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Post by themeddlingmonk on May 14, 2020 14:38:05 GMT
Funny thing is, I’m fairly sure we had this very same conversation last year when he wasn’t in Volume 5.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on May 14, 2020 14:51:28 GMT
Jon Culshaw's Brig is absolutely uncanny.
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Post by mark687 on May 14, 2020 16:31:49 GMT
Interesting set Poison is 70s Daleks with a more proactive Brig and Benton, plus a Thatchrite approach to combating climate change, however, it also dose something highly risky The Doctor is not the smartest technical person in the story . Now that approach with the 3rd makes him very wearing for me. Hellfire is actually unintentionally meta a pulpy "Tv Action" War story approach. I'm not sure Churchill was needed? Nice to hear Terry Molly again and its a partially strong Ep 4 EDIT Having read the varied opinions on Scorched Earth it'll be interesting to read peoples on the representation of "The Enemy's" (stories term) Agents motivations in Hellfire as I felt it was a touch morally ambiguous. 4/5 Regards mark687
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Post by relativetime on May 15, 2020 9:20:55 GMT
Really enjoyed this set - as I knew I would! My favorite was Operation: Hellfire, though I really wish Churchill had more of a presence in the story. It’s always fun getting to see the Doctor interact with him and I was ESPECIALLY looking forward to this meeting. Still, what we got was fun anyways. I had to listen to Poison of the Daleks again before I really appreciated what the story was going for. It’s still a little hard to say whether I prefer this one over The Conquest of Far at the moment, but this story really does set out to provide a different feeling overall and I liked that. I really liked the presence of the Brig and Benton in this one! The interviews for this one just gave me a very warm feeling. Everyone involved making these stories is so absolutely passionate about the Third Doctor era and hearing that they get the same chill making these audios that get when I listen to them is a great feeling! I’m eagerly anticipating whatever this team throws at us next!
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Post by glutamodo on May 15, 2020 10:02:57 GMT
Jon Culshaw's Brig is absolutely uncanny. I personally will not go that far. I will say that he still solidly sells it, but I thought that first box set he did better. That might be entirely due to the volume of material between the two though!
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Post by Audio Watchdog on May 15, 2020 12:03:13 GMT
Jon Culshaw's Brig is absolutely uncanny. I personally will not go that far. I will say that he still solidly sells it, but I thought that first box set he did better. That might be entirely due to the volume of material between the two though! I was commenting based off of that snippet in the trailer up thread.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 17:20:16 GMT
Jon Culshaw's Brig is absolutely uncanny. I personally will not go that far. I will say that he still solidly sells it, but I thought that first box set he did better. That might be entirely due to the volume of material between the two though! FWIW, I listened to Primord Part 1 from Vol 5 last weekend and felt that it was Jon Culshaw and Katie Manning that sold the period vibe, along with the spot-on musical ques. Daisy Ashford occasionally captured some of her Mother's voice, but did not seem to be impersonating and came across as rather modern and relaxed as opposed to the Liz Shaw we are used to. I was disappointed with Tim Treloar in comparison with some of his earlier recordings. He captured some of Jon's delivery some of the time, as others have pointed out. However, perhaps in trying not to come across as a 'pastiche' it was easy to forget when it was the Doctor speaking, as his voice was too often softer and less assertive, especially when talking faster than Jon would. To my mind, the Third Doctor seemed leisurely in his delivery, enjoying holding court and tended to speak more rapidly when losing patience, with a raised voice. This did not come across as well this time around. Beggars can't be choosers though. I suppose I would just like it to be a little easier to forget that it is not Jon Pertwee 'in the room' and Jon Culshaw seemed to succeed to me at least, in being able to forget that Nicholas Courtney was no longer with us. I'd still listen to more though, should the prices come down a bit further.
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Post by barnabaslives on May 17, 2020 6:02:27 GMT
Listened to Poison of the Daleks. I found Jon Culshaw so much less jolting than last time that this time it never once took me out of the story to hear someone other than Nicholas Courtney playing him. I was wondering why we needed another Dalek story again already but I can see now why this is a very good thing, the story made very good of use of the Daleks and all of the characters. Great to get a story like this and great performances all around.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 17, 2020 7:54:55 GMT
I've listened to Poison of the Daleks. Really enjoyed it. I would love to see The Doctor with Skwoj again. Culshaw is OK as The Brig but it does sound like someone doing an impression. Not too distracting though.
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Post by tuigirl on May 17, 2020 10:55:28 GMT
Hmm. I also finished Poison of the Daleks. And yes, I agree, the Brig was better here than in the previous releases. Culshaw is getting there. With Benton... well, you can hear Levine's age. But with him, he is basically like Katy and while they both do not sound anymore like they did back then, they really capture the spirit of their characters and I feel right at home with them. It is a real joy hearing them.
As for the story. Daleks. Again. Never have been the biggest fan to begin with.
And I admit this story was not really doing anything for me. I loved the scene at the beginning driving with Bessie, but all the Dalek resistance stuff... left me a bit cold. It was too much painting by numbers, with the crooked politician, the environmental message, the arrogance of the Doctor... a big fuzzy ball of the 3rd Doctor tropes. Not sure if I am missing the nostalgia bonus here. But for me, this story was just a good average for me.
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2020 12:31:52 GMT
Not sure if I am missing the nostalgia bonus here. The nostalgia bonus is the highlights of these Third Doctor sets!
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Post by shallacatop on May 17, 2020 15:28:37 GMT
Poison of the Daleks is a quirky little story that gets stuck in its Pertwee paint-by-number trappings. The most interesting piece to me was the passing of time in Part Two; I wish that was explored more, with the Brigadier & Benton training the resistance group, and the Doctor & Skwoj’s rocky relationship. Instead it’s glossed over in favour of something I’ve seen and heard numerous times already.
It’s much better than The Conquest of Far and I liked how much the Brigadier & Benton lead the story. It’s just a slight shame the most interesting elements were the ones most glossed over.
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Post by tuigirl on May 17, 2020 17:05:40 GMT
Operation Hellfire. Well, this was more like it. Satanic occultism, unapologetic Nazis, shadowy Time Lords, ancient powerful artifacts... what more could you want? Again, the Doctor and Jo are a great team and the actors are on fine form. I really could not fault the performances. Plus, we also get Professor Dunning from the Scarifyers, who for some reason has defected to become a satanist... That was great as a nice Meta- joke. I really enjoyed myself here. Well done.
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Post by fingersmash on May 17, 2020 17:18:55 GMT
This boxset offers a really interesting question for me. Are Daleks and Nazis worthwhile villains anymore? Can anyone do something interesting with them anymore while still keeping them villainous? Poison of the Daleks felt like a D-tier Dalek story a la Destiny of the Daleks or Planet of the Daleks. Just Daleks being Daleks. Meanwhile Operation: Hellfire is the typical wartime story of Nazis being cartoonishly evil and while the occult part was somewhat interesting, it's just Nazis being Nazis.
Frankly, I just can't be bothered with the Nazi archetypes as villains anymore. It's a bit too real for me without saying anything thought-provoking or interesting and it honestly seems lazy at this point. "Need a villain? Make it Nazis!" I don't know if I'm getting what irritates me about this across but when there's an almost 60 year old villain doing basically the exact same thing every time it shows up, it gets boring.
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Post by tuigirl on May 17, 2020 17:21:10 GMT
This boxset offers a really interesting question for me. Are Daleks and Nazis worthwhile villains anymore? Can anyone do something interesting with them anymore while still keeping them villainous? Poison of the Daleks felt like a D-tier Dalek story a la Destiny of the Daleks or Planet of the Daleks. Just Daleks being Daleks. Meanwhile Operation: Hellfire is the typical wartime story of Nazis being cartoonishly evil and while the occult part was somewhat interesting, it's just Nazis being Nazis. Frankly, I just can't be bothered with the Nazi archetypes as villains anymore. It's a bit too real for me without saying anything thought-provoking or interesting and it honestly seems lazy at this point. " Need a villain? Make it Nazis!" I don't know if I'm getting what irritates me about this across but when there's an almost 60 year old villain doing basically the exact same thing every time it shows up, it gets boring.And at the same time, when the Nazis do not behave as expected, there is a big discussion about it like in the "Scorched Earth" threat... I do however agree with you on the Daleks.
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Post by fingersmash on May 17, 2020 17:29:57 GMT
This boxset offers a really interesting question for me. Are Daleks and Nazis worthwhile villains anymore? Can anyone do something interesting with them anymore while still keeping them villainous? Poison of the Daleks felt like a D-tier Dalek story a la Destiny of the Daleks or Planet of the Daleks. Just Daleks being Daleks. Meanwhile Operation: Hellfire is the typical wartime story of Nazis being cartoonishly evil and while the occult part was somewhat interesting, it's just Nazis being Nazis. Frankly, I just can't be bothered with the Nazi archetypes as villains anymore. It's a bit too real for me without saying anything thought-provoking or interesting and it honestly seems lazy at this point. " Need a villain? Make it Nazis!" I don't know if I'm getting what irritates me about this across but when there's an almost 60 year old villain doing basically the exact same thing every time it shows up, it gets boring.And at the same time, when the Nazis do not behave as expected, there is a big discussion about it like in the "Scorched Earth" threat... I do however agree with you on the Daleks.
A really interesting discussion at that.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on May 17, 2020 18:33:04 GMT
So Operation Hellfire. Really boring story. Occult Nazis? Boring. The Doctor meeting Churchill again? Boring. {Spoiler} & to top it all off, an airship! Boring.
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Post by mrperson on May 17, 2020 21:32:39 GMT
There's only one thing that kind of annoys me a bit with these, and it's how the writers always seem to make sure to play up how great the Doctor thinks Jo is. It seems like in every episode, there are multiple occasions where he praises her effusively and says how much she means.</abbr> Ok..... I get it... I know the TV show was often rather dismissive of companions, especially females given the "fall down stupidly and scream with regularity" roles, but you can rehabilitate character images without exposition. Just show them being clever. (Which BF does. Which is why the dialogue reinforcing it is a bit over the top for me).
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Post by Whovitt on May 18, 2020 1:39:35 GMT
I must admit to being a little disappointed by this release. Both stories were exceptionally generic to me, and generic stories are always the most disappointing as there was surely something more interesting that could have been done with the ideas.
Honestly, if you took the Daleks out of Poison of the Daleks and had a race whose home planet was dying (falling into a sun or something) that were attempting to colonise the Earth by converting it to their needs, that would have made a far more interesting story than just "hey, we've got Daleks because... Daleks". Don't get me wrong, I've always loved Daleks, but they served little to no purpose being in this story. And as someone else mentioned, if you took Jo out everything would play out pretty much the same, so why was she there? Even the Doctor seemed pretty useless for the majority of the plot. What's possibly most disappointing for me about this story is that it's written by Guy Adams. Given the calibre of some of his work, this really feels like a lowering of the bar.
I ended up feeling a bit cheated by Operation: Hellfire. The Third Doctor and Churchill? That'll be neat, I thought. But Churchill's only in two episodes and five scenes. Again, the story would have worked perfectly well without him (just substitute a high-ranking military official), and any story were a lead/special guest is irrelevant to the plot feels like a waste. In this case, it almost felt like false advertising for how brief an appearance he makes. And the story itself just wasn't that gripping. I also didn't get why the Doctor kept referring to the Nazis as "the enemy". "The enemy" would be a British term, aka a human term, so he wouldn't use it. "You're one of them", yeah, probably, but "the enemy", no. It just didn't sound right.
And as for the nostalgia bonus, I've got that for practically every era of the show ever. For the most part though, this range has never got the nostalgia juices following. Contrary to most it would seem, I actually thought both Treloar and Culshaw gave their least convincing performances to date. Culshaw was much more on point in Volume 5, and I think Tim's starting to relax a little now when he's giving his Third, and it's really starting to show. There were moments in the earlier box sets where I remember thinking "Woah, he absolutely nailed that". I didn't get that once with this release.
That all reads a little more negatively than I actually feel about this set, but I was hoping for more from it than I actually got.
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Post by nitronine on May 18, 2020 10:48:34 GMT
I enjoyed Poison of the Daleks but was a little bored with Operation: Hellfire. Unfortunately, I pretty much agree with everything that Whovitt said. I think the inclusion of Churchill was nothing more than a marketing gimmick and an obvious one at that. Operation: Hellfire is the first 3DA since Volume 3 not to feature a returning villain so every 3DA set since then has some sort of gimmick to get more sales, but having a Churchill cameo and advertising it as a "Third Doctor meets Winston Churchill" story is rather dishonest (despite mentioning it as an extended cameo in Vortex, all the main advertisement seemed to indicate a larger role) and not what I've come to expect from Big Finish. I don't want to seem like I'm being dramatic, because it's not like I was particularly excited about another Churchill story but it has left a bad taste in my mouth, especially coming so soon after Dark Universe, a story that I was so excited for based off of the summary which then turned out to be inaccurate. I know that a common complaint about modern Big Finish is that there are too many crossovers to boost sales, but the way around that issue isn't to advertise a crossover and then not doing it properly. Trying to please both sides just leaves both disappointed.
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