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Post by sexbombsimon on Jul 8, 2022 0:04:22 GMT
Has it been explained at all why the episodes are so short?
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Post by bonehead on Jul 8, 2022 8:22:05 GMT
Has it been explained at all why the episodes are so short? I have the download so I can't be sure, but I'm guessing the decision was made that the first story be squeezed into one CD, hence the shorter, fast-moving episodes. The second story seems to be spread over two CDs in the usual way, and the episode lengths reflect this.
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Post by IndieMacUser on Jul 8, 2022 10:37:48 GMT
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Post by relativetime on Jul 9, 2022 18:20:50 GMT
I've listened to The Final Beginning a few times now and overall I thought it was pretty good. My favorite part was the opening to the first episode. Very psychedelic and I think it does properly carry on from the ending of The War Games. Michael Troughton's performance just got better for me with each listen - I think I like his performance here better than I did in The Annihilators. He's really settled into the role here and I really don't have any problems now picturing the Second Doctor in my head while I'm listening.
As for the other performances, it was a lot of fun to hear Tim Treloar in a role other than the Third Doctor, yet still purposefully meant to evoke Jon Pertwee. Imagining an alternate world where Patrick Troughton stayed on a bit longer and Jon got his first taste of Doctor Who this way - again, lots of fun to imagine. I even found myself liking the Daleks this time around. They sounded straight out of the 60s to my ears and it was a welcome and interesting change I don't think I've heard on audio yet. I wasn't so sold on Emma Noakes' performance as Raven unfortunately. It's not bad necessarily, but at times her voice could get a little too quiet and it took me out of the story for a moment. It's an intentional choice meant to make her character come across a certain way, but beside Michael Troughton's more outspoken performance it felt like a weird clash. Again, I don't think I'd call it a bad performance, it just felt a bit out of place.
The shorter episode length was actually alright here. I don't think I'd like to see every story from here on out adopt this length or even every second story each set, but here it works. I do hope the next set or so spreads the runtimes out between the stories a little more evenly though. I think Wrath of the Ice Warriors has 30 minutes per episode, so if some of that time could be cut - say 5 minutes from each episode - so that the the first story could have around 20 minutes each episode, that'd feel like a less noticeable difference. Ah well, I suppose I'm not taking into consideration how it's all distributed on CD... Just a thought, though.
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Post by shallacatop on Jul 10, 2022 12:00:47 GMT
I didn’t think The Final Beginning was bad, but it didn’t succeed in doing anything it was trying to do. It’s not a substantial sequel to Evil of the Daleks, nor is it a decent continuation from the events of The War Games, nor is it a fresh start for the Second Doctor. I don’t think we learnt one single thing we didn’t already know, and that’s a misstep.
I’m disappointed that it’s a four parter that’s actually only an hour long. It’s clearly a two parter, given his sudden and non-existent the cliffhangers to part one and three are. Arguably I should’ve expected that when the product listing still stated it as a three disc release, but when it says four parts you do expect 4x25+ minutes.
Michael Troughton is great, although very loud compared to the other cast (same goes for the music in places). I loved the first part and the sequences with the ghostly sounds of the Doctor, the Brigadier, etc. They were much more effective than I’d have expected.
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Post by Timelord007 on Jul 10, 2022 12:45:17 GMT
I didn’t think The Final Beginning was bad, but it didn’t succeed in doing anything it was trying to do. It’s not a substantial sequel to Evil of the Daleks, nor is it a decent continuation from the events of The War Games, nor is it a fresh start for the Second Doctor. I don’t think we learnt one single thing we didn’t already know, and that’s a misstep. I’m disappointed that it’s a four parter that’s actually only an hour long. It’s clearly a two parter, given his sudden and non-existent the cliffhangers to part one and three are. Arguably I should’ve expected that when the product listing still stated it as a three disc release, but when it says four parts you do expect 4x25+ minutes. Michael Troughton is great, although very loud compared to the other cast (same goes for the music in places). I loved the first part and the sequences with the ghostly sounds of the Doctor, the Brigadier, etc. They were much more effective than I’d have expected. Would the story benefited from being a 2 hour 4 parter?
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Post by shallacatop on Jul 10, 2022 12:50:35 GMT
I didn’t think The Final Beginning was bad, but it didn’t succeed in doing anything it was trying to do. It’s not a substantial sequel to Evil of the Daleks, nor is it a decent continuation from the events of The War Games, nor is it a fresh start for the Second Doctor. I don’t think we learnt one single thing we didn’t already know, and that’s a misstep. I’m disappointed that it’s a four parter that’s actually only an hour long. It’s clearly a two parter, given his sudden and non-existent the cliffhangers to part one and three are. Arguably I should’ve expected that when the product listing still stated it as a three disc release, but when it says four parts you do expect 4x25+ minutes. Michael Troughton is great, although very loud compared to the other cast (same goes for the music in places). I loved the first part and the sequences with the ghostly sounds of the Doctor, the Brigadier, etc. They were much more effective than I’d have expected. Would the story benefited from being a 2 hour 4 parter? Good question. It’s hard to say really. The story is trying to do a few different things, so doubling the length could benefit it and give it more time to explore. Equally it could just maintain being a weird mashup and still not move forward with anything. I’m inclined to think double the length and it’d still be the latter, just because I don’t think The Final Beginning really is trying to forge a new era or taking the risk to do anything we don’t already know about the premise of the set and S6B as a whole.
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Post by thewatcher on Jul 11, 2022 20:48:05 GMT
awful
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Post by Who Review on Jul 13, 2022 11:10:34 GMT
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Post by shallacatop on Jul 16, 2022 11:39:12 GMT
Wrath of the Ice Warriors is as derivative as you’d expect from a story that’s seemingly built on wanting to place the Second Doctor into a Third Doctor style adventure and address some fleeting lines of dialogue. Extremely bloated and overlong and not at all interesting, which applies to pretty much everything Ice Warrior related from Big Finish.
As much as I adore Katy Manning, I thought her Zelanda wasn’t great. If it was anyone else performing exactly the same way, I’ve a feeling that it’d get criticised. And I can’t quite reconcile teaming the Brigadier up with an Ice Warrior given how he is in season 7.
Ultimately it’s a story that serves no purpose whatsoever to the Doctor post-War Games and coupled with the lack of information we got in The Final Beginning, I’m not really sure what this set is trying to do. It’s not a fresh era for the Second Doctor and it does little to try to establish what the Doctor is doing.
I can’t imagine how the meeting must’ve panned out to go from the idea of doing a new era post-War Games to giving us a set that happens to be both a sequel to Evil of the Daleks, a prequel to the Third Doctor era, throwing in Ice Warriors for good measure and telling both the quickest and slowest four parters ever.
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Post by mark687 on Jul 18, 2022 11:19:15 GMT
Regards
mark687
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Post by relativetime on Jul 19, 2022 21:56:07 GMT
Finally got around to listening to Wrath of the Ice Warriors. I enjoyed it. Nothing that's going to reinvent the wheel, but still enjoyable. Michael Troughton continues to shine, Jon Culshaw's Brig is just as great as ever, and I loved getting to hear Katy Manning play an Ice Warrior. Again, the meta idea of this being her first Doctor Who appearance in an alternate world where Season 6B happened on television is just a whole lot of fun.
In general, this set wasn't a bad start to the range. On the strength of Michael Troughton alone, I thought it was worth it. I'll have to see if these are stories I revisit in the future once the novelty of this being his first full outing wears off, but for now I'm just so happy to finally have some full-cast Second Doctor stories.
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Post by elkawho on Jul 21, 2022 1:03:41 GMT
I'm somewhat surprised at the criticism I'm seeing regarding this set. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasn't sold on Michael Troughton in The Annihilators but I thought he was excellent in this.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jul 23, 2022 13:13:24 GMT
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Post by Timelord007 on Jul 31, 2022 6:43:56 GMT
One of my favourite releases of 2022, two outstanding stories plus a intriguing arc.
10/10
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Post by Kestrel on Dec 16, 2022 23:57:14 GMT
You know, it's kind of weird. I really love the 2nd Doctor's era, but I don't really find myself thinking about it too often. I think I'm just so satisfied with his TV run that I never really feel the need for more. What we already have is perfect. And so he winds up being out of sight, out of mind.
Which leads to me scrolling through me (vast) backlog, seeing Beyond War Games and realizing, oh yeah, I hadn't listed to that yet.
Well, now I have.
Story-wise I don't think either of these tales are terribly interesting. They're just generic Doctor Who adventures, yeah? Especially the latter two-parter. How many times have we seen this exact same story play out with the Ice Warriors? I suspect this was very intentional (or, at least, I hope it was): to start out the 2DAs with the most familiar of stories, the fewest surprises, the smallest risks. I really, really hope subsequent sets wind up being a bit more... ambitious.
Take the Ice Warriors' would-be queen, Zelanda. Literally anything would have been more interesting than her just being a power-hungry tyrant seeking power for its own sake. It's really frustrating that in the story (or backstory, rather) she presents herself, initially, she presents herself as a refugee, fleeing persecution. That would have been an interesting angle to take. Imagine a version of this character who, you know, actually had some kind of political of social ideology that put her at odds with the rest of Ice Warrior society. Like, imagine if she were a proper character, and not just a panel of cardboard propped up in the middle of the story with the words "bad guy" stenciled on.
But, like I said (or implied), I'm willing to forgive that. It's only the first set, after all. What matters here isn't as much good storytelling, but good acting. The chief goal of this set is to sell us on Michael Troughton's 2nd Doctor.
And you know what? He's perfect. I love it. His performance perfectly captures that very unique energy Patrick Troughton brought to the role. Honestly I think I like this 2nd Doctor even more than Frazier Hines', whose 2nd Doctor was also very, very good. I think it comes down to much the same qualities I appreciate in David Bradley's 1st Doctor: the voice may not match up well with the original, but the performance -- the mannerisms, the movement, the overall impression -- is a dead-ringer. I think Big Finish was very, very fortunate to be able to cast Patrick Troughton here.
And, I imagine, he'll only get better as the range marches on.
But... speaking of casting. And... I'm very hesitant to broach this issue, as I don't want anyone to misconstrue this as a criticism of the actors involved, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while: Big Finish has a casting problem. Specifically, there's a lack of actors with unique and/or unusual voices. This is especially noticeable with Raven, who I assume will continue to be a recurring character moving forward. Her voice... it's just a normal voice. There's nothing that really sticks out about it, nothing that makes it memorable. It's just a very, very normal voice. If someone tole me the same actress that played Raven also played Sheena, I'd believe it, because Sheena has a very similar voice -- just with a very light Scottish accent.
And, well, some characters kind of need more unique/unusual/weird/identifiable voices. Like a good 80% of what makes Cardinal Ollistra work so well, in my estimation, is that Jacqueline Pearce doesn't sound like anyone else. As soon as you hear her speak -- in the span of that first word -- you know precisely who's talking. And that sets her apart from the other characters, allowing her a sort of... equivalent position w/in the narrative to the Doctor (or other protagonist). And I think someone like Raven, if she's being set up to be the questionable antagonistic character to the 2nd Doctor, needs to be played a bit more uniquely. I dunno. I'm probably not articulating myself well here, and I worry that the more I try the more I'll wind up putting my foot in my mouth. I do want to at least emphasize that this is not meant to be a criticism of Emma Noakes' performance or skills as an actor.
Anyway.
Yeah, this was a solid set for me. A strong 4/5, owing mostly to Michael Troughton's excellent performance here. I am totally sold on his 2nd Doctor now. Very interested to see how this range winds up developing in the future.
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