Big Finish - What's the Standard?

Bearing in mind what Sturgeon's Law says, I do feel like Big Finish maintains a level of consistency that speaks well of them. Still the problem with consistently good generally means that the great things happen with less frequency. Part of the problem is that it is human nature to make a snap judgment on something and that usually skews things higher. Or also to skew things much lower depending on ones reaction. Oh that we lived in a world where we not so quick to pronounce something great/the best ever/fantastic or horrible/the worst ever/terrible. Anyway. Yeah. So.

Oh and I am constantly bemused by review sites that seem to praise almost everything BF does and to shower upon them perfect rating scores. If everything is great, then nothing is.

It's a very interesting question and some great (or is that fantastic? brilliant? excellent?) points raised. I am talking entirely about the Doctor Who output here.

Sometimes I feel that I am regularly going into threads and slating releases in comparison to the brief lines that many put saying a release is "excellent" or "amazing", or even looking at how the polls are skewed. In actual fact, I think I am less scathing of stories than what I come across, but sometimes I look like I'm ruining the party. The difference is I tend to elaborate on my thoughts and always mention something positive. It's very rare I actively dislike the story or the release, but I pay for the item, I devour it and then I like to really go through it all in my head before coming up with some final thoughts, of which I post here.

Their output, on the whole, is good. The quality of their output does differ between ranges, depending on which aspect of the show they're trying to mirror, I think. The main range is often very traditional, straightforward Doctor Who. Traditional isn't bad whatsoever, but can it consistently be brilliant? I'm not so sure. Having said that, I think opinions can often skew depending on who is involved. The recent Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa & Tegan trilogies have, for me, been consistently good, but the novelty of having this TARDIS team back has made me rate it a little bit higher than if the same stories were with the Seventh Doctor & Ace. Similarly, Season 8 of the Fourth Doctor Adventures I perhaps rated a little bit higher because it was a breath of fresh air to have an original companion.

Big Finish are also very nostalgic with a lot of their output. I think that's naturally going to rate higher with a lot of fans. Whether that's TARDIS teams you grew up with, returning elements such as companions and monsters, or even sequels to stories. The thing that instantly springs to mind is the Dalek story in Third Doctor Adventures Volume 3, which was highly praised here, yet I thought it was dire.

I would say I do rate Big Finish a little lower than I would the TV series. That's not a slight on BF, but I think there's more to "cling on" to with a visual story on telly that might make me be a touch generous with my score than I would if the equivalent was on audio.

Interesting stuff, as I say. I feel I have more to say but my mind has gone blank!

Well, I wonder how long they'd get their pre-release freebie downloads if they were giving them 3 or 4/10 each time? That's a lot of money saved each month on BF if you get them all gratis!

No, I kid, I don't think any of the reviewers who regularly post can be called out for that - indeed IndieMacUser, I think, was the one who got the infamous "crappy review" comment from Nick for daring to suggest Charlotte Pollard 2 wasn't any great shakes. Frankly I thought the review was kinder than most fans were on it!  I've seen all the reviewers and bloggers who post here take issue with at least some of the BF output so I don't think I'd cite that as an issue for anyone here but I'm sure we've all seen the places who do give seemingly every BF release a totally glowing report. 

I think we've done this discussion before and I made the one Harold made above - if you praise everything to the hilt, then you're not going to be listened to when you really do love something and want to make people aware of it. If Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave every movie two thumbs up...they'd never be remembered. You say you love everything, all you're doing is making everything average again.

I stopped caring about the BF reviews in DWM magazine a few years ago for that reason - I think 3 months in a row there was "one of the best things Big Finish have ever done" and it was just a run of the mill  MR or CC story. Now - hey - maybe the reviewer (Michael something) felt that but with a long enough test sample of issues I could see...he loved (or said he loved) almost everything. Even stories that he didn't deem masterpieces...there would still be one element plucked for enormous praise ("One of Colin's greatest performances..." etc) .  Again, maybe he did love all those, thought they were genius works and listens to them to this day but I don't want cheerleading PR masquerading as critique (and BF DO advertise in DWM so is PR that far off track?) A lot of the reviewers of BF that do seem to think everything is great reminds me of those Youtubers who get free Marvel or Star Wars merch so they can do "exclusive unboxings" - they're not really being asked for their opinion on whatever the product is, but for their time in doing free advertising and PR.  I see Mark posting when the review snippets get added to releases and sometimes they're so impossibly far away from my thoughts I can't even recognise them. When the most generic, bland paint by numbers story gets an "Instant classic, if you only hear one thing this month...." quote, I am reminded of Paul Ross who was accused of giving bad films better reviews to get his name on film posters.
 
It's sad a lot of online criticism has come to that to. It's not a BF or DW issue either, it's really any form of criticism. The internet opened things up, so you didn't have to go to film school or study language to write about film, for example. That's great in that there's not an elite getting to dictate consensus but at the same time it means any Tom, Dick or Harriett can use social media to promote anything regardless of their knowledge, context, motivations or talents.

A reviewer I trust is not just someone who can tell me if something is good or bad, but why. Give me insights into something I'd misjudged or not seen, a new perspective. Some of my favourite music writing, by Lester Bangs or Greil Marcus, I completely disagree with what they think of the music sometimes but the passions, the knowledge, the originality of the way the writing is presented made them essential reading. I think that's a bit lofty for reviewing BF but the idea is the same. A truly great review, like I saw Mark Kermode do live once on The Ninth Configuration, is something I remember as long as the thing it's reviewing. Again...asking a bit much here, yeah, but thats kinda how I see reviewing - a lot of the critics online do 90% synopsis, 10% review. They may as well just tweet their marks out of ten for all you actually get out of it. Which is absolutely fine - it's a fast paced world now and people want things in an instant. They don't always want an essay when a "not bad" will do. Horses for courses.  I'd imagine it affects people who only buy select BF a lot more. Those of us who either buy it all, or have enough of a knowledge of the writers, talents and formats to know what doesn't interest us, would be less affected. Someone trying to get into BF looking for a more critical, discerning eye...I don't envy them. 

And as an aside, I think Shallactop is one of the best at "reviewing" stories here. As you mentioned, always finding a positive on a "bad" release or a negative on a "good" release.

I did take Whovitts OP and subsequent post to be more about online reviewers rather than fan-voting but while we're on it, I think I'm pretty much on board with you on the 1-10 ratings and how you score them.  I do have plenty of things I give a 10 though, subjectively, because even if I don't think they're perfect they're exactly what I want from them and exactly what they're trying to be at the same time - Holy Terror or And The Pirates being my go-to examples of this at BF.

Absolutely. Related to a pet peeve of mine, I don't know if you're aware of the farce that is the Net Promoter Score, but it's the most common way of interpreting the surveys you sometimes get when you speak to a call centre and they text or call you back for feedback. I had to deal with them for years first as an advisor then as a manager.

The first question is "Based on your experience today how likely are you to recommend us" or "Based on the person you spoke to how likely?" - anything below a 9/10 is bad. 0-6 are "detractors" and 7-8 are "passives" - only a 9 or 10 is a "promoter".  Now if I tell someone a restaurant is a 8/10...I think it's good verging on really very good. I think generally that'd be a safe bet for people hearing 8/10, but in customer service a 8/10 is bad.   No matter what questions you get asked afterwards, it's that one question that the call is scored on and the advisor gets marked on. 

So, basically - anyone reading this who ever answers those surveys, give the person a 9 or 10 next time if they've done well.  You might think an 8 reflects well on them - who wouldn't - but it doesn't. 

Thank you, that’s very kind. I think balance is always a good thing. Sometimes there’s a release I think is so great that I might not have a negative, but there’s always a positive to a release I wasn’t so keen on.

My initial post wasn’t a slight on those who do rate highly or only post brief comments. I was merely comparing myself and my own thoughts to those.

I'm probably quite guilty of overusing glowing adjectives (I can probably tell just by how much I wish for some new glowing adjectives) and not explaining why, but one reason I don't like to do much explaining is spoilers and struggling with the spoiler tags, and another is that I don't like to dwell that much on the negative. I'd rather not have to come up with criticisms just to prove that I'm capable of it, or to prove that I don't think Big Finish can do no wrong. I'm happy enough to see the reviewers often give high marks it if means they saw the good points to a release and enjoyed it accordingly. I'm very pleased that when I read a review (which isn't often enough), I often do have a similar perspective as to the high points. I think Doctor Squee usually has some good reasons for squeeing.

I also kind of don't like to pick out specific story points because I feel like maybe sometimes people put too much emphasis on that and if they can find things wrong with a release, perhaps feel like they didn't enjoy it as much as they might have. There's still a difference between the sense of quality and the sense of enjoyment. I can find 10 things objectionable about a release but still enjoy it greatly, it all depends. (I adore the Scorchies stories, for example, in spite of finding the whole idea to be painfully ludicrous).

It's often the overall story and the flow of it and my enjoyment level rather than specific points that matters more to me, I think. It's very important to me that stories and box sets should seem like they're building up rather than sagging in the middle or at the end (this means you, Time War 2), and I do speak up when that's my experience . Sometimes I don't know what a story could have done better, I just know that it felt like there was clearly room for improvement.

Likewise with ratings, not everything there may be as it appears. I give almost everything a 4 or a 5 and reserve 3 for things like The Boy That Time Forgot. I just don't happen to think there's very much Big Finish output that's really bad, so there's nothing for me to award a rating of 1 or 2. There's quite a spectrum between 4 and 5, and a lot of things get rounded up, I suppose as if I were saying I thought they were perfect when I may have a number of criticisms. I think they are very few things I would actually give a genuine full 5 to, but there are a lot of things I'd give a 4.6 to and more than a few I'd give 4.8 to the way I rate things. 75% of Big Finish's output probably gets a 4 out of me for coming in between 3.75 and 4.5.

I think it's all very individual, though, and even subject to mood sometimes. I'd take points off for something being so morbid or tragic that it makes my mood worse, whereas it sounds like that's the grit and realism that others often look for. (I'd happily see the finality of the events of Earthshock or Blake's 7 reversed just for the sake of stories, which probably isn't a very popular opinion). I try to wait until I'm in good mood to rate something or comment on it, just so I'm not overly harsh just because I wasn't in a good mood.

I'm happy enough to try to keep in mind that not everyone rates things the same way, and not everyone likes everything that much, and they're entitled to and it doesn't mean they're attacking something or being unfair. Others may like things more with repeated listens, just as I often do. I hope everyone will continue to feel free to say what they honestly think about releases and not worry about how it might be interpreted.

I actually left another forum and came here because it seemed very difficult to express any sort of criticism without being dismissed as being negative for the sake of it. I'm of the mindset that not everything can be 10/10 best thing ever. It's okay if something is "just" good - it doesn't make it a failure. Some stories are just going to resonate with me more than others (and my 10/10 "all-time classic" could very well be your 0/10 "how on earth was this allowed to be made" ).

Yes, absolutely! I used to write reviews and host a podcast about specific Spider-Man comic book titles.  I couldn't stand reading reviews that began and ended with "this sucked"/"this was awesome". I cared about the material, so I made the effort to dive in and explain why I liked something or didn't like something. I tried very hard not to present my opinions as fact, but try to offer something a little different - e.g., this part of my life experience shaped my perspective which is why this scene or character was inspiring. Or, the story let me down because I felt that plot point X could have been developed a bit more.


I don't know him at all, but I *highly* recommend the BF reviews by Styre. Thoughtful, well-written, and above all, insightful and fair. I've been reading and enjoying them for years and even though I don't always agree, I'm glad that he's still doing them. Any time there's a sale, I rush to the website to check his scores and reviews. Check them out here: audioreviews.org.uk/

One of the things that I'd learned to appreciate while doing my podcast (and I didn't get it right away) was that regardless of my reaction to the comic book, a number of people worked very hard to make the product happen. I never made it personal about the creators, but still had to work to be balanced and thoughtful in commenting on I'd connected (or didn't) with someone else's artistic effort.  I wasn't always so mindful when posting comments about BF audios over the years and looking back, I can see how it might have been received far more harshly than I'd ever intended. Not just by the creators, but also my fellow fans. That said, I still think we can and should be critical if we want to have conversations; I've learned to be much better about my tone and not inadvertently take away from someone else's enjoyment. It's not all perfect, but we're all here because we still love and appreciate what they do.