I wouldn’t say I was disappointed with the story, but it fell flat in a few areas that I wish it hadn’t.
Great historical context, generally okay characters. The writing wasn’t poor, I actually think that the acting let it down.
I’m having a bit of a similar reaction to playing something like Oblivion or Skyrim… it feels like Big Finish (at least as this point, I get that it’s earlier) only have a few recurring voice actors and that breaks my immersion a little bit.
As always with the American stories thus far, the accents range from being sub-par to outright parody.
Just listened to this today and I enjoyed it, solid 3 stars - which is my “nothing special but on average I’m happy” rating.
Could have been 4 with a little tightening of the plot and better accents - I couldn’t tell the difference between half the “american” gangsters, but it didn’t really matter because most of them dropped dead in their second scene anyway
Much better than Minuet in Hell, here it was quite clear everyone was treating it as a bit of fun rather than pretending to be serious.
Really enjoyed this one. The funniest of the main range so far, its so camp and theres so many fun and goofy accents. Does the usual silly Mark Gatiss story super well.
Nearly finished my relisten. It’s all over the place in the beginning but the puzzle pieces eventually fall into place. I like these different factions all vying for the alien technology and yeah the accents are silly but it’s fun. You even get nuance with some of the bad guys like Chaney. He is impressive as to get the weapons before the authorities and then planning to sell it to the CIA, doubly impressive considering the CIA didn’t even exist yet for another 9 years…
Sometimes it’s a bit too silly for my tastes, I find Cosmo to be a weak villain (the Scum Devine jokes were funny though), and the real aliens weren’t that great either. Not to mention the War of the Worlds stuff is too detached from the main plot.
I’m a big War Of The Worlds fan so I thought I’d enjoy this more than I did. I’ve listened to it a couple of times now. I love the setting, the Orson Wells appearance (and The Doctor fanboying over him.) Also big fan of The Doctor being a 30s Noir Private Investigator for 30 seconds, can we please just get a spin off boxset where he’s stranded on Earth and just becomes a P.I for a number of episodes? /lh
(By the way, I’ve not listened to Stranded yet. So if that is the plot, pure coincidence on my part!)
A big chunk of it just doesn’t land for me. I can’t abide the villain’s squeaky high pitched alien voices. I think that lets the Invaders From Mars down a lot for me, it just makes me cringe a little. Some of the mob stuff is a little so-so. Enjoyed this more the second time around.
My rating 3(6)/5)10) makes it seem like a meh story which I remember it being. But it was also one of those really fun stupid stories at the same time something only Doctor Who/Big finish can do
I generally like Gatis scripts more than most, in any medium. However I struggled to get into this one. There’s nothing really wrong with it, its just lacking a hook. The story goes on, almost for all four parts, without something to really get into. 3/5
Invaders From Mars might have been a decent story as written if the actors had used regular American accents and not exaggerated mobster movie accents. I just couldn’t take the story seriously. I was expecting the Doctor to realise he was in a movie, but alas, he didn’t.
I was going to bring that up too but that seems to be the general consensus. The story isn’t bad, and Wells stuff was fun. But the accents are really distracting.
I thought this was a really solid story, the wells stuff was a delight, and it’s just a load of fun. I think stories like this are absolutely required for DW to function, they’re not out of the box, they’re not trying something new, they’re not 10/10 masterpieces, but they’re the cornerstone of a good season of Doctor Who.
This is Charley and 8’s Time Heist or Town Called Mercy, and it’s great at being that.
I also think seeing Gatiss’ perspective on american history is interesting, he’s such an anglophile that it’s strange to hear a non-british historical from him. It’s definitely got those touchstones of those other stories, but the different setting gives it a very distinct feel that I just really like.
