Okay, fine. Have my 9/10 Scherzo.
I still don’t love how cruel 8 is to Charley here. I understand it better each listen. I respect the characterisation more each listen. But it will never ever work fully for me honestly that any Doctor - let alone 8 - would treat someone he cares about as callously as he does here.
But!! I continue to love everything around that characterisation, such as the superb horror, soundscape, and performances. And I’ve grown to like the characterisation as well as what it has to say about The Doctor more than I ever used to.
This story went from a 6/10 to an 8/10 to a 9/10 for me. I don’t think I’ll ever fully like this characterisation of Eight here, and I don’t think this story will ever resonate with me as well as it does other people. But I concede.
Scherzo is great.
Woah you have been converted into one of us!!
As for the Characterization, I do get your Issue, but honestly I have no troubles with it. I think it does make sense for him behaving like that, even if it feels not in line with the Doctor that we know. Then again, it is very much a Moment of taking the Doctor out of his comfort zone, with Incarnations like 8, I am not surprised at all to see him snap like that. I do agree, he is too cruel to Charley and really even if it makes sense for me, there is no excuse behind of course, but I think it works really well considering how dark 8 can be, looking at other expanded Media.
(Just me kinda explaining my view point on it, hope it doesn’t come across as “dig” or anything like that. You are of course valid for feeling this way, and there is certainly a debate to be had if it works or not, so feel free to disagree with anything I said).
Either way, I am glad you can find some more enjoyment out of it after each listen!
I was not prepared for the jump scares.
Yes they were loud, yes they were shocking, but more than that, they were somehow so unnatural and unnerving that they actually sounded like something from a different universe.
It doesn’t help that I was in bed at the time, we were resting and kind of napping after a long busy day, so I was kind of drifting in and out of the story and I had to rewind a few times because I fell asleep but then WHAM!
I think they will haunt me for a long time.
But aside from that (and I think a genuine jump scare that is genuinely horrifying is a huge achievement), this is just an amazing episode.
I’m giving it 5/5 because wow, it’s absolutely brilliant, however I’m not totally sold on the ending. That was a bit of a letdown. But I still think it is leaps and bounds above everything else in the Main Range so far, maybe better than Chimes simply because it freaked me out so much.
I need to listen again soon!!
But hey anyone who likes this and hates Ten/Rose is a hypocrite! This is a love story featuring the Doctor! He loves her, she loves him!
I’m sad that I didn’t listen to this when it was released because now I know that they get out of the Divergent Universe, I can imagine it would have been so good to not know what could happen.
But I digress, I’m waffling.
Love it!
yup and I’m not fond of EightCharley either it’s why though this episode is great, it’s not a favourite of mine
I’m sure I’ve told my ‘nearly crashed the car whilst listening to Scherzo’ story when one of those sound scares happened.
I listened to it again, whilst doing some housework.
Knowing that the jump scares were coming, but not remembering exactly when they were, made it even more stressful.
Especially when I was washing up glasses, I was soooo careful in case I dropped one haha.
I still don’t entirely get the ending, how they merged together or whatever, but see it as just a weird thing about the universe they are in…
I’ve listened to this story with my mum in the car before and every time a jumps are approached I turned the volume right down!
(I listen to quite a bit of Big Finish with my mum and Scherzo is one of her favourites! Along with Loups-Garoux and all of Gallifrey. We’re very similar!)
I. Euhm. Robert Shearman, you are an insane man, and this is the best Doctor Who story ever written./lh
This is gonna sound insane but I really like the fairytale that the parts start out with too, to the point I might like it more than the main story. I think it’s really lovely and exactly the type of stuff Shearman excels at. The more abstract, almost childish feeling stories that are really not childish at all. It’s like some of his non-Who short stories I’ve read/listened but it’s allowed to be an element of something larger, like it doesn’t need to try standing on its own, so it can just fully be in the ‘background’ and feel like an actual thing and evolve beyond being just a story. Does it make sense what I’m saying? Oh well. I translated the fairytale parts to my mum, because I thought she’d find it neat, and she did, so that instantly makes it cooler of course.
The part in it about how good and evil (it doesn’t have to be that simple but I feel like Robert did intend it that way) people can take the opposite from the same thing/two opposites can easily corrupt to become the other, (aside from being suuuper wonderful irony) I question if that’s supposed to be a bit about forthcoming Charley/Eight development? That the Doctor is going to learn more about human kindness, but that in turn Charley is going to lose more of herself, like is already happening a little bit here… Or at least if that was the intention before the whole Divergent Universe thing got all shuffled up behind the scenes. Like I at least feel that the king is intended to represent the Doctor in one way or another with the king banning music immediately being followed by Eight asking Charley to stop humming, but I’m not yet sure how exactly. Gonna have fun thinking about that!
Ten slash ten by the way if anyone was still questioning that