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Post by omega on Dec 16, 2015 23:12:38 GMT
Nostalgia is fine to dip into, but not be flooded by. Nick Briggs channeling his inner teenager doesn't always produce the best stories. The character of Will Arrowsmith came from when Alan Barnes was watching back in the 70's, and look how well he turned out forty years later.
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Post by icecreamdf on Dec 16, 2015 23:25:29 GMT
After listening to Only the Monstrous, I don't think that fewer stories by Nick Briggs can possibly be a good thing. I wouldn't mind if he did have the time to write and direct every BF Doctor Who story.
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Post by kimalysong on Dec 16, 2015 23:32:00 GMT
After listening to Only the Monstrous, I don't think that fewer stories by Nick Briggs can possibly be a good thing. I wouldn't mind if he did have the time to write and direct every BF Doctor Who story. I agree Only the Monstrous was fantastic but Briggs definitely has his high & low points. And I certainly wouldn't want him to write everything & I am glad we have new writers in the next set. Though I don't think Briggs would want to write & direct everything. Obviously he knows he has a talented team of writers and directors at Big Finish that he can pass the torch too.
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Post by icecreamdf on Dec 17, 2015 1:43:47 GMT
After listening to Only the Monstrous, I don't think that fewer stories by Nick Briggs can possibly be a good thing. I wouldn't mind if he did have the time to write and direct every BF Doctor Who story. I agree Only the Monstrous was fantastic but Briggs definitely has his high & low points. And I certainly wouldn't want him to write everything & I am glad we have new writers in the next set. Though I don't think Briggs would want to write & direct everything. Obviously he knows he has a talented team of writers and directors at Big Finish that he can pass the torch too. Well, obviously I was excagerating a bit. I'm glad BF has more than one writer. Still, I wish he was writing at least one of the Fourth Doctor stories.
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Dec 17, 2015 1:54:32 GMT
After listening to Only the Monstrous, I don't think that fewer stories by Nick Briggs can possibly be a good thing. I wouldn't mind if he did have the time to write and direct every BF Doctor Who story. I agree Only the Monstrous was fantastic but Briggs definitely has his high & low points. And I certainly wouldn't want him to write everything & I am glad we have new writers in the next set. Though I don't think Briggs would want to write & direct everything. Obviously he knows he has a talented team of writers and directors at Big Finish that he can pass the torch too. Agreed. There is great Nick Briggs and there is not so great Nick Briggs. I think most of his writing in the FDA line is not so great Nick Briggs. I think when the material is darker and morally complex is when Nick really shines. It's why the War Doctor may be the perfect Doctor for Nick to write for, it's why the later stages of the 8th Doctor & Lucie Miller line was so strong and why I think The Prisoner may end up being good. I just don't know that Nick's strengths as a writer pair up well with the sensibilities needed for the 4th Doctor.
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Post by omega on Dec 17, 2015 4:47:25 GMT
I agree Only the Monstrous was fantastic but Briggs definitely has his high & low points. And I certainly wouldn't want him to write everything & I am glad we have new writers in the next set. Though I don't think Briggs would want to write & direct everything. Obviously he knows he has a talented team of writers and directors at Big Finish that he can pass the torch too. Agreed. There is great Nick Briggs and there is not so great Nick Briggs. I think most of his writing in the FDA line is not so great Nick Briggs. I think when the material is darker and morally complex is when Nick really shines. It's why the War Doctor may be the perfect Doctor for Nick to write for, it's why the later stages of the 8th Doctor & Lucie Miller line was so strong and why I think The Prisoner may end up being good. I just don't know that Nick's strengths as a writer pair up well with the sensibilities needed for the 4th Doctor. I think that Nick Briggs has a blind spot of sorts when it comes to writing for Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. He's said that one of his goals was to get Tom to play the Fourth Doctor for Big Finish and has also admitted having a love for that period. His rose-tinted lenses may be preventing him from reaching the heights he's reached elsewhere ( Dark Eyes, Dalek Empire, The War Doctor, I'm noticing a theme here), and he's writing scripts his teenage self would have enjoyed. He's even done the Terrance Dicks school of rummaging through the toy box and brought characters and concepts from his Audio Visual days, like Cuthbert and the Conglomerate. I've no idea how he missed letting Jamie and Leela meet in Return to Telos!
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Post by Audio Watchdog on Dec 18, 2015 0:03:47 GMT
Agreed. There is great Nick Briggs and there is not so great Nick Briggs. I think most of his writing in the FDA line is not so great Nick Briggs. I think when the material is darker and morally complex is when Nick really shines. It's why the War Doctor may be the perfect Doctor for Nick to write for, it's why the later stages of the 8th Doctor & Lucie Miller line was so strong and why I think The Prisoner may end up being good. I just don't know that Nick's strengths as a writer pair up well with the sensibilities needed for the 4th Doctor. I think that Nick Briggs has a blind spot of sorts when it comes to writing for Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. He's said that one of his goals was to get Tom to play the Fourth Doctor for Big Finish and has also admitted having a love for that period. His rose-tinted lenses may be preventing him from reaching the heights he's reached elsewhere ( Dark Eyes, Dalek Empire, The War Doctor, I'm noticing a theme here), and he's writing scripts his teenage self would have enjoyed. He's even done the Terrance Dicks school of rummaging through the toy box and brought characters and concepts from his Audio Visual days, like Cuthbert and the Conglomerate. I've no idea how he missed letting Jamie and Leela meet in Return to Telos! Oy. Cuthbert & The Conglomerate do nothing for me and I'm not exactly looking forward to their return.
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mbt66
Chancellery Guard
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Post by mbt66 on Dec 20, 2015 14:20:50 GMT
I think that Nick Briggs has a blind spot of sorts when it comes to writing for Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. He's said that one of his goals was to get Tom to play the Fourth Doctor for Big Finish and has also admitted having a love for that period. His rose-tinted lenses may be preventing him from reaching the heights he's reached elsewhere ( Dark Eyes, Dalek Empire, The War Doctor, I'm noticing a theme here), and he's writing scripts his teenage self would have enjoyed. He's even done the Terrance Dicks school of rummaging through the toy box and brought characters and concepts from his Audio Visual days, like Cuthbert and the Conglomerate. I've no idea how he missed letting Jamie and Leela meet in Return to Telos! Oy. Cuthbert & The Conglomerate do nothing for me and I'm not exactly looking forward to their return. Although far from the best thing about series 2 I did find Cuthbert and the Conglomerate interesting and I am looking forward to their return, especially Cuthbert's meeting with a different Ramona! As for Nick Briggs I think we have much to thank him for with the Fourth Doctor Adventures - convincing Tom to return to the role and directing him so well that it sounds like the Fourth Doctor I remember and love. So if he wanted to write them all I wouldn't complain, but having said that I am pleased to see some different writers in the 2017 series.
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Post by dastari on Dec 21, 2015 18:20:21 GMT
Oy. Cuthbert & The Conglomerate do nothing for me and I'm not exactly looking forward to their return. Although far from the best thing about series 2 I did find Cuthbert and the Conglomerate interesting and I am looking forward to their return, especially Cuthbert's meeting with a different Ramona! As for Nick Briggs I think we have much to thank him for with the Fourth Doctor Adventures - convincing Tom to return to the role and directing him so well that it sounds like the Fourth Doctor I remember and love. So if he wanted to write them all I wouldn't complain, but having said that I am pleased to see some different writers in the 2017 series. I dunno. I haven't listened to the second season of 4DA's yet, but it just seems like the ones written by Briggs are awful more often than not. I liked Energy of the Daleks and Destroy the Infinite ok. Zygon Hunt and the Exxilons were very mediocre. Destination: Nerva, The Evil One, and the Cybermen two parter in season 4 were all atrociously bad. I'd much rather see him do just one story per season, so that he can make sure that it's a good idea.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2015 18:56:13 GMT
I don't really care who writes the stories as long as they are good, but I'd certainly let Nick write the Dalek ones as for me that's what he does best. I wasn't impressed with Cuthbert or the lacklustre Return to Telos though, so maybe Nick takes on too much or it might be that his 'other' ideas just don't click with me personally? However, if I see Nick Briggs down as the writer of a Dalek story my inner child wets his pants in delight, as our juvenile minds tend to be on the same page when it comes to Daleks going around exterminating people. (The recent War Doctor box set is a Nick triumph for sure!) So with authors I suppose it's horses for courses. Some ideas work for some and not for others.
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Post by omega on Dec 21, 2015 22:56:48 GMT
Although far from the best thing about series 2 I did find Cuthbert and the Conglomerate interesting and I am looking forward to their return, especially Cuthbert's meeting with a different Ramona! As for Nick Briggs I think we have much to thank him for with the Fourth Doctor Adventures - convincing Tom to return to the role and directing him so well that it sounds like the Fourth Doctor I remember and love. So if he wanted to write them all I wouldn't complain, but having said that I am pleased to see some different writers in the 2017 series. I dunno. I haven't listened to the second season of 4DA's yet, but it just seems like the ones written by Briggs are awful more often than not. I liked Energy of the Daleks and Destroy the Infinite ok. Zygon Hunt and the Exxilons were very mediocre. Destination: Nerva, The Evil One, and the Cybermen two parter in season 4 were all atrociously bad. I'd much rather see him do just one story per season, so that he can make sure that it's a good idea. Maybe it's his inner teenager influencing the stories he writes. Destination Nerva is kind of excused because it was the first release of the range, but the later stories don't have that excuse. It'd be interesting to learn how people who hadn't listened to Seeds of War and Dark Eyes 2 reacted to Destroy the Infinite. IMO Destroy the Infinite was perfectly serviceable on it's own, but as the story that introduces the Eminence it was disappointing. The Cyberman two-parter felt too much like bad fanfic, loads of wasted potential. Hopefully the next season will truly break out of the mold of solid but unambitious that seems to have characterised the range thus far. Season four broke out of it for the most part, except for the three Nick Briggs scripts.
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Post by barnabaslives on Dec 22, 2015 16:12:53 GMT
I think what populates the bottom of my favorite 4DAs list (just because they can't all be at the top of the list) is the work of a surprising diversity of authors, so I'm not all sure there's anything to blame on Nick.
Maybe if anything, it's that they probably are very good stories for the era they're set in, which just happens to not be as exciting a part of the 4th Doctor TV era in my mind as what begins with Season 16 with a whiz-bang with an epic quest with phenomenally epic stakes and a new Gallifreyan companion who is as worthy as exquisite.
All the same, I do seem to appreciate when there are small departures from the feel or the venue of stories from earlier in the era, which is why I think I'm very fond of Wrath of the Iceni or Energy of the Daleks for example.
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ljwilson
Chancellery Guard
It's tangerine....not orange
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Post by ljwilson on Dec 22, 2015 17:50:55 GMT
I really like Destination: Nerva, I'm really not sure why it receives such a bad press at times.
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Post by dastari on Dec 22, 2015 18:14:22 GMT
I dunno. I haven't listened to the second season of 4DA's yet, but it just seems like the ones written by Briggs are awful more often than not. I liked Energy of the Daleks and Destroy the Infinite ok. Zygon Hunt and the Exxilons were very mediocre. Destination: Nerva, The Evil One, and the Cybermen two parter in season 4 were all atrociously bad. I'd much rather see him do just one story per season, so that he can make sure that it's a good idea. Maybe it's his inner teenager influencing the stories he writes. Destination Nerva is kind of excused because it was the first release of the range, but the later stories don't have that excuse. It'd be interesting to learn how people who hadn't listened to Seeds of War and Dark Eyes 2 reacted to Destroy the Infinite. IMO Destroy the Infinite was perfectly serviceable on it's own, but as the story that introduces the Eminence it was disappointing. The Cyberman two-parter felt too much like bad fanfic, loads of wasted potential. Hopefully the next season will truly break out of the mold of solid but unambitious that seems to have characterised the range thus far. Season four broke out of it for the most part, except for the three Nick Briggs scripts. Yeah, I haven't listened to any of the other stories with the Eminence, so for me the "prequel" was my introduction to them and it seemed like a pretty fun story all-in-all.
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Post by mark687 on Mar 31, 2016 11:20:31 GMT
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Post by kimalysong on Mar 31, 2016 11:34:12 GMT
Wow I am amazed we already got all these story details. Besides Jago & Litefoot, I am definitely looking forward to the one by James Goss. 1920's Hollywood that's right up my alley.
Meanwhile things are a bit quiet on the Main Range side of things.
edit: The Haunting of Malkin Place also sounds like a lot of fun
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Post by pawntake on Mar 31, 2016 11:48:31 GMT
Wow! The write up for the FDA season 6 sounds very promising,and I am tempted to pre-order,something I haven't done in this range since season 2!
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Post by mark687 on Mar 31, 2016 12:21:57 GMT
Wow I am amazed we already got all these story details. Besides Jago & Litefoot, I am definitely looking forward to the one by James Goss. 1920's Hollywood that's right up my alley. Meanwhile things are a bit quiet on the Main Range side of things. Yes someone asked on FB last night about info and covers for the Jul-Sept trilogy and BF replied that they make info live on any release ASAP, but I agree given this item provides detail on stuff that won't be released until next year,(exciting though it is), the lack of info on more imminent releases seems odd.
Regards
mark687
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bobod
Chancellery Guard
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Post by bobod on Mar 31, 2016 16:12:59 GMT
It's about the same time last year we found out about this years season, isn't it?
I think it's comparing chalk and cheese to compare releasing details of a season to details of some plays in a monthly range.
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Post by kimalysong on Mar 31, 2016 16:30:01 GMT
It's about the same time last year we found out about this years season, isn't it? I think it's comparing chalk and cheese to compare releasing details of a season to details of some plays in a monthly range. I don't really see how they are all that different just because they release info about the 4DAs all at once compared to information about individual trilogies in the MR. Granted I am sure there is a difference behind the scenes. But I do find it somewhat surprising we already got pretty detailed story synopsis for the 4DAs for next year whereas we don't know barely anything about the MR starting in July. Just an observation not a complaint. I am happy we got info on the 4DAs so early.
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