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Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-7NDP8V-6A
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Jul 10, 2014 00:41
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I was banned from Facebook for impersonating Barry Scott once.
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Jul 10, 2014 01:34
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I was banned from Facebook for impersonating Barry Scott once. Barry Scott is a unrepentant tyrant. You got off lightly.
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Jul 10, 2014 11:11
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Mr. Squishy posted:SFB is frantically getting on IRC sending the signal for them with a demented hate of Badults to show up. I thought it was to their credit that they went with a different print style to every other dark-coloured (a cheat for tense and moody) 9pm drama, but the brightness unfortunately made me feel I was watching Doctors or The Afternoon Play. Ponce de Le0n posted:Guess who's back The Vanish 'social media' ads on the tele are worse. Joe Public (that's us! OUR CHANCE AT FAME) are invited to share their ONE WEIRD TIPs for stain removal online. But all the tips they show are people using the Vanish products as per the instructions on the packet. We're supposed to marvel at their ingenuity.
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Jul 10, 2014 13:07
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Surprised no ones mentioned Utopia starting again on Monday, with a special prequel episode going back to the 70s and the birth of Janus, then back to the present day on Tuesday. It was by far my favourite TV series last year and I'm extremely excited for series 2.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:20
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Jakabite posted:Surprised no ones mentioned Utopia starting again on Monday, with a special prequel episode going back to the 70s and the birth of Janus, then back to the present day on Tuesday. It was by far my favourite TV series last year and I'm extremely excited for series 2. It's been discussed a bit and there's a thread for it as well http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3646128
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Jul 10, 2014 17:17
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Oh right nice one, thanks. Couldn't find the thread, ta!
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Jul 10, 2014 17:30
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ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:Dear Channel 4 or 5, Have you seen Five's football coverage? It makes Adrian Chiles look positively... well, competent at most, but it's still poo poo.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:43
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Hey, guys, I hope you don't mind me coming in to make a plug. We're in the "submission" phase of the TV IV Awards. Last year a couple of people had asked for international categories to recognize productions outside the US and Canada, so I gave it a try for this year. So far, nobody's submitted a drat thing to these categories. This is really more about fun and curiosity than actual legitimacy, but if you guys are really into some UK shows and you'd like to see them get a little more play around these parts, the Awards thread is here. It'll take you to a form you can fill out (you don't have to do all the categories), and then you can talk a little bit about what you submitted in the thread. If you write something really good, you could even pick up some Amazon fun bucks (for the US or the UK store) when this is all over. Again, sorry to break in to self-promote, just thought you'd be interested. EDIT: I should add, the eligibility period is shows that aired complete seasons/series between May 2013 and June 2014. DivisionPost fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Jul 10, 2014 |
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Jul 10, 2014 18:04
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Padje posted:
Of course the vanish ads are worse, they don't have barry scott in them!
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Jul 11, 2014 18:54
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Answers Me posted:Have you seen Five's football coverage? It makes Adrian Chiles look positively... well, competent at most, but it's still poo poo. I'd take five's production over ITV's any day. They will never, ever live down cutting to a commercial break during the FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Everton which was still playing. Their FA Cup match choices are loving diabolical, and they give Clarke Carlisle a job (I like Carlisle, but he has all of the charisma of a wet cloth). And in other news, after the general goodwill that Benefits Street was greeted with by social media, we're getting a follow-up... Immigration Street! And I'm sure this will be well-received by the population
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Jul 12, 2014 10:55
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ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:They will never, ever live down cutting to a commercial break during the FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Everton which was still playing. That was bad enough, but nowhere near as bad as cutting away to an ad break to miss England's goal against the USA in the World Cup. At least the Liverpool Everton one was a scheduled break that wasn't scrapped when the game went to ET, which is a genuine mistake.
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Jul 12, 2014 11:10
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And that's why TV station automation sucks.
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Jul 12, 2014 11:23
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ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:I'd take five's production over ITV's any day. They will never, ever live down cutting to a commercial break during the FA Cup tie between Liverpool and Everton which was still playing. Their FA Cup match choices are loving diabolical, and they give Clarke Carlisle a job (I like Carlisle, but he has all of the charisma of a wet cloth). Apparently Immigration Street is taking place in my city just across the crossroad from my old flat. It's kind of bullshit if it the show is going to treat the residents like subhuman poo poo since the street is known for two things. 1/ being the red light zone (even if that has gone round the corner in recent years. 2/ Being full of cheap bedsits which means everyone that lives there is either fresh in the country or a junkie. It's a weird street since it's next to the end of the city centre and everything the otherside of Bevois crossroad is overpriced townhouses or flats. Also people normally leave the area after a few months it's kind if a holding area while people sort their lifes out.
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Jul 12, 2014 14:11
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Anyone watched People do Nothing yet? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01xw0zf/people-just-do-nothing-1-secret-location Its getting some decent reviews, its part of the new BBC3, online only
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Jul 12, 2014 19:21
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I totally missed the fact that there was a new series of Friday Night Dinner. It's such a simple premise which ends up being really, really funny.
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Jul 12, 2014 20:03
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NaDy posted:I totally missed the fact that there was a new series of Friday Night Dinner. It's such a simple premise which ends up being really, really funny. Friday Night Dinner is great. Simon Bird is absolutely brilliant, as is Tamsin Greig (like always)
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Jul 12, 2014 20:15
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Krypt-OOO-Nite!! posted:Apparently Immigration Street is taking place in my city just across the crossroad from my old flat. I also lived a couple streets away for a few years as a student. Absolutely nothing about it seems documentary-worthy to me so I can't wait to get annoyed at the inevitable lying bastard television bullshit they have to pull in order to make the area seem like some racial warzone.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:03
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I suspect I'd really like the The Men Who Made Us... series, if the presenter diction wasn't so unbearably tittish.
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Jul 12, 2014 21:31
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Men who made us spend is absolutely brilliant. Anyone watched the other two?
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Jul 12, 2014 23:32
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Captain Mediocre posted:I also lived a couple streets away for a few years as a student. Absolutely nothing about it seems documentary-worthy to me so I can't wait to get annoyed at the inevitable lying bastard television bullshit they have to pull in order to make the area seem like some racial warzone. The most amusing part is Southampton is the whitest most conservative and middle-class a city I've ever set foot in. When I was at school there were only two black kids in my year and one East Asian girl. In recent years a big(ish) Polish/East European population has built up around Shirley and there's literally one street just round from Derby Road where the only Muslim population in the city lives and their fairly chilled in fact my first flat was between that street and Derby road above a Halal butchers and they didn't mind our drunken antics too much.(Also semi amusingly the most popular gay club in the city is on the Muslim street and there's only been one or two incidents I can remember.) I presume they'll also try to bring that street into it somehow. TLDR: Southampton is the stupidest location in the country to film a "documentary" about immigrants.
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Jul 13, 2014 00:00
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It's football fans also have absolutely no sense of humour.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:51
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Krypt-OOO-Nite!! posted:The most amusing part is Southampton is the whitest most conservative and middle-class a city I've ever set foot in. I imagine with enough manipulative editing and ensuring that scenes are always filmed in front of either a) the Polish offlicenses or b) the halal meat places, both of which theres quite a few of around town, you could probably give the impression that Southampton is like a foreign country. Which would be absurd, because as you say it really isn't very diverse beyond the sizable Polish minority (edit: still only 3.5%) and foreign students at the university. I have witnessed exactly 0 occurences of racial conflict in 4 years of living there anyway. Captain Mediocre fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Jul 13, 2014 |
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Jul 13, 2014 02:06
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Hijo Del Helmsley posted:Friday Night Dinner is great. Simon Bird is absolutely brilliant, as is Tamsin Greig (like always) I like FND, but I hated the season debut with a fiery passion. Thankfully the following episodes have been back to normal.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:22
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Mr. Squishy posted:I suspect I'd really like the The Men Who Made Us... series, if the presenter diction wasn't so unbearably tittish. thehustler posted:Men who made us spend is absolutely brilliant. Anyone watched the other two? Yeah I watched Fat and Thin when they were both on, I think the series is fascinating and certainly worth a watch if you have so much as a passing interest in consumer psychology and the like. I think Jacques does a great job with them, he was getting a bit Paxo with that Ikea bloke in the latest episode though, where he's taken a more hands-off approach in the past.
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Jul 13, 2014 15:51
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The Men Who Made Us Spend is a great show, everyone should watch it. The messages it has about consumerism, neoliberalism and what is effectively second wave postmodernism are very entry level points, but for mainstage bbc you are not going to get a better documentary. The only downside I am seeing of the show so far is that the presenter, whilst showing the negatives and critiquing hard consumerism, he often does not sound like he is entirely speaking his mind in the interviews. He feels like he is holding himself back at times. However, I guess you could say that by not bashing his head on his interviewees he does get more information, however, I would like to see how these individuals would react to more aggressive approaches. I imagine it would become something more like when someone just shuts the interview down in the Louis Theroux documentary.
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Jul 15, 2014 12:11
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Another Person posted:The Men Who Made Us Spend is a great show, everyone should watch it. The messages it has about consumerism, neoliberalism and what is effectively second wave postmodernism are very entry level points, but for mainstage bbc you are not going to get a better documentary. The only downside I am seeing of the show so far is that the presenter, whilst showing the negatives and critiquing hard consumerism, he often does not sound like he is entirely speaking his mind in the interviews. He feels like he is holding himself back at times. However, I guess you could say that by not bashing his head on his interviewees he does get more information, however, I would like to see how these individuals would react to more aggressive approaches. I imagine it would become something more like when someone just shuts the interview down in the Louis Theroux documentary. I like the entire series of the men who made us... I don't see what people have against the presenter. He's no rottweiler like paxman. But he's more about telling a story than just interviewing people. I thought Louis Theroux was the one who never asks hard questions, and instead lets his interviewees talk themselves into a corner?
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Jul 15, 2014 18:23
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mrfart posted:I thought Louis Theroux was the one who never asks hard questions, and instead lets his interviewees talk themselves into a corner? Theroux doesn't ask hard questions, he just asks lots of very simple ones that add up to a very big implied one. Eventually you start crying and tell him everything. I want to see him do free-style interviews with the public. Just grabbing people off the street and ripping out their secrets on camera. I think he could do it.
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Jul 15, 2014 18:38
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Louis Theroux, interview terrorist.
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Jul 15, 2014 18:49
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Yeah, if Paxman is the interview nuclear bomb, Theroux is the interview Death of a Thousand Cuts.
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Jul 15, 2014 18:57
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Therouxs biggest skill is the silence, staying quiet till the other person starts talking about things they didnt really want to say
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Jul 15, 2014 20:28
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Louis Theroux is also the best at pretending he's thick as poo poo, and looking flabbergasted at things he's being told that he definitely already knows. That scene in the white power one when he asked the white power lot how they'd feel if he told them he was jewish was hilarious, because he looked astonished when they said they wouldn't like it very much, thanks.
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Jul 15, 2014 23:49
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I thought The Men Who Made Us Spend was bloody terrible. It's full of mock outrage and desperate point-scoring on its targets. The bloke seemed incapable of accepting the basic fact that new iPhone models are qualitatively better than their predecessors, using the incredible fact that he chatted to three idiots in the line to buy one as proof. His other docs are the same as well - in The Men Who Made Us Thin he was moralising on how terrible it was that drug companies are working on pills that let you eat what you like and not get fat, as if a pill like that wouldn't be loving amazing. The presenter also has an incredibly irritating sing-song cadence to his voice. There's a great documentary to be made on the roots of modern consumerism, except that doc has already been made and it was Adam Curtis' Century of the Self, and this looks like that if it was made by five-year-olds. Comrade Fakename fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 00:48
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stickyfngrdboy posted:Louis Theroux is also the best at pretending he's thick as poo poo, and looking flabbergasted at things he's being told that he definitely already knows. That scene in the white power one when he asked the white power lot how they'd feel if he told them he was jewish was hilarious, because he looked astonished when they said they wouldn't like it very much, thanks. I suspect it would be interesting to go back and look at the questions that set him off. I seem to remember there being one moment where Saville gives him a very searching look after being asked about his hospital work, as though he's trying to work out if he's been rumbled. Then he just smiles and tells him he's a very clever man or something like that.
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Jul 16, 2014 10:40
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The Big Taff Man posted:Therouxs biggest skill is the silence, staying quiet till the other person starts talking about things they didnt really want to say This is also a great thing to be aware of for job interviews - I will always wait a few seconds after the question has been answered before moving on - it's very useful for getting candidates off their 'prepared answers' and on to the truth.
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Jul 16, 2014 12:07
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I've said it before, but I think the Saville interview would be fascinating to watch in retrospect. From memory, there are a couple of points where he comes off looking like a paranoid old man, telling Theroux he's very clever and that he's trying to trick him, when Louis was actually not digging at anything specific. Yeah there's a few moments where it gets tense, presumably because Saville is seeing something implied in the questioning, whether it's actually there or not. The worst thing is that Saville often comes across as a man who has a secret he's desperate to tell you, but enjoys the power of knowing it, if that makes sense. There's a smugness to him. I wouldn't mind knowing if Theroux actually knew anything at the time or not, since it was often considered a pretty open secret. The only negative I do have is that when Theroux comes up against a subject who doesn't mesh with his 'act', he doesn't seem to know what to do. Like 99% of the time he gets results, but that other 1% he just flounders.
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Jul 16, 2014 12:59
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Unsurprisingly, Theroux's been asked about it. He says nope knew nothing.http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/mar/23/louis-theroux-inhabit-intimate-space-jimmy-savile posted:One of your most famous interviews was with Jimmy Savile in 2000. There's a retrospectively uncomfortable moment where he says: "It's easier for me, as a single man, to say 'I don't like children' because that puts a lot of salacious tabloid people off the hunt." I seem to recall a longer statement or something on his website from around the time the BBC inquiry came out, but I can't seem to find it now.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:35
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I apologize for the next post. It's very  , which anyone who's read my reviews in the Doctor Who thread will tell you is par for the course.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:21
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 It begins with just a few people falling ill. Another flu virus that spreads around the globe. And then the reports begin that people are dying… When most of the world's population is wiped out, a handful of survivors are left to pick up the pieces. Cities become graveyards. Technology becomes largely obsolete. Mankind must start again… Cast Lucy Fleming (Jenny Richards) Ian McCulloch (Greg Preston) John Banks (Daniel Connor) Louise Jameson (Jackie Burchall) Sinead Keenan (Susie Edwards) Caroline Langrishe (Helen Wiseman) Adrian Lukis (James Gillison) Chase Masterson (Maddie Price) Terry Molloy (John Redgrave) Camilla Power (Fiona Bell) Phil Mulryne (Phil Bailey) San Shella (Sayed) Special appearance by Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) Written By: Matt Fitton, Jonathan Morris, Andrew Smith, John Dorney Directed By: Ken Bentley Trailer - http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/popout/survivors---series-one-box-set-953 X X X X X Everything old is new again. Post-apocalyptic settings were a strong staple of 20th century fiction, and the trend continues today. Movies such as Snowpiercer and 28 Days Later mix with novels such as Oryx and Crake while video games such as the Fallout series gain legions of devoted fans. TV shows such as Jericho and The Last Ship attempt to grip their viewing audience with stories set after the end of the world. In modern times, the granddaddy of them all is of course The Walking Dead, a popular comic book made into an incredibly successful, in terms of viewers and word of mouth, television series. If one steps back into the 1980’s, they would experience a virtual wealth of stories about life after World War III, both as books and as movies like Mad Max and The Day After. To most of today’s…slighter older…population, the best-known post-apocalypse story might be Stephen King’s doorstopper of a novel The Stand, a winding tale about a virulent strain of flu that kills 99.4% of the world’s population and sets about the (as always) “final” showdown between good and evil. To others, though, especially those who found themselves on the British Isles on or about 1975, another story about a violent disease that wipes out humanity is much more prevalent. Survivors sprung from the pen of Terry Nation, famed creator of the iconic Doctor Who villains the Daleks as well as the cult sci-fi series Blake’s 7. People across the entire planet find themselves becoming violently ill over the course of a few hours with a new strain of untreatable influenza. It doesn’t take very long for society to crumble. The power goes out. Food deliveries grind to a halt. The trains sit idle on their platforms. The streets become graveyards and hospitals vast tombs. For the few survivors who find themselves immune to the sickness, everything they’ve ever known about life has vanished, and it’s up to them to either pick up the pieces and begin again, or follow the rest of humanity as they fight over the dwindling resources of a vanished world. Survivors ran for three seasons on the BBC. Terry Nation wanted to focus on a group of survivors running from the new disputes and warlords that would have arisen in a post-Death (the nickname of the disease) England, while producer Terence Dudley preferred to settle the main characters in one place in order to save on the budget. Dudley won out, and Nation left after the first season, leading to a noticeable drop in the quality of the scripts and the story. Technical problems abounded as well, as the shoddy cameras used to shoot the series resulted in missed takes, scenes ruined due to film damage, and reflections popping up in weird places thanks to problems with the lenses. However, the show developed a following due to its willingness to not pull punches. Characters can, and did, die at any time. The series showed how a variety of groups dealt with survival, and not all of the ways were pleasant. And even moments of hopes were mixed with the grim reality of the survivor’s situation. Despite going off the air in 1977, the show had carved out enough of a niche within the pop culture psyche of a generation that a “re-imagining” aired for two seasons beginning in 2008. Big Finish is a British company best known for its long-running range of Doctor Who audios that star Doctors and companions from the “classic run” between 1963 and the 1996 television movie. Along with Who, Big Finish has also released audios for shows such as Dark Shadows, Blake’s 7, the Avengers, and Sapphire and Steel. Survivors was announced in 2013 as Big Finish’s latest range. The first “series” of four audio episodes was released in 2014, with two more four episode series to follow in 2015 and 2016. Big Finish has received high praise for its Doctor Who audios, which successfully rehabilitated Colin Baker’s Doctor who had a lackluster run in the mid 80's as well as giving Paul McGann, who’s only appearance as the Doctor was in the 1996 movie, a chance to portray the Doctor for over ten years now. Survivors didn’t need “rehabilitation,” but the question was asked; could Big Finish take the harrowing nature of the 1970’s show and successfully replicate it in an audio-only format. The answer is a resounding “yes.” The first series of Big Finish’s Survivors mixes both new characters and familiar ones and utilizes the “limitless” effect budget audio can provide to create a desolate setting, from the death cries of the old world through the painful birth of a new, more hostile one. Much like 1975’s The Four Horsemen, Survivors opens with a normal, everyday scene right out of British life. A father gets his family gets ready for church while their mother, a newspaper editor, prepares to head to the office, as they’ve been shorthanded over the past few days due to employees taking sick leave. A young, brash American lawyer finds herself stranded at the airport as international flights out of London are delayed. In the country, a young woman finds that her rural community has become quiet, with no one walking around the village or milking the cows. A local college professor finds that attendance of his lectures is dropping as students lie ill or race home to their families. As the opening episode, Revelation does a great job of showing just how quickly everything can fall apart. Writer Matt Fitton builds up the tension slowly instead of sending the listener crashing into the end of the world. Each scene is peppered with audio clues that the end of the world is here and no one knows it yet. By setting the new episodes of Survivors firmly in 1975, there is no Internet, no cell phones, no international 24 hour news networks. The man on the street isn’t putting together all the various clues, but instead focusing on their daily lives unaware of the bigger picture until it’s far too late. People are coughing during Professor Gillison’s lecture, there’s talk of the Wiseman’s neighbors keeping their children home from school so they don’t get sick, sirens are blaring in the background as Maddie Price demands service from the airline counter staff, and finally silence falls across London as the power goes out and the survivors realize that everything is different now. Maddie Price, played by Chase Masterson of Deep Space Nine fame, is loud, brash, and very in-your-face as the American lawyer stranded in London, unaware that even as she complains about her lack of luggage, New York is on fire and no planes will be crossing the Atlantic in the near future. It’s very easy to dislike Price at the beginning as she’s introduced after closing the proverbial “big deal,” but put against Terry Malloy’s government functionary John Redgrave in Heathrow’s VIP lounge, the listener soon begins to side with Price as the scope of the situation dawns on her, and she’s the one who finally takes action to see what lies beyond the airport. Malloy is well known for playing Davros, the scheming and screaming creator of the Daleks, and it’s a delight to hear him in this story playing it very low-key and very stiff-upper-lip, trying to carry out Her Majesty’s Government’s last known wishes even as he knows it’s all for naught. The second episode, Exodus, sees the survivors struggling to survive and slowly coming to grips with a post-Death England. Some, like Professor Gillison, have already taken charge, sending out scavengers and setting up a radio broadcast to draw in anyone looking for safety. Others, like reporter Daniel Connor, wander London, standing in the halls of Parliament, seeing the missing pictures in the National Gallery, and being shot at while traversing Trafalgar Square. Jonathan Morris begins with four separate groups, and by the end of the story the listener is expecting them to band together and perhaps begin to bring order to chaos. But not all is as it seems, and expectations get tossed on their ear by story’s end. The total silence as Connor walks the streets on London is eerie to the point that the rattle of plates and silverware in Gillison’s canteen is a welcome relief, even if his bustling commune is a little…off-putting. Exodus is the first episode to reveal some of the tough choices and decisions that must be made in this new world, and even the “wrong” answers have some merit even if they are horrifying in nature. The second episode belongs to Louise Jameson, best known for her role as Leela alongside the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, on both television and in The Fourth Doctor Adventures, a Big Finish range reuniting the pair after over 30 years. There’s no hint of Leela in Jameson’s performance as she plays immune housewife Jackie Burchill. Her introduction to the listener and the climax of her introduction to Daniel Connor is rather easily predictable, but Jameson (and John Banks, who plays Connor) sells it for all its worth, teetering just for a moment on the edge of melodrama before snapping back into a heart wrenching scenario, the kind that would haunt mothers for eternity. Andrew Smith pens Judges, the third episode, set a few months after the outbreak. By this point, listeners are well aware that James Gillison is not what he appears to be…or, perhaps even worse, is EXACTLY what he appears to be. Adrian Lukis, a long time character actor in several BBC shows, absolutely crushes it as Gillison, balancing between appearing to have everything under his cool and calm control while allowing himself moments of loss of control and angry outbursts. Long-term survival is now a possibility, so the question becomes how does a group survive? What steps should they take? Are the old laws even viable in a new world? There’s an old wrestling adage that applies to nearly all fiction; the best villains are those who believe they are complete and utterly in the right. Gillison’s actions and choices are what he feels to be those best for the long-term survival of humanity, but his paranoia and iron grip on the community make those choices intolerable. All are welcome, and those who wish to leave may do so, but in order to maintain the illusion that the surrounding cityscape is hell on Earth, those who do leave won’t even make it to the Thames. There’s no wishy-washy nature to Lukis’ performance, making Gillison a true master class in villainy. Judges also introduces three familiar characters to the revival; Greg Preston and Jenny Richards, characters from the 1975 series, are seen from their communal farm in the countryside by Abby Grant, who made a cameo appearance in the previous audio episode. Lucy Fleming and Ian McCulloch play the cautious survivors, reprising their television roles. Even though the listener knows they “survive” the proceedings by virtue of their appearance in the television series, Smith keeps the tension and mystery throughout the episode, not only within Gillison’s community, but through contact with other groups of survivors. Several original characters deserve notice as well, specifically Phil Bailey, the former member of the London Metropolitan Police played by Phil Mulryne and Camilla Power’s portrayal of Gillison’s right hand woman Fiona Bell. Both give hints of what happened to them in the months since the Death without falling into the trap of “here’s some clumsy exposition.” Instead, they both, along with Smith’s script, manage to “show don’t tell” the story of their characters through their actions and dialogue. Esther brings it all together through the script by John Dorney. Greg and Jenny plan their escape from Gillison’s community, but who will come with them? When Fiona overhears their plans, will that person held them, hinder them, or betray them? Gillison’s hold on power is slipping, but does the professor have a final trick up his sleeve? Dorney’s script ties everything from the third episode together into a wonderful bow on top of a very bleak present. As I listened to the final episode, I slowly realized what Gillison’s plan was and it chilled me to the point of minor shivers and a quiet “oh, crap.” As I said earlier, we know Greg and Jenny survive, but no one else is safe. The ending brings Greg and Jenny (and maybe others) back to Abby Grant, along with the knowledge that, no matter where they go and who they meet, the concepts and morality of the old world has faded away. Ken Bentley has been a long-time director for Big Finish Productions and in the theatre as well. He talks the helm here and manages to keep all four audios moving at a very brisk pace without things being rushed. Each episode is an hour, give or take a few minutes, and that includes both the story itself and some “behind-the-scenes” interviews and snippets from the recording sessions with the actors and writers. The story very rarely drags, with a few scenes running just a bit too long to be noticeable before cutting to the next segment. Neil Gardner, another Big Finish mainstay, handles the sound design, all the background noises that populate the world, from the sounds of humanity dying to the gentle calls of birds in the countryside. Perhaps his best work is when he chooses NOT to use sound, letting silence to all the talking. Nicolas Briggs, the “showrunner” as it were for the Doctor Who range of audios, is in charge of the music. The incidental music is low-key, but the music Briggs uses for “act breaks” as it were tends to be a little loud and had me turning the volume on my iPhone down a few times. However, he uses the original theme to open and close each episode, a brooding number instantly recognizable to viewers of the television series. Big Finish manages to catch the essence of Survivors in a way that the 2008 series didn’t. The audios are much more about the relationships between the survivors and how a new world must arise, but doesn’t pull any punches in asking what kind of world it must be. While we know Greg and Jenny have to survive, the question of which of the original characters will make it is held over the listeners’ heads throughout. The characters we thought we would be following throughout the series…well, fate (and the writers) have different plans, but their deaths aren’t forced or shocking. There are moments of hope, such as when the community manages to get a helicopter in the air, but those hopes are soon dashed by reality. The choices that are made can be boiled down to “humanity vs. pragmatism,” and Survivors gives answers that aren’t easy to accept. It’s a very bleak series, but it’s also very gripping and entertaining as well. The four writers and the cast work very well to paint a new world, weaving it in with the original series in a respectful-and-powerful manner. Season Two will be out in 2015, and the critical and commercial success of Season One has led to the commissioning of a third series. There’s plenty of storytelling opportunities out there for Survivors and Big Finish has done a grand and respectful job of introducing new listeners to the world and bringing new stories to the ears of former viewers. Synopsis – Respectfully done, well-written and well-acted, Survivors presents four audio episodes that tell a gripping story about a world in its death throes and how those who remain deal with the ethical and moral choices they have to make, with both familiar voices and new characters. 5/5 CobiWann fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 18:23
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So thats a big post about Audiobooks?
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Jul 16, 2014 20:07
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