Doctor Who 1001 Nights Review

Doctor Who:

1001 Nights
By Emma Beeby, Gordon Rennie, Jonathan Barnes and Catherine Harvey

Nyssa is telling stories to a strange Sultan about The Doctor.  She is doing this to try and get the Sultan to release The Doctor by proving through the stories that he is indeed a good man.  The Sultan isn’t quite convinced and keeps asking Nyssa to tell him stories.  The Doctor isn’t one for staying still and has already escaped from his jail when he bursts into the room of someone who thinks is the Sultan.   But how can that be as the Sultan is in the throne room with Nyssa.  The Doctor suspects that there is something alien going on and hopefully he can figure it out before the alien takes over The Doctor’s appearance and leaves him on Earth.

Truth be told I enjoyed the three stories that were told by Nyssa better than the actual story with the alien Sultan.  They were really clever and short and seemed to be more enjoyable.  I also liked how they came up with a conclusion for each of those three stories far better than the actual conclusion of the main story.  The conclusion of the main story felt like a let down to the build up to it. I really enjoy when Big Finish has a story that has more than one story in it that envelopes into one story.  1001 Nights is for the most part very enjoyable but I just felt let down by the conclusion.

                                                                  
My favorite story was the one about a planet that was all about stories.  The people on the planet hold stories to a very high standard and plagiarism is against the law.  I thought this was really clever and really enjoyed listening to Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton perform this part of the overall story.  It is a pretty good story and worth the price of the cd.

1001 Nights has a guest star that is pretty recognizable to Star Trek fans. Alexander Siddig plays The Sultan and he does a pretty decent job of playing the bad guy and does a good impersonation of The Doctor also.  He seemed to get the mannerisms down pat and made a pretty convincing Time Lord.

So if you’re looking for a Big Finish audio that is a bit out of the ordinary then give 1001 Nights a try.  The separate stories are pretty good and worth the price of the adventure.

Grade B-