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Post by omega on Mar 18, 2018 2:16:46 GMT
DOCTOR WHO » DOCTOR WHO - MAIN RANGE » 50. ZAGREUS Released November 2003SynopsisZagreus sits inside your head. Zagreus lives among the dead… Zagreus sees you in your bed And eats you when you're sleeping. Written By: Alan Barnes and Gary Russell Directed By: Gary Russell CASTPeter Davison (Reverend Matthew Townsend); Colin Baker (Lord Tepesh); Sylvester McCoy (Walton Winkle); Paul McGann (Zagreus); India Fisher (Charley Pollard); Lalla Ward (Romana); Louise Jameson (Leela); Don Warrington (Rassilon); Nicholas Courtney (The TARDIS/Brigadier Image); Jon Pertwee (The Doctor); Anneke Wills (Lady Louisa Pollard); Stephen Perring (Receptionist); Elisabeth Sladen (Miss Lime); Conrad Westmaas (The Cat); Mark Strickson (Captain McDonnell); Sarah Sutton (Miss Foster); Nicola Bryant (Stone/Ouida); Caroline Morris (Mary Elson); Maggie Stables (The Great Mother); Bonnie Langford (Cassandra/Goldilocks); Robert Jezek (The Recorder); Stephen Fewell (Corporal Heron); Sophie Aldred (Captain Duck); Lisa Bowerman (Sergeant Gazelle); Miles Richardson (Cardinal Braxiatel); John Leeson (K9)
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Post by omega on Mar 18, 2018 2:31:06 GMT
In defense of Zagreus
It's highly understandable why this is a marmite story, a story it's easy to get lost with. The promotional blurb is vague, the cover shows four Doctors and the cast list is, to someone who is coming into it cold, big and strange. Starting the story you're beginning with a five minute previously on for Neverland. As the the plot, it's highly confusing if you aren't paying attention or haven't heard much of the previously released Eighth Doctor audios
However it's actually a good story if you come into it with the right mindset. It's highly ambitious, and unlike stories such as The Five Doctors or The Light at the End, the plot isn't lightweight with focus on different generation characters interacting. I'm not saying those stories are bad, but plot is not the best aspect for them. Zagreus takes us through the rabbit hole and on a trip through a number of interesting settings.
It's a clever way of delivering exposition for the then upcoming Divergent Universe story arc. We're given the information through the holoscapes, from the origin to the attempted escape of the Divergents. And it does work.
It's a brilliant story for the actors. They get to play characters they normally wouldn't, or at least don't play the characters they usually do. Elizabeth Sladen as a stern headmistress, Peter Davison as a determined but heartless man of religion who is open to what science can offer, Colin Baker chewing the scenery and his fellow castmates, practically all of the Wonderland sequence (Bonnie Langford is brilliant here). We're also introduced to Charley's mother, the wonderful Lady Louisa Pollard. And who can forget Nick Courtney as a TARDIS scorned? Even if the execution is a lot lacking, the inclusion of Jon Pertwee clips from the fan film Devious is an admirable if misplaced addition.
It works as a transition from the Charley Paradox arc to the Divergent Universe arc. The fallout of Neverland is dealt with, or at least given an adequate reason to be dealt with later.
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Post by Whovitt on Mar 18, 2018 3:09:35 GMT
Zagreus was the first 8th Doctor audio I heard, and I loved it. Prior to this story I had heard The Light at the End and Bang-Bang-a-Boom! through Master so I had only a tiny bit of experience with Big Finish and the way these stories worked, but I understood it on first listen quite easily. My only issue with it is that it runs for over 3 hours, which is a very long time. Short but sweet opinion (which regular followers of the 'What 'Who' are you Watching?' thread will know is quite a rarity  )
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Post by sherlock on Mar 18, 2018 10:52:47 GMT
It's nice to see some positive takes on Zagreus. Shame I'm going to buck the trend {Spoiler}
Good Ideas:
-The TARDIS breaking down into simulations is a good idea...just not 2 hours worth of a good idea
-Romana and Leela meeting
-Ancient Gallifrey scenes
-The Divergents, a race there could have been plucked from the timeline by Rassilon-Great concept
-The using of old actors as different characters is novel I suppose
-Having the TARDIS turn evil is a good twist
-The scene of the four Doctors is good
Stuff I didn't Like:
-Simulations go on far, far too long, especially as they have a tangential effect on the resolution (the three aspects of the Doctor, which don't need two hours to set up)
-The Alice in Wonderland elements are just odd
-The Evil TARDIS complaining about companions' underwear...just, no
-Charley complaining about the Doctor 'dumping' her after all he's been through to save her...really? It's teenage-level domestic
-Everything to do with Rassilon's plan: Why did he wish Romana a long reign then change his mind one story later? Why give Zagreus the presidency if he only wants to use Zagreus to destroy the Divergents? Why did he think he could control Zagreus anyway?
-The Doctor leaves the universe for the last time spitting venom at Gallifrey and wishing Romana luck until she goes corrupt too, how lovely Overall the problem of Zagreus is that it's bursting with ideas, but none are executed particularly well. The simulations drag on, and then when the plot gets moving other problems emerge. It's a shame as none of the ideas are bad. I don't hate Zagreus particularly, but didn't enjoy it much and given how long it is can't see myself revisiting unless I'm doing a listen-through. |
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Post by ollychops on Mar 18, 2018 11:39:06 GMT
Like Mark said, there's a lot of potential in Zagreus, but it runs on too long and there's some very odd things that happen in it (the Alice in Wonderland sequence comes to mind). I keep feeling like I should relisten to it to see if my feelings change for it, but it's that long that I keep putting it off.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2018 13:14:02 GMT
My main complaint about Zagreus was that it was too long. Cut out the middle disc and lose some of the mumbo jumbo and it's not actually a bad story. Gary just tried to fit everything in to one story where maybe in hindsight one story featuring the Eighth Doctor and Charley to follow on from Neverland and a standard multi-Doctor release to celebrate the 40th Anniversary might have worked better. But Zagreus is what it is... the story does have some good ideas in it, but maybe ten too many in the one story!
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Mar 18, 2018 13:28:43 GMT
I loved Zagreus. Sure it is a bit meandering in places and could have done with a bit of streamlining, but the cast work their asses off and i got lucky by listening to all of the charley stuff leading up to this back to back so i was lead straight in so no massive wait between Neverland and Zagreus for me
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aztec
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Post by aztec on Mar 18, 2018 13:33:26 GMT
Overlong, garbled, occasionally confusing and partly sinking under the weight of its own narrative...but thoroughly enjoyable all the same, packed with twists and turns and tonnes of great ideas and a cast that clearly relish the chance to ham it up a bit more than usual, very flawed and far longer than it needed to be, and probably not the ideal 40th Anniversary story but very enjoyable all the same.
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Post by Ela on Mar 18, 2018 15:06:43 GMT
I loved Zagreus. In particular, I was tickled hearing the characters in different roles than their usual ones.
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Post by constonks on Mar 19, 2018 4:02:04 GMT
It's got its flaws but I loved it on first listen. Although the length has not permitted another...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2018 8:17:55 GMT
Zagreus works really well. It's bold, imaginative and experimental. It's only really pulled down by one aspect and that's, very ironically, the Doctor. ...  Hear me out. The Matrix projections are a riot, I always like seeing actors play against type. Bonnie Langford's villainous Goldilocks, Conrad Westmaas's Cat and Lisa Bowerman's Sergeant Gazelle, all spring to mind as fun roles. The scenes aboard the TARDIS with the half-crazed Doctor though, they fall a bit flat for me. I think Zagreus might have been one of a handful of stories where not having the Doctor turn up until the climax would have benefitted the story. Particularly to have that buzzing in the background while Charley is researching the past. Where's Zagreus? Is he in control of the TARDIS? What has he been doing with her? What about the anti-time? All of that in the back of Charley's head when she's going through projection after projection. The reason why I say that is because long ago and far away, before Big Finish was Big Finish, Audio Visuals resolved the operatic end of Planet of Lies -- the Doctor plowing straight into the Dalek city aboard a ship filled with explosives -- by starting off their next season with a Doctor-less story, Gary Russell's Deadfall. And it's good. Really, really good. It makes you ask all the right questions in that scenario. What's happened to the Doctor? Where's the TARDIS? What's happened to the Daleks? Are we really following his companion, Truman, or something else? Put Eight on a bus just for this story, listen around those scenes, and I think this release can sit just as comfortably in praise as any Eighth Doctor release previous.
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Post by omega on Mar 19, 2018 8:31:59 GMT
It’s thanks to this story we have the Gallifrey range. It’s also the appearance of Brax outside of Benny and the first story Louise Jameson did for Big Finish.
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Post by Timelord007 on Mar 19, 2018 9:47:03 GMT
A bonkers but enjoyable audio drama, it just needed tighter editing in places, I'd rate it 7/10.
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Post by number13 on Apr 1, 2020 21:00:46 GMT
Zagreus lay in wait for me Zagreus lives upon CD Zagreus' disks are 1, 2, 3... It took a while completing! I've finally finished the epic and you know what? I loved it!  I went in without too many expectations because I know that opinions vary a lot on this one - and the more I heard, the better I thought it was. Yes, it's very long and could probably be cut down without affecting the plot but think what we'd miss! All those wonderful star turns doing something out of the ordinary - way out of the ordinary in some cases  - and enough continuity and references to keep the keenest fan happy (and I do like a good reference!) Parts of it are, frankly, nuts! but if 'Alice' is a key influence that's par for the course! And it was the 40th anniversary story as well as BF's 50th MR and ever since 'The Three Doctors', anniversaries have come with a big licence to go off-piste and have some fun in the course of the adventure. And they certainly did, didn't they, General Gazelle and Sgt. Duck?  It seems unfair to pick a highlight from such an all-star epic but I'm going to anyway: Nicholas Courtney is magnificent as the TARDIS scorned! And by whatever devious route they did it, it was of course the icing on the anniversary cake to hear a few ghostly words from my Doctor. Yes, I loved it!
Zagreus, from the early time Zagreus, after 49 Zagreus, an adventure that I'm sure I'll be repeating!
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Post by frisby78 on Apr 2, 2020 22:19:47 GMT
I love Zagreus. Every bonkers second of it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2020 11:02:15 GMT
I always used to think oh I don’t have time to devote nearly 4 hours but after piecing together epic sagas Dark Eyes/Doom Coalition/Ravenous/Robots all superbly excellent so Zagreus I will just treat in the exact same way...Zagreus is now a box set 😂 let me see if it becomes a favourite like NEVERLAND is
You for the first time this whole narrative might actually be making some sense there even is a sense of the huge cast enjoying themselves out with their normal roles.Sure it still is a bit bonkers
One thing I do know the Doctor would hate me “am always writing in books ,underlining,highlighting,pencil,pen....🤭
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Post by tuigirl on Dec 19, 2020 12:46:48 GMT
In my youth, I never liked bonkers absurd stories. I despised them. I told myself I had no time for such nonsense. However, when I became older, I developed a real appreciation for stories like these. I think it was around the time I fell in love with the Terry Pratchett books. It opened up a whole new world for me. I can now immerse myself in it and will like it even more if it takes two times to understand it all. This might also be why I gave Doctor Who a chance (which, in the beginning, I saw as cheap looking male cattle poo). Heck, I recently re-watched the Voyager episode "Bride of Chaotica" and I loved every minute of if, and back in the day, it was the biggest WTF? moment for me, and I felt my precious Trekkie sensibilities insulted by it. I even liked the "Baker's End" audios, and they are truly bonkers and absurd. Zagreus is tame compared to that! How tastes can change.  I really like Zagreus. It is weird and wonderful and full of crazy characters and while a lot of it seems totally out of place, for me, it comes together in the end. I like Charley in there and how she is used, and how the Doctor is completely insane and dangerous. I also did not mind the length of the story, it just adds room for the insanity to breathe. This is all just totally different from the usual stories, it is like a jump into cold water on a hot day. It might also help that I went into the story without any expectations and also a decade too late so I did not really see this as an anniversary multi-Doctor story. Therefore, I was spared any disappointment. However, I still think the story of one of the incarnations becoming insane, going off the deep end and the other incarnations have to go up against him (or her) is still valid and I still hope that one day, we might experience it. But of course this will bring the issue of the Doctor, or at least one incarnation, becoming truly evil, and I think so far, the BBC has not allowed that to happen. So this limits the possibilities and we might have to wait for a while longer. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2020 13:16:27 GMT
In my youth, I never liked bonkers absurd stories. I despised them. I told myself I had no time for such nonsense. However, when I became older, I developed a real appreciation for stories like these. I think it was around the time I fell in love with the Terry Pratchett books. It opened up a whole new world for me. I can now immerse myself in it and will like it even more if it takes two times to understand it all. This might also be why I gave Doctor Who a chance (which, in the beginning, I saw as cheap looking male cattle poo). Heck, I recently re-watched the Voyager episode "Bride of Chaotica" and I loved every minute of if, and back in the day, it was the biggest WTF? moment for me, and I felt my precious Trekkie sensibilities insulted by it. I even liked the "Baker's End" audios, and they are truly bonkers and absurd. Zagreus is tame compared to that! How tastes can change. I really like Zagreus. It is weird and wonderful and full of crazy characters and while a lot of it seems totally out of place, for me, it comes together in the end. I like Charley in there and how she is used, and how the Doctor is completely insane and dangerous. I also did not mind the length of the story, it just adds room for the insanity to breathe. This is all just totally different from the usual stories, it is like a jump into cold water on a hot day. It might also help that I went into the story without any expectations and also a decade too late so I did not really see this as an anniversary multi-Doctor story. Therefore, I was spared any disappointment. However, I still think the story of one of the incarnations becoming insane, going off the deep end and the other incarnations have to go up against him (or her) is still valid and I still hope that one day, we might experience it. But of course this will bring the issue of the Doctor, or at least one incarnation, becoming truly evil, and I think so far, the BBC has not allowed that to happen. So this limits the possibilities and we might have to wait for a while longer. Well I shall tell you the difference this time.In past I attempted them all in the one listen,one after the other.But on this listen I have divided and what a difference it has made .I stopped after Episode 1 and went away and digested it and yes it’s a bonkers scenario but the plot personalities of both the Doctor and The Tardis begin to make sense why the Tardis would use the past occupants in its stories. 😊 If this was the current decade BF would not have released this as one story but as three separate releases and for me that probably would have worked too.I do not think it is a story that should be done in one particular sitting it now actually follows on from Neverland quite nicely and can see more how the Divergent Universe and Scherzo actually work better with this making sense. so far so good Episode 2-Heartland
how wonderfully played are the 3 and The Great Mother. Colin Bakers Tepesh is just a joy to behold especially since now I blooming understand what is going on.Colin plays it so wonderfully.Will be nice to see eventually if this version of Timelord Rassilon history ties in with Jodies revelations.….I guess when I was listening I truly wanted all the Doctors ,all the companions this now is so much better so adventurous. What is it about this listen or is it me am I less uptight now about ideas...but am actually just enjoying it all so much creativity in it and great ideas playing with our beloved characters in an almost schizophrenic way .Each episode works on its own so far and is partly explained by the next .Like I said perhaps as an anniversary they should have released it in three parts with three covers am sure they would have had field day imagining each episode.What can I say am enjoying as I do my household chores.It’s increased in my estimation greatly and I have to say this second episode has been pretty blooming good so weird and wonderful. I will take a breather with something else and continue...well if it was way back in the day I would have had to wait a whole week for the next instalment ahhhhh those were the days,before taxes,mortgages.......... |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2020 15:39:43 GMT
EPISODE 3-Wasteland
Well blow me away with a bazooka but I never ever saw the day I would have enjoyed Zagreus it was always a chore to me something I felt I had to listen to .
This holiday away from work and being restricted and locked down has definitely freed up my brain for some reason.Thank you God 😇
The final episode really does come together and the TARDIS as a potential foe is simply amazing given how Nicholas Courtney played it, the Tardis complaining lol,it’s brilliant,underwear and all 😂The forging of swords and the Doctors 4,6,7 awakening from their sleep kissed by Charleys and Romanas knowledge.You can find lots in these three tales.
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Post by Tim Bradley on Jan 14, 2021 23:56:30 GMT
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)
- and enough continuity and references to keep the keenest fan happy (and I do like a good reference!)
