Help choosing Doctor Who audio

[S. Gomez]

So I got a $10 iTunes gift card in my Christmas stocking, and I was thinking of using it to get one of the cheaper soundtrack audio plays of a missing Doctor Who serial. I'm going to pick up "The War Games" on DVD as a sort of belated Christmas present to myself, so I was thinking Second Doctor.

The options are:

"The Power of The Daleks"
"The Highlanders"
"The Underwater Menace"
"Fury From The Deep"

Any advice on which would be best? I'm a bit of a Jamie fan, so I was thinking "The Highlanders" since it's his first one. Also, is there any way to (legally) read the scripts for these episodes? I was thinking of reading along in case any dialogue is a little hard to hear.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'm a bit of a Jamie fan, so I was thinking "The Highlanders" since it's his first one.

"The Highlanders" is okay. It's not stunning by any means.

"Power of the Daleks" is good. I'd probably go for "The Underwater Menace."

Also, is there any way to (legally) read the scripts for these episodes? I was thinking of reading along in case any dialogue is a little hard to hear.

The Doctor Who Scripts Project.

 

[S. Gomez]

Also, is there any way to (legally) read the scripts for these episodes? I was thinking of reading along in case any dialogue is a little hard to hear.

The Doctor Who Scripts Project.

Thanks! I knew there was something like that around, but I couldn't remember what it was called or where I had seen it.

 

[OmahaStar]

I'd probably go for "The Underwater Menace."

That's my suggestion as well.

 

[Phillip Culley]

I feel like I'm in some bizarro world where everyone is choosing The Underwater Menace (which is rightly so, since it is the best episode ever )

However, all 4 stories are good although The Highlanders, while Jamie's first story, is probably the poorer of the 4, and the other two stories are much more highly rated by fandom as a whole (Power and Fury being rightly held up as two of the best Second Doctor stories).

The one advantage being a Jamie fan is that all the Second Doctor stories bar The Power of the Daleks feature him

 

[S. Gomez]

^That is indeed a great advantage!

However, on further reflection, I decided to pick up some Christmas music instead. My experiences with downloading audiobooks from iTunes have been a bit of a mixed bag where the organization of chapter stops is concerned. The last one I bought didn't even have any; it would pick up from where you last played, but you couldn't see how long you had until the next chapter started. I've been a little leery of buying them digitally since then.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

I would go with Power of the Daleks (easily the best Dalek story in early Doctor Who) but I guess the point is moot now.

 

[S. Gomez]

It may not be so moot as we thought. I got another iTunes card. It also means I could shoot for one that's a couple dollars more. The Abominable Snowmen?

 

[The Nth Doctor]

The Abominable Snowmen is a wonderful story and definitely worth checking out.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The Abominable Snowmen is a wonderful story and definitely worth checking out.

Unfortunately, you won't hear Harold Pinter in The Abominable Snowmen, as he had no lines, assuming that one of the Monks was Pinter.

 

[OmahaStar]

The Abominable Snowmen is a wonderful story and definitely worth checking out.

Unfortunately, you won't hear Harold Pinter in The Abominable Snowmen, as he had no lines, assuming that one of the Monks was Pinter.

What does Pinter have to do with the story?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

The Abominable Snowmen is a wonderful story and definitely worth checking out.

Unfortunately, you won't hear Harold Pinter in The Abominable Snowmen, as he had no lines, assuming that one of the Monks was Pinter.

What does Pinter have to do with the story?

Pinter also did some acting, and he's rumored to be one of the monks that appear in the story.

 

[S. Gomez]

Neverthless, a good recommendation from Emh is good enough for me.

 

[Captain Pike]

Nothing wrong with Power.. or The Highlanders, but I think I'll be the first to recommend Fury from the Deep.

 

[Phillip Culley]

Unfortunately, you won't hear Harold Pinter in The Abominable Snowmen, as he had no lines, assuming that one of the Monks was Pinter.

What does Pinter have to do with the story?

Pinter also did some acting, and he's rumored to be one of the monks that appear in the story.

That depends - Ralpachan is played by David Baron, which is a stage name Pinter used. There is however another David Baron, and when you look at the kind of acting work that Pinter was doing at the time, it really doesn't make sense that he would spend a month and a half doing a Doctor Who story, especially when you see the other David Baron was doing the kind of work which makes it much more likely to do 6 episodes of Doctor Who.

Plus, Ralpachan doesn't really look like Pinter...

 

[S. Gomez]

Well, thank goodness iTunes lets users post reviews. I discovered from one that their audiobook of The Web of Fear contains both that story and the earlier Abominable Snowmen. I double- and triple-checked using the stated running times on iTunes and counting up how many minutes a certain number of episodes would add up to, took a deep breath and got it...and it does have both! So I got two stories for just slightly more than the price of one.

Of course, neither one has chapter stops for each episode, but at least they come in separate files.

 

[Captain Pike]

Web of Fear can be a bit confusing on audio. The narration helps considerably, but the story doesn't quite lend itself to the format. There's long periods of soldiers scuffling through tunnels and struggling with Yeti.

The surviving episodes of both these stories can be found on the Lost in Time dvd boxset - I highly recommend it as a companion to any of these incomplete stories.