Dr. Who

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Moving along through the 8th Doctor's time line, I'm currently re-listening to Dark Eyes. (Still haven't gotten to hear his Time War 2, anyone care to tell me if it's any better than the first was?... i.e. worth buying? Because Time War 1 was kind of meh...)

Anyway, Dark Eyes is a bit odd... Speaking generally, basically every one of the 4 box sets in the series start off strong, inevitably building things up only to (usually) have a lackluster payoff (especially the series 4 finale.) Worst of all, the narrative as a whole suffers from the lack of internal coherence (It *really* feels like they were making it up as they went along, rather than planning it out ahead of time... a la Moffat... again, especially towards the end... and the special features would seem to confirm that.) The story as a whole suffers from a distinct lack of involvement of the titular "Dark Eyes" for essentially half of the series, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

To be clear, there are a LOT of things I *did* like in Dark Eyes- notably, the reintroduction of Alex Macqueen's criminally under-rated master, the fantastic Liv Chenka, and quite a few stories that are just fantastic... As for the rest, well...

Companions:
Molly O'Sullivan: Molly is basically an untrained nurse... (but don't call her a nurse, or the mother superior will flip out or something...) This fact about her matters exactly zero times after her first episode.

Before I say anything else, I honestly didn't care much for Molly O'Sullivan. (I know, I know, big surprise if you've read my opinions before)... But usually when I have a strong negative reaction to a companion I don't like, I eventually soften up to them by the end. (unless it's Rose Tyler... Yeah still fuck that bitch.) This never happened with Molly. To be clear, I never even came close to "hating" Molly... but from her first scene in her first series, I thought she was incredibly obnoxious, and well.. her presence diminished with every subsequent box set, so I can't help thinking that Big Finish felt the same way.
Ok, ok, actually... Ruth Bradley ended up having a major surge in her career part way through Dark Eyes, and she apparently lacked time in her schedule to record towards the end of the series. I still like my explanation better though.
So yeah, they replaced the actress for Molly in the last set, and this was the first time in Doctor Who history that a companion has been played by more than one actor... They made an attempt to explain why the voice was different (This Molly was several decades older than the version who had previously been in Dark Eyes) but it totally uprooted whatever narrative they were going for (It was pretty obvious that Molly was only older to explain the new actress, not because it added to the story...) and the woman they chose to replace Bradley sounds almost nothing like her (aside from an over the top Irish accent, which sounds like someone doing a fake Irish accent, even though I do believe the actress is actually Irish.) and yet I still say no loss.

Despite the (original) actress being decent, the character as a whole is one of the weakest aspects of this series. She is originally setup as being really important, but those reasons very quickly fall flat, especially after the first season. The explained reason why she is has dark eyes- (She was infused with magical particles as a child- which mean something completely different in every single box set) kind of make sense in the first box set... but because of timey-wimey, those events never actually happened. Then in every subsequent series, she just randomly gets dark eyes again- And they suddenly have entirely different properties. You really have to turn off your brain for this, and it's a major flaw of this entire story. But yeah, let's move on...

Liv Chenka: I don't think I appreciated Liv Chenka (who joins the cast in Dark Eyes Series 2, but apparently had a previous appearance in a 7th Doctor Audio) nearly enough my first time listening to Dark Eyes. My mistake, Liv is awesome, and easily my favorite 8th Doctor companion so far.

She is *extremely* cynical, but she’s totally justified in being that way, and I've grown to love her for that in her later appearances. Liv is a "Med-Tech", essentially a doctor. Unfortunately, a large chunk of her character in her first series is some random "I'm going to die soon, because reasons," drama- but they wisely cure her of that "off screen" before the end of her second series.


The Doctor: The Doctor starts this series in a pretty low place, which makes sense. (It starts immediately at the end of the fantastic “To the Death,” wherein the Doctor lost both a beloved companion, and his own great grandson. I wish this had been a bigger part of his character throughout this, but unfortunately it really doesn’t seem to affect him that much aside from him being a little mopey at the beginning of the first episode of series 1.

This is weird, but it really does feel like Paul McGann got burnt out part way through this series,.. (Future spoilers: He recovers in the next series) I guess I can hardly blame him, a lot of this series just feels like boringly treading water. He still typically turns in a really good performance, but I would say he is not his best throughout this...

Incidentally, nothing that happens to The Doctor is so wild as anything that happens to him in the previous Eighth Doctor Adventures (i.e. random 600 year jumps in between episodes which change the Doctor and his outlook drastically.) Admittedly, those aren’t typically common in Doctor Who, but the 8th Doctor is a uniquely blank slate so it is still a bit of a disappointment.


Villains:
The Master: I love love LOVE Macqueen’s Master, he is somewhat of a departure for the character, in that (on the surface) he is much more sociable. But he is still distinctly Master-y. There is an episode where he randomly wears a cowboy hat (to a random planet), *just* so he can play the part of mysterious stranger who blew into town. One of his "catchphrases" is "Hello you!" so.. I can't help thinking of him as a what-if Guru Larry was the Master?

If Dark Eyes 2(where he first turns up)- Dark Eyes 4, is too rich for your blood, I would at least recommend checking out the main range 211-213 (a cheaper, basically stand alone trilogy which concludes in an episode where the Macqueen Master, and the Beevers Master meet up to fight the 7th Doctor, after they had individually fought the 6th and 5th Doctor. NO SPOILERS.) But yeah, Macqueen's Master is great.

The Eminence: A fully Big Finish creation, which have "previously" appeared with both the 4th and the 6th doctor. (though the 4th Doctor outing was released after this). If I had to equate them to any other Doctor Who villain, I would compare them to the Weeping Angels, as the more we learn about them , the less terrifying they seem to be. By the end of Dark Eyes, I'd even compare them to Star Wars "midi-chlorians," for how (unnecessarily) over explained they are... Still, they are a decent villain, no matter how overplayed they are.

Episodes:
Like before, I will showcase my favorite episode from every individual set... It is what it is..

Dark Eyes 1
The first episode of this set, "The Great War," was my favorite... It was the one that made the most of the Doctor's mind state after "To the Death." It also set up a much bigger story than the rest of the set could deliver... (Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon theme for this series)

Dark Eyes 2
Again... the first episode in this series "The Traitor" was my favorite. It (re)introduces Liv Chenka (the titular "traitor"), and makes us understand her plight
In the Doctor's personal chronology, this is actually the *last* episode of this series, and yet they put it first... It is a bit of a mind fuck listening to this in release order, but in retrospect, I kind of like it. It makes a lot more sense if you don't think about it.

Dark Eyes 3
I mean.. I said it in the intro, the first episode of pretty much all of these are my favorite, Series 3 is no different. "The Death of Hope." Is basically *us* listening to the Doctor watching the Master (in a cowboy hat) saving a random colony from the Eminence.

Dark Eyes 4
I hate to be so predictable.. But again, my favorite episode of this set was the first one. "A Life in the Day," is basically groundhog day, except it's groundhog day for a minor character in the overall story... The twist is, he's trying to help the main characters get to the next day... It has a bittersweet ending (for that character, at least) but it is actually my favorite story in the entirety of Dark Eyes.
 
UnKillFill said:
Still haven't gotten to hear his Time War 2, anyone care to tell me if it's any better than the first was?... i.e. worth buying? Because Time War 1 was kind of meh...
Click to expand...
Sorry, I meant to post this sooner, but I was trying to get my thoughts on Time War 2 into a coherent format.

If you weren’t sold on Time War 1, this won’t convince you either. It starts off really well (better than the first set), but each story declines in quality until you get to the final story which... okay, let me explain further in a (relatively) spoiler-free way.

The first story - The Lords of Terror gets things off to a great start - it's a 1984-esque story and while those have been done many times before, this is a new spin on the concept and works really well in the Time War setting. You start to understand why the War Doctor ended up thinking the Time Lords deserved the bullet every bit as much as the Daleks.

I really enjoyed the next story, Planet of the Ogrons, although my enjoyment might have been enhanced by the fact I rewatched Frontier in Space literally the day before I listened to it. Jon Culshaw (who's more famous for his amazing Tom Baker impression) does a wonderful job as the Ogrons, and Julia McKenzie as the Twelve... the whole reason I started getting the Time War boxsets is because I found out they were continuing the Eleven's story as part of it. I've mentioned before that the Eleven is one of my favourite Doctor Who villains ever and I was intrigued to see what they'd do with him (her now) in a new regeneration. While I don't have a problem with gender-bending regenerations, it is a little strange that Time Lords seem to switch genders every regeneration these days. It happens to another character in this boxset too.

That said, Julia McKenzie is bloody great as the Twelve. I do sort of miss Mark Bonnar because he owned that role, but McKenzie brings a fresh take to it which works better than I ever would've imagined because it's so different to what's come before. If you're a fan of the Eleven, you'll be pleased to hear his (her) future is in good hands.

In the Garden of Death is... okay. There's a couple of good ideas, but it sort of feels like it's spinning its wheels and killing time. Not very memorable.

And Jonah is literally the final story of the last boxset - the Daleks and the Time Lords are chasing after the Doomsday Device To End All Doomsday Devices (TM), but it realises neither side is worthy of wielding its power so it destroys itself. Okay, that may be a bit of a spoiler but you'll see it coming a mile off because it's not even an original plot idea in the first place. One thing I did like in this story is that there's a Dalek Admiral - it's one of two Dalek variants in this boxset that are actually a pretty neat idea (the other's a Dalek Mad Scientist that's augmented itself by adding traits from other races).

I said Jonah was literally the final story of the last boxset, but once you've listened to Time War 2, you'll realise that it essentially is the last boxset - same overall structure, same kind of stories etc. The first story kicks things into gear, the second story sees the gang stranded on an alien planet with unlikely allies, the third story is a downtime story and I already explained what the last story is. A second boxset should really ramp up the story stakes, but this is just more of the same which is a massive shame because this is the Time War where ramping up the stakes is more important than ever.

Oh, and Bliss has to be one the blandest companions Big Finish has ever come up with. Rakhee Thakar tries her best and is very likeable but the character just isn't that interesting. That may change in subsequent boxsets, but for now I can only judge what we have.

I've pre-ordered the entire Time War series, so I'm in this for the long haul, but I hope the next one pushes the boat out a bit more because at the moment what should be one of Big Finish's most exciting series is just kind of meh. What's worse is that I know Big Finish can do great things, but they're not doing them with the Time War series. Nicholas Briggs said in the behind-the-scenes interview that this series could go on forever, but I think that's a terrible idea. There's only so many times you can have the Eighth Doctor say: "Nope! Definitely not fighting this Time War thing" before any drama you can wring from that dries up and the words just become hollow, especially since the Eighth Doctor's actually fought quite a few Time War battles now.

So @UnKillFill, to answer your question of whether this is worthy of a purchase, I would have to answer no. Or at the very least it's not something you need to get your hands on immediately. I wouldn't say it's to be avoided like the plague, but it's not essential listening by any means, especially if money's tight. Big Finish has a huge catalogue and there's other stuff that's more worthy of your time and money than Time War 2.
UnKillFill said:
To be clear, there are a LOT of things I *did* like in Dark Eyes- notably, the reintroduction of Alex Macqueen's criminally under-rated master, the fantastic Liv Chenka, and quite a few stories that are just fantastic... As for the rest, well...
Click to expand...
I agree with pretty much everything you said here, as you'll see from the rant I had about Dark Eyes a while back. I didn't hate Dark Eyes, it was really disappointing, especially since the end of To The Death could've been a springboard into something truly amazing. Sadly, Big Finish decided it was safer to hit the reset button so we could keep having Eighth Doctor stories (not that I mind, but they could've done something bold and kept the series going). If Moffat hadn't cucked out, To The Death would've been a fantastic lead-in to the Eighth Doctor fighting the Time War.

You also highlighted something I didn't cover enough in my original post - Dark Eyes is fucking impossible to follow. The first boxset ends with a reset button, but then the events of it still have effects on the later boxsets so you wonder what the point even was and trying to tell what's going on when and why is a constant struggle. The retro-genitor particles (yes, they're actually called that) just come off as what Yahtzee terms all-purpose cavity plot insulation and I already mentioned how much I hate Molly O'Sullivan so I won't go over that again.

Such a shame.
 
TheImportantFart said:
Sorry, I meant to post this sooner, but I was trying to get my thoughts on Time War 2 into a coherent format.

If you weren’t sold on Time War 1, this won’t convince you either. It starts off really well (better than the first set), but each story declines in quality until you get to the final story which... okay, let me explain further in a (relatively) spoiler-free way.

The first story - The Lords of Terror gets things off to a great start - it's a 1984-esque story and while those have been done many times before, this is a new spin on the concept and works really well in the Time War setting. You start to understand why the War Doctor ended up thinking the Time Lords deserved the bullet every bit as much as the Daleks.

I really enjoyed the next story, Planet of the Ogrons, although my enjoyment might have been enhanced by the fact I rewatched Frontier in Space literally the day before I listened to it. Jon Culshaw (who's more famous for his amazing Tom Baker impression) does a wonderful job as the Ogrons, and Julia McKenzie as the Twelve... the whole reason I started getting the Time War boxsets is because I found out they were continuing the Eleven's story as part of it. I've mentioned before that the Eleven is one of my favourite Doctor Who villains ever and I was intrigued to see what they'd do with him (her now) in a new regeneration. While I don't have a problem with gender-bending regenerations, it is a little strange that Time Lords seem to switch genders every regeneration these days. It happens to another character in this boxset too.

That said, Julia McKenzie is bloody great as the Twelve. I do sort of miss Mark Bonnar because he owned that role, but McKenzie brings a fresh take to it which works better than I ever would've imagined because it's so different to what's come before. If you're a fan of the Eleven, you'll be pleased to hear his (her) future is in good hands.

In the Garden of Death is... okay. There's a couple of good ideas, but it sort of feels like it's spinning its wheels and killing time. Not very memorable.

And Jonah is literally the final story of the last boxset - the Daleks and the Time Lords are chasing after the Doomsday Device To End All Doomsday Devices (TM), but it realises neither side is worthy of wielding its power so it destroys itself. Okay, that may be a bit of a spoiler but you'll see it coming a mile off because it's not even an original plot idea in the first place. One thing I did like in this story is that there's a Dalek Admiral - it's one of two Dalek variants in this boxset that are actually a pretty neat idea (the other's a Dalek Mad Scientist that's augmented itself by adding traits from other races).

I said Jonah was literally the final story of the last boxset, but once you've listened to Time War 2, you'll realise that it essentially is the last boxset - same overall structure, same kind of stories etc. The first story kicks things into gear, the second story sees the gang stranded on an alien planet with unlikely allies, the third story is a downtime story and I already explained what the last story is. A second boxset should really ramp up the story stakes, but this is just more of the same which is a massive shame because this is the Time War where ramping up the stakes is more important than ever.

Oh, and Bliss has to be one the blandest companions Big Finish has ever come up with. Rakhee Thakar tries her best and is very likeable but the character just isn't that interesting. That may change in subsequent boxsets, but for now I can only judge what we have.

I've pre-ordered the entire Time War series, so I'm in this for the long haul, but I hope the next one pushes the boat out a bit more because at the moment what should be one of Big Finish's most exciting series is just kind of meh. What's worse is that I know Big Finish can do great things, but they're not doing them with the Time War series. Nicholas Briggs said in the behind-the-scenes interview that this series could go on forever, but I think that's a terrible idea. There's only so many times you can have the Eighth Doctor say: "Nope! Definitely not fighting this Time War thing" before any drama you can wring from that dries up and the words just become hollow, especially since the Eighth Doctor's actually fought quite a few Time War battles now.

So @UnKillFill, to answer your question of whether this is worthy of a purchase, I would have to answer no. Or at the very least it's not something you need to get your hands on immediately. I wouldn't say it's to be avoided like the plague, but it's not essential listening by any means, especially if money's tight. Big Finish has a huge catalogue and there's other stuff that's more worthy of your time and money than Time War 2.

I agree with pretty much everything you said here, as you'll see from the rant I had about Dark Eyes a while back. I didn't hate Dark Eyes, it was really disappointing, especially since the end of To The Death could've been a springboard into something truly amazing. Sadly, Big Finish decided it was safer to hit the reset button so we could keep having Eighth Doctor stories (not that I mind, but they could've done something bold and kept the series going). If Moffat hadn't cucked out, To The Death would've been a fantastic lead-in to the Eighth Doctor fighting the Time War.

You also highlighted something I didn't cover enough in my original post - Dark Eyes is fucking impossible to follow. The first boxset ends with a reset button, but then the events of it still have effects on the later boxsets so you wonder what the point even was and trying to tell what's going on when and why is a constant struggle. The retro-genitor particles (yes, they're actually called that) just come off as what Yahtzee terms all-purpose cavity plot insulation and I already mentioned how much I hate Molly O'Sullivan so I won't go over that again.

Such a shame.
Click to expand...
Heh, I totally forgot about reading (and agreeing with) your "rant" about Dark Eyes. I don't hate Molly nearly as much as you do. (She didn't make much of an impression on me at all.. but yeah, he calling the TARDIS "tardy box" was fucking annoying.)

As for 8th Doctor Time War 2, I've already decided I'm going to get it. The Orgons episode seems like a fun romp, and "The Twelve" intrigues me. Yeah, "Bliss" was a total non-character in series one. Even the chick who starts off as 8's companion, changes names several times and then gets lost in time, somehow had more development in a quarter of an episode than Bliss did in 4.
 
AnAccount said:
that seems remarkably meh as far as doctors go. Nothing Incredibly bad, Or good.
Click to expand...

To be honest after the wild hit and miss nature of Moffat's run we could probably do with a bit of "meh" as the new characters bed in.
 
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Wärring Ornac said:
View attachment 520953
Click to expand...
The design is a bit too busy (especially with the walls) and the hinges in the columns look weird. I do like the crystalline look of the columns themselves and the walls would look a lot better if they simplified the designs on it. I'm just going to wait until we fully see it in action before passing any further judgement.
 
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