As you might imagine when something's written by Nev Fountain, Peri and the Piscon Paradox is quite funny; I quickly began to wonder if my wife was getting aggravated hearing me laugh loudly as I listened to the story on my iPod while cleaning the kitchen. Some of the jokes might fall flat (mostly the vapid-Los-Angeles-folks shtick, which quickly got old), but most of them work quite well, especially the ones at the expense of Doctor Who, its premises, or its characters. I loved Fountain's writing for the utterly unperturbable and gentlemanly fifth Doctor especially, and the zaniness on the second disc with Piscon criminal Zarl was very well done, too.

It's a story I'm reluctant to say a lot about, because I think a lot of its impact, both humor- and emotion-wise, would be diluted by foreknowledge. (Though that can't be entirely true, as I wanted to immediately relisten to it!) It's funny, it's sad, it exploits both audio drama in general and the Companion Chronicles in particular to their utmost, and it's certainly the best story about Peri to ever be written.

You can read a longer version of this review at Unreality SF.

This is one of the best plays Big Finish have ever done. I had reasonably high hopes after reading the very connubial mutual interview between author Nev Fountain and star Nicola Bryant in the last Doctor Who Magazine, and even more so after reading Andrew Hickey's very positive and detailed review, and I was not disappointed. Nicola Bryant has been awfully good as Peri throughout the Big Finish run of audios; here Fountain has picked up on a number of the things that made The Kingmaker also one of the best Big Finish audios, and managed to both tie up a number of loose ends in Peri's story and add considerable depth to her character without overburdening her. The two actors involved, Bryant and Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, are both called on to perform rather more intensely than usual and both really rise to it. Like Andrew Hickey, I was left full of admiration for Bryant's convincing portrayal of young Peri with the Fifth Doctor just before The Caves of Androzani, combined with her equally convincing portrayal of 2009 Peri who has no memory of the Sixth Doctor at all. I am always attracted by doppelganger-style stories anyway but I loved the layers of disguise and identity in this one. And Fountain and Bryant managed to mix some pretty grim subject matter (which Big Finish don't always manage to pull off) with the comedy elements where they are perhaps more at home. Very strongly recommended, though I think one would need at least a passing familiarity not just with Doctor Who but with the Peri era to really enjoy it. ( )