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The Seventh Doctor Adventures

Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor Adventures - Sullivan and Cross: AWOL

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Sometimes a Time Lord forgets precisely where he left things - keys, screwdrivers... companions! Harry Sullivan and Naomi Cross are stuck in the wrong time, so when the TARDIS arrives, they give up their 21st-century lives to find a way home.
But as they join the Doctor - a different version to any they've met before - Harry and Naomi are in for a few perilous stops along the way.

London Orbital by John Dorney (4 parts)
Long ago, a massacre in a suburban house led to the young Harry Sullivan joining UNIT. But the murders were never solved. Years later, Harry and Naomi Cross investigate an oddity in the London Underground and uncover a whole different side to the capital.
Creatures of myth are running amok across the city in a conflict going back decades. And somewhere in the shadows lurks a new incarnation of their old friend... the Doctor. And he's here to stop a war.

Scream of the Daleks by Lisa McMullin (2 parts)
Halloween 1969. The Doctor, Harry and Naomi respond to a scream for rescue. They find that people have been dying on the same spot on this day across millennia. But in their bid to stop the nightmare, the travellers have unleashed the Doctor’s old enemy. This may be one cry for help better left unanswered.

Audio CD

First published November 8, 2022

19 people want to read

About the author

John Dorney

166 books26 followers
John Dorney is a British writer and actor best known for stage roles including the National Theatre, the BBC Radio 4 sitcom My First Planet; and his scripts for the Big Finish Doctor Who range. His script 'Solitaire' was rated the most popular Doctor Who Companion Chronicle of 2010 on the Timescales website and was the runner up in Unreality Sci-fi net's poll for Story of the Year 2010-11.

As well as Doctor Who, he has written for Big Finish's Sapphire and Steel series and on radio co-wrote three series of BBC Radio 4's Recorded for Training Purposes. He won the BBC Show Me the Funny 'Sketch Factor' competition, was a finalist in the BBC 'Laughing Stock' competition, and has performed in Mark Watson's Edinburgh Comedy Award winning long shows as 'The Balladeer'. On stage, he has written plays for the Royal Court Theatre, Hampstead and Soho Theatres.

He trained at LAMDA.

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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
Profile Image for Josh.
454 reviews5 followers
July 4, 2023
I recently listened to this and found the stories to be quite boring but the concepts and the character dynamics just worked so well. I liked this set but I liked it for the characters more than the stories. This was my introduction to Naomi and I have to say that releasing stories after her introduction story which has yet to be released is... certainly a choice by Big Finish but she has lots of Charisma and I can't wait to see where they take her.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Oleg X.
99 reviews29 followers
November 4, 2023
2022-й удивительно богат на релизы БигФиниша, о которых хочется поговорить. Иногда - потому что типичный для них фансервис disappears up its own ass, но тем не менее. Здесь Седьмой Доктор подбирает Гарри Салливана (рекастнутого) и нового персонажа Наоми Кросс, которых Четвертый Доктор случайно высадил в нашем времени. Только те пьесы с Четвертым не просто вышли позже этой, но *еще* не вышли *на данный момент*.

Качество этих аудиопьес? Они существуют.
Profile Image for Jamie Revell.
Author 5 books13 followers
October 12, 2024
Two stories featuring Harry Sullivan and fellow UNIT operative Naomi Cross, both of whom were left stranded in the 21st century following an as-yet unseen adventure with the Fourth Doctor. Here, they team up with the Seventh for a couple of adventures one of which makes good use of Harry, but neither of which does much with Naomi.

London Orbital – The first story is the longer one, a traditional two-hour 4-parter. It’s very much a ‘Sullivan and Cross’ story, rather than a Seventh Doctor one, with the latter not even showing up until the end of part one, and not playing a particularly central role once he does. In fact, the story is primarily told from Harry’s point of view, starting with the pair investigating a mystery that has a personal connection for him. To try and explain this, the story starts by jumping between different flashback scenes, but does so without much context, making things a little confusing.

Once it settles down, what we get is very much ‘ Doctor Who does urban fantasy’. It turns out that there is a parallel London in which magic-wielding elves are the dominant species, instead of humanity and that can, on rare occasions, intersect with ours. Now, I’m a fan of urban fantasy, but this all feels extraneous to the usual Doctor Who setting, added in just to shoehorn in a different genre. Having said which, it’s decent urban fantasy, with an atmospheric description of the alternate London, making use of locations from The Shard to a ‘ghost station’ on the London Underground.

Harry is the main viewpoint character, toned down from a character who felt old-fashioned even in the 1970s but effectively brought to life by Christopher Naylor. With some scenes set inside an unnamed London hospital (possibly Guy’s, from the implied location) it even gives him some chance to use his medical knowledge, something that rarely happened in the TV series. While Naomi does get some scenes to herself, we don’t get much of a feel for her here, leaving her underdeveloped as a character. She’s in many more stories after this, so there’s room for do more, but here she just seems to be making up the numbers. 3.5 stars.

Scream of the Daleks – The one-hour story sees Harry and Naomi travelling with the Doctor and unintentionally visiting a music festival in 1969. There, they stumble across a mysterious death and the Doctor travels heads on a Halloween-themed trip through history to uncover the solution. This part doesn’t feel like a Dalek story, and is the better for it, although the short length means that we don’t get to see much of any of the trips into the past. Indeed, the story didn’t really need Daleks, and would probably have worked better with some other foe; the threat is being built up as something weird, and not only is it not, but we know what the enemy is from the title.

This is much more a typical Doctor story than the previous one, too, with him playing the more central part that we’re used to. Harry gets to do some minor heroics on his own, with Naomi getting most of the moments with the Doctor. Unfortunately, she still comes across as ‘generic companion’, there to ask the questions rather than do anything much; we do get a glimpse of her background, but it’s minor and there isn’t any room to develop it. That’s much like the story as a whole; there’s a decent premise but insufficient room to do much with it and it could have gone somewhere more interesting than it did. Still, it’s a decent bit of filler with some good bits of humour and works well enough for its short length. 3 stars.
Profile Image for Danny Welch.
1,415 reviews
January 2, 2023
When this set was announced, I was very apprehensive only because having the 7th Doctor traveling with Harry Sullivan and Naomi Cross, sounded like a really strange idea to me and an odd mix of the eras, but due to their complicated history, it definitely sounded plausible. I love 7 and Harry and I haven't experienced anything from Naomi yet so thought I'd take a gamble and give it a go!

London Orbital:
When mysterious elves have been spotted in the London Underground, Harry soon discovers that it connects to an old case that brought him to work for UNIT in the 70s in the first place. Harry and Naomi are on the case but when The Doctor shows up, they are in for a bit of a surprise he's different from their Doctor and it seems he's trying to stop a war between two factions on the battlegrounds of two alternative Earth's, one where science takes control and another where magic is real...

Right from the bat, John Dorney has proven yet again, he hasn't run out of ideas and has given us an incredibly interesting and very un-Doctor Who-like story that somehow still manages to work with epic proportions. It's definitely inspired by fantasy fiction and heavily so, but the way he uses it here is masterful and unique for the series. 7, Harry and Naomi are brilliant together, I love how the difference between 4 and 7 is established with him being a calculative mastermind as opposed to a clever but erratic comedian, and the three bounce off one another surprisingly very well. Sylvester, Christopher, and Eleanor were the highlights of this for me as the main trio and I hope we have more of them beyond this set! 10/10

Scream of The Daleks:
When The Tardis detects screams from the vortex, The Doctor, Harry, and Naomi arrive at a festival on Halloween 1969. However, when they discover a skeleton, they go back in time to find out what happened to the body, only to find a pattern of disappearances throughout the centuries on the very same date... But meanwhile, in the crack of the universe, a sinister force awaits, The Daleks are coming.

Lisa McMullin has written a unique Dalek story, not so much because of The Daleks themselves but the situation they're in and how it toys around with the very date of Halloween being the weak point of two worlds and how we as a species have always celebrated it but in very different circumstances and under very different names, but all to do with the feeling of fear. It's a fantastic, atmospheric tale with a clever resolution from The Doctor. 9/10

Overall: 19/20
Profile Image for Jamie Holland.
99 reviews1 follower
February 16, 2025
Tale of mixed half's - more 3.5 than 4

Story 1 - really enjoyed this, loved the focus on mostly Harry and Naomi and thought it was a really fun blend of fantasy with some grounded sci fi.
Story 2 - really did not like this one. Rushed by and really just was not to my liking in the slightest
Profile Image for Jamieson.
720 reviews
August 17, 2023
This was an interesting release. Harry Sullivan was an early companion of the Fourth Doctor, a naval doctor who worked with UNIT. In Big Finish, Harry Sullivan and new companion travel with the Fourth Doctor before getting stranded in the 21st Century. The problem is, these stories aren't going to be released until next year (2024). After the Fourth Doctor Adventures, Harry and Naomi appear in the UNIT: Nemesis series. After that, we get this set where they're picked up by the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy).

I enjoyed this set. The first story, the four-part London Orbital, sees Harry and Naomi getting involved in a war between two races of elves and meeting the Seventh Doctor. While fantasy isn't my thing, I still enjoyed this one. It made a nice change from the usual sci-fi fare that we usually get from Doctor Who. It's not the kind of thing I'd want a lot of, but every once in a while it's nice to mix things up a bit. The second story, the two-part Scream of the Daleks, sees the Doctor, Harry and Naomi arrive in 1969 England on Halloween. People are seeing ghosts, but not all is as it seems as the Doctor discovers that the Daleks are behind it. This was a fun Dalek story that gives them a nice spin and that doesn't outstay its welcome. So, a good set that would probably work a little better if I'd heard the stories that preceed it/are yet to be released.
Profile Image for Drew.
458 reviews5 followers
April 9, 2023
Well, that was a bit rubbish. Both episodes.

"London Orbital" felt like Dorney was writing an urban fantasy on the side, and just decided to turn it into a Doctor Who script. And it just couldn't keep my attention.

And "Scream of the Daleks" was one of those cases where even a two-parter felt padded out. Could have been a half-hour, one-part story from one of the anthologies.

For Harry and Naomi's reunion with the Doctor (because Tom Baker has recorded so far in advance, their original travels with the Fourth Doctor have yet to be released), I kind of hoped for more. I guess they're off on new adventures now. I hope future Seventh Doctor episodes with Harry and Naomi are better.
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