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CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!


Subject 2660 - Celia Fortunatè, designated citizen of the needle. Subject experiencing traumatic, violent delusions during waking moments. Subject remains pacified and under control of Whitenoise. Medication has been prescribed.
 
Subject 0357 - Vi Yulquen, designated Matriarch of the needle. Subject is under constant surveillance due to her wish to experience harm. This is in direct contravention of Whitenoise's programming. Also supplier of the drug classified as Slow. Editing is required.
 
Subject 0841 - Chief Blue. Technician in symbiotic relationship with this Whitenoise system. Knowledgeable in human psychological evaluation. Subject has been diagnosed a voyeur, and has a dangerous obsession with the Red Tape. Machine augmentation is favoured to curb this defect.
 
Subject [error] - Melanie Bush, designated companion of subject 3999. Subject [error] is not chipped and is a threat. Her ability to harm has not been checked, compromising the continued security programming of this Whitenoise system. She must be inhibited.
 
Subject 3999 - the Doctor. Subject has committed homicide. This subject now in constant redline. His propensity for violence remains unchecked. Analysis suggests synchronisation with the killer. The Doctor will attempt to kill again. He must be stopped.
 
Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor in Red.
 
X X X X X
 
Cast
Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor)
Bonnie Langford (Mel)
Denise Hoey (Nuane)
Sean Oliver (Chief Blue)
Peter Rae (Draun)
Kellie Ryan (Celia Fortunaté)
Sandi Toksvig(Vi Yulquen)
John Stahl (Whitenoise)
Steven Wickham (Uviol)
 
Written By: Stewart Sheargold
Directed By: Gary Russell
 
Trailer - http://redirect.state.sbu/?url=http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/popout/red-251
 
X X X X X
 
The removal of violence from human society is a common topic in science fiction.  From the abolition of natural urges through drugs and technology (Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Stephen King’s The End of the Whole Mess) to mental conditioning (Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange) to precognition (Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report) to computer control (Ira Levin’s This Perfect Day) to large metal robots duking it out in lieu of national armies (Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox), to even going so far as to removing anyone considered a criminal from society entirely (John Carpenter’s Escape from New York).
 
On the other hand, sometimes mankind embraces the concept of violence wholeheartedly.  Human history is filled with conflict, struggle, wars, destruction, all brought about solely by the decisions of those eagerly carried by those who rule and carried out by those who are ruled.  And such violence is often met, and can only be dissuaded, by equal or superior violence. 
 
Sometimes, though…we get lucky.  Jesus Christ.  William Penn.  Martin Luther King.  Mahatma Gandhi.  Jose Ferrer.  It’s people like these, who turned away and shunned violence, that gives me hope for my stepdaughter’s future.  After all, mankind’s capacity for infinite evil is exceeded only by his capacity for infinite good…
 
Red is a tale about two halves of a society; one half that has embraced all things sensual and sensational, and another who have voluntarily given up their capacity for violence, or so their memories have been edited to believe.  Red fails to fully flesh out both the world and the secondary characters, providing the barest hint of backstory for the sole purpose of a momentary scene or action.  But what makes this story truly memorable is some great acting by all involved, including an absolutely killer performance form Sylvester McCoy, as well as an amazing effort by the production staff that ranks among the best sound work Big Finish has ever produced!
 
The Needle is where the upper class lives – a living bio-structure that reconstructs and grows itself to meet their every whim.  In return, all residents of the Needle have agreed to be chipped.  red.  A small device in their heads regulates their emotions, controlling them and cutting off any fits of violence or rage that might occur before even a finger can twitch in anger, along with any necessary brain editing to remove the lingering mental residue of the potential outburst.  Red.  All monitored by the all-knowing, all-seeing computer known as Whitenoise.  Having their emotions dulled is a small price to pay to live in safety and security, Red!, as opposed to the wild and untamed city as the base of the Needle.  But in a city where one’s own memories can be rewritten at a moment’s notice, if violence and murder did occur, would anyone even noticed?  RED!

The Doctor is about to find out, RED!, as he finds himself under the “care” of Whitenoise, RED!  RED!  RED!, chipped against this will, RED!  RED!  RED! and somehow connected to a murder who is using the chipped to commit the most heinous of crimes.  For a Time Lord who abhors but commits violence when necessary, feeling the raw emotion and hatred of the murderer is nothing less than actually committing the murder itself...

RED! RED! RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

Stewart Sheargold has written for several Big Finish ranges, including Bernice Summerfield, Gallifrey, and the Companion Chronicle The Darkening Eye. Red is the first of three main range stories that Sheargold has penned. It's a solid effort by Sheargold, specifically the interesting premise of the Doctor being mentally linked with a serial killer to the extent that the Doctor sees AND feels everything that's happening as if he was the murderer himself. The suppression of a society's anger leading to that anger slowly digitizing itself inside a network of chips is unique as well, as well as the characterization and choices of the characters as the story progresses. However, Red is nothing that science fiction fans haven't seen, read, or heard before. A society separated into haves and haves not, anarchy and freedom on one side, decadence and control on the other, which members of both sides dabbling in the affairs of the other to taste forbidden pleasures. A controlled society slowly crumbling as the machine meant to watch over them tries to maintain order by any means necessary. These are standard science fiction concepts, and Sheargold does little within the script to differentiate the society of the Needle. Very little is even hinted – where did Whitenoise come from? Where did the chipping process come from, for that matter? How come passersby to the planet are captured and chipped without anyone else in the galaxy...or in the Needle...complaining? Is outside the Needle really that unsafe? Is the Needle just one building on a planet, or is it another case of one city representing the entire planet? How did Celia end up on the planet? Within Sheargold's script, information is only revealed for the purpose of that scene, even that moment within a scene, and rarely brought up again. By perhaps going for stripped down, bare bones story telling, Red veers a bit too far in that direction. It barely meets the legal muster of the famous case “Show vs. Tell.”

Red's high points lie within its actors. The cast of Red all give solid performances, with a few hitting absolute standout territory. Brother and sister Druan and Nuane, played by Peter Rae and Denise Hoey, play the “ruffians” who introduce Mel to the seedy side of the Needle, including the existence of a drug known as “Slow” that halts the perception of time's passage as well as rebuilds a subject's nervous system. They're good in their parts, as they realize Mel is capable of truly hurting them and consistently urge her to do so in order for them to feel true pain, with Druan giving just the amount of bravado to give his final fate some emotional heft. Sean Oliver, who played Stuart in the final televised story of the classic series, Survival, plays Chief Blue, the operator of Whitehouse who is thrilled that Whitenoise can track and stop Red's violence. He steadfastly refuses to be further augmented by Whitehouse, stating being chipped is good enough for him, trying to balance maintaining his humanity with suppressing his emotions. It's refresher to have an overseer-type is a story like this who isn't crazy or attempting to completely throw away his humanity. Noted writer and broadcaster (she hates the word “comedienne”) Sandi Toksvig is a delight as Vi Yulquen, chipped tenant of the needle who nonetheless craves any and all things sensational, especially the rumors of a tape laying out the last moments of Red's victims. Her accent is instantly memorable, with an underlying aura of desire as she talks about violence, threatening and begging Mel at the same time to hurt her.

This the last story to date that Bonnie Langford has done with Sylvester McCoy, and indeed the last Langford will do for seven years until 2013's The Wrong Doctors. Apparently, there was a mix up between Langford and Big Finish, where Langford thought Big Finish didn't want to work with her anymore and Big Finish thought Langford didn't want to work with them anymore! From her audio debut in The Fires of Vulcan through Thicker Than Water, Langford has been a delight as computer programmer Melanie Bush. She's overcome any stigma that may have existed from her time on television (for the record, I always liked her – there are no bad Doctor or companions, only bad writers. Proof? Paradise Towers). For her last story, Mel is once again seperated from the Doctor, in a world where everyone realizes Mel is capable of violence and requesting her to hurt them. Langford channels both Mel's disgust with the society and its people, talking about how humans aren't supposed to cut off their emotions while doing her best to control hers, with mixed results as she gives in, as lightly as she can, when Yulquen threatens her. It's a fine sendoff for Mel, although for a staunch vegetarian, the ease at which she is convinced to take Slow seems just a bit out of character for her.

Veteran John Stahl, known for his recent work as Rickard Karstark on Game of Thrones, plays the all-seeing computer Whitenoise. I was warned before listening to this audio that the melodious sounds of his voice would risk putting me to sleep, and they were right. Stahl, though the aid of voice modulation, absolutely nails the cadence of a computer given voice, speaking evenly, without emotion, without emphasis, but with pure, 100% rationality. Much like how Chief Blue doesn't throw away his humanity, as the story progresses Whitenoise doesn't turn evil and his programming doesn't decay. Everything Whitenoise does is exactly what his programmed parameters allow him to do. Sheargold's script shows what happens if a computer, devoid of human emotion, takes control, and doesn't rely on the standard cliches of conflicting orders or mechanical insanity to do so, and Stahl's even keeled, emotionless performance is perfect to convey this.

Put simply, Red is one of Sylvester McCoy's finest performances for Big Finish, hands down. Coming immediately on the heels of Unregenerate!, McCoy embraces the concept of the Doctor being forced to experience violence on the most primal level. The Doctor has always been opposed to violence unless no other option presents itself, and even then he dives in with the greatest reluctance (or regret after the fact). But what happens in the forced absence of violence, when the most basic of urges becomes verboten, when the CHOICE is forbidden? It's incredibly off-putting to hear the Doctor argue for violence, until one realizes he's arguing for the chance, for someone to chose NOT to be violent, and McCoy runs with it. But it's not just the Doctor's defense of the moral high ground that makes his performance. When the Doctor is joined with the Red, McCoy gives listeners both the Doctor's fear and a hint of the Doctor's embrace of the violence against his will. McCoy bounces back and forth between the raw emotion of impending murder and over 900 years of fighting against the very thing, and when the time comes to confront Red head-on, the Doctor dives right into the moment with the same wisdom and disdain that listeners have come to expect from the Seventh Doctor. Red, at its core, is a story that shows just how violent the Doctor COULD be if he ever decided to truly become the Valeyard or the Time Lord Victorious.

Although, let's be honest. The highlight of McCoy's performance in this story is every time he says the word “Red” and rolls the living heck out of those “R's.” Honestly, any time Sylvester McCoy speaks under the influence of Red, it's a virtual feast for one's ears. There's no describing just how amazing these moments are.

There are two nearly universal truths when it comes to Big Finish. One, Colin Baker will always give a great performance. Two, the sound design and music will always be top notch. Red is an incredible peace of work from ERS, aka Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins. The voice modulation works alone is worth the price of purchasing this story, as the voices of those under the influence of Red speed up, digitize, and merge together into a cacophony of crimson. But that's not all. The sounds of dirigibles, the videos of violence in Yulquen's apartment, the experiences of those under the effect of Slow, and the overall presentation of Whitenoise; it all adds up, all of it, to some of the best post-production work Big Finish has ever put together. ERS deserves full credit and praise for their efforts. And also, whoever game up with that CD cover deserves a pat on the back. It's absolutely stunning.

After writing this review, I've found myself convinced Red is a much better story that I thought upon initially finishing it. The setting and moments might be underdeveloped, but the work of the cast and crew more than make up for those shortcomings, and the message about having the capability to make the right choice is one that stands out after some thought or a second listen. Red is a solid effort by all involved, and definitely a story worth giving a chance.

Pros
+ Great performances, especially by Sylvester McCoy and John Stahl
+ Top notch sound work by Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins
+ An interesting take on free will – having the ability to CHOOSE not to do something.

Cons
- Underdeveloped setting



Synopsis - Red's standard plot and underdeveloped setting are more than redeemed by some fantastic acting and astonishing sound work.

Next up – Peri's friend, Katherine Chambers, mourns her father while Peri finds herself meeting some other familiar faces...

Colin Baker is the Doctor in...The Reaping.

CobiWann fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Jun 7, 2015

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DoctorWhat
Nov 18, 2011

A little privacy, please?
get ready for 4 consecutive hours of lidster-penned miseryporn, Cobi.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Underdeveloped setting is a very good way to sum up its issues, definitely.

DoctorWhat posted:

get ready for 4 consecutive hours of lidster-penned miseryporn, Cobi.

Yyyyyup.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Yeah, if you break Red down into its component parts, it's pretty drat underwhelming. But a couple of standout performances and the amazing sound design really do make it feel like a far better story than it actually was. They really do a great job of enhancing the strengths and hiding the weaknesses.

CobiWann posted:

Next up – Peri's friend, Katherine Chambers, mourns her father while Peri finds herself meeting some other familiar faces...

Colin Baker is the Doctor in...The Reaping.

I'm.....

Rochallor
Apr 23, 2010

ふっっっっっっっっっっっっck
Honestly, you should just skip both of these. I didn't notice Lidster wrote The Reaping, so I got tricked into that one. It's terrible! And not in a really interesting way! And I assume The Gathering is just as bad.

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor

Rochallor posted:

Honestly, you should just skip both of these. I didn't notice Lidster wrote The Reaping, so I got tricked into that one. It's terrible! And not in a really interesting way! And I assume The Gathering is just as bad.

Oh, not at all. The Gathering is significantly more unpleasant, what with the brain tumor and all.

Still better than Boy That Time Forgot, though.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

DoctorWhat posted:

get ready for 4 consecutive hours of lidster-penned miseryporn, Cobi.

I'm halfway through The Reaping. On one hand, poor Peri. She's just getting so dumped on by her friends and family. Yeah, she was gone for four months, but still, be happy she's back...

On the other hand? Colin's been GREAT so far, with his terror at being driven by the old lady neighbor and talking his way out of drinking poisoned coffee. The scene where Peri and the Doctor reunite in the graveyard made me laugh...but since it's Lidster, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Rochallor posted:

Honestly, you should just skip both of these. I didn't notice Lidster wrote The Reaping, so I got tricked into that one. It's terrible! And not in a really interesting way! And I assume The Gathering is just as bad.

I can't. I'm a completist. If others have suffered, than I shall suffer with them!

FreezingInferno
Jul 15, 2010

THERE.
WILL.
BE.
NO.
BATTLE.
HERE!
So I did some tallying of Classic Who and came up with some grim numbers. I'm only nine Tom Baker serials away from having seen his entire era, and thus the entirety of 70's Who. Add on the four Davison era stories I've not seen, and that completes all of Classic Who in color.

...I'm almost out of Doctor Who stories to watch, guys. :ohdear:

BSam
Nov 24, 2012

FreezingInferno posted:

...I'm almost out of Doctor Who stories to watch, guys. :ohdear:

Don't you worry, there's plenty to listen to.

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

FreezingInferno posted:

So I did some tallying of Classic Who and came up with some grim numbers. I'm only nine Tom Baker serials away from having seen his entire era, and thus the entirety of 70's Who. Add on the four Davison era stories I've not seen, and that completes all of Classic Who in color.

...I'm almost out of Doctor Who stories to watch, guys. :ohdear:

The grimness of this depends entirely on which serials it is you still have left.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

CobiWann posted:

I can't. I'm a completist. If others have suffered, than I shall suffer with them!

Yeah, I tried to pick and choose audios but in the end I found I just had to go back to listen to stuff that was either early and thus still finding it's way, or that people had warned me was awful. I figure I needed to practice what I preach, since I always tell other people to watch/listen to things themselves and make up their own mind rather than letting other people tell them what they will and won't like - especially for a show like Doctor Who where every single person argues incessantly over what is good and bad in the first place.

FreezingInferno posted:

...I'm almost out of Doctor Who stories to watch, guys. :ohdear:

Don't worry, once you've watched every single episode that still exists, you can watch the reconstructions of the ones that don't anymore! Then we'll invite you in to our planning sessions for the commando raid on Robert Mugabe's mansionlet's all wish Robert Mugabe a happy birthday committee.

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor

FreezingInferno posted:

I'm only nine Tom Baker serials away from having seen his entire era, and thus the entirety of 70's Who. Add on the four Davison era stories I've not seen, and that completes all of Classic Who in color.
Which means you have more screentime left than either the Colin or Sylvester eras. How's the black-and-white tally looking?

Also, tell me which Baker and Davison stories you have left and I'll see if my boss will let me take time off. :wiggle:

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

After The War posted:

Also, tell me which Baker and Davison stories you have left and I'll see if my boss will let me take time off. :wiggle:

Is this like a Who fan's version of 'Netflix and chill'?

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor

The_Doctor posted:

Is this like a Who fan's version of 'Netflix and chill'?

I don't know what that means, but I'm going to get drunk and gush about Robert Holmes, Christopher Bidmead, and JNT before he stopped giving a poo poo, depending on the episode. So it'll be a normal day for me, just at your house instead of mine.

Doctor Spaceman
Jul 6, 2010

"Everyone's entitled to their point of view, but that's seriously a weird one."

FreezingInferno posted:

So I did some tallying of Classic Who and came up with some grim numbers. I'm only nine Tom Baker serials away from having seen his entire era, and thus the entirety of 70's Who. Add on the four Davison era stories I've not seen, and that completes all of Classic Who in color.

...I'm almost out of Doctor Who stories to watch, guys. :ohdear:
Nine Baker serials almost guarantees one classic (or at least pretty good) story you've not seen!

FreezingInferno
Jul 15, 2010

THERE.
WILL.
BE.
NO.
BATTLE.
HERE!

After The War posted:

Which means you have more screentime left than either the Colin or Sylvester eras. How's the black-and-white tally looking?

Also, tell me which Baker and Davison stories you have left and I'll see if my boss will let me take time off. :wiggle:

My nine left for Tom are: Revenge Of The Cybermen, The Android Invasion, The Seeds Of Doom, The Masque Of Mandragora, The Hand Of Fear, The Face Of Evil (saw half of it at some point), Destiny Of The Daleks, Nightmare Of Eden and The Horns Of Nimon. For Davison all I have left are Four To Doomsday, The Visitation, Black Orchid, and Terminus.

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

FreezingInferno posted:

My nine left for Tom are: Revenge Of The Cybermen, The Android Invasion, The Seeds Of Doom, The Masque Of Mandragora, The Hand Of Fear, The Face Of Evil (saw half of it at some point), Destiny Of The Daleks, Nightmare Of Eden and The Horns Of Nimon. For Davison all I have left are Four To Doomsday, The Visitation, Black Orchid, and Terminus.

I don't think any of those are super bad... At worst a lot of them are dull. Seeds is a lot of fun!

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

CobiWann posted:

I'm halfway through The Reaping. On one hand, poor Peri. She's just getting so dumped on by her friends and family. Yeah, she was gone for four months, but still, be happy she's back...

On the other hand? Colin's been GREAT so far, with his terror at being driven by the old lady neighbor and talking his way out of drinking poisoned coffee. The scene where Peri and the Doctor reunite in the graveyard made me laugh...but since it's Lidster, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.


I can't. I'm a completist. If others have suffered, than I shall suffer with them!

Yeah, the thing that's easy to forget is how much fun Colin has even with some bad stories and how contagious it is. Much though I hate Lidster's writing (and The Reaping), I do think it addresses some important stuff between the Doctor and Peri in a positive way. It's just that almost all of the rest of the plot is pointless misery.

The Gathering is just awful from start to finish, though. It seems like he kind of figured "Well, she was angry all the time as a companion, so she also would be miserable for the rest of her life, in all aspects, including her work, her love life, and with regard to her personal well-being. Also, she's super-resentful of everything about the Doctor. Plus, let's connect it to my last story vaguely and never resolve that weird numbers thing."

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

In defense of Lidster (never thought I'd say that!) I actually ended up not disliking The Gathering as much as I thought I would - maybe because I was bracing for how bad everybody else had told me it was. It helps that I've always loved Tegan's character and in spite of the writing I felt the character and her interactions with the Doctor felt genuine, plus there did end up being a rather upbeat (if bittersweet) ending.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
Happy birthday to the one, the only, the impeccably dressed, Colin Baker!

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

CobiWann posted:

Happy birthday to the one, the only, the impeccably dressed, Colin Baker!

And not a moment too soon! :smug:

Forktoss
Feb 13, 2012

I'm OK, you're so-so


You can take the man out of 70s porn but you can never take 70s porn out of the man. Happy birthday, Colin!

Pocky In My Pocket
Jan 27, 2005

Giant robots shouldn't fight!






After The War posted:

I don't know what that means,

Its the 2015 version of "would you like to come in for coffee"

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."
Hmm, did we know the upcoming UNIT audio had Osgood in it too?

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Crafty ol' Briggsy sneaking a new Zygon Line into Big Finish without telling anybody.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
Ok, weird question…

…if a Troughton-era Cyberman ran into a face-hugger from Alien, is there enough “meat” inside for a full gestation?

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

CobiWann posted:

Ok, weird question…

…if a Troughton-era Cyberman ran into a face-hugger from Alien, is there enough “meat” inside for a full gestation?

Sure. There's nothing that really defines how much of those Cybermen are organic, nor do we really know how much the face-hugger needs to grow up into a stomach exploder, so "if the plot demands." It's maybe a stretch, but not enough to ruin a story.

Sieje
Jun 29, 2004

My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fibre and that I am therefore excused from saving universes.

CobiWann posted:

Ok, weird question…

…if a Troughton-era Cyberman ran into a face-hugger from Alien, is there enough “meat” inside for a full gestation?

The bigger question is why bother with Troughton era Cyber-Aliens when the War Doctor is available to take care of it/accis regenerate into Eccles early because if them? :D

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

CobiWann posted:

Ok, weird question…

…if a Troughton-era Cyberman ran into a face-hugger from Alien, is there enough “meat” inside for a full gestation?

It's a moot point, Jamie would have already kicked to death any facehugger that Zoe and the Doctor hadn't managed to poison via use of the under-siege research base's ventilation system :smug:

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Sieje posted:

The bigger question is why bother with Troughton era Cyber-Aliens when the War Doctor is available to take care of it/accis regenerate into Eccles early because if them? :D

Asking because they're the closest thing to hypothetical PERTWEE era Cybermen...

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

CobiWann posted:

Asking because they're the closest thing to hypothetical PERTWEE era Cybermen...

Third Doctor Cybermen can be any kind. The Fifth Doctor met some who were between Hartnell and Troughton ones. That's why time travel is so cool.

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."


There you go, Invasion heads, Tomb bodies.

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

Bicyclops posted:

Third Doctor Cybermen can be any kind. The Fifth Doctor met some who were between Hartnell and Troughton ones. That's why time travel is so cool.

Hell the Fifth Doctor met them before they were Hartnell's.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?



Blood of the Daleks marks the start of The Eighth Doctor Adventures, an audio series from Big Finish Productions that serves as a kind of hybrid between the classic series of Doctor Who and the modern day revival. Designed to be a more familiar/palatable format for people only familiar with the revival, each story is designed to be a single part that wraps up the adventure all in one go. Of course, being the first story in the range, this stpry immediately breaks that "rule" by being a 2-parter, perhaps because trying to fit in the world of this story AND the basic framework of the overarching season plot of Lucie Miller's story (another nod to the revival) was too much to ask. Luckily, Blood doesn't outlive it's welcome, though it is troubling to see Big Finish fall back on some of the pitfalls of the audio-only format in this story considering how long they'd been producing audios by this point. Though this is completely a Big Finish production, the series was commissioned by BBC7 (a radio station) following the welcome reception that some of McGann's earlier audios had when they aired on it - thus granting Big Finish's audios a further "legitimacy" beyond the license granted to them by the BBC during the wilderness years when Who wasn't on television, which would be furthered in 2013 when Paul McGann would appear visually (not in archive footage) for only the second time playing the Doctor.

The 8th Doctor, presumably at some point after his confused departure from Charley Pollard, is trying to fly his TARDIS through the Time Vortex when it suddenly shakes violently and he discovers an equally confused 19 year old "Northern" girl standing in the console room. Her name is Lucie Miller, and she had been on her way to work when she suddenly(kinda) found herself on the TARDIS. By a remarkable coincidence, this story was put on the air shortly after The Runaway Bride which shares a roughly similar opening with Donna Noble (though she appeared in this way as the cliffhanger ending of season 2. The Doctor is perturbed, of course, but rather surprised and put on the back foot when Lucie angrily refuses to answer his questions and demands he see things from her side of things, how does she know he hasn't kidnapped/abducted her? Finding her utterly infuriating to deal with, he decides to hell with the mystery and just tries to plunk her back in her own time and (roughly) place, only for the TARDIS to go haywire, apparently unable to breach a forcefield preventing it from landing in 2008 - instead they're blasted into the future to the unfortunately named Earth Colony of Red Rocket Rising (the founders loved dogs?).

Lucie Miller shares a lot in common with Donna Noble, but also with the likes of Tegan Jovanka - she's a mouthy, confrontational sort who is also perhaps the Doctor's first "Northern" companion (do you count Jamie as being from "Up North"?) and she almost never shuts up. That means Big Finish needs to walk a fine line, a character like that can come across positively as strong-willed, funny and a pleasure to listen to... or they can come across negatively as aggravating and tiresome. Luckily the writing has obviously taken account of this, and Sheridan Smith seems to do a pretty good job of smoothing the rough edges and indicating that Lucie has some depth to her. There are a lot of surface issues where she seems to be a completely self-absorbed "yoof" willing to throw other people under the bus to save her own skin, but as the story goes on we get to see that she does think about others, and that there are lines she absolutely will not cross even if it means the cost of her own life.... but also that she isn't at all the type of person to just jump straight to a "noble sacrifice", which is a very good thing for a show like Doctor Who that so often makes the point that if there isn't another way... you make one!

The Doctor/Lucie chemistry is in stark contrast to the almost immediate rapport that the Doctor/Charley had, they initially talk all over each other, get frustrated with each other, squabble incessantly, call each other out on various "gotcha!" moments and even try to abandon each other at the end of the story when the immediate danger is done with. In a situation like this, the question would usually be WHY these two characters would take the time to get to know each other better and get over these issues, and the answer to that is provided by the Doctor's rather furious discovery that Lucie was placed with him by the Time Lords.... and they will NOT let him drop her off back home or abandon her to make her own way through the galaxy. This is intended to be the overarching storyline for this "season", the search for an answer for why Lucie was dumped on the Doctor by the Time Lords, why they messed with her memory in the process, who the other Organization that wants her is, and whether they can remain ahead of "The Headhunter" who they don't know is pursuing them through time and space to retrieve Lucie. A common thing in the revival TV series has been a loose or specifically plotted storyline for each of the Doctor's companions, and Lucie gets the same here. Some people may be fatigued by the notion, but at least here the basics of the story are at least made known to both Doctor and Companion from the very first episode. There is no (deliberate) hiding of important information from one character to another, they're both in the same boat of wanting to get Lucie home, not knowing why the Time Lords put them together, and that allows them to form a cohesive unit instead of there forever being distrust or other barriers between them. In other words, it opens right up from the start with,"This poo poo is gonna play out over the season" and then moves on with the actual adventures part of the proceedings without solitary brooding or pregnant pauses as the Doctor or his companion agonizes over hiding something from the other.

The actual story itself isn't really anything you wouldn't expect to see from a standard Doctor Who story, whether Classic series or Revival, so in that case it succeeds in what it sets out to do, I guess. Red Rocket Rising was struck by an asteroid at some point in the recent past, wiping out all life across most of the planet apart from a few "lucky" areas where the inhabitants barely managed to survive. This immediately gets around the too-often seen problem where an entire planet is represented by a single city - here it makes sense, they were as far as it was possible to be from the impact of the asteroid so they survived, and everybody else died. Those who could escape the planet did so, leaving behind the poor or otherwise disposable citizens, including criminals AND a single Senator who refused her own seat on the Exodus Ships because she felt somebody from Government needed to be remain behind. That character is Eileen Klint, written as a highly moral but utterly ineffectual politician, almost to the point that she feels like a caricature - maybe it's unfair of me or showing my own bias, but I felt like she was written as a mockery of "well-meaning" types who forever talk instead of taking "action", at one point while under pressure from the Daleks to hand over the Doctor (who they identify as a terrorist responsible for hundreds of thousands of Dalek deaths), her refusal sees her imprisoned, and she yells as she is taken away that she will "impose sanctions" on them. Klint spends the entire story trying to do the right thing, running face-first into "reality" and refusing to change her ideals (which is pretty drat great if you ask me) - she helps a convicted criminal escape rather than hand her over to a lynch mob, repeatedly makes pleas to the citizenry to trust in a Government that has abandoned them, eagerly takes the Daleks' claims at face value, and for some extra added ironic comedy at the end of the story, delivers an uplifting message of hope to the surviving citizens before revealing the joyous news of a new batch of saviors coming to get them. The line is cut off just before you can hear where the saviors come from, but it's very highly telegraphed that Klint and the others are going to survive.... because THEY MUZZZZZT.

The criminal who is released by Klint is named Asha, played by Hayley Atwell who is probably best known for playing Peggy Carter in the first Captain America film, as well as the (vastly superior) spin-off to Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter. Atwell gets the meaty role, essentially playing a human and female version of Davros pre-accident. It would actually be kind of neat if they'd had a female in this antagonist role, especially as the only other great female "genius" villain of Doctor Who is The Rani - most notable for her creation of a rubber dinosaur and a lecherous loving tree - but a rather pointless reveal is made that Asha is actually just the unfortunate body carrying around the transplanted mind of Professor Martez, a MALE genius scientist who transplanted his mind into his pretty but vacuous assistant when it became clear the authorities were closing in on his illegal human experimentation. As Asha's body breaks down through the second half of the story, Martez even claims that her brain simply wasn't physically capable of containing his mind, though thankfully the Doctor responds to this by pointing out the culprit is probably more the fact that a mind transplant is a really stupid loving idea in the first place. It would have been nice if Martez had only ever been the "face" of the experiments, a patsy that could take the fall for Asha who was the real brains of the operation - there is something a little disconcerting about the way the whole thing is handled, especially since Atwell doesn't really shift her performance at all post-reveal. With the only other significant female supporting character a well-meaning but gullible and ineffectual politician, the portrayal of females in this story isn't particularly good.

The title gives a good indication of what the story is about. During one of the many endless wars the Daleks fight, one of their ships crashed on Red Rocket Rising. Martez was one of the scientists who got to investigate the crash, and his discovery of the Dalek corpses lead him down the path to concluding that the only possible future for human beings was following a similar track of forced evolution - he makes his own Daleks by reverse-engineering the Daleks' genetic and technological advancements, following in the footsteps (wheeltracks?) of Davros unknowingly. Naively sending a message out into space asking the Daleks to come help the residents "evolve", this causes the Daleks to lose their loving minds with rage (of course), and they redirect the asteroid straight into the planet hoping to wipe out these abominations. When this fails to get the job done, the Daleks - their ship damaged and low on troops due to the war they're fighting - blast every Exodus Ship into bits as they try to leave the planet, then send out a message to the survivors on the ground explaining they're a benevolent race who have come to save them. All this is done is order to track down Martez and locate the quasi-Daleks and destroy them. When the two finally do meet (Asha having finished the process she started before being arrested), the quasi-Daleks are alarmed and confused by the Daleks utter disgust towards them, and cannot understand why they come under attack. Asha, her own mind slipping as her body breaks down, doubles-down on the crazy and assures her Daleks that they are obviously superior and THAT is why the Daleks fear them, again unknowingly making the same mistakes as Davros. Now Red Rocket Rising is the source of two forces of genocidal pepper-pots convinced of their own utter superiority (and thus everybody else's inferiority), which kicks off a big war that eventually involves the surviving humans too, as Lucie, the Doctor, Klint and a raving lunatic called Tom Cardwell rally them to fight for their own survival (again suggesting that Klint's well-meaning attempts at peace were wrong). In the end, both groups of Daleks are wiped out, though not before Asha/Martez has suffered the same fate as Davros without the benefit of his life-support system (and being hugely popular beyond all expectations) to bring him back at a later date - another brutal war over the ludicrous notion of genetic purity.

Blood of the Daleks is a solid enough story from Big Finish, notable mostly for being a (successful) attempt to hybridize classic and revival Who. It introduces a new regular companion and brings on the notion of "seasons" to Doctor Who audios, and does so through the old tried and tested method of throwing Daleks in to get people's attention. There are some troubling (to me at least) issues around gender and political philosophy, though the latter may be down to the show attempting to continue to nudge the 8th Doctor along towards the (never-to-be-told) story of the Time War and his eventual regeneration into Christopher Eccleston - McGann reacts extremely strongly to seeing the recreation of the events that lead to the creation of the Daleks, and makes a number of comments suggesting that if he had his chance again, he WOULD have touched the wires together like Tom Baker didn't in Genesis of the Daleks (though he did change his mind in that story too, just mostly too late!). Perhaps the most troubling issue is that during the first half of the story, there is an unwelcome return of the "tell, don't show" mishandling of the audio format seen mostly in their earlier stories. Characters stand around loudly shouting out the things they are seeing happen before them in a very unnatural way, all because the writers couldn't figure out a way to make it come across to the listener through a mixture of sound effects and (well-written) dialogue. But for all these issues, it's a solid story with plenty of what there is to love about McGann's audios, some great Doctor/Companion squabbling, and lots and lots and lots of Nick Briggs bellowing away as various Daleks, and if those three things were all I ever got in a Doctor Who audio, I'd probably be happy. Bored.... but happy!

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!
Ctrl-F
Power
Only result is "powered by vbulletin" at the bottom
A bad review :reject:

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

MrL_JaKiri posted:

Ctrl-F
Power
Only result is "powered by vbulletin" at the bottom
A bad review :reject:

Get me the original tapes and I'll review it.

Meet me halfway here, MrL_JaKiri :mad:

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

Jerusalem posted:

Get me the original tapes and I'll review it.

Meet me halfway here, MrL_JaKiri :mad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zQxM1nGC08

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Some of that looks Photoshopped.

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

CobiWann posted:

Some of that looks Photoshopped.

How can you tell?

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CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

The_Doctor posted:

How can you tell?

A distinct lack of superior Dalek pixel technology.

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