Last Doctor Who Story you listened to?

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Personally, I can safely say I've finished the entire Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Doctor eras and am now awaiting to arrive in the Donna leg in my marathon. Sans Eighth's Shada and Stranded, that was really everything I think. Pretty neat, and a lovely way to experience the Doctor's middle life, really. I know others have added the War Doctor between 8 and 9 but I wanted to maintain the order of how things were revealed at the time of broadcast (so no Night of the Doctor and War Doctor audios until Name of the Doctor) and even so, its nice. The Ninth was especially bittersweet because of how short it was, but no less fun.

The Tenth/Rose stories were fine, capturing the feel of that series but also being slightly better than. Nevertheless, I did think Billie Piper's vocals were noticeably... different. Like, it was a fine performance throughout, but I didn't get a "Rose Tyler" out of her, ya know?

 

[Christopher]

Yep, The Valley of Death is pretty solid. If you liked those two Lost Stories of Fourth and Leela, you would rather enjoy the Philip Hinchcliffe Presents stuff, too. Its more of that really.

That would be next on my list, though Hoopla only has the first volume.

The Fourth Doctor Adventures mostly captures the Williams era with the two of them

Um. I mostly disliked the Williams era, aside from a few standouts like "The Sunmakers" and "City of Death."

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Well, I'm not a massive fan myself, but a lot of the audios are solid. And the best thing about them is how they expand Leela's character and really give her the limelight the way the show didn't.

 

[Christopher]

It struck me that the one thing about the Box Set stories that didn't feel authentically Fourth Doctor was the music, which didn't sound at all Dudley Simpsonish. It was solid orchestral scoring, but it was the kind of music we just didn't get in that era.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I think that's gonna be inevitable. Scoring for these audios is probably not their highest authority, even though they're not distractingly out-of-era, but they probably decided its never gonna sound authentic Dudley no matter how they tried, so they went ahead with Dudley-like. To my recollection, their closest sounding to Dudley were the first Fourth Doctor/Romana II series, which was fully emulating series 17 anyway.

That said, there are stories that have authentic era-sounding scores. The Fifth Doctor Box Set is one of them.

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I've noticed that most of the audios so far have scores that approximate the style of the corresponding TV periods, which is why the non-period scoring on these stood out to me.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Its not a huge deal, so long it doesn't take me out of the experience. Master, which you didn't like, has probably one of the best scores.

 

[Christopher]

Its not a huge deal, so long it doesn't take me out of the experience.

No, nothing like that. It was just something I noticed in passing.

 

[Marc]

it was a fine performance throughout, but I didn't get a "Rose Tyler" out of her, ya know?

I can remember reading (probaby in one the threads in here) that it had been so long that Billie Pipper had forgotten how Rose sounded and had to go back and watch some old episodes to try and get the "voice" back.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I can remember reading (probaby in one the threads in here) that it had been so long that Billie Pipper had forgotten how Rose sounded and had to go back and watch some old episodes to try and get the "voice" back.

Well, if she ever comes back, I'm sure she'll sound better. Its a different kind of acting, audio, anyway.

 

[JD]

I can remember reading (probaby in one the threads in here) that it had been so long that Billie Pipper had forgotten how Rose sounded and had to go back and watch some old episodes to try and get the "voice" back.

I heard that when she came back for the show. In the first episode where she came back she had kind of a weird lisp, and someone eventually explained that was because she was having trouble getting back into her Rose voice.

 

[Christopher]

Philip Hinchcliffe Presents: The Ghosts of Gralstead was okay, but uneven. Having the Doctor and Leela take on Victorian London again was entertaining, and there was some effective Robert Holmesian humor with the body collectors in the first few episodes. I'm not sure how I feel about the Abasi character and the side trip to Africa; I suppose it treated the character fairly well and wasn't as racially problematical as an episode from the '70s probably would've been, at least. And it was a nice romance subplot for Leela.

The final episode was kind of a mess. Too many of the elements and characters that worked in the first few episodes were gone, and the whole mythology of the godlike Corona and the battle between alien "angels" of light and dark was too simplistic and unimaginative. So it had a good start but stumbled on the landing.

The main draw was getting to hear two very similar, equally superb voices, Louise Jameson and Carolyn Seymour. I never realized how alike they sound -- not just in timbre and accent but in delivery, cadence, attitude.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I love The Ghosts of Gralstead, though I do agree the Africa sidetrip was probably a bit much, and a diversion honestly. I do agree the last episode's a mess, but I massively enjoy in any case. Both this and the next serial honestly feel vintage Lost Stories, despite not being so, most definitely.

 

[Christopher]

The Devil's Armada was okay, but not great. I think doing two consecutive stories set in fairly close periods of English history was a bit repetitive, and I wasn't that invested in the historical focus of this particular one, Elizabethan religious persecution and witch hunts and such. The whole "alien impersonating the Devil" thing is a well DW has gone to a bit too often by this point; it's hard to top "The Daemons," so maybe don't try so many times. Also, I think this is at least the third time in BF alone that the Doctor's been locked up in the Tower of London, though at least it was a brief stopover this time. And the second time I've heard one where the Doctor was tortured on the rack. By the time of his sixth incarnation, he's much more relaxed about it.

Also, sometimes I just get tired of the contrivance of there always being some alien force or time travel involved in any visit to Earth's past. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy these any more as straight historicals, but sometimes the obligatory sci-fi elements just feel like tacked-on intrusions. And I have to wonder just how many times aliens have invaded Earth by this point, let alone how many parallel invasion forces were lying in wait throughout Earth history, biding their time for centuries or millennia yet somehow never noticing each other. Why does Earth get so much attention? Are there other planets that get constantly invaded and infiltrated by aliens on a continuing basis throughout their history? Are we missing several hundred stories where the Doctor bounces around the historical eras of Draconia or Peladon or Vortis or Marinus, saving their people from invasion after invasion? Or does he just let countless other worlds fall to invaders because he's too fond of puttering about Earth's past and present?

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

The whole "alien impersonating the Devil" thing is a well DW has gone to a bit too often by this point; it's hard to top "The Daemons," so maybe don't try so many times.

Well, as someone who was never a big fan of that story, I vastly prefer The Devil's Armada over it, so...

Also, I want to note that this story probably has his strongest performance on audio, only equalled in Night of the Vashta Nerada in my mind.

Also, I think this is at least the third time in BF alone that the Doctor's been locked up in the Tower of London, though at least it was a brief stopover this time. And the second time I've heard one where the Doctor was tortured on the rack. By the time of his sixth incarnation, he's much more relaxed about it.

Its kind of a in-joke for fans, this. How many times has he been there?! Who knows.

Also, sometimes I just get tired of the contrivance of there always being some alien force or time travel involved in any visit to Earth's past. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy these any more as straight historicals, but sometimes the obligatory sci-fi elements just feel like tacked-on intrusions. And I have to wonder just how many times aliens have invaded Earth by this point, let alone how many parallel invasion forces were lying in wait throughout Earth history, biding their time for centuries or millennia yet somehow never noticing each other. Why does Earth get so much attention? Are there other planets that get constantly invaded and infiltrated by aliens on a continuing basis throughout their history? Are we missing several hundred stories where the Doctor bounces around the historical eras of Draconia or Peladon or Vortis or Marinus, saving their people from invasion after invasion? Or does he just let countless other worlds fall to invaders because he's too fond of puttering about Earth's past and present?

More probably, its that Hinchcliffe has a penchant/preference on stories set on Earth rather than elsewhere. Its stories he'd have liked to had done on TV at the time, after all, and if we take him at his word, Masque of the Mandragora is a big fave of his for that exact reason. So its not surprising, though I agree with your overall take, absolutely. I'm just not bothered with/about it in regards to this story or this set/series.

 

[Christopher]

I've moved on to the main Fourth Doctor Adventures line, and I'm surprised to discover they're only half the usual length. Destination: Nerva was a nice idea, but I don't feel the execution worked that well. At half-length, there wasn't enough time to develop the ideas and characters to the degree they deserved. Visiting Nerva at the beginning of its life was a promising concept, but the story barely needed to be set there, and since we couldn't actually see its familiar corridors and settings, the story didn't succeed in conveying much of a sense of the location.

The skin-based infection was a pretty icky idea, and I didn't like the way the Dr. Foster character was written. Why was it so hard for the Doctor to convince a medical officer, of all people, that she shouldn't touch an infected person with her bare hands? Nicholas Briggs seemed to have forgotten that surgical gloves are a thing that exist. (It particularly stands out as absurd in 2020, the age of social distancing.)

I did like the idea that the villains were British imperialists who got hold of a starship and pursued an aggressive Civilising Mission across the stars, and I liked the idea of the Doctor and Leela talking the aliens into setting aside revenge. But again, a longer story would've let the ideas breathe and develop more effectively.

 

[Christopher]

Since they're short, I got two in today. The Renaissance Man was okay, with a fairly simple but moderately effective idea. It was kind of easy to guess what was going on and predict what the Doctor was doing, but the execution was okay. The pacing worked better in the 2-episode format than it did last time, without the same feeling that things were being given short shrift.

Can someone remind me of something? I realized midway through this that since this set of episodes is set between "Weng-Chiang" and "Fang Rock," that means the Doctor's still using the secondary console room with the wood paneling. But here, we heard the standard door-opening sound effect when the Doctor and Leela left. But the secondary console room just had a sort of black void for an exit, no automatic doors. So was that a continuity error? (Possibly a deliberate one, given that it's audio and you need a sound cue for the doors being used.)

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

An oversight, more like. Most likely they didn't think that kind of detail was worth persuing and decided on the sound effect that they were in procession of at the time.

 

[Christopher]

The Wrath of the Iceni was... magnificent! What an amazing, powerful story. Pairing off Leela with Queen Boudicca was an inspired idea, and it made for the best Leela story I've ever experienced. Having her torn between Boudicca and the Doctor was a marvelous way to explore her character and give her real agency in the story. This was a battle for her soul, and it was compelling, giving Louise Jameson a chance to show how fine an actress she is. The dialogue was beautifully written too. The framing narration by Bragnar was sheer poetry, and I was literally crying by the end of the closing speech. Some very deft structure too, as what seemed like mere empty banter at the beginning about Noel Coward and the meaning of names turned out to have an incredibly powerful payoff in the climax.

Also, I was just griping the other day about how there always has to be a sci-fi element in the historical stories, and here we get a pure historical, one where the only necessary sci-fi catalyst is the Doctor and companion's own presence, their future knowledge providing a catalyst for a moral debate, as in "The Aztecs."

It was educational too, a nice history lesson. I do wonder if the portrayal of Boudicca was really fair, though, since our main sources for her story are Roman and they might have exaggerated her savagery. But I guess there's no way of knowing for sure, and it certainly served the story well. Besides, the story was no kinder to the Romans.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

Glad to see you enjoyed Iceni. Its one of the very best, and easily the most fullfilling of that first series.