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SnowBall said:
Are the goggles even a part of her outfit? It looks more like she's using them while she is working on the dildo looking sonic screwdriver.
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Yeah, that's pretty much the context of it. It's like Tennant's 3D glasses or the dreaded fez.
 
Watched it once in a blue moon, over the years.

Glad to notice that you could get rid of all those styrofoam sets.

And it's in color nowadays.
 
2odastream said:
Those are the Eleventh Doctor's goggles.
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They looked dumb on 11, they look absolutely ridiculous on Whittaker.

The goggles were an aside to my point anyways, the focus is clearly the sonic dildo (and the derpy look on her face)
 
I mean, the Doctor's always looked a bit derpy TBH. A bit like a weird uncle or that dodgy guy hiding around the back of a gas station offering you sweets.
fourthdoctor.jpg
 
2odastream said:
I mean, the Doctor's always looked a bit derpy TBH. A bit like a weird uncle or that dodgy guy hiding around the back of a gas station offering you sweets.View attachment 486757
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Again, youre hyper focusing one one small part of what I said. Has the doctor ever had a derpy look on his face while ogling what it, for all intents and purposes, a sex toy?
 
From what I remember he ogles and treats his TARDIS like a big giant sex toy in the new series. The Doctor's Wife even had it become a real woman with uncomfortable sexual tension.
 
Okay, so I've been doing a bit of diving into old fandom discussions and holy shit, can we talk about Gary Russell?

For those not in the know, Gary Russell is one of the founders of Big Finish and was in overall charge of their Doctor Who range until 2006.

He's not as big a lolcow as Ian Levine, who managed to earn a thread on here, but let's just say I've heard some things.

Like, if you've listened to the first fifty Big Finish releases, you've probably noticed they all have the Third Doctor theme no matter which Doctor it is. I always thought that was because of rights issues with the other arrangements, but apparently it's because Gary Russell said that was the only one they could use. Why? Could it be misplaced nostalgia? Was that his favourite theme and he was autistic about using any others? These are both intriguing (and very likely true) possibilities, but we'll never know for sure unfortunately. I'm leaning towards :autism: though.

Kind of odd that was the case really because Gary Russell is considered among fans to be an utter continuity nerd, and not the good kind either - the kind who allows it to get in the way of absolutely everything, be it good story or good characterisation or anything. He's a laughably bad writer.

He wrote the infamous Virgin New Adventures novel Divided Loyalties which is a Fifth Doctor story where him, the Master and the Rani team up to fight the Celestial Toymaker. And yes, apparently it's every bit as bad as it sounds. He was also behind the bloated mess of continuity porn and fanservice that was Zagreus.

He was also the reason we didn't get any 1st, 2nd or 3rd Doctor stories during the early days and didn't want to do any novel adaptations because he insisted Big Finish should only do original stories.

I'm just starting to look into the man, but this is one juicy rabbit hole I'm venturing down.
 
TBH, at first I thought you were talking about Gareth "Gas the Jews" Roberts. Gary seems like an interesting kind of failure, wasn't he a child actor ala Wil Wheaton before getting a job on Doctor Who?

DW fandom should be renamed DW Fantards because it's just full of lolcows and they're completely fascinating, from Sandifer to Saward.
 
As you've no doubt noticed, I go through a lot of audios.

Anyways, with little interesting me coming out any time soon, I found myself going back to the audios that got me into Big Finish in the first place- The 8th Doctor Adventures. (Not to be confused with the book series of the same name)

These audios originally came out at the beginning of 2007, right before Series 3 of New Who started airing. I bring that up only because the influence of New Who on it is really obvious.

These are some of the first (if not THE first) Big Finish releases to follow the new show's >40 minute format, (compared to their usual up to 2.5+ hour stories). This was also the first time Big Finish created an entire "series" of their own for a Doctor, rather than finding slots where new stories could fit in. This makes it incredibly easy to just jump in and listen to these with no other knowledge of previous stories. (Particularly handy for a Doctor with as relatively little continuity as 8 had at the time)

With all of that said, after re-listening, I would HIGHLY recommend all 4 of these audio sets. I would especially recommend them as an entry point to Big Finish for people who like (at very least the first few seasons of) New Who. Not convinced? Here are some random thoughts.
The Companion:
The main companion for these 4 sets is Lucie Miller. If I had to compare Lucie to any other companion, it would probably be Rose Tyler (with quite a bit of Donna Noble thrown in there for good measure). Lucie is... not a perfect person, and she has some rough edges around her. Frankly, I kind of thought she was a bitch for the entire first series. (And my opinion of her somewhat fluctuated over the next 3 series, but I will say I never really "hated" her.) She's a bit of a ditz (another character calls her a "chav" and after looking up what that was, I would say that's probably a fair assessment). Unlike Rose though, she does actually grow and develop as a character, and I was surprised how much I genuinely cared about her by the end of series 4. She is most definitely NOT a Mary sue, and I appreciate that, dear god do I appreciate that...

She gets stuck with the Doctor in the first episode against both of their wills, for reasons that will be made apparent eventually... She's kind of abrasive, but she works with the 8th Doctor surprisingly well.

Side note: I don't think it was intentional, but Lucie actually comes off as being casually racist multiple times throughout this series (and it's funny every single time), in a way that I really don't think would fly in today's Doctor Who, actually I found myself thinking that quite a few times throughout these sets.

The 8th Doctor:
I had seen the TV movie before listening to these, but this 8th Doctor is a bit more cynical than his only real televised appearance up to this point (for reasons that do actually make sense if you follow his earlier stories with Charley) though by the end of his story, he gets a LOT more cynical.
Travelling with Charley, he was shown to have had two (previously unmentioned) companions kidnapped and fucked up by Davros, have has his memory of them wiped, and then have to see one of those two die when he meets up with them again; lose another companion in C'rizz; have his memory fucked with AGAIN so he doesn't completely know what happened to Charley... (She survived her last encounter with him, and worse after, but I do believe he thinks she's ok though); also
Lucie dies by the end of the 4th set, as does his Great Grandson (The son of Susan Foreman, who also appears in this set); he also sees a much shorter-lived companion Tamsin Drew die.
Eventually, in the next series of box sets, he will also lose companion Molly O'Sullivan... and in the future, I would frankly be amazed if he doesn't lose one or both of his current companions, Liv Chenka or Helen Sinclair (probably both) by the end of Ravenous.

I do believe that 8 has had by far the most companions die on him of any Doctor, and that's not even counting all of his books and comics I haven't read.
All of this shit that happens to him makes me REALLY wish that they had made 8 be the War Doctor. (At very least, we're getting to see him experience the time war in the aptly named "The Eighth Doctor - The Time War").


Villains:
These sets have quite the list of villains in them. In addition to the obvious Daleks and Cybermen (both of which show up in the first series, because of course they do, lol), we also get appearances from:
-The Autons
-The Zygons (their first appearance outside of books, since the original 4th Doctor Story)
-Morbius
-The Krynoids
-The Spiders... err The Eight Legs...
-The Monk (Again, I think his first appearance in a long time)
-The Ice Warriors

The Doctor also takes on.
-"The Head Hunter" who is surprisingly the closest thing this box set has to a unifying "villain". She's kind of a bounty hunter/mercenary, and she always has some ulterior motive.
-An evil office building
-Christopher Benjamin (The actor who plays Henry Gordon Jago) hamming it up as a hilarious and villainous artist/inventor.
-Transsexual crab people(!)
-Evil goats.
-A radical environmentalist group led by basically Bono. (Where the message oddly ends up being more pro immigration than pro environmentalism.)
-Literally Scientology, but with spiders.


Stories:
I would be lying if I said that all of these stories were jewels, but I found even the stinkers were still highly listenable. (The serialized format helps in that greatly.)

I'm only going to single out a few here, one from each series, because this post is already going to be hella long:

Series 1, Human Resources(1 and 2):
This is the Series 1 finale 2-parter. Unlike some of the other finales in this set, this entire series has been building up to this. It gives a satisfying reason as to why Lucie got stuck with the Doctor in the first place (the Time Lords fucked up), it has a surprise villain that I don't feel like spoiling here, it turns office buildings into war-mongering death machines, and it was really good.

Series 2, Brave New Town:
It's a bit of a stereotype for me at this point, but any time a story manages to surprise me, I tend to like it a lot more. This story managed to surprise more than any other in these sets. The premise is that there is a simple British town is still living in September 1, 1991... only it's 2008. I won't say who the villain of this story is, because that would ruin it, but do check it out.

Series 3, Orbis:
This is the first story of Series 3, and in-between the finale of series 2, and this, the Doctor was stranded without his companion or his TARDIS, on a primitive planet full of sentient talking jelly fish for 600 YEARS! This isn't just a throwaway gag either... at the end of this story, the Doctor has all but forgotten about his companion Lucie (whom he is still traveling with, but for a bit at least he treats her as someone he doesn't know...) he even questions what he originally saw in humanity in the first place after meeting some particularly nasty humans.
Probably the funniest part of this episode is when the Doctor (seemingly intentionally) misgenders a member of the evil race of transsexual crab people(!). (just go with it) Again, I don't think this would happen in today's Doctor Who... Too problematic and all that shit.

Series 4, Situation Vacant: The premise is basically: "(For reasons) The Doctor is looking for a new companion, and he decides to hold what is essentially a reality tv competition to pick the next one." (If that sounds bonkers to you, and totally out of character for the Doctor... Well, you aren't wrong, but just listen to it anyways.) It's (obviously) not entirely what it appears to be originally, and it is still a lot of fun... Also great, it isn't particularly apparent who the Doctor is going to choose initially.
tl;dr
Overall:
The first 4 series of the Eighth Doctor Adventures are overall pretty good, and I hope I managed to get at least one person to check them out.
 
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UnKillFill said:
As you've no doubt noticed, I go through a lot of audios.

Anyways, with little interesting me coming out any time soon, I found myself going back to the audios that got me into Big Finish in the first place- The 8th Doctor Adventures. (Not to be confused with the book series of the same name)

These audios originally came out at the beginning of 2007, right before Series 3 of New Who started airing. I bring that up only because the influence of New Who on it is really obvious.

These are some of the first (if not THE first) Big Finish releases to follow the new show's >40 minute format, (compared to their usual up to 2.5+ hour stories). This was also the first time Big Finish created an entire "series" of their own for a Doctor, rather than finding slots where new stories could fit in. This makes it incredibly easy to just jump in and listen to these with no other knowledge of previous stories. (Particularly handy for a Doctor with as relatively little continuity as 8 had at the time)

With all of that said, after re-listening, I would HIGHLY recommend all 4 of these audio sets. I would especially recommend them as an entry point to Big Finish for people who like (at very least the first few seasons of) New Who. Not convinced? Here are some random thoughts.
The Companion:
The main companion for these 4 sets is Lucie Miller. If I had to compare Lucie to any other companion, it would probably be Rose Tyler (with quite a bit of Donna Noble thrown in there for good measure). Lucie is... not a perfect person, and she has some rough edges around her. Frankly, I kind of thought she was a bitch for the entire first series. (And my opinion of her somewhat fluctuated over the next 3 series, but I will say I never really "hated" her.) She's a bit of a ditz (another character calls her a "chav" and after looking up what that was, I would say that's probably a fair assessment). Unlike Rose though, she does actually grow and develop as a character, and I was surprised how much I genuinely cared about her by the end of series 4. She is most definitely NOT a Mary sue, and I appreciate that, dear god do I appreciate that...

She gets stuck with the Doctor in the first episode against both of their wills, for reasons that will be made apparent eventually... She's kind of abrasive, but she works with the 8th Doctor surprisingly well.

Side note: I don't think it was intentional, but Lucie actually comes off as being casually racist multiple times throughout this series (and it's funny every single time), in a way that I really don't think would fly in today's Doctor Who, actually I found myself thinking that quite a few times throughout these sets.

The 8th Doctor:
I had seen the TV movie before listening to these, but this 8th Doctor is a bit more cynical than his only real televised appearance up to this point (for reasons that do actually make sense if you follow his earlier stories with Charley) though by the end of his story, he gets a LOT more cynical.
Travelling with Charley, he was shown to have had two (previously unmentioned) companions kidnapped and fucked up by Davros, have has his memory of them wiped, and then have to see one of those two die when he meets up with them again; lose another companion in C'rizz; have his memory fucked with AGAIN so he doesn't completely know what happened to Charley... (She survived her last encounter with him, and worse after, but I do believe he thinks she's ok though); also
Lucie dies by the end of the 4th set, as does his Great Grandson (The son of Susan Foreman, who also appears in this set); he also sees a much shorter-lived companion Tamsin Drew die.
Eventually, in the next series of box sets, he will also lose companion Molly O'Sullivan... and in the future, I would frankly be amazed if he doesn't lose one or both of his current companions, Liv Chenka or Helen Sinclair (probably both) by the end of Ravenous.

I do believe that 8 has had by far the most companions die on him of any Doctor, and that's not even counting all of his books and comics I haven't read.
All of this shit that happens to him makes me REALLY wish that they had made 8 be the War Doctor. (At very least, we're getting to see him experience the time war in the aptly named "The Eighth Doctor - The Time War").


Villains:
These sets have quite the list of villains in them. In addition to the obvious Daleks and Cybermen (both of which show up in the first series, because of course they do, lol), we also get appearances from:
-The Autons
-The Zygons (their first appearance outside of books, since the original 4th Doctor Story)
-Morbius
-The Krynoids
-The Spiders... err The Eight Legs...
-The Monk (Again, I think his first appearance in a long time)
-The Ice Warriors

The Doctor also takes on.
-"The Head Hunter" who is surprisingly the closest thing this box set has to a unifying "villain". She's kind of a bounty hunter/mercenary, and she always has some ulterior motive.
-An evil office building
-Christopher Benjamin (The actor who plays Henry Gordon Jago) hamming it up as a hilarious and villainous artist/inventor.
-Transsexual crab people(!)
-Evil goats.
-A radical environmentalist group led by basically Bono. (Where the message oddly ends up being more pro immigration than pro environmentalism.)
-Literally Scientology, but with spiders.


Stories:
I would be lying if I said that all of these stories were jewels, but I found even the stinkers were still highly listenable. (The serialized format helps in that greatly.)

I'm only going to single out a few here, one from each series, because this post is already going to be hella long:

Series 1, Human Resources(1 and 2):
This is the Series 1 finale 2-parter. Unlike some of the other finales in this set, this entire series has been building up to this. It gives a satisfying reason as to why Lucie got stuck with the Doctor in the first place (the Time Lords fucked up), it has a surprise villain that I don't feel like spoiling here, it turns office buildings into war-mongering death machines, and it was really good.

Series 2, Brave New Town:
It's a bit of a stereotype for me at this point, but any time a story manages to surprise me, I tend to like it a lot more. This story managed to surprise more than any other in these sets. The premise is that there is a simple British town is still living in September 1, 1991... only it's 2008. I won't say who the villain of this story is, because that would ruin it, but do check it out.

Series 3, Orbis:
This is the first story of Series 3, and in-between the finale of series 2, and this, the Doctor was stranded without his companion or his TARDIS, on a primitive planet full of sentient talking jelly fish for 600 YEARS! This isn't just a throwaway gag either... at the end of this story, the Doctor has all but forgotten about his companion Lucie (whom he is still traveling with, but for a bit at least he treats her as someone he doesn't know...) he even questions what he originally saw in humanity in the first place after meeting some particularly nasty humans.
Probably the funniest part of this episode is when the Doctor (seemingly intentionally) misgenders a member of the evil race of transsexual crab people(!). (just go with it) Again, I don't think this would happen in today's Doctor Who... Too problematic and all that shit.

Series 4, Situation Vacant: The premise is basically: "(For reasons) The Doctor is looking for a new companion, and he decides to hold what is essentially a reality tv competition to pick the next one." (If that sounds bonkers to you, and totally out of character for the Doctor... Well, you aren't wrong, but just listen to it anyways.) It's (obviously) not entirely what it appears to be originally, and it is still a lot of fun... Also great, it isn't particularly apparent who the Doctor is going to choose initially.
tl;dr
Overall:
The first 4 series of the Eighth Doctor Adventures are overall pretty good, and I hope I managed to get at least one person to check them out.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the Eighth Doctor Adventures is a great listen and perfect for Big Finish beginners. You don't need to have listened to all the Charley stories to understand what's going on either.

Series Four in particular is amazing. I've already sung the praises of Lucie Miller/To The Death, but I'll say again that you need to listen to those two.

The first series is actually available for free on Spotify along with the first 50 main range releases, although you will need to have a premium account to listen to them (but £10 for a month is an absolute bargain for that kind of content - you probably won't need more than a month to listen to it all anyway). After that you'll need to buy the other series if you want to keep listening and fair warning they're very expensive, even by Big Finish standards and more so if you want them on CD and not just download. Whether you think it's worth it or not depends on your disposable income.

Having now listened to nearly all of the Eighth Doctor on audio I agree that he could easily have been the War Doctor. Don't get me wrong, John Hurt was awesome, but I'd have preferred to see McGann on screen as the Doctor for an extended amount of time because frankly he deserves it at this point.

The whole point of the Eighth Doctor's character is that he's the reluctant warrior, so what could be more appropriate than have him fight in the Time War? You wouldn't even have to jig the story much. Just have the Eleventh Doctor say he tried to forget most of his time as the Eighth Doctor which is why he only appeared once onscreen before. It could also explain the continuity inconsistencies between the novels and the audios (the Doctor could say he's buried it for so long he doesn't remember which version is true).

Oh well...
 
2odastream said:
But John Hurt tho.
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John Hurt was great, but I'm still bothered by the whole "he fought in a war so he doesn't get a number" bullshit they had to pull to explain him.

I do still believe a battle-hardened 8 (with all of the shit he's been through) interacting with 10 and 11 would have been a lot more impactful than a random grumpy old man we'd never seen before... (No offense to Hurt)
At least they were nice enough to give 8 a regeneration scene. (one which validates the audios, no less)

Serious question, feel free to answer- Are there any Doctors who have lost anywhere near as many companions as 8 has? Off the top of my head, he's lost: Gemma, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Alex (if he counts as a companion. Even if not, I'd argue losing his great grandson is worse than losing a companion.), Molly, and "Sheena/Emma/Louise" from Time War 1, the chick who dies in "Night of the Doctor" who was going to travel with him until she found out he was a time lord, and I believe he's lost at least a few more in other mediums.
 
I really don't like the new covers Big Finish are doing for the monthly range. They're using the hideous new logo and the covers are too bright and cheerful. The CGI they're using to represent the monsters has also gotten worse (or they're relying more heavily on it than stock photos now). Look at this:

IMG_1802.JPG


Looks like a sweet packet.

This obviously doesn't have a bearing on the quality of the stories themselves, but one of the things I've always loved about Big Finish is their awesome cover art. I hope they have reversible covers with the original logo like they do for the releases up until now because otherwise this is just slightly depressing.
 
2odastream said:
Is that a lizard with a cigar?
Click to expand...
Frog.
I knew the motherfucker looked familiar and the release info backs it. This is the same dude from The Maltese Penguin:
dwsub001_themaltesepenguin_1417_cover_large.jpg

Story was funny as shit, and took place in the Doctor Who Magazine continuity. We didn't get enough of Frobisher's bullshit in audio form, sadly.

Also has anyone started comparing the quality of the covers of the first 100 releases and a little after that to the covers that have started using the new logo?

EDIT:
The Eighth Doctor - The Time War 2 is out today.
 
UnKillFill said:
John Hurt was great, but I'm still bothered by the whole "he fought in a war so he doesn't get a number" bullshit they had to pull to explain him.

I do still believe a battle-hardened 8 (with all of the shit he's been through) interacting with 10 and 11 would have been a lot more impactful than a random grumpy old man we'd never seen before... (No offense to Hurt)
At least they were nice enough to give 8 a regeneration scene. (one which validates the audios, no less)
Click to expand...

I think 9 would also have worked. I still wonder why they didn't bother to get Ecclestone for the special.
 
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