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Post by mark687 on Oct 5, 2017 9:39:56 GMT
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Oct 5, 2017 9:44:59 GMT
Ohh sweet baby cheeses ... the accents. Was Briggsy meant to be French or Austrian?
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Post by omega on Oct 5, 2017 9:47:24 GMT
Ohh sweet baby cheeses ... the accents. Was Briggsy meant to be French or Austrian? Please, don't. Just don't.
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Post by omega on Oct 5, 2017 9:48:55 GMT
I think the main problem with this TARDIS team and arc of stories is the lack of direction. I'm not expecting a tight arc, but some kind of endgame to build up to, to guide the characterisation would be very welcome.
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Post by number13 on Oct 11, 2017 14:26:24 GMT
I'm going to give an impopular opinion here. I'm not that keen on Silurian stories because of how all of them go: A group of Silurians/Sea Devils/whatever awakens and are hellbent on destroying humanity. The Doctor always claims they are peaceful and civilized and are the humans who are murderous; meanwhile the silurians plot on how to commit genocide until one of their members see reason and they try to reach a peace only for human beings to blow up/do something stupid/kill etc So humans are so bad and murderous. At the end Silurians go back to sleep I would really like to see a silurian story where there are really dialogue and peace between both species. I know, we humans are self destructive and pollut our planet. I can see the silurians point of view but these stories are kinda made in a way that make it look like them are a very peaceful misunderstood species and humans a bunch of murderers while at the same time the silurians plot how to commit genocide.Take im this story Mel for example ,she spends a good chunk of time apologizing for accidentally hurt someone who was trying to dissect/torture her Sorry, this is a pet peeve Rant over An excellent post which I think points out the problem with most Earth Reptile stories - the Doctor reacts with one-sided pacifism and they aren't shown as the people that Malcolm Hulke created them to be. He made them just like us, but with scales and a third eye, far more advanced technically but morally no better or worse than us. In 'The Silurians', their first leader is wise, overcomes his instinctive dislike of 'apes' and is willing to negotiate a shared world. So at that point are some of the 'apes'. But he is murdered in a coup by fascist Silurians who hate every last ape and want to exterminate us all. After resisting two attempts at genocide, not surprisingly we apes decide not to risk a third time, and secretly plan to seal the Silurians in their base forever. The Doctor instead intends to wake them in small numbers so he can talk sense into them - and only after he has taken a close look at all their scientific equipment for his own benefit... But that ending of the story was 'spun' to promote pacifism by shifting the blame onto the Earth military. (That wasn't a 'political' comment, just an historical comment.) The ending of the script and the emphasis of the dialogue isn't quite Hulke's (the DVD commentary makes this clear) - it was changed in production to make it seem the Brig. had done wrong by 'blowing up' the Silurian base. But the earlier part of the script wasn't changed and we can still see Hulke's intention. The Brig. in fact personally kills the young fascist Silurian to defend the Doctor, then is ordered to seal the colony in - they will be forced to go back into hibernation, the status quo will be restored. In the original version, the Doctor isn't angry about loss of life, but about the loss of his chance to get into the sealed base and get his hands on the Silurian science while they sleep... It's worth noting that BF got this exactly right very recently with UNIT:Assembled. A rogue faction of Silurians wakes and provokes war between the species, until their fascistic leaders are defeated and then UNIT puts the others peacefully back into hibernation. Kate's dad and the Third Doctor (and Malcolm Hulke) would have been proud. (Thank you to Matt Fitton and Guy Adams for a great boxset.)
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Post by barnabaslives on Oct 11, 2017 18:09:18 GMT
I'm going to give an impopular opinion here. I'm not that keen on Silurian stories because of how all of them go: A group of Silurians/Sea Devils/whatever awakens and are hellbent on destroying humanity. The Doctor always claims they are peaceful and civilized and are the humans who are murderous; meanwhile the silurians plot on how to commit genocide until one of their members see reason and they try to reach a peace only for human beings to blow up/do something stupid/kill etc So humans are so bad and murderous. At the end Silurians go back to sleep I have very similar complaints although I'm not so much bothered by the way the races are portrayed as much as it just seems a little formulaic that some of them thaw out, aspire to eradicate humanity and/or achieve standoff with mankind, have their plans undone, and then back into cold storage they go until next time (and maybe the ones who go back in the freezer voluntarily don't really need to go back in the freezer if they're that agreeable) :-) We've of course had some wonderfully exceptional Silurians, and I thought the earliest Big Finish UNIT stories were a commendable (and even poetic) departure, but there could be other departures like exploring the past or the future of Silurians if we can find someone with a time machine - a story set prior to the Silurians going into hibernation, or in the future when maybe humans and Silurians must join forces to defend the Earth from a common threat? (or maybe a group of them want to vacate the earth if it means they can get on with their lives, but the move encounters complications worthy of a story?), for example. Still, I enjoyed The Silurian Candidate even after it ticked all the right boxes for me not to, so it obviously had some very good points - I generally really liked the way Ace and Mel were written and their exchanges, and I think the story was trying valiantly to tug in some more refreshing direction that the usual Silurian story in spite of it itself, to name several - so I do think of it as a successful story, even if I do hope that future Silurian stories manage to break the mold of some Silurians occasionally thawing out and wanting all of us off their planet, and etc. :-)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 11:32:11 GMT
I'm going to give an impopular opinion here. I'm not that keen on Silurian stories because of how all of them go: A group of Silurians/Sea Devils/whatever awakens and are hellbent on destroying humanity. The Doctor always claims they are peaceful and civilized and are the humans who are murderous; meanwhile the silurians plot on how to commit genocide until one of their members see reason and they try to reach a peace only for human beings to blow up/do something stupid/kill etc So humans are so bad and murderous. At the end Silurians go back to sleep I have very similar complaints although I'm not so much bothered by the way the races are portrayed as much as it just seems a little formulaic that some of them thaw out, aspire to eradicate humanity and/or achieve standoff with mankind, have their plans undone, and then back into cold storage they go until next time (and maybe the ones who go back in the freezer voluntarily don't really need to go back in the freezer if they're that agreeable) :-) We've of course had some wonderfully exceptional Silurians, and I thought the earliest Big Finish UNIT stories were a commendable (and even poetic) departure, but there could be other departures like exploring the past or the future of Silurians if we can find someone with a time machine - a story set prior to the Silurians going into hibernation, or in the future when maybe humans and Silurians must join forces to defend the Earth from a common threat? (or maybe a group of them want to vacate the earth if it means they can get on with their lives, but the move encounters complications worthy of a story?), for example. Both have quite a lot of potential. How about a buddy story where the pair -- a human and Silurian -- are tasked with sorting out local troubles on a colony planet where their two species' complicated history could prove invaluable? That could be rather interesting.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 12:37:56 GMT
I haven't listened to the UNIT audios, so my opinion was in general about how the Silurian stories are handled. In some NAs sometimes there were mentions of Earth Reptiles, who were living amongst humans and other species. It would be interesting to have a Silurian story where some of them revive without wanting to murder anyone, and just go sharing the planet or human colonies In the Hungry Earth two parter was stated that the Doctor had set the clock to awaken them in 1000 years time, a follow up of them awakening and setting their differences for good would be nice Oh, outside of their full appearance Blood Heat, the Silurians get very interesting cameos in the NAs. One of them is in Happy Endings, the Doctor hires a band of them to play at Benny's wedding. Their repertoire wouldn't look too out of place at Mos Eisley cantina. The other one that I remember is from Eternity Weeps. Bleak though the story may be, Liz Shaw's partner at NASA is noted to be a Silurian called Imorkal who has fallen in love with her. There's this lovely little line in an MA from the Sixth Doctor's perspective for a story set in the thirtieth century or thereabouts about how perspectives have shifted. How by then, it was possible to see "aliens" as people and it was humankind coming out of a particularly brutal period of history who were now regarded as the "monsters". Swings and roundabouts.
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Post by mark687 on Oct 12, 2017 12:39:17 GMT
I haven't listened to the UNIT audios, so my opinion was in general about how the Silurian stories are handled. In some NAs sometimes there were mentions of Earth Reptiles, who were living amongst humans and other species. It would be interesting to have a Silurian story where some of them revive without wanting to murder anyone, and just go sharing the planet or human colonies In the Hungry Earth two parter was stated that the Doctor had set the clock to awaken them in 1000 years time, a follow up of them awakening and setting their differences for good would be nice BF's 1st Silurian story Bloodtide actually suggests
The Silurians genetically modified Primates so they tasted better and Homo-Sapiens were a by-product, its hard to negotiate when one side thinks the other is just a smart snack food
Regards
mark687
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Post by fantasticalice on Oct 13, 2017 6:45:55 GMT
I really liked Bloodtide and loved that twist!
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Post by The Matt on Oct 27, 2017 7:59:26 GMT
I really enjoyed that one. Definitely one of the best 7th Doctor stories and certainly one of McCoys best performances. Some great one liners scattered throughout, witty and intelligent.
The only 2 elements that i wasn't too keen on was the blatant Trump parody. I'm not his greatest fan but that wasn't even subtle!! plus i would have liked there to have been a bit more actual Silurian action, more third eye shenanigans. However they are just nitpicks really.
A very strong ending to the trilogy.
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Post by nottenst on Nov 18, 2017 4:20:15 GMT
My CDs finally arrived and I finished it today. I'm sorry to say I wasn't too thrilled with the story on the whole for some of the reasons already discussed. I also thought The Doctor was being unnecessarily mysterious and deceptive to his companions. If he told them his whole plan, they would not have thought he was betraying the human race. The secrets just set up conflict that should not have been there.
Another thing that annoyed me was that at the end they completely forgot Professor Drexler's whole objective in the story. She wanted the hibernation technology so large groups of people could travel away from Earth. That should have been brought up at the end one way or another.
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Post by Ian McArdell on Feb 15, 2018 15:53:27 GMT
My take on this story is now up at CultBox
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Post by Ela on Apr 15, 2018 22:38:40 GMT
I should have guess from the title how this one was going to go. Found it enjoyable overall.
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Post by fantasticalice on May 17, 2018 1:13:08 GMT
I'm going to give an impopular opinion here. I'm not that keen on Silurian stories because of how all of them go: A group of Silurians/Sea Devils/whatever awakens and are hellbent on destroying humanity. The Doctor always claims they are peaceful and civilized and are the humans who are murderous; meanwhile the silurians plot on how to commit genocide until one of their members see reason and they try to reach a peace only for human beings to blow up/do something stupid/kill etc So humans are so bad and murderous. At the end Silurians go back to sleep I have very similar complaints although I'm not so much bothered by the way the races are portrayed as much as it just seems a little formulaic that some of them thaw out, aspire to eradicate humanity and/or achieve standoff with mankind, have their plans undone, and then back into cold storage they go until next time (and maybe the ones who go back in the freezer voluntarily don't really need to go back in the freezer if they're that agreeable) :-) We've of course had some wonderfully exceptional Silurians, and I thought the earliest Big Finish UNIT stories were a commendable (and even poetic) departure, but there could be other departures like exploring the past or the future of Silurians if we can find someone with a time machine - a story set prior to the Silurians going into hibernation, or in the future when maybe humans and Silurians must join forces to defend the Earth from a common threat? (or maybe a group of them want to vacate the earth if it means they can get on with their lives, but the move encounters complications worthy of a story?), for example. Still, I enjoyed The Silurian Candidate even after it ticked all the right boxes for me not to, so it obviously had some very good points - I generally really liked the way Ace and Mel were written and their exchanges, and I think the story was trying valiantly to tug in some more refreshing direction that the usual Silurian story in spite of it itself, to name several - so I do think of it as a successful story, even if I do hope that future Silurian stories manage to break the mold of some Silurians occasionally thawing out and wanting all of us off their planet, and etc. :-) I think this is why the Eleventh Doctor goes sooo dark in Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. His optimism reformed Madame Vastra at one point(head canon says it was the Third Doctor) but from everything he saw he had a chance to meet legit, peaceful Silurians and they were Hitlefed by someone FOR MONEY. And if he had any restraint at that point Solomon then suggests raping his Second Egyptian companion. I think he could have snapped if she'd been a random, but he had a strong paternal bond with someone from her similar era and this guy is going to assault her. It's hard to quantify the Doctor's optimism towards Silurians but in many cases the options presented for fighting them are genocidal in nature and he is often facing folk who hate the Silurians for being different, not for being homicidal lizardfolk. I hate the release schedule for this series. I discovered if I want the complete subscriber Constance arc... I miss Time in Office but get this stinker. I wilk likely go for the Turlough release and buy Time in office outright as this has been so contentious and I hate a trump allegory in my escapism. Perhaps the powers at be just really want you to be creative.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2019 9:04:53 GMT
Doing a big main, err, monthly range catch up at the moment, and this one struck me as one of the worst releases I've heard out of BF for a very long time. Hammy acting, some simply appalling accents, forced and nonsensical 'mysterious' Doctor shenanigans, more padding than an eighties sci-fi tv series space suit, and just rather dull on top of it all, to boot. Shame of it is I really like the Silurians and so was quite looking forward to this one, but I just didn't get on with it at all, and to a degree that I've not experienced in a while. Eek.
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Post by slithe on May 15, 2019 18:23:28 GMT
Doing a big main, err, monthly range catch up at the moment, and this one struck me as one of the worst releases I've heard out of BF for a very long time. Hammy acting, some simply appalling accents, forced and nonsensical 'mysterious' Doctor shenanigans, more padding than an eighties sci-fi tv series space suit, and just rather dull on top of it all, to boot. Shame of it is I really like the Silurians and so was quite looking forward to this one, but I just didn't get on with it at all, and to a degree that I've not experienced in a while. Eek. Agree entirely with this... Apart from the witty title, this release has little to commend it. Sadly, this rounded of, yet another, poor trilogy for the Seventh Doctor. With the exception of We Are the Daleks and Red Planets, the Seventh Doctor MR releases had been below par for ages. Many of the comments here could have been applied to any Seventh Doctor story, not just this one. Things seem to have picked up, fortunately. I thought the NA Box Set was generally much higher in quality than earlier releases, Muse of Fire was good and this years' trilogy has, so far, been good. Thankfully, that 'older' Mel arc is now finished (if it was ever really developed as an arc) and there seems to be a better idea of what type of story works with McCoy. The faux-Trump character here is incredibly dire... Fortunately, Time in Office was also release at the same time, which did redeem the month's listening. Then we had a cracking Baker trilogy to enjoy afterwards too.
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Post by themeddlingmonk on May 15, 2019 20:10:08 GMT
Doing a big main, err, monthly range catch up at the moment, and this one struck me as one of the worst releases I've heard out of BF for a very long time. Hammy acting, some simply appalling accents, forced and nonsensical 'mysterious' Doctor shenanigans, more padding than an eighties sci-fi tv series space suit, and just rather dull on top of it all, to boot. Shame of it is I really like the Silurians and so was quite looking forward to this one, but I just didn't get on with it at all, and to a degree that I've not experienced in a while. Eek. Agree entirely with this... Apart from the witty title, this release has little to commend it. Sadly, this rounded of, yet another, poor trilogy for the Seventh Doctor. With the exception of We Are the Daleks and Red Planets, the Seventh Doctor MR releases had been below par for ages. Many of the comments here could have been applied to any Seventh Doctor story, not just this one. Things seem to have picked up, fortunately. I thought the NA Box Set was generally much higher in quality than earlier releases, Muse of Fire was good and this years' trilogy has, so far, been good. Thankfully, that 'older' Mel arc is now finished (if it was ever really developed as an arc) and there seems to be a better idea of what type of story works with McCoy. The faux-Trump character here is incredibly dire... Fortunately, Time in Office was also release at the same time, which did redeem the month's listening. Then we had a cracking Baker trilogy to enjoy afterwards too. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news but I don’t think that Older Mel arc is quite over yet.
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Post by slithe on May 19, 2019 8:48:56 GMT
Agree entirely with this... Apart from the witty title, this release has little to commend it. Sadly, this rounded of, yet another, poor trilogy for the Seventh Doctor. With the exception of We Are the Daleks and Red Planets, the Seventh Doctor MR releases had been below par for ages. Many of the comments here could have been applied to any Seventh Doctor story, not just this one. Things seem to have picked up, fortunately. I thought the NA Box Set was generally much higher in quality than earlier releases, Muse of Fire was good and this years' trilogy has, so far, been good. Thankfully, that 'older' Mel arc is now finished (if it was ever really developed as an arc) and there seems to be a better idea of what type of story works with McCoy. The faux-Trump character here is incredibly dire... Fortunately, Time in Office was also release at the same time, which did redeem the month's listening. Then we had a cracking Baker trilogy to enjoy afterwards too. I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news but I don’t think that Older Mel arc is quite over yet. Let's hope that they aren't in a hurry to revisit it just yet. BF have still got to resolve the Static finale yet with Sixie - two years on nearly and we are still waiting. I don't dislike the idea of an 'older' Mel - but they've got to make it worth investing time for the listener. In essence, Mel is still the same. Yep, she's a bit more scheming and less trustful of the Doctor but even then that is hit and miss. The idea of the 'debt' only made fleeting appearances in the Red Planets trilogy, so it is not like that was a particularly strong story-arc either...
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Post by tuigirl on May 19, 2019 9:16:24 GMT
I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news but I don’t think that Older Mel arc is quite over yet. Let's hope that they aren't in a hurry to revisit it just yet. BF have still got to resolve the Static finale yet with Sixie - two years on nearly and we are still waiting. I don't dislike the idea of an 'older' Mel - but they've got to make it worth investing time for the listener. In essence, Mel is still the same. Yep, she's a bit more scheming and less trustful of the Doctor but even then that is hit and miss. The idea of the 'debt' only made fleeting appearances in the Red Planets trilogy, so it is not like that was a particularly strong story-arc either... Wasn’t the last UNIT set supposed to be the sequel to Static?
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