Is the magic gone?

I mean Big Finish have been going for 24 years at this point, and much like Who on TV, there’s no way people are going to love every era/story. To be honest, we have a pretty insular community here, which isn’t a bad thing, but we very rarely have new posters that frequently post and add new perspectives. And finally, we have a few regular posters who decry any slight whiff of representation or something that doesn’t fit within their narrow ideas of how people should exist, so that will skew the overall negativity of the forum.

As for me, I don’t view myself as being any less or more in love with Big Finish, I just don’t buy many new releases since the price hike.

Yes. It was initially partly financial but as I was forced to buy less I realised I didn't feel like I was missing much. Now I pick up the odd release now & again. If Matt Smith or Jodie Whittaker come to BF I think I might be interested again. The only thing I really look forward to now is 9th Doctor stuff.

I know that at least for some of us, Big Finish' recent price hikes (three or four in the past year or two) have forced us to reconsider what we buy, when we buy it, and how often. We're kinda forced to be more critical of what we consume because we're spending more money and getting less from it.

It's also worth noting that Big Finish' transition to the 3-story format leaves each release much more vulnerable to a bad story than the old 4-story format. Basically, it's a lot easier to overlook 1/4 of a release that ya' don't like than 1/3. Or, as the case may be, 1/2 versus 2/3s. Or, I mean, hell, even if all the stories are mediocre, middling fare (as has been the problem with many of the new XDA sets) 4/4 at least gives the illusion that you're getting quantity, if not quality. (EDIT: and also we're stuck waiting longer for XDA boxsets compared to the regular monthly releases of the MR, and the more time we spent waiting the greater our expectations will be -- that's just human nature.

But "the magic?" Nah. That's not a thing that exists. I'm in no space to relitigate it today (certainly I've gone I to it in some other recent threads here that shouldn't be too hard to find) but this notion that Big Finish' output, as a whole, is somehow inferior to what it used to be in some glorified, imagined past is nonsense.

Or as I think I put it last time I weighed in, an illusion.

If anything's changed in the past year or two it's that the fandom in general is far more optimistic and enthusiastic about the future of the TV show. When I got into this thing, it was 2020, the early days of the pandemic, and right in the immediate wake of The Timeless Child. Every day fans were spending inordinate amounts of time complaining about Chibnall and pontificating -- at great length -- about the many and myriad ways his tenure had ruined the IP. Churning out screed after screed after screed, largely reiterating the same handful of sentiments again and again ad nauseam.

And that sent many of us, myself included, well... here. If we weren't liking what the TV show was doing, we could always find new Doctor Who stories to fall in love with elsewhere. And we did. (EDIT: well, some of us. Some of us got stuck in a loop and spent years raving about TTC instead.)

And god knows a whole heckuva lotta us had plenty of time to invest in findin' those new stories back then. 

There was a kind of magic to that time, I think, and it's gone. Can't really say it's a bad thing, though.

Has my love affair with Big Finish come to an end?

No. Not really.

But like any long term relationship it has changed.

Nine years and a cost of living crisis will do that.

I’m certainly taking a break, only really interesting in Eccelston and Tombo now.
Not touched Stranded, any box set, no desire for Doom’s Day, can’t even muster the interest to finish the War Master’s Land of Fiction adventures.

Same! Well that is something to look forward to, hopefully BF won't mess it up & its more like the 9th Doctor rather than River Song range with loads of crossovers & every character meeting each other.

It's always a fluctuating kind of thing depending on my mind. But to reflect other opinions I am really looking forward to Dark Season and the return of The Omega Factor has me buzzing. The most recent River Song release is one of the best (the best even) things Big Finish have ever released. The Bambera sets have been a lot more fun than I was expecting - it took seeing Angela Bruce at a convention to get me to listen though. The last Tom set was also a lot better than I expected, the Iris audiobooks have been amazing, and the last Survivors set has been awesome. And the Audio Novels...

I guess I am just a fan of audio drama in itself. If I see a problem with things it's that the forum can be drowned in promotional posts rather than discussion. Maybe there is a general apathy. But not from me.