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Post by omega on Aug 24, 2018 0:48:45 GMT
I was under the impression that David Warner's Doctor was never meant to be an alternative Third Doctor. Though many have taken him as such. I think David Warner's version of the Doctor is wonderful and fun. Certainly his What If is what if the Doctor wasn't the scientific adviser for UNIT, and plays out as him arriving in 1997 Hong Kong rather than 1970 England. Sympathy for the Devil plays with lots of Third Doctor tropes. By Masters of War David Warner's Doctor has diverged from Jon Pertwee's, being able to travel in space and with the Brig as his companion, and is entirely his own character in the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield sets. That's what the Unbounds do, taking the Doctor in a new direction by altering something fundamental to the nature of the character and seeing how it plays out. Auld Mortality keeping the Doctor on Gallifrey, Full Fathom Five twisting his morality, He Jests at Scars and A Storm of Angels exploring how a disregard for the Laws of Time play out (Storm of Angels is a lot more subtle about it and far less of a continuity checklist). Exile turns him into a her as a lowbrow sitcom character. The Arabella Weir Doctor does have some promising traits of her own (more self-reflective than most incarnations of the Doctor, prime universe or Unbound) despite the script she had to contend with.
So while the origins of the David Warner Doctor parallel the Third Doctor initially, the different events cause him to diverge into his own rather wonderful character who is just a valid a Doctor as Jon Pertwee is.
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Post by eric009 on Aug 24, 2018 17:06:37 GMT
he is but comes to 80's not the 70's that reason chance in the timelines in that story
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Post by eric009 on Aug 26, 2018 21:07:13 GMT
I played this to my godson (fan of new who)10th his fav,look on his face when he listens to it and David Tennant comes on hehe:P out of the eight plays 5. Deadline and 6. Exile only too i did not like Deadline the story just did not grab me at all.
6. Exile - {Spoiler}
too much getting drunk which more than likely put me off as never be drunk in my life or had a can of beer, so put that down to bring my fault |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2018 17:52:07 GMT
I was under the impression that David Warner's Doctor was never meant to be an alternative Third Doctor. Though many have taken him as such. I think David Warner's version of the Doctor is wonderful and fun. Got to agree Warner really does breathe life into it he would have made a wonderful tv version but at least we have him on audio and given the ending of the Bernice Unbound...very soon he should be bumping heads with The Other Doctors,i hope very soon |
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Post by tuigirl on Aug 28, 2018 19:40:48 GMT
Really fun, I greatly enjoyed it. Love the Warner Doctor but the swearing David Tennant takes the cake.
To be honest, I think this is the only one of the Unbound releases (except the excellent Bernice Summerfield ones!) which I enjoyed.
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Post by omega on Aug 29, 2018 10:21:46 GMT
Really fun, I greatly enjoyed it. Love the Warner Doctor but the swearing David Tennant takes the cake. To be honest, I think this is the only one of the Unbound releases (except the excellent Bernice Summerfield ones!) which I enjoyed. I find the range more hit than miss. The ones I don't like so much are He Jests at Scars (Gary Russell must have had a goal of at least one continuity reference per minute) and Exile (a promising premise utterly mishandled). |
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Post by tuigirl on Aug 29, 2018 11:34:14 GMT
Really fun, I greatly enjoyed it. Love the Warner Doctor but the swearing David Tennant takes the cake. To be honest, I think this is the only one of the Unbound releases (except the excellent Bernice Summerfield ones!) which I enjoyed. I find the range more hit than miss. The ones I don't like so much are He Jests at Scars (Gary Russell must have had a goal of at least one continuity reference per minute) and Exile (a promising premise utterly mishandled). Well, Exile is atrocious and I really did not like the Doctor as evil/ morally corrupted. I just felt uncomfortable with that, cannot explain it any better I am afraid... and the rest of them was a bit "Meh" for me. |
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Stevo
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Post by Stevo on Aug 29, 2018 11:56:30 GMT
The ones I don't like so much are He Jests at Scars (Gary Russell must have had a goal of at least one continuity reference per minute) and Exile (a promising premise utterly mishandled). Well, Exile is atrocious Atrocious is being kind to Exile!
I did enjoy the rest of the Unbound series though, they tried to do something different and were enjoyable for what they were.
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Post by Ela on Sept 4, 2018 0:13:50 GMT
Exile was perfectly awful (as discussed elsewhere, I believe).
Personally, I loved Sympathy for the Devil.
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mbt66
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Post by mbt66 on Jul 19, 2020 6:57:15 GMT
Sympathy for the Devil was superb - a stand-out Doctor Who regardless of range or format with a compelling story and some outstanding performances from a truly A-list cast. I just feel foolish for having ignored it for so long. Terrific. And another four years later and it is my turn to feel foolish! I remember deciding not to get these when they were originally released and for some reason have blindly ignored them despite some of the Unbounds getting good reviews. I am not fully sold on the David Warner Doctor, but I may well change my mind once I have listened to him with Benny. But it was lovely to listen to the Brig. |
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Post by Tim Bradley on Jul 19, 2020 9:24:04 GMT
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 10, 2020 14:03:28 GMT
Okay, so I finally mustered the courage to listen to Sympathy for the Devil after meeting the Gatiss Master in the uniformly-excellent Anti-Genesis. I word it like that because I was--and am--an enormous fan of David Warner and I was worried his portrayal of the Doctor wouldn't live up to its potential--no slight against the man, I simply feared an insufficiently perfect script.
And now I'm here, staring at the old poll at the top of this thread, wondering about how empty, how bereft, inconsolable the lives of those three people who could only rate SftD 4 out of 5 stars must be.
So if it's not clear by now, I went in to Sympathy with sky-high expectations and was still utterly blown away. At this point I've listened to around 200 audio plays, in addition to nearly all of televised Doctor Who, and I rank Sympathy for the Devil as one of the very best Who stories I've ever experienced--right up there with Doctor Who and the Pirates and The Master of Callous.
Frankly it's astonishing that they were able to cram so much into this story. A new Doctor AND a curmudgeonly Brigadier AND a glorious new Master AND David Tenant playing a glorious brat UNIT commander? Utterly unbelievable.
And I wasn't expecting any of it. I knew there were two Warner Doctor stories in Unbound, and I assumed Gatiss wouldn't show up until the second one--it is called Masters of War, after all, and Sympathy takes place on Earth whereas Anti-Genesis placed the Gatiss Master in a very different place. So when the reveal happened? I was delighted. An excellent script with even better performances all-around--I couldn't possibly be happier.
That said, there are a few weak elements. The elephant in the room is the orientalism, right? Those exotic Asian beliefs are just fodder for alien shenanigans! Funny how that never seems to happen with Christians. Nevermind the fact that they set the story in Hong Kong but don't really do anything meaningful with it--all of the principal characters and perfectly English. I also question the necessity to use China as this looming bogeyman. I suppose one could defend this by saying it's reminiscent of the Anglocentrism ao prevalent in Classic Who, and Pertwee's era specifically, but if so it's unfortunate that they chose merely to replicate those tropes rather than subvert or otherwise comment on them. I'd've even settled for some lampshade.
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Post by antartiks on Aug 10, 2020 14:13:10 GMT
Okay, so I finally mustered the courage to listen to Sympathy for the Devil after meeting the Gatiss Master in the uniformly-excellent Anti-Genesis. I word it like that because I was--and am--an enormous fan of David Warner and I was worried his portrayal of the Doctor wouldn't live up to its potential--no slight against the man, I simply feared an insufficiently perfect script. And now I'm here, staring at the old poll at the top of this thread, wondering about how empty, how bereft, inconsolable the lives of those three people who could only rate SftD 4 out of 5 stars must be. So if it's not clear by now, I went in to Sympathy with sky-high expectations and was still utterly blown away. At this point I've listened to around 200 audio plays, in addition to nearly all of televised Doctor Who, and I rank Sympathy for the Devil as one of the very best Who stories I've ever experienced--right up there with Doctor Who and the Pirates and The Master of Callous. Frankly it's astonishing that they were able to cram so much into this story. A new Doctor AND a curmudgeonly Brigadier AND a glorious new Master AND David Tenant playing a glorious brat UNIT commander? Utterly unbelievable. And I wasn't expecting any of it. I knew there were two Warner Doctor stories in Unbound, and I assumed Gatiss wouldn't show up until the second one--it is called Masters of War, after all, and Sympathy takes place on Earth whereas Anti-Genesis placed the Gatiss Master in a very different place. So when the reveal happened? I was delighted. An excellent script with even better performances all-around--I couldn't possibly be happier. That said, there are a few weak elements. The elephant in the room is the orientalism, right? Those exotic Asian beliefs are just fodder for alien shenanigans! Funny how that never seems to happen with Christians. Nevermind the fact that they set the story in Hong Kong but don't really do anything meaningful with it--all of the principal characters and perfectly English. I also question the necessity to use China as this looming bogeyman. I suppose one could defend this by saying it's reminiscent of the Anglocentrism ao prevalent in Classic Who, and Pertwee's era specifically, but if so it's unfortunate that they chose merely to replicate those tropes rather than subvert or otherwise comment on them. I'd've even settled for some lampshade. Glad to read you've loved this one. I consider David Warner to be one of the very best Doctors even though he's not from the "official" timeline. I hope you're planning on listening to Masters of War which is equally amazing in my opinion. And if you have the courage and the money, I beg of you, please listen to the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box sets with Benny and the David Warner "Unbound Doctor." They're one of the best things Big Finish has ever put out. |
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Post by Ela on Aug 10, 2020 18:21:00 GMT
David Warner is fantastic, full stop.
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 10, 2020 20:03:26 GMT
Glad to read you've loved this one. I consider David Warner to be one of the very best Doctors even though he's not from the "official" timeline. I hope you're planning on listening to Masters of War which is equally amazing in my opinion. And if you have the courage and the money, I beg of you, please listen to the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box sets with Benny and the David Warner "Unbound Doctor." They're one of the best things Big Finish has ever put out. lol, no worries there--I'm aching for more Warner Doc in my life. I plan to jump into NABS as soon as I catch up with Gallifrey, though I'll be doing my best to wait for sales so I dunno how long it'll take me. From what I can tell, Warner doesn't show up until NABS Series 3, so I need to decide if I wanna jump in there' or NABS Series 1. I think there's also a stand-alone story with the Warner Doc in a Bernice Summerfield anthology that's unrelated to either NABS or ABS, so maybe I should start there? i dunno. Big Finish continuities are confusing as hell. I also want to see more of Braxiatel, and he's scattered all over the place. I saw a video on YouTube of a Bernice animation where he was a villain, so I'm kinda excited. Re: Masters of War, I have now listened to it! Now I have only one more Inbound release left to listen to, except for the "really bad one" I was told to skip. I liked it a lot, but was a bit disappointed--because of the title, I kept waiting for the Gatiss Master to show up, but he never did. From what I understand of the TARDIS wiki, Gatiss Master's storyline continues in the NABS, where she visits the Unbound Universe, and he gets left behind there, on,y to escape in Anti-Genesis? |
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Post by antartiks on Aug 10, 2020 20:23:09 GMT
Glad to read you've loved this one. I consider David Warner to be one of the very best Doctors even though he's not from the "official" timeline. I hope you're planning on listening to Masters of War which is equally amazing in my opinion. And if you have the courage and the money, I beg of you, please listen to the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield box sets with Benny and the David Warner "Unbound Doctor." They're one of the best things Big Finish has ever put out. lol, no worries there--I'm aching for more Warner Doc in my life. I plan to jump into NABS as soon as I catch up with Gallifrey, though I'll be doing my best to wait for sales so I dunno how long it'll take me. From what I can tell, Warner doesn't show up until NABS Series 3, so I need to decide if I wanna jump in there' or NABS Series 1. I think there's also a stand-alone story with the Warner Doc in a Bernice Summerfield anthology that's unrelated to either NABS or ABS, so maybe I should start there? i dunno. Big Finish continuities are confusing as hell. I also want to see more of Braxiatel, and he's scattered all over the place. I saw a video on YouTube of a Bernice animation where he was a villain, so I'm kinda excited. Re: Masters of War, I have now listened to it! Now I have only one more Inbound release left to listen to, except for the "really bad one" I was told to skip. I liked it a lot, but was a bit disappointed--because of the title, I kept waiting for the Gatiss Master to show up, but he never did. From what I understand of the TARDIS wiki, Gatiss Master's storyline continues in the NABS, where she visits the Unbound Universe, and he gets left behind there, on,y to escape in Anti-Genesis? Yup, I didn't want to spoil it for you but you're right about the Gatiss Master. Concerning the NABS, I started with volume 3 which is a perfect jumping on point. Volumes 3 and 4 were on sale at the time. The first two volumes are quite different from 3-6 (Vol. 6 is coming out next month) so you can listen to them and not miss anything about the Unbound Universe which is a kind of "soft reboot" for Benny in general. I wouldn't advise you listen to the stand alone story from The Story so Far right away though, it is set after NABS Volume 4. ... Yeah I get what you mean by "Big Finish continuities are confusing as hell." |
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 10, 2020 20:28:39 GMT
lol, it's a mess.
Seems weird they'd soft reboot NABS after just two sets. Was t NABS itself already a reboot of ABS?
Anyway, I don't have any NABS sets yet. I'm hoping they do a sale when the next one comes out... ditto for 8DTW and GTW.
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shutupbanks
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There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Aug 10, 2020 22:48:22 GMT
Okay, so I finally mustered the courage to listen to Sympathy for the Devil after meeting the Gatiss Master in the uniformly-excellent Anti-Genesis. I word it like that because I was--and am--an enormous fan of David Warner and I was worried his portrayal of the Doctor wouldn't live up to its potential--no slight against the man, I simply feared an insufficiently perfect script. And now I'm here, staring at the old poll at the top of this thread, wondering about how empty, how bereft, inconsolable the lives of those three people who could only rate SftD 4 out of 5 stars must be. So if it's not clear by now, I went in to Sympathy with sky-high expectations and was still utterly blown away. At this point I've listened to around 200 audio plays, in addition to nearly all of televised Doctor Who, and I rank Sympathy for the Devil as one of the very best Who stories I've ever experienced--right up there with Doctor Who and the Pirates and The Master of Callous. Frankly it's astonishing that they were able to cram so much into this story. A new Doctor AND a curmudgeonly Brigadier AND a glorious new Master AND David Tenant playing a glorious brat UNIT commander? Utterly unbelievable. And I wasn't expecting any of it. I knew there were two Warner Doctor stories in Unbound, and I assumed Gatiss wouldn't show up until the second one--it is called Masters of War, after all, and Sympathy takes place on Earth whereas Anti-Genesis placed the Gatiss Master in a very different place. So when the reveal happened? I was delighted. An excellent script with even better performances all-around--I couldn't possibly be happier. That said, there are a few weak elements. The elephant in the room is the orientalism, right? Those exotic Asian beliefs are just fodder for alien shenanigans! Funny how that never seems to happen with Christians. Nevermind the fact that they set the story in Hong Kong but don't really do anything meaningful with it--all of the principal characters and perfectly English. I also question the necessity to use China as this looming bogeyman. I suppose one could defend this by saying it's reminiscent of the Anglocentrism ao prevalent in Classic Who, and Pertwee's era specifically, but if so it's unfortunate that they chose merely to replicate those tropes rather than subvert or otherwise comment on them. I'd've even settled for some lampshade. The Chinese “threat” was realistically portrayed: I remember stories leading up to the handover in 1997 about what was going to happen afterwards and there was a lot of genuine concern from western companies based in HK about what was going to happen afterwards. The lack of representation of Chinese actors is concerning but since the focus is on the Brig and his pub I can overlook it more easily than the issues in, say, Talons. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2020 2:28:29 GMT
Okay, so I finally mustered the courage to listen to Sympathy for the Devil after meeting the Gatiss Master in the uniformly-excellent Anti-Genesis. I word it like that because I was--and am--an enormous fan of David Warner and I was worried his portrayal of the Doctor wouldn't live up to its potential--no slight against the man, I simply feared an insufficiently perfect script. And now I'm here, staring at the old poll at the top of this thread, wondering about how empty, how bereft, inconsolable the lives of those three people who could only rate SftD 4 out of 5 stars must be. So if it's not clear by now, I went in to Sympathy with sky-high expectations and was still utterly blown away. At this point I've listened to around 200 audio plays, in addition to nearly all of televised Doctor Who, and I rank Sympathy for the Devil as one of the very best Who stories I've ever experienced--right up there with Doctor Who and the Pirates and The Master of Callous. Frankly it's astonishing that they were able to cram so much into this story. A new Doctor AND a curmudgeonly Brigadier AND a glorious new Master AND David Tenant playing a glorious brat UNIT commander? Utterly unbelievable. And I wasn't expecting any of it. I knew there were two Warner Doctor stories in Unbound, and I assumed Gatiss wouldn't show up until the second one--it is called Masters of War, after all, and Sympathy takes place on Earth whereas Anti-Genesis placed the Gatiss Master in a very different place. So when the reveal happened? I was delighted. An excellent script with even better performances all-around--I couldn't possibly be happier. That said, there are a few weak elements. The elephant in the room is the orientalism, right? Those exotic Asian beliefs are just fodder for alien shenanigans! Funny how that never seems to happen with Christians. Nevermind the fact that they set the story in Hong Kong but don't really do anything meaningful with it--all of the principal characters and perfectly English. I also question the necessity to use China as this looming bogeyman. I suppose one could defend this by saying it's reminiscent of the Anglocentrism ao prevalent in Classic Who, and Pertwee's era specifically, but if so it's unfortunate that they chose merely to replicate those tropes rather than subvert or otherwise comment on them. I'd've even settled for some lampshade. The Chinese “threat” was realistically portrayed: I remember stories leading up to the handover in 1997 about what was going to happen afterwards and there was a lot of genuine concern from western companies based in HK about what was going to happen afterwards. The lack of representation of Chinese actors is concerning but since the focus is on the Brig and his pub I can overlook it more easily than the issues in, say, Talons. The handover was such a concern at the time that it bled over into things like the production for Tomorrow Never Dies. One of the Bond films. The producers didn't want to do an escapist adventure about a threat to the Hong Kong handover in case something really did go wrong with the actual event. And if you're following the current news about what's going on now, unfortunately, these concerns are not unrealistic in Asia either. The Taiwanese family I know have a constant fear that their homeland will be annexed by mainland China as another one of their territories. A complete loss of autonomy as a country. It was (and sadly remains) a very real worry for the people who live in the region. Actually, to further expand on the importance of Hong Kong to contemporary Chinese culture -- as I don't think Sympathy really covers it, from memory -- there is a fascinating piece of history that makes it click together. Why there was so much tension surrounding the handover. In the nineteenth century, going on early twentieth, there was a man called Dr Sun Yat-sen. He was a philosopher, a revolutionary and is held in high regard as a historical figure in the region. So eminent, in fact, that he is considered the father of modern China. His leadership leading up to and during the revolution against the Qing imperial dynasty is considered to have acted as the groundwork for the Republic of China as it exists today. Hong Kong was where that uprising began as a concept. As I understand it, it was where he got his doctorate and where he met his fellow revolutionaries. |
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 11, 2020 4:26:06 GMT
As I see it the problem isn't so much as China being portrayed as a threat--that's fine--but that we see that threat *solely* from the perspective of Western imperialists. It Rings hollow: it's not the people of Hong Kong who are threatened, but the economic and political interests of the West. That's why this is such a big missed opportunity/blind spot in the script--they had a chance to show how the island was being torn apart by conflicting superpowers, with the people being put at risk by a war they had no part in can couldn't escape... and did nothing with it.
The Asian aspects of the story are entirely superficial--window dressing for the setting and, in the case of the Abbot, tiresome Orientalist tropes. It's really hard to wrap my mind around the idea of a two hour story set in Hong Kong that completely avoids any exploration of Chinese culture.
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