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Post by kfbate on Jun 11, 2016 16:39:40 GMT
I wouldn't say I don't like The Light at the End, I am just bitterly disappointed at wasting such a wonderful opportunity of making something really really good. I know others will disagree, but there are in my opinion better short stories with fantastic use of story lines and inception and construction of ideas, other than what for me feels like someone's attempt to make a really good cake by making it with every ingredient you could possibly use to make every type of cake. It doesn't work, well at least not for me.
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Post by acousticwolf on Jun 11, 2016 18:28:20 GMT
The Pirates is the only one I've never been able to finish. I just can't stand the singing *ducks* Cheers Tony It's worth getting to the end of 'The Pirates'. I literally teared up once I realized what was happening. But I liked the singing, so what do I know? I've tried twice now, so perhaps I should just listen to the last 5 mins instead . I've also just remembered another story I've never finished, Ringpull World. Sorry, just can't do it, which I don't think is too bad out of hundreds (and hundreds...) of stories that I've heard (and that includes "Minuet in Hell" and "Year of the Pig") Cheers Tony
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Post by Hieronymus on Jun 11, 2016 18:44:46 GMT
It's interesting to see how varied people's choices are. Some of the ones people have said they disliked were only so-so for me.
For me, the least favourite (in release order) are:
The Land of the Dead. It starts off OK, but degenerates as the story progresses. This one had potential, which makes it all the worse for falling apart as it did. The monsters are some of the worst ever in BF.
Minuet in Hell. I didn't buy the premise, couldn't get past the cartoonish pastiche characters, and didn't like where they went with Charley. Waste of the Brigadier.
Scherzo. Lots of potential here, and I appreciate that it's perhaps the one DU story that really pushes the idea of a different reality. But 90 hours of two characters talking in a featureless landscape didn't do it for me, and the flaw in the premise behind the explanation in the final episode is on par with Kill the Moon.
Pier Pressure. This one has already been summarized adequately elsewhere in this thread.
Cryptobiosis. The less said about it, the better. Let's pretend it never happened.
There are others that just fell flat (e.g. Labyrinth of Buda Castle), or didn't do much for me (The Dark Flame), or rubbed me the wrong way (Nekromanteia), or that had jarring moments in an otherwise great story (Seasons of Fear), but those five stood out to me as poor.
And it's odd. Some of these stories are by wonderful writers who've given us truly great adventures in BF audio. Just not with these particular stories.
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Post by elkawho on Jun 11, 2016 19:35:19 GMT
Renaissance of the Daleks. What on earth! Oh and Creatures of Beauty, hated it from end to beginning. Pirates and Creatures of Beauty are two of my all time favorites.
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Post by fingersmash on Jun 12, 2016 3:21:50 GMT
Medicinal Purposes. When you're so disgusted with how the first scene presents it's characters, it's a very tough sell and I refuse to touch any Robert Ross release because it is the one thing Doctor Who should never be, mean spirited.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2016 10:38:16 GMT
Scherzo. Lots of potential here, and I appreciate that it's perhaps the one DU story that really pushes the idea of a different reality. But 90 hours of two characters talking in a featureless landscape didn't do it for me, and the flaw in the premise behind the explanation in the final episode is on par with Kill the Moon. I'm sorry to pick up on this but I couldn't resist the splendid typo. It was only 90 minutes - but, agreed, it seemed like 90 hours!
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Post by Timelord007 on Jun 13, 2016 7:42:58 GMT
The Pirates is the only one I've never been able to finish. I just can't stand the singing *ducks* Cheers Tony I loathe The Pirates because I'm a grumpy old git & don't like singing in Doctor Who, right I'm off to make humbugs.
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Post by Timelord007 on Jun 13, 2016 7:51:42 GMT
I wouldn't say I don't like The Light at the End, I am just bitterly disappointed at wasting such a wonderful opportunity of making something really really good. I know others will disagree, but there are in my opinion better short stories with fantastic use of story lines and inception and construction of ideas, other than what for me feels like someone's attempt to make a really good cake by making it with every ingredient you could possibly use to make every type of cake. It doesn't work, well at least not for me. So there was no light at the end for you after listening to this release then?
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Post by kfbate on Jun 13, 2016 12:45:40 GMT
Timelord007 ouch that was a good pun
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Jun 13, 2016 14:31:24 GMT
The Abandoned. There was a decent story in there but I mainly heard a lot of shrieking. Indeed
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jun 14, 2016 15:51:42 GMT
Year of the pig. It's well made and I know it has its fans but I found it dull. Scary cat. Very poor Dreamtime. Can't remember anything about it. nekromanteia. Without spoiling anything Some aspects I found off putting Creed of the kromen. Poor Mea culpa, I adore Year of The Pig, I think it's just a great big warm hug of a story.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Aug 19, 2016 21:04:10 GMT
Yeah, can't say I was overly fond of the second half of Dark Eyes 1. No disrespect to Nick, but it got a little ploddy and babbly.
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Post by mrperson on Aug 19, 2016 22:05:30 GMT
A tad negative, but ok...
I thought I'd posted in this.
The Dark Husband - Dull
"Doctor Who and the Pirates" (or whatever it is called) - personal bias. I don't like musicals at all. Other than one: The Book of Mormon.
Shadow of the Scourge - Generic to the point of dullness
Dreamtime - because it started out so well for me, then just...mmpf...dumb
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Aug 19, 2016 22:20:38 GMT
The Reaping - dear god everyone who isn't Cyber-Controlled is so nasty. The usual good humoured niggling between the Doctor and Peri is missing as well. Spare Parts - depressing. The Chines of Midnight - really depressing. Blue Forgotten Planet - pointless.
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Post by Ela on Aug 19, 2016 23:40:01 GMT
I wouldn't say I don't like The Light at the End, I am just bitterly disappointed at wasting such a wonderful opportunity of making something really really good. I know others will disagree, but there are in my opinion better short stories with fantastic use of story lines and inception and construction of ideas, other than what for me feels like someone's attempt to make a really good cake by making it with every ingredient you could possibly use to make every type of cake. It doesn't work, well at least not for me. I agree they could have done something so much better. But I listened to it before I was familiar with all the characters involved, so there's that. I'll listen again one day.
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Post by Ela on Aug 19, 2016 23:45:14 GMT
Medicinal Purposes. When you're so disgusted with how the first scene presents it's characters, it's a very tough sell and I refuse to touch any Robert Ross release because it is the one thing Doctor Who should never be, mean spirited. Oh, yes. I didn't like the whole premise and subject matter of it and will probably never listen to it again. I wouldn't go so far as to say I would boycott Robert Ross, but I didn't like this particular story at all. Blue Forgotten Planet - pointless. I wouldn't necessarily say that Blue Forgotten Planet was pointless, but I found it a very frustrating conclusion to a story line. Have just listened, I have to add Masters of Luxor to the list. Too slow and too long. I lost interest in the entire plot, kept wishing it would come to the point already, and became aggravated with Barbara's constant forebodings of evil, as I recently stated elsewhere.
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Post by coffeeaddict on Aug 20, 2016 1:21:39 GMT
Allow me to join the chorus of those who dislike Pirates, and I happen to like musicals - but Pirates was just painful. For the record, I love the Scorchies.
Most of the Divergent Arc, it had potential but to me it seemed that the writers either forgot what they were supposed to be doing with it or didn't have a clue what they were intending for it.
Zagreus puts me to sleep, I cannot maintain interest and don't have any plans to try listening again unless my insomnia comes back.
The Boy That Time Forgot was painful. I make no secret that I loath the character of Adric, but even I think this story was an injustice to him. Regardless of the actor playing the role, this is a script Big Finish really should have passed on.
I'm echo the comment made earlier in this thread about Thomas Brewster - hated the character and was not overly fond of the stories he was in.
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Post by project37 on Aug 20, 2016 1:59:50 GMT
I wouldn't say I don't like The Light at the End, I am just bitterly disappointed at wasting such a wonderful opportunity of making something really really good. I know others will disagree, but there are in my opinion better short stories with fantastic use of story lines and inception and construction of ideas, other than what for me feels like someone's attempt to make a really good cake by making it with every ingredient you could possibly use to make every type of cake. It doesn't work, well at least not for me. I battled bravely through this story but admitted defeat when Ace had the cringiest of cringy moments of rattling off unimaginative fan-style nicknames for seven other Doctors mere seconds after she'd ostensibly seen them for the first time. "Old Man White Hair"?!? And let's not get into the grim outcome of this celebratory tale. "The Four Doctors" actually got it right - a little bit of playful interaction between Doctors but otherwise kept them separate and involved in a time travel story that was interesting on its own instead of..."oh by the way, it was about a light bulb."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2016 2:03:08 GMT
I'm always more inclined to dislike dull, average stories more than "bad" ones. Who can be many things, but forgettable shouldn't be one of them. I'd take 10 Zagreus' - as messy and convoluted as it is - over one Energy Of The Daleks or some such more flat effort. That's not to say I don't like trad Who stories, just the ones that seem to be connect-the-dots, Who-By-Numbers. For the sheer volume of material BF put out there's relatively little I can say I truly dislike, that are without much to recommend. There's nearly always a supporting role, or a fun performance that gives a reason to soldier on through even a flat story. Colin is a master of dragging a flat story up a notch when it's perhaps not the best. He just attacks with such verve that they're almost always improved by his presence. Sorry to say but when it's Tom or Peter, if they don't "believe" in the story, I think it comes across quite a lot so there are a few stories with them that I think fall down my rankings further than the story perhaps deserves. In fairness to Peter, his trilogy at the start of the year was as involved as I've heard him sound in a long time. He was well up for them. I'd agree with the couple of people who have cited Light At The End. It was more a disappointment, looking back, than most of the event releases have been. It's not got enough fun to be a true romp, or enough stakes to feel invested. Nick said he dislikes mlti-Doctor stories and struggled to come up with one....I'd suggest then he shouldn't have been the one to write it. With the wealth of writers BF call on, and the lure of doing the 50th event story, I struggle to believe there aren't a dozen better stories we could easily have had. And, to be fair, a dozen worse. Again - back to my point - we got safe, middle ground results for that release. And that's the last place I like Doctor Who to be. And so many people citing Pirates as a least favourite for being a "musical"! There's only one episode with the singing. What's the reasons for hating the other hour and a half? Ye all be filthy land lubbers! For my money it's a true desert island Who story. Absolutely wonderful, with an ending that has to be earned - and is, with gusto. All we need to know about who Evelyn is, and her relationship with Sixie, is in that tale. It's absolutely mental, sure, but that's greatly to it's credit (Gilbert and Sullivan ref intentional )
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Post by jasonward on Aug 20, 2016 2:04:11 GMT
Most of the Divergent Arc, it had potential but to me it seemed that the writers either forgot what they were supposed to be doing with it or didn't have a clue what they were intending for it. For me the entire premise was an impossible one for writers to deal with. A place with no time. Now, you really need to think what means and realise just how totally it undermines the ability to tell any kind of story. When there is no time, there is no cause and effect, everything that ever was and ever will be, is. There are no unknowns, everything that can be known is known, everything that can happen just is, it's not even happening now, there is no now, every state of everything is, there is no narrative, nowhere leads anywhere everything is. Star Trek DS9 did a decent enough job of this when the commander of DS9 entered the warp hole thing by DS9 and talked to the timeless beings that lived there. There were any number of anomalies and inconsistencies, but they managed a decent job because the episode was in effect a conversation between the human and the beings that lived there, he tried to grasp their reality where time didn't exist and they tried to grasp his reality where one event followed another and once a moment had passed there was no going back to it. But it would been incredibly difficult for writers to do much more than that, stories by their very nature require one thing to follow another and ... well where there is no time, they just don't. The other thing that most writers pass over, since even the physicists still sometimes can't really get the heads around is that space and time are in fact (as best we know) the same thing, in fact the formal name is spacetime. Without time there is no space, without time not only can one thing not follow another, there is no where to get, no where to come from and no where to be. Now I am not so bold as to say that this means there can be no timeless spaceless universe, but what I do know is that if there is such a thing, not only is it beyond my comprehension it is beyond the ability of language to express. You cannot tell a story where there are no consequences, everything is and that language can't express. The whole concept of the Divergent Arc was fundamentally flawed, which meant that the writers produced flawed stories that didn't live up to the impossible selling point of "no time". The conceit of placing The Doctor in a place where his abilities as a Timelord are rendered useless or give him flawed intuition is one that is filled with possibilities, but to place The Doctor in a place that is beyond the grasp and understanding of the sharpest minds the human race has produced and which we have not even the language to describe is one filled with no possibility. EDIT: Oh and yes, Thomas Brewster... yes, a detestable character and I didn't enjoy any of the stories in which he featured. But Pirates? Oh man, as a one off I loved it.
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