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Tie-breaker for serial you'd most like to find an episode from This poll is closed. |
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| The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve |
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33 | 44.59% |
| The Highlanders |
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41 | 55.41% |
| Total: | 74 votes | ||
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 Synopsis: Daleks are the superior beings! Daleks are the superior beings! Daleks ar.... OH gently caress A WASP!  What I thought: A big misstep of a story that doesn't make much sense and introduces a lot of concepts/ideas that don't really go anywhere, feel forced or disconnected from the overall story. The 7th Doctor brings Ace and Hex to the planet of Bliss and promptly attempts to convince them to stay in the TARDIS to avoid seeing the horrors he knows are waiting.... so why did he bring them there in the first place? The planet is home to a military-funded laboratory undergoing a quiet quarantine, the head scientist is the only human left alive after producing a new hybrid creature he hopes to use to combat the Daleks. Matters are complicated by the arrival of a fleeing warship that barely escaped a Dalek attack, which commandeers the base against the scientist's protests in order to treat their wounded. The Doctor and his companions prove a concern for both sides, who are they? How did they get there? Are they Dalek replicants? The Daleks have also just arrived on Bliss, but who made it possible for them to find the place? The attempts at world-building are admirable but not only fall flat, they actively distract from the story because they raise more questions that ultimately have nothing to do with the actual main plot. The chief culprit here is the Valkyrie Unit, an all-female crew fighting against the Daleks. That's an interesting idea.... but why is an all-female fighting unit a necessity or of distinction in this future setting? Is it purely a historical thing, a military tradition dating back to a time (sadly still current) when such a thing would be eye-opening, but now commonplace? Is there some kind of societal gender imbalance in the future that necessitated an all female crew? Is it just because Big Finish were short of male VAs that day? We'll never know because apart from the obvious pride with which,"We're an all-female crew" is said, it never comes up again or has any relevance to the actual plot. Then on the other side there is Professor Shimura, who is meant to evoke a human equivalent of Davros (beyond Davros' own obvious parallels to Mengele) but who comes across as... well, an idiot. He mutates a parasitic wasp so that they will eat metal rather than flesh... then is surprised when his creations start eating the metal in his laboratory! What's worse, he never once considers what the Doctor spots immediately - the "Kiseibya" are the adult form of the species but they still lay eggs that hatch into the parasitic wasp that eats flesh, meaning he hasn't just created a creature that eats Daleks(' casing) but humans as well! Hardly the savior of humanity he envisoned, but how could he have NOT seen it? The Daleks are incompetent by necessity because the story should have been over within roughly 5 minutes of their arrival. Once they realized they were under attack from a race largely immune to their blasters that eat dalekanium, why on Earth didn't they contact their ships hovering up in space and just light up the entire planet? The old "nuke 'em from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" thing, which is something the Daleks would have no issue with. For the first half of the story or so I actually thought the writer had forgotten that the Daleks aren't robots (to be fair, Terry Nation seems to have forgotten at one point too!) until they actually bring up the fact that the fleshy Dalek inside the casing is now the host for the Kiseibya. That last part is the most effective, as the captive Dalek revolts at the thought of being used in such a fashion and, in true Dalek fashion, looks for a solution that kills not only itself but everything else on the planet. The Doctor spends much of the story ominously declaring this is a historic moment when an abominable act occurred. The suggestion at first is that it's the Dalek attack on the wounded (hardly unique), then the creation of the Kiseibya, and then finally the reveal that the Doctor choice to wipe out the Kiseibya rather than risk their spread across the Universe. There are the requisite allusions to Genesis of the Daleks, the failed attempts to convince the Kseibya to restrict themselves to Bliss alone and be left in peace etc. The big moment is supposed to be when the Doctor triggers the Dalek bomb to kill them all, but that gets undercut by the all too convenient decision by one of the supporting characters to do it in his stead. That character (and all the members of her crew) feel utterly wasted, their little side-plots fail to connect and the so-called catharsis for one of the central characters basically boils down to this. Meanwhile Ace is very much in her dreadful New Adventures mode, and Hex - while good - mostly feels like he's setting up for the (much better) story to follow, and both largely feel overlooked.  Synopsis: Hex gets his hands dirty (and tries to clean them), the Doctor gets the death penalty, and Ace brushes up on her Tolstoy What I thought: Now this is more like it. After the letdown that was the previous story, things start strong here and continue that way in a very good story that plays around with the time travel concept, gives all three of the main cast story and interesting storylines to follow, and does some neat fake-outs that retain their drama even if we all know the Doctor isn't really going to die. Hex is sick of death and destruction, he was helpless to help anyone on Bliss and the Doctor has a therapeutic solution in mind. He brings Hex to Scutari during the Crimean war, a time of horror and death true but also a landmark in the life of Florence Nightingale, who was an inspiration for Hex's decision to become a nurse. Unfortunately for the Doctor and Ace, while Hex is grumpily arguing with wounded soldiers about cleaning instruments and mopping the floors, they're being accused of treason and spying by deranged paranoids. The Doctor is taken prisoner, the TARDIS is washed out to sea, and Ace gets put in the charge of a young Russian soldier called Tolstoy. The only real downside to the story is that despite being the supposed inspiration for Hex (and an amazing character in her own right), Florence Nightingale has almost no actual impact on the story whatsoever and is largely absent or, when present, passive. There's a nice section where she first meets Hex and just grumpily snaps at everybody arguing and squabbling to put their egos in check and actually help treat those in need. Other than that though she's just kinda there and largely irrelevant to the (very good) story. While Ace violently escapes her captivity, the Doctor cleverly maneuvers himself into freedom, and Hex makes himself a valued and integral part of the barracks, all three face the aggressive accusations of paranoid soldiers (and journalists) who confront them with accusations that can NOT be defended - a witch hunt designed to assuage the accusers feelings of inadequacy and lack of control. The backdrop of the Crimean War is so important here, because even more so than usual this was a pointless and unnecessary war that causes the deaths of thousands. Those involved had to reconcile their patriotism and belief in the rightness of their cause with the obvious incompetence and senselessness of the situation, and so they looked to take control/find a scapegoat wherever and however they could. The Doctor is in fine form, Sylvester McCoy playing the "chessmaster" Doctor without feeling contrived - people don't have to be idiots for him to be smart, he just knows more than they do and is aware of what needs to happen in order to set up the exact situation to solve all his problems. Arrested, accused of treason and being a double-agent, sentenced to death.... the Doctor takes it all smoothly in stride and waits patiently, making sure that the right people get the right information at the right time till everything is exactly in place.... and THEN he can escape and not a moment beforehand. What really makes it work though is that even taking all this into account, the Doctor is still on the run and comes close to death because he can't control ALL the variables. Meanwhile Ace develops a fun, flirty relationship with Leo Tolstoy that doesn't ignore the man is very much a product of his times despite his intelligence and open-mindedness. The two have good chemistry and Tolstoy's rather blase admission that he bet "his" peasants in a game of cards comes as a shock to Ace who had clearly forgotten that as a "good guy" he didn't automatically have the same modern-day (well, late 1980s) mindset that she does. The way their two stories (and later Hex's) come together is handled extremely well, the pacing is on-point and everything reaches a climax at just the right moment as the tension and drama ratchets up to the "traitor" finally revealing themselves. True there is a bit of nonsense that kinda comes out of nowhere to explain how the Doctor finds Ace and how the fakeout with the destroyed TARDIS happened, but that feels like a stretch as something to complain about. This is a really good listen. Final Thoughts: This run of McCoy stories starting with Magic Mousetrap has been a mixed bag, but it ends strongly. While Ace largely remains a fixed character who doesn't really develop much (and backslides in Enemy of the Daleks) she is well established enough that she can be used for supporting characters to bounce off. McCoy always delivers a great performance but the writing doesn't always serve him well (though it really does in Angel of Scutari) while Hex's character makes slow progress towards figuring out exactly who and what he is and how he fits into the trio. Sometimes he can feel a bit of a blank slate (never as bad as C'Rizz of course) but when he gets a chance to step up Philip Olivier acquits himself well. In addition, there has been a brief "Short Trips/Companions Chronicles" style at the end of each of the three stories, narrated (mostly) by Anneke Wills as Polly, telling a story to Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier of the time she, the 2nd Doctor, Ben and Jamie landed on an abandoned planet scheduled to be scrapped. It's a neat little recurring bit, though I'm not entirely sure if it is meant to be an exchange of letters, phone-calls or tape recordings between the two. More ominously though it also includes the unwelcome return of Thomas Brewster, the ill-executed "Adric but done right" Big Finish companion introduced into the 5th Doctor stories briefly, and I'm concerned it signals a return of the character. Don't let him dissuade you from listening to the pieces though, Wills does a good job and I can absolutely picture a story like the one they're telling happening during the Second Doctor's run.
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Feb 27, 2017 04:00
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Doubleposting because I didn't want the below lost as the last post on the previous page:cargohills posted:Started listening to the final War Doctor set and from listening to the first story it looks like yet another mediocre release. I had high hopes after hearing the second box set, especially because it had two great stories that were more than just bog standard Dalek plots ('Legion of the Lost' and 'The Neverwhen'), but the first and third box sets were as dull as dishwater. Feels like a shame to have wasted the talents of John Hurt and the character of the War Doctor on some continuity wank. I've listened to the first story so far and I think it suffers from the same problem the 3rd Boxset did - it's telling a perfectly reasonable story that basically any Doctor could fit into, and that's completely wrong because the War Doctor and the poo poo he's been through is supposed to stand apart from what any of the other Doctors were willing or capable of doing. I'm still roughly 100 audios behind the current day Big Finish so I don't know if things have fallen apart recently, but I have noticed they seem to go through peaks and valleys where they go from highly experimental (which can produce gold or utter poo poo) to incredibly bland (which are usually entirely listenable but unremarkable). I have been a fan of some of their modern release "specials" like River Song, UNIT, New Monsters etc but I still haven't listened to Dark Eyes or Doom Coalition. I'm hoping they're just going through a downswing and step things up appropriately again soon.
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Feb 27, 2017 04:06
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cargohills posted:
Better than those who claim that every single episode of the classic series is far superior to ANYTHING the new series has ever done. And how dare they make the Master a woman! And introduce a lost incarnation of the Doctor!
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Feb 27, 2017 09:58
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cargohills posted:e: On a similar note what's up with the weirdos on those awful Doctor Who forums who claim to only listen to Big Finish instead of watching the new series? I understand being critical about Steven Moffat as a showrunner but at least there's less obsessive continuity porn on TV. IMO Capaldi-era Who is arguably worse with continuity, because at least it's reasonable for BF to assume their audience will have prior knowledge of all the stuff being referenced. I'm thinking particularly of that time they had a big painting of the Brigadier without explaining who he was, or thinking twists like "this time the Ice Warrior has no armour" are going to be interesting to people who don't know or care what an Ice Warrior is.
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Feb 27, 2017 11:21
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Davros1 posted:Better than those who claim that every single episode of the classic series is far superior to ANYTHING the new series has ever done. And how dare they make the Master a woman! And introduce a lost incarnation of the Doctor! Yeah, they're pretty awful too. I imagine they have a twisted version of the classic series in their heads where Douglas Camfield directed and Robert Holmes wrote every story. I once had a look at the Planet Mondas forums and there's some awful people on there. vegetables posted:IMO Capaldi-era Who is arguably worse with continuity, because at least it's reasonable for BF to assume their audience will have prior knowledge of all the stuff being referenced. I'm thinking particularly of that time they had a big painting of the Brigadier without explaining who he was, or thinking twists like "this time the Ice Warrior has no armour" are going to be interesting to people who don't know or care what an Ice Warrior is. Eh, I'm not sure I can agree. On those two examples, I feel like Kate mentioned the Brigadier enough and that he's a popular enough character that people have a sense of who he is, especially if they grew up with the old show or have ever went back and watched a 3rd Doctor story or The Five Doctors or something. With the Ice Warriors I feel like seeing one out of its armour makes enough sense for someone who hasn't seen one before too, in that it allows them to do 'Alien on a submarine' which must have at least some wide appeal. My main issue with Big Finish continuity is that the stuff they reference most tends to be incredibly obscure: the CIA gets mentioned in The Deadly Assassin so now it shows up on every visit to Gallifrey; Rassilon appears in The Five Doctors so lets make him a super important character; etc. Phil Sandifer explains it pretty well in his review of Neverland: "Gallifrey is facing the greatest crisis in its history, all of time is unraveling, and oh look, we’ve got some fresh new revelations about Rassilon. Fantastic. I mean, Doctor Who was really hurting for all of these things."
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Feb 27, 2017 13:04
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cargohills posted:Eh, I'm not sure I can agree. On those two examples, I feel like Kate mentioned the Brigadier enough and that he's a popular enough character that people have a sense of who he is, especially if they grew up with the old show or have ever went back and watched a 3rd Doctor story or The Five Doctors or something the five doctors especially is unmitigated shite. no one is watching that.
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Feb 27, 2017 14:18
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please dont speak ill of the five doctors Anyway it was about 5 minutes of the episode so it wouldn't exactly disrupt an otherwise good episode, whereas Neverland and Zagreus are like 8 hours of continuity garbage.
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Feb 27, 2017 14:53
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Cerv posted:the target audience for the show (kids today) didn't and won't Come on now, you can't be impugning the raston warrior robot.
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Feb 27, 2017 15:58
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Jerusalem posted:
I listened to Magic Mousetrap and this back to back and I was going to say I got whiplash from the quality change but then I remembered that Mousetrap dips sharply in quality as it goes along so they end up on an even keel.
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Feb 27, 2017 16:00
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Found this video about the Terminator time travel nonsense and it made me think, is this basically what the Time War did on a much larger scale? No wonder the Universe hates Time Lords. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXJiSZhA5cg
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Feb 27, 2017 16:45
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cargohills posted:e: On a similar note what's up with the weirdos on those awful Doctor Who forums who claim to only listen to Big Finish instead of watching the new series? I understand being critical about Steven Moffat as a showrunner but at least there's less obsessive continuity porn on TV. Sure, that's hardly new. Did anyone ever see that video Paul "OtaKing" Johnson (who created that anime Third Doctor video that made the rounds a few years back) did a number of years ago, "Doctor Who: Old vs New" which had a right old whinge about how Russell T Davies had ruined Doctor Who by taking death and violence out of it and replacing them with "love" and "drama" and "emotion"? I remember it.
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Feb 27, 2017 16:59
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I wish that doctor who was still regularly 50 minutes too long and had incompetent directors and writers and had a shoestring budget and terrible casting and Eric Saward was involved.
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Feb 27, 2017 17:25
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Fil5000 posted:Come on now, you can't be impugning the raston warrior robot.
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Feb 27, 2017 17:42
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cargohills posted:I wish that doctor who was still regularly 50 minutes too long and had incompetent directors and writers and had a shoestring budget and terrible casting and Eric Saward was involved. I mean let's be honest, most of that still applies to Modern Who.
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Feb 27, 2017 17:46
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The Five Doctors is worth watching for 3's outfit alone. Everything else is gravy on top of that greatcoat.
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Feb 27, 2017 18:10
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The Five Doctors has that hidden commentary track where they all get increasingly drunk as it goes on.
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Feb 27, 2017 18:56
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Just met Sharon Duncan-Brewster, who was in the Waters of Mars episode. My friend Starla sings old Sinatra songs and the like on the Venice, Ca boardwalk and Sharon happened to be wandering by and sang a song or 2 with Starla last week. Very nice woman. I think she was here in Los Angeles looking for a part or 2. 
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Feb 27, 2017 19:16
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Whoa whoa, slow down their maestro. There's old Doctor Who?
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Feb 27, 2017 21:17
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CobiWann posted:Whoa whoa, slow down their maestro. There's old Doctor Who? Yeah, used to be some guy called 'Ecclestone" or something, years ago. It was rubbish.
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Feb 27, 2017 21:24
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Burkion posted:I mean let's be honest, most of that still applies to Modern Who. The 50 minutes too long bit certainly does cargohills posted:Rassilon appears in The Five Doctors so lets make him a super important character He's mentioned in at least The Deadly Assassin, The Invasion of Time and State of Decay first.
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Feb 27, 2017 21:53
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Being mentioned in The Invasion of Time seems like a good reason not to focus on a character tbh.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:00
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It's more that the writers in the 90's (and onwards) got the obsession with Rassilon from the series, who basically used him as shorthand for "old godlike being from the dawn of time" whenever they wanted to have anything pseudo-mystical involving the Time Lords.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:08
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When did writers decide that Rassilon was explicitly a bad guy? I think he's more ambiguous in "The Five Doctors" than straight-up villainous. Earliest that I'm aware of is when Don Warrington played him for Big Finish but I'm not familiar enough with any of the New Adventures or BBC Books lines to comment there.
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Feb 27, 2017 22:15
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The End of Time
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Feb 27, 2017 22:16
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MrL_JaKiri posted:The End of Time Rassilon being a genocidal monster factored heavily into Neverland and Zagreus, and those stories predate the revival series. Was Rassilon being a bad guy a 90s thing?
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Feb 27, 2017 22:34
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Well Manicured Man posted:Rassilon being a genocidal monster factored heavily into Neverland and Zagreus, and those stories predate the revival series. Was Rassilon being a bad guy a 90s thing? I disagree with that characterisation of him in Zagreus; I'd say he's more the "guy who thinks he knows better than everyone" thing rather than the more openly being a jerk of the revival. It's not a 90's book thing, certainly in The Eight Doctors he's simply actively helpful.
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Feb 27, 2017 23:26
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He's definitely outright villainous in The Next Life. He even does the "your evil is my good" thing iirc.
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Feb 28, 2017 00:19
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Fil5000 posted:Come on now, you can't be impugning the raston warrior robot. Or the fantastic acting performance of Wax Tom Baker!   Wheat Loaf posted:When did writers decide that Rassilon was explicitly a bad guy? I think he's more ambiguous in "The Five Doctors" than straight-up villainous. Earliest that I'm aware of is when Don Warrington played him for Big Finish but I'm not familiar enough with any of the New Adventures or BBC Books lines to comment there. Well the Doctors were sure as poo poo afraid of him in Five Doctors.
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Feb 28, 2017 02:35
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Astroman posted:Well the Doctors were sure as poo poo afraid of him in Five Doctors. Well he had just ensured Borusa would have a love life!
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Feb 28, 2017 02:43
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Jerusalem posted:Well he had just ensured Borusa would have a love life! mods! ...oh 
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Feb 28, 2017 09:09
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So, quick call for something. I'm planning out a roleplaying campaign with the direct tonal inspiration being 'the weirder-scary New Who stories'. Particularly I'm trying to nail that weirdly unsettling feel I get from stuff like Flatline, Blink, or some of the Cracks of Time. The 'makes your skin crawl after some involved thought about it' things. What I'd like to ask for is if anybody can think of any examples of that specifically being pulled with physical space? The best examples that came to mind for me were... well, a lot of Flatline, but also that one part of Father's Day where the TARDIS disappears from the inside-out. I know there's more and better examples than that, but they're not coming to mind for me. Also if anyone can chip in with other examples or feelings on those it'd be great. I know what makes my gut cringe in those stories, but I want to find more ways to hit that tone than what does it for me.
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Feb 28, 2017 09:46
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Cleretic posted:What I'd like to ask for is if anybody can think of any examples of that specifically being pulled with physical space? The best examples that came to mind for me were... well, a lot of Flatline, but also that one part of Father's Day where the TARDIS disappears from the inside-out. I know there's more and better examples than that, but they're not coming to mind for me. Maybe something like Hide? It's a haunted house, but also dealing with another dimension?
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Feb 28, 2017 10:28
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The_Doctor posted:Maybe something like Hide? It's a haunted house, but also dealing with another dimension? Hide's not a bad pick, although it's less overt than the stuff I'm focusing on right now. I'm currently trying to work out the stuff I can/should do in terms of direct physical space, because that's going to be a big tentpole of it early on. Some of the other stuff I've got earmarked to potentially pull from for this on various levels, because they evoke that 'quietly disturbing' feeling I'm talking about : -Midnight -Parts of The Empty Child -Some of Silence in the Library, but not much -Good explorations of the Cyberman conversion (although I'll have to be careful here, some of the group know I'm big on Cybermen)
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Feb 28, 2017 11:45
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Cleretic posted:Hide's not a bad pick, although it's less overt than the stuff I'm focusing on right now. I'm currently trying to work out the stuff I can/should do in terms of direct physical space, because that's going to be a big tentpole of it early on. Honestly, I have no idea of what it is you're going for. Elucidate, man!
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Feb 28, 2017 11:51
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The God Complex? I'm not quite sure what you're after either, to be honest.
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Feb 28, 2017 11:56
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The_Doctor posted:Honestly, I have no idea of what it is you're going for. Elucidate, man! I'm trying, man! What I'm going for in general: Doctor Who's got a way with weird concepts, that aren't outright scary but are creepy and unnerving. It's usually really simple and relatable things, which lets that inherent creepiness settle in and puts you in a space to grasp it. It's a hard thing to put my finger on, but I know it's there and I want to really play with it. It's the sort of thing that makes Blink and Flatline work so well, it's tapping into totally normal yet slightly irrational thoughts, things we notice or recognize and... not even terrifying them specifically, but just giving them something to struggle with and worry about. Who is definitely far from the only piece of media that does this, but it's got a particular willingness to and style of going about it that I'm trying to grab onto. Specifically for this: I'm looking for when that crosses over into physical space and material objects, rather than living things or intangible concepts. The actual context I'm working with is that a reality-shaping engine is currently in the hands of someone who's not using it very well, so I'm trying to find some interesting and unusual ways to depict that that might elicit similar feelings of off-putting strangeness and unorthodox menace. Flatline had that in spades, but I'm struggling with other examples. Doctor Spaceman posted:The God Complex? I think The God Complex was in the back of my mind, and it's definitely one of those episodes I'm talking about (my own dislike of the minotaur aside), but I don't really remember any times when it specifically made use of the weird space of the setting it came up with.
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Feb 28, 2017 12:36
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Maybe go old school and look at things like The Mind Robber or Ghost Light?
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Feb 28, 2017 12:38
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Eleventh Hour has the door that nobody notices, that sort of thing?
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Feb 28, 2017 14:18
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You can't go wrong rereading House of Leaves.
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Feb 28, 2017 14:34
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Cerv posted:the target audience for the show (kids today) didn't and won't [wooden} Don't diss the mind probe. [/wooden]
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Feb 28, 2017 14:41
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