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Post by Kestrel on Aug 10, 2020 14:28:58 GMT
Okay so this is my first time making a thread here: I apologize if it's a duplicate, but I've spent a fair amount of time looking and couldn't find any threads for most of the Gallifrey sets here--just IV and the Time War sets.
So, here: a single thread for all of the Gallifrey stuff.
I've been binging through Gallifrey this month with the aim of catching up to GTW4 when it releases next month. Today I concluded Series VI. It has been... quite a trip. I certainly didn't expect to like this series as much as I did, nor did I expect to fall in love with Leela, Narvin and Brax, even if the latter's timeline is hella confusing. But there you have it.
I think it was... Series III where I nearly gave up.That whole arc with Pandora? Such a slog. But I'm really glad I kept going as Series IV and Series V were totally fantastic--I love how much time Big Finish spent exploring all these alternate Gallifreys, even if, in retrospect, it was a bit contrived how frequently Romana found herself in the presidency.
And the finale to Series VI? Wow. Just: wow. The Daleks are always so much fun--I have difficulty articulating the appeal. They're cute. Like little children. I hear that lovely squawk and not only do I perfectly picture those silly little pepperpots shaking madly with each syllable, I myself shake with them. It's fun. Cute. In the same manner as my very large golden retriever, whose whole body shakes and sways when she wags her tail. There's so much Force whipping around that she can't help it. The Daleks are like that: big metal puppies who wobble and shake when they scream simply because they cannot physically contain their enthusiasm.
What's this? They're supposed to be big scary monsters? Sure, pal. Sure.
And then there's Narvin. Poor, lovely, sexy, dangerously stupid Narvin. I'm convinced that by Time Lord Standards he must be the hottest, sexiest person on the planet. Big round eyes, puffy pout lips, Korean boy-band hair. And that's the only reason anyone keeps him around: eye candy. Because boy oh boy, if I didn't think Narvin was a fool before Series VI, I sure do now! This boy just cause the last great time war through nothing but his own ineptitude!
And lastly, Braxiatel. He sure turned out to be a lot of fun, huh? Sooooo deliciously pompous. I hated to see him depart the the series when he fell out of the portal on the Axis and into the Bernice Summerfield sets. Does this incarnation of Brax's story ling pick up there, or is the immediate aftermath relegated to off-screen events, so to speak? I've finished up Unbound so I'm looking to dive into the NABS son for more David Warner and Mark Gatiss, but I'd also love to see more Braxiatel--especially this version of Brax.
Next up is Series VII and Series VIII -- which i guess are just single, standalone stories leading up the war? Fun. Just dipped my toes into VII and it appears to be a big time-skip with a lot of new developments with Ace and Romana that are... intriguing. It will be very interesting to see what happens next--though I do feel a bit sad that the Gallifrey series is, for all intents and purposes, over. Ah well--it was brilliant while it lasted, and hopefully the GTW sets are just as good.
So that's all I have to say. What are your thoughts on Gallifrey?
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ljwilson
Chancellery Guard
It's tangerine....not orange
Likes: 5,062
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Post by ljwilson on Aug 10, 2020 15:37:01 GMT
I've tried to get in to it a couple of times but only managed 1.1 and 1.2 before losing a bit of interest.
But, with 2 weeks off work no time like the present to give it another go and I'll start from scratch again over the next few days and will try to remember to post my thoughts.
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Post by Digi on Aug 10, 2020 15:41:24 GMT
I love Gallifrey, it's my favourite DW spin-off range (well, it might fight with J&L for that). I love how it's gone through such distinct phases in its storytelling, from The West Wing in 1-3, to Unbound in 3-6, to the all-too-brief reinvention in IE/EL, and now the Time War series. I just never want it to end.
And Narvin, oh man Narvin. Romana can get a bit irritating at times because Lalla has a way of delivering her lines to sound like a kindergarten teacher who hates her life, but it's so nicely balanced out by Narvin's sarcastic cynicism and the straight-man comedy of Leela's 'savage.' Fabulous trio.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Aug 10, 2020 16:49:39 GMT
I tried this range with Gallifrey: Intervention Earth. It was sold as a jumping on point. It wasn't. & it was quite boring as well.
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Post by tuigirl on Aug 10, 2020 18:17:26 GMT
I also tried to get into it, but I am afraid it just is not my cup of tea.... The only story I really liked so far is the one with the mirror universe Sixth Doctor.
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 10, 2020 20:16:33 GMT
I love Gallifrey, it's my favourite DW spin-off range (well, it might fight with J&L for that). I love how it's gone through such distinct phases in its storytelling, from The West Wing in 1-3, to Unbound in 3-6, to the all-too-brief reinvention in IE/EL, and now the Time War series. I just never want it to end. And Narvin, oh man Narvin. Romana can get a bit irritating at times because Lalla has a way of delivering her lines to sound like a kindergarten teacher who hates her life, but it's so nicely balanced out by Narvin's sarcastic cynicism and the straight-man comedy of Leela's 'savage.' Fabulous trio. Definitely. Romana is great when she's on top of her game... but I feel like she kinda got screwed in 4-6, where she seemed kinda incompetent. Especially series 5, where she's struggling to completely reshape Gallifreyan society... by pissing everyone off and not making any allies? The finale to series 5, when she recorded her farewell speech, implied that she *did* have allies on the council... but everyone we met in the stories was either an outright enemy or merely feigning support. Romana's much more fun when she's the one fooling other people, not the inverse. As for Leela... I don't really remember liking her much in the TV show outside of that introductory episode, but now I really want to rewatch her stuff. I adore her way of speaking--each line just pops--and i don't really remember that in the TV show. Then again, I did binge through all of Classic in a short period of time during an especially stressful period of my life, so I probably can't trust my memories too much here. .... Re: eras, I completely agree! I feel the need to draw up a timeline just to make sense of everything in my head! I really love how the Time War imbues the franchise with the sense of greater external continuity that it never had before, allowing for these distinct historical "eras" each with their own unique feels. For example, I'd be perfectly happy if the Time War sets just never ended, as every single one I've listened to has been fantastic, but if they do? There's room for more Gallifrey sets in the direct aftermath of the war, with Gallifrey in the pocket dimension... and again once they return to the "prime" universe. ...And now I'm imagining one or more Gallifrey box sets that are all about them dealing with Missy, putting her on trial, and finally deciding to execute her. Wouldn't that be a joy to listen to? Especially if Capaldi gets involved? ...Which actually brings me to the one thing I've disliked about Gallifrey: the lack of crossover. It was fantastic to see Colin Baker show up, but I kinda wish they'd do at least one story with McGann. Maybe in the Time War sets?
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 11, 2020 4:18:00 GMT
...And now I'm done with 7 and 8. Wow. That was quite the ride. I think sometime very soon I'm going to have to whip out my sketchbook and try and chart all of the timelines and loops and things that consist of the Series 1-8 timeline. It's all very confusing. i literally just finished series 8 less than 30 seconds ago and I'm not sure what happened. Obviously the weirdness with Brax was hard to follow, but I'm also not sure how the other "paradox" was resolved. Well, off to the wiki! I tried this range with Gallifrey: Intervention Earth. It was sold as a jumping on point. It wasn't. & it was quite boring as well. Yeah... I dunno who told you that, but Intervention Earth is just about the worst place I can imagine to jump in. Series 1 would be ideal, or series 4 maybe. But Intervention Earth? Definitely the weakest story in the entire line TBH. I highly recommend you give the series another shot. Or at least jump into Anti-Genesis so you can get a taste of Narvin.
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Post by Digi on Aug 11, 2020 21:15:36 GMT
I tried this range with Gallifrey: Intervention Earth. It was sold as a jumping on point. It wasn't. Yeah... I dunno who told you that, but Intervention Earth is just about the worst place I can imagine to jump in. I'm not going to go looking for the news stories six years after the fact, but JHD isn't wrong, I remember IE being pitched along those lines too. Weirdly though I find it's the easiest one to revisit in isolation, when I don't feel like committing to relistening to the entire range but still need a Gallifrey fix.
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mbt66
Chancellery Guard
Likes: 3,079
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Post by mbt66 on Aug 14, 2020 17:33:43 GMT
Yeah... I dunno who told you that, but Intervention Earth is just about the worst place I can imagine to jump in. I'm not going to go looking for the news stories six years after the fact, but JHD isn't wrong, I remember IE being pitched along those lines too. Weirdly though I find it's the easiest one to revisit in isolation, when I don't feel like committing to relistening to the entire range but still need a Gallifrey fix. I still think there is an untold story around this release.
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 17, 2020 9:17:24 GMT
So I tried sketching out the timeline but I ran out of space on the page about halfway through the second set. Oops! I've started working on a timeline digitally, and I'll probably make a thread devoted just to it once I've filled out more of it (current version doesn't even cover all of the first boxset!) but here's where it is currently -- it looks more detailed than it is because I included some TV stuff. It's already pretty complicated and as I had more and more to it i'm gonna have to be constantly rearranging things. i.imgur.com/8aJyPrd.pngThe idea is to create timeline of Gallifrey that covers all of the major political events from the "present" of the TV show and Audios (so, for example, no ancient experiments on the Ravenous or any of Rassilon's countless wars). To that end I've basically split it into four different timelines based on their relative importance to the Gallifreyan state: Gallifrey, of course, as well as the Doctor, the Master and the Daleks. It's, uh, gonna get really big really soon. Especially if I get very ambitious and try to chart out the time war, too. Which might be a fun challenge. I'd thought about color-colding things by faction, but that's... kinda confusing. I think I'll keep it B&W for now but in the future might color-code by range. EG all of Gallifrey would be yellow, Gallifrey Time War orange, the War Master red, the War Doctor purple, the 8th Doctor blue, Susan teal, etc. .... But, ANYWAY, the reason I bring this up is because what incited this project was how confused I was by the tail end of the last two Gallifrey sets. Like, where exactly did Romana III come from? Is this meant to take place in the relative "future," or "past?" So confusing. And then there's what happens to Brax, which is a mess, and just... I really need to chart everything else out to keep it all straight in my head before I move into the GTW sets, which I hear are even more complicated.
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Post by sherlock on Aug 17, 2020 10:13:13 GMT
So I tried sketching out the timeline but I ran out of space on the page about halfway through the second set. Oops! I've started working on a timeline digitally, and I'll probably make a thread devoted just to it once I've filled out more of it (current version doesn't even cover all of the first boxset!) but here's where it is currently -- it looks more detailed than it is because I included some TV stuff. It's already pretty complicated and as I had more and more to it i'm gonna have to be constantly rearranging things. i.imgur.com/8aJyPrd.pngThe idea is to create timeline of Gallifrey that covers all of the major political events from the "present" of the TV show and Audios (so, for example, no ancient experiments on the Ravenous or any of Rassilon's countless wars). To that end I've basically split it into four different timelines based on their relative importance to the Gallifreyan state: Gallifrey, of course, as well as the Doctor, the Master and the Daleks. It's, uh, gonna get really big really soon. Especially if I get very ambitious and try to chart out the time war, too. Which might be a fun challenge. I'd thought about color-colding things by faction, but that's... kinda confusing. I think I'll keep it B&W for now but in the future might color-code by range. EG all of Gallifrey would be yellow, Gallifrey Time War orange, the War Master red, the War Doctor purple, the 8th Doctor blue, Susan teal, etc. .... But, ANYWAY, the reason I bring this up is because what incited this project was how confused I was by the tail end of the last two Gallifrey sets. Like, where exactly did Romana III come from? Is this meant to take place in the relative "future," or "past?" So confusing. And then there's what happens to Brax, which is a mess, and just... I really need to chart everything else out to keep it all straight in my head before I move into the GTW sets, which I hear are even more complicated. We actually have a similar project over on the Divergent Wordsmiths section atm, collaboratively writing an entire history of Gallifrey. It’s, erm, complicated to say the least. Intervention Earth is a glimpse of the future, possibly the same timeline as the Eighth Doctor novels (which also featured Romana III). Enemy Lines returns to the present where Brax from the future arrives and changes events so Romana III does not come into existence. So Romana III now never existed at all. Don’t worry about what happened to Brax at the end of Enemy Lines, it’s never mentioned again. Gallifrey: Time War sets are pretty linear, they only get complicated when you take into account other stuff.
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 18, 2020 1:16:42 GMT
lol, I'm trying to keep my focus as limited as possible because otherwise the project would balloon like crazy. Just major political events from Gallifrey's POV, solely using Audio and TV continuity.
I kinda want to try charting out the rest of the time war, too, since much of Gallifrey 1-6 can be read as the preceding temporal Cold War. That'll be easy since it's just 8 sets. Once I get that done, I my try to weave the other Time War audios in.
and Gallifrey 1-8 absolutely are not linear. The first set alone has three aborted timelines, one restored timeline, and three major uses of time travel. The stories are arranged linearly, but the timeline is kinda messy.
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Post by Digi on Aug 18, 2020 1:26:30 GMT
lol, I'm trying to keep my focus as limited as possible because otherwise the project would balloon like crazy. Just major political events from Gallifrey's POV, solely using Audio and TV continuity. That's a...monumental task Audio-wise, you could also factor in (off the top of my head) Zagreus, Dark Eyes 1, Dark Eyes 3, and Doom Coalition (all of it).
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 18, 2020 3:29:07 GMT
Yeah... as you can see from the image, I've kind of gotten away from myself. Ideally I think it'd be best to take it in stages and focus on one range at a time. So: - Step 1: cover Gallifrey 1-8
- Step 2: add Gallifrey Time War (as I listen to it)
- Step 3: Declare victory and stop what I'm doing. Unless I decide to do the Time War, too, in which case....
- Step 3: add War Master (which is mostly just Anti-Genesis so far)
- Step 4: add Ravenous -- mostly just Day of the Master, since it involves the Time War-era Time Lords.
- Step 5: add War Doctor (it's been a while since I've listened to these, but I don't think there were many "major" time-travel shenanigans that would make the flowchart especially complex, unliek unlike Anti-Genesis which involves circling back down to Genesis of the Daleks.
- Step 5: add 8th Doctor Time War (as I listen to it)
- Step 6: add Susan's War.
And I think that would be it?
I maybe have misspoke earlier, but my goal isn't to cover all of Gallifrey's history, just the "modern" history, basically covering the events of the Gallifrey audio series and the Time War. Like the Ravenous sets do cover an important threat to Gallifrey, but I don't see them as integral to the timeline as they occurred off-planet, and the problem was dealt with by rogue Time Lords.
Doom Coalition would probably need to be injected too, though. I'd forgotten that there was -another- Gallifreyan civil war there. No idea where Doom Coalition slots in relative to the other Gallifrey stuff. Did they even say who was president then? All I remember is Ollistra leading the dissinting high council... I don't remember what Romana, Narvin or Brax were doing then, if they were involved in those sets at all.
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Post by Digi on Aug 18, 2020 4:32:43 GMT
The beauty / hair-tearing-out of it all is that a heck of a lot of it does happen during the timeframe of the Gallifrey series itself, but it can be really difficult to place. Like...early on in Gallifrey Leela and Romana comment something along the lines of “the Doctor is gone now,” which is a reference to Zagreus. On its own, you could either choose to make Zagreus a ‘prequel’ or ignore it, but then, it establishes that Eight’s later adventures in Dark Eyes and Doom Coalition must be happening at some point in the Gallifrey (series) timeframe, because we can firmly say that the Gallifrey series starts after Zagreus, and ends far later during the Time War, which Eight himself ends up caught up in during his Time War sets. It’s a pain....but it is fun
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Post by Kestrel on Aug 23, 2020 11:04:34 GMT
I think... I'm gonna scrap everything I have and start over. BF continuity is very confusing! I think the best thing to do would be to limit the flowchart to one range at a time. So just G1-8 for now, then maybe the Time War stories, with TV stuff wherever relevant. Just trying to figure out where all of the 8DA sets would fit in is a monumental headache... especially when Doom Coalition, for example, takes place prior to the Time War, but involves Cardinal Ollistra, who barely factors into any other stories until the War Doctor range.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2020 14:49:58 GMT
I tried this range with Gallifrey: Intervention Earth. It was sold as a jumping on point. It wasn't. & it was quite boring as well. That release wasn’t the best of the range i hope you have attempted it since
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2020 14:51:31 GMT
I think... I'm gonna scrap everything I have and start over. BF continuity is very confusing! I think the best thing to do would be to limit the flowchart to one range at a time. So just G1-8 for now, then maybe the Time War stories, with TV stuff wherever relevant. Just trying to figure out where all of the 8DA sets would fit in is a monumental headache... especially when Doom Coalition, for example, takes place prior to the Time War, but involves Cardinal Ollistra, who barely factors into any other stories until the War Doctor range. the best thing to do is forget timelines everything gets rewritten anyway as in my Whoineverse there are no gender changing time lords 😉🤪
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Sept 9, 2020 14:57:40 GMT
I tried this range with Gallifrey: Intervention Earth. It was sold as a jumping on point. It wasn't. & it was quite boring as well. That release wasn’t the best of the range i hope you have attempted it since No. Gallifrey is the most boring place in the universe.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2020 14:58:54 GMT
That release wasn’t the best of the range i hope you have attempted it since No. Gallifrey is the most boring place in the universe. Have you been to Rugby ?
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