What 'WHO Are You Currently Listening to?

[Rob McCow]

Good to see Alex Kingston flying the flag... might listen to those one day.

Listened to the new old New Adventures of Doctor Who over the recent break while I was insulating the loft. Cold Fusion was a rather fab adventure with some great humour, largely at the expense of Team Davison. Sample gag: "Do you have any pictures of Tegan where she isn't scowling?" *Computer hums for a moment* "...No."

Original Sin wasn't as good but is 100% baseline New Adventure material. Loads of morality and violence and guilt and sci-fi radiation and violence and blood and war and returning villains and war and blood. The introduction of Roz and Chris (Swayge? Swedge? Cwej? Kwedge?) was probably the highlight. Ninties Doctor Who, what there is of it, is very dark and strange.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Having a bit of a Flip-a-thon whilst working at home, as I have an overdue review to write for her return in last month's Quicksilver and hadn't heard any of her previous adventures except for The Curse of Davros which I squeezed in before Christmas.
Yesterday afternoon was The Fourth Wall (Has John Dorney been listening to Planet Skaro Audios?), this morning was Wirrn Isle (David from the Archers on good form), and now on Antidote to Oblivion (Sil promoting austerity max in 24th Century London!)

[Rob McCow]

Flip-a-thon

The Sixth Doctor's young Companion """ FLIP """ to give her the full title.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

Today's listening:
The Brood of Erys
Scavenger

and currently Quicksilver

[Nyder]

Dalek Empire I - Invasion of the Daleks. The Ninth Doctor was right - every planet has a North! Veganite sounds too much like Vegamite to me. I was wondering why the Daleks were trying to mine vegetarian marmite! Enjoyable story though - looking forward to the rest of the series.

[Stuart Wallis]

Obviously The Great Healer was onto something, only Dalek Zeg argued health food was the market to go to. Good old British compromise!

[Rob McCow]

I've delved into the Fifth Doctor Box Set, which has a whole TWO stories. Hmm.

Anyway, Jonathan Morris gives us Psychodrome, set immediately after Castrovalva. It has great characterisation of the regulars ("Get me back to Heathrow" "I'm a scientist" "I have a badge for mathematical excellence" etc) and its a fairly intriguing premise, essentially Red Dwarf's Psi-Moon but... no its exactly the same. Anyway, I largely enjoyed it but felt it was a little too smart-ass.

I'm halfway through John Dorney's "Iterations of I" which is fairly spooky but doesn't feel like its really getting anywhere. I will see how I feel about it towards the end. HAI!

[Stuart Wallis]

"I'm a scientist"

Unfortunately we don't get to see Nyssa's ology until Terminus...

[Rob McCow]

Unfortunately we don't get to see Nyssa's ology until Terminus...

FILTH

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I've delved into the Fifth Doctor Box Set, which has a whole TWO stories. Hmm.

Anyway, Jonathan Morris gives us Psychodrome, set immediately after Castrovalva. It has great characterisation of the regulars ("Get me back to Heathrow" "I'm a scientist" "I have a badge for mathematical excellence" etc) and its a fairly intriguing premise, essentially Red Dwarf's Psi-Moon but... no its exactly the same. Anyway, I largely enjoyed it but felt it was a little too smart-ass.

I'm halfway through John Dorney's "Iterations of I" which is fairly spooky but doesn't feel like its really getting anywhere. I will see how I feel about it towards the end. HAI!

They're both quite different stories, Iterations is definitely meant to be set later given the amount of hints concerning Adric's imminent demise that are thrown in.

Interestingly, I've just heard The Starmen which is the first release since that box set to feature the whole season 19 team and was noted for causing Janet Fielding to complain on twitter last year about Adric getting to play the hero for a change.

[Rob McCow]

You might be right there - the end of Iterations of I hints that it leads straight into Earthshock, with Adric doing equations in his room and complaining that nobody takes him seriously.

Iterations of I was really disappointing. You'd need to work really hard to sell a monster as bizarre as the one here but instead we get a whole bunch of puns.

In the Bidmead era we got some really far-out ideas, but they always made the effort to treat them with respect, follow them through and apply their own internal logic. For me there were way too many holes and plot conveniences to keep things moving along in Iterations of I.

Basically it's an intelligent number, but there are also predatory numbers who try to attack the team. The Doctor says he's never encountered anything like this before, but if humans can contact "living numbers" with 80's technology then why don't the Time Lords know about it? Also the Doctor suddenly seems to know a lot about how to stop these predatory numbers.

Which is a real shame because again, the characterisation of the regulars and the atmosphere shine. In the end, it was just nonsense.

[Stuart Wallis]

FILTH

Well of course, I am expected to play down to expectation...

[Stuart Wallis]

and was noted for causing Janet Fielding to complain on twitter last year about Adric getting to play the hero for a change.

Any excuse for her to complain about Matthew - or indeed anything!

[Nyder]

Cold Fusion will be my listening on the train today. I've never read the book so it's going to be a voyage of discovery for me....


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[Stuart Wallis]

Voyage of - yes, yes, we've all seen what you've done there, and we're all wishing you hadn't...

[Nyder]

The Rapture. I CAN'T STOP DANCING!!!!!! I was actually enjoying the first 3 episodes of this, then McCoy overstretched himself in the acting department in the last episode and ruined it. Tony Blackburn for the next TV's Dr. Who please


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[Nyder]

Just finished Nick Courtney's memoirs. What a super fine chap - I would have loved to have met him and chatted over a pint or three.

[Rob McCow]

Hurrah for Nick Courtney

I'm most of the way through Season 4 of the Small McGanns. It's all rather complicated and there are lots of surprises in terms of the TARDIS line-up, but I think it works rather well. There's only been one proper stinker (Nevermore) and I'm even quite enjoying a Marc Platt audio (Relative Dimensions) though I haven't got to the end of that one yet. Well worth a listen, though it really is part of the ongoing series... you need to at least be familiar with Lucie Miller and Aunty Pat for it all to be engaging. Ah well!

[Rob McCow]

The Sontaran Experiment talking book - excellent novel, read by Jon Culshaw who is simply delightful. His Styre is particularly excellent.

The Time Meddler - lovely Peter Purves, another very good novel with lots of extra detail. Peter unleashes a strong Newcastle / Northumbria accent for the locals, which is technically very good and correct but a little unsettling.

[Nyder]

After reading the review in DWM, “Time in Office” sounds like a bit of a giggle. I think I’ll purchase.


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[Stuart Wallis]

Ooh! I wish I could have said the same about The Roof Of The World! Although it's set in Asia in the days of the British Empire, rather than on an alien planet pretending to be the Raj, Erimem rather than Tegan gets to be the aliens' plaything. Oh deep joy!...

Has anyone, even after all these years, actually discovered anyone outside of BFHQ who thinks much of Erimem. I'm not saying that Caroline Morris is completely without hope as an actress; it's just that she's more suited, going by the performance she gives throughout her time, based on what I've heard, to playing one of Jane Eyre's friends or sisters than Pharaoh. And to base a story around most of her emotional baggage so early on in her run is not only depressing, but also since her character's hardly developed, taking a big risk in a small-scale story, with such a small cast, with monsters that quite a few listeners/readers, myself included, found to be overstaying their welcome in the NAs. Such a shame that a slim storyline was hung round the weakest member of the entire cast. (peter Davison and Nicola Bryant were on top form, but they could have been heard a little more on this one. Full marks for having Peter as a villain, he works well here as one.)

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I remember enjoying the stories at the time to an extent but Gary Russell is on record as saying that he would've cast someone closer to Erimem's intended ethnicity if they'd planned in advance to introduce her as a regular character from rather than making the decision on the day The Eye of the Scorpion was being recorded.
However, the fact that Erimem got dropped like a stone when Nick Briggs took over as exec producer speaks volumes.
Although her final story (The Bride of Peladon) does contain a nice punchline from Peri which is almost worth the price of admission in its own right.

[Stuart Wallis]

I did like The Bride Of Peladon in that it gets her to do, for want of a better way of putting it, a bit of yer actual Queening. However, too little too late...

[Rob McCow]

Doctor Who: Time In Office
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v...in-office-1260
An utterly dreadful load of cobblers from start to finish. It didn't have me screaming at the stereo like certain releases (Pier Pressure cough cough The Pursuit of History) but there was very little to commend it.

On the positive side: The actors are all fantastic. You cannot go wrong with Davison, Louise Jameson and Janet Fielding. Wonderful.
There are a few good jokes.

On the negative side: Four unsatisfying adventures for the fifth Doctor posing as the President of Galifrey. When Robert Holmes made the Time Lords a bit daft and pompous in The Deadly Assassin it worked great for the story. Some forty years later though, it means they have lost all their mystery and interest to be replaced in this case by heavy satire.

Bah!

[Nyder]

Cripes