apologies if this wouldn’t be the right tag for this question but was curious to see how other. people decide on their ratings of big finish i find myself just giving so many stories a 6 or a 7 (3 or 3.5 stars) and feel like i’m just not differentiating enough for their to be a good representation of what i like better or worse lol. especially when comparing stories from one range to another or one doctor or spin off to others.
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i think most people will have one or two standard ratings they give most often. Personally, i roughly go:
5 -perfect, a favourite
4.5 -really good
4 -good, enjoyable
3.5 -fun while listeningbut I won’t keep thinking about it
3 -average
2.5 -a bit boring but not quite bad yet
and anything below that are things i actively dislike.
Of course that won’t always work out perfectly and things might change their rating quite a bit if I listen on a different day, but I consider my ratings just a rough guide of how I felt while listening. Most of the time I’m giving 3.5 or 4 stars
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My rating scale for Big Finish is pretty similar to how I rate most other stories (which, incidentally enough, is pretty similar to what Jae mentioned above).
4 stars to 5 stars - varying degree of amazing.
3.5 stars is an average story for Doctor Who - fairly solid, and something I’d be willing to rewatch.
3 stars - a story that is mostly good, but there’s a few minor issues I can’t get past.
2.5 stars - mid in every way possible. The average episode of any media in general probably falls into this category.
0.5 to 2 stars - varying degrees of bad.
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I feel like I need to give a lot more stories 5 and treat that as actually average and with most stories being one hour now a lot of them feel more meh and a bit surface level. I’ve been trying to think wat the worst of the worst story would be to for a 1 or half star rating to try create a continuum between that and the best lol
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I have a very meticulous rating system, not exclusive to BF but all DW, where I rate each story out of 100 in 11 different categories, then take the average result as the final rating (divided by 10 just for a sense of simplicity). And to get the ratings out of 100, I have a custom made slider to measure the pixel width as a visual cue of where I feel each category falls for a given episode/story. These are the categories:
- Concept
- Execution
- Dialogue
- Settings
- Main Cast
- Side Characters
- Villain(s)
- Resolution
- Arcs/Lore
- Continuity
- General Rating
The general rating is given a little bit extra weight as well in the final result.
Just as an example, The Inheritance of 7V averages to 94.5, so 9/10, but the extra weight to the general rating brings that up to 95.5, elevating it to the 10/10.
With 115 stories rated so far on this system, I have 9 10/10s. There’s also a special distinction for anything rated at 98.5 or higher where they become all-time favourites, and so far I have 4 of those (2 of which I did specifically because I knew/thought they’d be high up if not all the way up there).
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First of all, if you say you “must” give a certain rating to a certain number of stories, you’re going about it wrong. There are no musts. You just need to figure for yourself what the different stars mean to you and then rate a story based on that. That’s something that will become clearer over time. And the tsing curve usually flattens naturally over time. And even if it doesn’t, that’s fine. You can have most stories at 6 or 7, if that is how you feel about most stories.
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When I rated the TV stories I used 3 as my starting point and went up or down from there. However, I limted the number of stories that got better or worse ratings so those would mean something. For the audios I switched to using 2.5 as my starting point, with 3 for slightly better stories. I haven’t rated too many audios yet, but I’m trying to limit my giving out higher or lower ratings.
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I go by feeling. A 2 today can be a 4 tomorrow when I am in a better mood. I have 3.5 at a baseline if it is the below that then I probably did not enjoy it but sometimes I do enjoy bad stuff and search for bad rating stuff. A lot of rambling but just wanted to say you don’t need to take it that seriously if you don’t want to
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Yeah I defo feel you there a lot of stories get better or worse on replay as well. And ur right about not taking it seriously think im just in a bit of a big finish binging rut with listening to a lot of similar stories so id like to be able differentiate them a bit better rating them I suppose (dk if that makes sense)
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This is something I never do, so a 4 for one range may not be at the same level as a 4 in another. I basically use it as a scale on how much I enjoy that particular story not in comparison to others. But I don’t really take star ratings too seriously, its just a quick way of me remembering how much I liked something, for the most part I don’t overanalyse rather just go with a relatively quick gut response.
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I started using 5 star ratings back with my iTunes library, on a shared computer with my sister, so it’s all modifications of this:
5 - I’m obsessed, if this song comes up on shuffle, I’m putting it on repeat for like a week
4 - I love this song
3 - It’s fine, if it comes up on shuffle, I may or may not skip it, but it’s fine filler
2 - I don’t like this
1 - Burn it down, I’m deleting it from the computer and starting a fight with my sister for daring to attempt to sully my iPod with it’s presence!
So yeah, for Doctor Who, most things are going to fall in that 3-4 range, because I generally like Doctor Who!
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I use the same rating scale for everything.
5 = Perfect
4.5 = Almost Perfect
4 = Great
3.5 = Good
3 = Decent
2.5 = Okay
2 = Horrible
1.5 = Bad
1 = Very Bad
0.5 = Absolutely hate it
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ye thats fair it just feels if im rating everything the same wats the point lol. currently listening to bernice summerfield and most of the stories after the first season feel a bit drab and going back to look at the ratings to try remember how i like them theyre all mostly the same. i like ur fifth doctor pic btw
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have you had many in the 0.5 star range?
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Nothing has a 0.5 yet. It has to be really bad and no redeeming elements for it to be that low. The closest I have is a 1.5
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wats ur 1.5 story? i know a lot of people hate nekromanteia or however you spell it
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Return of Doctor Mysterio and Turning of the Tide.
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i find return very mid but i have never rewatched it since it aired and i was like 12. reading the synopsis of turning of the tide i can tell why 
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I use the same scale for everything I rate, even stuff outside this site.
5.0 Perfect/Fav
4.5 Excellent/Fav
4.0 Very Good
3.5 Good
3.0 Enjoyable
2.5 Meh
2.0 Bad
1.0 Very Bad
3.5 is my average for the site, and most of my stuff is in the 3.0-4.0 range.
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To me, the ratings go roughly like this:
10 = Favourite
9 = Brilliant
8 = Great
7 = Good
6 = Enjoyable
5 = Indifferent
4 = Disappointing
3 = Bad
2 = Very Bad
1 = Terrible
For some things, I find it easier to use a 1-5 scale, which goes like this:
5 = Favourite
4 = Great
3 = Good
2.5 = Indifferent
2 = Bad
1 = Very Bad
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