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Industrial Evolution

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Industrial Evolution stomps in wearing steel-toed boots, covered in soot, coughing up factory smoke and whispering “hey… what if capitalism was the real monster? no wait, also there’s a literal monster stitched out of people, don’t worry, we multitask here.”
And I’m just standing there like, cool cool cool I did NOT sign an emotional consent form for this but go off I guess.

We’ve got Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor, still radiating chaotic theatre kid energy with a moral core of molten steel, alongside Evelyn Smythe (queen, icon, walking dissertation on compassion), and Thomas Brewster, our favourite morally dented Victorian raccoon of a man, returning to, oh look, his own era.

Which is already spicy. Because Brewster back in the 19th century isn’t just “guy in wrong time” anymore, it’s “guy confronting the SYSTEM that made him Like That.”

And that system? Oh boy.

Factories. Smoke. Exploitation. Workers treated like replaceable cogs in a machine that does not care if you live, die, or get ground into paste as long as production quotas are met. You can practically hear the clanking gears chewing on human dignity.

Subtle? No. Effective? Oh absolutely.

The plot kicks off with the TARDIS crew infiltrating this industrial hellscape where labour unrest is brewing, union-busting is in full swing, and management has all the warmth and empathy of a brick soaked in oil. Threading through all this is the sci-fi horror hook, a creature cobbled together from human body parts, animated and weaponised.

Yes. We’re doing Frankenstein by way of OSHA violations.
And honestly? It works disturbingly well.

Because the monster isn’t just a monster, it’s a metaphor with teeth. Workers reduced to components. Bodies commodified. Identity stripped away in service of profit. It’s grim. It’s messy. It’s the kind of story that looks you dead in the eye and goes “this isn’t fiction, I just added tentacles.”

And the Doctor? Oh, he is furious. Not the bluster-for-show kind, but that cold, righteous anger where every word lands like a hammer. Colin Baker absolutely FEASTS on this material, big speeches, sharp edges, zero patience for injustice. You love to see it.

Evelyn, meanwhile, is the emotional anchor as always. She doesn’t just see the system, she sees the people crushed under it. Her interactions with the workers bring this quiet, devastating humanity that stops the story from becoming just a lecture wrapped in gears.

And Brewster… oh, Brewster.

This is HIS episode in a lot of ways. Watching him navigate this world, his world, is like watching someone realise the cage they grew up in wasn’t normal, just… familiar. He gets it. Too well. And that makes his choices here feel raw, conflicted, and painfully real.
But okay, deep breath, critiques.

Because as strong as the themes are, the story can get a bit heavy-handed. Like yes, I SEE the metaphor, you don’t need to hit me with it again using a shovel labelled “INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM BAD.” Some side characters also blur into “angry worker #2” or “evil boss variant C,” which weakens the impact slightly.

And pacing? Slightly uneven. It lurches a bit, ironically, like badly maintained machinery.

But when it clicks? Oh, it sings. Or, more accurately, it SCREAMS over the sound of grinding gears and systemic injustice.

Final Thoughts
A grimy, angry, deeply human story that blends sci-fi horror with historical critique. Not subtle, but effective as hell, with standout character work, especially for Brewster, and a monster that lingers in all the worst ways.

4 out of 5 ethically-questionable factory abominations held together with bolts and bad decisions

The Feast of Axos

The Feast of Axos arrives like a glittering buffet table in deep space—golden, inviting, faintly humming with “this is definitely going to kill someone”—and I, an intellectual, immediately pile my plate sky-high and whisper, “what’s the worst that could happen?”

Oh right. Axos. That Axos.

For the uninitiated (hi, welcome, grab a chair, don’t touch the glowing spaghetti), Axos is this parasitic, energy-draining space entity last seen menacing the era of Third Doctor. Back then it was all shimmering gold and “we come in peace :)” vibes. Now? It’s stranded. Starving. A cosmic wreck washed up on the shore of nowhere. And instead of a grand invasion, we get… desperation.

Which, apparently, is catnip for terrible human decisions.

Enter Campbell Irons—space tourism billionaire, professional hubris enthusiast, walking embodiment of “what if Elon Musk but MORE so”—who decides that yes, this dead-looking alien thing is absolutely a business opportunity. Bring in the astronauts, bring in the investors, bring in the inevitable screaming.

And, of course, bring in the TARDIS crew: Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor (currently oscillating between theatrical delight and “I will END you”), Evelyn Smythe (voice of reason, tea, and devastating disappointment), and Thomas Brewster (still morally duct-taped together after the previous emotional hurricane).

First thing I love: continuity. Not the boring “remember this?” kind—the juicy kind. Brewster is still… off. Not evil, not redeemed, just… skewed. Like a painting hung slightly crooked and you can’t stop noticing it. His instincts are still “take, survive, don’t ask,” and watching him bounce off the Doctor’s increasingly strained patience is DELICIOUSLY uncomfortable.

Second thing: Axos itself. Oh, they did it RIGHT. This isn’t just a monster-of-the-week—it’s a creature in decline. Weak. Hungry. Reduced. And that makes it worse. There’s something deeply unsettling about a predator that isn’t powerful anymore but still needs to feed. It turns the whole story into this slow, creeping dread instead of bombastic invasion nonsense.

And then there’s the satire—because WOW, subtlety is dead and I’m okay with that. Campbell Irons and his little capitalist space circus are basically holding up a neon sign that says “THIS IS ABOUT GREED.” Exploitation, consumption, the idea that if something exists, humans will try to monetise it even if it’s actively lethal. Peak humanity. 10/10, no notes, we deserve Axos.

…okay maybe SOME notes.

Because here’s the thing: the pacing? A bit wobbly. There are stretches where it feels like we’re circling the buffet table without actually taking a bite—lots of setup, lots of ominous chatter, not always enough escalation to match the premise. And some of the side characters blur together into “astronaut #3 but louder,” which is a shame when the core trio is doing SUCH good work.

But when it hits—it hits. The Doctor’s fury, Evelyn’s grounded empathy, Brewster’s ongoing internal mess… it all collides into something messy and human and a little bit tragic. Nobody here is entirely right. Nobody gets out clean.

And Axos? Still hungry.

Final Thoughts:
A slower, moodier sequel that trades spectacle for decay and desperation. Not perfect, but dripping with atmosphere, character tension, and a very sharp “humans will absolutely lick the alien battery” critique.

4 out of 5 glowing space buffet platters you absolutely should not eat from

The Crimes of Thomas Brewster

The Crimes of Thomas Brewster is what happens when Big Finish looks at its own continuity, rubs its hands together like a chaotic goblin, and says “Right, let’s get ALL the toys out and make them emotionally complicated.” And ohhh it works.

We’ve got the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe landing in modern-day London and immediately tripping over a crime wave so dramatic it might as well be wearing a neon sign that says PLOT HAPPENING HERE. Enter DCI Menzies, patron saint of caffeine and weaponised sarcasm, who clocks the Doctor in about three seconds flat and decides, yes, you’re helping me whether you like it or not.

And then the twist. The mysterious crime boss running weapons smuggling operations… is calling himself the Doctor. Oh, you already know where this is going. Thomas. Bloody. Brewster.

That scrappy little Victorian chaos gremlin has grown up into a full-blown criminal operator, and honestly I am both impressed and deeply concerned. Because Brewster doesn’t do things by halves. No, his master plan involves kidnapping people and shipping them off-world to be mind-controlled into soldiers for an alien war.

Casual. Except… here’s where it gets spicy. The war is to defend a sentient planet. A living, thinking world that is basically crying out for help. And Brewster, in his own feral, morally sideways way, has decided he’s going to be the one to save it. And this is where the story sinks its teeth in.

Because Brewster is not a villain. Not really. He’s a product. An orphan raised on survival, on theft, on doing whatever it takes. His moral compass is less a compass and more a spinning bottle at a party. He wants to help. Genuinely. But every instinct he has tells him the way to do that is through coercion, manipulation, a bit of light kidnapping. You know. Tuesday.

It’s nurture vs nature screaming at each other in a dark alley. And the Doctor? Oh, Sixie is livid. Colin Baker absolutely FEASTS here. Righteous anger, booming authority, that glorious technicolour moral outrage. You can hear him trying to drag Brewster up to a better standard while also resisting the urge to throttle him.

Meanwhile Evelyn is out here infiltrating the criminal underworld like everyone’s favourite history professor turned absolute menace, and Menzies is somehow stuck trying to explain to a sentient planet that yes, she is the Doctor, please stop asking follow-up questions. I lost it. I genuinely lost it.

The action is cinematic as hell. Flying drones. Chase sequences. Big moral confrontations. Dialogue that snaps and crackles like it’s been mainlining espresso. And threading through all of it is this aching sense that Brewster could have been better. Could still be better. If he’d just… stop doing crimes for five minutes. But he can’t. Because that’s who he is.

And that ending? Him pulling a gun and hijacking the TARDIS instead of just asking for help? That’s the character in one perfect, devastating beat. He wants to go home. He just doesn’t know how to ask. Also, blink and you’ll miss it, but hello Flip Jackson, future chaos gremlin in training. Love that for her.

Final Thoughts
A character-driven banger that juggles action, humour, and moral complexity like it’s showing off. Brewster is messy, fascinating, and heartbreakingly human, and the entire cast is firing on all cylinders.
5 out of 5 extremely illegal interplanetary recruitment drives.

The Demons of Red Lodge

The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories is a collection of four short and bland adventures with Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor and Nyssa doing their best to sell a collection of predictable one-note scripts by employing the best of their acting skills. Put your wellies on because you’re going to have to wade through this lot.

The Demons of Red Lodge, the first adventure in this collection, sees the pair wake up in a spooooky barn. They scream a bit, then run around a spooky 1500s countryside and see spoooky trees until they find an equally spooky cottage. The residents shelter the pair from witchfinders and the black death, before revealing that they’re spooky aliens from the spooky planet of spookiness. This story has all the atmosphere of a Hammer Horror movie – overwrought, melodramatic and entirely shallow.
Final Thoughts: If you like hearing actors deliver their lines as if the biggest threat they’re facing is boredom and loud music, this might appeal to you. Otherwise skip it.
2 out of 5 spooky trees.

The Entropy Composition sees the Doctor come up against the worst thing in this or any other universe; prog rock. Another alien mischief-maker (this one from before the dawn of time; oooh, epic) are up to their usual hijinks, this time convicting some washed-up musician to create an album of eeeeevil music from before the dawn of the cosmos. It’s an interesting catch, but never truly mateialises, instead leaving the Doc and Nyssa to run around an old house with a flustered, clueless housemaid.
Final Thoughts: Honestly, given that prog rock is the most evil thing to ever exist, a story that actually focuses on that would have been great. But this? This is a whole lot of nothing.
1.5 out of 5 crappy albums with zither solos.

Doing Time sees the Doctor get locked up in an alien prison. If you liked the BBC sitcom ‘Porridge’, this aims for the same style and tone. Aims for, and fails miserably. The funniest moments are Nyssa trying, and failing, to get arrested so that she can get back in touch with the Doc, while he was locked up because he has a habit of using the pseudonym ‘Doctor John Smith’, which on this alien planet is the name of a mass murderer or something. That’s the kind of comedy you’re in for with this nonsense, I’m afraid. Eventually he stops the evil prison warden from running for prime minister, but not before all of my goodwill in this adventure has served a life sentence.
Final Thoughts: I would rather get the death penalty than listen to this bollocks again.
Rating: 0.5 out of 5

Special Features is doubtless the best adventure in this collection, and that’s squarely down to the fact that the concept actually works. It is, in short, a bunch of folks who worked on some low-budget 70s Hammer Horror schlock movie getting back together to record a DVD commentary track. Somehow the Doctor coaxed an invite too, and the entire story plays out as if it were an actual commentary track, with the (perhaps intentionally naff) movie playing along in the background. The characters make inane, mindless comments throughout, pointing out things like “That extra there had a lovely dress” and “We had to film all the way into the night to get this scene”, which is… pretty much dead-on for DVD commentaries.
Final Thoughts: It’s all delivered extremely well, and feels like a good concept played out as well as it can be.
4.5 out of 5 DVDs carrying evil alien codes or some such bollocks.