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I have recently listened to a few more audio adventures from the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth doctors. I've also listened to a few from the Seventh Doctor too, a while back, that I might not have posted on. So, it's time for more Classic Who audio love from me.

Overall, I just have to say, Big Finish pretty much owns my soul, and possibly also my iPod. I really wish they could offer these as mp3 or mb4 downloads; it would make it a lot easier for me to obtain them legitimately. These are always great for long car rides, and tedious tasks like folding laundry or spring cleaning. However, it's hard to just sit and listen to them; perhaps my problem is that I do so at night an invariably end up falling asleep without realizing it. That's not to say they aren't good, but I often need to be doing *something* else, some procedural task, to keep my brain working without the visual stimuli. Anyway, spoilers abound in these posts for BF audios 102, 103, 103a, 48, and 58:


Recent Fivey Eps: There's been a spate of Five episodes recently. We had the three-part story "The Mind's Eye" with the added one-parter "Mission of the Viyrans", and also a freebie from 103, "Return to the Web Planet."

I thought Mind's Eye needed one more twist to be interesting. I mean, there was nothing *wrong* with the story, but it didn't really grip me either. I thought the best thing would have been for the Doctor to not realize (over everything else) that it was *him* in the grasp of the Mind's Eye plant. I kept waiting for another shoe to drop and it never did. On the other hand, "Mission of the Viyrans," short as it was, was fantastic. Creepy, weird, mysterious, and genuinely scary. I loved Peri in this, how she figured out what she needed to do in order to survive-- that in order to forget she would have to know what happened, know why she needed to forget. And the idea of a race of alt-verse scrubbers fixing that level of mistakes in the cracks of reality was genuinely weird and scary. Kinda had a "Langoliers" feeling to it. Of the three Fifth doctor adventures I've listened to recently, this short one had to be my hands down favorite.

Oh, and I also listened to Return to the Web Planet, which features Five and Nyssa which is always a cool matchup. Again, not much to say about this one-- it was a good adventure whose solution kind of came out of left field, but it was cool to hear a story that went over pretty well in an audio meme, that would have been nigh impossible to do visually in Five's era (well, to do well, anyway-- it would have been a pretty campy cheesefest), and would actually probably be a logistic nightmare to do in current day Who as well. Moth-people. Flying. Giant paper towers and insect vistas. I thought for a while that Nyssa ended up in a spider web at the beginning, and that the Moth people were going to turn out to be evil, but it was actually a subtler story than that. The part where the father realizes he knows the city is in danger and his first instinct is just to let them get overrun for what they did to his daughter was a good bit of characterization. And oh yeah, it had Five riding a giant Ant! And I loved the end too, where Nyssa insists that the two X-Y human prototype things are "fighting", and the Doctor's like, "Um. Not... quite. Perhaps innocent eyes should look the other way" or whatever it was he said. Priceless. You have to suspend some disbelief there, simply because like all of them, Sarah Sutton no longer sounds like a child, but it's not that much of a stretch.



Davros: This is a Sixth Doctor story that I think is part of the Arch Enemies run-- Omega (Five), Davros (Six), Master (Seven), culminating in Zagreus (ensemble). I'd listened to Omega a while back, which was pretty cool even though damn it but I got spoiled for an important plot point. Haven't listened to Master at all yet, and I had tried to listen to Davros a while back and got through part 1 before being utterly bored. I'm not big on Dalek storylines and I don't know a lot of the backstory on Kaleds, Thals, Davros, etc. BUT, on my most recent airline trip I had this one as the only one I'd not heard before, and tried again. Dude, it picked up after part 1 like nobody's business.

So I'm getting an idea in this about how the Daleks came about, as a survivalist reaction to the Kaled/Thal nuclear war. We hear some backstory about Davros, how he started out as a megalomaniacal and typical egomaniac unsociable academic (shudder). How he was supposed to kill himself when it became clear he would never recover from his disabilities. It painted a really interesting picture-- it did something that dramatic tales often have trouble doing, which is describing Davros the villain as a person, bringing about an understanding of how and why he did what he did, and also still making him utterly, unequivocally despicable. In both this ep and in Omega we get a discourse on history, revisionist and apologetic, and I have to believe the themes are intentional. Though it must be said that for some reason the writers need to have a misguided somewhat starstruck or lovestruck woman revive a villain and pay the price for it. *handwaves*

I think Davros was in essence a much darker story than Omega, although it had flashes of pure brilliant humor. I love the end of part 1, where the Sixth Doctor is shushing his one-off companions as they hide behind some crates, and then as soon as he sees who they're carting off the ship he's like, "DAVROS!!!??" and storms out in just pitch-perfect Six style. And in one of the absolute most surreal and absurd scenes ever in Doctor Who, the TAI company head attempts to woo Davros to the suit-and-tie clock-in/clock-out world of corporate Galactica with a promotional video! OMG, in the airplane I literally burst out laughing at this part, to the point that the guy sitting next to me actually tapped me on the shoulder and was like, "What are you listening to?" How do you explain this to the uninitiated? You really, just can't.

We see maybe an inkling of the ability to change in the mastermind, but ultimately the Doctor is right, and Davros realizes it too. He can't change his nature, which is to become the ultimate power of evil in the galaxy. He's a survivalist, and for him that means the top of the food chain, no threats, and war on a galactic scale. I could completely believe in his utter inability to understand emotion beyond a pure chemical reaction, and this in no way lessened my contempt for the character. Still, I thought his plan to bring down the corporations was brilliant-- we'll forget for now the serious analytical power that needs to go into developing a predictive model on the scale of a deterministic stock market (um, really, can't be done), but it made for a compelling story. It was also strange to see the Doctor get something wrong for a change, since poor Willis was actually killed by Baynes the TAI corporate head. Also, has the actor playing Baynes been in other audios? I could swear I recognize his voice. I thought this one also had a really riveting climax, with Kim forcing the Doctor's hand by using the injector that Davros kept with him for all those years but could never use. Overall, it had some slow parts but it turned out to be a really good story.



The Harvest: I may have posted about this earlier, but I really enjoyed this outing from Seven, Hex and Ace. I've listened to a few other Seventh Doctor stories ("Unregenerate!" which made *no* sense, "Red" which was entertaining if formulaic, and "Shadow of the Scourge" which made me love Ace and Bernice Summerfield but made me want to smack the Doctor upside the head with a wet noodle. Oh. My. God, that plan was Romeo-and-Juliet worthy in the sheer number of ways it could have gone wrong.), but this one was the first that made me want to go out and pick up some more. Also, kudos to the cover designers and such for NOT giving away the cybermen in the cover! Because hey, it actually made it a mystery for the first two parts :). I love Hex's reactions to the TARDIS, and the Doctor's reaction to Hex-- hopefully he grows on him, because I like the character. I like Ace a lot. I might have to seek out some actual visual stories from Seven's era to get a proper introduction to her :)




The Girl Who Never Was: Fare thee well, amnesiac Charley-- no, wait! Psych! it was someone else! So fare thee well, condemned-by-nanovirus Charley-- no, wait! She can be saved! But really, fare thee well, hypnotised-amnesiac Charely-- no, wait! gotcha again! She remembers everything for no good reason! Okay, really this time, fare thee well, disintegrated-on-derelict-spaceship Charley-- no, wait! Psych! She's survived on an island! Well then, fare thee well, marooned Charley.... no, wait!

*headdesk*

Seriously, how many more punches were left to pull? Apparently, Big Finish has just released a tidbit of news about some later encounters for this saga, that make me somewhat excited but also in need of a big handwave. (I am now eagerly awaiting "The Condemned" at any rate, to see where this goes, and also because I do really enjoy those stories that have outsider POV's and wrongly accused heroes.)

Anyway, this story was interesting but it had some serious holes and plot problems, not the least of which was that it totally FAILED to do what The Harvest did well, which was hey, actually conceal the mystery bad guys and keep them off the freaking CD cover! Also, I couldn't figure out how old or young the bad guy was supposed to be-- he was coming on to Charley in part 1 but then was the son of an 80-year old lady in part 2, which would make him at least 45 years old, right? Plus, Charley just got done chewing the Doctor out for not caring about C'rizz's death in the previous episode, but she seemed to turn around pretty quick as they landed at a new year's celebration. *handwaves*

The time warping spaceship was cool, the buildup to the Cyberinvasion was good, and so was Charley's conversion from the cyber-computer (I hadn't expected that), mainly because since you knew it was her exit story, it was really and truly up in the air as to whether she'd survive. But it kind of had a "Return of the King"-style ending, in that every time you thought it would end, it had yet another coda. Still, the Doctor's understanding of events at the end was a good twist and even a bit sad, as he had to wipe his own recent memory and read Charley's letter in the hotel. I really love the Eighth doctor to pieces. I would LOVE to see them do a film or a TV special on the Time War starring Paul McGann. Actually, even an audio version would be way cool. With Paul McGann and Lalla Ward and the chick who plays Leela, and yeah, just, I would listen to it in a second.



Right, so that was some rambling from me. :) I think I might actually try to get some writing done today, possibly even fannish. [livejournal.com profile] sg_fignewton is spearheading a GenFic squee for this weekend so I might try to do something for that. I've also got a million and one WIPs I could try to work on, but with those I'm somewhat in the wheel-spinning phase of being able to write down outlines and ideas and failing to actually, you know, write scenes, plot and dialogue.

Date: 2008-01-12 07:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] doyle_sb4.livejournal.com
Plus, Charley just got done chewing the Doctor out for not caring about C'rizz's death in the previous episode, but she seemed to turn around pretty quick as they landed at a new year's celebration. *handwaves*

I was seriously pissed off about that, to the point where I turned off the CD and only returned to it the next day. He quite literally tries to distract Charley's attention from the death of their other companion by showing her something shiny, and it works. So, err, what was the point of the cliffhanger to Absolution? And if Charley is no longer angry at him, why is she still adamant she's leaving, knowing that it means leaving herself homeless, alone and unable to contact her family ever again?

Date: 2008-01-26 09:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jimcleave.livejournal.com
The original Web Planet was actually a First Doctor story, which gives you some idea of the special effects involved. Personally I've always thought that ep was interesting for having both one of the best costumes ever—the Zarbi ant people—and the single worst costume ever—the Monoptera moth people. The Zarbi were guys hunched over with this cool ant carapace over their backs, which was simple but very effective. The Monoptera wore these BIG puffy, fuzzy bodysuits that looked unbelievably ridiculous.

I'll have to check out more of the audios. I assume you've seen the animated episode, Infinite Quest? http://youtube.com/watch?v=BULxEa5Qojo&feature=related

Date: 2008-02-04 08:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elyssadc.livejournal.com
Overall, I just have to say, Big Finish pretty much owns my soul, and possibly also my iPod. I really wish they could offer these as mp3 or mb4 downloads; it would make it a lot easier for me to obtain them legitimately.

I couldn't agree more. I am so in love with the audios it's a little scary. And now that they are offering the downloads for so CHEAP?!?! It's like xmas, my birthday, and great sex all rolled into one. Have you listened to The Condemned yet?

PS. And yes, I read some of your fic and am now making my way through your LJ. I hope you don't mind.

Date: 2008-02-05 06:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] elyssadc.livejournal.com
Really, I've no qualms paying money for content, it was just that the idea of having to get CDs, and a subscription, and have them shipped across the pond... not appealing.

Couldn't agree more. I was actually starting to feel like crap about NOT paying for them because I want BF to be able to continue making these for many, many years to come. But the wait would have killed me. I have the patience of a two-year old on a sugar high and the idea of having to wait for however many days or weeks to finally get a copy of the cd so long after its release? Torture. Abject torture.

Charley spent how long traveling with the Doctor and they never visited contemporary Earth?

Wow. That never even occurred to me, but you're right! I guess because they neve actually had an adventure on contemporary earth in the audios, it didn't strike me as that odd. But you are certainly right. I guess it was just a neat little clue for Six.

But yes, I am looking forward to my commute home today so that I can listen to the last part :)

So, you finished it? What did you think of the last chapter?

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