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Post by firerat22 on Jul 16, 2016 15:18:46 GMT
I'm an American (New Jersey) and a BF fan dating back to Sirens of Time. I agree that BF's use of American characters over the years has failed more than it has succeeded. I too found the general a little distracting, despite him being voiced by an American. I personally think the issue is that very few American actors can successfully do radio/audio acting. Mainstream radio drama here in the states has been pretty much non-existent since the early '60s, so very few here have any experience, both performing and listening to it to learn how to do it well. In the UK, however, radio drama is still a viable and successful art form and British actors, I feel, are far better skilled at voice acting as a result. American actors too many times just sound like they're awkwardly reading lines instead of actually acting. That's just my two cents, though... As for Shutdown, it was excellent and I look forward to hearing more UNIT. One thing, however, and I need to re-listen to Power Cell again, but when Osgood's flat is being attacked, her friend (Jay, if I remember correctly), just before he sacrifices himself, refers to Josh as "Captain Carter." How did he know that when Osgood only introduced him as a friend from work. Did I miss something? Like I said, I need to go back a re-listen.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Jul 16, 2016 16:30:47 GMT
I'm an American (New Jersey) and a BF fan dating back to Sirens of Time. I agree that BF's use of American characters over the years has failed more than it has succeeded. I too found the general a little distracting, despite him being voiced by an American. I personally think the issue is that very few American actors can successfully do radio/audio acting. Mainstream radio drama here in the states has been pretty much non-existent since the early '60s, so very few here have any experience, both performing and listening to it to learn how to do it well. In the UK, however, radio drama is still a viable and successful art form and British actors, I feel, are far better skilled at voice acting as a result. American actors too many times just sound like they're awkwardly reading lines instead of actually acting. That's just my two cents, though... And I don't really disagree with any of that. As BF listeners we have been conditioned to notice how awful the American sounding characters have very often sounded in the past, so that when faced with an actual, real American person playing an American character it is almost automatic to dismiss it. As noted, the actor in question sounded very flat but didn't sound inauthentic to me. I'm a theater director & writer and when I talk to actors about radio drama I usually get confused looks. Which is of course, just too bad.
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dorney
Big Finish Creative Team
Likes: 3,063
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Post by dorney on Jul 17, 2016 8:43:22 GMT
Odd - I thought the actor gave a perfectly solid audio performance. Maybe it's just something we're less used to hearing?
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Post by omega on Jul 17, 2016 8:50:29 GMT
Odd - I thought the actor gave a perfectly solid audio performance. Maybe it's just something we're less used to hearing? Or listeners realise the character is meant to be American, so they automatically judge based on past experience with bad accents? Unless it's completely over the top and cliched like in Minuet in Hell it doesn't bother me.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Jul 17, 2016 8:51:00 GMT
-I'm just happy that with this adventure, as with last year's 6th Doctor Main Range adventure set in the American West, Big Finish is going out and finding American actors.
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dorney
Big Finish Creative Team
Likes: 3,063
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Post by dorney on Jul 17, 2016 9:03:21 GMT
Odd - I thought the actor gave a perfectly solid audio performance. Maybe it's just something we're less used to hearing? Or listeners realise the character is meant to be American, so they automatically judge based on past experience with bad accents? Unless it's completely over the top and cliched like in Minuet in Hell it doesn't bother me. That would only work with Brits though, and I'm sure the complaints are almost exclusively American. I wonder if it's a reverse of a phenomenon I've sometimes seen in US TV where sometimes genuine British actors turn up. They're accents are fine, but they're terrible actors. Almost as if it's harder for the audiences to spot a bad performance when it's got a different accent. I don't think that's the case with this actor, who sounds fine, and I'm not sure it'd work generally here anyway as we're far more used to hearing American actors in things anyway.
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Post by elkawho on Jul 18, 2016 3:13:03 GMT
Well, this American didn't have a problem with the accent.
I think that BF had a hard time finding actors who could do American accents early on, however their later releases (the past 5-7 years or so) have been much better. They seem to be employing a lot of North American actors for those roles now. As has been commented on before, I think what is more jarring than the accents are the wrong colloquialisms and sayings for an American. I've noticed that that's gotten better recently as well.
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Post by nottenst on Jul 19, 2016 17:42:34 GMT
Anyone else hear a hint of South African accent in the leader of the mercenary forces? They mentioned in the Behind the Scenes that they were going for that. I listened to this over the weekend and thought it was a great adventure. During it all I had been wondering why the Doctor wasn't needed to intervene, but they managed to handle it all diplomatically in the end. I was slightly confused at the end with the memory spray - just who was affected by the Masters implementing it? I had thought it was possibly global, but maybe it was just Ice Station Alpha as Sir Patrick had to be manually affected by Kate later on. We'll be going to Geneva next month, too bad I can't drop by UNIT HQ there - at least when we go to London the following week we can drop by the Tower.
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Post by kimalysong on Jul 20, 2016 17:49:43 GMT
This was a good solid release and it's great to have Kate and Osgood two excellent characters front and center but I'll be honest so far this range (this box & the last) have been a bit too plot focused for me and not enough character. I feel I know Kate & Osgood but partially because of the TV series but Sam & Josh are almost blank slates for me. I hardly know who is who (except one of them gained inhuman strength in the previous box). Although I am looking forward to the next box set to see how Big Finish tackles the Silence I am also worried it's just going to be more of the same thing. Obviously this is just my own preference but I feel I'd care more about the stakes if I delved deeper into the characters & their relationships with each other and as a team.
That being said didn't notice any character with a bad American accent. Although I think I missed an American character all together.
Edit: Okay listening to the Extras, I realized who was supposed to be American. I liked his character. I didn't really pay attention to where he was supposed to be from. I guess because I am American myself I didn't notice he "sounded American". He sounded perfectly normal to me.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2016 21:16:39 GMT
In the extras they talked about how they needed to set up UNIT's military force as Actually Useful. Once that was established they could do more character-driven stuff (which, they say, they will do with Silenced).
I agree with differentiating Sam and Josh. It confused me last box set. It didn't this box set, but that had a lot to do with the fact that Sam isn't in the first three episodes. Even so, I also tell the difference by the fact that Josh has inhuman strength (and that he and Osgood are close, due to Osgood putting her life in his hands often), which doesn't speak well of his characterisation.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2016 3:34:30 GMT
Just Finished it and It was absolutely amazing. Both This and Extinction have the feel of an Epic BBC Miniseries set in the universe of Doctor Who. This time around, I also think that Sam Bishop was given a better role even though he was in only 1 episode this time round. Josh Carter was once again played brilliantly by James Joyce, The feel, while epic, was also very small scale to extinction, which made it stand out in a good way and of course props must be given to Ingrid Oliver and Jemma Redgrave for a wonderful job playing Kate and Osgood. Can we please have Sam and Josh on the T.V show.(Just imagine Josh Carter with The 12th Doctor )
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Post by kennysmith on Aug 27, 2016 20:58:01 GMT
Or listeners realise the character is meant to be American, so they automatically judge based on past experience with bad accents? Unless it's completely over the top and cliched like in Minuet in Hell it doesn't bother me. That would only work with Brits though, and I'm sure the complaints are almost exclusively American. I wonder if it's a reverse of a phenomenon I've sometimes seen in US TV where sometimes genuine British actors turn up. They're accents are fine, but they're terrible actors. Almost as if it's harder for the audiences to spot a bad performance when it's got a different accent. I don't think that's the case with this actor, who sounds fine, and I'm not sure it'd work generally here anyway as we're far more used to hearing American actors in things anyway. Harry Van Gorkum?
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bobod
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 2,759
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Post by bobod on Nov 17, 2016 13:37:34 GMT
I personally think the issue is that very few American actors can successfully do radio/audio acting. Mainstream radio drama here in the states has been pretty much non-existent since the early '60s, so very few here have any experience, both performing and listening to it to learn how to do it well. In the UK, however, radio drama is still a viable and successful art form and British actors, I feel, are far better skilled at voice acting as a result. American actors too many times just sound like they're awkwardly reading lines instead of actually acting. That's just my two cents, though... Have you heard the Dark Shadows audios? There are some *exemplary* audio performances from the original TV series cast (maybe because they were all stage trained as opposed to TV/film trained?)
[That's not a negative comment on any other ranges, more that I think the DS range - recorded in the States - shows a wealth of voice acting talent.]
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Post by Ela on Jul 4, 2019 18:08:57 GMT
I listened to this last week and found it pretty enjoyable. The plot and story development kept me interested the whole time.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,811
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Post by lidar2 on Feb 3, 2021 13:39:44 GMT
Re-listened to this recently. The extras say the villains turned up in a River Song but, although I have listened to all the River Songs, I can't for the life of me remember these villains - whose name I won't attempt to spell - turning up. Can anyone help?
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