BF 102: The Mind's Eye & Mission of the Viyrans

[SiHart]

A decent story? I still think it was a wasted story, where there was a more intersting tale that could have told under the circumstances than the generaic evil lizard one we got. I will concede that Debbie Watling was really rather good as Aunty though.

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

Well I like "The Sandman", what do I know!

Si.

[stuartdg]

Three's A Crowd is a good thing as is Erimem

Not listened to the story but there's a decent set of interview extras,that covers somewhat unusually all of the cast

[Dirk Gently]

I liked Three's a Crowd but I liked Sandman less.

But on the upside with Mission of the Viyrans: NO ERIMEM!

[Si Hunt]

I've finished "Mind's Eye" now. It figures it was commisioned in the Russell era, it has the whiff of the sort of story they wouldn't want to do now - a bit inconsequential and unbelievable. I still liked it though, very refreshing and different. It perhaps needed a humdinger of a plot twist at the end, say by revealing that the WHOLE THING was a dream as well?

The cast doubling up so much didn't quite work, as we soon discovered that Rebecca Front's character was listening to a TV playing with her doing a squeaky voice on it, and Erimem's dream involved Owen Teale pretending to be Prince Charles.

Si.

[SiHart]

The more I hear about this one, the more I lose any kind of excitement about it. Any play/ storyline that would be improved with the awful "It was only a dream" ending must be dire indeed.

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

It perhaps needed a humdinger of a plot twist at the end, say by revealing that the WHOLE THING was a dream as well?

Si.

Well the twist for me was that there wasn't one. As I mentioned above I was expecting something along those lines & it was more of a surprise to not have it.

[Si Hunt]

The more I hear about this one, the more I lose any kind of excitement about it. Any play/ storyline that would be improved with the awful "It was only a dream" ending must be dire indeed.

Ah.... no, not at all. But I can't tell you why without spoiling the story. Give it a spin and you'll get what we mean!

Si.

[SiHart]

OK. I will do... sometime!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

"Mission of the Viryans" was crap though!

Si.

[Rob McCow]

The plant is keeping her alive while similtaneously killing her.

Bestest. Line. Ever. (Outside of Medicinal Purposes )

I quite like The Mind's Eye, it didn't fulfill it's potential and the script could have done with another draft to stop the dialogue going clunk-clunk, but it was pretty decent. It helped that the actors were all so brilliant. We almost had a comedy character in Mallaru, the first in ages!

"Mission of the Viryans" was crap though!

That depends whether you think that explaining what the hell is going on over the closing credits is a) clever or b) utterly rubbish.

[Si Hunt]

It was just rubbish. It comes to something when the much-lauded "new Big Finish monsters" are just Nicola Bryant's disembodied voice. Woo (and indeed) hoo.

Si.

[stuartdg]

The Mind's Eye is a very standard tale;there's nothing particularly innovative about an amnesiac TARDIS crew and by far the most interesting thing about the story is the effects of the plants although the soap opera style cliffhangers add very little to the tale;there are largely strong performances apart from Richard Laing but these alone don't make the story that interesting.

Mission Of The Viryans isn't much better,if it's a scene setter along the lines of Mission To The Unknown it needs to be a lot clearer rather then a huge infodump during the end credits;there's a strong turn by Nicola Bryant but that doesn't help if you don't really know whats going on