I’ve been listening to a lot of 8 backlog on Big Finish and I’m interested in everyone else’s opinion. (I’ll have my opinion on it as well) Multiple Choice
Lucie Bleedin’ Milller (Blood Of The Daleks Part 1 + 2 - To The Death)
Charley Pollard (Storm Warning - Zagreus)
Divergent Arc (Scherzo - The Next Life)
The Rest (Terror Firma - The Girl Who Never Was)
Charlie + Audacity (Audacity - In Bleak Midwinter cos Deadly Strangers isn’t out yet)
I feel like I’m not qualified to vote here because I haven’t listened to them all yet (really just Charley and Audacity to go) but Lucie Bleedin’ Miller is amazing plus I really like Stranded and the most recent Time War stuff.
So far I’ve listened to Charley and Lucie, and after only one and a bit seasons with Lucie, I can safely say she’s right down at the the bottom of my companions tierlist.
Having listened now to most of the 8th Doctor audios, for me it’s easily Lucie Miller then Stranded. I loved Charley up until the DU, but it felt like every writer bar a few hated her and I didn’t like most of her arc from Scherzo onwards
The original Charley run, Doom Coalition and Stranded for me.
I love Lucie but that run wasn’t my favourite in terms of story strength. Doom Coalition expanded on the boxset format they hit upon after the first Dark Eyes one and in my opinion is one of the strongest seasons of Doctor Who.
Stranded does something genuinely different and commits to it, I loved it.
The current Audacity/Cass runs are ongoing so don’t feel like I can appraise these fairly just yet but I do think the Cass Time War audios are a stronger run so far than the Bliss one (even though there were some genuine greats in that).
My favourite Eighth Doctor TARDIS team is Liv and Helen though but, again, the current audios with those are ongoing so not sure yet how they’ll stack up against Doom Coalition etc.
Charley’s initial run of audios (i.e. the R101 arc) is by far and away the most consistent of the bunch. Overall I’d say the highest highs of the Eighth Doctor’s catalogue were reached during her era (Seasons of Fear, The Chimes of Midnight, Neverland, Scherzo, The Natural History of Fear), so she gets my vote for best stories despite a noticeable drop in quality post-Caerdroia (the rushed ending of the Divergent arc certainly didn’t help matters).
Lucie gets my vote for best character arc and most fleshed out Doctor-companion dynamic. However, I must admit I only began to truly enjoy her era with series 4 of the 8DAs. The first three series were endlessly dull and uninspired, with the exception of a few standout releases (Horror of Glam Rock, Human Resources, The Zygon Who Fell to Earth). Series 4 is up there with the best seasons of the TV show though, it’s just incredible.
Then you’ve got the boxset era of the 8DAs. I’ve always had mixed thoughts about Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition and Stranded, so I’d probably rate Ravenous the highest. It’s non-stop peak once you get past the admittedly atrocious first boxset. The Time War boxsets are pretty damn consistent too, but Better Watch Out/Fairytale of Salzburg and Day of the Master just hit that sweet spot for me. Gotta give Ravenous the edge here.
Ravenous is my favourite because of the Eleven and the Nine meeting. And when you get to the 4th Boxset with Artron and the best twist ever concieved, it is PEAK BIG FINISH.
Same here but going just on general vibes, how much I love her character, rather than individual stories, I really like it. And that ending absolutely crushed me
See I’m the only person I know of who really didn’t like To the Death. And because of that, the ending was robbed of the impact others got from it. Given how much I like Lucie, I really should have felt it. But I didn’t… In fact, most of that fourth series was really hard to get through for me.
It was quite telling actually when the Further Adventures set came out years later, I was so glad to have more Lucie but found the set to be considerably below average that I found myself thinking, “Accurate recreation of the era then.”
I’m not down on it completely - Human Resources is an excellent two-parter, Max Warp is one of my very favourite Eighth Doctor stories and I think The Book of Kells is superb, I just wish I liked the range as much as I love Lucie herself.
I’ll revisit it one day I’m sure. Maybe I’ll dig out my old reviews for it and whack them up here. If I can pluck up the courage to withstand the bombardment of rotten fruit.
/j
Granted, I broke it down a lot more than you.