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Post by mark687 on Jul 3, 2018 11:31:53 GMT
5.08. Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing
Released August 2015
Synopsis
Doctor Who: Short Trips Monthly is a series of new short stories read by an original cast member.
Release #8 is an Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard story.
A young lieutenant is sent to interrogate two strangers who were apprehended whilst intruding at a secure RAF base. The man seems strangely familiar, could pass for Lord Byron, and says he’s an alien; meanwhile his female friend is apparently from 1930. As the lieutenant tries to find out what they’re doing on his base, something connects them with a strange incident earlier in the day: stories of a giant insect…
Producer Michael Stevens
Script Editor Jac Rayner
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
Written By: Julian Richards
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman
Cast
India Fisher (Narrator)
(Couldn't find another Discussion Thread on this)
Nice fun little jaunt
Regards
mark687
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Post by Kestrel on Sept 28, 2020 9:15:28 GMT
Well, I ended up buying several Short Trips during the sale this week, and Foreshadowing was the first one I listened to--and it's a lot of fun! One of those Doctor Who stories that doesn't really do anything new or interesting, but is consistently fun and charming throughout all the same. It really nails the tone and energy of the best early 8th Doctor stories--so much so that I'd almost characterize it as nostalgic.
What really makes the story work so well is that it's told entirely from the perspective of Mike Yates, who deals with the Doctor and Charlie with a slightly resigned air of, "Oh, well this may as well happen today." The script also deserves praise for moving along at a brisk pace without indulging in any of the more tiresome cliches--there's no antagonism, little doubt, so the overall feel of the story is just three people having a chat. I love it. Even insofar as the Big Finish radio plays go, this is a "bottle episode" with only three characters sitting in a room... and it demonstrates just how engaging bottle episodes can be. The character writing is spot-on, consistently engaging, and often amusing.
Definitely one of the best Short Trips I've listened to so far, and hell, I might even go so far as to call it one of the better McGann stories period--though admittedly my affection for the 3rd Doctor's era may be coloring my perceptions somewhat.
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Foreshadowing also raises the question of why so few other Doctor Who stories take this approach, given how effective it is. The core premise of the franchise is that the Doctor just pops in and out of various genre stories--and we often get an opening scene setting up the story prior to the TARDIS' arrival, but once the blue box shows up, our perspective is almost always that of the Doctor. Imagine the reverse, though. Genre stories where we follow the usual lead characters, with the Doctor only being a secondary character. Like a police procedural where we follow a detective who just keeps running into this Doctor fellow for some reason. Just a thought. It occurs to me that modern Doctor Who tends to follow a fairly rigid set of conventions with little deviation these days, which plays against the greatest strengths of the franchise.
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