Finished Zygon Century. A really strong set, going from Edwardian horror to a bleak and upsetting Cornish folktale and a Fleming-esque Cold War thriller. The middle story is the strongest, and the set as a whole is only the set-up for bigger things to come. I do like the general direction of this spin-off and how well the stories work considering the Doctor is only in the last one.
I’d say that the set as a whole is an 8.5/10
I also listened to New Benny: Eternity Club 1. It has a different vibe to the Unboun sets: shorter stories and a bit more comedy, and it is not quite as engaging for me so far. But I generally enjoyed it.
Just finished the last episode of Zygon Century and I have similar views, the boxset as a whole showed promise and I’m excited to see what comes from the next series.
The first episode was a little disappointing for me but it was overall decent
7.5/10
Listened to An Ideal World. I enjoyed this one, but I wish it had focused more on the fascinating (xeno) ecological idea at the heart of. It turned into a bit of a one-sided moral debate, when there were much more interesting ideas the story had to hand it didn’t explore very far.
Still,l I love alien ecologies and ecosystems, much I love real-world ecology (and indeed, am studying ecology and biology at the moment!)
The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Deadly Strangers - Puccini and the Doctor by Matthew Jacobs
I’m not sure ‘lovely’ would describe many Doctor Who stories, but it certainly fits the bill here. Paul McGann is such a great actor, and brings such warmth and joy to The Doctor. Here, he’s surrounded by like-minded companions - the wonderful Audacity, and Charley, who harbours a ‘crush’ on the Time Lord. Tim McInnerny is excellent as the titular character, and Tania Rodrigues is particularly good as Princess Tura.
Possibly the biggest revelation is writer Matthew Jacobs, who clearly has great affection still for the show, and turns in a really finely crafted talked with real depth and emotion. From the extras, he seems to have enjoyed the experience, and I really hope he writes a lot more.
On my chronological (with timelines and everything) marathon of the Fifth Doctor era, I have just left the world of books and am back into the world of audio, with The Star Men, #221 in the Main Range from 2017, marking the return of Matthew Waterhouse as Adric.
Just to get that elephant out of the room, he’s good in this. I liked him much more than I like him on television (and also, unsurprisingly, better than when Gary Russell is writing him as a smelly annoying turn-coat) and he gets a really good hero moment when he deflects the incoming cruiser and stops them all getting crumped (even if it is sort of just cribbing that thing Zoe does in The Invasion[???]).
I’ve just finished the first part and it has a really good Classic-style ending where the cliffhanger is just “We’re going in a space rocket to somewhere far away” which happened a couple of times across the First and Second Doctor’s tenure.
Alright, finished it now - solid 3.5 star story, felt very 60s to me. You could have easily subbed in Ben, Polly, Jamie and Two and I think it might have felt very similar, although the stakes are considerably higher, and Adric’s side-plot actually ends in a pretty impactful way; I’d forgotten how it ended from previous listens, so the death of Autumn and Adric’s pretty heartbreaking goodbye were a surprise to me that finished the story on a high narrative note, if not a positive emotional one. I’m interested to see if there are ramifications for this event down the line in these later Main Range stories featuring the Season 19 crew, or if it’ll just get forgotten about as another writer takes the helm.
Tegan and Nyssa are sort of sidelined for Adric in this story, perhaps befitting his arrival to Big Finish, and even The Doctor’s influence is relatively lo-fi, as is much of the whole thing. Very low concept sci-fi here despite its talk of alternate universes and extensions of consciousness. The coral also feels like a bit of a hat on a hat, leading to an accumulation of stuff that did at times leave the story feeling a bit confused. There are a lot of portal based location jumps that don’t translate that well to an audio format.
More Ian Barbara from the Target novel of the Crusades
She had needed him and he had come for her. She knew, whatever the age, whatever the place, whatever the circumstances, he would measure up to her every expectation. She leant across from her horse, put her arm around his neck and kissed him softly on the lips. She sat back again, her heart beating a little faster, a slight tinge of pink at her cheeks, holding his eyes with hers.
Barbara from the Target novel of the Crusades