It’s time to listen to and discuss Scherzo
Buy it online using the link above.
Even if you listened to it before and just want to discuss it - dive right in! Just please use spoiler tags!
Everyone who participates will get a coveted Audio Club badge! 
Just for fun, add your rating here:
Fun fact: Rob Shearman wrote this on his honeymoon
Hmm…
That’s a bit disturbing with all the “I don’t love you” stuff 
I now want to know exactly what happened on that honeymoon…
Yes we’re finally at Scherzo!
I love this story, genuinely I think it might be the best DW story ever. Paul McGann and India Fisher are on excellent form, which is good because the story requires them to be. On a story level, the amount of character work is astounding. Establishing what love means to the Doctor, why he takes companions, even addressing his constant self-sacrificing nature. And Charley gets some great material here, finally facing what it means to love the Doctor.The Sound Creature is a work of brilliance, a creature that communicates through inflection and emotions is an excellent concept, and technically it’s realised so well. To top it all off, each part is introduced essentially by Paul McGann performing an audiobook. I really can’t think of anything I’d change about this story, for me it’s just that good.
I’ll give this a relisten (my third listen ever) this weekend to see if my view has changed. But as I’ve posted a few times before this is my story to have a controversial take on. In that while I think the horror elements are incredible, I hate the characterisation of 8 so much in it that I didn’t like this overall on first listen, and on second listen I liked it more but only enough to be a 7 or 8/10. Nowhere near my favourite Shearman.
We’ll see if a new listen changes that! Been looking forward to this Audio Club.
Tagging @AlfieSigma for no reason at all…
Scherzo time? Just let me quickly put Scherzo on the radio…
I genuinely don’t have the words to express how much I love this story. I don’t know that I can even articulate why. It’s just…phenomenal. I always like audios with an extremely limited cast, and this is no different. On top of that, the experimental nature of the story, the horror elements, the emotions and the fantastic acting, everything just comes together so well to tell this story. Thankfully I don’t have to get my thoughts in order to convince anyone; this is one uncontroversial pick for a favourite.
Ooooooo we’re here! Scherzo freaked me tf out when I first listened. It really is one of those ones that sets me on edge. It’s not a favourite of mine, but it is bloody good
I mean… It’s simply perfect. It’s creepy, it’s emotional, it’s a love story, it’s a horror story, it’s a story about legacy, a story about music, a story about life, a story about death. It’s such an all encompassing piece.
Absolute perfection. One of my favorite stories ever if you can’t tell.
I think the biggest endorsement I can give Scherzo (other than naming my cat after it) is saying that the “sound creature that repeats what people are saying” story gave me echolalia, the thing where you repeat phrases/sounds. I spent months randomly going “But I love you!”, “You silly little girl”, “We are going to love you! die here.”
Scherzo is one of the best Big Finish productions that I’ve listened to. The story really makes use of the audio medium it’s in, and by god does Rob Shearman know how to do horror. I think I read (so, take with a pinch of salt) that Paul McGann and India Fisher did it in one take, which is insane
Is Scherzo truly that good?
It’s unlike anything that has come before or since. It’s a story of nothing and everything, with two talented performers in their strongest performances while surrounded by a white void and a silence pierced by some of the most intense, terrifying and riveting sound design ever created for an audio drama. No music. No Daleks, Cybermen, Master. No witticisms or dashing rescues. Just two people sharing one space and going through the emotions. And it really shouldn’t work as well as it does, but it’s marvellous from beginning to end.
This is easily the best thing I have ever heard from Big Finish.
Yes, it is that good.
I really enjoyed this one. I have some minor nitpicks, and the reveal of the mystery is never as satisfying and the mystery itself, but still a solid 9/10. It’s good to be back to the Main Range after the diversion of Gallifrey in the Extra Club.
This is exactly what I am talking about when I say we should explore the complicated Emotions the Doctor has towards love.
Anyway, I adore this Audio. Creepy, Beautiful, Bitter, Emotional and a Story about so much. Shearman is always a top-notch Writer, and this is yet another Masterpiece to add to his Collection of Top-Notch Stories.
Exploring this weird Realm in the Way this Story does make you excited but also sightly terrified what this Divergent Universe has in store for. And while none of those latter one hit the same strengths as this one does, it’s just so good. This Story is just made for Audio, not for books, not for TV, just Audios. McGann and Fisher are excellent in their Roles here. They bring out every Emotion, every Revelation in superb way.
Not to mention McGann’s EXCELLENT Narration about a King and how his Kingdom slowly decayed. Not to mention how well we use the Medium for some ‘Jumpscares’, some of them really got me.
I know this will be a unique one, but I was truly in disbelief when I heard for the first time
(NSFW Warning for this short Sentence:) that they were eating a Corpse like what 
!
The Sound Design is just superb! Just superb work all around, I could go now about what the Story says about Art, Life, Death or even Love, but I will spare that for some other time.
Also because it’s fun, here is a useless Fun fact about my Experience with that Audio: I listen to this Audio for the first time right after watching The Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa from 2002, does this add anything to the Discussion? No. But it’s a useless fun fact, so who cares!!
Anyway, this Story is amazing. 11/10
Awh they are adorable, awesome that you named a Cat after this Audio!
When I got to this story a few years ago it just didn’t click. It was fine, but like a lot of the 8 and Charley monthly range stories before it it’s just okay and I’m not super invested in their relationship. I feel like where it gets a lot of its reputation from is the darker elements that to me just came off as the dying breath of the Wilderness Years’ tryhard edginess. Maybe on a relisten I’d change my mind a bit though. Though with its fame and acclaim it does get me feeling like Peter Davison here:
I’m not alone !!
My second favourite story in the whole series, a character study that gets at the hearts of The Doctor with a high concept and beautifully realised monster.
Scherzo is the perfect finale for Classic who as a whole, revealing the Doctor’s motive in his traveling and having companions, at one to remind himself of mortality, and to find someone for whom he would die. Everyone was on their A games, Shearman brought his greatest script, McGann and Fisher bring their greatest performances, and the audio team over at Big Finish create a legitimately ambient audio experience which is at once a transcendent listen as well as the most present and palpable villain in Doctor Who, and second in all of art. The “NOT FAIR” jumpscare sold me on idea that this was a creature fearing for its life with all its being. Magical, deranged, scary, touching, playful, Scherzo.
