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Post by shallacatop on Nov 26, 2020 16:19:41 GMT
Really enjoyed Expiry Dating, lots of lovely material for the Doctor and River, a touching ending and it's fun to boot. I think it's probably unfortunate that this has come just months after R&J from The Lives of Captain Jack range. It's a very similar premise, obviously involves River and is also written by James Goss. It doesn't affect the quality of the story, but it does feel a bit less unique, and therefore it loses its shine a tad. I wish Big Finish didn't bother promoting the Fifth & Sixth Doctor's involvement; it would've been a nice surprise, particularly as they get some good and rather different material. This is why I ignore trailers and pay next to no attention to the rare BF post that actually crosses my timeline on Twitter. As for the news page on their site - don't check it. As such, surprises like Five and Six are rarely spoiled. Do you close your eyes and spend 10 minutes trying to click the play button too, so you don’t see the cover?
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Post by coffeeaddict on Nov 26, 2020 17:04:03 GMT
This is why I ignore trailers and pay next to no attention to the rare BF post that actually crosses my timeline on Twitter. As for the news page on their site - don't check it. As such, surprises like Five and Six are rarely spoiled. Do you close your eyes and spend 10 minutes trying to click the play button too, so you don’t see the cover? To be honest, I only just noticed who was on the cover. I don't pay much attention to the artwork until after as a rule, at least not until after I have listened. The art work isn't all that large on my computer, so I actually need to open the file to see the full image.
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melkur
Chancellery Guard
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Post by melkur on Nov 26, 2020 17:54:46 GMT
Well, that was certainly a fun set!
Whilst I don't know if I'd want them regularly, I wouldn't say no to more stories featuring the pair 'every once in a while'...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2020 19:24:54 GMT
Well, that was certainly a fun set! Whilst I don't know if I'd want them regularly, I wouldn't say no to more stories featuring the pair 'every once in a while'... Definitely agree....not one to overdo.....
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Post by sillytilly on Nov 26, 2020 20:01:09 GMT
Listened to Expiry Dating yesterday. At first I wasn't sure if this was going to work but it really did. The back and forwards between River and The Doctor was great. Each trying to get the better of one another at the beginning. Peter was great in this too. Given something different to play with. I just wish it had been left as a surprise. And the end was lovely. Yeah, really strong start to the set and an interesting concept done really well!
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Post by Andymac on Nov 26, 2020 23:57:43 GMT
Well I listened to it all in one go. Well all I can say is: Can I have volume 2 now pleassssssseeeeeeessss! Ok maybe I can say more. I loved the first story, it worked so well. It was so simple but so spectacular at the same time. The second story suffers from being in the middle of the other two. It's a good solid story, lots of fun with so much character interplay. As for the third one. That was an amazing little tale with so many twists and turns that genuinely surprised me (one of them audibly, hopefully not to loud). River and Ten work wonderfully together. I do hope we get more sets, I'm a little sad now we never got a story on screen after this. Odd that Big Finish are making up for something I didn't know I missed.
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Post by sillytilly on Nov 27, 2020 14:40:15 GMT
Not a lot to say about Precious Annihilation. It was enjoyable but it was a pretty standard story. Especially coming after Expiry Dating. Nice bit of foreshadowing at the end. I did like the villains motivations. Tennant was on top form, especially when confronting Omara near the end.
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Post by Whovitt on Nov 28, 2020 1:37:11 GMT
This wasn't a bad little set (Some spoiler talk to follow) I personally didn't particularly enjoy Expiry Dating too much, but I tend to find that with a lot of the light-hearted James Goss stories. I can't explain why, but his sense of humour for Doctor Who isn't my thing. I also felt the story structure came too soon after the vastly superior R&J (which I know he also wrote but somehow it worked for me in a way this didn't). Precious Annihilation was a pretty standard story, but I think the chemistry of David and Alex helped raise it a lot. I'll be honest and say I didn't really know what was going on though. I get that what's-his-name killed his wife, but I never really understood why. "To protect others, she had to die" was about all I got, but I don't know why she wasn't actually dead. I kept searching for an explanation and never felt like I got one. Still, I quite liked the story overall. I think Ghosts was definitely the standout of the set. The twist wasn't particularly surprising (I didn't feel there were a lot of alternative ways they could possibly have explained what was going on), but it was pretty well delivered and, again, David and Alex were a joy to listen to. If there was one thing I would change about all three stories, it would be the level of flirtatiousness River displays. I always preferred her more restrained behaviour in the Library, and given she must know how early in the Doctor's timeline things must be, she's a bit too forward in these stories. Even in The Time of Angels/ Flesh and Stone I thought she was being more reserved, so being so persistent at this point in the Doctor's life doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I didn't feel her characterisation here really dragged any of the stories down though, I just feel they should have reined things in a little bit.
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 28, 2020 18:32:45 GMT
Well, I loved Expiry Dating. That was a fun ride. However, since it has to be compared to R&J, I have to agree, R&J is in a league of it's own. Still, not a bad effort. I had fun, and it was quite a clever intricate story. I especially LOVED Peter Davison in this. Davison might actually be my favorite part of this, his scenes made me laugh! I am grateful we are getting these great little distracting entertainments at this time.
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Post by elkawho on Nov 28, 2020 18:55:16 GMT
I just finished the whole set and have to say that I loved every second of it! As much as I love Ten and Donna, I think this has to be the best 10th Doctor set yet. Some of the stories in the 10th Doctor Adventures seem more about getting the dialogue out as fast as possible, where this series Tennant seemed to just sit in his old skin and enjoy it. There were laugh out loud moments, as well as time of peril. I loved that they stuck with Ten's questions of and distrust of River. It needed to be there. This is up there with the War Master and Time War boxsets as best releases of the year. Although there has been so much excellent work coming from BF. One of the few bright spots of this terrible year.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 21:01:25 GMT
Boxset came through the post today, and apparently the CD of Ghosts including a music suite which isn't featured on the digital download. Really strange.
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Post by mrperson on Dec 1, 2020 16:28:56 GMT
Expiry Dating was, shall we say, not for me. I suppose I've never generally been a fan of romance in Who, especially the whole River-Doctor schtick (then again, I've also never really been a fan of where they went with River as a character). I hope the next two are more traditional stories. This one felt a lot more like fan-fic supplying historical details about a relationship than it did a story.
About to take an exercise break. Might as well listen to or at least start the next one.
{Spoiler} EDIT: it also provides me with a reason to once again note my annoyance with the whole "fixed point" business. Put aside the fact that the concept never really seems to be respected - they're always getting changed - the definition of one doesn't begin to make sense. Here, the fixed point was supposed to be the opening of the vault, but not the consequences that followed, and therefore there's no problematic changing of history by adding a bunch of zeroes to a scroll. Now, the general sense of a fixed point was supposed to be that you're changing too much for reality to handle. Here, the consequence is saving countless people (was it supposed to be an entire star system's worth) who should have died. Who will now have descendants and spread, for potentially millions of years, changing who knows what. But no, the Doctor speculates, the fixed point is merely the opening of the vault.....not what happened after. Huh? Why? What?
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Post by Kestrel on Dec 2, 2020 0:04:53 GMT
Wow, I just finished the set and... what can I say? I loved it. I've always said that I think Donna is the 10th Doctor's best companion, but now...? I dunno. River makes a very compelling argument.
What I think makes her work so well is that it (finally) affords Big Finish the opportunity to tap i to so,e of that high melodrama that made the 10th Doctor tenure so memorable and captivating--and even though the set suffers in no small way from the a sense of Murray Gold's grandiloquent tracks, I think they used the Diary of a River Song title theme admirably, even slowing it down to use as a kind of leitmotif. Although, upon reflection, the Diary theme might be a bit too... boisterous! Adventurous? Grand? To really fit the tone of these stories, which revolve around a "darker" incarnation of the 10th Doctor and a much more uncertain relationship with River.
Speaking of which, that's really what made their relationship dynamic work. It was refreshing, in a way, to see the Doctor so clearly getting on with a character he really doesn't want to get on with, and the fact that they're *both* withholding information about the other's future really heightens the inherent drama of their interactions. I definitely think that, in retrospect, the 11th Doctor came to trust River a bit too quickly, so these stories slot nicely into a gap j hadn't consciously noticed before.
Although the commentary in the BTS track makes me worry that if they do any subsequent sets, they might soften the Doctor and River's relationship to something far more conventional and less interesting. We'll see, I suppose. Even if they do, I'd be excited for another outing, even if it does seem a tad unlikely with Tenant being so busy with other audio ranges.
....
Onto the specific episodes, I think I enjoyed Expiry adapting the most. I really loved the back-and-forth. The second episode had some lovely times-wimeyness that I really appreciated, something that I often feel is lacking in Who stories, which I suppose place the third story in the bottom of the ranking, even though I did enjoy it. My problem was simply that I'd guessed the big twist fairly early on (basically as soon as the mist appeared) which then made the many, many clues and dialog hints feel a bit too much like padding. But maybe I've simply consumer too much SF and/or am too familiar with how video games render 3D objects and environments?
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Post by Who Review on Dec 2, 2020 10:39:35 GMT
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Post by IndieMacUser on Dec 4, 2020 16:26:58 GMT
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Post by mrperson on Dec 8, 2020 18:07:49 GMT
Well, I certainly liked the second and third better, the third the most.
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Post by Ian McArdell on Dec 9, 2020 9:25:21 GMT
My take on The Tenth Doctor and River Song is up at Cultbox - scanning the comments above it seems I'm in tune with the mood of the party: felt Expiry Dating was a bit close to R&J, but loved Ghosts.
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Post by tuigirl on Dec 9, 2020 18:16:24 GMT
I have to say that the second story did not really do a lot for me. It was a bit of a disappointment after the very fun first story. I don't know, maybe it was too "standard timey-whimey" plot for me? Not sure. But maybe it will improve on a re-listen when I am in a better mood.
I am however looking forward to story number 3- which I also would like to save for my off days next week.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 9, 2020 18:30:29 GMT
I have to say that the second story did not really do a lot for me. It was a bit of a disappointment after the very fun first story. I don't know, maybe it was too "standard timey-whimey" plot for me? Not sure. But maybe it will improve on a re-listen when I am in a better mood. I am however looking forward to story number 3- which I also would like to save for my off days next week. So far it has been my favourite of them all
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Post by tuigirl on Dec 13, 2020 18:01:51 GMT
Finished "Ghosts". Well, it certainly was an interesting story and it also was a fun ride. 10 and River continue to be great together. I just love River.
However, I called the twist pretty early on- I had my suspicions as soon as the screwdriver went missing.
I paid special attention and I have to agree with Kestrel on the question about the leitmotif. We are certainly missing Murray Gold... As for the use of the River one... it still fits here. And I am not so sure I can even remember the BF 10th Doctor one? Does he even have one?
So, all in all, I definitely loved Expiry Dating the most. That is just the type of timey-whimey breathless adventure River excels at.
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