The Key 2 Time (general thread)

[Rob McCow]

You see, it's the Key To Time 2, so they called it 'Key 2 Time'.

The Judgement of Isskar

A new adventure in time and space for the Fifth Doctor and his new companion, Amy as they search for the Key to Time.

On a planet where Time stands still, the Doctor meets a woman who is just a few minutes old. She is a Tracer, sent into our Universe by her makers to locate the six segments of the Key to Time. This being without a name wants the Doctor to be her assistant, but she doesn’t tell him the whole truth. Not at first.

Their first port of call is Mars, where a society that one day will become Ice Warriors lives in peace and civility. But the Doctor’s arrival will change all that. The universe is dying, a choice must be made, and the Judgement of Isskar will be declared. The price must be paid - even if it takes centuries…

Destroyer of Delights

“You will be always looking in the wrong place. I have searched through all of Time and I cannot find it.”

The search for the Key to Time has stalled: the next segment does not appear to exist anywhere in the Universe. Forced into a temporary alliance with one of his greatest enemies, the Doctor suggests a course of action that is a validation of chaos itself.

Thrown at random across Space and Time, the Doctor and Amy arrive in 9th Century Sudan, where the greedy Lord Cassim is hoarding gold from the Legate of the Caliph. But why does Cassim look so familiar? What is the mysterious Djinni that lives out in the desert? And why does it need so much treasure?

The Chaos Pool

The ageless leader of a dying race believes that salvation lies within The Chaos Pool, a place that even the Guardians of Time have been unable to locate. Meanwhile Commander Hectocot and his Teuthoidian followers move in for the kill - again and again and again...

Two different races from opposite ends of Time - so how can they co-exist?

In their search for the final segment of the Key to Time, the Doctor and Amy become caught in the crossfire. As the end of everything approaches, old friends and enemies reveal themselves and the final battle between the forces of Chaos and Order ignites…

[Si Hunt]

Just reading the CD notes to this. Is it me or are you in trouble when you use the phrase "Out went Steven Taylor, in came the Ice Warriors!"

Si.

[Rob McCow]

You read the sleeve notes!

Seriously, it's all I'm buying BF's for these days

[Rob McCow]

We listened to The Judgement of Isskar on the way to Littlehampton and back this weekend. SPOILERS....

The Verdict of Steven is that it was pretty good really. There were a few bits where I got really confused about what was going on, when they're all climbing up the pyramid with Zara and Zinc, plus I was totally confuddled as to how the Ice Warriors made it to the ringworld. Did Zara bring them through time? That's what I thought at first, but it seems they invented warp drives and strongboxes that exist outside time and space and then flew to the ringworld under Zara's direction. Hmmm.

But I really liked the way the societies of the Martians and the other aliens (begins with 'V') were set up. The final cliffhanger was fantastic as well!

Despite my initial scepticism about this Key 2 Time series, the first one has been pretty good. It's not blown me away, but it's a good bit of slapdash fun. I think. It was interesting to hear about the 'Graces' and the background to the Key To Time. It's a bit of a shame that it doesn't come to a proper conclusion. We'll see where it goes from here.

[SiHart]

I thought it was really quite good.

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

Si Hart in 'likes new BF' shocker!!

[Rob McCow]

Simon Guerrier can at least write an interesting story, with a few good jokes and some interesting characters. That doesn't always happen!

[Tom Simpson]

I really need to start catching up on Big Finish soon (though, god knows how! Theres about 100+ audios and I have about 5 )

[Rob McCow]

A subscription from www.bigfinish.com would help, but keep an eye out for their regular sales. The re-packaged early McGann seasons are good value too, particularly the one with Chimes of Midnight.

[Tom Simpson]

I love The Chimes of Midnight - I've heard it a few times on BBC7 and just think it's a fantastic audio, but It's always out of stock at Play.Com.

I'd like to start out with a subscription, but what I'm planning to do soon is, starting from "Ths Sirens of Time", is buying one or two a month, so I can slowly start to catch up.

[shada pavlova]

I was just thinking: this is the cover of The Chaos Pool...



...but since it's the Key To Time, will Lalla Ward be playing Romana or Princess Astra?

[Rob McCow]

Knowing Big Finish, she'll probably be playing both - and have a number of scenes with herself!

There's a good chance we'll listen to Destroyer of Delights this weekend.

[SiHart]

I'be enjoyed two in a row now, after listening to the fun and really rather good The Destroyer of Delights.

I was very impressed with the new way they handled the Guardians, which was very entertaining and took them somewhere very different from their TV portrayals, but remained absolutely true to the concept.

For a concept I was very sceptical about, BF have really raised their game high above their recent form and I'm really looking forward to the final release in the mini-series.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I know Si and Steve liked "The Judgement of Isskar", but I'm afraid I struggled through Episode 3 today after a gap of a week and I'm finding it pretty terrible. I don't generally like stories which feel like they're being made up as they go along - i.e like "The Chase". This seems to lurch from one location (and story) to the next each episode, and the lack of any symmetry to the way the keys are being found (there seem to be four in this story alone, so I don't know how the hunt is going to pace out over two more audios) makes it feel uneven. Ciara Jansen as Amy is quite unremarkable, and sounds like a hundred Big Finish girls (and, confusingly, the actress playing Zara, making scenes with them both in quite confusing). Worst of all is the planet of the silly insect people, on which discussion about people marrying other people and sons becoming Kings seems to go on forever. Add in more Ice Warrior faff and some appallingly contrived continuity (the Doctor assembling the fake segment, a throwaway subplot of one episode of "The Armageddon Factor", made Mars uninhabitable) and it's by turns dreary and shameless.

Sorry, I wanted to like it, but it just doesn't hang together for me. I found myself just not wanting to carry on listening.

Si.

[SiHart]

Keep going Si!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

I've now finished "Destroyer of Delights". It was a far better adventure than "The Judgement of Isskar", being almost a normal Who story. The characters were good, although the actor playing the Prince was woeful and Ciara Janson again manages to sound like the other young female character in the play. She really isn't every good at all, IMO.

But I liked the whole historical vibe and how it crossed over into sci-fi territory with the ship and the Genie. It reminded me a little bit of "Heist!" at this point with his collection of alien jumble, including the TARDIS! The way the Guardians were portrayed was very interesting - they were practically flippant, and not like the Guardians we know at all. There were some hugely witty lines in the play though, like "White Guardian? Suits, whicker chair? Oh yes I know him!". It was almost against the concept of the characters to have them so down-to-Earth, but it just about worked because the Guardians can BE anything really can't they? And it was explained in terms of them losing their powers. It was probably the best written story for a while, particuarly in terms of its humour.

As a whole, the "season" seems very mis-shapen though. We've had a "Keys of Marinus" style quest story to find four pieces of the key, and now a traditional historical adventure to turn up merely another one. Presumably the last bit of the key will turn up in "The Chaos Pool". I'm not quite sure what feel this season is aiming for, and it often feels like normal stories they have shoehorned the Key To Time into, despite it being majorly central to all of them.

So this wasn't fantastic, but it did seem to show a lot more thought and effort put into the characters, and the plotting wasn't bad either. It's unusual for a Big Finish to be let down by its performances, but for once here they were the weakest aspect.

Si.

[shada pavlova]

i SWEAR princess Astra will be in Chaos Pool.

i'd put money on it.

[Dirk Gently]

I agree with most of Si's points there, having just finished the second story.
The first one feels disjointed & quite frankly all over the place...but that presumably is the point. Although I do feel cheated not to have been witness to the finding of the first two segments, I mean how hard would it have been to break the first story in to four parts, finding a segment in each? Or leave one of the other segments to be found in "Destroyer of Delights"?*

Any hoo, the first was OK but ultimately below what I was expecting.
I'm not a fan of the Ice Warriors it seems, which comes as a surprise to me.4/10

*And talking of the "Destroyer of Delights", Oh my god how many times does the Doctor have to meet new people who immediately want to kill him in one episode!? I really REALLY disliked the first part episode ending. It wasn't a cliffhanger, it was just a rerun of how he met the first Arab.
This story could have been cut down considerably to accommodate finding one of the other segments without detriment to the story.
The humour between the Gaurdians near the end was very good & they reminded me of the odd couple moaning at each other. In fact I'd go as far as to say the humour throught out this one saved it from being poor.
5/10

[Dirk Gently]

I'll start on the third story tonight...hopefully.

[Dirk Gently]

The third part is much improved over the first two. It isn't a great start & gets a bit bogged down in the middle (two warring factions) but the ending is good enough to warrant putting up with that.

All in all 7/10. 5.3/10 for the series.

[Rob McCow]

The Chaos Pool wasn't very good at all. Two hours of absolute guff and the best bit was in the interviews, where Jason Watkins told us about a little man who came to deliver a fridge.

[SiHart]

I'd broadly agree with Steve there. Far from being the emotional ride that Peter Anglehedies promised, I found this rather uninvolving. The first two episodes were rather tedious, with the reveal of the guest star being so obvious making it a cliffhanger point seemed rather silly and the battle between the two races was dull and something we've all heard before.

I did like the fact that the Guardians were up to full strength again and had manipulated all the events here, and they were obviously well played but their part in everything seemed to just slip away towards the end.
The return of Romana was a good twist, as was the location of the sixth segment- although it was rather fanwanky, but again not enough was made of her potential death. That should have been really moving and the crux of the whole play, but I didn't feel it. The script should ahve emphasised that- this is a good friend of the Doctor's dying. All that history should have made for a better end.

Amy truend out to be really annoying in the end. I don't know whether the scripts or the actress was to blame, but I just found the character irritating. Sara wasn't any better either sadly.

Overall, it's been an average season- about 1 and a half good stories, one story that should have been better and one that I don't really want to hear again. So business as usual for BF as it stands at the moment.

[Rob McCow]

For people who have heard the Chaos Pool - what was going on with the Dog character who appears in part three? It seems it turns up to lead the Doctor and Amy to the Pool, then vanishes.

Also, why were the Chthonians seemingly encased in stone in a graveyard?

And the whole hyperspace-fold stuff was really badly explained. Was it hundreds of Chthonian ships, or just the same ship hundreds of times? Were the Atrians blowing them all up?

The more I think about it, the more angry I get. This was two discs filled with any old rubbish to make up the time. A ghastly rip-off and a fart in the face to anyone who buys it.

[Dirk Gently]

And the whole hyperspace-fold stuff was really badly explained. Was it hundreds of Chthonian ships, or just the same ship hundreds of times? Were the Atrians blowing them all up?

It was the same ship over & over again, whether being shot or the enormous armada. That's why there were two captains meeting (being the same captain) to create a divertion & allow the Doctor & co to escape.