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Post by omega on Dec 17, 2016 10:44:30 GMT
Released March 2017SynopsisOn the set of a busy Hollywood movie in the late 1920s, a damsel is in distress! As cameras roll, she opens her mouth to scream and... nothing comes out. Nothing at all. It's happened again. The Doctor, Romana and K9 have arrived in a terrified Tinseltown. A new film is being made and several stars of the silent screen are viewing it as a potential comeback... but it may prove a poisoned chalice. Actors are vanishing and strange creatures stalk the streets. Something evil is lurking behind the scenery. Can the Doctor stop it when he doesn't have a voice? It's time for his close-up. Written By: James Goss Directed By: Nicholas Briggs CASTTom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), John Leeson (K9), Alec Newman (Dr Julius), Pamela Salem (Lorretta Waldorf)
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Post by mark687 on Jan 16, 2017 13:41:35 GMT
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Post by mark687 on Mar 19, 2017 14:27:36 GMT
Thread Bump
This is due out Wednesday 22nd March according to this weeks Podcast
Regards
mark687
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Post by omega on Mar 22, 2017 8:41:38 GMT
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Post by Timelord007 on Mar 22, 2017 9:05:54 GMT
More Fourth Doctor audio drama & written by the excellent James Goss, just what the doctor ordered.
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Mar 22, 2017 12:13:47 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2017 19:57:08 GMT
I absolutely loved this to bits. So far, this series of 4DA's is excellent after a slightly shaky start. It's clear any similarities with the style of Series 18 are coincidental, and that's a shame, but here the story is wonderfully original, and the kind of thing that takes advantage of being on audio (people having their voices stolen is such a terrific idea, I'm surprised it hasn't been done before). Also, Tom, Lalla and John are surrounded by a cast who really 'gets' Doctor Who's humour during The Fourth Doctor's time; the endearingly silly bits of dialogue so typical of the TV show are handled with great ease throughout ("Oh, how I love a 'but!'").
Wonderful. One of my favourite Fourth Doctor audios.
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Post by chapwithwings on Mar 23, 2017 19:37:45 GMT
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 24, 2017 10:32:02 GMT
It's clear any similarities with the style of Series 18 are coincidental, and that's a shame I think I'm reminded of Series 13-14 by some of these later 4DAs (Romana II with J&L is pretty obvious in that respect) but I think Big Finish have already made a strength of that. It seems to make for a lot more diverse and interesting Series 18 than I remember and it's kind of fun to hear Lalla in stories that are a little more what you might expect from stories with Louise. Also I think maybe it's allowed them to shake things up without going off into anything too unfamiliar? Anyway, I really enjoyed this story, the supporting characters (particularly Alec Newman from Dark Shadows because I'm terribly biased that way), and the way the main performers sounded in such excellent form. I thought this cast the Fourth Doctor in a particularly good light the way he sounded so in charge even when indisposed, it's nice for that to happen occasionally, and it was part of an interesting premise overall. Some great exchanges with K-9 in this story too.
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Post by kimalysong on Mar 24, 2017 17:14:45 GMT
It's clear any similarities with the style of Series 18 are coincidental, and that's a shame I think I'm reminded of Series 13-14 by some of these later 4DAs (Romana II with J&L is pretty obvious in that respect) but I think Big Finish have already made a strength of that. It seems to make for a lot more diverse and interesting Series 18 than I remember and it's kind of fun to hear Lalla in stories that are a little more what you might expect from stories with Louise. Also I think maybe it's allowed them to shake things up without going off into anything too unfamiliar? Anyway, I really enjoyed this story, the supporting characters (particularly Alec Newman from Dark Shadows because I'm terribly biased that way), and the way the main performers sounded in such excellent form. I thought this cast the Fourth Doctor in a particularly good light the way he sounded so in charge even when indisposed, it's nice for that to happen occasionally, and it was part of an interesting premise overall. Some great exchanges with K-9 in this story too. Alex Newman was my favorite too but I had forgotten where I had heard him from just that he sounded familiar. He just played his part with such relish it was quite an enjoyable performance. I also found this story to be scarier than I anticipated. For being a "lighter story" I found some moments in this to be really intense. This ended up having some great horror moments. I do wish there was a bit more about the silent era and how many silent film stars lost their star status when talkies were introduced (although some silent actors actually became bigger stars because of their voice). There were a couple lovely references, I believe Douglas Fairbanks was references and the 1917 lost silent film Cleopatra starring Theda Bara was also nicely mentioned. Just a personal thing as a film history buff I am really interested in this era and it would have been fun to see it explored a bit more in this story. In the extras they mentioned Lulu Hammerstein being a woman who owned a studio but of course there was also Mary Pickford who was one of the co-founders of United Artists. Actually women were instrumental in the very early days of film making, but that's for another discussion. My other nitpick is some of the voices sounded like they were from 1930's Brooklyn instead of LA such as the cab driver. Although I did love K-9 being used as a GPS. I could have used him when I experienced some of LA's infamous traffic. edit: I also realized this story had some slight similarities with this month's Torchwood release "Visiting Hours" . They would make a nice double feature. edit 2: Yes I did mean United Artists. Thanks for the correction @davygallagher.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 17:44:32 GMT
In the extras they mentioned Lulu Hammerstein being a woman who owned a studio but of course there was also Mary Pickford who was one of the co-founders of Universal. Actually women were instrumental in the very early days of film making, but that's for another discussion. United Artists - but I know you meant that Mary was also a founding member of the Academy. A quite remarkable woman who was as big a star as Chaplin and much bigger than Keaton in her day but her legacy hasn't quite endured outside of circles like the ones we're in who follow and study silent film and Hollywood history. I backed a kickstarter for a boxset of her work, Rags And Riches, which I think is now out of print but is a quite wonderful collection. There's a boxset coming from Kino later this year celebrating the women pioneers which I also backed. It's a follow up to the powerful and essential African American Pioneers set. Should be a stunning release which will help re-write a bit of history. One of my favourite women from the early years is Frances Marion. She was the first writer to win two Oscars. The films she won for? The Big House - a violent prison film and The Champ - a boxing film. Her last credited screenplay was Green Hell which, to give us Dark Shadows fans a connection, starred Joan Bennett. It was an adventure movie set in the jungle. She wasn't writing what Harry Cohn would call "women's pictures" - but writing dirty, gritty masculine movies better than just about any man was. Pretty awesome lady.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 18:03:50 GMT
I think I'm reminded of Series 13-14 by some of these later 4DAs (Romana II with J&L is pretty obvious in that respect) but I think Big Finish have already made a strength of that. It seems to make for a lot more diverse and interesting Series 18 than I remember and it's kind of fun to hear Lalla in stories that are a little more what you might expect from stories with Louise. Also I think maybe it's allowed them to shake things up without going off into anything too unfamiliar? Anyway, I really enjoyed this story, the supporting characters (particularly Alec Newman from Dark Shadows because I'm terribly biased that way), and the way the main performers sounded in such excellent form. I thought this cast the Fourth Doctor in a particularly good light the way he sounded so in charge even when indisposed, it's nice for that to happen occasionally, and it was part of an interesting premise overall. Some great exchanges with K-9 in this story too. Alex Newman was my favorite too but I had forgotten where I had heard him from just that he sounded familiar. He just played his part with such relish it was quite an enjoyable performance. I also found this story to be scarier than I anticipated. For being a "lighter story" I found some moments in this to be really intense. This ended up having some great horror moments. I do wish there was a bit more about the silent era and how many silent film stars lost their star status when talkies were introduced (although some silent actors actually became bigger stars because of their voice). There were a couple lovely references, I believe Douglas Fairbanks was references and the 1917 lost silent film Cleopatra starring Theda Bara was also nicely mentioned. Just a personal thing as a film history buff I am really interested in this era and it would have been fun to see it explored a bit more in this story. In the extras they mentioned Lulu Hammerstein being a woman who owned a studio but of course there was also Mary Pickford who was one of the co-founders of Universal. Actually women were instrumental in the very early days of film making, but that's for another discussion. My other nitpick is some of the voices sounded like they were from 1930's Brooklyn instead of LA such as the cab driver. Although I did love K-9 being used as a GPS. I could have used him when I experienced some of LA's infamous traffic. edit: I also realized this story had some slight similarities with this month's Torchwood release "Visiting Hours" . They would make a nice double feature. I loved that Swan Lake was used throughout - this piece of music ushered forth cinematic horror classics Dracula and The Mummy, two of the first talking films. I too would have loved to have this era explored more fully - another reason I would like these 4DAs to be a bit longer. Ah well, always leave the audience wanting more ...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 18:33:44 GMT
I loved that Swan Lake was used throughout - this piece of music ushered forth cinematic horror classics Dracula and The Mummy, two of the first talking films. I too would have loved to have this era explored more fully - another reason I would like these 4DAs to be a bit longer. Ah well, always leave the audience wanting more ... I'd have loved more of this too - especially of Doctor Julius directly against Tom. It all felt a bit quick towards the last 5 or 10 minutes and I'd have loved another episode but I guess that's going to happen when you're really into the subject and the story. Alec's having a lot of fun as Julius and his need to collect but not truly apreciate...well, I could read a lot of commentary into that! I loved the silent tropes being deployed here. Yeah, Swan Lake is an instantly evocative piece for the Universal film of the early 30s. Oddly, despite being synonymous with the Uni-Monsters, it was only used in four films of the era - the two you mentioned, Murder In The Rue Morgue and (non-horror) Secret Of The Blue Room yet people will swear they know it from Frankenstein or the Wolf Man. There's a short piece about it on the Dracula legacy DVD set (about to be upgraded to bluray). Dracula and The Mummy were early talkies but not among the first, the studios had been completely done with silents for about 18 months before Dracula. What a transition it must have been when silents went from being the done thing in 1927 to being nearly obsolete by late 1929. Points West was, I think, the last pure silent from the big six Hollywood studios in August '29, not even two years after Jolson told audiences they "ain't heard nothing yet" in The Jazz Singer. There were still silents made for a while after Points West but they were "hybrids" - where they were filmed as talkies but could be cut to be silent for other countries and markets. Even though it's often called one, Chaplin's City Lights in 1931 wasn't a "real" silent film, as he allowed the music and sounds to be played on the soundtrack rather than played live in the theatres (even though he wouldn't let the Tramp speak). I'm getting rather geeky now.
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Post by kimalysong on Mar 24, 2017 19:04:36 GMT
In the extras they mentioned Lulu Hammerstein being a woman who owned a studio but of course there was also Mary Pickford who was one of the co-founders of Universal. Actually women were instrumental in the very early days of film making, but that's for another discussion. United Artists - but I know you meant that Mary was also a founding member of the Academy. A quite remarkable woman who was as big a star as Chaplin and much bigger than Keaton in her day but her legacy hasn't quite endured outside of circles like the ones we're in who follow and study silent film and Hollywood history. I backed a kickstarter for a boxset of her work, Rags And Riches, which I think is now out of print but is a quite wonderful collection. There's a boxset coming from Kino later this year celebrating the women pioneers which I also backed. It's a follow up to the powerful and essential African American Pioneers set. Should be a stunning release which will help re-write a bit of history. One of my favourite women from the early years is Frances Marion. She was the first writer to win two Oscars. The films she won for? The Big House - a violent prison film and The Champ - a boxing film. Her last credited screenplay was Green Hell which, to give us Dark Shadows fans a connection, starred Joan Bennett. It was an adventure movie set in the jungle. She wasn't writing what Harry Cohn would call "women's pictures" - but writing dirty, gritty masculine movies better than just about any man was. Pretty awesome lady. Ah yes I love Frances Marion too. And Big House and the Champ are both terrific films. She also wrote the screenplay for Dinner at Eight another great film from the 30's. I would say that decade was her most prestigious.
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Post by icecreamdf on Mar 25, 2017 2:21:23 GMT
Now I really want a GPS that sounds like K9.
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Post by Timelord007 on Mar 25, 2017 8:32:00 GMT
Fantastic audio drama, clever, witty & compelling audio drama with great performances, not really in tone of season 18 but i don't care as this was a wonderful hour of entertainment.
Tom Baker i love you.
9/10
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Post by Hieronymus on Mar 25, 2017 17:34:00 GMT
Did anyone else experience a tack skip in track 6 of Part 1? About at about 2:45 into track 6, my player jumped ahead to track 7.
It's happened for me 3 times, but I can't yet rule out a download problem or my aging iPod as causes.
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Post by mrperson on Mar 25, 2017 20:41:10 GMT
I, too, do not really care about whether or not it sounded like it fit in S18. In fact, I'd like it if they started switching things up and giving various Doctors stories that are supposed to fit the tone of other Doctors' eras, Locum Era episodes. Better, if they ignored eras entirely and just plain made stories suited to each Doctor. I felt they tended to do that in the beginning, and it produced episodes like The Holy Terror, The Mutant Phase, Creatures of Beauty, Omega/Davros/Master - really more than I can list - that either felt so unique as to not fit into any particular TV-era or, at least, didn't feel much like the stories in that Doctor's particular era. They were just incredibly good stories, era be stuffed.
Anyway, as to this episode, I did quite enjoy it. That I recall. But, I'll have to give it a relisten soon because I actually wasn't very well when I heard it and illness tends to ruin my attention span and general mental functioning.
I'm so glad and grateful that Tom is enjoying himself so much, giving, giving, and giving....long past the age at which I hope to be retired at.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 26, 2017 1:18:35 GMT
Did anyone else experience a tack skip in track 6 of Part 1? About at about 2:45 into track 6, my player jumped ahead to track 7. It's happened for me 3 times, but I can't yet rule out a download problem or my aging iPod as causes. Didn't happen here that I know of. Guessing I'd have noticed if it did.
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Post by relativetime on Mar 26, 2017 2:10:20 GMT
My favorite of Series 6 so far. Great performances, great dialogue, just all around great fun - everything I look for in an audio story.
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