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The thing I sort of like about how the Tardis Wiki works is that with its blending of everything into the same level of canon, it'll probably introduce you to some weird and obscure poo poo. It's not useful for just answering a simple question like 'what is a Rutan, and why is "Martha is a Rutan" a funny joke', but if you're just poking around it for fun you'll learn about some weird one-shot from the wilderness years, a decent idea buried in a Target book, or a funny little joke from a comic that you'd never have stumbled across otherwise. Doctor Who has one hell of an expanded universe, and the Tardis Wiki's complete lack of a hierarchy means that you're going to run headlong into some part of it.
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Sep 9, 2014 15:16
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ANIME MONSTROSITY posted:What about Fear Her I liked it.
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Sep 9, 2014 17:02
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Cleretic posted:The thing I sort of like about how the Tardis Wiki works is that with its blending of everything into the same level of canon, it'll probably introduce you to some weird and obscure poo poo. It's not useful for just answering a simple question like 'what is a Rutan, and why is "Martha is a Rutan" a funny joke', but if you're just poking around it for fun you'll learn about some weird one-shot from the wilderness years, a decent idea buried in a Target book, or a funny little joke from a comic that you'd never have stumbled across otherwise. Doctor Who has one hell of an expanded universe, and the Tardis Wiki's complete lack of a hierarchy means that you're going to run headlong into some part of it. I actually think it's the worst for this, because while you're trying to find the answer for a simple question, you get so bogged down with pointless text that it becomes easier to ram the words into Google and see what comes out. Even finding out "what serials was this planet mentioned in?" is really difficult to find in a way that involves just skimming and not reading paragraphs of Zygon porn.
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Sep 9, 2014 17:14
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Jane Baker, co-creator of the Rani with her husband Pip, has passed away. EDIT: SOURCE (click to view tweet on Twitter) 
DoctorWhat fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 17:29
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Punishment fits the crime.
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Sep 9, 2014 17:33
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That was bad, I feel bad. 
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Sep 9, 2014 17:33
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Sep 9, 2014 17:37
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Well poo poo, now we need another Baker in Who lore to fill in the shoes. Troy Baker providing the voices for the ruggedly handsome upgraded Daleks.
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Sep 9, 2014 18:36
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adhuin posted:I've randomly tried three old serials and (Twin Dilemma, Two Doctors & The Mindrobber) couldn't finish their first episodes. the 8th Doctor movie was ok. Of all the serials to start with, wow
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Sep 9, 2014 19:00
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Running the full gamut from "indescribably poo poo" to "indescribably weird"
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Sep 9, 2014 19:01
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I can only think of one way to remember Jane Baker. Unfortunately it's this Open Air segment in which the Doctor Who Appreciation Society put her and Pip on blast for Trial Of A Time Lord not making any sense. Ah, 1986.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:30
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I'm always surprised whenever I see pictures or video of P&J, they never look like I think they would
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Sep 9, 2014 19:34
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The One Doctor was suitably campy and fun, but I'm glad to get to more serious fare with The Marian Conspiracy. As someone with a history degree (first class, how's that for employability!), it was nice to see it all being taken so seriously. Having a historian around, especially one as delightful as Evelyn, is a treat. I've already heard Jubilee, so I know her quality, but I'm looking forward to the rest of her stuff. She has a lovely rapport with Colin and it's a shame illness forced Maggie to retire from acting. Still, I have many more stories ahead of the two of them. It might hit the old wallet hard, but so far they are great value.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:36
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Plavski posted:The One Doctor was suitably campy and fun, but I'm glad to get to more serious fare with The Marian Conspiracy. As someone with a history degree (first class, how's that for employability!), it was nice to see it all being taken so seriously. Having a historian around, especially one as delightful as Evelyn, is a treat. I've already heard Jubilee, so I know her quality, but I'm looking forward to the rest of her stuff. She has a lovely rapport with Colin and it's a shame illness forced Maggie to retire from acting. Still, I have many more stories ahead of the two of them. It might hit the old wallet hard, but so far they are great value. The upside of Evelyn no longer being a part of the Big Finish roster is that she got a good, decisive end to her character arc before Maggie retired.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:39
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MrL_JaKiri posted:I'm always surprised whenever I see pictures or video of P&J, they never look like I think they would Pip looks like Isaac Asimov.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:39
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MrL_JaKiri posted:I'm always surprised whenever I see pictures or video of P&J, they never look like I think they would  My god, I had no clue. Try not to imagine their sex life.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:40
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The_Doctor posted:
It consisted entirely of very intense games of Scrabble.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:41
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The_Doctor posted:
That's basically three sweatered cats away from what I had pictured.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:46
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DoctorWhat posted:It consisted entirely of very intense games of Scrabble. "T.. H.. R.. O.. B. Throb." "Don't be disgusting, Pip. You shall sleep in the spare room tonight."
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Sep 9, 2014 19:58
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The_Doctor posted:
Well, the fellow on the left-hand side looks like he should've been an MP who had one of the really rubbish cabinet offices in the Thatcher government for about a month in 1987, like Under-Secretary for Public Highways or Minister of Fisheries or Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Not sure about the woman in the Bananaman costume.
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Sep 9, 2014 20:45
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Andrew Cartmel's very rude about them in Script Doctor. Left-click for big, then right-click for bigger still.  If you're at all interested in the production of the McCoy era, you should buy it, you'll enjoy it very much. He's hilariously wrong about some things (like, it was his suggestion to ditch the guy they hired to write the music for Paradise Towers and let Keff McCulloch loose on it instead, he's a massive Keff fan for absolutely no good reason), but it's still a jolly good read.
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Sep 9, 2014 21:53
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FreezingInferno posted:I can only think of one way to remember Jane Baker. It was mentioned last time this video was brought up, but the "Chris" complaining about Bonnie Langford is no less than Chris Chibnail.
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Sep 9, 2014 22:17
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Rochallor posted:It was mentioned last time this video was brought up, but the "Chris" complaining about Bonnie Langford is no less than Chris Chibnail. ahahah that's amazing JIM HENSON'S WHOVIAN BABIES!
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Sep 9, 2014 22:21
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I hated the Pip'n'Jane's stories but it's still always sad to hear somebody has passed on. Poor old Pip.
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Sep 9, 2014 23:14
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DoctorWhat posted:Jane Baker, co-creator of the Rani with her husband Pip, has passed away. When I first read this I thought two people had died. 
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Sep 9, 2014 23:17
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Jerusalem posted:I hated the Pip'n'Jane's stories but it's still always sad to hear somebody has passed on. Poor old Pip. Pip is finally free!
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Sep 9, 2014 23:45
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If you can, you should get hold of the Target novelisation of Time and the Rani, which gives Pip and Jane the opportunity to do some world building and worldplay that couldn't make it into the already exemplary finished product.
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Sep 10, 2014 00:28
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CobiWann posted:
I mostly agree with CobiWann's review on this. It's a good, solid story but it's LOUD, a bit too long and yet somehow still too densely packed, and suffers from Evelyn never seeming to take anything happening too seriously, even AFTER the Doctor's excellent speech about the stakes involved. I have a real issue with the way the Time Lords are generally portrayed in Big Finish so far. This isn't a problem unique to them, they're basically taking their cue from the television show which also mostly mishandled them in their latter appearances in the show. For the first six years of the show's existence, the Time Lords didn't exist, all we knew about the Doctor's species was that they were clearly technologically advanced in comparison to "modern" humanity. Their first appearance then was utterly remarkable, as they step in like a Deus Ex Machina in The War Games, imposing a terrifying easy control over a crazy situation and coming across like Greek Gods - flawed, certainly, but so powerful and detached as to bear only the most superficial resemblance to the human race. There's a sense from the Doctor's reluctance to summon them and his fatalistic submission (broken by his human companions, of course) that he's basically just used the nuclear option, opened a door that can never be closed again and now powerless to do anything but sit back and watch what happens. That was arguably the greatest use of the Time Lords in the show, and ever since we've had diminishing returns. In The Deadly Assassin the decision was made to tear back the veil somewhat and reveal that behind the detached all-powerful appearance was a somewhat decrepit and decaying society of bureaucrats and academics. This was actually a pretty neat twist on things, but it lead to repeat appearances of the Time Lords who, with each appearance, became less mysterious and more pathetic, probably reaching its nadir when three accountant looking motherfuckers and some goddamn Sontarans actually successfully invaded Gallifrey in The Invasion of Time. These are the Time Lords of Big Finish (from what I've heard so far), incompetent navel-gazers who are incredibly short-sighted and easily outwitted by the most painfully obvious traps and ambushes. How in the world these idiots manage to basically monitor and control all of time and space is utterly beyond me - maybe that's the point, that they've been resting on their laurels for so many millions of years relying on the engineering skills of their ancestors (Rassilon in particular) that they're basically just kids playing with "the toys of the Gods". But intentional or not, it makes their status as the ultimate power in the universe (sans the God-like beings like the Eternals/Celestial Toymaker etc) laughable. Especially in a story like this where they are taking part in a conference of various time traveling races and eagerly hoping to get a look at some of the cool technology of the other races who have developed things beyond them - the Time LORDS shouldn't ever be behind the times on temporal technology, and they're supposed to guard time-travel jealously, why would they allow these other races to develop to such a high standard? Why would they let their status be tarnished by accepting these other races as comparative "equals" by attending the same conference? The politicking leaves me cold too, which is a pity since I usually love stories about various political machinations - but generally because the political machinations are sensible or Machiavellian and thus compelling. In this and other stories though, the machinations of the various elements are hopelessly incompetent or naive, particularly Vansell who appears to make a habit of having incredibly stupid kneejerk reactions (which is amusing if only for the Doctor's exasperation). Also, this is more on me than Big Finish, but I have to admit to being confused about the dual Presidents present in the story. Was the one President a replacement for Romana or simply the former President holding onto his role until Romana could be found? If it came up in the narrative I must have missed it, maybe because everything going on around it was so LOUD! From a technical standpoint, what they do with sound is admirable - it's chaotic and loud and confusing because that's what the situation itself would be. But with all the blasters and explosions and screaming Daleks and shouting guards and moaning victims it's very hard to actually get a cohesive idea of what is happening. Big Finish often had a problem in these early days of getting across a sense of crowds, and they seem to have overcompensated in this story by just making everything as loud and crazy as possible, a wall of noise that just rolls over everything else. Romana returns to Doctor Who in this story, having returned from E-Space and become the new President of Gallifrey only to be captured by Daleks and put to work as a slave for 20 years (think 1-2 years for a human, relatively speaking). Her first appearance is strong, as she bitterly complains to herself about her fate, her will may be unbroken by the Daleks but she has grown bitter and fatalistic about her lot... but the moment she is put in a position to escape she takes it and succeeds - this is no longer the bemused Romana from Tom Baker's days, enjoying the first freedom of her academically-cloistered life and picking up some of the Doctor's "bad" habits, but that steel core of her personality remains intact even if her body has become emaciated and she has survived physically mostly because her Time Lord physiology makes her stronger than she appears. That aspect of things is sadly underplayed after her initial bitter ranting, mentioned briefly by the Doctor when he comments on how light she has become when he carries her away. Otherwise the moment she escapes she is basically treated like she is as physically capable as any of the other Time Lords who HAVEN'T spent 20 years working as labor slaves for the Daleks in their mining operations. The interplay between her and Colin Baker is well-handled though, even though the two have never technically met before they fall into the same sense of camraderie they shared when he was in a different body. She recognizes him immediately when she first sees him, which makes her almost offended line of,"You're wearing the wrong body!" kind of hilarious. Sadly Romana's strengths come at Evelyn's expense. Despite having an integral role in the story (which also provides a backhanded explanation of the events of the 8th Doctor TV movie) she's mostly reduced to a background character who feels oddly detached from everything that is happening. She never seems to take anything going on seriously, cracking jokes and having quiet chuckles to herself as all around her people are brutally murdered and a galaxy is destroyed. The Doctor gives a fantastic speech (quoted in CobiWann's review) that calls her out on this while acknowledging the difficulty she is having in comprehending the scale of the issue, but even after that she continues to crack jokes and treat the whole thing as a bit of a lark. It takes away from the gravity of the story, and is disappointing given how strong a character Evelyn usually is, and how good a performance Maggie Stables usually gives. The scale of the conflict IS difficult to wrap your head around, and as a result the horror of the situation feels academic as opposed to real. The destruction of an entire galaxy (trillions and trillions of lives) fails to have any real impact, it's an idea that was handled better in the otherwise surprisingly weak Nightmare in Silver where the human Emperor wiped out an entire galaxy to prevent the Cybermen thread. The stakes are so huge as to be meaningless, when the lowest end of the "poo poo is hosed!" scale is the death of trillions, and the high end is "the entire universe is gone" then it is difficult to get a personal grasp on what is really happening. Because the story never really puts any of the individual characters we care/know about in immediate personal peril, that air of detachment basically permeates the whole thing - we're being TOLD about how bad things are, but not really feeling it (at least I wasn't, anyway). As mentioned, this is about as close as we'll ever get to seeing/hearing the Time War as it must have been before the final day when all the big guns had been fired - impossible weapons and destruction on a galactic scale that made it impossible to truly get a grasp of the scale of what was happening. The Daleks are handled extremely well though. Even those who think they understand their philosophy (survival and supremacy of the Dalek race at any cost!) can't grasp just what the hell the Daleks are up to and how far they are willing to go. Nobody can really believe they're willing to gamble on the Time Lords submitting to their will by starting an explosion that will spread to engulf the entire universe and kill everybody INCLUDING themselves, but that is exactly what they do. Convinced of their own superiority, they are willing to risk total destruction with their end goal perversely being the recreation of everything they've just destroyed.... sans the civilizations that existed there. The Daleks have discovered the ultimate 1-2 knockout combo - wipe out everything with the Apocalypse Element, use the Eye of Harmony to contain the destruction and then artificially speed up time to allow the creation of a new galaxy from the remains.... and then swoop in and occupy the "new" galaxy and thus win a war without committing a single soldier to battle. It's mad and horrifying and impossible and absolutely in keeping with the Dalek mindset - they're all or nothing types, had they failed and the universe been destroyed along with themselves, they would have died with the knowledge that THEY were responsible and that none of the other races could stop them, thus proving their "superiority". This deadly pragmatism is perhaps best realized when they agree terms with the Time Lord President, once again gambling on being able to turn the situation to their advantage, and then the very moment they learn they now hold a slight advantage they just blast the gently caress out of him because they no longer need him. Colin Baker gives his now expected quality performance as the Doctor, the glue that holds the whole loud and overly-enthusiastic story together. He intrudes on the conference, gets snarky at Vansell, takes control when things go tits up, comes up with solutions when the Time Lords are left stunned by their supposedly impregnable homeworld is invaded, slides easily into his relationship with Romana, chides Evelyn and then sadly explains the scale of what they're dealing with, and offers a supportive ear to the survivors of the other time-traveling races who suffered in the Dalek attack but stood strong in defense of a planet and people that weren't their own. The Apocalypse Element is a thoroughly listenable story that bites off a bit more than it can chew. It's a bit too loud and confused for my liking, with too much packed into the four episodes that go on just a bit too long in the first place. A bit of pruning of the script by an editor would have been called for, but it's a promising story that speaks highly of things to come - if only for the notion of more Colin Baker. And now I'm on to Minuet in Hell....
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Sep 10, 2014 01:36
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Jerusalem posted:She recognizes him immediately when she first sees him, which makes her almost offended line of,"You're wearing the wrong body!" kind of hilarious. Well about that... there's reason to believe that the Sixth Doctor's temporal relationship to Gallifrey is twisted in this story, and that based on the usually linear Doctor/Gallifrey timestream, it should have been the Eighth Doctor showing up instead.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:52
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Just finished listening to Domain of the Voord, the first of Big Finish's Early Adventures range. It was really enjoyable, and the Voord themselves got some much-needed development and backstory. Definitely worth a listen. I'm really excited to see what they do with Sara Kingdom in this range!
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Sep 10, 2014 02:12
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Cruel Rose posted:Just finished listening to Domain of the Voord, the first of Big Finish's Early Adventures range. It was really enjoyable, and the Voord themselves got some much-needed development and backstory. Definitely worth a listen. I'm really excited to see what they do with Sara Kingdom in this range! Does it have Yartek, leader of the alien Voord, in it?
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Sep 10, 2014 02:42
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Jerusalem posted:These are the Time Lords of Big Finish (from what I've heard so far), incompetent navel-gazers who are incredibly short-sighted and easily outwitted by the most painfully obvious traps and ambushes. How in the world these idiots manage to basically monitor and control all of time and space is utterly beyond me - maybe that's the point, that they've been resting on their laurels for so many millions of years relying on the engineering skills of their ancestors (Rassilon in particular) that they're basically just kids playing with "the toys of the Gods". But intentional or not, it makes their status as the ultimate power in the universe (sans the God-like beings like the Eternals/Celestial Toymaker etc) laughable. Especially in a story like this where they are taking part in a conference of various time traveling races and eagerly hoping to get a look at some of the cool technology of the other races who have developed things beyond them - the Time LORDS shouldn't ever be behind the times on temporal technology, and they're supposed to guard time-travel jealously, why would they allow these other races to develop to such a high standard? Why would they let their status be tarnished by accepting these other races as comparative "equals" by attending the same conference? You really need to listen to Gallifrey Bicyclops posted:
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Sep 10, 2014 03:59
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Man, Singularity has some major new age muzak playing throughout most of the first part.
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Sep 10, 2014 04:05
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Continuing a discussion from the Oxxipation thread: DoctorWhat posted:Well, actually, yeah - Thrilling Adventure Hour and Noted Goon Project Welcome to Night Vale are probably the closest to Big Finish-style radio drama being made in the US nowadays. Up here in the Great White North we have the occasional play, but comedy sketch is a lot more popular of a format. Same for folksy-guy-reads-stories ala Vinyl Cafe or, in the US, The Prairie Home Companion. PRX said, at one point, they were going to try to expand radio drama. I don't think anything came of it. Also IIRC, This American Life was originally pitched as a radio play program, but that got whittled down by the time it actually made it to air. They still run fiction, from time to time, but mostly it's stuff they're re-running from other shows. The UK probably has a much stronger tradition of radio because it's got a much weaker film industry and a less regular television industry. Hence Bendytoots continuing to slum it on a sitcom about lovely pilots.
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Sep 10, 2014 04:15
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Brattleborough Cucumberquest actually shows up in a Big Finish audio from 2008!
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Sep 10, 2014 04:17
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Cleretic posted:The thing I sort of like about how the Tardis Wiki works is that with its blending of everything into the same level of canon, it'll probably introduce you to some weird and obscure poo poo. It's not useful for just answering a simple question like 'what is a Rutan, and why is "Martha is a Rutan" a funny joke', but if you're just poking around it for fun you'll learn about some weird one-shot from the wilderness years, a decent idea buried in a Target book, or a funny little joke from a comic that you'd never have stumbled across otherwise. Doctor Who has one hell of an expanded universe, and the Tardis Wiki's complete lack of a hierarchy means that you're going to run headlong into some part of it. And then there's the article about sex.
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Sep 10, 2014 04:25
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The_Doctor posted:
I'm betting it involves Looms. DoctorWhat posted:Brattleborough Cucumberquest actually shows up in a Big Finish audio from 2008! Also worth a listen in that audio is his interview, where he recounts the story of the time he met David Tennant.  Rochallor posted:It was mentioned last time this video was brought up, but the "Chris" complaining about Bonnie Langford is no less than Chris Chibnail. Doctor Who: the only show where the nerdiest of fans can say "I'll show them, one day I'll take their place and do it better!" and it actually happens!
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Sep 10, 2014 05:02
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Astroman posted:Doctor Who: the only show where the nerdiest of fans can say "I'll show them, one day I'll take their place and do it better!" and it actually happens! Well, I could make a disparaging remark about the quality of Chibnail's writing here, but I really liked The Power of Three so I won't.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:20
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PriorMarcus posted:I do design and video work in case people didn't know. I actually did know that because you gave me some good pointers a long while back. Its one of the reasons I cant' hate on you too much for being grumpy with Doctor Who.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:22
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After The War posted:You really need to listen to Gallifrey Is that a good place to start with the audios? I tried Storm Warning once, and I just couldn't get into it...
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Sep 10, 2014 06:09
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