended stay on Earth, while Nyssa writes a novel, falls in love, and The Doctor plays Cricket. It's a very internal story for both The Doctor and Nyssa, although much more for Nyssa. Though very little actually happens, the story adds more layers to Nyssa than we saw in her entire television run. . . which leads us into Winter, where the hand of writer Paul Cornell is easily detected. Here he covers some of the same territory as he did in the television episode "Human Nature." It's been many years since The Doctor and Nyssa parted ways, yet she is having strange dreams about him. The Doctor, likewise, having settled down with a wife and a family, is having dreams about her. Their encounter in this dream state becomes an extended idyll on a critical moment in The Doctor's life.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice character piece, four different adventures for the Doctor and Nyssa. I think my favourite was the one where the Doctor played Cricket and Nyssa tried to write a book and had her first boyfriend. It just made their adventures seem that much more real to have them not always running away from aliens but also have time to sit and enjoy things for weeks at a time. I also liked the last story when Nyssa was older and thinking of her time with the Doctor.

[Thomas Sherlock · Rating 5 out of 5]

An intriguing little anthology. The first story toys with regeneration in interesting ways, the second gives David Warner time to shine as Isaac Newton, the third feels like Paul Cornell’s definitive take on the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa and gives them excellent and very human material, and the fourth provides a nice little coda to Five’s era. Recommended.

[Debra Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a difficult adventure to understand. I think it was 4 stories in one but the last one almost sounded linked to the Master screwing with the Doctor's life. They all seemed to be about the circular way of time birth to death. I think.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa experience four different adventures across time and space as the seasons change.

[Ritchie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very frustrating. Every time the story gets really good it just ends and another starts. Never really felt like this one finished. Five and Nyssa, well, never mind. Now you know what it's like.

[Christopher Hatch · Rating 4 out of 5]

All 4 stories are good, but the second two are really excellent. You can't help but feel a bit maudlin at the end of both episodes 3 and 4.

[Shaun Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 short stories make up Big Finish's first foray into anthology storytelling, and there isn't a bad one in the bunch. Outstanding storytelling, great acting (especially by my favorite guest star, David Warner) a deepening of the special relationship that five and Nyssa share, and a finale to die for. This might be my favorite Fifth Doctor story of the line thus far. Great audio!