Bit over halfway through “The Dimension of Lost Things”
I am liking this
There, finished “Most Wanted”
A solid introduction box-set the way I see it. Jo Martin sells it just as well on audio as she did on-screen
I wish they would stick with what is told on-screen about when this happens in the Doctor’s timeline, the implication is very heavy that this happens before the First Doctor. “Did they force me back into becoming a child?”
I hope as well that they’ll in the future bring in more of the characters surrounding the Fugitive Doctor: Karvanista, Lee, Gat and Tecteun (imagine those mother/daughter interactions )
Or a story seeing something like the siege of the temple of Atripos from her point of view.
My favourite of the three is “The Dimension of Lost Things”, followed by “Fast Times”. “The Legend of Baba Yaga” was good but that “stereotypically classic witch’s voice and cackle” is lost on me (though about 2145,36% better than in Nekromanteia )
Ratings and ranking of the Fugitive Doctor in Big Finish so far for me:
- “Coda - The Final Act” 5/5
- “The Dimension of Lost Things” 4,5/5
- “Fast Times” 4/5
- “The Legend of Baba Yaga” 3,5/5
When’s the next box-set?
It is the diametrical opposite I took away from her appearance in “Coda - The Final Act”. That no matter how different these two “violent Doctors” are from the “main/numbered” incarnations, that inherent Doctorishness is at the very core of their personality. This is one of the reasons I love Coda so much - it takes the lesson learned by the Doctor by going through the Degeneration crisis and proves that it applies to all of the Doctors no matter how different they might seem or act
Yes! I’d love to see the Fugitive Doctor and Tecteun. Imagine Emma Thompson, she’s able to play that cold yet motherly figure really well.
I don’t know. Personally I would love to have Barbara Flynn back in the role She was fantastic in “Survivors of the Flux”
Yes, that’s true now that I think about it. I think the Fugitive Doctor, pre Most Wanted mind-wipe and running from Division was a bit more different to the Doctor we know before she started to disturb the status quo as number 9 said at the beginning of Fast Times.
Even though it was after the mind-wipe, I think we saw this with the past Fugitive Doctor in The Dimension of Lost Things, she seemed a bit more serious when not pretending to be the Fugitive Doctor’s future self.
And has done Big Finish before
I finished this boxset today! That’s what FOMO does to you!
I really enjoyed it, although I did have one thing that was annoying me:
I agree with @wishiwashistan that it annoyed me the Doctor knew about Earth stuff. I too was hoping that this Doctor would be pre-Earth completely, so they had a very different outlook on things and also so stories weren’t set on Earth which is a bit of a crutch in the other ranges. It makes little sense for her to know about Earth. But oh well.
I also really hoped to see some her antics as part of Division, not as already being a fugitive. I hope that is explored in other box sets, because that is an exciting, new thing to explore, whereas always running away from Cosmo could get a bit stale.
I do hope they can give us some answers and that it isn’t always left vague.
And also I did pick up on her stumbling her words or sounding like she was reading it, but I just put that down to this being her first audio. They should have done some retakes, but it’s not terrible. I look forward to the next set when she is more comfortable in the audio medium.
Exciting!
I think it would’ve been more interesting if the planet that the Fugitive Doctor played time tag with the Daleks on was just a random planet, I think as a writer you could have a lot of fun with creating the history of a planet for the Fugitive Doctor and Daleks to go across.
I’d love to write my idea of what a Fugitive Doctor live action spin off would look like.
In fact I have loads of ideas for stories, and I know how the spin off would start and end, and what the Fugitive Doctor’s character arc would be. Will let you know of my progress.
But then we wouldn’t have gotten that awesome Manhattan Project kaboom finish!
That’s true, though I think that if it were a random planet, it could be something akin to the Manhattan project, because I assume that the Earth probably isn’t the only planet to have done things like that. Imagine the testing of a temporal bomb or advanced weapons system.
I think removing the Manhattan project element and replacing it with a made up historical event that we’ve never heard of on a random planet would have made that plot beat much less satisfying. When the Doctor started the process of dragging the Daleks through time, I was immediately invested in where she was leading them, and the reveal of it being Oppenheimer’s A-Bomb test was very well done. If it was something made up for the story I wouldn’t have had that investment in it and that reveal wouldn’t work for me personally.
Yeah, that’s true. Perhaps it could’ve been that the TARDIS chose the planet for the Fugitive Doctor to play time tag across, instead of her knowing stuff about the Earth and making references to it.
Finished The Legend of Baba Yaga earlier today. It was good, but nothing overly amazing. I saw that Baba Yaga’s hut was a damaged TARDIS, but not the other details. Baba Yaga’s voice reminded me of Maggie Stables as Ruthley in The Sirens of Time.
Have finished this today and have thoughts a plenty. And weirdly, for the first time in forever, I seem to be on a similar page to @shauny!
Yep. There was a real mismatch of consistency with her references - knows Johnny 5 but doesn’t know HG Wells? Seems to know a lot about Earth but hasn’t a clue who the Daleks are. It just didn’t feel like the writers had agreed on what her reference frames were.
100% on this too - I would much rather have some adventures where she’s actually working for the Division. This box set just felt like two long chase episodes with a ‘traditional’ Doctor Who adventure sandwiched between.
And this is where I was bothered the most. Martin’s performance. During the first story I thought my issue was her ‘London’ accent. I thought it was that, that wasn’t chiming with me. But I didn’t like that it was bothering me. None of the other Doctor’s accents bothered me so why was this one. And then as I listened to the next two stories I realised it wasn’t the accent, it’s her delivery.
Martin constantly sounds out of breath and as if she is forcing out words. She also has weird emphases and pauses in her lines. It’s even in the bit where she reads the cast list which is oddly slow and deliberate.
I just couldn’t get away from it and it just took me out of the whole thing. There were bits where she sounded more natural and comfortable but they were few and far between and I do hope in future sets she settles better into ‘audio acting’.
The one thing this set has cemented is my inability to see the perspective that was bandied around after her TV appearances - that she was ‘instantly’ a better female Doctor than Whitaker. For me she isn’t even close - I just don’t quite feel she’s ‘got’ the Doctor but I think that may well be partly the fault of the character and the way different writers are approaching her. Because of her nebulous nature it doesn’t seem that there is an agreed approach to her incarnation.
I was excited for this set and I did enjoy the stories - 3/5 and 4/5 for Baba Yaga - but nothing mind-blowing and elements that didn’t really work for me overall.
Listened to the excerpt of Fast Times and really couldn’t get into it. Was excited for this but I might give it a miss.
Hoping the range finds its feet. I really didn’t like the first War Doctor begins boxes despite that series going on to have some of my favourite BF stories.
I agree with @deltaandthebannermen that Jo Martin’s line reading isn’t great (yet).
Oh blimey he actually agrees with me about something