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Tie-breaker for serial you'd most like to find an episode from This poll is closed. |
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| The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve |
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33 | 44.59% |
| The Highlanders |
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41 | 55.41% |
| Total: | 74 votes | ||
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Goons, goons, goons. You're all missing the most important issue here: What books did Cobi get?
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Nov 2, 2016 15:53
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Rhyno posted:Class is loving terrible. Like, holy poo poo terrible. Yeah, it's not great. There are a couple of good regular actors (some of them are quite bad as well though), and I admire some of its ambition, but for the most part it's... well, it's messy and misjudged at best. At its worst it's just horrid and completely ill conceived -- as demonstrated by their decision to do a "disabled person is magicked with the ability to walk" plotline, and then cast an actually disabled actress to do it. What were they thinking -- on multiple levels.
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Nov 17, 2016 06:56
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CobiWann posted:I am talking about Bloodtide which I liked except for Charles Darwin's almost instant philosophical spiral into screaming "THERE IS NO GOD!" Blood Heat is probably the single best Silurian story, but I like what the NA's did with them, and the Earth Reptile clans in general -- and if we're counting Earth Reptiles in general, The Adolescence Of Time, with its flying colony, is also quite good. I've also heard good things about Endurance, though I've only heard Nick Briggs' sequel, Frozen Time, and that doesn't have any Silurians at all. It's all of dubious relevance, I guess, but it's Nick Briggs, and he wrote a sequel that was published by Big Finish, so it works for me. I've just never gotten around to the Audio Visuals. (Though the most obscure use of the characters is the Nazi-eating South American clan in Alan Moore's The League Of Gentlemen books)
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Dec 1, 2016 09:21
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greententacle posted:I did read one novel (I think it was a NA?) that has a character who is a fangirl of Cyberman & the Cyberman empires, and who willingly becomes a Cyberman. Steve Lyons' Killing Ground. An MA, but published by Virgin back when they had the licence. The sequence where she gets converted is pretty good -- she's so thrilled to become a Cyberman, but the conversion process removes her ability to appreciate what she's become.
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Dec 13, 2016 05:54
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Davros1 posted:So BF announced that for 2018, the series of Tom and Leela, instead of being released at the rate of 1 a month, are going to be released as 2 boxsets. Can't help to wonder if it's just a cost cutting measure, or if someone else is going to take up the January to August slot. It's a cost cutting measure, but for subscribers -- thanks to Brexit and such, BF has been forced to include large per-order charges on all its physical releases, meaning that subscribers for the fourth doctor range will be paying an additional £6.50 per release (in addition to any international charges). Releasing them as box sets means that physical subscribers only have to pay a baseline of £13 pounds, rather than four times that much.
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Dec 24, 2016 06:14
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Gordon Shumway posted:As far as the Divergent Universe goes, I thought The Twilight Kingdom was worse than Creed of the Kromon, to be honest. Twilight Kingdom doesn't have the villains try to turn Charley into their brood queen, so I feel like it's better than 99.99% of Doctor Who just on principle.
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Dec 25, 2016 17:34
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Burkion posted:The thing is though that it really wasn't playing with the media at all I appreciated some of the more intersectional elements -- G-Man being her nanny is clearly a play to the feminist crowds, and one I liked because it shifted the relationship dynamics in odd ways -- and I really liked Justin Chatwin's performance. I've never liked Justin Chatwin's performance. What the hell happened to Charity Wakefield's accent, though? She was great in High Moon!
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Dec 26, 2016 02:33
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Gaz-L posted:No, but the budgetary reasons why the show took a year out means Moffat HAD a full year to write it. Yeah, Moffat went over budget again, same with Series 6/7, if I remember correctly.
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Dec 28, 2016 04:08
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Wheat Loaf posted:As far as I'm aware, shows having one showrunner who was in charge of everything wasn't really a thing in British television until RTD took on the role for New Who (he'd brought it back more or less singlehandedly, so he assumed the responsibility). It was more of an American thing before that. However, one thing American shows tend to have that Doctor Who hasn't had is a writers' room, which I imagine eases the burden involved. Chibnall has said he wants to introduce an American-style writers' room when he takes over. Which is good -- RTD at least had Julie Gardner working regularly with him, with Phil Collinson and Susie Liggat sharing the third position. Last I kept track, Moffat's not been able to keep hold of a single producer for two consecutive seasons. The longest I've seen someone last is a season and a half, quitting midseason. Hell, last season they had a producer straight up quit after four episodes. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Dec 28, 2016 |
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Dec 28, 2016 15:33
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Generally, the Big Finish writer's pool is smaller than it used to be, but it's writers tend to be a lot more consistent. Basically, anyone who's had a script published in the last two years is generally pretty good, barring Mike Tucker or Mathew J. Eliot, even if Big Finish isn't producing anything particularly innovative or original. The best of the current crop are probably John Dorney and Simon Guerrier, with James Goss doing excellent producing work in some of the side ranges. That said, I've found that Big Finish to be in a bit of a rut for the past few years. My appreciation for most of their main range scripts seems to hover about a 7/10, and it doesn't really feel like they're trying to push the envelop much any more. Whether that's an economically motivated decision or simply what Nick Briggs or Cardiff wants out of the range is unclear, but they're telling some really mediocre stories these days. If the best they can come up with is The Third Doctor meets.... THE DALEKS! (complete with first episode "surprise" cliffhanger completely ruined by the cover, name and marketing of the release) or River Song in... EVENT HORIZON! then they're really failing to demand their continued existence.
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Jan 5, 2017 16:11
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Tim Burns Effect posted:Have you heard Aquitane yet? Yeah, I've heard most of the past year's releases. I didn't really bowl me over, tbh, though I liked the main robot character a lot. I might try it again, though, given that several people have mentioned it, and that trilogy in general, to be better than the rest of the year's material. (God, Absolute Power was just completely atrocious).
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Jan 6, 2017 11:06
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Box of Bunnies posted:Got a cheap Audible credit and not sure if I want to grab another series of Jago & Litefoot or the audiobook of Big Bang Generation. I like Jago & Litefoot but I still haven't listened to most of the four series I already have of theirs, whereas a Twelve and Benny story read by Lisa Bowerman is something a bit different and pretty appealing. I love Benny, but The Big Bang Generation is not good. If that's your first exposure to that side of the universe and cast, then it's worth pointing out how out of character some of them are (and given that TBBG was meant to be something of a send off for those characters, that's pretty egregious). But, then again, if that's your first exposure to those characters, you'll probably not notice. On the other hand, that season of Jago and Lightfoot features killer frogs.
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Jan 8, 2017 12:34
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Timby posted:I believe BBC America, which is co-owned by AMC and gets advertiser money, has been co-financing Who since ... 2011, I want to say. They've been confinancing since The Impossible Astronaut, though only those two specific episodes in the entirety of Season 6 as far as I know. That said, every time the show films over in the US, I imagine it's part of the deal. I imagine Rachel Talalay's involvement also had something to do with it all, but I'm just guessing. The show's been using overseas filming as a way of offsetting costs since at least Season 5, and has been filming overseas since Season 3. Spain, The Canary Islands, Croatia... I imagine they get to write a decent amount off in tax breaks. (Given that, I'm surprised they haven't filmed in Australia yet).
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Jan 8, 2017 18:23
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TinTower posted:From the spinoff series, I've found Clickbait: The Book: Well, yeah, unless I'm missing your point, that's kind of what the book's about.
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Jan 21, 2017 16:39
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cargohills posted:I don't think Seasons of Fear or Colditz are good starts because there's a few excellent stories just before (Invaders from Mars and Chimes of Midnight for 8, The Fearmonger for 7). Also, Colditz has famously terrible sound design. If someone's looking to jump in of the seventh doctor stories, I'd suggest starting with The Harvest. The story's only solid (i.e. not spectacular) but the arc it sets off is pretty good. (Until Big Finish decided to really milk it). Big Finish has a number of arcs, generally determined by whatever companion they're using, rather than what Doctor. There's also a tendency to cross over in a number of ways, and it's largely better to follow the series in release order rather than following the arc of a single Doctor. The Fourth Doctor stories are largely the exception to this, in that there's barely anything approaching an arc throughout, and there's nothing that really stands out. Just pick whatever generally appeals, based on the blurbs, and avoid the Season 4 and 5 finales. (I think Night Of The Stormcrow is probably their best story, though).
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Feb 8, 2017 20:13
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The_Doctor posted:Ugh, just get the actors! Nick Briggs isn't a great impressionist. :/ They can't. They can only get secondary companions, for the most part. I imagine the biggest name they'll be able to get back is Arthur Darvill, and potentially Noel Clarke. Otherise it's just companion families and the Torchwood regulars. They're probably going to do a fair number of stories with the Paternoster gang, Adam, Jenny and River too. Everyone else is out of BF's price range, or just aren't interested (Eccleston).
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Feb 10, 2017 16:22
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News from the grapevine is that Tennant only did the one series as a favour, at a significantly reduced cut, and with the condition that he do them with Catherine Tate. He's actually not interested in doing any more -- though it's not clear what Tate thinks about anything. Long story short, it's going to be a while before we get more from Tennant.
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Feb 11, 2017 04:40
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Rhyno posted:Can you blame him? His US career is finally on track and he'll make fifty times the bucks doing that over BF. God no. And, honestly, it's not like main range Big Finish have been producing anything particularly interesting over the last few years. If they want to attract their big regulars back, they need to give them interesting and unusual scripts, and they've just not been making those recently.
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Feb 11, 2017 05:02
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A Grade: The Wormery, The Natural History Of Fear, Night Terrors, The Nowhere Place, Terror Firma, The Year Of The Pig, Son of the Dragon, The Magic Mousetrap, Paper Cuts. B Grade: The Condemned, The Death Collectors, Red, Valhalla, Time Works, The Settling, Circular Time, Caerdroia, The Last, Arrangements For War. I'd also recommend The Destroyer Of Delights, but it's in the middle of a particularly heavy arc and doesn't stand alone very well. That said, you generally can't go wrong in that era, unlike the 170+ range, where you have to get a lot more selective.
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Feb 13, 2017 13:21
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adhuin posted:No 8th doctor though, his Divergent universe arc is baaa-a-aaad. (Scherzo is great) Nah, it's just the important stories that suck. Caedroia, The Last, Faith Stealer, Natural History Of Fear and Scherzo all rock.
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Feb 13, 2017 13:36
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CobiWann posted:The Gathering – Joseph Lidster finally puts “misery porn” to good use as we get Tegan’s last (chronological) story. I thought about suggesting this, but it has some really awful performances. The guy playing Tegan's boyfriend is loving horrid.
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Feb 13, 2017 16:23
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CommonShore posted:I'm into series 26 on my front-to-back viewing. It's one of the few things that the series as a whole hasn't mined, surprisingly. There are a handful of references to the "Merlin" incarnation, and the suggestion that the Seventh Doctor is not a fan of his, but they were mostly restricted to the NA's IIRC. A quick wiki walk over on TARDIS wiki (eugh) has them suggesting he actually appeared in a couple of NA's, but I think it's just another case of that website trying to draw a particularly long bow. At most it was probably just some implication in the books -- and that's not just because I'd prefer Merlin to be the War Doctor.
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Mar 8, 2017 11:09
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Cerv posted:on a scale of 9 to 10 how much do you love Attack of the Cybermen? We using video game scaling? If so, I'd give it an 8.8 (actually, probably a four)
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Mar 8, 2017 15:16
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Fil5000 posted:Fake Edit: Just checked, it was only ten years, and it's only mentioned in Love and War. Not quite true, it's also a key plot point in Simon Guerrier's Time Signature.
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Mar 9, 2017 18:45
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After The War posted:Big Finish has become my constant companion for any kind of menial activity: dishes, housework, gym, snow shoveling, boring tasks at work, you name it. Now, I'm able to do all this because I've listened to a lot of Big Finish, so it's a lot easier for me to compartmentalize what I'm hearing vs. what I'm doing. It's one reason I tell people to start with the earlier, simpler audios to train themselves up. I'm sure I don't have the retention I would if I gave an audio 100% of my attention, of course, and I should go back and really give the good ones the attention they deserve. I've a "few" additions, some are pretty nerdy, but I hope they're helpful / interesting. There's a loose Nyssa Psi-powers arc in her first few stories, which ends up climaxing in Primeval. It certainly features in Land Of The Dead and Winter For The Adept, not sure about The Mutant Phase though. The Martians in Red Dawn end up forming the backstory in some of the later Ice Warrior stories; I'm pretty sure they're mentioned in The Judgement Of Isskar, for one. The Fires Of Vulcan feature a cameo by Muriel Frost, a UNIT comics character from the Andrew Cartmel Seventh Doctor comics. There's an arc with a captive Vortisaur on board the TARDIS over the course of the Eighth Doctor's first radio season. Vortisaurs go on to make the occasional reappearance, particularly in No More Lies, so it might be worth mentioning that they're introduced there. Not sure if it's worth mentioning, but Bloodtide also features the Myrka. There's an arc with Ace's increasing emotional trauma that starts in Dust Breeding, carries over into Colditz, which ends on a cliffhanger leading into The Rapture (which is when she starts calling herself McShane). The Sandman is the first appearance of the Galyari and the Clutch, who go on to appear in another three or four Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield stories. Erimem's cat, Antranak (sp?) is possessed by an alien intelligence at the end of The Eye Of The Scorpion, and that plot is resolved in No Place Like Home. It's been quite a while, but I think that The Dark Flame is the first appearance of Joseph, Bernice's robotic drone (and the man who would build him). Joseph was a recurring presence in the Benny NA's and her radio stories.The Dark Flame cult also recurs in her stories. Omega establishes some Timelord backstory that's used in Zagreus and the Gallifrey Series. Zagreus also features the followers of Pythia from The Brain of Morbius, the Forge, the Vampires, and the Death Zone from The Five Doctors.
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Mar 10, 2017 14:51
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I think the Torchwood radio plays are great. I've not heard them all, but Fall to Earth and Made You Look were the best, I thought. I thought Made You Look turned something that could have been really goofy into something legitimately scary. The only one that I've not particularly enjoyed was Zone Ten, which probably could have done with having slightly more of a plot. McGann posted:I can agree with Archive, it was kinda meh. Thinking back on it, all I remember is some guy going out to the archive with his secretly evil/replaced/controlled/something newlywedded wife. That and Jack being about as smug as possible. Re: spoilertext None of that actually happened though!
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Mar 18, 2017 04:03
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Jerusalem posted:This is a spoiler for the end of an otherwise terrible story (The Reaping by, who else, Joseph Lidster) but it has an amazing ending where a hyper-advanced future Cyberman travels back in time to Mondas pre-The Tenth Planet. When it arrives it is severely damaged, and when it encounters the ancient, primitive Cybermen they classify it's hyper-advanced elements (which it wants to upgrade them to) as imperfections and the probable cause of its distress. They begin tearing it apart so they can "fix" it by converting it "tobeeeeeee, justlike..... ussssssss" - the sound of their voices over the useless protests of the advanced Cyberman are incredible. Huh. I did't mind The Reaping, though I don't think everything about the production works. There's a dodgy performance from the brother, and I think it overplays the emotional beats a little too hard occasionally, though ultimately for strong narrative and thematic purposes. I do wish that Big Finish would have more stories like it, though. Particularly now. The main range releases these days tend to have some really shallow characterisation from the guest stars and really inconsistent characterisation from the regulars. (Ace has become a complete mess). Worse, there's no real attempt at experimentation or variety, and they haven't done a proper character arc since Hex left (the first time, Jesus that second arc was a complete botch). The plays don't feel vital, or written out of a need to say something. I mean, maybe The Reaping doesn't float your boat, but it was certainly trying ridiculously hard. I'm not sure what, for instance, Zaltys was doing that was nearly as vital. Or Absolute Power. Or The Vampire of the Mind. Or Order of the Daleks. Most of those were deeply generic at best. I mean, we talk about classic Big Finish stories, and how they're so good. But A Death In The Family was over five years ago -- the writing's not the same as what it used to be.
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Mar 24, 2017 12:01
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Jerusalem posted:plus it has that godawful and slightly seedy scene where a hidden Peri sobs while listening to her mother and best friend cheerfully discuss how glad they were that she was gone and how they wish she'd stayed away forever. I remember thinking that was one of the stronger parts of the text, and was a clever reversal of the grave scene where the Cyberman eavesdrops on the family's grief. Our emotions can render us inhuman, frail and unlikable, and the Cybermen offer a way of interpreting the world that's free of the messy emotional entanglements that make living so difficult. So, in that context, the story needs to feature sudden violence and pointless death, since that's what it's a story about. And, like, Red (which came out about the same time) is far more violent and nasty, and doesn't nearly the same flack for it. Not to say that I don't like both plays, I do, but it's not like The Reaping features the implication that the Doctor pushes people down staircases when their backs are turned, or showers the Doctor's companion in an exploded head. They're both purposefully mature plays about mature subjects, and I wish Big Finish hadn't stopped trying to do that.
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Mar 24, 2017 13:35
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Cleretic posted:I'm still not even sure the Comittee's voice is human-generated, and not just an expertly manipulated circuit board or something. The regular Cybermen sound like there's a real human voice behind it (albeit expertly filtered, Yvonne's got some great moments of pushing it to sound very weird and emotional), but the Comittee just sounds like electronics being forced to make English sounds. Yeah, Alistair Lock is the best. I really wish Big Finish hadn't driven him or Jim Mortimore away. They were BF's best sound designers.
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Mar 25, 2017 06:28
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