BF 144: The Feast of Axos

[Si Hunt]

Anyone heard this? We thought it was a fun story, with a brilliant recreation of Axos by Bernard Holley and an exciting Episode 3 cliffhanger.

Perhaps not a classic, but a lot of fun nevertheless!

Si.

[Paul Monk]

I thought this one sounded interesting. For the first time in years, Big Finish my just lure me back.

[Simon R]

It's good but not quite a classic and I didn't think the sound effects really did Axos justice and Holley was a bit under used all told.

The cliffhanger to Part Three is great though.

[Rob McCow]

Unfortunately the sight of Colin Baker-Axon on the cover is just not enough to forgive a mediocre and uneventful space romp.

Thank you Si. That's what I wanted to know!

I'm afraid that mediocre just isn't good enough.

[Si Hunt]

You sound pleased, like you were looking for an excuse not to buy it. I'm not going to lie, the Axon story wasn't a classic, but that's just the way it goes. As it happens, the story before, "The Crimes of Thomas Brewster", was excellent. If you feel a pressure towards getting one, like it's going to "drag you back" if it dares to be good, then best avoid them. However, there are occasionally some really good ones which is why I went back - every now and then I'd hear from somewhere that an excellent one had cropped up and felt I was missing out - and if you decide to get the good stories, I hope my reinvigorated column will be handy for sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

Thanks Si - I do like to moan about BF!

I'm just furious about spending £140 a year on a subscription and getting Time Reef, Kingdom of Silver, The Chaos Pool, The Death Collectors, Assassin In the Limelight, The Dark Husband, The Bride of Peladon, Absolution, Valhalla, Renaissance of The Daleks, No Man's Land, Red, The Nowhere Place, Something Inside, The Settling, Night Thoughts... none of which I would want to listen to again and some of which made me so angry that I shouted at the stereo.

Spinning off the eighth Doctor into his own series made me cross. We were paying our subscription and suddenly we didn't get the McGann adventures any more! With all the other spin-off series such as Galifrey, Cyberman and Davros it suddenly became impossible to keep up. Not in terms of money, we're lucky that we could always afford the audios, but in terms of time. There were literally not enough hours in the day to listen to BF Audios and we'd frequently be stacked up with months' worth of releases to get through. And when you do finally listen to them, you'd think 'Oh dear, another stinker, ah well'. When you add to that the rather delightful Target Novelisation readings, then there's no competition. I'd much rather listen to William Russell reading Dalek Invasion of Earth than another half-baked, pretentious and mediocre all-new full-cast audio.

What really feels me with horror is the now near-constant parade of old monsters turning up. Axons! Wirrn! Five Dalek stories a year! Draconians! Ice Warriors! Having BF try to tempt listeners back with the Axons is like an ex-lover turning up and saying: "Look! I can do comedy farts now!"

Big Finish in their time have produced some great stories. But over the years the accumulation of The Game, Dreamtime, Three's A Crowd, Unregenerate!, The Council of Nicea, Scaredy Cat, Pier Pressure and the others listed above have damaged the brand for me. Somewhat.

It would be nice to pick out the good ones, to have some classics thrust my way but BF is now too badly tainted. I've heard there have been some brilliant adventures, every month Doctor Who Magazine proclaims that BF have produced another triumph! But then I remember them saying that about Kingdom of Silver. And Red. And so on. Subsequently, I don't believe the good reviews! It's unfair of me, but I can't help it!

Over the years, Big Finish adventures became a burden to keep up with and I'm glad to be free of it. What would tempt be back to the range? If they halved the number of releases each year and focussed on quality, then I might consider it. But while it's 12 Old Series + 6 McGann's + sundry others, I don't want to know.

C'rizz Jehosphat! What a rant! Well, I hope you understand my feelings now.

[Si Hunt]

Oh, I understand them. And know them too well!

It's a vicious circle. Unfortunately, as they have a loyal customer base and a certain number of people that buy everything, I think it makes commercial sense to maximise the output - if a new subrange is going to make you money, then you do it. Likewise if a Dalek on the cover doubles the sales for that release, you'd have to be mad to do them less often. At the end of the day it's better to have more choice and a sustainable range than a non-sustainable smaller range, or one that makes so little profit they can't afford any decent actors.

On that note, the Eighth Doctor range - I understand your frustration. It's going to be like that to a certain extent with the Tom Baker single disc releases. But again, it's to make as much money as possible and keep the range afloat. The Paul McGann series also re-formatted the range in line with the new series - 50 minute stories - and because this was then in a format that could be broadcast, they got BBC 7 involved and were able to hire actors of the calibre of Julia McKenzie and Nigel Havers. The quality of that first McGann season - actual, decent, well known actors in every audio, along with some zippy and inventive scripts - makes it one of the very best, in my opinion.

The trouble is, you get fatigue. When I quit, I just needed a break. I've recently picked up the stories that were left sealed in their wrappers two years ago because the very sight of them repelled me, and you know some of them are actually pretty good. Some of the stories you list above are pretty ropey, but some of them ("Something Inside", "Night Thoughts", "Rennaisance") are really good. "Night Thoughts" is excellent, as I recall. Sometimes you need to re-listen to appreciate them.

Also the era you note was a pretty bad one, and those days are actually gone. The "Key 2 Time" was a pretty bad trilogy, Erimem is gone and the current quality is far beyond the "The Game"/"Threes A Crowd" spell, which wasn't a vintage era. Yes, they still use the Daleks too much and the current most used authors probably won't fill you with excitement (a lot of Marc Platt, Nick Briggs and Stephen Cole). BUT they've got Eddie Robson and Jonathan Morris as well, and they're actually coming up with some pretty good ideas - the recent Charley/Sixth Doctor stories were good, and the return of Jamie and Zoe is something I'm looking forward to hearing. They now regularly do releases consisting of four one-part stories and these seem really popular. And you've got Tom on the horizon, Evelyn is back in the schedule regularly and they've got Tegan/Nyssa/Turlough stories regularly in the range. It's looking fresh and exciting.

Of course, you're still going to get the odd dodgy story - we just listened to a Stephen Cole yarn which wasn't great - but really, "Axos" wasn't THAT bad, it was just not quite a classic. "Cobwebs" is a challenging listen, a real Johnny Morris time-bending special, with lots of atmosphere. And by all accounts the recent McGann season has rocketted to a great conclusion.

You could always do what I've done and just enjoy the fact that you have a couple of years of unlistened to audios, from which you could cherrypick the ones that word on the street tells you are goodies - "The Crimes of Thomas Brewster", anything by Eddie Robson, the "Home Truths" Companion Chronicle with Sara Kingdom, "Cobwebs" and "The Eternal Summer". You don't have to get them all - just treat yourself to the odd one that DWM says is good! Sometimes you can be too much of a fan and end up feeling overwealmed as you feel you have to get everything. Remind yourself that you're getting them for fun, and buy selectively. You might find, as I did, that this re-energises your enthusiasm and reminds you why you liked them in the first place.

Si.

[Rob McCow]

Good points - maybe I'll be ready one day. If they send me back to Basingstoke, perhaps I'll use them in the car because I'll be driving in.

[Jon Masters]

I have never been in a position to buy every single audio, which may have helped in that I have always been selective - using E-bay or recording them off BBC7, and using (in the old days DWM, more and more the reviews in Vervoid from Si and Lissa) advice about quality to focus my purchases.

I've never really bothered with the spin-offs (although I keep eyeing up Jago and Litefoot), and the decision to link 3 stories at a time is a bit disappointing as it seems another way to get you to buy less good stories if they're linked to good ones.

[Paul Monk]

I've quite enjoyed a few of the more recent ones so I think I may end up back as a bit of a dipper. Quality control has definitely improved since the audios Steve mentions and I've actually found myself wanting to hear the latest season of 8th Doctor audios. My main gripe is their download prices. I know they let you download the first episode for 99p but can you really tell whether you'll like a play from the first episode? It be nice if they offered some online streaming service where you pay an episode at a time perhaps although technically that might be quite difficult.
By the way I think the 8th Doctor range is going to be re-integrated back into the main Who range.