Today’s listening:
The Myth Makers Target Novelisation
Gallifrey: Pandora
Maybe Benny, if I find the time.
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Started The Bride of Peladon on the way to work this morning. It’s been ages since I heard Erimem!
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I love Eight at the start. He’s fantastic in Wild Animals. I don’t like how he turns out to behave in the latter boxes, I strongly dislike when someone characterize the Doctor as someone who can’t stay somewhere an extended period of time even if it’s necessary. Of course this hurts him because it’s a forced exile, but I don’t think he would be as inconsiderate of Liv and Helen as he is at times in Stranded.
My problem with Liv (besides disliking Tania) is that her arc felt rushed for me. And I find her most emotional moment in Stranded, in Snow, a bit out of character.
I love Helen tho. She is my favorite part of Stranded.
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I feel nothing for the actual story. But! I love Pantience’s tale/myth.
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I can see why 11th can’t stay put, but even he can stay on Trenzalore for nine centuries. And 8th has been stranded for a century on Earth and six centuries on Orbis. The Doctor can definitely deal with life on the same planet for a long time…
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To be fair he was far from happy during the Earth Arc in the EDAs - but it’s a much more extreme situation than Stranded. It’s just two years, you know. I actually think he is fine throughout Stranded itself, but I wanted to punch him in Best Year Ever. Stop being a drama queen.
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I’m just going to go on a rant now so Stranded lovers and those avoiding spoilers, I’d skip this one! Also I am kind of due a relisten so if I get any details wrong, that’s entirely on my memory
Why I Hate Stranded, and How to Fix It
-
The Premise
By the time Eight is at Stranded, I can think of at least three times he’s been trapped in a place for an extended amount of time, one of which was even earlier in this regeneration! (Orbis) So you are honestly telling me that Eight is going to turn into a whiny baby from episode one?
Out of our three main characters - Eight, Liv, and Helen, which of them has the most real experience with 21st century Earth? Oh yeah, the Doctor. So why on earth is it Helen who has to become the housemaid, who has to make sure that the Doctor looks after himself and they can all get jobs and whatever. Give me one reason that isn’t ‘she’s a woman from the 1960s’. I’ll wait.
The Doctor has the most practical experience of being ‘‘stranded’’ and of Earth, so it irritates me beyond belief that he just mopes around in the TARDIS a lot. This is a total rehash of the Third Doctor and is about as original as ‘let’s have an evil Gallifrey where the bad guy is just the Master’… -
The Characters
There are Too Many of them! I really liked Ron and Tony, and the sisters whose names I forgot, and I kind of understand the point of Robin and that family, but by the time you add in Andy and Tania AND the Doctor and the gang, that’s just way too much going on and it makes all the episodes very busy.
The effect of this is then that we are so busy trying to make sure all our new characters get a bit of a spotlight, meaning nobody has adequate time to really be characterised. I’ll address Tania in my next bullet, but let’s be honest - what was the point of Andy being there? Fond of him as I am, I honestly think it was too bloated overall and that really had a detrimental effect on everything -
Tania (and Liv)
It was exciting, back in whatever year it was announced, that we would get the first trans companion. I in no way want to invalidate how big that was, and still is. However, tell me one single character trait Tania has other than ‘basically lovely’ and ‘habitual liar’. One of those is interesting, but unfortunately - like the Torchwood stuff - it basically goes nowhere.
I honestly think there was a level of ‘oh, we can’t do anything too outrageous with the trans character’ in a sort of backlash avoidance move - and you can call me cynical here, perhaps I am. But I really think the whole character of Tania is written utterly toothlessly. She bumbles along through the whole plot, and every time you think she’s going to be a bit interesting, they shy away from it as if they don’t want her to have any negative qualities.
And that brings me to Liv Chenka. And the way Liv/Tania is presented as some lovely fairytale romance. Maybe I just don’t understand what romance is, but Tania spends a fair amount of time lying to Tania, and Liv does the same. Isn’t it true that one of the pillars of their relationship is ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’? Yet somehow, this keeps getting framed as basically fine. And don’t even get me started on Snow. That was an unbearable episode to me because I think it got Liv totally wrong.
Basically, I wish Tania had been allowed to be more than she was. And again I think the bloated number of characters didn’t hep at all with that. -
That Ending…
I have nothing good to say. In 2020, a Covid finale was probably the last thing I wanted to hear. I know they’re so proud of rewriting the last episode to be the first people to do a Covid episode, but that sets off an alarm bell in my head. Rewrote the ending?? That doesn’t sound like a well thought out, well structured plan to me…
I’m not going to lie though, I barely remember Str4 or how the actual real plot resolves. I don’t think I really understood it anyway (which is a me problem with the 4x4 boxset format so I won’t hold that against them. I don’t really get DE, DC, or Rav either). I think I liked what they did with Robin, in the end.
But what I hated was the Liv/Tania ending. I can not honestly believe that Liv ‘I run into danger for fun’ Chenka would willingly settle down in a relationship she was not happy in, in a place and time she was going mental in, leaving behind the Doctor, unless something truly, truly bad happens. Which is where my ‘Helen dies in the end’ theory comes in, but as is, that’s just speculation. I found the ending utterly awful. -
The Good Stranded that Lives in my Head (or, how I would rewrite it)
I love to be a hater, sure, but what annoys me most about Stranded is how it’s so nearly a good story. I liked Str1 when it came out! Str3 was where I fell off the rails. And with a few key changes, I think it could be good!
- Fewer characters!! Give the plot to the sisters instead, or get rid of them, or anything to give some more breathing room. This lets Tania have a real character, it lets Helen have more to do other than being Housewife
, give Eight the driving force. Just trim it down - Change the roles! Eight should be the Housewife . I’m not saying he can’t mope at all, but the core thing about Eight is that he loves his friends. Forcing them to be domestic when they’re out of their depth is not very caring.
- Liv/Tania should be Worse! I am in fact very compelled by their relationship, but I think it’s jucier if they’re trying and trying to force something to work, and it just keeps falling apart. Meanwhile, Helen is looking on, having revelations about her brother and her own self, and realising that Liv is shutting her out. She’s losing a friend and Liv is making herself unhappy because that’s what she’s decided is the right thing
- Let Tania be a character! Maybe I’m misremembering, but I think the Torchwood thing fizzled out. Why?? Her being paranoid, secretive, and a liar is way more interesting than her being basically lovely. I just think her character should be sharper. She’s as desperate as Liv to make it work, so she tries to force herself to be something Liv wants while at the same time is lying to her face and spying on her. Make that the big plot
- Cut Robin and his dad entirely and make Robin the younger of the two sisters. Solves the too many characters problem somewhat, and honestly barely changes that much of the plot
As I say, after writing that I did realise just how big the gaps in my memory are about Stranded, so I do want to listen again some time (if only to fill out the plot summaries on tardis wiki!! coming soon does not help for forgetful people). But really, it annoys me because there is something compelling in there. It’s just not what I heard at all.
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Lots of spoilers about Helen’s role in Stranded and further adventures, so proceed with caution.
I’m still reading it but I wanna point out - for me Helen’s role is justified by who she is. She cares, a lot. In the sense that the takes care of people. It’s a consequence of her life with her biological family. She was both extremely repressed at home and felt she had a responsability towards her folk. A duty of care.
That’s why she is usually the conciliator in this TARDIS team; that’s why if she isn’t careful the Doctor and Liv’s feelings and decisions easily overule hers; she was afraid to death of being shunned from home for being queer just like her brother and at the same time she feels an enormous guilty for never going after Albie - he died unloved, alone, she thought, and some of the blame was hers. We start to see this pain in Stranded (UNIT Dating, Snow), and of course it comes to haunt her when she finally gets a chance to be there for him… and it gets stolen from her. We know her father was violent. We know she cared for a dying family member, for some time.
And sure, the 2020s are not the sixties, but it is closer to home than it is for Eight and Liv. She is comfortable in a more domestic role, and I think that’s why she adapts better than the other two.
Her having growing pains because of the time difference could’ve been further explored, but I think her relationship with queerness and how she is both happy that things have changed but also so, so sad and furious Albie (and her, too) didn’t get that chance is a good example of it.
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That is a fair point and I don’t 100% disagree, it just irritates me that - in my memory - that’s almost all she seems to do. I mostly just wanted her to have a bigger role in the overall story, I think because I love her.
However yes, I agree Her relationship with Albie and how that is built upon in Albie’s Angels is absolutely wonderfully done
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I cheated. I opened the last track and jumped around a bit. It starts at 3 min in. Just 1 min long 
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But it’s Narvin 
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About halfway through Pandora
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Listened to the first Sapphire and Steel audio, The Passenger. It was quite good, David Warner and Susannah Harker make the roles their own and it has the weirdness and great atmosphere the show was good at. Mark Gatiss also makes a appearance as Gold, one of the other elements who’s working with them.
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If you’re carrying on with the series, you’re in for a treat. I’ve recently done The Passenger, Daisy Chain and All Fall Down with The Lighthouse poised on my phone ready for when I want a break from Peladon. David Collings comes back (from the TV series) as Silver and is excellent.
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Having been up since 4.30 this morning (nope decidedly night…) I’ve listened to a bit of Big Finish.
Listened to “Echoes Through Eternity” again 
Love it 
And then the last two stories of The War Master - Hearts of Darkness.
They felt kind of flat to me. There was a great premise this season but the potential never felt realised. Two 2,5/5 
stories.
The constant bodyswapping in the finale became downright boring halfway through the story, and was just far too predictable to ever grab my attention
Okay, now I’ve listened to all the stories with Narvin in this range - so I’ll stop listening here and let you all have a break from my War Master negativity
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Listened to the second story of Carnacki ‘no Seventh Doctor’ The Ghost Finder and omg i need everyone to understand how good these are they go so incredibly hard the atmosphere of sitting in a haunted house goes insane. Part of me wants to spread them out a bit and enjoy them longer, but also there’s over 5 hours of it so I don’t think that’s needed. Anyways it’s very good you 
should probably listen
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If there are two things that these chilly winter evenings put me in the mood for, it’s classic Doctor Who and ghost stories. The Mouthless Dead is a pleasing combination of the two.
I don’t think it would be unfair to say that The Mouthless Dead is almost a Doctor Who take on the second (and best) Sapphire & Steel adventure, with a healthy dose of The Signal-Man thrown in for good measure. That isn’t to say it’s a rip-off though – on the contrary, John Pritchard’s story just happens to touch on some of the same themes but goes its own way and does its own thing with them.
Lisa Bowerman’s direction sets the spooky tone and the acting is superb. I especially enjoyed the character interaction between Ben and Jamie. On the television, these two characters always felt like they were one cross word away from a major punch-up, but this story has them finding some common ground.
Creepy but, at the same time, a very touching tale too.
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More The Bride of Peladon last night and this morning and then a pause between Parts 2 and 3 to listen to another episode from the Too Hot for TV Podcast which I’m really liking (despite the shade being thrown at Nyssa). This episode from 2020 is looking at Lunar Lagoon, 4 Dimensional Vistas and Psychodrome.
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Just listened to “The Revolution” by Nev Fountain. First story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield Vol. 1.
Benny and the Seventh Doctor together Always a good basis for a great story 
A good story and a great (re-) introduction to our favourite time travelling archeologist as chosen by the esteemed TARDIS Guide users in that poll long ago 
4/5
A strong start to this range 
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Bennnyyyyyyyyy <33 she is my favourite
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