Frobisher - Private Eye is on the case in one more Audio Club Extra discussion
You can buy this story from Big Finish for the princely sum of £3.99
Rate and review below:
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5 Likes
I am about 20 minutes in and all I can think is that I want a Melody Malone/River Song and Frobisher cross over.
10 Likes
Well, this one is a bit of an oddity.
It’s technically a 6th Doctor release, but it barely features the Doctor. Frobisher is front and centre, and if you can’t stand him, then you’ll struggle with this one. I enjoyed him in Holy Terror, and he’s even better here.
Robert Shearman writes very good dialogue, and there’s good humour in this. This is a riff on the classic crime noir detective story, and it mimics the style well. The plot itself just isn’t very interesting or memorable. And the supporting characters sound like over-the-top comic book characters, so that felt a bit grating. The villain is pretty good though. The entire story is told through lengthy dialogue scenes, so there’s not a lot of opportunity for worldbuilding.
Fine, but not anything I’d rush to relisten to.
6/10.
11 Likes
I found this to be fun. I like Frobisherand it is sad this is the last audio with him. 3.5/5
6 Likes
A very real struggle for me.
Which annoys me because the premise of a shape shifting detective companion most at home in penguin form is fantastic 
The style of the story was great with the narration, but the story itself falls totally flat for me about halfway through when the great big frog gangster takes front and centre (with his horrendous accent).
The bits with the Sixth Doctor repeatedly coming back for Mr. Frobisher because he is lonely is great, Colin Baker is just delightful (even if he also puts on that bad accent…)
TLDR; Accent = Baaaaad!!
7 Likes
Well, this is the final time Frobisher appears in the audios, so at least you won’t have to listen to him again.
He’s always delightful, but the bad accent was both hilarious and cringeworthy. Colin is an actor who totally pulls something like that off without coming across as uncomfortable though.
7 Likes
Is that really it? This one and The Holy Terror?
6 Likes
Yup! That’s what the wiki claims at least:
This story featured Frobisher in the lead role. It was his second audio appearance (his first was The Holy Terror); the Doctor did appear in this story but was mostly sidelined for Frobisher’s story. This was also the final audio story to feature Frobisher, and the first to feature Josiah W. Dogbolter.
So you’ll still have to endure the frog gangster…
6 Likes
Yep - sadly. He’s never been back. Not even for an anniversary cameo.
To be fair, Frobisher is a creation of the comics and with Dogbolter present, this is very much a comic strip on audio.
7 Likes
Unfortunately, I found this to be an extremely annoying audio to the point where I had to turn it off 3/4 of the way through. I like what I’ve read/heard by Robert Shearman, but I didn’t care for this one at all.
5 Likes
I don’t like this one, and that really hurts.
Robert Shearman is practically an idol to me, and is most definitely my favourite writer to have ever touched Doctor Who.
However, The Maltese Penguin is a love letter to a genre I can’t stand, and because of that I really couldn’t get into it.
It’s as funny as a Shearman story but the plot is so loose and uninteresting that I just didn’t care.
It’s not terrible, but for a Robert Shearman story this feels like the depths of scriptwriting.
6/10
Full review here. If you enjoy, feel free to drop a like:
6 Likes
I agree with your review. I admit I went into this audio expecting that I wouldn’t care for it because I don’t like film noirs or bad accents (especially of the Big Finish variety), and that’s all this audio really is. I have no idea what the plot was, and the humor (if there was any by my standard) was covered up by the other low points. If they had to do a film nor (which makes sense because that’s the “world” Frobisher comes from), I would have preferred they took a more serious approach (including where the Doctor and Frobisher were played exclusively by two different actors).
6 Likes
Linking my review here - I enjoyed it, mostly, but it’s eminently meant to be a little bit of bonus fluff.
8 Likes
I enjoyed this one. I remember listening to it the first time around and I didn’t find it at all jarring, despite its marked differences in tone from the peerless “The Holy Terror”. I mean, this was supposed to be a throwaway bit of fun, a bonus. Plus, Doctor Who has always featured radical tonal shifts from story to story. It was great fun. It’s not meant to be genre defining, ground breaking or particularly noteworthy. It’s meant to be fun. It met that brief.
7 Likes
That was a fun, light escapade away after the very heavy and dark Spare Parts. Not an out-and-out classic like Shearman’s other output but a light comic detective story. And sometimes, that’s what you need and that’s the magic of Doctor Who bay-beee.
10 Likes
Loved The Holy Terror but hardly made to the end of this one. I can’t remember where I lost track. 
4 Likes
Blimey this really is a struggle.
The story is dull. The performances are bad - and Colin is the absolute worst when he’s playing Frobisher.
The John Ridgeway gag is cute though.
7 Likes
I loved it! It reminded me of those TNG holodeck episodes where we’d have a noir detective story for a hot minute. I had a blast personally! 
6 Likes
Yeah, that was bad - really bad.
Colin as Frobisher was awful - truly one of his worst performances, Jane Goddard (Mrs Shearman for those who didn’t know) isn’t great; Toby Longworth seems to be channelling Mark Gatiss as Dogbolter and Alastair Lock’s weird Peter Lorre impression all add up to a cast who sound like they don’t 100% have faith in the material. Robert Jezek just about comes out with his feathers intact as Frobisher but as 90% of his stuff is just voiceover that’s hardly a glowing accolade.
And the story is just so dull - everyone looking for the ‘something’ and it having people inside clapping - eh? What? And Alicia turns out to be Frobisher’s ex and those kissing scenes with Frobisher shape-shifted into the Doctor - ugh!
If I didn’t know Shearman had written this I would never have guessed - it just doesn’t feel like his standard of work.
And also, I’m not 100% convinced this fits with Frobisher comic back story because there are a lot of implications that his ‘natural’ form is a penguin (his ex also took that shape a lot of the time apparently) but I’m pretty sure in the comics he only looks like that initially because he gets a virus which stops him shape-shifting and then chooses to stay like that. In his first story he doesn’t start out as a penguin.
0.5/5
ETA - went to change my score on TARDIS Guide - I gave it 3.5/5 originally!! I obviously didn’t remember much about it and just guessed that I quite liked it because Frobisher was in it!!
6 Likes
Oh and I forgot to say - probably because I’m blocking it out - that the theme tune at the end I possibly the worst version I’ve ever heard and seems to go on forever. It sounds like it was produced on the Casio keyboard I had when I was about 11 using the ‘saxophone’ setting!
4 Likes