I’m really struggling with this ‘Five’s audios are boring’ stance which seems rampant throughout the forum.
I don’t remember being bored by any of them and some of them are excellent, IMO - Phantasmagoria and The Eye of the Scorpion being at the top. I didn’t find Red Dawn to be boring at all and whilst I’ll admit they’re not great stories, Land of the Dead, Winter for the Adept and The Mutant Phase definitely didn’t bore me.
That said, I just checked my review from way back when and I described this story as ‘languid’ and criticise the fact it’s mainly talking about stuff.
The Fifth Doctor is probably my least favorite on TV as well. I don’t know why I feel that he is boring but at least for me, it is probably a combination of companions that I don’t connect with and the general vibe of that Doctor.
It’s weird. I agree with the Fifth Doctor’s underwhelming reputation, but then Davison seems like such an outstanding human. That scene in the Five(ish) Doctors Reboot where he apparently thinks the TARDIS is real is so, so funny. I blame the writing not giving him material he could perform well on both the show and these early Big Finish audios.
I think Five is at his best in the novels, personally; he works really well as a book protagonist in a way I think he frequently doesn’t as much in other media
I also find a disproportionate number of Five audios boring, especially early on, but I think the older Nyssa arc is a really good set of audios with him that imo mostly don’t fall into the boring category at all
I first listened to it before I had watched Keeper, and I was okay, although there is a spoilery moment that works better if you’ve watched the TV story.
Not boring at all this one I would say.
Peter Davison is great as ever and it is a good exploration of the Traken Union and the Source.
But it is not the most fast-paced of stories and some of it can feel a bit exposition-y.
Still this was the perfect type of story for cleaning the gutters of my house
I’ve listened to this one before, but it’s been ages. One thing that stands out this time is that feels slightly Tolkien-esque with the relation between Kwandaar and the Source feeling similar to Morgoth and the Silmarils.
So I’ve just finished Part 3 and while this definitely started out on the slow side, it’s shaping up into something rather enjoyable. Kwundaar is definitely an interesting villain and I feel that the story works well as a prequel to Keeper of Traken as well as it does as a standalone story. If you haven’t seen Keeper, there’s only little bits that could be considered spoilery. There’s also some interesting ideas ideas in here such as Science vs. Religion, complacency in religion, and an argument against traditions for the sake of tradition. Looking forward to listening to Part 4.
Finished this one. I actually rather enjoyed it. If you can get past the slow start, it’s actually quite interesting. It’s actually something I could easily see being made for TV at the time. 4/5 stars.
Others point out how boring the Fifth Doctor stories are. Generally I don’t think they are. They just fall apart by the end. But…
This one is just plain boring. I didn’t care about any of the characters, even the TARDIS team, mainly because they gave me no reason to care about them. Traken is going to be taken over by…something. OK, don’t care. The Trakenites seem like speciest religious fundamentalists. Seems fine to me. Nyssa is going to die? OK, don’t care. She has the audio charisma of a dead seal. The Doctor was tricked? OK, don’t care. He acted like an idiot who thinks he is being smart. He deserves to get duped.
There have been fun stories in the Fifth Doctor range, but my god are they so few-and-far between that I dread when I come across another Fifth story.
These are my favs from the range so far, even if Scorpion suffers in the finnal hurdle.
It’s not, it just fails, not towards the end, but about the middle point.
Not boring, just… not interesting, or in the case of Land of the Dead, a confusing audio mess.
Sorry if I’m repeating myself from other threads. Just this subseries is rough.
I was going to post this in the Scorpion thread but seeing as you’ve mentioned it here..
I think Scorpion has a superb final episode and I remember thinking at the time of listening how well it sticks the climactic scenes.
I’m not really seeing any of this ‘Fifth Doctor all fall apart in the second half’ in the stories I’m listening to. But then, my sensitive ears seem more attuned to these audios than yours (joking).
They have interesting setups that are ruined by the “twist”. Aliens in Scorpion, character shift in Red Dawn. Or, IMO, they just generally don’t live up to the interesting beginning.
Personal taste in story style. You like what you like, and I’m happy for you. There will be stuff I really enjoy that you won’t, and that is OK.
Or we both have equally, but opposite, trash taste.
So I just finished this one, and I agree with the comments above, rather like Winter for the Adept and the Mutant Phase this was a solidly middle of the road story, I found it pleasant enough to listen to but it left very little impact and I doubt I’ll remember much of it by the end of the year
It seems like an attempt give Nyssa a bit more backstory / characterization but given she spends most of the first two episodes sick I’m not sure it really worked - unfortunately she just isn’t a very interesting character so far (through no fault of Sarah Sutton). Hopefully the Big Finish writers come up with more interesting ideas for her later in the range…
Oh, and I assume the swimsuit was a joking reference to her final appearance on TV where she wore a short skirt or something for no apparent reason? I haven’t seen that one either but I’ve seen it mentioned elsewhere.
