Big Finish: In Order!
Dec. 10th, 2008 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eve11So the other day, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wheresmycow mentioned she was going to attempt the feat of listening to all one-hundred-some Big Finish Doctor Who audio adventures in order. And serendipitously, I was half-way through listening to the very first one, Sirens of Time, for my commute.
And so I said, "What a great idea! Now we can talk about them together too!" And then I realized if I listen to 5 audios per week (1 per day for my commute), that it will still take 6 months to get through them all (!)
So, let the in-order reviews begin. I'll be posting in increments of 5, possibly sporadically.
Oh, also, SPOILER ALERT for all of them! I give away twists and plot points in all!
Last week's commutes:
BFx001: The Sirens of Time:
This one features all three of the audio doctors (minus Eight), and each one stars in one of the first three segments before they all come together in the 4th. Three different doctors locked out of their TARDISes by mysterious forces, three different historical (or future-historical) events changing course (though of course we only get a hint of that in the second one), three mysterious companions. And one really annoying Time Lord crony in VanSell, who can't decide whether to kill the Doctor or rely on him to save Gallifrey.
I think the plot in this one is secondary to the "OMG three doctors listen to them!" fanboy-ish glee of having the original actors reprising their roles. But as cool as the three doctors are, I think this one suffers from a lack of official Companions (and especially for Seven which I didn't realize until listening to "The Fearmonger"). Sure, there's Helen/Elenya/Ellie/Lyena, to act as a sounding board in each segment, but it's not the same as having an established relationship.
There were some interesting plot decisions here... like, for example, how Seven's escape from the planet is played out off-screen, and the rather heavy-handed flashbacks to earlier information in the Lyena reveal. It felt like they were still working out the kinks of the audio format, too, relying on scripted description more (probably) than they needed. This is a recurring theme in the early episodes, as well as trying to integrate audio media into the storytelling.
Also, let me ask, what does Nick Briggs have against Five? Imprisoned, beaten, shot, broken leg, taken prisoner and subjected to the life-force extractor? Meanwhile Six and Seven get off basically scot free! Not that I mind a bit of whumping now and again but that was don't-kick-the-puppy excessive! Speaking of Five, Peter Davison seemed to not quite have the Fifth Doctor's character down. He was really understated, as oppsoed to Sylvester McCoy who seemed to be hamming it up a bit. But McCoy also had the weakest of the three scripts, IMO. Give Maggie Stables credit for chewing the audio scenery as the hag caring for Sancroft, but really, nobody in that segment was in the least bit sympathetic. On the other hand, Colin Baker took zero time to get back into form. I liked his segment, how he's always a step ahead (almost) of the other characters, and is also smug about this ;)
So in the end, I have little to no clue as to what the plot was (there was a big beast? Made out of tempura? Yum... I mean, woe, it sacrifices itself to rescue us from gamy, overripe soldiers! Who possibly feed off of time anomalies-- did we mention no-one sank the Lusitania and gallifrey's in ruins?), but OMG three doctors listen to them!
BFx002: Phantasmagoria: I listened to this one recently and figured I didn't have much to say about it. What I'm noticing on re-listen is that the early stories really seem to follow the Old School TV formula more than the later ones, at least to my notice. And while the TV series had a bit of leisure at setting up stories, I think the audio medium needs a bit more urgency than is evident in this story.
This one is a pseudo-historical adventure with the fifth Doctor and Turlough, who actually (I think) is well-written character-wise in this piece, but on the other hand, he has very little to do. We get the two gentlemen -- the mathematician (Flowers?) and his friend Jasper Jeke (hello Mark Gatiss!) who are again completely annoying! And, also, I know it's like 1702 or whatever, but the only female character is the maid? I mean, yeah, she turns out to be an alien and she mentions the whole sexism thing on the one hand, and on the other they just blithely get away with the notion that Valentine is only interested in young men because apparently only they have the requisite brainpower and complexity to fuel his bio-ship. I mean, okay, I have a feeling that this episode is coded up to its freaking *ears* but holy heck, they even managed to make slashy subtext boring.
Overall, again, I've listened to this episode 3 times now and still have very little to say about it. Turlough gets kidnapped and then has a nice breakfast, and then literally a plot point is that he can't find where the Doctor is staying. This is telling. The Doctor is basically just hanging out, having tea with Doctor Holywell. Hello, please stop trying to make Five more bland. The murder of Ned Cotton makes no sense-- was it a clue as to the true identity of Billy Lovemore? And I'm supposed to believe there's another big bad alien out there who has no idea about the "don't throw me in the briar patch!" ruse. *headdesk*
Another thing that is telling... I had to go back to the audio guide just to remember all of the names.
BFx003: Whispers of Terror: The Doctor and Peri visit a museum of aural antiquities, where someone is editing files and generally being shifty. Again, we have a very thoroughly and somewhat sledge-hammer-esque attempt at a truly aural story. An audio archive, a blind curator, and a sound creature. But at the same time, I think they're not quite sure what to do with these elements for a stretch of nearly 2 hours.
The Sixth Doctor teams up with Peri in this one, and the relationship is pretty much straight out of the televised episodes-- the Doctor definitely has a bit of a mean streak in teasing Peri, but at the same time he does care for her. The banter at the beginning falls a bit flat, though, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps they are trying too hard. I mean, compare this early Six and Peri with Six and Peri from Year of the Pig, and you can instantly tell the difference. It's less forced banter in that one, and more a bit of prickly camaraderie. Possibly this is due to more of the evolution of Peri as a character, but then again, if you take Big Finish as canon, she tromped around for quite a while with Five. But hey, even Big Finish didn't know that was going to happen yet, right?
So anyway, Peri does the usual blundering around and asking questions, and mistaking bad guys for good guys (and btw, hello Lisa Bowerman as Beth Purnell!) and generally getting in harm's way or having to be warned away from getting in harm's way. The Doctor is blustery and extremely exposition-y, and the plot setup is, well, just on this side of ridiculous. An aural archive I can understand, but a presidential candidate who won't be videotaped? WTF? The whole setup with the sound creature and the gradual reveal of the murder and the random henchmen who get killed was just so disjointed. I didn't care one whit about Vistene Crane, and the mystery of his suicide was so telegraphed it could be seen from miles away like a beacon on the high seas.
Two redeeming things-- one is the bit where Beth tortures the audio creature, which for being such a weird concept, was actually done pretty well. Poor audio creature! That was the only time I felt bad for it. And the second was the plot twist that Napton was the audio creature/Crane the entire time, and Gantmann of course didn't notice. It puts an interesting spin on their first discussion of Crane's speech, at any rate. Lisa Bowerman was aptly sinister as Purnell, but the "mystery" wasn't really much of one in the end.
BFx004: The Land of the Dead: Okay, no surprise here that I was not really looking forward to re-listening to this one. It's got some nice interaction between Five and Nyssa at the beginning, but it's all over the place in terms of characterization and, god help them, plot.
So, A memorial to a rich guy's dead father awakens elemental creatures that are bent on avenging those who took nature for granted. And the only guy who is killed is arobot native American who I spent half the story trying to remember where I'd heard his name before and then realized Gaborik is a hockey player. Wait, I think the rich guy dies too, but he's not eaten, just frozen? Anyway, speaking of Gaborik... oh mercy, let's not. I think a voice synthesizer would have been better.
Again, we have a set of characters who really aren't sympathetic, even Monica really grates, and I think she was supposed to be the audience conduit for the adventure. Tulang goes from relatively sympathetic to a gibbering idiot, and yeah, I think this episode does for Native American Alaskan culture what Minuet in Hell does for lower-48 American Political culture. Ie, insults it. A lot. Partly the accents (Tulang isn't too bad but Gaborik is terrible, and then they just put two Brits out in nowhere Alaska for the hell of it), partly the whole notion of a subserviant and powerless protagonist (Tulang) who can't tell the difference between spirits and science. Rational and spiritual inform each other, as Nyssa said, but the take-home message is that the crazy natives can't seem to do it right, while the surprisingly-white-looking-and-posh-yet-aliens can. And again like Minuet in Hell, it appears to want to take place present day, but the abject colonialism, cultural racism and feel of indentured subservience would probably fit more into about 1910. Then of course, you couldn't have soon-to-be-dead fathers escaping some prior tragedy in planes.
The monsters were too visual for the audio medium, there is the crowbar-like insertion of audio media into a story that really isn't prepared for it (seriously, having telephone conversation? When you're about to get eaten by a big monster?), and yeah, I'm squeamish, the "Gaborik gets et" scene was really pretty gruesome! There is inexplicable science and psycho-telepathy-for-the-heck-of-it, and I don't care one whit about either of these whining guys' dads, and the Doctor while growing a bit more Five-esque still seemed standoffish and not inclined to do much of anything. It just didn't gel. And it also amazes me that Five and Nyssa can start out so rough but evolve into one of the best pairings as the series goes on. :)
BFx005: The Fearmonger: Easily the best of the first five. And this is where I notice how awesome Ace and Seven are together. Upon second listen, even more so than the first. In the first I was caught up in the plot, which, for being produced pre-9/11, is frighteningly topical and spot-on for today's politics. An extreme anti-immigration, anti-terrorism candidate houses an energy creature that feeds off of fear and hatred. Oh, it reminds me of the 2004 election in the US, where the Bush Administration ran a TV ad that showed pictures of wolves, yes wolves slobbering and gathering at the forest edge, and then told you the terrorists were waiting and the Democrats would let them in. Hooray for fear!
Anyway, on the one side you have the despicable candidate Sherilyn Harper, and on the other side you have the despicable talk-radio bully Mick Thompson, sort of a cross between the crass-ness of Don Imus (shades of this archetype show up much later too in the Eighth doctor BBC7 episode "Max Warp") and a left-wing Rush Limbaugh, who possibly hates both left and right. And in this case, they do a much better job of more seamlessly integrating the audio medium, through the radio show, which they experiment with again later in Live 34. And one thing this audio has going for it, is that the supporting cast is really, really good. Spot-on, a good cross between energy and the necessary "oomph" that needs to go into an audio performance, but subtle enough to be believable. Something that was totally NOT present in, eg, "Phantasmagoria," scant few episodes ago.
And the Doctor and Ace hit the ground running. Where Seven was totally not in his element in Sirens of Time (I've seen zero seventh doctor TV episodes but even I realize he's less an action-hero tromping through jungles and more a master manipulator -- he needs to have people around him, strings to pull, to be at his best!), this story is right up his alley. I love, love, love the scene where he builds the creature-container out of Paul Tanner's junk drawer, the easy banter between him and Ace ("you're going to call for the screwdriver next." "Hmpf. Pliers." and then of course Ace is vindicated scant moments later). The concern and frustration he shows when Ace gets herself shot. And oh, you know, I can't remember where I first encountered Ace outside of fanfic-- it might have been "Colditz", but dudes, she totally rocks. And I love her voice, ridiculously.
And let me say, upon first listen, I truly didn't know where the fear creature was, or if it even existed at the end. So when it apparently showed up in the Doctor at the end, I thought, Holy Hell are we screwed! Because of all the Doctors, you get the feeling that Seven is to some extent the most distant and the most alien of them, and if anyone could be twisted around from good intentions to the darker, more cunning, secretive and malevolent side, well hell, Seven's already straddling that line. Amazing how at the end they took his dialogue, his delivery, and just with that little hint that it was a fear creature inside him, that was all we as the audience needed in order to be freaked out. Well, we the audience who were not smart enough to figure out that the creature was in Walter Jacobs and then Ace, all along. Then that little barb at the end where Seven visits Sherilyn after she has to confront the fact that her home-grown mob mentality is now out of control... yeah, rather chill-inducing. Anyway, props to Slyvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred for a fantastic first outing. A bit rough around the edges, but definitely a sign of great things to come.
For my next post, I'll be talking about 6 through 10. I've gotten through 6, 7, and 8, need to transition Lanyon Moor and Winter for the Adept over to my iPod and then we're rolling again. :) I've already taken some notes.
wheresmycow mentioned she was going to attempt the feat of listening to all one-hundred-some Big Finish Doctor Who audio adventures in order. And serendipitously, I was half-way through listening to the very first one, Sirens of Time, for my commute.And so I said, "What a great idea! Now we can talk about them together too!" And then I realized if I listen to 5 audios per week (1 per day for my commute), that it will still take 6 months to get through them all (!)
So, let the in-order reviews begin. I'll be posting in increments of 5, possibly sporadically.
Oh, also, SPOILER ALERT for all of them! I give away twists and plot points in all!
Last week's commutes:
BFx001: The Sirens of Time:
This one features all three of the audio doctors (minus Eight), and each one stars in one of the first three segments before they all come together in the 4th. Three different doctors locked out of their TARDISes by mysterious forces, three different historical (or future-historical) events changing course (though of course we only get a hint of that in the second one), three mysterious companions. And one really annoying Time Lord crony in VanSell, who can't decide whether to kill the Doctor or rely on him to save Gallifrey.
I think the plot in this one is secondary to the "OMG three doctors listen to them!" fanboy-ish glee of having the original actors reprising their roles. But as cool as the three doctors are, I think this one suffers from a lack of official Companions (and especially for Seven which I didn't realize until listening to "The Fearmonger"). Sure, there's Helen/Elenya/Ellie/Lyena, to act as a sounding board in each segment, but it's not the same as having an established relationship.
There were some interesting plot decisions here... like, for example, how Seven's escape from the planet is played out off-screen, and the rather heavy-handed flashbacks to earlier information in the Lyena reveal. It felt like they were still working out the kinks of the audio format, too, relying on scripted description more (probably) than they needed. This is a recurring theme in the early episodes, as well as trying to integrate audio media into the storytelling.
Also, let me ask, what does Nick Briggs have against Five? Imprisoned, beaten, shot, broken leg, taken prisoner and subjected to the life-force extractor? Meanwhile Six and Seven get off basically scot free! Not that I mind a bit of whumping now and again but that was don't-kick-the-puppy excessive! Speaking of Five, Peter Davison seemed to not quite have the Fifth Doctor's character down. He was really understated, as oppsoed to Sylvester McCoy who seemed to be hamming it up a bit. But McCoy also had the weakest of the three scripts, IMO. Give Maggie Stables credit for chewing the audio scenery as the hag caring for Sancroft, but really, nobody in that segment was in the least bit sympathetic. On the other hand, Colin Baker took zero time to get back into form. I liked his segment, how he's always a step ahead (almost) of the other characters, and is also smug about this ;)
So in the end, I have little to no clue as to what the plot was (there was a big beast? Made out of tempura? Yum... I mean, woe, it sacrifices itself to rescue us from gamy, overripe soldiers! Who possibly feed off of time anomalies-- did we mention no-one sank the Lusitania and gallifrey's in ruins?), but OMG three doctors listen to them!
BFx002: Phantasmagoria: I listened to this one recently and figured I didn't have much to say about it. What I'm noticing on re-listen is that the early stories really seem to follow the Old School TV formula more than the later ones, at least to my notice. And while the TV series had a bit of leisure at setting up stories, I think the audio medium needs a bit more urgency than is evident in this story.
This one is a pseudo-historical adventure with the fifth Doctor and Turlough, who actually (I think) is well-written character-wise in this piece, but on the other hand, he has very little to do. We get the two gentlemen -- the mathematician (Flowers?) and his friend Jasper Jeke (hello Mark Gatiss!) who are again completely annoying! And, also, I know it's like 1702 or whatever, but the only female character is the maid? I mean, yeah, she turns out to be an alien and she mentions the whole sexism thing on the one hand, and on the other they just blithely get away with the notion that Valentine is only interested in young men because apparently only they have the requisite brainpower and complexity to fuel his bio-ship. I mean, okay, I have a feeling that this episode is coded up to its freaking *ears* but holy heck, they even managed to make slashy subtext boring.
Overall, again, I've listened to this episode 3 times now and still have very little to say about it. Turlough gets kidnapped and then has a nice breakfast, and then literally a plot point is that he can't find where the Doctor is staying. This is telling. The Doctor is basically just hanging out, having tea with Doctor Holywell. Hello, please stop trying to make Five more bland. The murder of Ned Cotton makes no sense-- was it a clue as to the true identity of Billy Lovemore? And I'm supposed to believe there's another big bad alien out there who has no idea about the "don't throw me in the briar patch!" ruse. *headdesk*
Another thing that is telling... I had to go back to the audio guide just to remember all of the names.
BFx003: Whispers of Terror: The Doctor and Peri visit a museum of aural antiquities, where someone is editing files and generally being shifty. Again, we have a very thoroughly and somewhat sledge-hammer-esque attempt at a truly aural story. An audio archive, a blind curator, and a sound creature. But at the same time, I think they're not quite sure what to do with these elements for a stretch of nearly 2 hours.
The Sixth Doctor teams up with Peri in this one, and the relationship is pretty much straight out of the televised episodes-- the Doctor definitely has a bit of a mean streak in teasing Peri, but at the same time he does care for her. The banter at the beginning falls a bit flat, though, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps they are trying too hard. I mean, compare this early Six and Peri with Six and Peri from Year of the Pig, and you can instantly tell the difference. It's less forced banter in that one, and more a bit of prickly camaraderie. Possibly this is due to more of the evolution of Peri as a character, but then again, if you take Big Finish as canon, she tromped around for quite a while with Five. But hey, even Big Finish didn't know that was going to happen yet, right?
So anyway, Peri does the usual blundering around and asking questions, and mistaking bad guys for good guys (and btw, hello Lisa Bowerman as Beth Purnell!) and generally getting in harm's way or having to be warned away from getting in harm's way. The Doctor is blustery and extremely exposition-y, and the plot setup is, well, just on this side of ridiculous. An aural archive I can understand, but a presidential candidate who won't be videotaped? WTF? The whole setup with the sound creature and the gradual reveal of the murder and the random henchmen who get killed was just so disjointed. I didn't care one whit about Vistene Crane, and the mystery of his suicide was so telegraphed it could be seen from miles away like a beacon on the high seas.
Two redeeming things-- one is the bit where Beth tortures the audio creature, which for being such a weird concept, was actually done pretty well. Poor audio creature! That was the only time I felt bad for it. And the second was the plot twist that Napton was the audio creature/Crane the entire time, and Gantmann of course didn't notice. It puts an interesting spin on their first discussion of Crane's speech, at any rate. Lisa Bowerman was aptly sinister as Purnell, but the "mystery" wasn't really much of one in the end.
BFx004: The Land of the Dead: Okay, no surprise here that I was not really looking forward to re-listening to this one. It's got some nice interaction between Five and Nyssa at the beginning, but it's all over the place in terms of characterization and, god help them, plot.
So, A memorial to a rich guy's dead father awakens elemental creatures that are bent on avenging those who took nature for granted. And the only guy who is killed is a
Again, we have a set of characters who really aren't sympathetic, even Monica really grates, and I think she was supposed to be the audience conduit for the adventure. Tulang goes from relatively sympathetic to a gibbering idiot, and yeah, I think this episode does for Native American Alaskan culture what Minuet in Hell does for lower-48 American Political culture. Ie, insults it. A lot. Partly the accents (Tulang isn't too bad but Gaborik is terrible, and then they just put two Brits out in nowhere Alaska for the hell of it), partly the whole notion of a subserviant and powerless protagonist (Tulang) who can't tell the difference between spirits and science. Rational and spiritual inform each other, as Nyssa said, but the take-home message is that the crazy natives can't seem to do it right, while the surprisingly-white-looking-and-posh-yet-aliens can. And again like Minuet in Hell, it appears to want to take place present day, but the abject colonialism, cultural racism and feel of indentured subservience would probably fit more into about 1910. Then of course, you couldn't have soon-to-be-dead fathers escaping some prior tragedy in planes.
The monsters were too visual for the audio medium, there is the crowbar-like insertion of audio media into a story that really isn't prepared for it (seriously, having telephone conversation? When you're about to get eaten by a big monster?), and yeah, I'm squeamish, the "Gaborik gets et" scene was really pretty gruesome! There is inexplicable science and psycho-telepathy-for-the-heck-of-it, and I don't care one whit about either of these whining guys' dads, and the Doctor while growing a bit more Five-esque still seemed standoffish and not inclined to do much of anything. It just didn't gel. And it also amazes me that Five and Nyssa can start out so rough but evolve into one of the best pairings as the series goes on. :)
BFx005: The Fearmonger: Easily the best of the first five. And this is where I notice how awesome Ace and Seven are together. Upon second listen, even more so than the first. In the first I was caught up in the plot, which, for being produced pre-9/11, is frighteningly topical and spot-on for today's politics. An extreme anti-immigration, anti-terrorism candidate houses an energy creature that feeds off of fear and hatred. Oh, it reminds me of the 2004 election in the US, where the Bush Administration ran a TV ad that showed pictures of wolves, yes wolves slobbering and gathering at the forest edge, and then told you the terrorists were waiting and the Democrats would let them in. Hooray for fear!
Anyway, on the one side you have the despicable candidate Sherilyn Harper, and on the other side you have the despicable talk-radio bully Mick Thompson, sort of a cross between the crass-ness of Don Imus (shades of this archetype show up much later too in the Eighth doctor BBC7 episode "Max Warp") and a left-wing Rush Limbaugh, who possibly hates both left and right. And in this case, they do a much better job of more seamlessly integrating the audio medium, through the radio show, which they experiment with again later in Live 34. And one thing this audio has going for it, is that the supporting cast is really, really good. Spot-on, a good cross between energy and the necessary "oomph" that needs to go into an audio performance, but subtle enough to be believable. Something that was totally NOT present in, eg, "Phantasmagoria," scant few episodes ago.
And the Doctor and Ace hit the ground running. Where Seven was totally not in his element in Sirens of Time (I've seen zero seventh doctor TV episodes but even I realize he's less an action-hero tromping through jungles and more a master manipulator -- he needs to have people around him, strings to pull, to be at his best!), this story is right up his alley. I love, love, love the scene where he builds the creature-container out of Paul Tanner's junk drawer, the easy banter between him and Ace ("you're going to call for the screwdriver next." "Hmpf. Pliers." and then of course Ace is vindicated scant moments later). The concern and frustration he shows when Ace gets herself shot. And oh, you know, I can't remember where I first encountered Ace outside of fanfic-- it might have been "Colditz", but dudes, she totally rocks. And I love her voice, ridiculously.
And let me say, upon first listen, I truly didn't know where the fear creature was, or if it even existed at the end. So when it apparently showed up in the Doctor at the end, I thought, Holy Hell are we screwed! Because of all the Doctors, you get the feeling that Seven is to some extent the most distant and the most alien of them, and if anyone could be twisted around from good intentions to the darker, more cunning, secretive and malevolent side, well hell, Seven's already straddling that line. Amazing how at the end they took his dialogue, his delivery, and just with that little hint that it was a fear creature inside him, that was all we as the audience needed in order to be freaked out. Well, we the audience who were not smart enough to figure out that the creature was in Walter Jacobs and then Ace, all along. Then that little barb at the end where Seven visits Sherilyn after she has to confront the fact that her home-grown mob mentality is now out of control... yeah, rather chill-inducing. Anyway, props to Slyvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred for a fantastic first outing. A bit rough around the edges, but definitely a sign of great things to come.
For my next post, I'll be talking about 6 through 10. I've gotten through 6, 7, and 8, need to transition Lanyon Moor and Winter for the Adept over to my iPod and then we're rolling again. :) I've already taken some notes.
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Date: 2008-12-11 12:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-11 01:53 pm (UTC)don't feel obligated to do so on my part; take your time at your own pace. I don't want to stress you out or anything or turn this into a huge production if it was more of a lark ;) It's probably going to take me a while to listen to everything too-- no way I'm getting through 5 per week as it stands.