I’ve talked before about how much I enjoy Nest Cottage! I find them delightful.
They’ve a very different type of storytelling to Big Finish– much more lyrical and whimsical, a mixture of the fairytale and the macabre, and with quite a bit of metatext about the nature of storytelling.
The plots tend to be simpler than Magrs’ other work, with the focus very much on the vivid settings and the rich language. I imagine that if you don’t gel with the style and pace of the stories they could easily leave you cold– I have to be in the right mood to listen to them, but when I do I enjoy them immensely. They’re a unique, dark, cosy corner of Who.
Five Hundred Ways to Leave Your Lover was really fun and sweet. I really enjoy the Classic Doctors New Monsters boxsets—they’re always so fun and fresh. This one was a good one!
I also finished the new CDNM today. The Krillitane Relic was a minor letdown despite the interesting cast of Seven, Ray (who was completely superfluous, btw) and Zoe.
Five Hundred Ways to Leave Your Lover on the other hand? It’s a great little rom-com with a twist and the strongest story of the set.
Nothing against her as a character, she simply didn’t bring anything unique to the story. She could’ve been replaced by Mel, Ace, or Benny, and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Just finished The World Tree which is my first Short Trip. It’s great and made me tear up at the end. Nora’s very sweet and the 11th Doctor’s well written. I’m surprised how much it fit in 45 minutes without it feeling rushed.
A really good story. I do like Rose with 9, most of the time
I was actually surprised by how much I liked Adam in this one, but then again I have a tendency to like the “competent companions” like Cap’n Jack, Nyssa, Adric, Liz Shaw, and I am actually really enjoying Turlough this time through the Classic era
I had a rather negative reaction to The Child. In large part, this was because I really did not like what they did with Leela here. It’s like they did the Z’nai prison stories to give her a final end… and then decided they wanted to do more. In general, I’ve been impressed with Big Finish’s creativity in getting around blocking factors, like what they did with Zoe and Sara Kingdom. But this…no.
Beyond the setup, I also did not care for the storytelling style. A child telling a fanciful tale…I don’t know how much is supposed to be actual events and how much is supposed to be the storyteller’s embellishment. Just takes me out of the plot. So…really not fond of this one at all.
And that wraps up 2012. Moving on to the big anniversary year, and a bumper crop of stories. Far from everything produced that year, but I certainly have more from 2013 than any other year.
Yesterday, I listened to a bunch of the big finish short trips (volume 1&2). They’re nice little stories, with some that are funny or weird and others that are genuinely very touching
Well, it’s definitely the first of three…that’s discussed in the chitchat afterwards. I didn’t recall if they did the others, but that was certainly the plan.
Continuing the 8DAs with The Zygon who fell to Earth
TrakeniteAdventuress’s Negativity corner
If this is one of the better 8DAs, I may as well give up now. That was one of the worst stories I have listened to, robotic line delivery, expositional dialogue, a twist ending that was visible roughly 20 minutes in.
What really stings is I had such high hopes for this one, high average rating, written by Paul Magrs, following on from Grand Theft Cosmos, (which I really enjoyed). I really thought I might finally get why people like this series
to the collection 
