To me, most (but not all) of Nick Briggs’ stories tend to feel very mechanical, like the characters are just going through the motions of yet another remix of the very small pool of concepts he likes to draw from. They’re not bad, in fact they’re usually pretty competently done, they’re just very “if you’ve heard one, you’ve heard them all”, and I’ve heard a lot of them.
Ravagers was no exception. I went in hopeful, I always do, but 3 hours of “our timelines are out of sync, so I don’t know what I’m allowed tell you” isn’t exactly impressive
Just finished the next installment of Dalek Universe
It was alright but maybe a bit too run-of-the-mill vis-a-vis android self identification. Asimov was definitely an inspiration here, but Cycle of Destruction never reaches those heights.
Still a solid 3,5/5 story
Not sure if I’m missing out on some larger plot spanning the “Dalek Universe” audios? Or maybe that hasn’t really kicked off yet? (I’m 5 out of 10 audios in now)
My goodness, it’s been an age since I last listened to this story. I’ve always enjoyed it, but it really struck me today how very much it encapsulates “Comfort Who”. It’s truly lovely, from the Cornish setting, to the Sixth Doctor in an absolute peak of form (you can really tell that Colin enjoyed working with Maggie Stables), Evelyn being all sort of wonderful and, of course, the first Big Finish appearance of the Brigadier (and his first meeting with Sixie). It’s just a perfect encapsulation of so much I love from the Pertwee UNIT era and early Tom (Terror of the Zygons etc.). I smiled from start to finish. Fabulous. Joyful. I can almost breathe that fresh Cornish air!
Episode 2 tomorrow morning, and I’m so very much looking forwards to it.
This isn’t untrue, and listening to a lot of 4DAs in a row has proven to me that all Briggs scripts are basically the same. And I know we like to rag on him for his writing but honestly it by and large is pretty enjoyable, or at the very least not utterly dreadful.
And as @BillFiler says if I was in charge of the write DW audios company, I would absolutely write millions of thr things too whether people liked me to or not
I have this on my “listen again” list also. It will be my third time, so hopefully the old adage works in its favor because after two run-throughs, I still don’t understand why its lauded as much as it is. It starts off strong for me and then loses my interest by the third episode…
I am mostly a fan of Nick’s! Several of his big epics really work (I remember really liking Only The Monstrous, even though I liked the later War Doctor boxes much more, was always a fan of Dalek Empire, love his crazy finales for 8/Lucie), I just found Ravagers stressful because he played the shell game of both concealing the plot from me for too long and signposting the twists very early. It all does make sense in the end, it isn’t terrible, but it’s also not a great advertisement for the 9DA range because it’s clearly atypical and doesn’t really sell the tone of the subsequent eps. And I don’t really like “time reset button” solutions to stories, it just felt like a very lazy solution after such a long setup. But I’m not down on him overall, this one just annoyed me haha.
The Mind Runners and The Demon Rises. While I question the choice of title for disc 2, I enjoyed this story more as it went along. While the first disc had some interesting ideas and action, the follow-up threw a curve I did not expect and IMO was all the better for it.
Then, The Shadow of London. Meh. Promising to begin with. Topping what? But the monster is dull as dishwater and so is the story.
Listened to the The Settling and The Havoc of Empires today. Two really brilliant stories!
The Settling: 10/10. Blimey, the Hex arc is so, so strong. An amazing historical full of fantastic character work set in a period I hold a strong interest in. It’s like this audio was tailor made for me.
Havoc of Empires: 8/10. A surprisingly solid early 3DA entry! Think Curse of Peladon with a twist of courtly intruige and a surprisingly cute love story. Not a fan of the narration and Mike’s inclusion feels a smidge pointless, but hey, a really solid story overall.
On one hand, you kinda have to respect that they had “the gang dicks around in victorian london for a while” as an idea for a story and ran with it. On the other hand… yeah, aimless does describe it well. It was fun though, from what I remember!
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