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Astroman posted:Also in Doctor Who, all aliens and people from the future have a British accent. That's the TARDIS translation matrix telepathically rendering everything into a British accent for British audiences.
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Jun 14, 2015 18:50
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The_Doctor posted:Wesley/Alexis Denisof's English accent is astoundingly good. I say this as an Englishman that I had no clue he wasn't one of us. A few years later I heard his real American accent and it's the most cringeworthy Californian accent, real "oh wow gee" stuff. The opposite of this is probably Andrew Garfield who just sounds silly with an English accent.
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Jun 14, 2015 18:51
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Rochallor posted:Jesus, she's supposed to be from Baltimore? I don't remember that at all from this or Planet of Fire. That's even worse. She's passable as generic California, maybe, but Baltimore? edit - Sorry double post. To give it some value ; Troughton was is and will continue to be the best Doctor ever. Dr. Gene Dango MD fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jun 14, 2015 |
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Jun 14, 2015 19:24
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Did anyone ever see the episode of Highlander where Anthony Head plays an American diplomat in France, and uses an American accent for the whole episode? It was pretty  to hear, exactly like Alexis Denisof or (to a lesser extent) David Anders using their own natural accents.
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Jun 14, 2015 19:51
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Wheat Loaf posted:Did anyone ever see the episode of Highlander where Anthony Head plays an American diplomat in France, and uses an American accent for the whole episode? It was pretty Denisof also did a Highlander, with his natural accent (which is odd, considering he was in one of the Paris episode, and so must've been when he lived over here) as a rich dude's junkie son who was friends with MacLeod. But yeah, Tony Head is p. bad at American.
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Jun 14, 2015 20:58
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The all time worst Buffy related accent (besides Drusilla. And Kendra.) was Glenn Quinn's fake American accent on Roseanne.
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Jun 15, 2015 00:32
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whatsabattle posted:The all time worst Buffy related accent (besides Drusilla. And Kendra.) was Glenn Quinn's fake American accent on Roseanne. Which made all the complaints about his 'terrible' Irish accent on Angle hilarious. I'm not sure anyone in America has ever heard an Irish person, let alone met one.
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Jun 15, 2015 00:56
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whatsabattle posted:The all time worst Buffy related accent (besides Drusilla. And Kendra.) was Glenn Quinn's fake American accent on Roseanne. Not a fake accent, but Sarah Michelle Gellar' s way of pronouncing "Okay" in the later seasons drove me up the wall. It's been a while since I watched it, but I seem to remember that. So maybe I'm imagining it.
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Jun 15, 2015 00:57
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Gaz-L posted:Which made all the complaints about his 'terrible' Irish accent on Angle hilarious. I'm not sure anyone in America has ever heard an Irish person, let alone met one. Maybe they were basing their idea of what Irish people sound like off David Boreanaz's genuinely terrible attempt at an Irish accent.
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Jun 15, 2015 00:59
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egon_beeblebrox posted:Not a fake accent, but Sarah Michelle Gellar' s way of pronouncing "Okay" in the later seasons drove me up the wall. It's been a while since I watched it, but I seem to remember that. So maybe I'm imagining it. Wait a minute, you're trying to get us to remember the later seasons of Buffy. You are a bad man. 
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Jun 15, 2015 01:05
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whatsabattle posted:Wait a minute, you're trying to get us to remember the later seasons of Buffy. You are a bad man. Wait, wasn't there a Potential with a really dreadful cockney accent?
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Jun 15, 2015 01:10
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 The Horror of Glam Rock is fighting an uphill battle before the story even starts, because with a title that good the expectations are already set amazingly high and pretty much no matter what the quality, there's bound to be some disappointment. The first standalone story of season one of The 8th Doctor Adventures, it's a story high on concepts, but that lacks in execution as well as committing the sin of not having a solid base from which to explore those concepts. It was perhaps too weird a story to choose as the first post-introduction story for the Doctor/Lucie team, and suffers the same peculiar issue that the previous story did, in that it struggles to translate the setting of the story into the audio format. The TARDIS lands near Bramlington on the M62 highway in 1974, as close as the Doctor is able to get to Lucie's time/space before the Time Lords' barrier blocks him. It's the middle of a snowstorm (of course) and the only signs of civilization are a nearby service station (fuel for your car AND your stomach), which delights the Doctor from a nostalgic point of view. If its the 70s that means glam rock, and it also means those little plastic tomato-shaped bottles for sauce! Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) they also stumble upon a corpse, a glam rock singer who has been torn up by some kind of beast. He and Lucie make for the service station to inform the authorities, where the bulk of this quasi base under siege story takes place. The place is soon besieged by monstrous carnivorous aliens, while inside the Doctor struggles to keep together a combustible mixture of musicians, an old waitress, a roadie and a manager absolutely determined to get his new act to London for their appearance on Top of the Pops come hell or high water. The story is perhaps most notable for its cast, the supporting actors including Bernard Cribbins, Una Stubbs, Stephen Gately and Clare Buckfield. Of the four, perhaps the "least" well known is Buckfield, who is probably best remembered for her role in the neatly subversive 90s sitcom 2point4 Children. Cribbins of course, is a much beloved favorite for Who fans for his role as Wilfred Mott in the revival of the TV series, though of course this audio predates that role (but not his appearance in the old 60s movie adaptations of Doctor Who) - here he plays the money/fame obsessed Arnold Korns, who doesn't intend to let a little thing like ravenous, super-strong alien monsters get between him and a big gig for his latest act. Una Stubbs (tangentially linked to Who through her parts in Worzel Gummidge and now the modern day Sherlock) plays tired old waitress Flo, who has a heart of gold but is sick of being treated like a food and drink machine for exhausted musicians making their way up and down the motorway between gigs. Stephen Gately (from boyband Boyzone) plays Tommy Tomorrow, who along with his sister Trisha (played by Buckfield) are on the cusp of stardom, though Tommy is more interested in the voices he swears he can hear when he plays his Stylophone. As a guest cast, it's pretty drat great, and though the material they have to work with is uneven, they give it their all and stand out in a way that supporting characters often don't in these audios. Lynsey Hardwick is good as Pat, but she has less weighty material to work with despite ostensibly being the most important supporting character in the audio (to Lucie, at least), while the Roadie is a throwaway character who exists only to up the stakes for the "important" characters - which proves to be needless anyway given the eventual fate of one of them. I'm not entirely sure what the overall message that this audio is trying to tell is, it seems more interested in its setting than in a theme. I guess the closest thing would be in Tommy's desperate need to believe in something greater than what he knows, and his terrified certainty that there isn't anything more leading him to grasp at the straws "The Only Ones" offer him. If that's the case, I'm not really sure that this theme finds any sense of resolution - in the end Tommy is left more confused than ever, and dangerously disillusioned by the events he has been through, his only lifeline a quasi father-figure who has a moment of redemption that doesn't quite make up for his earlier selfish and greedy actions, and which proves ultimately hollow as he escapes his fate, allowing the writer to have his cake and eat it too - Korns does something despicable, does something noble to make up for it, gets away with his life and is thus "forgiven" for his earlier actions which were still ultimately just as fatal to somebody else. The setting of the motorway service station is meant to be an analogy for the universe - a small beacon of light in an all-encroaching and uncaring blackness, under siege and bound to fall eventually. Entropy/nihilism what-have-you, it's hardly a unique thing for a young creative person to suffer with getting their head around, but the Doctor and Lucie's assurances that the universe is actually teeming with life seem to fall on deaf ears even after they prove The Only Ones to be liars - I guess Tommy is just a glass half empty kind of guy. The Only Ones are interesting villains, existing simultaneously as the ravenous beasts in corporeal form while also as intelligent and immoral psychic beings. They act as Tommy's muse, bringing out his innate creative abilities by whispering sweet nothings in his ear, filling his head with visions of a barren and empty universe, pointing out the dreadful and squalid nature of Earth and then promising a living paradise in their own world. They are essentially a Record Label, promising their "talent" everything while gleefully rubbing their hands together over the unbalanced profits that there are to be made. In this case, the "profits" as the psychic energies of the teen fans that will be driven into a frenzy by Tommy's music - creating a rather unpleasant and predatory parallel with those same labels who take great financial reward from the hormonally charged youth who certain musicians strike a chord with. That Tommy is played by a former boyband member further drives home this idea, and I guess it is to Big Finish's credit that this subtext remains sub, and at no point that I can recall does anybody explicitly point this out for the listening audience. That said, their corporeal forms seem like an unnecessary addition, thrown in to try and up the menace factor because, presumably, the idea of,"Aliens eating up the psychic energy of squealing teenagers" wasn't considered scary enough - I would have far preferred if the monsters had turned out to be nothing more than psychic projections, and rather than people being torn apart, they simply died of fright and others "saw" torn-up bodies because that's what The Only Ones made them see. There is a brief subplot that goes nowhere (at least for now) involving Lucie thoughtlessly blurting out Pat's entire life story when she realizes it is her (future) Aunt. It's a rather depressing thing, Pat has just seen her band fall apart before the start of the story (the lead singer is murdered early on and then forgotten about) and then Lucie comes in and basically tells her (happily!) she amounts to nothing in her life and never achieves the fame or fortune she had such hopes for. Maybe this was to further play into that theme of Tommy's fear of the universe being a dark and uncaring place, but you'd expect some kind of resolution to come from this for Pat at least, some kind of realization that she DOES matter. But nothing at all seems to happen as a result, though I also can't imagine they so specifically introduced this character/backstory with such a strong link to Lucie just as a one-off, so maybe something will come from this in the future. Equally confusing is how once The Only Ones are defeated (comedically, as it happens, the Doctor essentially builds a giant vacuum cleaner that downloads them into Lucie's mp3 player), everybody just kinda seems to go on with their lives like all those brutal deaths didn't happen. Presumably the police are going to come to investigate, but Flo and Pat seem to just be hanging around having a natter, and nobody involves raises an eyebrow when the Headhunter arrives looking for Lucie. "Is Lucie here?" should really have been followed up by,"Also holy poo poo this place is wrecked and there are dead torn up bodies everywhere!", and Flo and Pat shouldn't have been so smoothly conversational with her. The Horror of Glam Rock has a good cast, a fun historical backdrop, and some really great music (including a modified version of the theme) - but it struggles in a number of ways, including a real struggle to paint a picture of the actual physical setting it's meant to be taking place in. More style than substance even though its villains are quite clearly meant as an analogy for greedy/cynical record label executives, it's a story that seems to have put more of its focus into the (quite good) musical bits at the expense of a strong story or developed character arcs. It also doesn't really offer much in the way of furthering the Doctor/Lucie relationship, which is still in its early days and should involve them figuring each other out - take out the familial relationship with Pat and this story could have easily been a Doctor/Charley story, which might have also been fun just to see what an Edwardian Adventuress thought of 70s Glam Rock. It's not bad, and has the added bonus of a fairly unique conceit that makes it stand out, but take away those trappings and you've got an inoffensive and unremarkable "standard" story - the Glam Rock stuff only carries it so far, and a better story with those same trappings could have lifted this easily into excellent status.
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Jun 15, 2015 01:12
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The_Doctor posted:Wait, wasn't there a Potential with a really dreadful cockney accent? Apparently so, per the Buffy wiki. quote:Molly spoke with a Cockney accent and confused the other potentials by using British slang. quote:Clara Elise Bryant (born February 7, 1985, in Glendale, California) And OF COURSE SHE DID: quote:Before landing a role on Buffy, Clara Bryant had a guest role on an episode Roseanne where she played the younger sister of Glenn Quinn's character.
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Jun 15, 2015 01:19
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The circle is complete. Also, J-Ru, reading your review reminded me that Stephen Gately died a few years ago.
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Jun 15, 2015 01:26
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Yeah, I found that out after listening to it and looking him up. He was only 33 years old too
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Jun 15, 2015 01:35
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Sobering thought for the evening - by virtue of her ex-husband, my wife has seen more classic Who than I have.
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Jun 15, 2015 04:08
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CobiWann posted:Sobering thought for the evening - by virtue of her ex-husband, my wife has seen more classic Who than I have. You must now de-sober the the thought by fixing that!
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Jun 15, 2015 13:53
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Bicyclops posted:You must now de-sober the the thought by fixing that! Well, what I’m thinking of doing is picking up Logopolis and going forward from there through to Battlefield, to stick with the back end of the “classic” era and not get overwhelmed by an incredible amount of Tom Baker. I just don’t have the drat time…I mean, Fallout 4 is coming out in a few months, what am I supposed to do?!? But can I ask an honest question? I’ve only seen a few of her stories, but why the heck didn’t Tegan just up and shank the Fifth Doctor? And was the BBC mandate that “The Doctor can’t touch his female companions” the only thing that stopped Five from strangling her? The little I’ve seen of them together (and The Gathering) makes them seem very combative towards each other.
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Jun 15, 2015 17:22
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CobiWann posted:Well, what I’m thinking of doing is picking up Logopolis and going forward from there through to Battlefield, to stick with the back end of the “classic” era and not get overwhelmed by an incredible amount of Tom Baker. I just don’t have the drat time…I mean, Fallout 4 is coming out in a few months, what am I supposed to do?!? Most of the JNT era in succession? Yessssss...  I'd say to start from Leisure Hive, though, since there's a lot more continuity from that season into the next than previous runs. Even if you miss out seeing how much of a turnaround it was by preceding it with Horns of Nimon. On that note, Tom's run isn't that overwhelming if you break it into three eras by producer, there are pretty obvious break points right there for you.
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Jun 15, 2015 18:12
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Gaz-L posted:Which made all the complaints about his 'terrible' Irish accent on Angle hilarious. I'm not sure anyone in America has ever heard an Irish person, let alone met one. I feel obliged to post this...
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Jun 15, 2015 18:30
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CobiWann posted:Well, what I’m thinking of doing is picking up Logopolis and going forward from there through to Battlefield, to stick with the back end of the “classic” era and not get overwhelmed by an incredible amount of Tom Baker. I just don’t have the drat time…I mean, Fallout 4 is coming out in a few months, what am I supposed to do?!? Fallout 4 is definitely going to be a time black hole. Tegan and the Doctor always had a pretty combative relationship, but Lidster definitely plays it up. She is forever asking to leave, and unnerved by all the death in Five's ear, but the two times that she does leave, she looks sad, like she wishes she hadn't stepped out of the TARDIS.
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Jun 15, 2015 18:59
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The Tegan/Doctor dynamic is awesome televised, she is forever questioning him/not letting him get away with anything and it's hugely refreshing to have a companion who basically insists on calling out or questioning every dangerously reckless thing he does while everybody else just nods and goes along with whatever he says. Plus then you get some villain declaring their evil intentions only to have Tegan dress them down or roll her eyes at what a dickhead they're being 
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Jun 15, 2015 22:16
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This is also where it bears repeating that every companion in the Davison run is an orphan, and this lunatic group is the closest thing they have to a family, the TARDIS the closest thing to a home. There's that great moment in Arc of Infinity where Tegan grabs a gun and tries a suicidal attempt to save the Doctor. At first brush, it might seem out of character for the "rational one", but it really does make sense. She's already lost everything and everyone she ever loved, and she's not going to let that happen again, no matter what.
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Jun 15, 2015 22:30
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Bicyclops posted:It's worse, really. They give everyone a random collection of British accents. Buffy and Frasier are probably the funniest examples - Daphne's family has people with accents from everywhere except where she's from, including Australia In a testament to how amazing David Hyde Pierce and Kelsey Grammer are, though, I can't think of a single time their affected Mid-Atlantic accent ever cracked.
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Jun 15, 2015 23:32
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 On the morning of 22 September 2006, Tegan woke up. She was expecting to spend the day relaxing at home and, that evening, tolerate a party thrown to celebrate her 46th birthday. But things don't always go as expected, it's been over twenty years since she chose to leave the Doctor. She's got a job, mates...a life. Meanwhile her friend, Katherine Chambers, makes a decision that could change all their lives, and Tegan discovers that you can never really escape the past. Peter Davison is the Doctor in The Gathering. X X X X X Cast Peter Davison (The Doctor) Janet Fielding (Tegan) Jane Perry (Katherine Chambers) Richard Grieve (James Clarke) Dait Abuchi (Michael Tanaka) Janie Booth (Eve Morris) Zehra Naqvi (Jodi Boyd) Jef Higgins (Waiter) Nicholas Briggs (Alan Fitzgerald) Belinda Hoare (Rosemary Stark) Written By: Joseph Lidster Directed By: Gary Russell Trailer - http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/popout/the-gathering-253 X X X X X You can go home again. Wherever you go, there you are. But wherever you go, there’s someplace else. A place that’s warm and familiar, where all the things you enjoy and take comfort in can be found. The fact that the third floorboard in your bedroom always creaks when you step on it. The fact that the bottom portion of Witherow Road will wash out during a heavy rainstorm meaning you have to take the long way around up Gallows Road. The fact that the best place to park for a Pirates’ game is across the Alleghany River in Downtown Pittsburgh, so you can walk across the Roberto Clemente Bridge with other fans while avoiding pre-and-post game traffic. But around you, life goes on. Fighting in the Middle East. A distant relative passing away. A movie you used to enjoy becoming a bit dated and the humor a bit uncomfortable. And sometimes, just sometimes, the past comes crashing down right smack in the middle of your comfort zone, and both the good and bad moments that faded away into a peaceful, harmless nostalgia come flooding back The Gathering finds the Doctor reuniting with a long-lost companion decades after they parted company. A perfectly serviceable script with just a dash of time-travel elements mixes with a 1980’s synth heavy musical score to provide a decent outing. While the main plot involves a secondary character more than it does the companion, there’s no doubt in the mind of the listener that this story is about one person and one person only – Tegan Jovanka, making her Big Finish debut (one night only!) Brisbane, Australia, 2006. It’s Tegan’s 46th birthday, and while she’s not too thrilled at the idea, she’s promised some friends a few drinks at a local tavern. The “few drinks” turn out to be a “surprise party” that leaves Tegan a bit overwhelmed, especially when it turns out that one of the guests is none other than the Fifth Doctor! By perfect coincidence, the Doctor was investigating a series of strange energy spikes that led him to one of the hosts of the surprise part – Dr. Katherine Chambers. And while the Doctor doesn’t know her, SHE knows him. And she won’t let him get in the way of her grand plan…a plan that involves an unwitting Tegan, who finds out that even though she’s come to terms with her past, she might never be able to out run it... Janet Tegan was a cast member on Doctor Who from 1981 to 1984, playing Australian flight attendant Tegan Jovanka, who finds herself stranded on the TARDIS just before her first day on the job! Stubborn, loud, incredibly direct and never one to mince words, there was times where I swear Tegan was going to light the Fifth Doctor on fire using nothing more than a disdainful glance. Along with her solid friendship with Nyssa and incredibly antagonistic relationship with Turlough, Tegan’s incredible strength of character (along with being quite pleasing on the eyes) made her a memorable companion in the eyes of viewers. In broadcasting terms, Tegan was the Doctor’s longest running companion, clocking in at 3 years and 1 month from Logopolis to Resurrection of the Daleks. Upon leaving the show, Fielding would part of the Women in Television and Film International’s United Kingdom chapter, as well as becoming a theater agent (she was Paul McGan’s agent when he got the part for the 1996 TV movie!) and the head of a charity in Ramsgate called Project MotorMouth focusing on helping young people get a handle on starting their own business. While she was happy to provide several commentaries for DVD releases of classic episodes, Fielding had always been wary of returning to Doctor Who. When Big Finish approached her to do some audios for the main range, Fielding turned them down several times. When she finally agreed to reprise the role for a Big Finish story, it was under the condition that it would be for only ONE story, meant to close the book on the woman from Brisbane. Big Finish agreed… …and handed the writing duties over to Joseph “Misery Porn” Lidster. But! My worries were for naught as Lidster’s script for The Gathering is a pleasant surprise and definitely an improvement upon his previous four Big Finish serials. Serving as a quasi-sequel to The Reaping (as well as a very loose quasi-prequel to the Seventh Doctor story The Harvest), The Gathering features a standard science fiction plot – in an effort to save a loved one, someone fiddles with technology they don’t understand, eventually coming to the conclusion that committing one murder to save thousands of lives is perfectly reasonable. The secondary characters surrounding the story do their jobs well (including a nice little scene of verbal cat-and-mouse where the mouse doesn’t realize just how in over her head she is), and Lidster’s use of science fiction elements work well within the narrative framework. It’s not a perfect story by any means. The plot is a bit of “been there, done that” and some of the secondary characters are a little bland. And then there’s the “Lidster Twist.” The Gathering’s “moment” comes near the end of the first episode where Tegan reveals a secret to the Doctor… …she has a brain tumor. And it’s terminal. Where I would normally be rolling my eyes at this, Lidster deserves credit for two things. One, since this is Tegan’s final story per Fielding’s request, this isn’t a “game changer” or an attempt to “imprint” a huge moment onto canon. Instead, it’s an explanation that helps show why Tegan is acting the way she is towards her friends and colleagues. She’s dying, there’s nothing she can do about it, but that doesn’t mean she’s going quietly into that good night. It’s part of the story, but it’s not the one moment that entirety of the narrative hinges around. And two, the moment isn’t a big “WHAM!!!” moment or a cliffhanger, but instead a quiet scene that completely catches the Doctor off guard, well played by Fielding and Davison. And really, The Gathering is all about Tegan Jovanka as played by Janet Fielding. I admit that I’ve only seen a handful of Tegan episodes, and as mentioned above I’m truly surprised she didn’t end up shanking the Doctor as some point. But underneath the acidic wit and blunt demeanor was one hell of a brave woman. We see those personality traits on display in The Gathering as Tegan point blank tells the Doctor that his reappearance in her life means that things are about to go sideways and someone will die, we see Tegan utilize sarcasm in the face of danger, and we see Tegan break out the running shoes as she drags her colleague away from a mechanical monster. Honestly, it’s like Fielding never took a nearly 20 year break from playing Tegan, and I mean that in a very good way! My one complaint is that sometimes the snark is TOO much, threatening to paint Tegan as a one-note character (Tegan making the Doctor eat his celery stalk? Funny. Tegan telling someone “I’d love to stay and chat, but you’re a total bitch?” Borderline). But at story's end, everything is worth it as Tegan tells the Doctor, as only Tegan can...that's she happy. And she won't go traveling with him again, or rely on alien technology to cure her brain tumor. There's no sappiness, there's no melodrama, it's Tegan...and perhaps Janet Fielding...closing the book on a happier time in her life, but a time that belongs to the ages. She owns her own business, she has her own friends, her own boyfriend, and most of all, HER own life to live for however much longer she has it. Where a lot of Big Finish listeners cried over the ending to Thicker Than Water, I could imagine fans of the classic series tearing up, just a little bit, over the ending to The Gathering. This is Tegan's story, even though there was times where she takes a back seat to the main action. We do get Peter Davison in full “Five” mode for this story, letting his curiosity get the better of him as he wisely avoids a trip to 1984 Baltimore for 2006 Brisbane in an attempt to track down the source of these strange energy readings. Davison sells the “timey wimey” aspects of Lidster's script that not only set up this story, but also some of the events of The Reaping. But mainly, it's the Doctor's attempts to keep people out of harm's way and to save them, sometimes from themselves. And since it's Five, those attempts go wrong. People die around him, one regulated to a fate worse than death, and all he can do it try to make the best of things. Davison sells the noble and alien nature of the Doctor in this story, especially at the very end when his efforts to help or save Tegan are gently rebuffed...and the Doctor does his best to try to explain his own feelings to Tegan, and of course he can't spit it out, and yet Tegan understands. Someone once told me when I said I never “got” Tegan that she was one of the few people in the classic series to straight up call out the Doctor on some of his actions, but she always had his back and would do what she could to save HIM. I think there's a bit of that here; Tegan is trying to save the Doctor from the heartache that would come about from him not being able to save her. First Adric, and then Tegan...this is why I say the seeds of the War Doctor were planted in the hearts of the Fifth Doctor. The supporting cast is the weakest portion of The Gathering, as they're kind of just...there. Katherine Chambers, Peri's best friend from The Reaping, is once again played by Jane Perry, but this time she's the villain of the piece. The events of that story, especially the big twist, have seen her become driven to save people, at any price. Her interactions with the Cybermen were the catalyst for her to become a surgeon and their technology, used properly...and do I really need to say any more about how that turns out? The listener just never gets a true sense of her motivations beyond “I'm saving people.” Her performance could have used a bit more obvious insanity to it. Luckily, her assistant James Clarke as portrayed by Richard Grieve handles that insanity. He's the kind of villain who just loves to show off and act like he's the guy in charge with everything all figured out. His scene opposite Jodi Boyd, a co-worker of Tegan's played by Zehra Naqvi, where he calmly lays out just how screwed she comes off as very chilling (even if it's drawn out just a bit long). Tegan's ex-boyfriend is played by voice over artist Dait Abuchi. Put simply, imagine the type of man who would date Tegan and propose to her. That's Michael Tanaka for you, and Abuchi does a very good job being the man Tegan needs AND a man jealous of the Doctor who comes barging back into her life. Gary Russell does a good job handling the directing duties, especially the slightly non-liner opening episode which lays out the situation with a little bit of back and forth. But David Darlington does a fantastic job with the music, especially because every single line and note of the score reminded me of one thing – the soundtrack to one of the best PC games of all time, System Shock 2. Hell, this entire story could have been a mod for that game, the music is that spot on. I love the soundtrack to this game...it...sings to me... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrm_wc2mwxI As I listened to The Gathering, I kept finding myself thinking of the revival episode School Reunion. Sarah Jane Smith left the Doctor, but in many ways never stopped being his companion as she stuck her nose into the weird and unusual. Tegan Jovanka left the Doctor and the TARDIS behind, carving out her own life and staying well away from the weird and unusual. Sarah Jane kept looking up at the stars while Tegan focused directly on what was in front of her. In an era where Rose Tyler did everything she could to get back to the Doctor and Clara Oswald can expect the Doctor to pop up in the supply closet three weeks after she sent him out for coffee, Tegan stands out because, instead of being forced to leave the TARDIS or finding something better in their lives, Tegan left because it wasn't fun anymore. The horrors of the Doctor outweighed the beauty. And she never once regretted it. Tegan stopped the Doctor's world and got off, and if anything that makes her one of the strongest companions ever to travel along side of him. If there's one thing I learned from The Gathering, it is this – I need to watch more Tegan episodes. Programming note – The Gathering came out in 2006. In 2012, Janet Fielding revealed she was fighting cancer. To help bring awareness to Project MotorMouth and keep her spirits up, Peter Davison organized a fundraiser for the charity. Aside from Davison, in attendance were Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, and David Tennant. And after having so much fun working with Davison and Big Finish, Fielding has come back to do several more stories for Big Finish along side Davison, Sarah Sutton, Mark Strickson, and Matthew Waterhouse. Must be something in the catering up at Big Finish... Pros + Tegan makes her return + Tegan and the Doctor saying 'good bye' to one another + Top notch soundtrack Cons - Bland story - Poor character motivations  Synopsis – The Gathering sees Janet Fielding and Tegan Jovanka say goodbye in a serviceable story carried by the relationship between Tegan and the Fifth Doctor. Next up - No summer can ever quite be as glorious as the ones you remember from when you were young, when a sunny afternoon seemed to last forever and all there was to do was ride your bike, eat ice-lollies and play with Legos... Paul McGann is the Doctor in...Memory Lane.
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Jun 15, 2015 23:47
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Yeah, I was bracing so hard for Lidster's usual bullshit that I was pleasantly surprised to find The Gathering not only was a solid story but actually ended up being kind of inspiring (albeit in a bittersweet way). I am a huge Tegan fan though so I figured maybe I was just enjoying having her back too much to really focus on much else, so it's nice to read from somebody less familiar with her who felt roughly the same. I think my favorite bit has to be towards the end when the Doctor uncomfortably brings up what Mike suggested to him, that maybe Tegan was in love with him (The Doctor). Her outburst of laughter is absolutely perfect for the character, she's so amused at the thought and the Doctor can't help but being a little put out at reaction, which is just right. Then she uncomfortably tries to admit her gratitude for the fun times they did spend together, which in turn leads to the Doctor getting to laugh at her unease at opening herself up like that, which is also "just right". As a character piece, it's a good story, even if the actual plot shifts between bland and annoying - especially when the bad guy is making his smug speech about (unnamed in the story) THE FORGE, a reminder of a lovely hangover from Big Finish's early days that always makes me cringe.
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Jun 16, 2015 00:31
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Jerusalem posted:Yeah, I was bracing so hard for Lidster's usual bullshit that I was pleasantly surprised to find The Gathering not only was a solid story but actually ended up being kind of inspiring (albeit in a bittersweet way). I am a huge Tegan fan though so I figured maybe I was just enjoying having her back too much to really focus on much else, so it's nice to read from somebody less familiar with her who felt roughly the same. Pros - the laughter on both ends was a very nice touch, between both the characters and the actors. Cons - Oh, the Forge. I thought it was just an unnamed way of saying Torchwood.
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Jun 16, 2015 03:45
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I don't know if it was actually planned out in advance at all (the names would indicate it was), but it was kind of neat that they did the story in screwed up order. It technically climaxes in the first story - The Harvest - with the 7th Doctor defeating the plan for good. Then in the next story set in the 1980s - The Reaping - the 6th Doctor actually kicks everything off when he gets involved in a Cybermen plot, and then the "middle" story - The Gathering - is set in the early 21st Century and involves the 5th Doctor walking into the middle of something he will get started in a later incarnation, and finish up in an even later one which is, of course, the first one that we listen to.
Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 04:10
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Oh no... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11678377/Sir-John-Hurt-diagnosed-with-pancreatic-cancer.html
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Jun 16, 2015 15:30
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poo poo And that's about the worst cancer you can get...
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Jun 16, 2015 17:04
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Barry Foster posted:And that's about the worst cancer you can get... Seriously. Steve Jobs had all the money in the world and access to literally the best medical care in the world and that only bought him like six years.
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Jun 16, 2015 19:14
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Timby posted:Seriously. Steve Jobs had all the money in the world and access to literally the best medical care in the world and that only bought him like six years. He also spent nearly a year trying to cure himself by changing his diet instead of actually taking advantage of that medical care, so who knows how things could've turned out. Definitely very sad news though.
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Jun 16, 2015 19:22
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Timby posted:Seriously. Steve Jobs had all the money in the world and access to literally the best medical care in the world and that only bought him like six years. Jobs spent the first year after diagnosis doing acupuncture and spiritualism rather than treating his cancer though.
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Jun 16, 2015 19:23
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I can't really muster a stomach burster joke, because that is just too sad. Hopefully he can beat it for a few years.
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Jun 16, 2015 21:05
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Well poo poo, trying to take an optimistic point of view, at least he caught it early.
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Jun 16, 2015 22:24
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I just watched the Day of the Doctor in 3d and am really shocked they didn't include the 5ish Doctors on the disc.
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Jun 17, 2015 23:34
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Spacebump posted:I just watched the Day of the Doctor in 3d and am really shocked they didn't include the 5ish Doctors on the disc. 5ish Doctor is amazing. Easily my favorite thing to come out of the show since season 5. Just watched the Christmas special for the first time, did they ever explain why the dream crabs went after the doctor and then his companion (presumably hundreds or thousands of miles away)? There was a throwaway line at the end where the doctor mentions she "got in the way" or something but that doesn't explain why or how those crabs got Clara or the other people. Was the doctor waiting in a dream trance state while the other four crabs flew across the planet to find one person he's psychically linked too? Why (apart from it allowing the television show episode to take place) would dream crabs do that? I could buy the crabs wanting to create a more convincing illusion by linking people their prey knows into the shared dream but obviously they don't have too or those other humans wouldn't have been in the episode. And boy is it convenient that the crabs dissolve into ash. Maybe I'm thinking about this more than Moffat did. Dr. Gene Dango MD fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jun 18, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 23:56
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If I recall, the dream crabs are attracted to people "thinking' about them. If you're thinking about a dream crab, it's coming for you. I believe the four people in the base all had seen something while they were awake that tied them together - Rhonda wasn't thinking of "dream crabs" but of the facehugger from Alien, and someone else was thinking of The Thing From Another World which had an Arctic base under siege. The dream crabs took those memories, put together a narrative, and attacked with them. Meanwhile, the Doctor was attacked on another planet, his thoughts led another dream crab to Clara, who thought of Christmas, which meant snow, which tied into the original narrative...and viola. Or...poo poo was just that hosed up in their dream, yo. 
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Jun 18, 2015 00:07
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 What, uh.. What's that from?
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Jun 18, 2015 00:14
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| # ? Jun 3, 2024 09:57 |
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I actually don't think they ever elaborate on why it was only these particular people attacked. Even allowing for the idea of the Dream Crabs being attracted by the thoughts of those two movies only accounts for two of the characters - the Professor and the Shop Girl - and not the wheelchair-bound Grandmother and the lady who always wanted to be a scientist. It certainly doesn't account for the remarkable coincidence of these people being attacked on Earth in the early 21st Century while the Doctor is similarly attacked at some undefined point in time and space. I guess maybe you could say he was initially attacked and kicked off the whole thing by making the Crabs aware of Earth and Clara specifically, and the others were just kinda caught up in the net by pure bad luck. But while it's never really explained explicitly, I feel the story was strong enough (including emotionally speaking) that it really didn't matter - the Crabs are really secondary to the key theme of the Doctor and Clara (and arguably the supporting characters) realizing that it's not too late to stop dreaming and make a fresh start/turn those dreams into reality. It's schmaltzy, maybe, but hey... it's Christmas!
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Jun 18, 2015 00:17
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