Audio Review: Doctor Who - Vortex Ice/Cortex Fire

Full review on Starburst.

After last month’s Fifth Doctor double bill, Big Finish’s main range of Doctor Who audios brings us another pair of hour-long stories, this time featuring Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor alongside his companion Flip.

The first of these two stories, Vortex Ice by Jonathan Morris, starts out with the two travellers arriving in a mine underneath Mexico, tracking a signal from alien particles. They team up with the miners and find a cyborg creature trapped in a strange crystal. So far, so classic Who. But then there’s a very time-twisting, well, twist, which adds a whole new level of originality to the story.

And then there’s Cortex Fire by Ian Potter, set in an alien city full of towers and flying cars that reach high into the sky. All is not well here – people have been losing the will to live and then spontaneously combusting, causing chaos across the city. It’s another strong story and one with an appropriately human edge to it, as we get to know some of the characters who inhabit this city.