Last Doctor Who Story you listened to?

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Thats an unexpected take for one of my favorite audio plays ever. I'm really not sure if that is what Morris had in his mind when writing it, but it does unsettling that such a reading was had anyway. Still do love it, though, for all the reasons it is good. I'll get back to you.

 

[Brendan Moody]

I remember feeling some of the same unease when I first listened to the play back in 2006 or 2007. It doesn’t bother me as much because in context I think It’s pretty obvious that Morris was only interested in the comedy value of such an absurd invasion tactic and didn’t have much in the way of real-world satiric or political intentions. But it’s definitely a case where it might have helped for someone involved in the process to think more about the implications of the joke.

My bigger issue with Flip-Flop (which I do like a lot) is that while it’s very clever, the nature of the conceit means that you spend the second disc (whichever one you pick) thinking in an abstract way about how clever it is, rather than enjoying the jokes or the plot, because at that point you can see how it’s all going to play out.

 

[Brendan Moody]

I've been listening to Torchwood Soho: Parasite, a 1950s-set spinoff featuring Andy Davidson and original-to-Big-Finish character Norton Folgate. Like most everything with Norton in it, it's tremendously entertaining, to a point where I didn't mind that it was a very awkwardly structured story that didn't need to be as long as it was. And this morning I finished Blood on Santa's Claw and Other Stories, a monthly range anthology of Christmas-themed one-part stories featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri that's both more and less than meets the eye. My short reviews of both:
https://latedemocracy.com/2020/08/29/big-finish-in-brief-torchwood-soho-and-blood-on-santas-claw/

 

[Christopher]

I wasn't too fond of Omega, another of their less-than-effective attempts to be somewhat comedic, in the context of a story where that tone didn't really feel appropriate. It seemed to trivialize the subject matter more than it deserved. It was also a confusing story what with the different versions of the Doctor, various illusory entities or things not being what they seemed, and so forth. I think that was as much due to confusing direction and unclear sound effects as it was to the writing.

I also didn't like the bit about the Doctor being inadvertently responsible for something horrible. It was too much like the modern series's tendency, especially under Moffat, to dwell on how ambiguous the Doctor is and how he sometimes does terrible things and all that. It didn't really fit the Davison era. It was also kind of tacked on, just revealed in part 4 out of nowhere.

Still, the story did help clarify one thing, when it said that the Time Lords ban travel into Gallifrey's own past. I've often found it contrived that Time Lords in the classic series only seemed to encounter each other in chronological order, and the way whatever was happening on Gallifrey was always in the Doctor's subjective present no matter what time period the story was in. If that temporal lockstep is mandated by Gallifreyan law, it would help account for it.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Man, I love Omega. Part Three's cliffhanger is one of the best, a huge WTF moment. It also expanded upon and enriched The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity, and gave Ian Collier something more substantial to do. AND added Rassilon to the proceedings. I do think Nev Fountain's jovial style might not be to your liking, though.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Omega is brilliant. I don’t remember having any trouble following it at all, even when I was relatively new to Doctor Who. And yes, the Part Three cliffhanger is one of Big Finish’s all-time best.

 

[Christopher]

Man, I love Omega. Part Three's cliffhanger is one of the best, a huge WTF moment.

I didn't find it so, since I'd already figured out what was going on by that point. They'd set it up pretty clearly in the preceding moments.

Although it's a good thing I paused after Part 1 to refresh my memory of what happened in "Arc of Infinity."

 

[Saul]

Listened to the Diary of River song series two. Some really nice individual episodes, I like her interactions with Doctors 6 & 7 but I kinda get tired of the "Doctor needs to forget river" reset at the end.
The overall resolution of the series arc felt a bit cliche and wand waving with giant screaming monster.

Listened to the Time War series 3. The Valeyard returns. Great character. They really should have him return in the series

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I didn't find it so, since I'd already figured out what was going on by that point. They'd set it up pretty clearly in the preceding moments.

Although it's a good thing I paused after Part 1 to refresh my memory of what happened in "Arc of Infinity."

If you didn't like Omega very much, I wonder if you'll like Davros or Master at all. I love this trilogy of villains, basically.

 

[Saul]

I listened to 'The All Consuming Fire'. An audio adaptation of the novel where Doctor 7 meets Sherlock Holmes. A rather fun adventure, although I would have loved to see the characters play off each other even more. I haven't read the novel so I can't compare the two.

 

[Saul]

Forgot to mention I listened to the audio book of Rose. (long week at work)
Actually a bit disappointed with it. I guess I just expected it to expand more on the 9th Doctor but this was a Rose story and the focus was mostly on her. Not as inventive as 'day of the doctor'.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Forgot to mention I listened to the audio book of Rose. (long week at work)
Actually a bit disappointed with it. I guess I just expected it to expand more on the 9th Doctor but this was a Rose story and the focus was mostly on her. Not as inventive as 'day of the doctor'.

That latter one is almost a remake in a way. Its also lovingly mocking its own dramatic moments, particularly the potion in Night's Eighth Doctor regeneration to War. It also includes the frickin' Thirteenth Doctor (!) which of course is very amazing.

 

[Christopher]

If you didn't like Omega very much, I wonder if you'll like Davros or Master at all. I love this trilogy of villains, basically.

Well, I thought Davros was fantastic. It's an intriguing idea, to tell a Davros story that completely divorces him from Daleks, and to explore how his evil and megalomania play out in a corporate context -- quite a natural fit. What Baynes was trying to do -- turn Davros's genius to more constructive ends -- reminds me of what the US did with Wernher von Braun and other Nazi scientists after the war, with Operation Paperclip. Although Davros is basically von Braun and Hitler rolled into one, so it turned out much more badly.

Unlike Omega, the humor here felt organic and legitimate within the story rather than clashing with its tone, because it arose naturally from the Doctor's reaction to the situation. It was fun to see him combatting his arch-nemesis through juvenile co-worker pranks and one-upmanship for a change.

I wasn't convinced by the implications that Davros was motivated by feelings of love and guilt that he hid from himself. Davros is a classic megalomaniacal narcissist, and as the last four years in America have been a master class in narcissistic personality disorder for everyone who's been paying attention, it no longer feels credible that someone like that would be capable of love or guilt in the slightest degree, even if he sublimated it into cruelty and hate.

Also, it was hard to get over the incongruity of hearing Davros praised and empathized with by Zoe. Of course, Wendy Padbury's far from the first ex-companion to play a new role for BF, but she sounds more like her old self than most of the others have. Or maybe it's that I'm used to her older voice from all the DVD commentaries and interviews she's done.

Speaking of sound, I had problems with the audio mix, as some of the voice tracks (e.g. the earpiece computer, and the Doctor and Baynes when digging out of the mine) were way too quiet. But then, that's been a persistent problem with a number of these, at least on my computer speakers since Hoopla stopped working on my phone, so maybe the problem is with the Hoopla software or with my computer.

 

[Saul]

Listened to Doctor Who Stranded. Not bad. It's an earth based show, little on Sci-fi, no aliens until the last episode, no time travel. Very drama orientated. I think while an interesting change of pace I wouldn't stick with it long term. Tom Baker was wonderful of course. I listened to Out of Time with Baker recently and his voice sounds different in both. His voice sounds it's natural age as the Curator in this but very youthful and 4th Doctorish in Out of Time. Nicely done.

Spoiler: Curator spoilers

Obviously it's the Doctor at a far later and retired point in his life.

 

[Christopher]

I found Master rather tedious, pretentious, and disappointing. It feels astonishingly lazy to have a chance to do a deep exploration of a villain's personality and just fall back on something as reductive as "He has no motive, he's just evil and is literally a servant of the Angel of Death." What a complete waste. And how incongruous to just blithely throw in a pure fantasy element into a franchise that habitually pretends there's a scientific explanation for every bizarre thing in it. Predictable too -- as soon as the Doctor told the story about the two boys, it was obvious which one of them would really turn out to have been the killer. It's another example of that modern trend I dislike to make everything in Doctor Who ultimately the result of the Doctor's own actions.

It was also confusing as heck. At first it seemed to be taking place in Victorian times or thereabouts, but then they dropped references to Adjudicators and a book by Professor Summerfield and it became evident it was actually a colony planet in the Earth Empire, except it continued to be written exactly like it took place in the 19th century, so why even bother with a few scattered references to the future? It couldn't even make up its mind whether Victor's title was Adjudicator or Inspector. And in the frame story, the hitman said in part 2 that the Doctor only had five more minutes to tell the tale, but it kept going on for nearly two hours. What a mess. I was thinking that the one thing that could salvage it was that it was framed as a story the Doctor was telling, so parts of it could be taken as metaphorical, but then Death showed up in the actual frame story, scuttling that hope.

It's a shame, though, because it brought back Philip Madoc, who was so impressive in "The War Games." (I know he was Solon in "The Brain of Morbius" too, but I never much cared for "Morbius.") And apparently the actress playing Death is Wendy Padbury's daughter, although I thought she sounded a lot like Jenna Coleman. So they did pretty good jobs with what they had. But part of the problem is that Geoffrey Beevers does nothing for me as the Master. It's a shame they couldn't get Anthony Ainley. (And a greater shame they couldn't get Roger Delgado.)


Well, Zagreus is next, and it's the last Main Range audio they have on Hoopla. After that I'll have to move onto something like the Lost Stories, Early Adventures, Fourth/Eighth Doctor Adventures, or Companion Chronicles.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I, er, ahem, *cough*cough* ehm, well.... love Master?

EDIT: And because of this story, and others he's been in since, Geoffrey Beevers' Master is my favorite incarnation of the character. I simply adore him. Delgado still has the visual edge, but Beevers is the only Master never to go full-camp as the Master, and I can't say that about anybody, audio or visual, except for Delgado and maybe James Dreyfus.

 

[Christopher]

I don't like overly campy Masters either, but Beevers is too far in the other direction. The problem, I guess, is that he only played the Master once, so I don't really hear "the Master" when he speaks. He's just some guy. Part of the appeal of these things is the recognition, hearing the actors' familiar voices. Beevers's voice isn't familiar to me. (While Michael Wisher was my favorite Davros, at least Terry Molloy does a good impression of him.)

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Molloy also played the character on-screen a while longer, too. But with Beevers, I appreciate him as being a unique Master who on audio was built on based on the little we had of him (he's the same incarnation as Deadly Assassin and Keeper of Traken's), and I also like him the most because he's, I feel, a far better actor than Ainley was. I like Ainley at the best of times, but I can't see him performing Master with the same texture, nuance and subtlety. Beevers' velveteen voice works wonders in establishing him as a dreadful opponent but also the tragedy of the character in the story.

I do, however, wonder and can even imagine, with a bit of squint, the story with Pertwee and Delgado. Squint, as the framing story would never fit with the Third Doctor. The abstract figures of Death and Time were Virgin New Adventures takeaways, so I cant really see almost any Doctor dealing with those concepts, bar the Twelfth Doctor, ironically enough. But indeed, Delgado would have made it sing, as well IMO. Come to think of it, Jacobin would be wonderful in it, too.

 

[Brendan Moody]

Big fan of Master as well. I’m not hugely enamored of the backstory stuff it does— it’s predictable, and some things don’t need explaining anyway— but it’s one of the best horror stories BF have ever done.

 

[diankra]

Molloy also played the character on-screen a while longer, too. But with Beevers, I appreciate him as being a unique Master who on audio was built on based on the little we had of him (he's the same incarnation as Deadly Assassin and Keeper of Traken's), and I also like him the most because he's, I feel, a far better actor than Ainley was. I like Ainley at the best of times, but I can't see him performing Master with the same texture, nuance and subtlety. Beevers' velveteen voice works wonders in establishing him as a dreadful opponent but also the tragedy of the character in the story.

I do, however, wonder and can even imagine, with a bit of squint, the story with Pertwee and Delgado. Squint, as the framing story would never fit with the Third Doctor. The abstract figures of Death and Time were Virgin New Adventures takeaways, so I cant really see almost any Doctor dealing with those concepts, bar the Twelfth Doctor, ironically enough. But indeed, Delgado would have made it sing, as well IMO. Come to think of it, Jacobin would be wonderful in it, too.

Well, AA wanted to be more quietly evil, but the directors pressured him to be more obvious, so it's a pity he didn't do any audio that way. But he was rich enough not to have to work unless it paid very well, or let him hang out with friends.