Hi, I am currently listening to Doctor Who: Redacted for the first time and would love to hear what you all think of it. This topic is only about season 1, so spoilers for season 2 please be blurred
I think it actually is a really good story and a clever use of audio media for storytelling. A podcast within a podcast - podception? All the cameos are delightful, especially Osgood - she needs to come back to our screens! I like that the Doctor plays second fiddle and is only on the periphery until the end, though Jodie Whittaker kills it as always when she arrives in the end.
My main issue with it is that Cleo has all the aspects of a horrible human being. She has spent years accusing her mother of murdering her father without a shred of evidence, even if her mom did a horrible thing by disowning her after her transition. Apparently this is a trend on the Powell Estate (think Mickey)
And when Abby chooses to stay with UNIT Cleo goes all âchange or Iâll have nothing to do with youâ on her despite Abby making the sensible choice of using UNIT as a means of getting answers, Cleo is not even trying for a second to understand one of her best friendsâ reasoning. Shawna is not much better and goes âBlock her assâ later on when Abby calls. The description on the Redacted podcast episodes even calls Abbyâs actions a betrayal, but to me she is being really clever and strong by choosing to stay with Osgood despite the circumstances of how they met.
Cleo is incredibly self-absorbed and arrogant towards everyone she meets and shows only a modicum of kindness towards her friends and brother.
I get that Cleo is going through a traumatic experience the whole series through and has dealt with rejection and loss most of her life, but her basic attitude towards others was consistent from the beginning. She fails in being kind. She does get kind of a redemption on this front in the end and I hope that that continues in season 2, kind of like Owen in Torchwood season 2.
I love that Mickeyâs band from the novelisation of Rose gets a name check
The voice actor voicing Madame Vastra sadly sound nothing like Neve McIntosh, though she had the best quote of this season: âI cannot abide unnecessary expositionâ.
I quite like the resolution, the Doctor only provides a set-up with Cleo being the one to defeat the threat and rescue everyone at the end after a touching conversation with her mom and finding out the truth about her dad.
And Cleo getting her alien foetus in a jar from Madame Vastra at the end is delightful.
I kind of look forward to season 2, the small trailer for it is intriguing.
Ok thatâs my rambling, incoherent thoughts out of the way, what are your thoughts?
Liked bits of it, especially the Kate and Osgood appearances and of course 13, but overall found that it dragged a bit and like you found that Abby was kinda the only one of the main cast that I liked.
I listened to it when it first came out, so I donât remember it well, but I remembered enjoying it pleanty. I think I didnât fully understand what was going on though and clearly I only thought it was âgoodâ and not âbrilliantâ because Iâve never sought to relisten to it which I do for a lot of things I love
I enjoyed listening to it but did struggle with Cleo too. Not the most likeable of characters.
I also kept getting mixed up between Abby and Shawna simply because, it my mind âShawnaâ is a more Scottish sounding name so I kept thinking she was the Scottish one, not Abby. But thatâs my problem.
I think I preferred Series 2 as this one felt a bit too long for the plot it actually had. 2 is tighter.
I really enjoyed it, The Blue Box Files podcast is wonderful and I feel like it was so well realised.
Very slight spoiler for the very beginning of series 2: I love that Raniâs podcast is kind of a competitor, and I imagine a whole spin-off of all past companions creating their own podcasts.
I loved Osgood being back, and also really want her back in the show! Make it happen Russell!!
I do kinda agree about the cast being a bit unlikeable. But not everyone can be perfect, itâs good to have difficult people.
I actually rated these episodes higher than the series 2 ones, didnât get on as well with that series because the characters and settings felt much less real to me. Also it was a bit forgettable, I literally canât remember much of series 2 at all now.
I remember when this came out, but as I listen to all my audio on a SanDisk MP3 player that has no internet connectivity and that I have to load manually (I rarely listen to things on my phone), I kind of skipped over this and never came back to it.
Just finished binging Redacted series 1 earlier today and why did it take me so long to do so, that was genuinely just so fun, loved the main cast, the cameos, the references, canât wait to binge series 2 at some point
It took one or two eps for me to really start enjoying it, but I have episode 6 coming up now and I really love it. Love the concept. It has already been said, but a podcast in a podcast is just very funny. At first I thought it would have been fun the would have put all of the story into the blue box file format, so that what we are listening to is always part of an in universe podcast episode (like in the web series Carmilla). But as the plot is evolving I guess that would stop making sense.
I especially love that they are explaining how humans in their day to day life outside of the Doctors circle of friends react to everything happening. Though itâs giving me Love and Monsters flashbacks a tiny bit.
The main cast is great and I really love how diverse it is. This has also been said I already, but I think itâs a bit weird how Cleo insists on her Mother having killed her father without a shred of evidence. But besides that I actually like her a lot. And I canât be the only one who hears Cleopatra when they say Cleo Proctor right?
Finished season one now. Iâd say it peaked around the middle.
I can get the dislike for Cleo and Shawna now after hearing their reaction to Abby staying behind at UNIT. Didnât make any sense whatsoever. And I didnât get how they got to the conclusion that UNIT killed her father? I mean they knew the disappearances happened at UNIT too.
Osgood was awesome as always. It has been said here already more then once, but it can never be said enough: We need her back on our screens!
I am still a bit confused on what the virus did exactly, but I donât think it really matters. Really like the solution to why Cleo was the only one able to remember the Doctor.
May it is only because I already knew that the actors werenât in the studios together, but imo that was really noticeable during the interactions between Cleo and the Doctor.
Loved Abbyâs and Shawnaâs ending.
Any opinions on season two? Donât know whether I want to listen too it yet, since I thought Season 1 had around ending and I heard the creator wasnât involved in season 2. (On the other hand I heard there is a badge for listening to all of it )
Series 2 is a bit shorter and therefore a bit tighter than Series 1 but I think I preferred Series 1. There are a lot less appearances from characters from the main TV series and whilst I type this, Iâm realising I hardly remember anything from the story!
Well it is kind of the appearances of folks from the TV show that stand out to me now about 4 months after I finished the first season, I was a bit meh about the actual story being told. So maybe that doesnât bode well
When the main character is super self-absorbed and rude to everyone around them it kind of feels like work to get through it, which is probably why I continuously put stuff above it in my playlist
I listened to the first season and the first two episodes of the second season on my commute today.
I loved the first season. It was insanely interesting and the story was great.
Now for the parts of the second season I listened to: I didnât really feel it. It really doesnât seem to have the same charm as the first season to me. That could of course still change in the later episodes, but after the first two I am honestly not too convinced.
and clearly I only thought it was âgoodâ and not âbrilliantâ because Iâve never sought to relisten to it which I do for a lot of things I love
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