The BF Time Warp 043: Doctor Who and the Pirates

[Anthony Williams]

All aboard, me hearties, for a rip-roaring tale of adventure on the high seas! There'll be rum for all and sea shanties galore as we travel back in time to join the valiant crew of the good ship Sea Eagle, braving perils, pirates and a peripatetic old sea-dog known only as the Doctor!

Gasp as our Gallifreyan buccaneer crosses swords with the fearsome Red Jasper, scourge of the seven seas and possessor of at least one wooden leg! Thrill as Evil Evelyn the Pirate Queen sets sail in search of buried treasure, with only a foppish ship's captain and an innocent young cabin boy by her side! Marvel at the melodious mayhem which ensues as we sail the ocean blue!

And wonder why Evelyn still hasn't realised that very few stories have happy endings...

And so we move onto the next adventure in our jolly series of Big Finish reviews. What do you, the posters of Planet Skaro, think of this rip-roaring adventure on the high seas?

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Jolly good fun from what I remember! Some of you will already have guessed I am a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan fan! Time for a bit a sing-song my hearties!

"I am the very model of a Gallifreyan Bucaneer..."

[SiHart]

Spectacular.
It took a difficult subject and dealt with it in an outrageous way. the wonder of it is that it isn't about the adventure on the high seas at all, it's about a troubled young woman and how Evelyn came to her when she needed help the most... the outrageous story was merely the set piece, the real stuff is underneath...

That's not to denigrate the pirate tale at all. It mixes unreliable narration, breaking the fourth wall, singing... and it somehow worked. Incredibly sophisticated stuff.

One of the finest things they ever achieved, back when they were prepared to take risks, push the storytelling and not play safe with old enemies every third month.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I'd forgotten why I'd not leapt to listen to this again until now...

I listened to the first CD today and I'd forgotten that the singing doesn't begin until right at the end of part 2. I found listening to the first 2 parts a bit slow and something of a chore but I am looking forward to hearing parts 3 & 4 tomorrow.

[SiHart]

You'd forgotten all about one of the best BF cliffhangers, Richard? oh my!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Actually I had remembered that cliffhanger I'd just forgotten that there was no singing before that point which I suspect was the thing that I found disappointing on first listen 9 years ago as the story was sold off the back of being a G&S crossover so I had quite high expectations.
Hopefully once I've heard the whole story again I'll feel as if I've enjoyed it more this time around.

[Nyder]

Mistakenly read this thread as "Doctor Who & The Pilates". His most thrilling adventure yet!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

OK, I take back what I said last night. The songs are worth waiting for!

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Much as I enjoyed the musical content such as there was of it the overall story is rather tonally confused so a 4/5 from me as BF do deserve some credit for trying to do something original and Colin and Maggie are superb as always

[Si Hunt]

This is everything I wanted from "Curse of the Black Spot" but didn't get - namely treasure islands, pirates, treasure, swashbuckling adventure and rum. On top of that it has the great narrative device of the Doctor and Evelyn competing to tell different versions of the story, and the touching arcing-plot of the student. And singing. And Billie Oddie gives a good performance too.

One of the more gorgeous Big Finish adventures.

Si.

[Junkyard]

Spectacular.
It took a difficult subject and dealt with it in an outrageous way. the wonder of it is that it isn't about the adventure on the high seas at all, it's about a troubled young woman and how Evelyn came to her when she needed help the most... the outrageous story was merely the set piece, the real stuff is underneath...

That's not to denigrate the pirate tale at all. It mixes unreliable narration, breaking the fourth wall, singing... and it somehow worked. Incredibly sophisticated stuff.

One of the finest things they ever achieved, back when they were prepared to take risks, push the storytelling and not play safe with old enemies every third month.

As Si Hart says, it's not about pirates at all. It's about grief, guilt and how you deal with them. Also, the fact that truly evil people do exist and how you deal with that fact. All in all, one of the best audios Big Finish produced. 8/10.

[Anthony Williams]

I really tried to like this one. I really did. I understand what it was trying to do. I understand the message behind it. I understand that it wasn't really about pirates and all that. I understand that events in it were vastly exaggerated by Evelyn and the Doctor to try and prevent this young lady from committing suicide. I get the ideas behind this, I really do get what it was trying to do.

But it really just didn't click for me. Was it the exaggerations? Perhaps. Was it the singing? Definitely. Or perhaps it's just the fact that I generally don't like pirates, anyway. They just don't appeal to me, for some reason. I think the most problematic thing for me was the juxtaposition between the humour (which wasn't really to my tastes) and the serious undertones of the story. The result is that you have a character being horribly mutilated in the middle of a jolly musical number, while another character is brutally beaten to death by the jolly comedy villain. To me, this just came across as extremely jarring.

I realise that this one is popular amongst many fans, and I do see what it's trying to do. To me, though, this just isn't how I like my Doctor Who. In introducing so many jokes and camp fun into the story, I really felt that the more serious aspect was devalued. Honestly, NuWho did this sort of thing MUCH better with Vincent and the Doctor.

Oh, and call me a killjoy, but I didn't like the musical parts in episode 3.

Serious kudos to those involved for trying to do something different here, but this just didn't work for me, and I didn't enjoy it. Sadly, it gets a lowly 2/5 for me - only getting above 1/5 for the effort of trying something different, really.