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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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McGann posted:Liking Diary of River Song 2 so far, halfway through as of this morning's commute. I like the pairing of 7/River so far and eagerly anticipate 6's verbal sparring It's really drat good, River being plonked into the Classic Doctors period works surprisingly well.
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Feb 23, 2017 22:53
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Box of Bunnies posted:War Doc 4 is up and I'm not crying you're crying Big Finish posted:Thank you for all the emails, messages and posts about how much you thought of Sir John Hurt's performances at Big Finish, and his career as a whole. It was a privilege to have worked with him. Ahhh jeez man 
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Feb 23, 2017 23:55
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Davros1 posted:New trailer!: Maybe I'm misreading too much into a blurry shifting image that lasts barely a second... but is there a really OLD school Cyberman in there as well? Haha no just looked again outside of full-screen and it's just there's a Dalek behind them I mistook for a headpiece 
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Feb 25, 2017 16:16
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Yeah I'm pretty sure it's Davros. When I first mistook the Dalek behind him as a Cyberman headpiece I thought it might have been an old-school Tenth Planet style Cyberman, but once I realized the Dalek was there I pretty much assumed it was Davros.
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Feb 26, 2017 02:25
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Davros1 posted:Broadchurch Series 3 Don't blow it again, Chibnal 
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Feb 26, 2017 22:43
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 Synopsis: Daleks are the superior beings! Daleks are the superior beings! Daleks ar.... OH gently caress A WASP!  What I thought: A big misstep of a story that doesn't make much sense and introduces a lot of concepts/ideas that don't really go anywhere, feel forced or disconnected from the overall story. The 7th Doctor brings Ace and Hex to the planet of Bliss and promptly attempts to convince them to stay in the TARDIS to avoid seeing the horrors he knows are waiting.... so why did he bring them there in the first place? The planet is home to a military-funded laboratory undergoing a quiet quarantine, the head scientist is the only human left alive after producing a new hybrid creature he hopes to use to combat the Daleks. Matters are complicated by the arrival of a fleeing warship that barely escaped a Dalek attack, which commandeers the base against the scientist's protests in order to treat their wounded. The Doctor and his companions prove a concern for both sides, who are they? How did they get there? Are they Dalek replicants? The Daleks have also just arrived on Bliss, but who made it possible for them to find the place? The attempts at world-building are admirable but not only fall flat, they actively distract from the story because they raise more questions that ultimately have nothing to do with the actual main plot. The chief culprit here is the Valkyrie Unit, an all-female crew fighting against the Daleks. That's an interesting idea.... but why is an all-female fighting unit a necessity or of distinction in this future setting? Is it purely a historical thing, a military tradition dating back to a time (sadly still current) when such a thing would be eye-opening, but now commonplace? Is there some kind of societal gender imbalance in the future that necessitated an all female crew? Is it just because Big Finish were short of male VAs that day? We'll never know because apart from the obvious pride with which,"We're an all-female crew" is said, it never comes up again or has any relevance to the actual plot. Then on the other side there is Professor Shimura, who is meant to evoke a human equivalent of Davros (beyond Davros' own obvious parallels to Mengele) but who comes across as... well, an idiot. He mutates a parasitic wasp so that they will eat metal rather than flesh... then is surprised when his creations start eating the metal in his laboratory! What's worse, he never once considers what the Doctor spots immediately - the "Kiseibya" are the adult form of the species but they still lay eggs that hatch into the parasitic wasp that eats flesh, meaning he hasn't just created a creature that eats Daleks(' casing) but humans as well! Hardly the savior of humanity he envisoned, but how could he have NOT seen it? The Daleks are incompetent by necessity because the story should have been over within roughly 5 minutes of their arrival. Once they realized they were under attack from a race largely immune to their blasters that eat dalekanium, why on Earth didn't they contact their ships hovering up in space and just light up the entire planet? The old "nuke 'em from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" thing, which is something the Daleks would have no issue with. For the first half of the story or so I actually thought the writer had forgotten that the Daleks aren't robots (to be fair, Terry Nation seems to have forgotten at one point too!) until they actually bring up the fact that the fleshy Dalek inside the casing is now the host for the Kiseibya. That last part is the most effective, as the captive Dalek revolts at the thought of being used in such a fashion and, in true Dalek fashion, looks for a solution that kills not only itself but everything else on the planet. The Doctor spends much of the story ominously declaring this is a historic moment when an abominable act occurred. The suggestion at first is that it's the Dalek attack on the wounded (hardly unique), then the creation of the Kiseibya, and then finally the reveal that the Doctor choice to wipe out the Kiseibya rather than risk their spread across the Universe. There are the requisite allusions to Genesis of the Daleks, the failed attempts to convince the Kseibya to restrict themselves to Bliss alone and be left in peace etc. The big moment is supposed to be when the Doctor triggers the Dalek bomb to kill them all, but that gets undercut by the all too convenient decision by one of the supporting characters to do it in his stead. That character (and all the members of her crew) feel utterly wasted, their little side-plots fail to connect and the so-called catharsis for one of the central characters basically boils down to this. Meanwhile Ace is very much in her dreadful New Adventures mode, and Hex - while good - mostly feels like he's setting up for the (much better) story to follow, and both largely feel overlooked.  Synopsis: Hex gets his hands dirty (and tries to clean them), the Doctor gets the death penalty, and Ace brushes up on her Tolstoy What I thought: Now this is more like it. After the letdown that was the previous story, things start strong here and continue that way in a very good story that plays around with the time travel concept, gives all three of the main cast story and interesting storylines to follow, and does some neat fake-outs that retain their drama even if we all know the Doctor isn't really going to die. Hex is sick of death and destruction, he was helpless to help anyone on Bliss and the Doctor has a therapeutic solution in mind. He brings Hex to Scutari during the Crimean war, a time of horror and death true but also a landmark in the life of Florence Nightingale, who was an inspiration for Hex's decision to become a nurse. Unfortunately for the Doctor and Ace, while Hex is grumpily arguing with wounded soldiers about cleaning instruments and mopping the floors, they're being accused of treason and spying by deranged paranoids. The Doctor is taken prisoner, the TARDIS is washed out to sea, and Ace gets put in the charge of a young Russian soldier called Tolstoy. The only real downside to the story is that despite being the supposed inspiration for Hex (and an amazing character in her own right), Florence Nightingale has almost no actual impact on the story whatsoever and is largely absent or, when present, passive. There's a nice section where she first meets Hex and just grumpily snaps at everybody arguing and squabbling to put their egos in check and actually help treat those in need. Other than that though she's just kinda there and largely irrelevant to the (very good) story. While Ace violently escapes her captivity, the Doctor cleverly maneuvers himself into freedom, and Hex makes himself a valued and integral part of the barracks, all three face the aggressive accusations of paranoid soldiers (and journalists) who confront them with accusations that can NOT be defended - a witch hunt designed to assuage the accusers feelings of inadequacy and lack of control. The backdrop of the Crimean War is so important here, because even more so than usual this was a pointless and unnecessary war that causes the deaths of thousands. Those involved had to reconcile their patriotism and belief in the rightness of their cause with the obvious incompetence and senselessness of the situation, and so they looked to take control/find a scapegoat wherever and however they could. The Doctor is in fine form, Sylvester McCoy playing the "chessmaster" Doctor without feeling contrived - people don't have to be idiots for him to be smart, he just knows more than they do and is aware of what needs to happen in order to set up the exact situation to solve all his problems. Arrested, accused of treason and being a double-agent, sentenced to death.... the Doctor takes it all smoothly in stride and waits patiently, making sure that the right people get the right information at the right time till everything is exactly in place.... and THEN he can escape and not a moment beforehand. What really makes it work though is that even taking all this into account, the Doctor is still on the run and comes close to death because he can't control ALL the variables. Meanwhile Ace develops a fun, flirty relationship with Leo Tolstoy that doesn't ignore the man is very much a product of his times despite his intelligence and open-mindedness. The two have good chemistry and Tolstoy's rather blase admission that he bet "his" peasants in a game of cards comes as a shock to Ace who had clearly forgotten that as a "good guy" he didn't automatically have the same modern-day (well, late 1980s) mindset that she does. The way their two stories (and later Hex's) come together is handled extremely well, the pacing is on-point and everything reaches a climax at just the right moment as the tension and drama ratchets up to the "traitor" finally revealing themselves. True there is a bit of nonsense that kinda comes out of nowhere to explain how the Doctor finds Ace and how the fakeout with the destroyed TARDIS happened, but that feels like a stretch as something to complain about. This is a really good listen. Final Thoughts: This run of McCoy stories starting with Magic Mousetrap has been a mixed bag, but it ends strongly. While Ace largely remains a fixed character who doesn't really develop much (and backslides in Enemy of the Daleks) she is well established enough that she can be used for supporting characters to bounce off. McCoy always delivers a great performance but the writing doesn't always serve him well (though it really does in Angel of Scutari) while Hex's character makes slow progress towards figuring out exactly who and what he is and how he fits into the trio. Sometimes he can feel a bit of a blank slate (never as bad as C'Rizz of course) but when he gets a chance to step up Philip Olivier acquits himself well. In addition, there has been a brief "Short Trips/Companions Chronicles" style at the end of each of the three stories, narrated (mostly) by Anneke Wills as Polly, telling a story to Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier of the time she, the 2nd Doctor, Ben and Jamie landed on an abandoned planet scheduled to be scrapped. It's a neat little recurring bit, though I'm not entirely sure if it is meant to be an exchange of letters, phone-calls or tape recordings between the two. More ominously though it also includes the unwelcome return of Thomas Brewster, the ill-executed "Adric but done right" Big Finish companion introduced into the 5th Doctor stories briefly, and I'm concerned it signals a return of the character. Don't let him dissuade you from listening to the pieces though, Wills does a good job and I can absolutely picture a story like the one they're telling happening during the Second Doctor's run.
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Feb 27, 2017 04:00
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Doubleposting because I didn't want the below lost as the last post on the previous page:cargohills posted:Started listening to the final War Doctor set and from listening to the first story it looks like yet another mediocre release. I had high hopes after hearing the second box set, especially because it had two great stories that were more than just bog standard Dalek plots ('Legion of the Lost' and 'The Neverwhen'), but the first and third box sets were as dull as dishwater. Feels like a shame to have wasted the talents of John Hurt and the character of the War Doctor on some continuity wank. I've listened to the first story so far and I think it suffers from the same problem the 3rd Boxset did - it's telling a perfectly reasonable story that basically any Doctor could fit into, and that's completely wrong because the War Doctor and the poo poo he's been through is supposed to stand apart from what any of the other Doctors were willing or capable of doing. I'm still roughly 100 audios behind the current day Big Finish so I don't know if things have fallen apart recently, but I have noticed they seem to go through peaks and valleys where they go from highly experimental (which can produce gold or utter poo poo) to incredibly bland (which are usually entirely listenable but unremarkable). I have been a fan of some of their modern release "specials" like River Song, UNIT, New Monsters etc but I still haven't listened to Dark Eyes or Doom Coalition. I'm hoping they're just going through a downswing and step things up appropriately again soon.
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Feb 27, 2017 04:06
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Astroman posted:Well the Doctors were sure as poo poo afraid of him in Five Doctors. Well he had just ensured Borusa would have a love life!
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Feb 28, 2017 02:43
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Unkempt posted:Eleventh Hour has the door that nobody notices, that sort of thing? This is exactly what I was thinking of too. I love that moment when the Doctor says,"There's something I'm missing.... just in the corner of my eye" and the camera pans to reveal a door that was NOT there before. The idea of growing up in a house with an occupant and a room constantly present every day of your life that you were simply unaware of was pretty unsettling to me.
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Feb 28, 2017 20:54
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egon_beeblebrox posted:https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/flash-sale---jago-litefoot-series-1 Don't know when I'll get a chance to actually listen to them but that is way too good a deal to pass up, grabbed that and Mahogany Murders. Another day, another range!
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Mar 1, 2017 13:42
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Okay, that boxset is gonna rule
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Mar 2, 2017 11:20
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CobiWann posted:I...I loved Neverland...  Yeah there is actually a hell of a lot to point to as lacking or bad, but McGann is fantastic and the story just hits all the right emotional beats for me. Zagreus on the other hand.... 
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Mar 2, 2017 20:47
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Fil5000 posted:What? No they didn't, it was a tool of last resort and thankfully never used. You're clearly misremembering. I can't name a single person it was ever used on.
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Mar 3, 2017 01:44
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CobiWann posted:Man, it's been so long since we had spoilers I plumb forgot. It has been a looooooooong time between regular episodes, but the wait is almost over! The_Doctor posted:J-ru, can you have a prod at someone shitpost/trolling in the Rick & Morty thread? Or is that outside your remit? Completely outside my remit sorry. Report them and the TVIV mod will make a decision on it.
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Mar 6, 2017 21:12
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Big Mean Jerk posted:This is a derail, but how long have you been a mod? I never noticed. Couple of months now, so twice as long as the remaining wait for NEW DOCTOR WHO 
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Mar 7, 2017 04:18
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all-Rush mixtape posted:The Weeping Angels are in the news, but it's not a Series 10 spoiler. The named the program that because it got great results first time, then they changed up how it worked and it was still good but not quite as effective as it used to be.
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Mar 7, 2017 23:57
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Box of Bunnies posted:Please come back and write the occasional episode for the show again, Rusty I really wished he had during the Moffat era but can understand why he didn't even beyond the personal tragedy he was dealing with, still hoping he'll do one during the Chibnall era.
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Mar 9, 2017 08:20
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Yeah I used to listen to mine on my commute, but I'm much closer to work now so that no longer works out. I try to fit it in around exercise, doing errands or just going for a walk now along with all the other podcast stuff I listen to, so I'm listening to less in a week/month than I used to. Speaking of which, I just listened to the second episode of the latest (and last ) War Doctor boxset and they finally actually delved a bit deeper into the potential weirdness of the Time War. I also suspect the creatures they were facing will end up being the Could-Have-Been King and his Army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres. Hopefully the weirdness factor isn't confined to just that story.They're still mostly writing the War Doctor in a way where almost any other Doctor could easily slot into his place though, which is a bit of a waste really.
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Mar 9, 2017 11:24
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Well it looks like the general idea of the season may be to utterly terrify children, thus sating the ghost of Robert Holmes for a few months at least. Excellent 
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Mar 10, 2017 23:34
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Keys is weird because there are actually some really strong moments in it (and some hilarious ones) but overall it's disjointed and the overarching narrative doesn't really gel with the individual episodes. From memory, the whole thing happened because a story they were working on fell through and they asked Terry Nation to come up with something quick, and he just strung together 3-4 skeletons of ideas for other stories he had lying around. It does include the rather fantastic segment where Ian gets accused of murder and the Doctor shows up and bravely declares he will act as his lawyer despite: A. Having no legal background whatsoever B. Having zero familiarity with the actual case at hand C. Having done nothing to get to grips with even the basics of the laws of the zone they're in. Also the incredible laboratory of amazing futuristic equipment, with no expense spared by the props department. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 02:13
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Astroman posted:Barbara hides and Altos goes into a room to meet with the true rulers of Morphoton, which are BRAINS in JARS with EYES! I agree that Hartnell-era Doctor Who loving owns  Astroman posted:They quickly turn the dials on their bracelets to find themselves in a snowstorm. Ian says they have to move and find shelter but Barbara just says "no, I'd rather sit down and die." Further proof!
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Mar 12, 2017 21:49
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Maxwell Lord posted:Ian and Barbara have so much chemistry, it's amazing. Opening scene of The Romans  
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Mar 13, 2017 01:24
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I finished the last War Doctor volume. They finally realized their potential, they finally nailed the War Doctor's characterization, the final story and it's bittersweet ending is just perfect.... and it's the last we'll ever get "Perhaps I'm the worst of them all" - goddamn am I gonna miss John Hurt (even more)
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Mar 13, 2017 06:36
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Marinus PD: Ian, did you murder this man? Ian: No, I was busy abandoning an entirely different person to die when the murder was happening!
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Mar 14, 2017 07:35
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Also Leela's description of Ollistra is loving perfect  jivjov posted:My big problem with the Big Finish stuff showing up on Humble is that the stories don't get attached to your Big Finish account, and as such can't be managed through their app. I'm glad I'm not the only one irritated by this very first world problem 
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Mar 14, 2017 20:41
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:How was the Christmas special? Not very good unfortunately, the best things about it were just aping stuff done way better in Richard Donner's original Superman film. It was a letdown even for a Christmas special, let alone after a full year of no new Doctor Who. The Doctor casually leaves a man to be brutally murdered at one point too!
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Mar 15, 2017 01:14
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Cleretic posted:...But now I just wish they made the tone of the story more like Adam West Batman, that would've been fantastic and exactly the dumb feel-good tone that suits a Christmas special. Oh yeah that would have been way better, and the kind of thing you can usually only really get away with in an Xmas Special
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Mar 15, 2017 02:20
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The_Doctor posted:The fact it doesn't display the individual covers for stories any more is my biggest problem. This was actually legit one of the selling points of finally downloading the Big Finish app for me! 
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Mar 15, 2017 09:24
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I hope whoever wins sends a waxwork sculpture of Tom in their place He can't be there because he's too busy saving the world for us stupid apes!
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Mar 18, 2017 03:37
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Carbon dioxide posted:You know, I'm quite glad the Tardis is an English police box, and not a The Hague one. I was looking for a video of the Boston Dynamics walking dog since I figured the Hague TARDIS would walk like that, and found somebody had already taken a video of it and added the Doctoring the TARDIS song to it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7vT6jhw9J0
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Mar 18, 2017 10:07
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Carbon dioxide posted:If you don't you're not human. I am too!  ....on my mother's side at least..... 
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Mar 19, 2017 21:12
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One of the things Big Finish really nailed was their interpretation of the original Cybermen voices. They're fantastic. 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.
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Mar 24, 2017 11:24
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I found The Reaping jammed far too much in the way of events in the extraordinarily compressed time-frame of Peri's absence (years for her, only 3 months for everybody else); had a bunch of character arcs that went nowhere or were otherwise abandoned; had a horrifically awful twist ending to reset everything back to the Doctor/Peri dynamic (the sudden explosive death of Peri's mother after their reconciliation is dogshit); 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. The latter two in particular smacked of trying way too hard to be edgy/grim/"mature" and really soured me on the whole thing. On the flip side, I didn't find The Gathering anywhere near as bad because Janet Fielding can make almost anything work through sheer force of personality.
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Mar 24, 2017 13:08
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And that is a big part of my problem with it, none of it goes anywhere or accomplishes... well, anything. It seems to exist in a vacuum purely for it's own miserable sake. It's only "mature" if it has purpose, and most of his stuff rarely does outside of shock value. OSI contrasts it to the scene of the Cyberman eavesdropping on the family's grief (which I'll admit I have no memory of), but even then surely the purpose should be that Peri's misery at hearing her mother say such a cruel thing eventually leads to some kind of reconciliation/airing of grievances between them that exposes all of this nasty poo poo into the open so they can actually purge it, heal and move on - they deal with their emotions instead of suppressing or eliminating them like the Cybermen. Instead, from memory, the story ends with Peri saying rather miserably,"Well I guess I'm gonna stay with my mom now" even though it's pretty clear neither of them is particularly enthusiastic about the idea. Then, since we all know that Peri definitively continues to travel with the Doctor, rather than come up with an out they just blow her up and kill her and leave Peri a distraught, traumatized mess which has absolutely zero bearing/impact on any stories going forward.
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Mar 25, 2017 21:06
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 The fourth and final War Doctor volume from Big Finish marks the end of an era we never knew existed and that I for one will sorely miss now that it is over. The insertion of an unknown incarnation of the Doctor for the 50th Anniversary could have gone so wrong but was done so right, and John Hurt's fabulous performance as the anguished War Doctor was a revelation. It all seemed a one-and-done until Big Finish announced they would be making audio adventures detailing the life of the War Doctor, and that John Hurt was along for the ride. Hurt had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and during his treatment was looking for ways to keep in work, and had heard very good things about Big Finish. The two got together and produced these four volumes detailing events from the Time War, which for the longest time had been off-limits to Big Finish. This final volume opens in a similar vein to the previous three, producing a fun and listenable story that doesn't particular distinguish itself or the character of the War Doctor in any way that couldn't have been filled in by any of the other actors who play the Doctor. But the final two volumes finally got it right, revealing some of the fascinating potential of the setting AND the character. Hurt's final lines as the War Doctor's are haunting, and leave me wondering just what might have been if there had been more. There won't be though, and so as it is all I can say is that the War Doctor series ends on an incredible high note (by ending on an incredible low note for the character of the War Doctor).  Synopsis: The War Doctor and Cardinal Ollistra attempt to escape stranding on a remote planet as the Dalek fleet closes in. The unwelcome presence of the media offers a surprising opportunity to save the day, at the cost of spreading a despicable message to the universe as a result. What I thought: This is the weakest of the three stories, suffering the most from the issue I've largely had with the War Doctor volumes in that nothing they do feels like it is any different from any non-Time War related story, or any other actor who played the Doctor. You could argue that this is fitting in that Day of the Doctor showed everyone INCLUDING the War Doctor that he was just as worthy as anybody else of being the Doctor, but I feel the War Doctor should have been put into situations that the others never were, and done things the others never did, in order to more effectively demonstrate the trauma, guilt and self-loathing he felt for himself both during and after this incarnation. Instead we get an often jovial, bemused and helpful Doctor who at worst gets a bit grumpy when he discovers that a species of "reporters" have been using his adventures as pro-war propaganda. That kind of reveal should hit him like a gut-punch rather than a mild irritation, that he himself isn't just committing atrocities but that those same atrocities are being turned into rallying cries to get others involved in the war and commit atrocities all of their own. Needing to escape the remote planet they're on, the War Doctor and Ollistra use the primitive technology at their disposal to hold off the Daleks as long as possible. The planet has the same problem common to a lot of audios and tv episodes, where an entire planet seems to be represented by a small town and it feels like the population can't be more than a few hundred people (later we discover there were supposedly billions there). The presence of the alien "media" is also aggravating, since the species are also time travelers but apparently have remained hidden from both the Time Lords and the Daleks and have technology beyond them. That diminishes the Time War in my view, it's supposed to be a chaotic quagmire of incomprehensible insanity and yet here are these assholes just casually dropping in and out with complete knowledge of everything and utterly indifferent to the two races supposedly putting the entire universe at risk. By making them come from some post-Time War period and being open about that, it's also telling the War Doctor that not only does the Time War end but supposedly in Time Lord victory, which would seem to undercut the notion that he'd be driven to the point of despair enough to be willing to make use of The Moment. Still, he cleverly uses the resources available to him to defeat the Daleks, if only temporarily, and he and Ollistra get off the planet after all. The ironic thing is that the "story" that the reporters create glorify the victory to the point that it incenses the Daleks (so the Daleks have access to these news reports that the Time Lords were completely unaware of?) to redouble their efforts to win the war.  Synopsis: The War Doctor seeks reinforcements while Ollistra attempts to hold the line and win an important strategic and PR victory in the war. An old companion of the Doctor is all that she can be and more, while could-have-been tries to become is; meanwhile tries to become now; and never-were tries to become always-was. What I thought: This is where things started to get good, the difference between this and the previous story is like night and day. As Ollistra takes on a surprisingly heroic (if coldly calculated) stance, the War Doctor goes in search of the titular Lady of Obsidian, a mystery woman who has spent centuries fighting the Daleks within the confines of a largely unexplored nebula. The casting of Louise Jameson felt like a misstep to me when I first heard about it, but I am happy to admit I was completely wrong. The War Doctor's search for the Lady leads to his discovery that she is his old companion Leela, somehow alive in spite of the centuries. When he eventually tracks her down, he learns to his horror that she is the victim of a failed weaponized Dalek experiment. Leela was killed in that explosion as everybody long believed... but she also lived. And she was never there. Leela has become a creature of potential, every single permutation and deviation that could have or might have been are as real to her as her actual life. She cannot die because she has always been dead. She cannot be alive because she was never born. She has lived an infinity of lives, known/loved/hated/feared the same people in different variations. She has been married a million times, widowed just as many, never known love in equal measure, never had children, had child after child, seen her children die, been parted from them etc. And it is ALL real to her simultaneously, and the only thing that keeps her sane is to hide in the largely abandoned nebula with an army she rarely interacts with, fighting a war not just against the Daleks but also another race created by the failed experiment - the Unlived. Though it is never outright stated, it seems apparent to me that the Unlived are intended to be The Could-Have-Been King and his Army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres, mentioned offhand during the RTD era in one of those wonderful and fleeting glimpses into the madness of the Time War. They are certainly horrifying in concept, since at least Leela actually had a life/history before her exposure, while these things never actually existed... and they hate that knowledge, that awareness that they lack some fundamental aspect that the living so unfairly have. Their description is matched by their voices, they sound like they're forcing some rough approximation of sound through vocal cords that perhaps don't exist. Every moment of their non-existence is an agony and it is conveyed in audio form. Even the one character that has a name comes across like it doesn't really understand what a name is or what purpose it serves, it just knows that the living has them so it wants one too. There is an echo of the Boneless from season 8 of the revival to them, but even those shared at least some basic similarity to life as we know it. The Unliving are contrary to existence, and that makes them far more chilling. It also helps to make them stand out from Leela and her similar traits, because she is somebody that existed, and the moment where the War Doctor gets her into the TARDIS and helps to heal her is incredibly sweet and genuine - it is a moment like that where he truly feels like the Doctor again that should stand out against the rough exterior he puts up to hide his broken heart, but unfortunately as Ollistra notes the only person who sees a difference between the War Doctor and any other Doctor is the War Doctor himself.  Synopsis: The Daleks unleash a weapon on Gallifrey completely beyond the comprehension of the Time Lords. The Time War ends with the Daleks victorious, and the Daleks turns their aggression on their own weapon, as the War Doctor enthusiastically goads on mutual genocide. What I thought: This story is written by Nick Briggs who doesn't always nail it when it comes to his Doctor Who work. But he wrote the first War Doctor audio so it's somewhat fitting he writes the last.... and this time he DOES nail it, he gets it spot loving on in fact. This is a story that fully embraces the insanity of the Time War, as poo poo just goes completely round the bend and the only one who seems able to cut through the bullshit is the War Doctor. Not because he's smarter than anybody else, but because he's got the experience and the exposure to outside forces to cope with them. That Leela is mostly able to stay right up to step with him just further nails home the importance of the Doctor/Companion relationship and suggests what might have been had the War Doctor had the chance to just be another regeneration of the Doctor instead of deal with the Time War. But the story isn't just crazy nonsense for its own sake, it has narrative and character purpose and brings into sharp relief just what an impact the Time War has had not just on the universe but the Doctor himself. It's peppered with appropriate moments of humor (Leela's description of Ollistra is loving hilarious) to break the tension when necessary, and everything builds to an incredibly satisfying conclusion. The Daleks have crossed into a different dimensional reality and learned how to communicate with (well, threaten) a species beyond Time Lord comprehension. Breaking into "our" dimension, the "Enigma" exists without physical or mental presence, it just simply "is". Like the creatures from the previous story, the Enigma are not alive in any sense we understand, but unlike the Unliving they hold no aggression or malice towards the living, just curiosity. Threatened by the Daleks to rewrite time so that the Time Lords never existed, the Enigma consider doing so not out of fear for their own lives (they see no difference between being alive and being dead) but because why not? They don't share our morality, and are mostly just trying out an alien experience because it never occurred to them to do it before the Daleks brought it up. Their discovery of a somewhat kindred spirit in Leela gives them momentary pause which is the opening the War Doctor needs to investigate the Enigma's dimension alongside Ollistra. As he takes it all in with fascination, the Daleks invade and reveal they're actually completely flummoxed by the Enigma because they have no idea how to deal with a species completely unfazed by their threats. They begin wiping out Enigma after Enigma, who don't particularly care since they can't really die in the same sense as we do anyway. In the end, it comes down to Dalek threats vs the War Doctor and Leela's interest in communicating with them. They of course find the War Doctor and Leela a more compelling idea, but then Ollistra throws a wrench in the works by trying to reverse the Daleks' plan and suggest the Enigma wipe out the Daleks instead. Disgusted by Ollistra (who had been acting more nobly recently) proving the Time Lords are just the Daleks in all but name, the War Doctor offers a horrible third way.... why not wipe out both? This is the defining moment in the War Doctor's characterization for Big Finish to me, and it's somewhat of a shame that it comes so late in the last ever volume. As the 8th Doctor he tried to stay on the sidelines and help those affected. As the War Doctor he attempted to take a more active role and win the war purely to stop the damage it was doing. Now he has reached the point where he realizes the only way to save the universe is to remove both sides from this horrible war, that this is actually the best case scenario. Ollistra (and Leela!) are horrified, but the Doctor quite clearly doesn't order the Enigma, he just offers them the alternative, he leaves the final decision to them. The Enigma shift them back to their own reality, where they discover the Dalek Time Fleet has been removed from near Gallifrey.... but the Time Lords are still there AND the Daleks are still out there in the universe, and the war is continuing. Ollistra is infuriated that an unexpected chance to win the war went begging because of the War Doctor, while he himself is just depressed that the madness will continue. His final line to Leela is haunting but marks an incredible highpoint for the War Doctor audios The War Doctor posted:I am a warrior, just like the rest of the Time Lords. And perhaps even... I am the very worst of them all. RIP John Hurt. There'll never be another like you.
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Mar 30, 2017 04:30
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I like that idea about the Voord trying to establish a horrible kind of harmony, but I still like to think they're just some dudes in wetsuits
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Apr 2, 2017 01:54
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Love the companions who disappear and then return
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Apr 4, 2017 13:08
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Watching trailers and getting hype for season 10. Please be good please Jesus 
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Apr 5, 2017 08:18
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CaptainYesterday (all-Rush mixtape now I guess?), are you gonna make a new thread for season 10 or just stick with this one?
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Apr 6, 2017 02:40
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 14:48 |
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all-Rush mixtape posted:it's not 1972! RIP Roger Delgado
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Apr 6, 2017 03:42
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