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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Dec 31, 2023 23:00:22 GMT
Yeah, I’m also listening less, in part because I no longer have a one hour each way commute to work, which is when I did most of my listening. And when I listen at home when my spouse is around (he works from home most of the time), he complains the volume is too loud. The variation between loud sequences and/or music and very soft dialogue means I do often have it playing quite loud in order to hear and understand the soft spoken parts. Quite annoying, I do wish they’d balance the soft and loud parts better.
YES! this ^
Years ago I used to listen to stories in bed on the stereo - well.. That Dark Shadows story "The Happier Dead" changed things.. forever.. to quote the Joker.
the difference in softness and loud.. wow..
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Post by chronotis on Jan 1, 2024 4:27:08 GMT
I wouldn't say it has gone, it's just not burning as brightly for me as it used to.
I like to think that Big Finish is like a great pub that I've made a lot of great memories at. Once upon a time, I used to love spending time with Doctors 4 through 10, the War and Unbound Doctors, the companions of First and Third Doctors, Romana, Benny, and River. I also loved running away from Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen and the various Masters whenever they showed up.
However, over the years, a lot of my favourite regulars have stopped being able to attend for one reason or another, while others I've grown apart from. I still love spending time chatting to the 4th and 5th Doctors, it's always a blast whenever the Cybermen and the War Master barge through the doors, and I call in occasionally to see if Romana has popped over from Hong Kong.
It's great that there is a new crowd having an absolute ball, but It's just not the same vibe for me that it used to be.
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Post by bohnny on Jan 1, 2024 9:42:04 GMT
I have to say that I have been less and less engaged with BFs doctor who related output over the last few years - with some notable exceptions.
My BF faves these days are generally non DW: Star Cops, for example.
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Post by martinw8686 on Jan 1, 2024 20:15:12 GMT
I love Big Finish. With such a huge back catalogue and more Doctors than ever before, it's often like an all you can eat buffet. I sometimes feel a little harsh with my comments on ranges I've not enjoyed, thinking perhaps I've become spoiled by the sheer volume of Doctor Who I'm consuming.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2024 21:24:32 GMT
I love Big Finish. With such a huge back catalogue and more Doctors than ever before, it's often like an all you can eat buffet. I sometimes feel a little harsh with my comments on ranges I've not enjoyed, thinking perhaps I've become spoiled by the sheer volume of Doctor Who I'm consuming. Maybe that's all it is, victims of their own success. Maybe we'd have loved Once and Future if it was the only thing that had come out for years
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Post by muckypup on Jan 2, 2024 0:29:10 GMT
It has definitely diminished, I’ve gone back and listened to most of the first 100 main range, 8th and Lucy, tomorrow people and the way they tell the stories is so much better than todays tales……there not too long & you can genuinely feel the love in making them……cut to today and the “big” release once & future…..it’s all over the place, it’s story by numbers sure the production is maybe better than in past but it’s a job, the writers don’t love it like the fanboys of the past and it shows. When the 3 big subscription tv services cost less than a box each month, you need to scale back, single disk at £10 people will take a punt on. This current model don’t work for most now. In a nutshell too many hands creating too much content across too many IP’S.
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Post by eightelements on Jan 2, 2024 1:28:40 GMT
It has definitely diminished, I’ve gone back and listened to most of the first 100 main range, 8th and Lucy, tomorrow people and the way they tell the stories is so much better than todays tales……there not too long & you can genuinely feel the love in making them……cut to today and the “big” release once & future…..it’s all over the place, it’s story by numbers sure the production is maybe better than in past but it’s a job, the writers don’t love it like the fanboys of the past and it shows. When the 3 big subscription tv services cost less than a box each month, you need to scale back, single disk at £10 people will take a punt on. This current model don’t work for most now. In a nutshell too many hands creating too much content across too many IP’S. [This is not meant to be a rebuttal, more "What if Once and Future was not the point of comparison?"] Sure, but isn't Once and Future not on the writers? Weren't they given shopping lists of characters and asked to write an episode with them? What if your point of comparison for 2023 Doctor Who at Big Finish was ... anything else (except The Last Day)?* 4DAs: A great "new" companion, even giving Leela a new shine - "best Leela since The Lost Stories box set" I read. 5DAs: 3-parters used to good/great success; Nightjar was a love letter to the first 100, but no self-referential humour, winking or nodding like the Further Adventuress. 6DAs: Controversial arc, YMMV, but took risks? 7DAs: Far From Home used 3-parters to excellent success. 8DAs: Great stories, the only controversy being the open question of whether Charley should be part of the "current" Eight arc. *Meant to be read as an open question - of these releases, I've only heard Far From Home. How do they compare to the first 100?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2024 7:29:59 GMT
It has definitely diminished, I’ve gone back and listened to most of the first 100 main range, 8th and Lucy, tomorrow people and the way they tell the stories is so much better than todays tales……there not too long & you can genuinely feel the love in making them……cut to today and the “big” release once & future…..it’s all over the place, it’s story by numbers sure the production is maybe better than in past but it’s a job, the writers don’t love it like the fanboys of the past and it shows. When the 3 big subscription tv services cost less than a box each month, you need to scale back, single disk at £10 people will take a punt on. This current model don’t work for most now. In a nutshell too many hands creating too much content across too many IP’S. [This is not meant to be a rebuttal, more "What if Once and Future was not the point of comparison?"] Sure, but isn't Once and Future not on the writers? Weren't they given shopping lists of characters and asked to write an episode with them? What if your point of comparison for 2023 Doctor Who at Big Finish was ... anything else (except The Last Day)?* 4DAs: A great "new" companion, even giving Leela a new shine - "best Leela since The Lost Stories box set" I read. 5DAs: 3-parters used to good/great success; Nightjar was a love letter to the first 100, but no self-referential humour, winking or nodding like the Further Adventuress. 6DAs: Controversial arc, YMMV, but took risks? 7DAs: Far From Home used 3-parters to excellent success. 8DAs: Great stories, the only controversy being the open question of whether Charley should be part of the "current" Eight arc. *Meant to be read as an open question - of these releases, I've only heard Far From Home. How do they compare to the first 100? Yes, I think you're probably right. Any of those releases sound as though we'd have been ecstatic about them if they were the only audio Doctor Who we'd ever had. It's only the weight of 25 years of other releases to hat takes away the shine. I picked OAF as the comparison example because it's the title which should have shone out above the run of the mill, and didn't. So I think I'm concluding that Big Finish haven't lost their way, or gone off the boil, they've just reached market saturation. They have to compete with their own back catalogue, which logically gets harder every year.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jan 2, 2024 7:54:45 GMT
So I think I'm concluding that Big Finish haven't lost their way, or gone off the boil, they've just reached market saturation. They have to compete with their own back catalogue, which logically gets harder every year.
I think this pretty much sums it up ^^^ .. Through no fault of their own.. competing with oneself..
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Post by number13 on Jan 2, 2024 12:27:56 GMT
So I think I'm concluding that Big Finish haven't lost their way, or gone off the boil, they've just reached market saturation. They have to compete with their own back catalogue, which logically gets harder every year.
I think this pretty much sums it up ^^^ .. Through no fault of their own.. competing with oneself..
I do wonder also if the ending of the MR has fundamentally changed things for their most loyal fans (i.e. us!) I have every story with Five, Sixie and Seven up to 'The End of the Beginning', but after the change to box sets my buying of those Doctors has become very patchy. Presumably it is better for attracting new customers and has improved sales overall, or they wouldn't have done it, but personally it's given me a licence not to buy.
And because of that, doesn't it push BF (even subconciously) to try to make every new box set the most exciting-twist-filled-crossover-character-returning set ever, because we choose to buy, or not, set by set? Hence perhaps, 'The Last Day' (which I haven't heard but I trust the collective wisdom of DU and that's why I haven't heard it.) I loved 'Forty/2' though so that one worked.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2024 12:41:09 GMT
I think this pretty much sums it up ^^^ .. Through no fault of their own.. competing with oneself..
I do wonder also if the ending of the MR has fundamentally changed things for their most loyal fans (i.e. us!) I have every story with Five, Sixie and Seven up to 'The End of the Beginning', but after the change to box sets my buying of those Doctors has become very patchy. Presumably it is better for attracting new customers and has improved sales overall, or they wouldn't have done it, but personally it's given me a licence not to buy.
And because of that, doesn't it push BF (even subconciously) to try to make every new box set the most exciting-twist-filled-crossover-character-returning set ever, because we choose to buy, or not, set by set? Hence perhaps, 'The Last Day' (which I haven't heard but I trust the collective wisdom of DU and that's why I haven't heard it.) I loved 'Forty/2' though so that one worked.
Not sure. Personally I hardly ever did a main range subscription because I knew that some heavy price gouging on those titles would come along in a couple of years. Now I know that box sets will never get as cheap as those main range titles used to (and indeed still are. If I didn't already have them all) so if I want it I might as well buy at preorder price.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Jan 2, 2024 13:32:26 GMT
I love BF, but I do think the magic has gone. Partly that is because, like any love affair, the initial infatuation stage passes and things settle down a bit. But I do think BF is not what it was, for a lot of the reasons set out by others above. For me personally, BF's NuWho license has been a mixed blessing. There has been some great stuff that I have loved, other stuff a bit more "meh", but the real downside is that it has taken the Creatives' time and energy away from the Classic Who that will always be my first love.
The move to box sets, as others have remarked above, does lead to a situation where every boxset has to be an "event" and the law of diminishing returns kicked in some time ago. [As as aside, it is interesting that the box set trend appears to be reversing, with the latest Star cops and Sontarans vs Rutans. When I look at the selling price of these 2 series, compared to what I would have expected them to sell for if they had been a box set, I can only conclude this shift back to individual releases is a back-door price increase.]
The sad passing of so many Blakes 7 stars has made that range less exciting than it was, although it's not really fair to hold this against BF and they are still producing some great stuff.
The other, perhaps more controversial, problem I have is that I think BF have become a lot more self-indulgent in recent years. In their early years the gimmicky crossovers were much fewer and further between whereas now a lot of us are bored to tears with them. How many times have we heard in the Extras David Richardson saying, "We thought it would be lovely if X met Y because the actor who plays X is so lovely and the actor who plays Y is lovely as well . . . ". Not only is it crossovers per se, but it is the same handful of ubiquitous characters who keep crossing over and as I've said before BF sometimes appear to be making creative decisions on the basis of wanting an excuse to work with their mates rather than any genuine creative need to include a given character. Some of their other creative choices are questionable - the majority opinion on the Survivors sub-board on this forum seems to be that Survivors took a bit of a wrong turn around series 7 - it moved away from the original concept and became a vehicle for BF to tell stories featuring "strong female characters".
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Post by grinch on Jan 2, 2024 14:24:28 GMT
I love BF, but I do think the magic has gone. Partly that is because, like any love affair, the initial infatuation stage passes and things settle down a bit. But I do think BF is not what it was, for a lot of the reasons set out by others above. For me personally, BF's NuWho license has been a mixed blessing. There has been some great stuff that I have loved, other stuff a bit more "meh", but the real downside is that it has taken the Creatives' time and energy away from the Classic Who that will always be my first love. The move to box sets, as others have remarked above, does lead to a situation where every boxset has to be an "event" and the law of diminishing returns kicked in some time ago. [As as aside, it is interesting that the box set trend appears to be reversing, with the latest Star cops and Sontarans vs Rutans. When I look at the selling price of these 2 series, compared to what I would have expected them to sell for if they had been a box set, I can only conclude this shift back to individual releases is a back-door price increase.] The sad passing of so many Blakes 7 stars has made that range less exciting than it was, although it's not really fair to hold this against BF and they are still producing some great stuff. The other, perhaps more controversial, problem I have is that I think BF have become a lot more self-indulgent in recent years. In their early years the gimmicky crossovers were much fewer and further between whereas now a lot of us are bored to tears with them. How many times have we heard in the Extras David Richardson saying, "We thought it would be lovely if X met Y because the actor who plays X is so lovely and the actor who plays Y is lovely as well . . . ". Not only is it crossovers per se, but it is the same handful of ubiquitous characters who keep crossing over and as I've said before BF sometimes appear to be making creative decisions on the basis of wanting an excuse to work with their mates rather than any genuine creative need to include a given character. Some of their other creative choices are questionable - the majority opinion on the Survivors sub-board on this forum seems to be that Survivors took a bit of a wrong turn around series 7 - it moved away from the original concept and became a vehicle for BF to tell stories featuring "strong female characters". Well put. I think also it reflects how Big Finish has changed. I certainly do not think we would get stories such as LIVE 34 or even The Forge saga nowadays. But such is progress.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jan 2, 2024 19:15:09 GMT
. Some of their other creative choices are questionable - the majority opinion on the Survivors sub-board on this forum seems to be that Survivors took a bit of a wrong turn around series 7 - it moved away from the original concept and became a vehicle for BF to tell stories featuring "strong female characters". Honestly - yes to this ^ . Plain and simple nil agenda's etc etc. Men bad Women good. I know there are more than 1 female on this forum that feels this way too.
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Post by theillusiveman on Jan 3, 2024 0:14:08 GMT
. Some of their other creative choices are questionable - the majority opinion on the Survivors sub-board on this forum seems to be that Survivors took a bit of a wrong turn around series 7 - it moved away from the original concept and became a vehicle for BF to tell stories featuring "strong female characters". Honestly - yes to this ^ . Plain and simple nil agenda's etc etc. Men bad Women good. I know there are more than 1 female on this forum that feels this way too. Not just in the Survivors range it has creeped up in a few Doctor who audios
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Post by chronotis on Jan 3, 2024 0:55:56 GMT
Sorry, but I dont see why discussing issues related to the systematic intersectional oppression of women is in anyway a problem.
It is the role of art and drama to raise difficult questions. If males in the audience (and let's face few of these complaints will be coming from women) can't handle it, then that's not the fault of the drama.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Jan 3, 2024 5:32:36 GMT
Sorry, but I dont see why discussing issues related to the systematic intersectional oppression of women is in anyway a problem. It is the role of art and drama to raise difficult questions. If males in the audience (and let's face few of these complaints will be coming from women) can't handle it, then that's not the fault of the drama. Same boat here: there was a lot of talk when Game Of Thrones came out about how the violence and rape was “realistic” and “based on a proper historical context.” There shouldn’t therefore be a problem when a story is being portrayed from the side of those who are the victims of these contexts.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Jan 3, 2024 8:49:06 GMT
Sorry, but I dont see why discussing issues related to the systematic intersectional oppression of women is in anyway a problem. It is the role of art and drama to raise difficult questions. If males in the audience (and let's face few of these complaints will be coming from women) can't handle it, then that's not the fault of the drama. I've no objection to discussing those issues, but it's not really what Survivors was about. I am a fan of the TV show and when I buy the audios I basically want & expect more of the same. I understand there will be a bit of development beyond the TV series, but when I get something quite materially different from the TV series I am entitled to be disappointed with my purchase. I've never complained when BF has done this type of drama in other ranges, I just think in the case of Survivors it has been hijacked and turned into something quite different to what it originally was and used as a vehicle to tell the kind of stories and feature the kind of characters that the Creatives want to tell. No issue with those kinds of stories/characters per se, but I wish they had created their own series as a vehicle to tell them rather than hijacking Survivors. I also think there is a bit of wish fulfillment on the part of the Creatives to assume that the changes in social attitudes that has happened in the real world since the 1970s - in terms of attitudes to women and homosexuals - would have happened in the world of Survivors. Maybe I'm a cynic, but if anything I would imagine a post-apocalyptic society would go in the opposite direction. However the kind of stories BF want to tell requires that assumption. It also requires Jenny to be a bad mother who basically abandons her son to be fostered by Charles & Pet, which again I don't think is really true to the TV series and for Jenny to listen to Abby frequently talking about Peter yet never mention her own son Paul is just plain unbelievable. And yet it is all needed to fit the square peg that was Survivors into the round hole the BF want it in. So I don't think Survivors is the best vehicle to tell these kinds of stories, or at least to tell them in the way that BF have done. I also think you are being a bit over-generous to Survivors by saying it discusses these issues - it really doesn't discuss them at all - it just takes for granted "men bad women good" and presents us with a world like that. The TV series did discuss these issues - in a couple of episodes Charles' desire to turn women into baby factories came up and the unique fictional context of Survivors could have allowed issues of gender roles and sexuality to be discussed from a very unique angle, which in turn forces the audience to think again about these issues in their real world context and maybe appreciate a bit more the freedoms we have. Except BF didn't even do this, they just made some lazy and unrealistic assumptions to tell the kinds of stories they wanted to tell and twisted Survivors into something it wasn't. And that is the point I was making about BF becoming more self-indulgent.
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Post by Ela on Jan 3, 2024 15:27:23 GMT
Sorry, but I dont see why discussing issues related to the systematic intersectional oppression of women is in anyway a problem. It is the role of art and drama to raise difficult questions. If males in the audience (and let's face few of these complaints will be coming from women) can't handle it, then that's not the fault of the drama. Same boat here: there was a lot of talk when Game Of Thrones came out about how the violence and rape was “realistic” and “based on a proper historical context.” There shouldn’t therefore be a problem when a story is being portrayed from the side of those who are the victims of these contexts. I haven’t watched Game of Thrones only read the books. I know that some people, including my daughter, were turned off by the violence. And I don’t know if you are talking about the books or the show, but from what I heard they kind of capitalized on the violent aspects of the story to the point that it was worse in the show than in the books. And although I wanted to watch the show at first, the more I heard about it, the less I wanted to watch it. Back to your regularly scheduled Big Finish discussion.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jan 3, 2024 19:12:01 GMT
Same boat here: there was a lot of talk when Game Of Thrones came out about how the violence and rape was “realistic” and “based on a proper historical context.” There shouldn’t therefore be a problem when a story is being portrayed from the side of those who are the victims of these contexts. I haven’t watched Game of Thrones only read the books. I know that some people, including my daughter, were turned off by the violence. And I don’t know if you are talking about the books or the show, but from what I heard they kind of capitalized on the violent aspects of the story to the point that it was worse in the show than in the books. And although I wanted to watch the show at first, the more I heard about it, the less I wanted to watch it. Back to your regularly scheduled Big Finish discussion. To be fair the violence is pretty even through both male & female. It can definitely be uncomfortable for those of the squeamish persuasion- absolutely.
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