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Post by dastari on Jan 30, 2017 18:58:01 GMT
It's strange that in a double-length Companion Chronicle that it feels like there are just to many ideas. The Doctor dealing with human time travelers about to embark in a time war, the travelers believing the TARDIS to be destroyed and marooned on a deserted island with a Time Lord legend, or being stuck in East Berlin during the Cold War are all ideas that would have made great stories on their own, but here they step all over each others' toes. Indeed, the fact that two out of three of these plots are illusions is very disappointing, especially the East Berlin one. While I liked the alternating narration by Purves and Marsh and thought that it was a great way to highlight that this story is about Steven and Sara's relationship I felt that it was a cheat in episode four since the Sara who was narrating was an illusion, so who was she narrating to and when? It felt like a story where everything was thrown at the wall and things ended just so that something new could happen. I did love the hard line stance that the Doctor takes at the end, and Marsh gives one of her best performances, but the story comes off as a muddled mess. I realize that it was a last minute replacement story, so by that standpoint it's great that it was coherent at all, but it's disappointing as a double release with so much wasted potential. Also, did anyone else notice that the first two episodes have a lot of elements from Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucidble? I posted some additional thoughts here. |
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Post by ulyssessarcher on Jan 30, 2017 23:12:18 GMT
I did, cause I had reread Time's Crucible a couple of years ago. I liked it, but I like about all the double disc CC's, it did feel like there was a lot of things they could have gone in a different direction with.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2017 1:59:06 GMT
I rather enjoyed it, but then I'm a huge fan of Time's Crucible and The Edge of Destruction. It was a nice change of pace and I'm always happy to get a bit more of the First Doctor, Steven and Sara's escapades. The quick changes in location weren't that much of a problem for me personally, it fit very snugly in The Daleks' Master Plan's globe-trotting modus operandi and I did like how the illusions played into exploring the characters rather than just act as obstacles.
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Post by dastari on Jan 31, 2017 18:19:20 GMT
For me, it had to do with both environments being fakes. It worked ok for the first one, but the second story would have been so much more interesting if they'd actually been in Berlin and actually been faced with changing history to save their lives. Having that turn out to be yet another fake environment cheapened it severely in my mind and annoyed me because Marsh's narration makes absolutely no sense in that context unless we're lead to believe that Steven was imagining the narration as well.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2017 22:15:05 GMT
The Anachronauts is my favourite Companion Chronicle.
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Post by Timelord007 on Feb 3, 2017 12:37:40 GMT
A excellent 4 part CC, which i easily recommend.
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Post by shallacatop on Oct 19, 2017 21:10:41 GMT
Given this another listen. It’s a great, feature length addition to the Companion Chronicles range. I wasn’t so sure about it for most of the first half, until it all begins to come together in the final few minutes and we’re propelled into the second half, which I really liked. The location hopping makes for a nice expansion of The Daleks’ Master Plan, which obviously this story slots into!
As ever, Purves and Marsh are on fine form.
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Post by Ela on Jul 23, 2018 20:48:10 GMT
I had a bit of trouble sticking with this story, for some reason, but it did raise some interesting scenarios on its way to the conclusion. Worth giving another listen some time when I'm all caught up (ha!).
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Post by Star Platinum on May 5, 2022 2:31:54 GMT
I’ve got mixed feelings about this one.
First of all, it feels very derivative of Times Crucible, which does hurt it, at least in my eyes. But the quality of the writing is very good.
The story feels packed with ideas, I very much enjoy the discussion about a war spanning time. While the time war wasn’t on the table for Big Finish at the time, the idea is conceptualizer very well, and knowing that it’s coming down the line adds much weight to the discussions.
I’ve only just started the back half of the story, I remember enjoying it well enough, but it doesn’t quite reach the highs of the other Sarah Kingdom companion chronicles.
While it’s not a favourite, it’s a well written, if slightly conceptually overcrowded story, but a very well performed one at that.
On a side note, is it just me, or does Jean Marsh have the best run of stories with Big Finish? I know she’s only done a handful as Sarah, but they’re all fantastic!
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Post by Kestrel on May 5, 2022 19:53:41 GMT
Gonna add this one to the wishlist for the title alone.
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