Tim Burns Effect fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Feb 4, 2016

Bicyclops fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Feb 5, 2016

Cleretic fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Feb 5, 2016

• The setting. So much of Doctor Who is set either on some fantastic alien world (a quarry) or modern day London (Cardiff on TV, Berkshire for Audio), and most historicals end up being set in England as well. So it's fun to see the Doctor land not only in the past, but in a completely different country. Sure it's Europe, but the Black Forest of Germany is a neat setting ripe with potential for good, dark stories and it's nice to have something a little different. The setting is used to set the mood well - the fearful and superstitious villagers, the mysterious nobles, the incompetent and malicious officials getting a little too big for their britches etc. This is a horror/detective story, and 19th Century rural Germany is a pretty good location for that type of thing.
  
  
• The backstory. Forgetting the actual plot itself, there's a neat backstory used as background that in many ways tells a more compelling story than what we get served up as the main. Brutal deaths once plagued the countryside, with the Baron vowing to do his duty to track down and kill the monstrous "Beast of Orlok" attacking the people under HIS protection. One night twenty years ago, the Baron claims to have encountered the Beast and killed it, suffering severe injuries himself in the process. Leaving his own estates to live a reclusive life, the Baron is hauled back in the "present" day by a suspicious plenipotentiary who finds the whole thing just a bit too convenient.... until the Beast makes a sudden reappearance and kills all but the Baron, sparing his life for reasons unknown. All this happens in roughly the first few minutes of the audio and is set-up for a pretty drat interesting concept. Sadly the execution isn't quite there, with the story moving on a pretty different tangent. But even then, there are the odd reference to events from 20 years ago, all which (perhaps unfortunately) overshadow the main plot and feel like they're be more interesting to have pursued.
  
  
• The Doctor/Lucie chemistry. After a couple of stories awkwardly finding their groove again (character wise, the actors get along famously I'm sure), by this point the Doctor and Lucie seem to have settled back into the groove of the strong Doctor/Companion dynamic established through seasons 1 & 2 of The 8th Doctor Adventures. Whether it's their good-natured argument about Lucie wanting to learn to drive the TARDIS (which gets a call-back by the end of the story), her heroics and the Doctor's appreciation of them, or just the general air of ease they seem to have around each other, the bond feels firmly back in place. This makes even the most basic scenes featuring the two work, because it feels like listening to two genuine friends shooting the poo poo regardless of what insanity is actually going on around them. In season 1, Lucie came across as a bit forced in how quickly she supposedly became chummy with the Doctor. After more than two seasons together though the camaraderie feels natural, and having gone through two episodes of perhaps forced distance between the two, the return to the status quo is a breath of fresh air.
  

• The editing. This is the big one for me, in general everything flows smoothly except for one section in the first part that is so terribly put together that I actually ended up stopping the player and going back to make sure I hadn't accidentally set things to shuffle. I hadn't, so I made sure there wasn't a file missing. There wasn't, so I actually went and checked the original download to see if maybe I'd extracted a corrupt file and was missing part of the story. I wasn't. What happens in the story technically makes sense because you can piece together what has happened off-screen, but it's done in such a clumsy and strange way that it feels completely unnatural. The Doctor and Lucie have convinced a bumbling official that they are not only officials too but outrank him, and make plans to investigate the attack on the Baron. The Doctor sends Lucie and a helpful student named Hans to retrieve the TARDIS. Suddenly there is a cut to another scene with a mysterious figure and his "wolf" finding what is obviously (but never stated to be) the TARDIS. Suddenly we cut to another scene where the bumbling official has brought a piece of evidence to an inn to leave with the Doctor. The innkeeper, Hans' mother, shares some brusque words with him, then after sending him off declares to her daughter that the Doctor's "cabinet" has clearly gone missing. The only thing is.... she hasn't met the Doctor, she hasn't met Lucie yet either, and Hans hasn't been to visit because they were going to the TARDIS first before going to visit her! Except Hans and Lucie ARE there, not at all surprised to hear the TARDIS is missing, and then Hans' mother insists he stick around while she goes to meet the Doctor. And when they do meet, the two haven't actually met before! The obvious intent based on dialogue and scene-order is that we're meant to figure out that Lucie and Hans went into the forest but found the TARDIS missing, then went to the inn where Hans introduced Lucie to his mother and sister and explained a little of what was going on with the Doctor's investigation. But none of this stuff happens in the audio, it has to be pieced together by its absence, confusing everything. Unless somehow I did get a corrupted download, I can only assume either they didn't have the time to record these scenes or that it all made sense to them in the script. Maybe it even makes sense to other listeners, but to me it was a very confusing section of the audio that threw off the flow of everything else.
  
  
• Sci-fi over historical. In the "What's Good" section I mentioned how much I enjoyed the backstory. Unfortunately that takes a backseat, as the historical (if suggested supernatural) nature of the story quickly becomes a sci-fi piece. This problem has plagued the TV series too, it seems no such thing as a straight historical can exist any more, there always has to be some sci-fi element or alien monster (arguably The Crimson Horror technically doesn't do this, but even then it is the exception). The interesting setting of the Black Forest in Germany, the mysterious Beast, the injured Baron simultaneously suspected of being behind the Beast as well as being its vanquisher etc.... all that stuff gets mostly ignored for a rather unremarkable sci-fi piece about bio-engineered super-soldiers, some war-like race of aliens I don't think have ever been mentioned before or since, and inter-galactic law/criminals. Don't get me wrong, a story like that can (and has been) exciting to listen to, but for me this time it felt like it was getting in the way of a more interesting idea. There's a section where the Doctor finds himself in a secret part of the Baron's estates, where the very Sci-Fi antagonist casually offers an explanation for what is to be found there. That reference is more compelling/interesting to me than the main plot, but it is quickly glossed over till a little later when Hans' mother fills in a little more of the backstory... again a more interesting story that is there only as background detail for the less exciting main story.
  
  
• The rushed ending. With the antagonist defeated, new allies made, and the Doctor and Lucie's bond restored it looks like everything is on its way to being wrapped up. Then suddenly a hanging plot-thread rears its ugly head again and in remarkable short order wipes out a couple of key characters, leading to a very rushed conclusion that does - to its credit - at least callback to the Doctor and Lucie's earlier conversation about the danger of her not knowing how to pilot the TARDIS. But even with that concluded, it leaves everything rather messy because now there isn't much that the characters left behind can do with the new information they've been given. Everything gets played with a light air, including Lucie accidentally creating a Black Forest Gateau about a century too early, but the ramifications of what has been revealed/what has happened would be pretty spectacular - but none of that gets bothered with, everything just seems to be kind of swept under the rug as the Doctor and Lucie leave... albeit in a way that is fun for the listener to hear them enjoying each other's company so comfortably again.