Big Finish: The Unbound Doctors

Yes, absolutely there are no pre-requisites for this range. It’s all ‘what ifs’ and they’re all self contained. Platt does make reference to some of his other EU work such as the novel Lungbarrow but it’s not at all important to understand the story in the audio

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He Jests at Scars has Melanie Bush the edgy dark version??? oh boy I was not prepared for this :hot_face:

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As long as you know the general plot of Trial of a Time Lord, the end of War Games, and who The Brigadier is, you’re good

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Oh , I should wait a little then! I’m on season 3

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To be fair, you don’t really need to know them, they’re explaned in the story as well, but being points of divergence it helps a little to have a rough idea of how things are meant to go, so you can see where things went different

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There aren’t any true prerequisites, but there are a few stories which probably work better if you’re familiar with some stuff from Classic Who - I’ve outlined these below (spoiler tags in case you’d rather go in blind, as SirCarolyn said, all the stories should make perfect sense without these).

Auld Mortality: None that I know of
Sympathy for the Devil: Season 7 - 10 of Classic Who
Masters of War: The Daleks and Genesis of the Daleks
A Storm of Angels: None that I know of
He Jests at Scars: Season 23 of Classic Who
Exile: The War Games
Full Fathom Five: None that I know of
Deadline: None that I know of
Doctor of War: Seasons 12 - 16 of Classic Who

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Thank you so much!

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No problem! Auld Mortality and A Storm of Angels do also feature Susan, but they don’t reference any specific stories from season 1 and 2 as far as I know.

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I love the first 8 Unbounds. I don’t consider the more recent stuff Unbound in the same way – I almost wish they’d used a different title for the Doctor of War stuff and whatever this Bradley stuff is, but hey.

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He Jests at Scars: Micheal Jayston is wonderful, isn’t he? Such a brilliant performance here, giving the script a depth that perhaps the writing doesn’t 100% have. My least favourite so far, I think, but still very good. I love Mel <3

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I’ve been watching Micheal Jayston in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy recently. He’s just superb! Such a detailed and rich performer.

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Jayston also narrated the audiobook that I listen to part of ages ago.

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I’m actually in the middle of Asking for a Friend right now, Warner has got to be in my top five Doctors at least, he has that ‘age beyond his years’ vibe that Matt Smith does in his own way in my opinion

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Deadline isn’t just my favourite Rob Shearman script. It’s my favourite Big Finish audio - which is saying something when Chimes is literally probably my favourite Doccy Who story ever.

Elsewise I listened to Sympathy of the Devil twice but both times a very long time ago. I’ve enjoyed Warner with Benny in the little I’ve heard of him. Doctor of War is absolute pish and a waste of time

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The only Unbound story I’ve actually done is Deadline, and it’s one of the best stories I’ve ever listened to. Scorching hot take incoming; Robert Shearman is really good with this writing business

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Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave? /s

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Ok yous are all really convincing me to give Sympathy for the Devil a third listen because I remember enjoying it but I genuinely remember nothing else, let alone it being as good as what you’re saying :eyes:

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Deadline: wtf goes on in Robert Shearman’s head

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in case ^ that was unclear. holy shit. Deadline was really good. (suicide tw) can’t believe Dr Who kills himself at the end like. What. Or at least that’s how I’m interpreting it. Derek Jacobi is a force of nature as always. Shearman writes for stage right? His audios always strike me as very theatrical, all the words and repetitions and scenes are very deliberate and not necessarily naturalistic, which I really enjoy. It’s drama, I like it when it’s heightened and a bit weird. I liked that more than Scherzo. Am I allowed to say that? I think it was better.

And my headphones died :sob: is this the universe telling me not to listen to Exile?? Guess I’ll go and write some torturing Allison fic until they’ve charged a bit or something :person_shrugging:

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He was a stage writer before BF, and is mostly a prose writer now!

That’s very much the atmosphere of his plays! As well as his short stories – Shearman does this very particular device where he repeats a word or phrase in different contexts, which opens up a story to new perspectives beautifully. Just the simple act of allowing the reader to make connections between different parts of a story adds so much depth and theming!

And I also prefer Deadline to Scherzo :zipper_mouth_face:

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