So it’s just been announced that David Bradley and the Adventure in Space and Time team are returning to Big Finish (The First Doctor enters a new Unbound era - News - Big Finish). However, unlike the previous series with this team, these will be Unbound and of much more dubiousness when it comes to canon and therefore much more “wonderful creative freedom” in storytelling. What are your thoughts on this new announcement?
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Can’t wait. Bradley is excellent as the First Doctor. Prefer him to Noonan by a lot. The article mentions the Cushing Dr Who films as inspiration so that give me a lot of hope for some weirdness.
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Oh this sounds really fun
Haven’t listened to the Colin War Doctor ones (and didn’t finish deadline because it was quite heavy, need to go back to it tbf), but yeah, really like unbound stuff
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I love the unbound range and can’t wait for this! I’m curious about where exactly this diverges from canon, and how just how weird and different they’ll go
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Really excited for this as I have greatly enjoyed Bradleys Big Finish stories, but it is a long way away and the article gives so little information about the set, but actually considering how far away it is that may be for the best.
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I assume it’ll be 3/4 stories one after the other, but I’d love it if it were 3/4 different unbound 1st doctors
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Finally more David Bradley!
I like most of the 1st Doctor Adventures he did with the AISAT cast before Noonan took over the role.
Me too, though I have come to slowly like Noonan a bit more, so I guess it takes some time. His take on One is very different, though.
Honestly, I found these pretty lacklustre. Colin is great in them as always but the writing is all over the place and very confusing and I don’t think they quite knew what they wanted to do with them. But that’s just my two cents!
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I’m not a fan of this cast but have only listened to the first box set. I do quite like the idea of it being inspired more by the Cushing film vibe. Hope Claudia and Jemma tone down the RP accents though.
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I’m not either. I’ve listened to the first boxset and their appearance in a River boxset. I enjoy Bradley, but feel that the others were cast for their look over their voice in the original docudrama and just don’t feel right. At least other recasts were cast specifically for their vocal capabilities.
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Thinking about this more and about how much I’d love boxsets like this
3/4 stories per set, each answering different ‘what if’ questions, but with similar cast for all the stories so they really get to show range and you get some amount of consistancy across all of them, despite how different all the stories could be thematically and that.
You do a 1st doctor set, a 10th doctor set, a 5th, 6th, 7th, etc
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Just saw the news. Having heard all of the 1DA with this cast and going through a massive journey currently with the First Doctor media, I have a few things I want to say, with a tinfoil hat, a biased POV and with spoilers for the aforementioned adventures:
I think, or maybe it’s just me hoping, that they’re going to make it so that the original 1DA were also this very same alternate reality all along. I don’t know, I always felt like a plot twist of this sort was always their intent, what with the different-sounding cast, the encounter with The Master, and even contradictions with other media, such as The Hollow Crown had.
The Hollow Crown is the last one so far and it ends on a cliffhanger with something pulling the TARDIS towards it. It’s still unresolved.
I also noted it has contradictions with other materials such as the novels The Plotters and The Empire of Glass (which also contradict each other 
).
But, that may just be me and my continuity-oriented perception. I’m also of the group of people that doesn’t like the different voices despite the high quality of the stories, so I’ve always felt that adding a plot twist such as “this is all a virtual simulation the TARDIS crew is stuck in and they look and sound a bit different” or “this was all in the Land of Fiction all along” is the best way to go.
I do think, however, that we’ve had a problem with the Dreyfus Master no longer being available.
The biggest issue is that he’s been established as being the first Master the Doctor encountered after leaving Gallifrey, and I believe he looked like that too when they last saw each other.
This is very pivotal for both the Master and the Doctor and Dreyfus’s face and voice has been inevitably attached to it. With him needing to be dismissed completely, it creates so many limitations now that I’d just be fine with them saying it was an alt. universe all along or something of the sort. The first time the Doctor encountered the Master after leaving Gallifrey was not what we saw in The Destination Wars, and it was not a Master portrayed by James Dreyfus.
Anyway, just a little bit of my headcontinuity for this. I’m very intrigued and looking forward to these audios one way or another!
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The problem with the Dreyfus Master is that he has also had an encounter with the Second Doctor (The Home Guard), the Fourth Doctor (Blood of the Time Lords) and the Seventh Doctor (The Psychic Circus).
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Yes, but he doesn’t have to be the first encounter the Doctor had with the Master after leaving Gallifrey.
Granted, I haven’t listened to the audios in which they meet him yet, but if all they said was something like “this is an early version of you” then it’s possible to work around it.
Just listened to the Second Doctor one and it doesn’t specify anything beyond that this is the Master.
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I’ve actually started relistening to the original run of David Bradley adventures in preparation for these coming out next year, and it’s reminded me how much I adore this team.
HOWEVER.
As much as I adore the ‘Unbound’ range, Nicholas Briggs has already tried to resuccitate it once before.
And we got one of the most atrocious mini-series I’ve ever come across.
I have my fingers crossed that ‘The First Doctor Unbound’ will be marvellous… but the first time I smell a rat - a rat tattooed with Doctor of War on its back - then I’m throwing in the towel.
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After having listened to a large majority of his original Range, I am really curious about this one.
I am not too familiar with the Unbound Stuff, having only listened to the Debut of the “main” Unbound Doctor, but I find it has a lot of Potential. (Not too interested about the Colin War Stuff, as much as I love Colin, it sounds a bit boring and something which I may do when I run out of other new BF Colin Stories).
I must say I am still warming myself up to Noonan and his Stories and preferred Bradley at times (maybe it’s because of the Stories and Feel mainly).
I am cautiously optimistic, I hope this line of Stories will surprise me, it’s taking some Inspirations from the Cushing Movies is a nice touch for sure!
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I really like his 1DAs, only two stories I didn’t like out of the ten (The Destination Wars and For the Glory of Urth), so excited to have them back.
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I got hopelessly lost while listening to this story today! I only meant to have a three mile walk, but was so focused on my listening that I missed a footpath and ended up doing nearly double that. Oops 
My feet are sore now 
I do like David Bradley’s first Doctor and thought that Susan’s portrayal was good too. Ian and Barbara’s voices weren’t quite ‘right’ for me although I did think the characters themselves worked within the story. Ian is one of my favourite companions and, other than AISAT which was a bit different, this is the first time I’ve encountered someone other than William Russell in the part.
I think I will get accustomed to this cast. Listening to the story as one of the Into The Tardis podcast selections means I’m getting used to jumping around within the overall timeline and it’s not one of my strengths to remember exactly what timelines were established when. I believe the next story, The Great White Hurricane, carries on directly from this one though so it will be interesting to spend more time with these particular interpretations of the characters.
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There was a time when I thought this was Big Finish’s most consistently reliable range. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t turn out to be what I’d expected when they were announced -First Doctor but in the modern series format.
When it had the 1963 theme and was similar length episodes I did think they’d missed a trick, while still really enjoying Bradley and co.
This new range sounds more like what I had initially expected so I’m definitely excited, although more cautiously this time.
I do really like Noonan’s First Doctor a lot but there’s no reason why these can’t co-exist, as they serve different purposes. I’m keen to listen to this month’s First Doctor release but I’m a bit deflated with the direction that particular range has taken. Older Vicki now older Steven? With the Second Doctor range doing older Jamie and Zoe as well. So predictable.
I want Noonan and Cornelius on new adventures with Michael Troughton ploughing through Season 6B with none of the trappings of the Second Doctor’s era on TV. But that’s a different topic for a different thread, just context as to why I’m quietly thrilled we might be getting something genuinely different for the First Doctor, even if it’s an unbound continuity…
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I’m getting the feeling that one reason they are doing this “older companions” thing (which includes old Jo returning to travel with the Doctor in the Third Doctor Adventures) is that it’s become much harder for the actors to change their voices so that they sound like their younger selves. It’s easier to have them play older versions of their characters rather than having them strain their voice, trying to sound 50 years younger. And they obviously don’t want to use recasts as long as they can work with the original actors.
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