Last Doctor Who Story you listened to?

[Emperor-Tiberius]

So Spare Parts was okay, but I've heard it mentioned so much over the years as an important story that it was hard to live up to expectations. I didn't find it all that exceptional, really. And I find it silly that it took the "parallel Earth" idea to "Miri"-like extremes of having even the cultural details, names, accents, etc. be the same as Earth rather than just the geology and evolution. I guess the best part was when Nyssa confronted the Doctor over their unresolved issues regarding Adric's death. I wish that had been explored in more depth.

It and Holy Terror are probably the most overrated of the BF catalog (with Zagreus being the most underrated), and I didn't love it at first listen, but still liked it fairly much. I only got to love it at a second relisten, where I paid attention to the Nyssa side of the story. Its really basically great.

I found it rather contrived that the Doctor ended up being used as a template for the final Cyberman design. It's the same problem as the Moffat era, making it so that everything in the universe revolves around the Doctor, is caused by the Doctor, is a reaction to the Doctor, or the like. Plus it's a bit contrived to have him at the origin of the Daleks and the Cybermen (and since then he's been involved in two more Cyberman origin stories, and I gather there's one about the origin of the Sontarans too).

I listened to this one before I'd delved into the Moffat era (it might be one of my earliest audios, come to think of it) and I wasn't as put off but you have a point. I guess its kind of expected in a long-running franchise to see the Doctor as the instigator to the villainous predilictions of his opponents, kinda like Batman's arrival signalled the arrival of all the super-villains and the like. But the way I rationalize it, and I don't know if this helps (probably won't, lol), is that a lot of the villains (not all) would probably had come around to be even without the Doctor. The fact that the Doctor, a Time Lord of a race that seemingly avoids time travel, did so indicates that the reason the Time Lords don't venture off like the Doctor carelessly does, is because they don't want/wish to entangle themselves in unpleasant situations like these (plus the bureaucracy of the restoring things to how they were and the paperwork involved would kill them, haha). Its not exactly the Doctor's fault either, but its a risk he takes for the choice he made to explore the universe in every sense of the word.

But I think the central conflict in Spare Parts for the Doctor is that it meant to be seen more as a follow-up on Earthshock than anything, because Adric's death is still pretty fresh and the Doctor is also willing to completely eradicate the Cybermen from history, which is something he'd never done with the Daleks before then. Its chilling to hear Five be so vengeful, like a post-Seventh Doctor would be under these circumstances. More than anything though, it features a brilliant performance by both Davison and Sutton, who gets to show layers as the lone survivor of a long-since doomed cosmos.

And yes, there is a Sontaran origin story. Its in the Lost Stories range, and its called The First Sontarans, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri. Its a cracking story.

 

[Christopher]

I guess its kind of expected in a long-running franchise to see the Doctor as the instigator to the villainous predilictions of his opponents, kinda like Batman's arrival signalled the arrival of all the super-villains and the like.

I'm not a fan of that trope in later Batman fiction. It feels like it's trying too hard to be cutesy and meta, an in-universe nod to the real-world fact that the hero was created first and the supervillains created to give him someone to fight. I always figured it would more plausibly be the other way around. If something came along to give people extraordinary abilities, whether superpowers or just superior technology/techniques, many people's first impulse would be to use it for selfish gain, and fewer people would have the courage or nobility, or the relentless commitment in Bruce Wayne's case, to devote themselves to heroism. So I think the villains would come first and the heroes would emerge in response, not the other way around.

Besides, it robs a hero of nobility if he or she is the one responsible for all the bad stuff the villains do. It makes it less about altruism on others' behalf and more about cleaning up one's own messes, which is a narrower, more egocentric story focus It's why I think the modern trend of serialization has gone too far, because serialized stories naturally revolve around the main characters' own ongoing problems, while old-style episodic case-of-the-week fiction was about the main characters helping others with their problems.

But I think the central conflict in Spare Parts for the Doctor is that it meant to be seen more as a follow-up on Earthshock than anything, because Adric's death is still pretty fresh and the Doctor is also willing to completely eradicate the Cybermen from history, which is something he'd never done with the Daleks before then. Its chilling to hear Five be so vengeful, like a post-Seventh Doctor would be under these circumstances.

Well, at first the Doctor just wanted to leave, insisting that it was up to the Mondasians to reshape their own fate -- although he did try to give them a nudge by trying to expose the atrocities to the citizens so they would then take action. He got drawn in more deeply by circumstances, and then it seemed his intervention was less about vengance and more just about not being able to turn away from someone in need right in front of him.

I think it's consistent with "Genesis of the Daleks," because there, his question was "Do I have the right to make this decision for everyone?" Here, he was following the same principle, trying not to usurp the Mondasians' freedom to choose their own path.

 

[Marc]

I found it rather contrived that the Doctor ended up being used as a template for the final Cyberman design. It's the same problem as the Moffat era, making it so that everything in the universe revolves around the Doctor, is caused by the Doctor, is a reaction to the Doctor, or the like. Plus it's a bit contrived to have him at the origin of the Daleks and the Cybermen (and since then he's been involved in two more Cyberman origin stories, and I gather there's one about the origin of the Sontarans too).

then you need to go back and pay more attention.

The Cyber program was already underway before the Doctor arrived on Mondas so his arrival or lack there wouldn't have changed much.

His involvement with the Daleks was due to the involvement of the Timelords and their determination to stop the Daleks wiping sentient life in the universe i.e he didn't accidently land on Skaro, he was sent there.

The First Sontarand gives a back story to the Sontarans but again the Doctor wasn't there are their creation.

Spoiler

The Doctor encounters the race that created the Sontarans after the later had all but wiped out their creators).

 

[Christopher]

I adored ...ish. Delightfully clever and witty, marvelous play with language and concepts. A story about the power of language, in the most literal sense. Ambrosia for a writer and lover of English like me. Not only fun, but thoughtful too. It touched on things about language I've often mused on, like the question of why certain sounds came to be associated with certain meanings in the first place, or the way a familiar word can suddenly seem alien and nonsensical when you examine it and repeat it often enough.

It was also a perfect fit for the grandiloquent Sixth Doctor, especially with Peri. (Although Nicola Bryant still fumbles her American pronunciations -- "keister" does not rhyme with "meister!") It's a bit odd, though, because it implies that Osefa was an old friend of the Sixth Doctor specifically, but Peri had never met her before, and Peri had been traveling with Six since his "birth," so how could he have established an old friendship in her absence?

Since the story offered no description for the "hologlyph" Book, the holographic AI that embodied the lexicon, my mind came up with a rather intriguing visual for the character, once I had a good understanding of what he was. I imagined him as a humanoid shape made of text (inspired by the cover illustration of the CD), with words constantly sliding across his invisible "skin" and his dialogue scrolling across his "face" as he spoke it.

then you need to go back and pay more attention.

The Cyber program was already underway before the Doctor arrived on Mondas so his arrival or lack there wouldn't have changed much.

Evidently you need to go back and pay more attention to the end of episode 3 and the first half of episode 4:

https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Spare_Parts_(audio_story)#Popping_the_Seals_.283.29

Allan shows the Committee the scans from The Doctor. They notice he has two hearts, but Allan tells them there is a small lobe at the base of his skull which deals with bodily and motor functions. She thinks she can use that to optimise data for the Cybermen. She thinks she can reproduce this in all new cyber processing and there will be no need for organ rejection. The Committee agrees and says this is to begin immediately. The Doctor refuses, saying he will be no part of this. Allan pleads with him. The Committee tells Allan to begin, that they will survive and will be invincible.
...
The Doctor laments that every Cyberman he'll ever meet is now based on him.

The Cyberconversion process had a low survival rate due to organ rejection, so they didn't convert any more people than they had to. Their scan of the Doctor's anatomy let them solve that problem and make conversion reliably survivable, which opened the door to mass conversion of the whole population. So yes, his presence made a big difference.

 

[Iamnotspock]

It's a bit odd, though, because it implies that Osefa was an old friend of the Sixth Doctor specifically, but Peri had never met her before, and Peri had been traveling with Six since his "birth," so how could he have established an old friendship in her absence?

It can probably be covered by the number of offscreen adventures that have been created in the expanded media, like when the Doctor dropped off Peri on Earth for a time in the DWM comics while he travelled with Frobisher, or when she was asleep in the TARDIS, like in that "Night and the Doctor" short with the Eleventh Doctor and Amy.

 

[Christopher]

Anyway, I'm still having no luck getting Hoopla audiobooks to play on my phone again. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, and I tried rebooting the phone (really should've tried that first), but no luck. The advice I found online suggested I might not have enough RAM on my phone, but I tried it without any other apps open beyond the ones open by default, and still no luck. This is very annoying.

 

[Christopher]

The Rapture: An experimental one, a decent try, but it didn't really work for me. At times it was trying too hard to be stylish and weird. The voice directing had some issues too. There was too much shouting that sounded fake, like the actors trying to sound loud without actually being too loud, I guess so they didn't overload the mikes or create distortion or something. Sophie Aldred's shouting got pretty annoying after a while. And there was this long sequence at the climax where the bad guy was holding Ace over a long drop and threatening to let go, and there was no hint of strain in his voice over the course of a lengthy debate with the Doctor. Maybe his species was supposed to be superstrong, but there was no indication of that as far as I recall. Not to mention that the drop was said to be only 15 feet or so, yet it was treated as inevitably fatal, and when a couple of characters fell that distance earlier, their screams went on much longer than they should have (it would take less than a second to fall 15 feet).

There was a bit where a hallucinating character perceived the Doctor as "the Sandman," which made me wonder if it was a setup for the next story, but there was no evident connection, so that's weird.


The Sandman: A lot of interesting ideas here. The Clutch was an imaginative setting, and it was interesting to portray an alien species as morally ambiguous, to show how there could be two sides to the story and the Doctor could seem to be a villain to those he fought. Although his long-term plan of making himself a mythic bogeyman to this species over millennia to keep their conquering urges in check seemed like it would be more in character for Seven than Six, though maybe Six's experience with the Clutch was what pushed him in the direction of Seven's more regular embrace of such elaborate master plans.

Still, I had trouble following aspects of the plot. It wasn't clear for a long time who the villain was or what was even going wrong with the Clutch that required the Doctor's intervention, because the focus was so much on the Doctor himself as the "villain" and whether that was real or not. So there were some dangers in the last act that seemed to come out of nowhere. Plus it was weird that Anneke Wills's character was set up having this especially fierce vendetta against the Sandman/Doctor but never had a climactic confrontation with him. She posed a threat to him at first by sending an assassin, but that ended up fizzling out without any real closure.

Although it could be just that my attention is wandering more now that I have to listen on my computer speakers instead of my earphones, so maybe I'm missing stuff. Plus I've listened to the past two in the evening and was on the verge of drifting off at times.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Yeah, The Rapture is a divisive one. Fans either love it or hate it. I, er, kinda do, but I appreciated the weirdness at the time since I had followed this set of stories (the Fearmonger onwards Seven/Ace ones) after a seemingly myriad stories of Seven/Ace/Mel stories from recent years. Trust me, those will be painful in their own ways, if you ever get to that stage.

But more to the point, Lidster actually loves dropping clues and references to various audios stories in his plays. Like, Sandman from The Sandman as you noticed.

 

[Christopher]

The Church and the Crown: Not bad. Another of BF's pure historicals, involving Cardinal Richilieu and the Musketeers. It felt like they were trying to evoke the Hartnell era in a Davison serial, since they did a story about French history involving a double for one of the main characters, like "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve." I looked up pictures of Queen Anne on Wikipedia, by the way, and she didn't seem to bear any resemblance to Nicola Bryant. Although Bryant does look a little like Geraldine Chaplin, who played Anne in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers, so maybe that's what they were going for. (I remember the Duke of Buckingham being a character in that too.)

The best part was Erimem, who was really impressive here. The Doctor was lucky he had a member of royalty with him, someone who spoke the language and knew how to deal with things in that milieu. And it was nice to hear her tell Louis and Richilieu off for their petty bickering.

The writing was a little inconsistent at times. There were multiple instances where Peri told Erimem about the Doctor's habits as if she'd been traveling with him for ages, but there was another bit where the Doctor talked to Peri about things she'd learn once she'd traveled with him for longer, as if this were still fairly soon after "Planet of Fire." And after Erimem's first encounter with explosives, she told the king "there was an explosion," yet later on, when she was trying to suggest using explosives to the Musketeers, all she could say was "we were knocked down by a kind of noise." Although I'm not convinced that Erimem would've been unfamiliar with the concept of explosions. The Egyptians were an agrarian society, so they probably had grain silos of some sort, and those can explode in some cases.

Speaking of inconsistencies... I've remarked before how some of these have treated time travel as something that can easily alter history and thus has to be done very carefully, but here the Doctor told Peri that they didn't have to worry about altering history because whatever they did now was part of history and always had been. Which is a better fit with how the classic series usually approached things, but I wish the BF line would be more consistent about it.

The Wiki says this is the last one to use the Derbyshire theme arrangement, and from now on they'll use the Howell, Glynn, and McCullough arrangements for their respective Doctors. That's good. I don't suppose they ever managed to license the John Debney arrangement for the Eighth Doctor, as opposed to using their own?

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I much rather prefer the Arnold arrangement anyway. I never liked the Debney version, and might just be the worst one of the bunch (and I count the Delaware in that bunch, too).

As for the time travel thing, its usually up to the writer. Some take a more NuWho-like view of "well there are fixed points that never be changed, but otherwise go crazy" and others go "well, it was bound to happen anyway".

 

[Christopher]

I much rather prefer the Arnold arrangement anyway. I never liked the Debney version, and might just be the worst one of the bunch (and I count the Delaware in that bunch, too).

I think the Debney version's interesting; it's the first fully orchestral arrangement, and it's interesting the way it puts the bridge portion first. Plus I just kind of like the idea of the Who theme being done by a composer who's also done Star Trek.

Plus, if the other Doctors are getting their "proper" TV themes, it seems incomplete to me if Eight doesn't get his too. I don't like asymmetry.

What's "the Delaware?"

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I think the Debney version's interesting; it's the first fully orchestral arrangement, and it's interesting the way it puts the bridge portion first. Plus I just kind of like the idea of the Who theme being done by a composer who's also done Star Trek.

I always forget he did Trek. Odd.

Anyway, I just consider it an honorable failure, personally. Its not awful by any means, but I think it was OTT and slightly annoying to my ears.

Plus, if the other Doctors are getting their "proper" TV themes, it seems incomplete to me if Eight doesn't get his too. I don't like asymmetry.

I guess because to me, Eight's run is so defined to me by his audios, that I literally don't see the Debney theme as his show's theme. Its a secondary theme, like the Day of the Doctor variation that appeared at the end of it. Its there, but not always, ya know.

To be honest, I don't know why they never used the Debney theme for the audios, but if I had to guess, they paid David Arnold, who was still the standard Bond composer at the time and as such, a fairly prominent composer and it was received well enough by fandom at the time that, when Briggs DID replace it during the spin-off Eighth Doctor Adventures series with basically a remixed Derbyshire version, fans weren't happy and very vocally demanded that theme back. Which it did come back with the Dark Eyes box-sets and onwards, and runs to this day.

With the exception of Eighth's Time War box-set series, which has a new theme that is shared with the War Doctor box-set series. I guess you could call that the Time War Theme or something.

Oh, and they did use a variation for the Mary Shelley trilogy (a later set of stories, also main range, released way later, but chronologically before Storm Warning) that was closer to Debney's theme, but I don't know if you'd like it.

What's "the Delaware?"

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[Christopher]

I was asking for background on what "the Delaware" is and where it comes from, not just how it sounds.

 

[Saul]

Listened to the Diary of River Song series 3 which I enjoyed. Actually skipped series 2 by accident but will listen to it soon.
Working from home by myself gives me a chance to listen to these sometimes so i'm finally catching up on them.
The whole covid situation has given me a lot of time to not only listen to audios but watch classic episodes I had never seen before.
Trying to find that silver lining.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I was asking for background on what "the Delaware" is and where it comes from, not just how it sounds.

I premiered during one of the Pertwee serials (I want to say Carnival of Monsters, but I can't be certain), and only out of the UK. But it was broadcast for a couple of episode, and I think it was Letts' idea that a new sound replace the existing theme. That didn't pan out though, as we know.

 

[Marc]

I premiered during one of the Pertwee serials (I want to say Carnival of Monsters, but I can't be certain), and only out of the UK. But it was broadcast for a couple of episode, and I think it was Letts' idea that a new sound replace the existing theme. That didn't pan out though, as we know.

I think it was one episode that went to air with (the second) but can't remember the story but do recall reading about it.

Glad they didn't go with - that is a truly shocking arrangement dominated by what sounds like an electronic mouth harp.

 

[Christopher]

I was lukewarm on Bang-Bang-a-Boom! most of the way through; I'm not that fond of BF's attempts at outright comedy. This one didn't have the same "trying too hard" feel as The One Doctor (at least not so often), but it didn't really grab me. However, it turned out to have a pretty clever twist in Part 4, about the true nature of the peace conference. Also, I'm pleased with myself because I formulated a theory about the murderer just over halfway through and it turned out to be exactly right.

Spoiler

When the Doctor was wondering why the song contest host was murdered, I remembered him mentioning that he was working on a translator device, and I realized then that the interpreter must've murdered him to conceal that he was mistranslating to provoke a conflict.

 

[Christopher]

Jubilee: Wow. That was rather brilliant, though very dark. BF is still playing about with alternate timelines a lot more than the TV series ever did, but this one was complex and chilling, though the characters got a bit farcical at times. Oh, well. There was a time when I would've found it implausible that the sadistic, megalomaniacal leader of a decaying fascist state could be such an absurd, imbecilic madman, but alas, we all know better now.

Certainly it's the richest character study of a Dalek that had probably ever been attempted up to this point, and it paved the way for similar examinations in the new series -- starting, of course, with Shearman's own very loose adaptation of it into "Dalek." It's fascinating how Shearman gave this Dalek so much nuance, even making it borderline sympathetic, while still keeping its Dalek viewpoint essentially intact.

There were a couple of big fakeouts, like the opening that sounded like a promo for a future BF audio but turned out to be an in-story movie trailer. And when they were talking about the prisoner in a wheelchair, they were clearly trying to make us think it was Davros, though they tried a little too hard, so I realized it was a red herring and figured out who it really was.

Nice to hear the Dominic Glynn theme arrangement again. Aside from the orchestration being a little shrill, I kind of like this version. It's got a more subdued, kind of laid-back version of the ostinato and main melody, but then it cuts into this nice crisp, emphatic version of the bridge which is quite nice.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Really glad you enjoyed Jubilee. Its as layered and darkly humorous as The Holy Terror, but also more complex in its characterization and pointed deconstruction of the Daleks. It really is that good, and another gem from the great Shearman, who almost single-handedly revitalizes the Sixth Doctor with two solid masterpieces of writing.

And lest we forget the great Maggie Stables, whose Evelyn is consistently reliable and enteratining. And count me, as well, in the "love the Glynn variation of the theme" crowd. Its certainly easier to the ear than the MuCullough version (which I never liked before this year, after my marathon run kinda forced me to like it, after that long a time), and its certainly nice that BF pretty much solidified it as the Sixth's era theme, and not the Trial of a Time Lord theme.

 

[Christopher]

I do wonder sometimes how Daleks keep track of which Dalek is which, like when assigning work or keeping records or making reports or whatever. Do they have serial numbers? I can't believe a society could really function without some way to identify and refer to individuals when not addressing them directly.