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Post by elkawho on Mar 16, 2021 22:15:49 GMT
I enjoyed the individual episodes slightly more than the final meet up, although I LOVED the twist with Vakrass, and The Doctor and Charley's reaction to it. I enjoyed hearing Eight and Charley together again even more than I thought I would. That pair was the highlight of the story for me.
This release did what they wanted it to do. Basically, gave the range a lovely but not too emotional or large of a send off. At the end you do get the sense of nothing but that these characters and their stories will continue as always, even if it's not in this range. It is a comfortable conclusion, and definitely not the end.
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Post by Who Review on Mar 16, 2021 22:49:18 GMT
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Post by theillusiveman on Mar 16, 2021 23:04:57 GMT
Only halfway through episode 2 but I'm already waiting for the BF spinoff announcement for Robyn Holdaway. At the very least something like "Calypso Jonze will return in Vienna: Blackstar!" I hope not calypso Jonze was awful
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Post by constonks on Mar 16, 2021 23:26:13 GMT
The Eleven The Last Adventure The End of the Beginning What do these three stories have in common? Sylvester should have been a surprise, dang it! More about this story: I'm with Vakras on this one - I loved it!
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Post by sherlock on Mar 17, 2021 1:00:52 GMT
That ended up a very odd story. The three one-shots play out exactly as you’d expect but are well-performed, and there’s some neat twists in the final part. McCoy’s appearance would have been more effective if he wasn’t on the cover. The music was really something though.
Ultimately it’s not really the culmination of anything, nor really an example of the Main Range at its best.
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Post by x2magneto on Mar 17, 2021 1:37:16 GMT
Part 3 my dudes. Love me some gothic horror.
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 17, 2021 6:37:11 GMT
I like that, a lot. Can't say it was subdued really, it was a high-stakes story (without dwelling too much on the high stakes concept, which kept it from being over the top as I sometimes think such things are) with great performances all around and some truly fantastic supporting characters. The Seventh Doctor's entry was alright by me, there probably really wasn't a fourth story to give him the way they divided things up (and the other stories already seemed a bit short) but he got a standout role and there were plenty of chances up until near the end to wonder what his role in things was.
Just an odd thing that I really liked for some reason was hearing Turlough and Mrs. Clarke in the same production. You don't hear that everyday, lol.
Rather fitting IMHO that the range should go out striving to give us its best, as it's always done. Big Finish and all involved, I salute you.
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Post by theillusiveman on Mar 17, 2021 7:51:17 GMT
I wonder if Maggie stables was alive she would have been the companion instead of Constance
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Post by Chakoteya on Mar 17, 2021 10:06:43 GMT
Finding Flight of the Blackstar hilarious so far - shades of Douglas Adams...
El Zeddo indeed...
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Post by nitronine on Mar 17, 2021 12:39:38 GMT
Only halfway through episode 2 but I'm already waiting for the BF spinoff announcement for Robyn Holdaway. At the very least something like "Calypso Jonze will return in Vienna: Blackstar!" I hope not calypso Jonze was awful
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Mar 17, 2021 12:55:54 GMT
A perfectly enjoyable slice of Doctor Who. Robert Valentine has a good handle on all the Doctors and their companions. The fourth episode twist was well executed, surprising and endearing. Agreed on all the comments about the inclusion of 7th Doctor and how it should have been handled. Episode 3 was the strongest to me and the most I’ve enjoyed anything with the 8th Doctor in years. It was really weird not hearing a trailer for next month’s adventure. That is where it really kicked in for me that this was it. Thank you Jason & Gary for giving us new Doctor Who on a monthly basis all those years ago and thanks to everyone who kept it going.
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Post by johnhurtdoctor on Mar 17, 2021 13:16:32 GMT
Well that was OK I guess, the final part was the best as there were some interesting playing with expectations for a story of this type. The preceding 3 episodes weren't anything special, quite forgettable really. As a farewell to the monthly range (which in itself seems an odd thing to do given that all these Doctors are still going to be having adventures with BF) it didn't do much that we haven't seen before. Multiple Doctor stories for example are quite common with BF so their impact has lessened for me, surely there are more interesting ways to do it? I guess the impact of this story may be felt when we see what format the new ranges for each Doctor take & how different they are to what we have had for the past few years, it is called The End of The Beginning after all so maybe plot threads/characters from here will be picked up further down the line. We definitely need more Kevin McNally! A great actor.
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Post by chrism1999 on Mar 17, 2021 15:51:17 GMT
It was.... fine.
Nice to hear 8 & Charley together again, even if she did sound a little... off at times, I liked the interplay between Turlough & Constance, and Kevin McNally and the twist regarding his identity/role was great fun. And Calypso even managed to be rather tolerable., progressing towards likeable and sympathetic at the end.
It just, despite being well-performed, seemed a bit lukewarm at best, and would've been nice to have had a bit more involvement from the companions in the actual denouement.
Still, 7 1/2 years after I first got into both the main range and Big Finish as a whole, I am completely up-to-date with the range for the first time. And feel just a tiny twinge of melancholy.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2021 22:18:34 GMT
Decided to sleep on it before I posted to put all my ducks in a row, so to speak.
The End of the Beginning marks a monumental undertaking from Big Finish to provide one release every month consistently for 22 years. In that time, we've been given entirely new companions, seen the return of old favourites, revitalised the marginalised elements of the show and generally forged a legacy all its own. It's telling that Big Finish came just a handful of years after the New Adventures ended. That series shepherded Who through those first shaky Wilderness Years where a revival seemed nowhere in sight. Glancing the TV Movie along the way. Fittingly, Big Finish was there at the turn of the millennium, seeing a transition that could've brought us -- among other potential candidates -- Richard E. Grant as the Ninth Doctor (a sure enough thing he appears as such in the original Doctor Who: The Legend reference book).
It was still around by the time that Christopher Eccleston rocked up onto the scene. More than that, there were stories in the Main Range that embraced that new aesthetic in some stories. It's difficult to think of The Reaping, The Kingmaker or what became the New Eighth Doctor Adventures without making comparisons to the then Davies-led revival. Nevertheless, I always find it easy to pinpoint what a Main Range story feels like. It has a texture that's evolved, matured and gained its own self-confidence since all those years ago. Classic Doctors, brand new adventures.
Looking at expectations, there's an awful lot riding on The End of the Beginning. Chalk me up as someone nodding pleasantly in the "Yeah, I enjoyed it," camp. With one proviso, I think that I'm going to enjoy this story more with age. Kevin McNally is, to me, one of the companions that got away. It's worth listening to The Twin Dilemma commentary on the DVD just to see what a Colin Baker/Nicola Bryant/McNally TARDIS crew could've felt like (it's a lot of fun). It was nice to see him here as Vakrass and he sells it so well. It's such a good performance. In fact, they all are. I have to give props to the sound design, too. It's nice to get a sense of the "camera" with just the right application of music and reverb.
The story itself is kind of Time Lord history by way of Myst, isn't it? The Who standard rears its head once again with a pseudohistorical, a future tale, a (near) contemporary story and something sideways in time. Each stands on its own with just the right hint of what's to come if you know where to look on the re-listen. The end (the metatext, in this case) didn't quite hit me until that final track. It's nice that Sixie, the Doctor who arguably owes the most to the Monthly Adventures, gets the final word. A story that is, all in all... well, an interlude. A capstone. The end of the beginning.
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melkur
Chancellery Guard
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Post by melkur on Mar 18, 2021 0:11:56 GMT
"Aaaaaw, Six is a sweetheart..." Did I really just say that?
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Post by IndieMacUser on Mar 18, 2021 11:07:22 GMT
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Post by number13 on Mar 18, 2021 12:07:54 GMT
Maybe it's just the influence of a certain being rubbing off on me but... I loved it.
Through all its episodes, through all the Doctor's incarnations, it did exactly what I'd hoped from this final MR release - it was good natured and entertaining, suitably epic but self-contained, varied, traditional and quite simply - enjoyable. With a beautiful and completely unexpected twist for Vakrass in episode 4 and I loved that bit too.
I enjoyed all the performances and if I'm going to single out just one feature - Wilfredo Acosta's sound design and music is brilliant for all the many settings of the story.
My only regret of the whole thing was that in episode 3, 'Highgate' speaking of his own long unlife said: 'all good things come to an end and 235 is a pretty good innings.' That also sounded like a message to us listening to the end of the MR, so why not go the whole way and say '275' since we're all thinking of this 275th and final release? I'm sure the Fourth Wall could have withstood the impact!
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Post by constonks on Mar 18, 2021 20:56:09 GMT
My only regret of the whole thing was that in episode 3, 'Highgate' speaking of his own long unlife said: 'all good things come to an end and 235 is a pretty good innings.' That also sounded like a message to us listening to the end of the MR, so why not go the whole way and say '275' since we're all thinking of this 275th and final release? I'm sure the Fourth Wall could have withstood the impact! I was wondering if Highgate was meant to be a painter from real life born in 1763-4, but I don't know if there were any clues pointing to anyone specific... if not, you're right, our Mr Valentine missed a trick!
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Post by number13 on Mar 18, 2021 22:50:31 GMT
My only regret of the whole thing was that in episode 3, 'Highgate' speaking of his own long unlife said: 'all good things come to an end and 235 is a pretty good innings.' That also sounded like a message to us listening to the end of the MR, so why not go the whole way and say '275' since we're all thinking of this 275th and final release? I'm sure the Fourth Wall could have withstood the impact! I was wondering if Highgate was meant to be a painter from real life born in 1763-4, but I don't know if there were any clues pointing to anyone specific... if not, you're right, our Mr Valentine missed a trick! Which somehow doesn't seem likely does it? So I also wondered if there was an historical link but I couldn't make anything of it. It's mentioned that he was going by the name 'Croglin' (I think) when the Doctor last met him in the 1960s, but that didn't ring any bells. And from the sound of it, that wasn't his real name anyway.
I've not a clue about famous artists born in the 1760s, but Hogarth died around that time and given some of his subject matter of sin and the dark side of London life... perhaps? Maybe 'Highgate' was only counting the years he'd been undead... and I know Hogarth lived somewhere in West London and that's where 'Highgate' was living in 1999...
EDIT: that was all just my bit of fun but on checking - it seems Hogarth died in 1764 - which is (yes) 235 years before the date of the episode! Coincidence? Or 'a pretty good innings' and does the mystery of 'Highgate' deepen... to be revealed in a future script??
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Post by barnabaslives on Mar 18, 2021 23:03:50 GMT
My only regret of the whole thing was that in episode 3, 'Highgate' speaking of his own long unlife said: 'all good things come to an end and 235 is a pretty good innings.' That also sounded like a message to us listening to the end of the MR, so why not go the whole way and say '275' since we're all thinking of this 275th and final release? Thank you - how did I miss that? Oh well, I'll happily accept 235 as a thinly veiled reference to 275. :-) A good inning indeed. I'm sure the Fourth Wall could have withstood the impact! If it can withstand a holiday toast from William Hartnell, I'm sure it could have! :-)
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