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Post by matthewsee on Oct 16, 2021 2:58:59 GMT -5
Mother Earth: One of Our Cops is Missing: Released in May 2018, Mother Earth is the first season of Big Finish's Star Cops series, having gotten the licence to produce audios based on the short-lived TV series from 1987. Surviving cast members of the TV series are back to reprise their characters. (I can't say whether it is all of the surviving cast members as there doesn't seem to be any trace of Sayo Inaba who had played Anna Shoun.) Although not explicitly stated by Big Finish, I am personally referring Mother Earth as the second season of Star Cops after its nine episode TV run. Big Finish had used season continuance numbers for the Eighth Doctor seasons prior to the arrival of the Ninth Doctor and for its post-Miracle Day Torchwood seasons. Mother Earth starts with One of Our Cops Is Missing written by Andrew Smith. Star Cops is about a police force in space, no doubt this is a work that Smith can appreciate as he used to be a cop himself (albeit one on Earth). As well as bringing back surviving regular cast members from the TV series, this introduced new characters in Rakhee Thakrar as Priya Basu and Philip Olivier as Paul Bailey. Incidentally Thakrar and Olivier had played original Big Finish Doctor Who companions. Intriguing this opening episode of Mother Earth, as Nathan Spring is asked by an old friend to track down a missing undercover officer, the said Paul Bailey. Also intriguing is a spacewalk accident that may not be an accident at all. The meaning of Mother Earth here is revealed near the end as that of the name of a terrorist organisation and funny that a spokesman of theirs mispronounced Devis' name as Davis! Interesting the accompanying interviews which included talking about Star Cops making its way to Big Finish as well as memories of the TV series when it first came out.
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Post by matthewsee on Nov 17, 2021 5:51:11 GMT -5
Mother Earth: Tranquility and Other Illusions: Season 2, Episode 2. Written by Ian Potter. Interesting mystery that this episode presents about murder. Pretty enjoyable how things unfolded and in the midst of this comes a woman Caroline who Devis spends some time with. The more Caroline spends time with Devis the more I sensed that there is something off with Caroline and quite a revelation how all that turned out. Interesting interviews that I listened to afterwards including Caroline being the female version of Devis hence why they spend time together here.
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Post by matthewsee on Dec 11, 2021 20:54:38 GMT -5
Mother Earth: Lockdown: Season 2, Episode 3. Written by Christopher Hatherall. The Star Cops attend an international conference at Tech Tower in Paris when it went into lockdown. In the midst of this Priya gets abducted as a result of seeing someone from her past. Pretty good the storylines with the said lockdown and the Priya abduction attached themselves together with this episode and how all of this gets resolved.
Interesting interviews I listened to afterwards including the setting for Lockdown in Paris and to imagine if the TV series had been filmed in Paris.
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Post by matthewsee on Jan 1, 2022 1:23:15 GMT -5
Mother Earth: The Thousand Ton Bomb: Season 2, Episode 4. The Thousand Ton Bomb is the final episode in the first boxset of Mother Earth. Written by Guy Adams. Intriguing on Paul Bailey going undercover on Mother Earth and how unexpected turn of events came when Mother Earth made its latest broadcast. All culminating in the said bomb and how Pal Kenzy came in later to save people from this bomb. After briefly appearing in the first episode of Mother Earth, One of Our Cops Is Missing, The Thousand Ton Bomb has a much more substantial appearance by Pal Kenzy with Linda Newton reprising her. A climatic way to end the first set of Mother Earth with the said bomb and Pal Kenzy's full return. Interesting interviews afterwards especially hearing the account of getting Linda Newton back as Pal especially with Big Finish's initial difficulty in locating her.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 18, 2022 11:17:46 GMT -5
Mother Earth: Dead and Buried: Season 2, Episode 5. Dead and Buried starts the second set of Mother Earth from Big Finish. Written by Guy Adams. Quite interesting that this includes graveyards in the Moon for dead celebrities. After appearances in the previous box set, Dead and Buried has a full on appearance by Linda Newton in reprising Pal Kenzy as she is fully involved with the case at hand. Pretty good in displaying Pal's investigative skills here. Interesting case that starts off Mother Earth 2, how it involved a billionaire businessman in Ben Alexander and a bit amusing how a TV show with an attentive title came into this.
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Post by matthewsee on Jun 19, 2022 14:14:45 GMT -5
Mother Earth: The Killing Jar: Season 2, Episode 6. Written by John Dorney. The Killing Jar is the second episode of Mother Earth 2 from Big Finish. The cops are on a case on the Charlie Chaplin, a second-hand space station operated as a space-tourism hub by entrepreneur Martin Thane. What first appeared to be an accident turned eventually turned out to be a murder enquiry instead. Intriguing how this unfolded how information that was conveyed between the cops suddenly made its way to the news as there was no plausible way that this information could have been leaked. Very enjoyable and fun ending with Kenzy taking everyone for drinks but of the non-alcoholic kind. However there is one confusing thing about this episode and that is character played by guest star Tor Clark with the credits stating that she plays the character called Rebecca Driscoll but the episode itself presented her name as Rebecca Carter.
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Post by matthewsee on Jul 22, 2022 6:25:27 GMT -5
Mother Earth: Moonshine: Penultimate episode of season 2. Written by Roland Moore. Moonshine is the penultimate episode of Mother Earth from Big Finish. This episode has Kenzy with assistance from Devis investigates the suicide of a friend after he had been dismissed from his job at a space station for possession of alcohol. However Kenzy says that her late friend abhors alcohol as it made his father a monster and sworn off the stuff. It did not surprise me that Kenzy's friend's death was not what it appeared to be. Compounding the problem for Kenzy's investigation is that a local copper gets brought into this who happens to be Kenzy's ex-fiance. In parallel to this is the visit of a powerful dignitary who has the fate of Star Cops in his hands. Definitely felt prescient what influence Spring says that this dignitary has with the way this episode ended. At the same time Spring is investigating a fatal incident in which a worker is implicated. However is found innocent of this due to a medical condition, the name of which may sound sci-fi but revealed in the interviews it is actually a real thing. Pretty all these threads being told together in this episode leading to that cliffhanger.
Along with the real-life medical condition, it was interesting listening to the interviews with the actors telling us about their characters including Philip Oliver saying that his character Paul Bailey is like the grown up version of his Doctor Who character Hex and it ends with script editor Andrew Smith describing the characters that Star Cops has.
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Post by matthewsee on Sept 5, 2022 7:01:53 GMT -5
Mother Earth: Hostage: Season 2 finale. Guest stars Sarah Sutton. Sutton had played Doctor Who companion Nyssa in the Doctor Who TV series and eventually reprising her for Big Finish and Mother Earth is also a Big Finish production. In fact she is not the only Doctor Who companion actor in Hostage as principal cast members Rakhee Thakrar (Priya Basu) and Philip Olivier (Paul Bailey) had played Doctor Who companions Bliss and Hex respectively for Big Finish. However unlike Nyssa coming from TV Doctor Who, Bliss and Hex are original companions created for Big Finish. The episode title refers to the hostage situation conducted by Mary Ward played by Sutton. Ward was an activist for Mother Earth and information about Mother Earth that we learnt from Ward seemed to somewhat contradict what the Star Cops have known so far about them. Quite a revelation this makes about Mother Earth and that everything about is not what it seems and the ultimate truth was certainly especially how it culminates with a well-loved principal character that I certainly feel was coming. Interesting the interviews that came afterwards including one from Sarah Sutton as it is mentioned of her reprising Nyssa for Big Finish and how it was good for her to play another character for Big Finish in Mary Ward. I was somewhat surprised when Sutton said that she had never of Star Cops prior to playing Mary Ward. Evidently she had completely missed its very short run when it first came on in 1987.
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