What 'WHO Are You Currently Listening to?

[Stuart Wallis]

Yes, we all need a bit of Davros blaring in our ear first thing...

[Rob McCow]

I've got CDs of William Russell reading the Aztecs for my journey to work (or the car bit of it anyway). Great. He reads it superbly, although I've always found the predicaments they get into in The Aztecs to be rather annoying. Great characters, good exploration of the culture but I just feel like throttling the Doctor and Barbara half the time. Sort it out guys!

[Si Hunt]

Listening to the Curse of Fenric audiobook. Absolutely brilliant. Molloy is a great reader and the book is excellent - just done the chapter where El Doctar and Abu Fenran play chess in the desert!

Si.

[SiHart]

Just ordered that one Si! Looking forward to it. I thought he was superb on Remembrance.

[Nyder]

That's the one I won with DWM *gloat* - must listen to it soon :-)

[Rob McCow]

The ending of The Aztecs was not at all how I remember it. But it's been a long time since I watched it. There was some seriously nasty gloating from Tloxotl about gouging Susan's eyes out. Being on the receiving end of an exterminating blast is one thing, but this was sadistic.

William Russell was utterly wonderful throughout. I'd recommend The Aztecs audiobook, it's fab.

[Stuart Wallis]

Sadistic?! well don't let me invite you on The Lads' next works outing!

[Rob McCow]

I'm trudging through the Companion Chronicles, ticking a bunch off the list I haven't listened to yet, hoping that I might come across a good one.

Lately I've had:

The Beginning - So terrible. The Doctor and Susan leave Galifrey in the most perfunctory, unimaginiative way possible, not forgetting the Hand of Omega of course! On board the TARDIS is the character with the most stupid name in Who history, Quadrigger Stoyn. He's played by Terry Molloy and to be fair Terry is fabulous.

Anyway, there then follows a confusing adventure where they land on Earth either in the future or the past - it's not clear - and these aliens are doing experiments or something. Motivations seemed to change every other scene and it was a fantastically dull first adventure for the Doctor in a story we never needed to hear.

The Dying Light Frazer and Wendy narrate this stinker. Quadrigger Stoyn is back and he's nursing an utterly futile hatred of the Doctor. He's built a trap for the TARDIS in a monastery with equations on the walls. There are stone monsters. Another confused mess with very little to enjoy. Oh and it explains how the second Doctor gets the white cube he uses at the end of The War Games to contact the Time Lords. So there's something not to care about.

Luna Romana Lalla Ward and Juliet Landau narrate more confusing nonsense with Quadrigger Stoyn (that name again is Quadrigger Stoyn!). Stoyn is now split into six versions of himself who put on plays in Ancient Rome and devise complex traps for the Doctor. The first and second Romanas both get involved, with the first Romana's narrative being covered by the third Romana (Juliet Landau). Agonising.

The Sleeping City This one was read by William Russell with John Banks. It was excellent. I really enjoyed it. The TARDIS crew get pulled in to the world of Hisk and there are some lovely twists.

Starborn Maureen O'Brien is on duty as Vicki attends a seance where she gets in touch with DEAD VICKI FROM THE FUTURE / PAST! Despite the brain-gutting premise, this one was fairly acceptable.

The War To End All Wars Is a novelty. Peter Purves post-Savages narrates a tale about a planet at war with itself. It asks us to imagine Dodo becoming a soldier. I get what they were trying to acheive here but the futility-of-war message came across as a bit naff and the twists were all too unsatisfying. I think you could guess what was going to happen all too easily.

The Emperor of Eternity Deborah Watling narrates this research-heavy historical as the Emperor of ancient China somehow knows about the TARDIS and wants its secrets so he can live forever, at least until Jamie and Victoria persuade him otherwise. Worthy but dull.

Night's Black Agents Frazer narrates this adventure of Jamie and the 6th Doctor. What's that about? I haven't heard the relevant audios so I've got no idea how this ties in. However, this is the most egregiously intolerable abomination I think I've heard from the Big Finish stable. It's bowel-looseningly bad, it's horrible and stupid and nasty.

Anyway, no disrespect to any of the actors involved. They do a damn fine job with material that is... sometimes... wanting?

[Nyder]

Thanks for the reviews Steve - I really enjoyed Starborn too, and yes the Stoyn stories were a bit turgid!

[Rob McCow]

Stoyn (such a stupid name) really wasn't a character worth bringing back. In fact, he seemed to be a largely different character in each of the stories, not that it helped make it any more enjoyable.

[Rob McCow]

More Comp Chrons!

7.12 Council of War
John Levene stars (well, co-stars actually) in his only BF appearance. It's written by the people who wrote The Scarifyers so it's all jolly silly fun. For whatever reason, the bulk of the work seems to go to Sinead Keenan who plays Margery Phipps. Although it annoyed me at first, I warmed to it's crazy County-Councillor-In-Space theme. Levene was very good and it's a shame he doesn't do any more.

8.01 Mastermind
I wasn't that impressed with the first Tales From The Vault, but this one was great. It follows up what happened to The Master after the TV Movie and how he ended up in the basement of the UNIT vault. Daphne Ashbrook (Ruth Matheson) and Yee Jee Tso (Charlie Sato) take it in turns to interview him about his life, spending no more than 10 minutes so they don't get hypnotised. They're both great, but Beevers is outstanding as The Master. He gets to do various US accents, including a spot-on Godfather spoof that had me laughing. Very enjoyable with a great ending that marks the end of The Tales From The Vault series in only their second story!

3.06 The Darkening Eye
It's a Nyssa story. After Terminus, Nyssa finds she has a captive audience of sick people to whom she can relate her dullest adventures. If the disease doesn't kill you then Nyssa's stories certainly will. This story features the Dar Traders from the pun-tastic "Death Collectors", a main series story with Sylvester McCoy. The Dar Traders collect deaths or something, but f***ed if I know how it works. In this grim story, both Nyssa and Adric get stabbed but survive due to their quirky biology. Bi-ollock-gy more like. There's a spaceship and another spaceship and a planet with a war on it and lots of dead people and an assassin called Dameson who gets them in a bit of a jam. A Dameson jam. Nothing makes the remotest bit of sense, it's incomprehensible, grim and boring. Worse than that - I'd heard this one before but forgotten everything about it. Stinker.

[Rob McCow]

I'd totally forgotten that we also listened to 7-08 The House of Cards which has Ben, Polly, The Doctor and Jamie and is narrated by Anneke Wills and Frazer Hines. A bunch of reptile-aliens have set up a casino like in 1920's Chicago and they don't like time travellers - whoops! Doctor Who is a time traveller! Unfortunately the time-travel elements of this story are just confusing. The casino is also run by a woman called "Miss Fortune" - a name for which the script editor should have got out the red pen and put a bloody big line through. So, semi-stinker. The snake aliens calling people "You dirty rat" was also quite annoying.

[Rob McCow]

3-08 The Prisoner's Dilemma I started listening to this one, then remembered that I'd heard it before but I couldn't remember anything about it. Rather distubingly, I can't remember anything about the bits I heard when I re-listened to it last Saturday. I can only conclude that it is not very memorable.

7-03 Project: Nirvana This is another of the 'Project: XXX' series about The Forge, who first appeared in Project: Twilight. They are a military organisation that uses alien technology for evil.

In this story Sally Morgan (Who?) and Lysandra Aristedes (Who?!) are dropped out of the TARDIS from mid-air onto a train (WHAT?!) by the ever-scheming 7th Doctor. The rules of the Companion Chronicles are immediately broken by having Sylvester McCoy in it.

On board the train Sally Morgan runs into a younger version of Lysandra Aristedes (is she Welsh? Or Greek?) who immediately tries to torture her. The train crashes for some reason. Sally and Lysandra are out in the snow and find someone who is posessed by the God of Overacting, who is called Derleth. The Doctor turns up and soon succumbs to the God of Overacting. I think it might actually be the God of Love and Jealousy. Anyway, he's a sci-fi doodat who makes people act funny. Then there's a machine or something and the alien goes into young Lysandra's head which makes her lose her memory, very conveniently just the bits relevant to this story. And nobody makes any reports or files any information where she might find it.

I haven't heard the Gods and Monsters / Black and White trilogy that this ties in to, so I've got no attachment to the characters involved. Based on this story, I don't want to hear any more of them. I thought it was utter, utter drivel from start to finish. I was on the back foot to start with because Maggie O'Neill (Lysandra Aristedes) & Amy Pemberton (Sally Morgan) have mathematically similar voices so I was never sure who was talking. Then there was an older version of Lysandra so the end result was totally perplexing. There's some attempt at characterisation but it doesn't go much beyond "I was quite young and idealistic and now I'm old and not so idealistic, boo-hoo".

In short - didn't enjoy this one at all.

[Stuart Wallis]

FWIT, Aristedes is Greek; and perhaps the prisoner's dilemma is, what is the prisoner's dilemma?

[Rob McCow]

I can't remember what the prisoner's dilemma is.

7-07 The Flames of Cadiz
In which @Cadiz goes on Twitter and puts the WORLD to RIGHTS.

Or alternatively, William Russell and Carole Ann Ford narrate the story of the TARDIS crew's trip to 16th Century Spain with the help of Nabil Elouahabi (Tariq from 'Stenders). It's an OK historical where:
1) They get captured.
2) They get condemned to death.
3) They become good friens with a fellow captive.
4) The Doctor dresses up and impersonate an authority.
5) They escape.
6) They meet an historical figure who isn't quite what they expected.
7) The events in the story influence a writer who produces a famous book.
8) They get involved in intrigues and have to keep history on the right course.
9) Lots of other things that happen in every Hartnell historical.

So it's basically The Reign of Terror or The Crusades, done well but not brilliantly. It expands over four episodes, but there's a clear divide in the middle so it's more like 2x 2 parters. I think the second 2 parter was a lot better than the first, which was more capture-escape-capture.

[Stuart Wallis]

7) The events in the story influence a writer who produces a famous book.

Are there any windmills involved, perchance...? (perhaps that's the prisoner's dilemma - that or you're not let out until you've read all 17 thousand pages of it!)

[Rob McCow]

I haven't got time to consider the prisoner's dilemma any further because I'm straight into The Uncertainty Principle. Thought I'm certain about this one.
Zoe of Herriot is trying to overcome the mental blocks the Time Lords put on her at the end of The War Games. She tells the story of the time they met Archie and Meg. Meg was a physicist who invented a Feynman Radio but then disappeared / died. As they investigate her death for some reason, they encounter some odd looking aliens who keep turning into scrambled egg and ginger. This happens three times in exactly the same way. Then Zoe explains the uncertainty principle at great length. Finally it's all sorted out. Meg becomes alive again because of her special machine.
I thought this one was drivel that totally failed to come to a point or make any sense. Very little emotional involvement. Dull and forgettable.

[Nyder]

You're having a bit of a torrid time with these audios aren't you Steve I'll be listening to Joe Lidster's Adric tale this weekend. Hope it's good!

[Rob McCow]

I do like a good moan, Dave! I'm almost disappointed when I get a good one.

I'm sure there's lots of fun to be had with Adric. Let me know if it's good / terrible!

[Nyder]

Will do


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[SiHart]

I started The Selachian Gambit today. It's nicely performed.

[Rob McCow]

Much Obliged Doctor - that was a good one.

[Nyder]

Yes - "A Full Life" was indeed wonderful. Made me quite emotional actually (and I never thought I'd say that about Adric!) Matthew W read this short story with great warmth and affection, and writer Joe Lidster did a superb job in creating this alternative life for Adric .... with a twist (there's always a twist!)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Rob McCow]

Yeah, they can produce the goods when they really try, can't they!

6-06 Beyond The Ultimate Adventure
This is a story that doesn't have high ambitions and doesn't really go anywhere. But my word it is a tremendous amount of fun! Good old Terrance Dicks. Jason (outrageous French accent) and Crystal (just outrageous) are whisked off by the Doctor to the funeral of Madame Delilah, then to the mysterious space-beyond-space of Ultima Thule. On the way they encounter Murdering Mercenaries, including the Murdering Mercenary Karl who joins them on their travels, as well as Raston Warrior Robots, Rutans and Vampires (probably Romanian to carry on the R thing).

It might be a load of old nonsense but in hundreds of tiny decisions, Terrence gets the tone just right. It even feels like a stage play. Marvellous.

[Andrew Curnow]

I've finally got around to listening to Doom Coalition 2 this week, which I've had for about two months. I have a real problem with finding a way to listen to these, but as it happens Zel's been away dog-sitting this week at a place which is almost exactly half an hour away from here - so every visit out to see her has given me chance to listen to an episode.

I'll be honest, I struggle with some BFs, because I seem to lack the ability to picture Tom & Peter as they were, when I hear how they sound now. With the McGann stuff though I'm able to suspend my disbelief somehow, and have really enjoyed three out of the four episodes. I've got the last one to do yet, and although I'm not usually a big River fan I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with her. Nicely played 'cliffhanger' to the end of part three, "It says, 'Hello Sweetie'?""