Satisfaction with various Doctors ranges

1DA- Volumes 1-6 of The David Bradley First Doctor have been pretty decent and consistent (well Vol 5 perhaps is the weakest of that run), kinda a shame that era is put on hold and The Stephen Noonan First Doctor era box sets have been kinda hit and miss first box set has been good and have not listened to Vol 2 and kinda unsure

2DA- With Only One Boxset available i am intrigued by the premise, i think Michael Troughton's Second Doctor is pretty good and i am eager to see what happens next, its just hard to make up the mind on the range when there is only one boxset

3DA- Earlier Boxsets have felt incomplete but from Volume 4 onwards i think the range has hit its stride and quite enjoy it, i do feel that John Levene and Richard Franklin's Absence does make it not feel the same but yeah its a range i am still happy with

4DA- A Real mixed bag but i feel that there is alot of good stories in there, i think the move to box sets is the best thing for The Fourth Doctor and his range needs more experimentation

5DA- Range has been alright still enjoyable stories like Forty so im happy to keep going with it

6DA- Its ironic that Colin has gone from having the strongest and best Main Range Stories to having the absolutely weakest and worse box sets out of all the ranges. its a real shame i dont know if its because of the choice of Producers and Script editors but darn there needs to be a restart for that range, the stories are just weak and preachy, companions are just 2D (poor Mel deserved better) and its just a mess.

7DA- Honestly given there aren't many box sets with 7 its hard to make my mind up on his range, i do think that he is the second weakest range out of the doctors and lets hope the 2023 box sets are better

8DA- Initially i loved this range and thought it was the best of Big Finish (Lucie Miller Era especially), it has waned Post Dark Eyes 1 but still has been okay but everything post Ravenous feels utterly stagnant, pointless and arguably needs a reboot. the Time War Range Box sets however went from rather weak to pretty good so if they ditched Helen and Liv the range would be all better for it

9DA- Enjoyed the first 4 box sets while they are certainly of mixed quality and Eccleston's Doctor feels out of character and divorced from the TV Version its just okay just needs more darker and gritty material

10DA- Another Fine range but i think it needs more experimentation and while i love the out of time crossovers i do feel like 10 needs his own identity and an original companion

I don't think there's going to be anything after the Valarie era, is there? At least, not in the current format with the current actor...

Nick confirmed in this weeks Podcast when Dudman goes the Doc Chronicles Range ends.

Regards

mark687

When the current run of 11th Doctor Chronicles was announced, it was mentioned in the news article that afterwards, Dudman was stepping down from the role of 11/10. This week in the podcast, Briggs expanded and confirmed that with Dudman stepping down they are also ending the range with him

Just wondering with the 9DAs, is the decision to steer the focus away from the damaged soul after the Time War one made by Eccleston alone.

I have enjoyed most of the stories but I would like to see 9 angrier and actively addressing the elephant in the room, I remember the almost bi polar like switch from anger to manic joy, I would love to see stories driven this way.

I think the new XDAs are still a bit too new for us to properly assess (the shadow of the MR is a big one, after all) but so far I'd say that... I'm not super happy with them. It feels like they're trying to reboot the Doctors by making stories that hew too closely to their respective TV eras, which feels like a massive step backwards when the MR built on top of those TV stories and, in many cases, managed to become something so much more.

And, certainly, if we were to compare the first several XDA stories with each Doctor's first several MR stories, well, there's no comparison.

As for my thoughts on each individual range, hm....

• 1st Doctor Adventures: Such a mixed bag. I love David Bradley's 1st Doctor, but remain unconvinced by Stephen Noonan's -- and I question the necessity for Big Finish to alternate between the two. In terms of the stories themselves... also a very mixed bag. I love Big Finish's approach to this range and how they're basically being faithful to the original 1960s format, but updating little things to be in greater accord with modern sensibilities. Unfortunately, this range is a bit like a minefield. It has some of my very favorite stories in the whole franchise (if you haven't listened to The Invention of Death yet, you need to remedy that ASAP) -- but also some of the most infuriatingly bad. Going into a new boxset can only be done with great trepidation: fearing I'll encounter another of the latter while hoping I'll discover another of the former.
• 2nd Doctor Adventures: Way too soon to say -- I see some small areas to be concerned about, but on the whole I'm very pleased with the direction they seem to be going in with this range. Only time will tell how well Big Finish'll manage to take this new 6B premise -- and how far they're willing to go with it.
• 3rd Doctor Adventures: I need to listen to more of these, but of what I have listened to so far, it's a bit of a mixed bag. It has none of the same extremes for me if the 1DAs, and I'm undecided as to whether or not that is a good thing. There are some good stories and some not so good stories, but nothing (yet) that quite reaches the realms of great or awful. However, and I cannot stress this enough, I am bizarrely nostalgic for the Pertwee era -- I didn't grow up with it, but I'll be damned if it doesn't feel like I did. So these are always a delight for me to listen to, even when I'm not terribly enamored but the scripts. Which, come to think on it, I can say also of many of the TV stories.
• 4th Doctor Adventures: I've been going through this range piecemeal, mostly just picking up stories with premises i like, or specific actors. Louise Jameson is always a delight, and here's where we'll find Geoffrey Beevers at his most deliciously campy. Tom Baker is as quintessential as ever (even if I, personally, will always think of him first and foremost as Puddleglum) and the stories I've listened to all have a great sense of energy and fun. There's also a consistent undercurrent of whimsy that, it seems to be, is meant to try to evoke that same sort of feel as Douglas Adams at his most Douglas Adams-y. They don't quite get there -- Adams is inimitable -- but it's close enough that, I think, the overall vibe of the 4DAs is a bit unique to the other ranges. This Doctor inhabits a totally different universe to everyone else: one where things make just a little bit less sense, and everything is just slightly exaggerated. This makes the 4DAs feel a bit less cohesive with the rest of the Big Finish Doctor Who Aural Universe (#BFDWAU), but allows Baker's more eccentric Doctor to retain his unique feeling, which is no small thing. 
• 5th Doctor Adventures: I'm on record, I think, as saying Peter Davison is kind of unsuited to the audio format. So much of what made his Doctor compelling, I think, was the physical performance -- and when Someone as autistic as me is saying that, you know it means I'm either 100% correct or have simply deluded myself into thinking so (therefore: 0%). As such i tend to think his stories tend to be on the weaker side of the Big Finish oeuvre -- even the really good ones. Like I absolutely adore Creatures of Beauty, but I also can't help but wonder at how much better it would be on screen. The Peter Davison in my mind's eye is only ever gonna be a pale imitation. And it doesn't really help that, for the most part, the 5th Doctor's rogue's gallery of companions represent that particular cliche at its most generic. So, of the 5DAs specifically? I'm pretty underwhelmed so far. But also I'm not expecting too much from them. None of the stories have struck me as particularly bad, but I'm still waiting to be impressed. Or at least have one good boxset of a sour Turlough being bitterly acerbic with everyone. Or maybe some good solo stories.
• 6th Doctor Adventures: Pretty underwhelmed by these so far, to the extent I haven't really spoken about them much here (yet) because I'm just... so disappointed. They haven't been bad, by any means, but Colin Baker really deserves better stories. I get the sense that Big Finish really doesn't have a clear idea yet for what direction they want to take the 6th Doctor in this range. This is a range that I really, desperately, moreso than any other hope to see reach the same heights as the 8DAs and 10DAs... but even if that never happens, it's hard to be too broken up about it when Colin Baker already has so many fantastic, God-tier stories over in the Monthly Range.

• 7th Doctor Adventures: Haven't really listened to these yet, and still have enough other 7th Doctor stories to listen to. And from what I've heard, there's no "must-listen" story here yet, so I'm in no great hurry.
• 8th Doctor Adventures: I feel kinda stupid even offering an opinion here. There're so many 8DAs! Paul McGann is universally beloved for good reason! What else is there to say? Even when the scripts are terrible, McGann (like Colin Baker) always delivers a performance compelling enough to make the story not just endurable, but also -- even if only slightly -- enjoyable. I will say that, of the boxset era specifically, Dark Eyes was bad. Really bad. I used to think it was just okay, but then I did a relisten, and nooooope. But Doom Coalition was good, Ravenous great, and Stranded brilliant. And off to the side we've got the Time War sets doing their own thing, and it's pretty damned fantastic, too. The 8DA range is easily the best of the XDAs, and the gold standard to which all of the other ranges ought to aspire to.
• 9th Doctor Adventures: We've gotten so many of these in such a short span of time that, frankly, my head is still spinning. As others have commented on, Eccleston's unwillingness to play the more complicated character that made series 1 so compelling have definitely neutered the 9DA range, but at the same time it's such a delight to see Eccleston return to the tole that I'm okay with that. My only real concern is that I think they may have done too much, too fast -- it's hard to appreciate each story by itself because suddenly there's so much competition. It also means Big Finish isn't really giving itself the time to tackle the range from new angles, or try anything more ambitious/experimental, resulting in a range that is, by far, the most tonally consistent in the Big Finish library. And consistency like that can be both a good and bad thing, depending on who you ask -- and when.
• 10th Doctor Adventures: I need to relisten to the first three sets soon. Maybe my opinion of them will change, then, bust i generally remember them as being... not very good. Like more or less analogous to series 2. But the more recent stuff? More recent half, rather? I've been floored. The River Song set was an enormous improvement, and then Dalek Universe managed to reach for even further heights. If the first three boxsets were closer to series 2 of the TV show, the last three or four are closer to series 4 (possibly even better) -- this is David Tennant at his very best. To the point where I'm kind of disappointed he's returning as the 14th Doctor, if only because it'll mean less time (and possibly less interest) for more stories with him as the 10th. In its present state, I'd say the 10DAs (along with the 8DAs) represent the gold standard for Big Finish.

Hmmm….

Bradley-era first Doctor: Pass. It just feels nebulously, inexplicably “off”. 1/10.
Purves/Russell-era first Doctor. Charming. Utterly charming. 8/10.
Hines/Wills-era Second Doctor. Great fun. 8/10.
Trealor-era Third. Hit and miss, but ultimately both “of its era and fresh”. 7/10.
Leela & Fourth Doctor Adventures. Infinitely relistenable. 10/10.
Romana &vFourth Doctor. Almost infinitely relistenable. 9.5/10.
Philip Hinchliffe presents: miss and hit. 7/10.
Fifth Doctor adventures. Some gems, some land mines. Oddly enough older (Perinem) stuff is better. 8/10.
Sixth Doctor. He’s amazing, the stories… less so. 7/10.
Seventh Doctor. Ironically… 7/10. At best.
Non-time war eight: lovely. 7/10.
Time war eight: err…. 6/10.
War Doctor. 9/10. But you need to be in th3 right mood.
Nine: charming. entertaining . Another nice irony - 9/10.
Ten (Tennant): better than on TV. 7/10.
Ten (Dudman/etc). Pass.
Eleven. Pass.
Twelve. Missing, miss, hit, miss. 5/10.
Thirteen. Chance would be a fine thing.

First Doctor - I have tried but i just cannot warm to Bradley's performance. Nothing wrong with it per se but it just doesn't ring true. Noonan delivers a great performance but the four stories so far have been good but not great but i have hopes for the future

Second Doctor - It is a bit early to tell and i am yet to be 100% sold on Troughton's performance (seems odd to be saying that!) i currently think Fraser has the edge but that could just be down to familiarity. The first two stories were good enough that i have some hope for the future.

Third Doctor - Always enjoy this range, it has a consistently entertaining standard. Especially now with the Brig more in the mix. I hope it carries on at this level.

Fourth Doctor - Very hit and miss story quality wise. I also feel that Leela / Louise are massively overused and becoming boring. Not just in this range but when Leela / louise inevitably pop up in all the other ranges it just makes me sigh. Need to do better and stop coasting on the affection people have for Tom

Fifth Doctor - very inoffensive. Always plays it safe. There have been very few duds but also very few classics of late. It almost seems as if the fifth Doctor is just there story wise. Peter always delivers though. Very much room for improvement.

Sixth Doctor - Jeez, what went wrong? The 6th used to be so consistent and entertaining but i am struggling to remember the last truly enjoyable 6th Doctor release. The RTD script, The Eleven box sets were duller than dull. The Waterworld boxset was so bad that i had to stop listening to BF for a month to get the taste out of my...ears. This range is most in need of a complete overhaul. The 6th has fallen far from his greatest days.

Seventh Doctor - The most inconsistent Doctor in terms of both story and performance and not much has changed really. Except that the bad is now REALLY bad and that the good doesn't have to be as good anymore because its being compared with such bad.....if that makes sense. I think with this range they need to focus on the quieter 7th as i think this is where McCoy's strength's lie and his performances can sometimes subtract from what could be a good story.

Eighth Doctor - The crown jewel of BF's output. Love McGanns performance, never puts a foot wrong and his chemistry with Walker is awesome. I know some people are tired of Liv but i would like her to stay for a very long time. I think this range never fails to entertain and i always prioritise a new McGann release.

Ninth Doctor - Always enjoyable and you can tell Eccleston is having fun and so am i when i am listening but after that they are very easy to forget. Happy bouncy stories that never stay in the mind. Fun enough but could do with a bit more meat i think.

Tenth Doctor - Always enjoyable and worth a listen but i feel as if this range will now have very sporadic releases due to Tennant not being locked down. Some of the earlier stuff was a bit bland but the Dalek Universe stuff was really good.

Eleventh Doctor - Fun and quirky stories. Dudman is superb and the chemistry the 11th has with Valerie makes me very sad that our time is limited.

War Doctor - Interesting stories told in interesting ways with Carley being sensational. Looking forward to more from this range.