melkur
Chancellery Guard
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Post by melkur on Jan 27, 2021 13:33:23 GMT
I've just finished 'Slight Glimpses Of Tomorrow' & am currently making a start on 'A Brave New World' before heading into town for a bit.
Whilst I'm not going to say that 'Glimpses' is one of my favourite River episodes, it was an enjoyable enough way of spending a lunchtime...
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Post by shallacatop on Jan 27, 2021 14:31:39 GMT
A Brave New World was a fun runaround with a lot of heart and some nice imagery. Alex Kingston & Salome Haertel are fantastic together and it's nice to have a story that suits them both; River gets to show her ruthless side and Rachel is well served here with a very human storyline and shows her potential. I really hope we pick up with her in the future as she's a great original character with a lot of potential and I like the idea of River gaining her own crew as we move on; that appeals to me more than pairing her with Masters or throwing her in old stories, etc. Oh and the Tenth Doctor cameo was lovely. I love the pairing of him and River, it was a pleasant surprise, didn't get in the way of the story or undermine River. More importantly it was uncredited and unannounced beforehand! It really shows how effective that can be; Expiry Dating could've done with that.
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melkur
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 3,964
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Post by melkur on Jan 27, 2021 21:01:14 GMT
Whilst I will say that I am kinda missing the 'arc-sets', I did find the four stories in this to be pretty enjoyable &, if they found the 'right' story for them (and weren't doing it for the 'sake' of doing it), I don't think I'd say no to a continuation of any of them...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2021 9:02:15 GMT
Shame to see that they’ve stopped doing individual covers for these now. Probably lockdown problems hopefully
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2021 9:04:10 GMT
Right now this is serious as I totally engage with river sets but the first two stories and absolutely nothing on the third and beginning to show interest....if there’s an arc even am totally unaware hahaha guess will be doing these stories again...I have a day off and I guess I was tired when I listened to the first two last night ....
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2021 12:38:53 GMT
Back to the beginning as I really loved Queen Of The Mechonoids-Jonathan Morris
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Post by shallacatop on Jan 28, 2021 12:38:57 GMT
I thought A Forever Home was a story of two halves. We have a fun first half hour, with some intrigue and great interactions between River & K9. Then we get a second half that's not as interesting and is mainly exposition between River and Balthazar.
I think it's clear that part of the brief for the episode was to have a small cast, which has a lot of potential, but unfortunately it's done in the least creative way. It probably doesn't help that it uses a framing device that's really difficult to execute on audio; flashbacks and lots of references to what happened prior to the events of the story. It can be effectively done on screen, but it's not easy on audio and I think it falters here.
The multiple K9 idea is a little wasted too; the obvious would be the various versions of K9 and sometimes the obvious solution is the best one!
Not bad, but there's a better version of this out there.
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Post by shallacatop on Jan 29, 2021 12:50:13 GMT
I thought Queen of the Mechonoids was good fun, one of those stories I was just in the mood for. I love it when we delve into River's archaeological side, it doesn't happen all that often, especially when it's essentially one big heist! It's great to hear more from Anya Kingdom, I like Mark Seven and I'm looking forward to hearing the pair of them in Dalek Universe. Derek Griffiths was great too, really relishing playing Henic, almost like a Bond villain! There's a few great sequences that I could vividly picture too, which is always a good thing.
Overall, a patchy set. Two stories I enjoyed, two I was less keen on. The running theme of the set was less obvious, though, which I appreciated. We got robots of sorts in each set, but I think it's a broad theme so it doesn't feel gimmicky; more in line with Series 7 than 5 or 6. I would really like River to get another story long set and form her own crew of returning characters; Luke & Rachel is a start, but it'd be nice to expand on that.
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Post by number13 on Jan 29, 2021 14:02:27 GMT
Started last night with high hopes and 'Slight Glimpses of Tomorrow'. A big disappointment.
James Goss has penned pure River gold so many times - 'Lies in Ruins', 'R+J', 'Expiry Dating', 'Colony of Strangers' to name but a few - that I was expecting another gem but found a slow story which tries to imagine scientific/historical connections (a subject I find fascinating) but failed to convince on that score. The connections were much too tenuous between a star map and developing interplanetary/interstellar flight or between firework 'rockets' and space rockets.
And then it gave us a large, tedious helping of 'most women wise and good and enlightened, most men stupid and destructive and sexist' storytelling. I'm very very sure BF would never write a story where the reverse was true, it would be unthinkable, so why do this? River being her usual brilliant self is all we need.
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Post by theillusiveman on Jan 29, 2021 14:32:36 GMT
]And then it gave us a large, tedious helping of 'most women wise and good and enlightened, most men stupid and destructive and sexist' storytelling. I'm very very sure BF would never write a story where the reverse was true, it would be unthinkable, so why do this? River being her usual brilliant self is all we need.
That’s a shame and a bit worrying Considering that Big Finish recently on Twitter retweeted a post saying the future is female (at the news of the female producers joining the BF ranges) I hope big finish won’t adopt this mindset for the future and become misandrist
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Post by number13 on Jan 29, 2021 15:00:22 GMT
]And then it gave us a large, tedious helping of 'most women wise and good and enlightened, most men stupid and destructive and sexist' storytelling. I'm very very sure BF would never write a story where the reverse was true, it would be unthinkable, so why do this? River being her usual brilliant self is all we need.
That’s a shame and a bit worrying Considering that Big Finish recently on Twitter retweeted a post saying the future is female (at the news of the female producers joining the BF ranges) I hope big finish won’t adopt this mindset for the future and become misandrist The only two times I've ever thought this about a BF story, the writers were male in each case, so I don't think we need worry at all on that score. BF's increasing number of female writers have been adding great stories to the canon - thinking just of the MR recently, 'The Grey Man of the Mountain', the two Seven/Ace/Hex two-parters and various entries in the Fifth Doctor anthologies, all excellent.
EDIT: I just recalled that Jacqueline Rayner was a famous name among the contributors to the Fifth Doctor anthologies and so I must mention again very possibly the best story in the MR ever; the sublime, hilarious, moving and altogether brilliant 'Doctor Who and the Pirates'. It's genius. Plus G&S.
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Post by theillusiveman on Jan 30, 2021 12:07:38 GMT
That’s a shame and a bit worrying Considering that Big Finish recently on Twitter retweeted a post saying the future is female (at the news of the female producers joining the BF ranges) I hope big finish won’t adopt this mindset for the future and become misandrist The only two times I've ever thought this about a BF story, the writers were male in each case, so I don't think we need worry at all on that score. BF's increasing number of female writers have been adding great stories to the canon - thinking just of the MR recently, 'The Grey Man of the Mountain', the two Seven/Ace/Hex two-parters and various entries in the Fifth Doctor anthologies, all excellent.
EDIT: I just recalled that Jacqueline Rayner was a famous name among the contributors to the Fifth Doctor anthologies and so I must mention again very possibly the best story in the MR ever; the sublime, hilarious, moving and altogether brilliant 'Doctor Who and the Pirates'. It's genius. Plus G&S. Still doesn't excuse them but as long as Big Finish keeps writing good well written characters that is the important thing
yeah we have had heaps of good female writers over the years Jaq Rayner did an awesome job with And the Pirates
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Post by antartiks on Jan 30, 2021 21:33:33 GMT
Listening to episode 2 {Spoiler} and OH F- I was not expecting David Tennant to pop up unexpectedly. Lovely surprise.
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Post by penguintim on Jan 31, 2021 0:11:26 GMT
]And then it gave us a large, tedious helping of 'most women wise and good and enlightened, most men stupid and destructive and sexist' storytelling. I'm very very sure BF would never write a story where the reverse was true, it would be unthinkable, so why do this? River being her usual brilliant self is all we need.
That’s a shame and a bit worrying Considering that Big Finish recently on Twitter retweeted a post saying the future is female (at the news of the female producers joining the BF ranges) I hope big finish won’t adopt this mindset for the future and become misandrist Yes, we should definitely be wary of an anti-male agenda from a company where 90% of the stories are written by men 🙄
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Jan 31, 2021 1:14:02 GMT
That’s a shame and a bit worrying Considering that Big Finish recently on Twitter retweeted a post saying the future is female (at the news of the female producers joining the BF ranges) I hope big finish won’t adopt this mindset for the future and become misandrist Yes, we should definitely be wary of an anti-male agenda from a company where 90% of the stories are written by men 🙄 Exactly. But let's not allow facts to get in the way of a certain type of man who laughably worries about being oppressed or marginalised.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 31, 2021 9:50:36 GMT
I felt a bit underwhelmed by this set of stories but listened after a stressful week at work to unwind so it’s best i without an over all opinion till I get a proper relisten to it all. Mechonoids was my favourite but perhaps it was the easiest accessible tale mentally.So will relisten after I complete my DOOM COALITION relisten
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Post by number13 on Jan 31, 2021 12:16:56 GMT
'Brave New World'
Good, classic-scifi meets typical-Who adventure - sort of 'Silent Running'+'AI' meets "Eels on a Spaceship" - with some deeper ideas about the rights and morality of created beings. Rachel really is a much nicer person than most organic people isn't she? Somewhere deep inside there must be a version of 'the laws of robotics' at work: always help organic people even if they have treated you very very badly. Hopefully she and Aaron will be happy together, as she met an new organic person who seemed as nice as her.
I have to say though that for me the best bits of the story were the glimpses of "stories off", River and various incarnations of 'Sweetie' doing their usual madcap thing at breathtaking speed. And that highlighted something I felt about the calmness of Rachel (exactly right for the character, a great performance) - it does tend to damp down the tension of even the most tense scenes. However, I thought this was realistic, because a successful sentient android surely would be calm, rational and measured, and the contrast with River in action (how long can I use a flamethrower for before the ship thinks it's on fire?!) was considerable! and no doubt intended.
Very best moment of all was (of course) {Spoiler} Hello (uncredited and unannounced) Sweetie! Excellent. Thank you Doctor!
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Post by number13 on Jan 31, 2021 12:40:44 GMT
Oh yes before I forget, in 'Brave New World' there were two technical points about the ship and its crew which I thought of (and it really annoys me that I think of things like this during a story but sometimes I do!):
Near the end of the voyage they were still worrying about oxygen supplies. Even after the fire, if Rachel had been running the ship solo for 495+ years of the 500 year voyage, surely there would have been a vast surplus of oxygen? Or did it get lost in the crisis and I missed it?
And if there were 12000 people on the ship in cryo-sleep, why didn't they crew the ship in shifts of say 3 or 5 years for a team of 3, then they go back into cryo and the next team of 3 wake up for their shift and so on, instead of life-long 'shifts'? That way everyone reaches their promised world and far less chance of anyone doing something desperate or becoming sloppy and making mistakes after too long on duty. Did I miss a reason why this couldn't be done? It seemed easy enough to go into and out of cryo-sleep at will (unlike the 'The Ark in Space' systems where Sarah was lucky to be able to wake up again before a very long time had passed.)
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Post by masterdoctor on Jan 31, 2021 15:57:20 GMT
I seem to be in the minority on the first episode in this set, but I adored it! Light on plot for sure, but a story that revolves around symbolic meaning, themes and ideas. Goss really nailed the fine balance when it comes to a story like that, and the star chart and jewellery were great symbols to use. Alex Kingston plays River as a mentor with a warmth and kindness, but mixed with a naughty side. And I think Salome Haertel was brilliant, being just the perfect amount of alien/machine in her vocal performance.
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Post by IndieMacUser on Feb 1, 2021 9:30:13 GMT
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