It's also nice when there's a guest actor I recognize, so I can visualize them. Although in this case, I couldn't help visualizing the political candidate as Servalan.
Last Doctor Who Story you listened to?
- Thread starter Emperor-Tiberius
- Start date
Oh, you won't have that "problem" with Colditz, I can assure you.
Done with The Marian Conspiracy. Evelyn is a fun companion. It's nice to see the overbearing Sixth paired up with someone who's just as strong-willed and can put him in his place. I note from the Wiki that the present-day setting is Sheffield, so I guess Thirteen isn't the first incarnation to have companions from there.
The Wiki also calls it a pure historical, but I wouldn't agree, because the story is largely driven by the sci-fi element of Evelyn's "temporal nexus" and the "Yesteryear"-like paradox that she'll cease to exist if she doesn't go back in time and assure her own existence -- which makes even less sense here than it did there. As for the historical aspects, they were okay, but not great. It was weird to show the Doctor having such sympathy for a religious fanatic who ordered people burned alive for not sharing her faith. And the conspirators were rather dumb and easily foiled.
Also, did English people back then really address each other constantly by their full names?
Hmm, looks like now I have to decide whether to start Dalek Empire or move on to Red Dawn.
The Wiki also calls it a pure historical, but I wouldn't agree, because the story is largely driven by the sci-fi element of Evelyn's "temporal nexus" and the "Yesteryear"-like paradox that she'll cease to exist if she doesn't go back in time and assure her own existence -- which makes even less sense here than it did there. As for the historical aspects, they were okay, but not great. It was weird to show the Doctor having such sympathy for a religious fanatic who ordered people burned alive for not sharing her faith. And the conspirators were rather dumb and easily foiled.
Also, did English people back then really address each other constantly by their full names?
Hmm, looks like now I have to decide whether to start Dalek Empire or move on to Red Dawn.
Dalek Empire is a safe bet. I like Brink of Death and Robophobia more, but Dalek Empire is Nicholas Briggs' best contribution to Who. It actually shows that grim reality where the Doctor can't save everyone, or everything, from the Daleks.
Okay, looking more closely, it looks like there are a couple of different things I was confusing -- four loosely linked entries in the Main Range that had the Dalek Empire supertitle, and a separate 4-part Dalek Empire miniseries, plus three sequels (only the first of which is on Hoopla). I assume, Tiberius, that you're referring to the separate miniseries. In that case, if the Main Range DE entries were originally released separately, I might as well just continue following the Main Range sequence as before, so The Genocide Machine would be next.
Still, lots to like in that Who-related Dalek Empire tales. The Apocalypse Element retcons that part of the TV Movie that confuses the Master into thinking the Doctor is half-human. And according to RTD, these stories are the earliest pre-Time War assaults that directly attribute toward that very War.
Didn't care much for The Genocide Machine. Kind of a weird concept, a library that has "all the knowledge in the universe" but stores it all in physical books, which means it would have to be at least the size of several whole planets, not just the single building it was portrayed as. Also, how do you define "the universe?" It's infinite, so it would be impossible to gather all its knowledge. And the librarian is human? How far in the future is this? And then there was that weird bit about Bev Tarrant's crew wanting to "steal a ziggurat." A ziggurat is a huge stone pyramid, but they were talking about it like something small enough to load on an antigrav sled and cart off to a ship. (Plus the actors' pronunciations made me think they were saying "cigarette" at first. At least that would be easier to carry.) And the Doctor made a bizarrely quick turnaround from "Grr, you are guilty of genocide and you will face my terrible Season 26-style wrath" to "Oh, you've learned your lesson, good luck, you old scamp."
Also, if the idea is to do a series of Dalek stories that all link up into a larger narrative, it's weird to start with a Seven tale and then follow it up with Six and Five before wrapping it up with Eight. Since Seven here showed no sign of recognizing anything from his previous lives, that means the Doctor won't be able to draw any connections between the tales until the concluding chapter. But I guess I'll find out as I go.
Also, if the idea is to do a series of Dalek stories that all link up into a larger narrative, it's weird to start with a Seven tale and then follow it up with Six and Five before wrapping it up with Eight. Since Seven here showed no sign of recognizing anything from his previous lives, that means the Doctor won't be able to draw any connections between the tales until the concluding chapter. But I guess I'll find out as I go.
The Dalek Empire stories in the main range are less about an overall narrative and more about small references that place the stories within the same moment in Dalek history, a moment that’s followed up on in the Dalek Empire series proper. The Eighth Doctor story certainly isn’t any kind of culmination; given the time lapse between the 5/6/7 stories and it, I would honestly guess it was a retroactive thing where they decided to include a couple Dalek Empire references when they realized they were doing the Eighth Doctor’s first Dalek story.
The bits about the Daleks planting sleeper operatives on many worlds to wait for time travelers seemed to me like it was setting up the larger narrative, but now it sounds like it wasn't.
Red Dawn: Not bad. I like it when we see the Ice Warriors portrayed as more or less the good guys, although I've come to find the "honorable warriors" trope kind of cliched, and sometimes the Ice Lord seemed a little too reasonable and benevolent and the human villain a little too villainous. Nice idea, but it could've been executed more subtly.
Interesting that Georgia Moffett was a guest star in one of her father Peter Davison's stories, but I found her acting unimpressive -- presumably because she was only 15 at the time it was made. Maybe they could've held off on the nepotism for a few years longer.
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor: The Brig! Yay! This one was kind of slow getting started, without any real sense of peril or suspense until the end of part 1, but I actually kind of enjoyed "seeing" the Doctor and Evelyn getting a chance to just putter around and exercise their scientific/historical curiosity for a while, and then for the Doctor and the Brigadier to have a collegial reunion. I'm not sure the pieces of the story meshed together all that neatly, but who cares? It's the Brig! It was a lot of fun.
I'm a little surprised that Evelyn spoke as though she's been on a number of adventures with the Doctor since her debut. I would've expected the stories with original companions to be more sequential. I seem to recall the Eight/Charley stories I heard years ago working that way, as a continuous "season."
Interesting that Georgia Moffett was a guest star in one of her father Peter Davison's stories, but I found her acting unimpressive -- presumably because she was only 15 at the time it was made. Maybe they could've held off on the nepotism for a few years longer.
The Spectre of Lanyon Moor: The Brig! Yay! This one was kind of slow getting started, without any real sense of peril or suspense until the end of part 1, but I actually kind of enjoyed "seeing" the Doctor and Evelyn getting a chance to just putter around and exercise their scientific/historical curiosity for a while, and then for the Doctor and the Brigadier to have a collegial reunion. I'm not sure the pieces of the story meshed together all that neatly, but who cares? It's the Brig! It was a lot of fun.
I'm a little surprised that Evelyn spoke as though she's been on a number of adventures with the Doctor since her debut. I would've expected the stories with original companions to be more sequential. I seem to recall the Eight/Charley stories I heard years ago working that way, as a continuous "season."
Winter for the Adept: This was Andrew Cartmel's first audio and first Fifth Doctor tale, and I think it's the worst BF audio I've heard yet. Not a particularly interesting story, and it was the first one I've heard to suffer from a really bad case of radio writing -- characters narrating what they see to each other even though they can all see it at the same time. ("Look at those ski poles! They're hovering in the air! They're moving toward us!" Egad.) Nyssa is out of character, so surly and argumentative that I wondered if this was a rewritten Seven/Ace script. And Peter Jurasik gives a surprisingly bad, stilted performance; perhaps he wasn't accustomed to voice acting.
I mentioned before that I'd heard one Five/Nyssa audio many years ago on BBC Radio or their website, and I think it was probably this one, since I remember it having the same problem with radio writing, and with Nyssa's voice hardly being recognizable.
I mentioned before that I'd heard one Five/Nyssa audio many years ago on BBC Radio or their website, and I think it was probably this one, since I remember it having the same problem with radio writing, and with Nyssa's voice hardly being recognizable.
The Apocalypse Element: Not bad. It feels like this was an early battle in the Time War. Although it was a little amusing when the characters were saying with such certainty that the Daleks would never be so crazy as to let the entire universe be destroyed...
They came up with a clever way of implicitly handwaving the "human retina pattern opens the Eye" thing from the McGann movie.
One thing I'm noticing is that the Big Finish Sixth Doctor seems kinder and less arrogant than the TV version. I guess he's mellowed with age. Although I think all the Evelyn stories are between "Trial" and his first meeting with Mel from her perspective, so they'd be before "Terror of the Vervoids." I don't remember if he was any mellower in that one.
They came up with a clever way of implicitly handwaving the "human retina pattern opens the Eye" thing from the McGann movie.
One thing I'm noticing is that the Big Finish Sixth Doctor seems kinder and less arrogant than the TV version. I guess he's mellowed with age. Although I think all the Evelyn stories are between "Trial" and his first meeting with Mel from her perspective, so they'd be before "Terror of the Vervoids." I don't remember if he was any mellower in that one.
Glad you enjoyed The Apocalypse Now. As said, RTD cited this trilogy, and particularly this story, as one of earliest Time War-related conflicts. I am most glad you like Evelyn Smythe, she's one of my all-time favorites.
The thing about the Sixth Doctor is an interesting matter. BF were always going to have him be mellower, but Colin Baker himself insisted on making his incarnation mellower and kinder. I would argue, though, that he was nicer and gentler in Terror of the Vervoids, with his main source of frustration being Mel's insistence on his dieting.
Spoiler altert: An aspect of Vervoids which never gets picked up on the Six/Mel audios, btw. Fair warning.
They were still early on, and fairly predictably going for old-school storytelling of separate, isolated adventures that come one after the other, though referenced occasionally. It also was necessary due to these adventures alternating monthly between the Doctors, and with the Eighth Doctor the strategy was different because they were basically aiming to write their own TV Doctor, via audio. Lest we forget that Paul McGann at the time he started doing these audios was the incubate Doctor, up until The Next Life's release.
One thing I'm discovering is that Dalek stories can get annoying in audio, what with all the scenes that are just gratey shouting and loud raygun noises and screams.
And yes, as I've mentioned, I did hear a few of these audios many years ago when they ran on radio, and that included the first 4-5 Eight/Charley ones. So I was definitely aware of the audios being essentially a stand-in for the TV seasons McGann never got.
And yes, as I've mentioned, I did hear a few of these audios many years ago when they ran on radio, and that included the first 4-5 Eight/Charley ones. So I was definitely aware of the audios being essentially a stand-in for the TV seasons McGann never got.
The older Doctors definitely got more involving arcs over time. The Seventh Doctor's era with new audio companion Hex is distinct in that way, and several stories following one another rather directly. That's still very far for you, though.
Well, from the preview for The Fires of Vulcan at the end of the last one, I was afraid it would overlap conceptually as well as chronologically with "The Fires of Pompeii," with a lot of debate about whether the people of Pompeii should be saved and all that. It ended up being quite different, much more personal in scope, so I guess there's no reason both stories couldn't have happened at the same time, presuming Pompeii was large enough for the two Doctors never to run into each other.
I think this might be another one I heard ages ago, because at least one bit of it seemed familiar to me. Most of it didn't, though, so maybe it's just deja vu.
I think this might be another one I heard ages ago, because at least one bit of it seemed familiar to me. Most of it didn't, though, so maybe it's just deja vu.
Did you like it, though? I consider this the first Seventh Doctor classic, on audio. I love it, as I do the Pompeii counterpart, but some fans certainly don't (like Elizabeth Sandifer, for instance).
Ever since Fires of Vulcan, I always take Ten's exaggerated reaction at the beginning of Fires of Pompeii as him wanting to avoid meeting his earlier self. I doubt they had that in mind, but I like the idea of it.
Ever since Fires of Vulcan, I always take Ten's exaggerated reaction at the beginning of Fires of Pompeii as him wanting to avoid meeting his earlier self. I doubt they had that in mind, but I like the idea of it.
It was pretty good. It kept me guessing until the end about how they'd get out of the predicament. Sometimes it did feel a bit too much like it was giving a history lecture and throwing in all the known factoids about Pompeii like the graffiti and whatnot, but I guess that's in the tradition of Who historicals. Anyway, it's a relief that only one of the two Pompeii stories (though I gather there's a third in prose) involves aliens and sci-fi elements and the other is a pure historical. It would've been a bit much if there had been two separate alien influences (other than the Doctor/s) involved at the same time.
And given its placement, there were times when I wondered if the Doctor's turn to a darker mood on glimpsing his mortality, and his eventual willingness to use devious methods and future knowledge to try to protect Mel and/or escape the situation, might be meant to explain his transition from the goofy Troughtonesque clown of McCoy's first season to the Macchiavellian cosmic gamemaster of his subsequent seasons. I don't think it quite went that far, though.
Plus I always liked Bonnie Langford's voice; she sounds kind of like an English Bernadette Peters. So it was nice to hear her in an audio. Unlike Sarah Sutton, her voice had hardly changed in the intervening years.
One thing that always bugs me about stories like this, though, is the contrivance that the only times the Doctor cares about not meddling in history are when he's in Earth's past relative to the broadcast date of the story. Surely the events he meddles in on other worlds, or in Earth's distant future, are somebody's history too. Sure, you could argue that, as he said here, it's about avoiding paradoxes in your personal history, and most of the Doctor's companions are from contemporary Earth. But he's also had companions from the future, like Vicki, Steven, and Zoe. Surely all the late 20th-century and early 21st-century invasions and crises that the Doctor freely intervened in were part of their history, so why wasn't he all "Sorry, can't tamper with known events" about those too?
It's too bad they didn't get Peter Davison to record a flashback of the bit where UNIT told him they'd found the TARDIS in 1980. It seems it would've been easy enough to get him to tack on an extra few minutes to a recording session for one of the Fifth Doctor stories.
That would have probably stretched credibility to a standstill, or at the very least the events of the audio story would've been negated due to the Time War (that timely old solution to canon discrepancy, after all).
It didn't do the full transition, no. But I feel it did enough that you can infer this (and another BF story immediately after this, Red) is indeed the root of the Chessmaster incarnation that he is in 25/26. So it is pretty what you said, just the stepping stone towards that direction, though, and I feel its a good decision as it helps preserve Cartmel's much vaunted desire for mystery on the character.
The audios also go a long way to establishing an actual character out of Mel, when all she was in TV was a well-meaning damsel in distress. In this story especially she shows her kindness but also reservedness and hints at her disappointment with this new Doctor's resigned attitude towards Pompeii. That is something that I didn't pick up on first listen, etiher, but only this year, when during lockdown I've marathoned the entire Seventh Doctor audio output (and his three TV seasons, obviously) in chronological order.
I agree entirely.
I certainly think they could've done it following this story, in a throwaway kind of way. Not a fuss about it, but the Doctor could casually mention how he recently visited UNIT for a disconcerting issue abou the TARDIS, but nothing he'd have to hurry to investigate quite yet.
The Shadow of the Scourge: That was very Paul Cornell. Over time, I got tired of the overall darker approach of the New Adventures and the Macchiavellian turn of the Doctor, but Cornell's books were always my favorites in the line, and this had his trademarks -- big ideas, clever prose, deep dives into the characters, wry humor, etc. So it's one of the most impressive audio stories yet... though it's weird that, given the unlimited effects budget of an audio adventure, Cornell basically wrote a bottle show that all took place within a single hotel. I wonder if it was a leftover TV serial he didn't get to do.
I think this is only the second time I've heard Lisa Bowerman as Benny, the first being that Lockdown short story a few weeks back. Her voice is softer and higher than the voice I've always heard for Benny in my head; I think I mentally cast Jacqueline Pearce in the role, I guess because Benny's depiction on the cover of Love and War reminded me of her.
Up next... Frobisher!
I think this is only the second time I've heard Lisa Bowerman as Benny, the first being that Lockdown short story a few weeks back. Her voice is softer and higher than the voice I've always heard for Benny in my head; I think I mentally cast Jacqueline Pearce in the role, I guess because Benny's depiction on the cover of Love and War reminded me of her.
Up next... Frobisher!