Last Doctor Who Story you listened to?

[Christopher]

Energy of the Daleks was okay, though anything would be an anticlimax after the last one. I never really thought about the fact that Leela didn't meet the Daleks onscreen, so this is a chance to put them together, although more could've been done with it than we got. As they pointed out in the mini-documentary, this is also the first traditional, Davros-less Dalek story for Tom Baker. That made it kind of routine, okay but not a standout in any way beyond those technical milestones.

Apparently this was the first one they recorded in the series, and that creates a continuity error, where Leela sees the security guards/Robomen on horseback and says "They come on beasts" or something to that effect, even though this is narratively right after The Wrath of the Iceni, in which she saw plenty of horses and rode one or two.

It was cute that Nicholas Briggs wrote the story around the idea that if the Moon didn't exist, the Earth's axis would be unstable and the climate would change too frequently to be amenable to life, but he exaggerated it; it's more an instability over millions of years affecting the probability of higher life having the chance to evolve eventually, rather than the swift global cataclysm he portrayed it as. It also seems overly convoluted as a destroy-the-Earth strategy. If the plan relied on beaming enough energy to Earth to create an antigravity force field to repel the Moon, then surely they could've just beamed that energy to Earth in order to vaporize the surface.

In fact, come to think of it, nullifying Earth's gravity wouldn't just set the Moon free, it'd set the atmosphere free as well, and you could destroy humanity that way. Plus it would cut the Earth free from its orbit around the Sun, which would also destroy humanity. So the effect actually would have been a lot more immediate than the whole unstable-axis thing.

Hmm... It's a shame that a story about a plot to eject the Moon from its orbit had to be set in 2025 instead of, oh, 1999...

 

[Christopher]

I listened to both Trail of the White Worm and The Oseidon Adventure today, as they form a single larger story. I kind of wonder why they didn't just do this as a 4-parter under one title. It did shift gears midway through, but so have some of the other serials, and there's a single consistent throughline with the Master and Spindleton.

Still, the two parts aren't equal. I felt TotWW was too silly, with too absurd and Graham-Williamsy a plot and premise (a talking space worm that creates literal wormholes? Really?) and too much overly self-conscious witty banter (like Leela repeating the verbatim description of the "serpent"'s size over and over). All the business with the eccentric Northern villagers didn't work that well for me. The second half, the "Android Invasion" sequel, was better, making clever use of the android-double idea with the gambits and counter-gambits of the two Time Lords and their doubles. Although some of it felt a bit too much like a direct rehash of "Invasion," rather than taking the Kraals anywhere new.

You know, I think they should've saved The Wrath of the Iceni for last. Naturally they wanted to end with their big double-length Master story, but Iceni was the best of the bunch, plus it would've made a more logical arc for Leela's growing familiarity with horses from Energy of the Daleks to this 2-parter to Iceni.

And speaking of familiarity, on the one hand, Leela called a horse a "beast" here and in Energy, but she also described a Kraal as a cross between a pig and a rhino. How does she know pigs and rhinos but not horses? For that matter, shouldn't she have seen horses when she was in Victorian London during "Talons"?

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

That never occured to me, though I've not listened to that series in a while. How much more Fourth Doctor you have to go, anyway?

 

[Christopher]

How much more Fourth Doctor you have to go, anyway?

Just 4DA season 2 with Romana and K9 (yay, more K9!). After that, I'll probably move on to the two seasons of Eighth Doctor Adventures they have on Hoopla. Beyond that, there are still those First and Second Doctor Lost Stories, Series 2-3 of The Companion Chronicles (no idea why they don't have Series 1), Destiny of the Doctor, a few volumes of Short Trips, the stage plays, and some Dalek, Cyberman, and UNIT miniseries.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

The Romana I ones are indeed a fave of mine, love her. And ANY Eighth Doctor is great (other than Shada though, is that available?). Out of all of those, I'd definitely recommend the Lost Stories for the First Doctor. Farewell Great Macedon may be narration style, but its still very evocative and feels very much like a '60's serial.

Have you considered buying some stories after having gone through this library? Maybe just the Eighth Doctor ones?

 

[Brendan Moody]

Series 1 of the Companion Chronicles was made available on download later than the rest, as Big Finish filled in some of their back catalog on download, which is probably why it wasn’t part of the wave of older downloads that made it to Hoopla, Spotify, etc.

 

[Christopher]

The Romana I ones are indeed a fave of mine, love her.

I do like the idea of giving Tamm's Romana another "season." At first I thought it would be tricky to slot it in between "The Armageddon Factor" and "Destiny of the Daleks," since Romana's regeneration into Princess Astra's likeness suggests they're consecutive, but I just checked the transcript and there's nothing in the dialogue that requires their visit to Atrios to have been recent. Although it does scuttle the implicit idea that Romana's regeneration was a delayed effect of being tortured on Atrios. I wonder if the 4DA season finale will offer an alternative explanation for her regeneration.

And ANY Eighth Doctor is great (other than Shada though, is that available?).

Hm. I had the impression somehow that the 8DAs weren't as well regarded as the Main Range Eight/Charley ones I've heard (and I had mixed feelings on those).

As for the McGann Shada, I don't think they have it, but I saw the animated version online years ago.

Out of all of those, I'd definitely recommend the Lost Stories for the First Doctor. Farewell Great Macedon may be narration style, but its still very evocative and feels very much like a '60's serial.

It would take some adjustment on my part. I like being able to visualize the actors along with their voices (and it's fascinating how instinctive I'm finding it to know exactly what Tom Baker's expression would be at any moment just from the tone of his voice). Having the familiar characters not played by their original actors, or by actors who sound much older than they did in their prime, would be harder to get my head around. But if you recommend the stories, I guess it's worth a try.

Have you considered buying some stories after having gone through this library? Maybe just the Eighth Doctor ones?

Not sure. I expect my income to improve significantly in 2021, but I've been broke for so long and have so much debt still to pay off that I don't know when I'll be able to start thinking about recreational buying again.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I do like the idea of giving Tamm's Romana another "season." At first I thought it would be tricky to slot it in between "The Armageddon Factor" and "Destiny of the Daleks," since Romana's regeneration into Princess Astra's likeness suggests they're consecutive, but I just checked the transcript and there's nothing in the dialogue that requires their visit to Atrios to have been recent. Although it does scuttle the implicit idea that Romana's regeneration was a delayed effect of being tortured on Atrios. I wonder if the 4DA season finale will offer an alternative explanation for her regeneration.

Not to spoil things for you, but... it doesn't. Partly because, while Mary Tamm was sick when she was doing that series (dying, actually), BF were optimistic enough to hope they might get another go and maybe explore it later. But it didn't happen, as she died shortly after her stories were released. As is, though, both the spin-off Gallifrey series and a trilogy of follow-up stories to the Key to Time, called The Key 2 Time, starring the Fifth Doctor and featuring Romana's return in the Doctor Who narrative, offer two different but not mutually exclusive reasons for her regeneration.

Hm. I had the impression somehow that the 8DAs weren't as well regarded as the Main Range Eight/Charley ones I've heard (and I had mixed feelings on those).

The Divergent Universe stuff, which is what you left things at, is not fondly remembered, though I did relisten to it this summer and I thoroughly enjoyed the stories themselves, though the arc is a bit nonsensical by itself. But the 8DA are most fondly remembered because of Lucie Miller and because they're very much modeled after the RTD era of hour-long stories that have a loose arc about them with heavy focus on character drama.

As for the McGann Shada, I don't think they have it, but I saw the animated version online years ago.

Its the only McGann BF story that I don't "count" in my fanon. I vastly prefer Tom's, either the Levine or the Norton version, or both.

It would take some adjustment on my part. I like being able to visualize the actors along with their voices (and it's fascinating how instinctive I'm finding it to know exactly what Tom Baker's expression would be at any moment just from the tone of his voice). Having the familiar characters not played by their original actors, or by actors who sound much older than they did in their prime, would be harder to get my head around. But if you recommend the stories, I guess it's worth a try.

Its not a personal recommendation only, although I do highly recommend it. Its the most well-regarded Lost Story outside the Fourth Doctor's and some of the Sixth's, and even then the Sixth are mostly praised for coming to life at all, and less on their individual qualities. I am very much like you, I'm much more into full cast audio then I am into audiobook style, and even when I go into the Companion Chronicles, it has to make sense to me why would I be listening to them.

For a varied instance, The Prisoner of Peladon makes sense as its a story that is told by the King of Peladon to his daughtter, and it involves the Third Doctor coming back to Peladon inbetween The Green Death and The Time Warrior. Its brilliant and I can excuse the lack of Pertwee.

That said, Macedon is just simply a good story. Hopefully you'll like it.

Not sure. I expect my income to improve significantly in 2021, but I've been broke for so long and have so much debt still to pay off that I don't know when I'll be able to start thinking about recreational buying again.

Fair enough. Do keep an eye out for deals, though - sometimes you could get a discount on some later releases, and that could help you expand the horizons of the Doctor!

 

[Christopher]

Not to spoil things for you, but... it doesn't. Partly because, while Mary Tamm was sick when she was doing that series (dying, actually), BF were optimistic enough to hope they might get another go and maybe explore it later. But it didn't happen, as she died shortly after her stories were released.

Oh, that's sad. It will give this an added poignancy.

As is, though, both the spin-off Gallifrey series and a trilogy of follow-up stories to the Key to Time, called The Key 2 Time, starring the Fifth Doctor and featuring Romana's return in the Doctor Who narrative, offer two different but not mutually exclusive reasons for her regeneration.

There's also a short story, by Peter David IIRC, revealing that the multiply regenerating Romana in "Destiny" was actually a shapeshifting alien impersonating Romana as some sort of prank on the Doctor.

I always figured that Romana just had much more control over the process than the Doctor and was able to choose her form while her regeneration was still in flux. So I was glad when "The Christmas Invasion" established that there is a window post-regeneration where the body is still able to change.

But the 8DA are most fondly remembered because of Lucie Miller and because they're very much modeled after the RTD era of hour-long stories that have a loose arc about them with heavy focus on character drama.

I just looked up Sheridan Smith on IMDb, because I thought her name sounded familiar (it didn't), and for some reason it lists the 8DA as a "TV Mini-Series." What's that about?

Its the only McGann BF story that I don't "count" in my fanon. I vastly prefer Tom's, either the Levine or the Norton version, or both.

I liked the McGann Shada at the time, and if it had been the only "complete" version, I would've been fine with that. I mean, Eight did talk and act too much like Four, but aside from that, it was adequate. But then they went and redid it again and again.

I suppose the completed Baker video version should be considered the "real" version of the story, though, since it's closest to the original.

 

[Christopher]

The Auntie Matter: Meh. Maybe I'd like it more if I were into Wodehouse, but even so, I didn't think much of the guest casting for the most part. It was just too silly for me, not all that interesting. The gimmick of the Doctor and Romana pursuing the same problem separately without learning of each other was too contrived, with too many cases where a guest character had to be conveniently non-specific in alluding to one of them so the other didn't catch on -- not to mention the huge coincidence that the Doctor time-delayed his android to blow up at the exact same second that Romana's android blew up, so they each assumed they'd done it. And I thought it was going to end with neither one ever learning of the other's involvement. I'm not sure if having it finally come out at the end the way it did was better or worse.

I also thought it was a bit too meta and on the nose when the Doctor monologued that he needed someone to ask him questions and thus dragged his maid along as a fill-in companion. It got rather disturbing when he almost got her killed because of it. It's one thing when someone chooses to become his companion and face dangers at his side. This was his employee, with no real say in the matter, so it was grievously irresponsible to risk her life for such a selfish and frivolous reason. It really painted the Doctor in a bad light.

Anyway, I had the same reaction to Mary Tamm as I did to Louise Jameson, Sarah Sutton, and others -- at first she sounded too old to me, but before long I got used to it and had no trouble visualizing her younger self.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I forgot to ask, did you warm up to Beevers' Master at all? Your recent listen of him was for the Fourth Doctor (and the Master) their rematch post-Deadly Assassin, and he very much is supposed to look like he does in the cover, partially healed but still very much a corpse, basically exactly like he does in Keeper of Traken.

 

[Christopher]

I forgot to ask, did you warm up to Beevers' Master at all?

He was fine, but he still doesn't have the familiarity to me that Delgado and Ainley had.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

He was fine, but he still doesn't have the familiarity to me that Delgado and Ainley had.

Its too bad, cause I know that one day you'll enjoy his performance in especially the Master story more if you ever relisten to it.

 

[Christopher]

Its too bad, cause I know that one day you'll enjoy his performance in especially the Master story more if you ever relisten to it.

As I recall, I disliked Master for reasons having nothing to do with Beevers's performance. I don't have anything against his performance, I just haven't really had the chance to get used to thinking of him as the Master, though I think I was getting there by the end of the 2-parter.

Speaking of 2-parters, The Sands of Life/War Against the Laan was fairly good. A nice, challenging premise where neither side is really in the wrong but each one's existence threatens to exterminate the other, and of course there's a malicious businessman and a shoot-first military martinet making it harder for the Doctor and Romana to negotiate peace. It had a strong cast featuring David Warner and Hayley Atwell -- though I wish they hadn't cast Atwell in the same story with Mary Tamm, since it was hard to tell their voices apart at times.

Also, the music was very Dudley Simpson-esque, so they've finally got that sorted out.

I found myself wondering if you could really fit 7 1/2 billion whale-sized aliens under the sands of the Sahara Desert without anyone being able to see them. But then I remembered a rather macabre statistic I heard once, that you could drown the entire population of Earth in Siberia's Lake Baikal. And the Sahara is much bigger than Lake Baikal.

 

[Christopher]

The Justice of Jalxar: Not bad. It was entertaining to hear Jago & Litefoot again, and to hear Romana dealing with Victorian London, though I'm a bit disappointed they didn't do this one in the Leela season. I have a conceptual problem with the premise, though. First they said Jalxar was a peaceful society, then they said it sends around "justice" robots that execute people guilty of any crime whatsoever, which hardly fits my definition of "peaceful." It was rather incongruous, especially with the Doctor and Romana talking about such a zero-tolerance kill-everyone policy as if they had no particular moral problem with it. That hardly seems in character.

I'm also a bit puzzled, because there's a whole Jago & Litefoot audio series running 12 seasons or more, and apparently it takes place earlier in J&L's lifetime than this story and has them traveling with the Sixth Doctor for a while, yet here they're reacting to the talk of aliens and robots and time travel as if it's all unfamiliar to them, and make no mention of having encountered the Doctor in the interim.

 

[diankra]

Oh, that's sad. It will give this an added poignancy.




There's also a short story, by Peter David IIRC, revealing that the multiply regenerating Romana in "Destiny" was actually a shapeshifting alien impersonating Romana as some sort of prank on the Doctor.

I always figured that Romana just had much more control over the process than the Doctor and was able to choose her form while her regeneration was still in flux. So I was glad when "The Christmas Invasion" established that there is a window post-regeneration where the body is still able to change.




I just looked up Sheridan Smith on IMDb, because I thought her name sounded familiar (it didn't), and for some reason it lists the 8DA as a "TV Mini-Series." What's that about?




I liked the McGann Shada at the time, and if it had been the only "complete" version, I would've been fine with that. I mean, Eight did talk and act too much like Four, but aside from that, it was adequate. But then they went and redid it again and again.

I suppose the completed Baker video version should be considered the "real" version of the story, though, since it's closest to the original.

Supposedly, they wrote Lucie out because Sheridan was so successful and in demand that they thought she wouldn't be available any more, which upset her as she loved doing them and would always have found a slot. More recently Big Finish have found ways to do more with her.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

The Justice of Jalxar: Not bad. It was entertaining to hear Jago & Litefoot again, and to hear Romana dealing with Victorian London, though I'm a bit disappointed they didn't do this one in the Leela season. I have a conceptual problem with the premise, though. First they said Jalxar was a peaceful society, then they said it sends around "justice" robots that execute people guilty of any crime whatsoever, which hardly fits my definition of "peaceful." It was rather incongruous, especially with the Doctor and Romana talking about such a zero-tolerance kill-everyone policy as if they had no particular moral problem with it. That hardly seems in character.

Makes sense to me. Not everyone shares the same interpretation of peaceful, and certainly not in the Whoniverse.

I'm also a bit puzzled, because there's a whole Jago & Litefoot audio series running 12 seasons or more, and apparently it takes place earlier in J&L's lifetime than this story and has them traveling with the Sixth Doctor for a while, yet here they're reacting to the talk of aliens and robots and time travel as if it's all unfamiliar to them, and make no mention of having encountered the Doctor in the interim.

This was actually released after the first five series of Jago & Litefoot had come out, in March of 2013. After all, Tom Baker didn't join BF until 2012. By then, Leela had guested that show in their third series, and Six made a secret apperence for most of their fourth series until he revealed himself in that season's last episode. Between their fourth and fifth series, Jago and Litefoot actually made two trips aboard the TARDIS with the Sixth Doctor, and the adventures are called Voyage to Venus and Voyage to the New World, after which the Doctor accidentally returns them to their home back in the 1960's instead. They return back to their Victorian times afterwards of course by the end of that series, but point is, they're rather resilient and while they'd encountered alien phenomena, they didn't quite encounter something so phenomenally alien as what they did in the adventure you listened to.

Also, check Litefoot's dialogue with Four. Its rather nuanced actually, suggesting they actually thought they'd be seeing the Sixth Doctor instead.

Beyond that, I personally place both Fourth/J&L audio adventures between series 12 and 13 of their show, as the 13th's finale depicts what I remember being an alien invasion of Victorian London, but the cliffhanger was never followed on properly as Trevor Baxter, who's played Professor Litefoot for all these years had died afterwards.

Anyway, rest assured, Leela has met up with them, just much later in her timeline and as a guest on their show.

 

[Christopher]

Makes sense to me. Not everyone shares the same interpretation of peaceful, and certainly not in the Whoniverse.

The problem is that the Doctor and Romana seem to accept the idea of default capital punishment with no trial or possibility of appeal as "peaceful." It's out of character for them, or certainly for the Doctor.

They return back to their Victorian times afterwards of course by the end of that series, but point is, they're rather resilient and while they'd encountered alien phenomena, they didn't quite encounter something so phenomenally alien as what they did in the adventure you listened to.

But the way the dialogue was written, they seemed confused whenever the Doctor or Romana mentioned anything even vaguely alien or futuristic, as if they didn't know the Doctor himself was an alien time traveler. At least, that's the impression their lines and performance gave me. Maybe I misinterpreted.

Also, check Litefoot's dialogue with Four. Its rather nuanced actually, suggesting they actually thought they'd be seeing the Sixth Doctor instead.

I can see that -- when Litefoot is amazed that the Doctor impossibly looks just like he did when they first met. I thought that seemed like an exaggerated reaction to seeing someone again after ten years, since some people age little in a decade.

 

[Christopher]

Phantoms of the Deep: Not bad. A nice idea, to do a submarine-based, deep sea exploration story of a sort that hadn't been done before. And a pretty good story for K9, although the voice treatment Big Finish is using for him sounds wrong to me.

I was a bit taken out of the story by the plot point that superintelligent squid were an anomaly that turned out to be created by the alien craft uplifting naturally "primitive" creatures. In real life, scientists now think that cephalopods are of a comparable order of intelligence to humans in some ways, maybe even surpassing us in some ways, though their lifespans are too short for them to develop their intelligence fully. I might've found it more interesting if they'd just straight up done a story about humans making contact with an indigenous superintelligent squid civilization. (Also, the bit where the Doctor said the crew could be making first contact with an indigenous nonhuman intelligence ignored the fact that that's already happened with the Silurians.)

Thanks to the mini-documentary, I now know how Alice Krige pronounces her surname. It's "kree-guh," not "kreeg" or "kreezh" as I thought it might be. All these years, and I never knew that.

 

[Christopher]

The Dalek Contract/The Final Phase: This was mostly just okay, a fairly routine Dalek plot revolving around one of my least favorite plot devices, a threat to the entire universe. (Logically, given that the universe is essentially infinite, if anything were capable of destroying its in its entirety, then it would inevitably have already happened.) Also, while David Warner's presence is always welcome, I didn't find the central mystery about Cuthbert and his gateway experiment as interesting as Briggs wanted it to be, with the resolution being too abrupt and vague (no doubt because it's a setup for a later story that I don't have access to).

But it did have some bits that I definitely liked. For one thing, it's K9 vs. the Daleks! What's not to love? Also, it had a really strong bit at the climax where the Doctor confronted the Daleks about their repetitive, unthinking drive for conquest and power and challenged them to try to think of something more. That was a genuinely interesting exchange. It was also kind of nice in a continuity-patching sort of way to explain the transition from Romana's aloof, reluctant relationship with the Doctor in the Key to Time season to her much friendlier relationship with him in the Lalla Ward seasons. I always just chalked that up to regeneration changing her personality, but it's nice to have an explanation based more in character development than random change. And it's a rather nice, fitting way to end Mary Tamm's swan song in the role, though they didn't know that's what it would be.

Plus I liked it that Cuthbert wasn't entirely a one-note villain. He was a jerk, but he had some basic intelligence and knew when it was in his best interest to cooperate with the Doctor and Romana. And I liked how Toby Hadoke's obsequious Mr. Dorrick developed more of a spine as the story went on.

I guess I'll try out the First Doctor Lost Episodes set next.