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Post by newt5996 on Mar 10, 2016 1:40:46 GMT
So I want to get into the Benny range after listening to the Novel Adaptations, reading some novel and hearing the NA of Bernice Summerfield sets, but I don't know what reviews I should watch out for in terms of quality.
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Post by omega on Mar 10, 2016 1:56:25 GMT
I'd recommend 11.03 Year Zero and 11.04 Dead Man's Switch first. Year Zero is a total continuity reboot where all you need to know is that Benny is an archaeologist out of her own space and time, trying to solve the mystery of a society that has outlawed history, and naturally archaeology. It's a great introduction to the character when she's not with the Doctor, and doesn't have the continuity baggage previous releases have (even when plots are stand-alone there's still one major plot arc or another). They're CD only at this point, no download option, but they are strong stories that don't have and previous continuity.
Dead Man's Switch leads into the Epoch box set, continuing the Year Zero theme. The other box sets are stand-alone, the only exception being Missing Persons, which functions as a loose follow-up to Epoch and bookends the series of box sets.
There's a charity release called Many Happy Returns that was released for Benny's 20th birthday back in 2012 (the same occasion Love and War was released for). It's an hour and a half long and touches upon the various points of Benny's Big Finish history, including an encounter with Iris Wildthyme. There is one major spoiler for a development from a 2008 release (it's in the Peter and Adrian Wall segment), but Lisa Bowerman says it in the extras for the first New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box set (released in 2014).
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Mar 10, 2016 14:18:12 GMT
So does Year Zero wipe the previous stuff from the timeline or is it just a clean jumping on point like they do now and again in comics?
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Post by omega on Mar 11, 2016 0:09:57 GMT
So does Year Zero wipe the previous stuff from the timeline or is it just a clean jumping on point like they do now and again in comics? It's more of a clean jumping on point where the previous continuity has little to no relevance. A few old characters return, but their re-introduction gives you all the context you need. From Road Trip, the second box set, on, there's a loose tie-in novel. Unlike the novels that tied into an early season, these ones aren't essential to the audio stories but do offer a few more adventures. The only book that adds anything significant to the accompanying box set is Adorable Illusion for Missing Persons (listen to Missing Persons first to get a better understanding of the context for Adorable Illusion). The four books are available in physical form or download (download gives you a choice of formats based on what eReader you use). |
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Post by laughingdevil on Mar 11, 2016 23:44:51 GMT
And yes, it is very frustrating that the earlier Benny audios and books aren't available as downloads.
There's no good reason for it.
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Post by omega on Mar 12, 2016 6:07:24 GMT
And yes, it is very frustrating that the earlier Benny audios and books aren't available as downloads. There's no good reason for it. When they were first made there wasn't the download rights in the contracts (the download system was started in 2008), so the main issue is that someone has to contact everyone who was involved in those stories and get their permission for the download rights for what they contributed. Other releases like this are the first season of Companion Chronicles, the first Sarah Jane Smith story (and only that release from that range), some of the early Bonus Releases like Real Time and the first three seasons of Gallifrey. Considering there are at least 60 of the CD only Benny releases and their digitization isn't a priority, there's not much movement with the process. James Goss is known to be pursuing this goal and commented about it a few times on the old forum, though there isn't any recent updates on progress. |
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Post by laughingdevil on Mar 12, 2016 20:24:28 GMT
It's all so dumb. Big Finish should just publish the downloads, send a reasonable royalty to everyone they can contact, put reasonable royalties in trust for anyone who they can't find. This is intern work, and if they brought a couple on board, it could be done within a week.
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Post by Tony Jones on Mar 13, 2016 7:37:29 GMT
It's all so dumb. Big Finish should just publish the downloads, send a reasonable royalty to everyone they can contact, put reasonable royalties in trust for anyone who they can't find. This is intern work, and if they brought a couple on board, it could be done within a week. I think while UK copyright law may be dumb the solution isn't that simple, though you may know better. Big Finish only survives through licensing; if it got a reputation for improvising it might upset future license holders |
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Post by omega on Mar 13, 2016 7:57:41 GMT
I know there were rumours that because of the whole Blogtor Who Tenth Doctor thing, Nick Briggs' withdrawn Facebook post included, last year the whole project was at risk of being cancelled (one of the few times the marketing machine was mismanaged). Bad press is something Big Finish can't afford, and very rarely gets (the Blogtor Who thing is the only thing I know of that would qualify).
If interns were the solution, then Big Finish would have done it long ago when they didn't have the heavy workload and weren't handling lots of properties. The rarity of the podcasts nowadays is testament to that.
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Post by laughingdevil on Mar 13, 2016 20:49:31 GMT
It wouldn't be bad press because if done properly, with trust accounts set up, anyone who complained would be viewed as a big prissy. And prissies don't do well in the court of public opinion.
It would be an interesting exercise to try to figure out who is at issue. Compile a list of everyone on the CD only releases. See which people are on releases that are available for download. Narrow down to the list of people who haven't signed off on future releases.
One thing weird about the Bernice singles is the later seasons are from 2010. So how would downloads have not been a factor there? At the least it would be good to get downloads for dead man's switch and year zero which apparently is a good jump on point.
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Post by brians on Mar 13, 2016 21:41:09 GMT
It wouldn't be bad press because if done properly, with trust accounts set up, anyone who complained would be viewed as a big prissy. And prissies don't do well in the court of public opinion. It would be an interesting exercise to try to figure out who is at issue. Compile a list of everyone on the CD only releases. See which people are on releases that are available for download. Narrow down to the list of people who haven't signed off on future releases. One thing weird about the Bernice singles is the later seasons are from 2010. So how would downloads have not been a factor there? At the least it would be good to get downloads for dead man's switch and year zero which apparently is a good jump on point. It's not about press, it's about reputation with license holders, which is a very different thing. They won't want a sniff of lawyers, and wouldn't deal with a company who's working practices might bring their brand into a court. It could mean the end of Big Finish. In the case of the Bernice Summerfield adventures, I'm assuming the main blocker is Paul Cornell, as he's the main rights holder for the entire series. I guess they didn't write up a new contract with him allowing downloads until they swapped to boxsets. Even if he gave his consent to do downloads on the old releases though they then still would need to go through every other character, author etc. If he hasn't given consent they won't have bothered speaking to anyone else as there's nothing they can do without it. To be clear again though, the risk of proceeding without clearances is not bad publicity, it would be the risk of being sued for breach of contract and losing their existing licenses, having license holders refuse to work with them as a result of the reputational risk and them going out of business as a consequence. Hardly seems worth it. It's not a great hardship to rip a CD to mp3. |
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Post by laughingdevil on Mar 13, 2016 22:59:37 GMT
That's a pretty scandalous thing to suggest about Paul Cornell.
It would be hard to imagine any lawyer worth their salt taking the case.
"Let me get this straight. You had 4 lines in this audiobook, and the rest of the cast signed on? You're being offered fair market compensation? So all you're complaining about is that it's available as downloads instead of only cd's?"
Lawyer would want to smack the prissy for wasting their time.
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Post by seeley on Mar 13, 2016 23:10:39 GMT
That's a pretty scandalous thing to suggest about Paul Cornell. It would be hard to imagine any lawyer worth their salt taking the case. "Let me get this straight. You had 4 lines in this audiobook, and the rest of the cast signed on? You're being offered fair market compensation? So all you're complaining about is that it's available as downloads instead of only cd's?" Lawyer would want to smack the prissy for wasting their time. It's not a matter of quantity, is it? If bit-player-#4's contract didn't permit the use of his performance on a download, I don't see why he'd have less standing under the law than someone like Lisa Bowerman. Perhaps the law itself is silly (I honestly don't know enough to say,) but that's not Big Finish's fault. I think it would be unwise of Big Finish to assume that there is no lawyer desperate enough to bring them to court over a minor breach of it. |
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Post by omega on Mar 13, 2016 23:29:09 GMT
That's a pretty scandalous thing to suggest about Paul Cornell. It would be hard to imagine any lawyer worth their salt taking the case. "Let me get this straight. You had 4 lines in this audiobook, and the rest of the cast signed on? You're being offered fair market compensation? So all you're complaining about is that it's available as downloads instead of only cd's?" Lawyer would want to smack the prissy for wasting their time. It's not a matter of quantity, is it? If bit-player-#4's contract didn't permit the use of his performance on a download, I don't see why he'd have less standing under the law than someone like Lisa Bowerman. Perhaps the law itself is silly (I honestly don't know enough to say,) but that's not Big Finish's fault. I think it would be unwise of Big Finish to assume that there is no lawyer desperate enough to bring them to court over a minor breach of it. If you've got people, and Scientologists, willing to go to court for petty reasons like similar names (people who share names with famous people, who were born before those people became famous, must go through hell when signing up for things) and other minor trivial or unreasonable things, so it's safe to assume someone will be ready to sue for breach of contract. No matter what the result, the bad press won't be good for Big Finish. I cite the Blogtor Who incident last year, where miscommunication caused rumours that the Tenth Doctor audios might not happen at all because of said miscommunication (Nick Brigg's withdrawn Facebook response didn't help matters). |
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Post by omega on Mar 14, 2016 1:08:26 GMT
The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box sets are another good starting point. They're evocative of the New Adventures and don't draw on any serious continuity. Both Volume One and The Triumph of Sutekh are self-contained story arcs, and Triumph of Sutekh has Gabriel Woolf back as Sutekh. There's a video trailer on the Big Finish YouTube channel for Triumph of Sutekh if you're interested.
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Post by newt5996 on Mar 14, 2016 4:06:23 GMT
The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box sets are another good starting point. They're evocative of the New Adventures and don't draw on any serious continuity. Both Volume One and The Triumph of Sutekh are self-contained story arcs, and Triumph of Sutekh has Gabriel Woolf back as Sutekh. There's a video trailer on the Big Finish YouTube channel for Triumph of Sutekh if you're interested. Already got those two and am intending to get Series 1 as a bundle. It just will take a while as I'm in America so to get the CDs is a bit hectic |
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Post by omega on Mar 14, 2016 4:54:52 GMT
The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box sets are another good starting point. They're evocative of the New Adventures and don't draw on any serious continuity. Both Volume One and The Triumph of Sutekh are self-contained story arcs, and Triumph of Sutekh has Gabriel Woolf back as Sutekh. There's a video trailer on the Big Finish YouTube channel for Triumph of Sutekh if you're interested. Already got those two and am intending to get Series 1 as a bundle. It just will take a while as I'm in America so to get the CDs is a bit hectic If you didn't already know, series 1 is made up of audio adaptations of Virgin novels Benny was in. The ones based on novels featuring the Doctor have been adapted so that the role the Doctor and other companions played in proceedings is filled by other Benny characters like Jason. Good luck and enjoy the stories. Side note, the character of Bev Tarrant (you've met her in Genocide Machine and she returns in Dust Breeding) becomes a regular fairly early on. |
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Post by laughingdevil on May 20, 2016 19:52:40 GMT
Months go by, still no Benny single release downloads. So unprofessional.
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Post by Ela on May 20, 2016 21:04:08 GMT
Months go by, still no Benny single release downloads. So unprofessional. As pointed out in the discussion above, it's not as easy as just making them available. There are rights to consider, and we don't have the inside story about what would be involved in making the single releases available as downloads. There's nothing unprofessional about it. Please be more respectful. |
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Post by brians on May 20, 2016 21:04:50 GMT
Apart from passing comments a long time ago are we sure that Big Finish are actually making any active attempt to make these available as downloads?
Personally I can't see why they would. They tell us new Benny titles don't sell particularly well, so why put time and effort into old ones?
Perhaps a polite email to podcast@bigfinish.co.uk would get a response.
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