New 9th Doctor Observation

Only noticed it on the trailer tbh not the other clips.

Honestly it looks like they are going in a new direction and thats fantastic, genuinely. Too much BF is bogged down by trying to stick to the cannon, its so refreshing to see something that whilst only kind of fits, i suppose much like Dalek universe, its still really refreshing. Super excited

Honestly from the trailer 9 being too jovial feels a bit out of character given how he is in series 1

That scans for me. It's a very well-drawn (and realistic) depiction of the behaviours around PTSD. The avoidance and the triggers.

The link between what we hear on audio and what we'll eventually see on television will lie a lot with their exit strategy. It's difficult to imagine, for instance, the Eighth Doctor of Storm Warning -- wonderfully excited about what lies over the next hill and loving the thrill of adventuring abroad -- being the same one we encounter in The Night of the Doctor. But the one from To the Death? Burnt out, alone, betrayed? The one who Susan said: "I'm not sure I like the person you're becoming, grandfather..." That character, at that point in his arc, could have very plausibly been the one to march off to War.

It'll be the journey from Point A to B that'll help shape the transition. The character will most likely change, but change in characters doesn't tend to happen on a straight line. There are ups and downs. To use a recent classic series example: the Fifth Doctor's actions in Resurrection of the Daleks, now have an explicit trigger in his experiences with Marc in Warzone/Conversion. Before then, we got a lot of implied material, but that was the first BF story that felt as though it actively addressed an out-of-character moment.

What these stories could do, depending on where they decide to go with the Ninth Doctor, is give further context to where he ends up in Rose (it might end up making Dalek even more of a watershed moment than has been already).

The above is an idea I'm fond of and I think it's the natural path to go down. Indeed, it's essentially what Series 1 does! There's just added "meat" to it knowing about the War Doctor and the upcoming events of Dalek, etc.

The Big Finish trailer and clips doesn't suggest that, though, and I don't think Chris wants to go down that road either. It's not a killer problem or anything like that, but I feel that Chris's performance is more akin to what he'd have done post-Parting of the Ways, rather than pre-Rose. It's always going to be an issue if you're trying to expand on something that is a very tight knit run on screen.

It doesn't undermine the massive coup or excitement of Chris reprising the role, but it's certainly at odds with my own thoughts. Perhaps that's a fault with my interpretation more than anything else.

I could see this, this makes sense.

You're right that the accents differ, much in the same way if I’d said southern or West Country; there’s numerous dialects. I used northern because of the line from Rose more than anything. I’m from Sheffield and live in Manchester, so I’m very familiar with the accents and how they differ in a relatively small radius!

And to be further pedantic, Newcastle is much more than 50 miles away from any of the places you’ve named!

Personally, he doesn’t sound all that Mancunian to my ears in the trailer and subsequent clips. Certainly nowhere near the level he is in the show and I find that a touch disappointing as it’s a big trait of his incarnation for me and it’s something Chris is very passionate about, so to hear the difference was a shock.

This is an accurate description, I think--but the differences in performance are extremely necessary. Acting and voice acting are different things that require different approaches. Simply put, voice acting is much more difficult because it lacks all of the visual mechanisms actors can use to convey emotion, attitude and intent.

And, speaking personally as someone with ASD and other issues, I really appreciate the heightened performances of "theatrical" acting, even in visual media, because I generally have great difficulty discerning subtle and nuanced communication. Which is my polite and diplomatic way of saying that I have been assured that such things exist, but am not entirely convinced, due to an absence of evidence.

A solid chunk of what makes Babylon 5 so enjoyable to me is that similar theatricality. I can't read much out of Peter Jurasik's face, but when he says, "And now my shoes are too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance"? That I can understand.

Obviously none of us here have listened to Ravagers yet, but the main thing making me excited for this set--beyond the simple premise--is the fact that in the trailers, Eccleston is clearly performing a more heightened, theatrical version of his character. And I entirely in support of that approach. Try watching Dalek, for example, with the video disabled. It's just not the same. Audio dramas are perhaps the form of narrative media least suited to convey human emotion (pure text, remember, can still describe physical communication and characters' interiority) so it requires, simple, more. Everything--everything--has to be communicated with voiced dialog. It's a helluva difficult thing to write, and a helluva difficult thing to perform, but Eccleston seems to know what he's doing.