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Which season of Doctor Who should get a Blu-ray set next? This poll is closed. |
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| One of the black-and-white seasons |
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16 | 29.63% |
| Season 7 |
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7 | 12.96% |
| Season 11 |
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1 | 1.85% |
| Season 13 |
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0 | 0% |
| Season 15 |
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2 | 3.70% |
| The Key to Time |
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21 | 38.89% |
| Season 21 |
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0 | 0% |
| Season 25 |
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7 | 12.96% |
| Total: | 54 votes | ||
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Peter Calapdi was so good as The Doctor. Twelve is one of the best. Time for an audio! I picked up The High Price of Parking in a recent sale, so I had a listen. Let's get the elephant in the room done first: it's Paradise Towers. I haven't even seen Paradise Towers and I can see the influence. 7, Ace and Mel go to a planet sized car park and meet a tribe of people descended from travellers who forgot how where they parked their spaceships. The parking wardens try and keep order, as a radical group trying to enforce "free parking". It's a very silly concept, and there's some fun gags about what happens to spaceships when people aren't flying them. McCoy is on good form here, not too light and comedic, but giving this one more of a gentle touch. Ace and Mel get roles that show off their character skills - Ace rebels against authority and provides the voice of reason to rebels going too far, Mel does some computer stuff! For a lighter story with a fun runaround with 7, Ace and Mel, it's entertaining enough. OldMemes fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jan 9, 2024 |
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Jan 9, 2024 00:59
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 07:01 |
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Kill the Moon had some interesting ideas, but a poor execution of them. It would have been better if it was the moon of a colony or something. Today's listen was Ghost Walk. While I like the Fifth Doctor with Nyssa and Tegan on audio, I've not listened to one yet with Adric. Adric continues to be annoying in this, but at least he's used well here. The Tardis crew stumble on a interdimensional being that feeds on energy, and the Doctor sends his companions to several points in time, with himself being stuck in the modern day with a rather grumpy tourst guide. The writing feels very spot on if you've visited a lot of tourist places in the UK and had the tour guide talk a group around. The visual of the TARDIS in darkness, drained of power, is a striking one, and I could picture it in grainy 1982-vision (aside from mobile phones being mentioned). Sacha Dhawan plays a supporting role...I wonder if he'd ever do anymore work on Doctor Who? He was rather good, maybe he'll pop up again in the franchise? It's always fun when the Doctor is on the catch up and having to improvise and plot on the move, but the ending does lean a bit hard into the "Doctor kills the villian, then gives a technobabble speech on how it was done" trope, but very solid stuff overall. OldMemes fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Feb 10, 2024 |
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Feb 10, 2024 19:50
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Chibnall wrote, far, far too much of the era himself. And telling Whittaker to do as little research as possible was a terrible creative decision. Tennant and Calpaldi were already fans when they took the role. Smith apparently spent time before filming watching as many serials as possible, and writing his own fan fiction (and I'm guessing his working relationship with Wendy Padbury helped too). Gatwa had a huge binge watch. Whittaker was told not to. You could see her passion for the role, but she wasn't given all the tools she needed to shine. Anyway, Theatre of War! One of the novel adaptations - the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Benny land a planet being explored by a race of theatre obessed colonists, who are looking for a legendary lost play said to be stored in a recording machine. But not everything is what is seems... I really liked this one! For some reason, Big Finish haven't done many stories featuring 7, Ace and Benny together, but it's a trio that works really well, even in bland stuff like The Dark Flame. They have a strange relationship with the VNA era - some concepts are treated as canon, but some aren't (they even say in the behind the scenes stuff for Love and War that Ace's departure doesn't really fit), but here we've got a story streamlined to fit into the standard characterisation, and it's a really cracking story. There's a great sense of mystery that slowly bulids, a clever twist-y scheme, and this is the first audio I've listened to with Irving Braxiatel, and what a character he is! Charming, yet oily, serving as an interesting mirror image to the Doctor's eccentric nature. Hopefully with the novel adaptations returning, we can get some more in this style.
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Feb 13, 2024 15:22
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Progressive casting doesn't mean anything if you don't give the actors any character. Did Ryan even DO anything, aside from sometimes mention dyspraxia? (And apparently the writers would have to be reminded of that by Tosin Cole!). Given that Majorie Blackman co-wrote it, I'm still shocked by how clunky and awakard Rosa was. Bill was a much better character - her being black and a lesbian was part of her character, but it wasn't her only character traits.
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Feb 13, 2024 15:47
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Interestingly, it's never made clear if all Gallifreyians can regenerate, or if its something only people with the rank of Time Lord can do, or even if Time Lord is a title (for those who finished at the academy), or a race. The Fifth Doctor just blowing away a dalek mutant with a normal handgun will never not be funny. Especially because Davsion plays it as the Doctor being extremely stressed and freaked out. Apparently Kevin McNally got arrested at the Gallifrey One convention - I guess that means the rumoured Professor Jericho audio boxset at Big Finish is going to be delayed or quietly scrapped. In terms of Chibnall era audios, we're still waiting for the Dhawan Master series to be launched, apparently the BBC has asked for them to hold off for now.
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Feb 18, 2024 23:36
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Order of the Daleks is one of those 'daleks being sneaky with limited resources' stories, with the Sixth Doctor finding a few survivors having embedded themselves within a monastery. There's shades of the lost story "The Elite" here, with the Daleks reshaping a society for thier own ends (there's a dalek made out of stained glass), but the atmosphere doesn't really complement the story: an isolated monastery should have chanting, creaking doors, empty stone corridors, and there's not really that. Oddly, they make a big deal of the planet not having had first contact yet (complete with comedy bureacrat side character), but the monks are referred to as 'human' repeatedly. The story uses Christian monk imagery (so that we have a frame of reference as an audience), but they have some vague plant based drug trip thing instead. Honestly, if the monks had been a bit more clearly defined, it would have improved the story, but it's Colin Baker and the Daleks, always fun together. Aquitaine is great - the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa arrive on a research station where time is out of joint, scattering the scientists up and down in time. We also have Hargreaves, a really charming robot butler. To say too much is to give it away, but this is a clever one. Davison, Sutton and Fielding really are a great TARDIS team. OldMemes fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Mar 17, 2024 |
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Mar 17, 2024 23:06
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It's a very 90s insult. Miles wasn't happy with The Ancestor Cell iirc, and there was a whole ton of drama about that, then BBV sorta kinda had the Faction Paradox rights for a bit. The ongoing storyline in the EDAs is a mess of half explained ideas tbh. I met Cornell once at a book signing about ten odd years ago. Nice chap, he was amused that I mentioned Scream of the Shalka.
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Mar 20, 2024 22:46
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Alien Heart/Dalek Soul was one of Big Finish's experiments with two two part stories on one release. And honestly, there's nothing really special about Alien Heart. The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa meet some bug things, turns out it's a dalek weapon, you know the score. The second half, Dalek Soul is fantastic - properly fleshing out what does it mean to be a Dalek Duplicate? They're an interesting concept that never really get explored that much, but this story nails it. To say more is to give it away, but Davison and Sutton excel in this one. The Fourth Wall - Flip is pretty great, isn't she? Sadly Lisa Greenwood's extended illness has meant we haven't had many stories between Six and Flip recently, but it seems like she's started to record again recently. In The Fourth Wall, Flip gets trapped in a pocket dimension being used to create a low budget sci-fi TV show - while this seems like it's a chance for easy "boy, wasn't Doctor Who cheaply made and the sets wobbled" metahumour, there's a broad enough variety of jokes about TV production, and an almost Westworld-esque subtext about the relationship between humans and fiction.
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Mar 24, 2024 22:28
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Apparently Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson have been watching Time and the Rani recently, for some reason.
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Mar 29, 2024 00:42
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The Doctor getting out of the Matrix using the power of archive footage in The Timeless Children really is the icing on the cake. And I like it when sometimes the faces of the classic Doctors are shown to say "yep, this is the same character", like that really neat bit of editing in Smith's first episode. Aren't the Sisterhood of Khan also Time Lords? They should be fine, even with Chibnall's awful "The Master somehow genocided the race of Time Lords somehow" handwave. Unless there's some major twist, looks like we're waiting until the season after for 15 to meet the daleks.
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Mar 31, 2024 23:14
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My favourite bonkers TARDIS retcon is the one where it turns out The First Doctor used a Type 50 for business in his early life. When he left Gallifrey in his Type 40, the Type 50 was so mad at being abandoned that it hired a private detective to track the Doctor down, then sent up an elaborate trap for him.
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Apr 7, 2024 21:44
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Rosa should have been an episode about the Bristol Bus Boycott instead - it's an important part of British history that rarely even gets mentioned in Black History Month education. Anyway, the villians in Flux made so very little sense - one is tied up in a place and eats some people who may or may not be time lords and the other is braindwashed to be....some random woman? And they tried to undo a version of the anchoring of the thread from the VNA? And then he calls himself "the Doctor's greatest enemy" even though the audience has no idea who they are.
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Apr 9, 2024 20:32
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All four boxsets of Ravenous were finally discounted at once, so I picked it up. Their Finiest Hour So the last boxset ended with Helen being lost in time and space, loaded down with some unwanted psyhic powers, trapped with the Eleven. In this one, The Doctor and Liv decide to....ignore the cliff hanger and faff around with Winston Churchill instead. This feels like it should be a breather episode in the third boxset, rather than the opener - it's a decent little story, but Helen's absence doesn't really add any emotional stakes. How to Make a Killing in Time Travel The Doctor and Liv decide they should probably look for Helen, but instead get sidetracked and faff around on a space station. This starts out promising - and seems like it'll be a great John Dorney one, as a scientist tries to create a time machine for her hilariously sleazy boss, only to kill him and have to awakardly hide the evidence from the Doctor. The pieces are all there for this one, but it...doesn't work. It feels increasingly rambling as it goes on, to the point where I could hardly tell you how it ends without double checking. World of Damnation The story finally remembers that oh yeah, Helen is meant to be a focus, and we catch up with her and the Eleven stuck on a prison planet. A prison planet is always an interesting setting, and the relationship between Helen and the Eleven is really well done here. For some reason, they've decided to bring back the Kandyman, with a new, less copyright infringing body, but he loses a lot of his identity from The Happiness Patrol. Sweet Salvation The boxset perks up with the Eleven and the Kandyman having a rather bonkers plan, and with The Doctor, Liv and Helen back together, the chemistry once again feels right. Overall, an uneven set, but it gets stronger as it goes on. I've heard the other sets are better.
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Apr 11, 2024 23:59
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After how underwhelming Ravenous 1 was, let's move onto Ravenous 2! It's much better. Escape from Kaldor - the Robots of Death is very good, isn't it? Kaldor is one of the most interesting cultures we saw in classic Who - Liv being from there, rather than Earth has come up a few times in different stories (most notably her debut story), but there's not been much exploration of what that means. By having Liv reunite with her sister, we not only get a backdoor pilot for another spin-off, but a fun revisit to Kaldor, and another excellent bit of character development for Liv. Better Watch Out sees The Doctor take Liv and Helen to Salzburg for a Christmas break. McGann plays this with an utterly infectous joy. It's great. Then it becomes a mix of A Christmas Carol and The Evil Dead when the Krampus shows up - it's actually rather disturbing in places. Fairytale of Salzburg continues the story with a brillantly insane (or insanely brillant) conclusion, that twists the horror of the first part on its head. Helen really gets to shine here, and its nice to see her save the day, after being a bit passive and naive in earlier stories. Seizure finally introduces the Ravenous - a race that feeds on Time Lords. The Doctor and The Eleven are trapped on a dying TARDIS that's desperately trying to keep its pilot alive. We get to hear something we don't get to hear much - the Doctor utterly terrified, and McGann sells it. We've heard his Doctor joyful, angry, broken, sarcastic...but never so scared. The Ravenous has a great monologue about hunger, but it feels like only the seeds have been sown so far. In all, a much stronger set.
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Apr 22, 2024 23:00
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We're ravenous for more ravenous. It's time for Ravenous 3! Deeptime Frontier After finally meeting a Ravenous last episode, we now get to see what they can do, as they get loose onboard a Time Lord research station. The behind the scenes compare this to Aliens, and it's an apt comparison. Previously, we saw one, now there are loads, and they hunt in packs. We get to see some of their tricks - there's a particuarly nasty one involving regeneration they pull off. A creepy start to the set - plus Liv gets to use her medical skills again. Companion Piece In this largely Doctor free episode, Liv and Helen end up with the Eleven's previous self, the Nine, who has created a museum outside of time in order to imprison a complete set of the Doctor's companions. There's some fun cameos with some fan favourites turning up briefly, but the bulk of the story focuses on River, Liv, Helen, Charley and an alternative version of Bliss from before the time war. It's interesting to see River more on the back foot here, rather than the normal playful malnipulator, and continuity is used really well to help aid the story, rather than bog it down. LEGEND The Doctor and the Eleven getting stuck in a fairy tale world with the Brothers Grimm should have been great, but this feels a bit flat compared to the two parter from Ravenous 2. Not bad, and there's some interestingly surreal imagery, but it felt like it could dig a bit deeper. The Odds Against The Eleven joins the TARDIS crew to search for information about the Ravenous. Liv is not happy about this. To say too much is to give it away, but this has some fun tension caused by the uneasy alliance with the Eleven, and there's a really clever twist on the multi-Time Lord story. A solid ending, but needed more impact on the cliffhanger.
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Apr 25, 2024 21:58
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 07:01 |
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The whole planet of time feels like Chibnall half remembering the VNA lore. Onto the last set of Ravenous. It's the fourth! Ravenous 4 Whisper This is a fairly standard Doctor Who story - the twist being that The Doctor, Helen and Liv have the Eleven along for the ride. They think he's trying to stop the Ravenous, instead he wants to help them. Liv is still not happy with the Eleven being around - Helen is up for giving him another chance. Helen comes across as idealistic to the point of naiviety here: she's already been tricked by Time Lords twice (and one of those times, it was by the Eleven!). Liv decides to pull a gun on the Eleven. It doesn't go well. Planet of Dust Here's where things get interesting. Way back in Dust Breeding, Big Finish couldn't get Anthony Ainely to play The Master on audio - instead they got Geoffery Beevers back, saying that the Tremas body had rotted back to his decayed form. It's a retcon that has given them some fun ideas to play with - no matter what the Decayed Master does, eventually it always fails. We meet The Master at the very end of his lifespan: this is long after the Bruce body has failed. Rather than being charming and playful, this time the Master is desperate. The Doctor accidentally leads the Ravenous to him...who devour him and drain the TARDIS. McGann and Beevers knock this out of the park - the complicated relationship between The Doctor and The Master has always being interesting, and this is horrifying...yet oddly touching. The Master realising that this is finally it, before telling The Doctor to avenge him is harrowing, as is the Doctor's horror at realising that not only can he not feel The Master's presence anymore, but the fact that the TARDIS is in agony (we've seen Eight at low points before, but him fruitlessly demanding to go back and save "her" from the Ravenous is a punch). Then there's the paradox - Eight and Liv have already met a future Master. Speaking of... Day of the Master Time for the finale! And its a multi-Master story! Rather cleverly, to avoid having to wipe mind the Doctor to keep the canon in line, everyone is sent off with a different Master: Eight and Bruce, Liv and War and Helen and War. These pairings are utterly fantastic, and the actors drain every last drop out of it. It's a very statisfying story that gives the Reborn Master an origin story, shows us the origin of Ravenous and ties everything together. The moment when you realise the solution to the problem was set up in an earlier box set is very statisfying, and we get an ending to the Eleven. The cliffhanger of the badly damaged TARDIS crashing could have been a bit more impactful, though. Overall, Ravenous was uneven, especially the first boxset, but picked up and ended on a real high.
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Apr 30, 2024 21:09
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