I like Machines. I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to I Hate Mondays yet, unfortunately. I know I’ll probably love it.
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Started The Amur River: Between Russia and China by Colin Thubron this morning. I’m about 15 minutes in and not sure on my thoughts. The book is fine and the narrator isn’t terrible, but the jury’s still out on whether he’s good.
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Thank you all! I’ll have to add them to my Big Finish wishlist 
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This morning’s audios were Comeback, the first of the Sarah Jane Smith releases – man, so good to hear Liz Sladen’s voice, and the story’s enjoyable, even if the immediate threat seemed to be resolved in the blink of an eye; and Benny’s The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy, which is all about the Psychic Slingbacks and the Gods of Reebok. Well, actually, no it isn’t. But whatever.
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One chapter down on Amur River. Time to switch to something else for a bit. Got a new Doctor Who: The Writer’s Room podcast to listen to, got Loups-Garoux and Dust Breeding for Audio Club, plus have the audiobook of Stealer of Dreams queued up (hopefully a good narrator on that one). It’s just a matter of picking one.
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I’m listening to the narrated audio of the Second Doctor serial The Highlanders. I’m having trouble getting into it. Can anyone explain to me what I’m missing? Am I listening to it wrong? Is it really not that good? Are narrated audios just harder to deal with then recons? (I have never watched a recon. It’s possible that I am a recon person, but I don’t know) Can you listen to the audio and watch the recon at the same time? Does that help, or is it just dreadfully confusing?
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Finishing up the third story from Respond to all Calls.
Enjoyable as these stories are, none are blowing me away and I definitely think the lack of companion is hurting them. I’m also not sure Eccleston is doing much with the role - it all seems a bit ‘surface Doctor’ at the moment. I don’t know - he was never my favourite TV incarnation and there’s not much extra to get my teeth into here. I’m really pleased Eccleston agreed to return to the role but I hope these box sets improve.
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The Highlanders isn’t that good IMO, so there’s that.
Recons have audio. They tend to use fan recordings, and they have action subtitles so you know what is happening. Some stories are better suited for recons than others.
The Highlanders recon is fine.
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It’s hard to know; it might be the formatting, it might just not be a story you like; it might be any number of things. I’m not familiar with the audio version; I watched the telesnap recon version of the story and really enjoyed it
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Back on the Amur River after listening to a podcast episode and Part 1 of Loups-Garoux.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it; was there any particular element of the story you liked?
I may just have to make peace with the fact that this story in particular is not one I like. That’s OK. 
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I thought Polly was particularly good in it, getting a lot to do and coming off as competent and funny. I also liked seeing what the other regulars got up to, and it was fun to see Jamie in his first story (although it was actually the last TV story I watched of his lol). I enjoyed the historical setting too, as I’m interested in those in general. The villain I remember being particularly hateable but also fun to hate.
Edit: and you’re right, if it’s not for you it’s not for you, and that’s okay!
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Listened to the second Sarah Jane Smith audio, The Tao Connection on the way home. Props to Moray Treadwell, who I thought was excellent as the ancient Will Butley.
Left the client site late, which meant very little traffic on the way home, which meant I did not finish the next audio. So, the remainder of the next Benny must wait till the morning.
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Today I listened to:
BBV The Time Travellers 01: Republica 3.5/5
Rather enjoyable and well acted. The story is solid and moves at a decent pace, although the ending is a bit of a damp squib. Needs to be more variation in the soundscape of each location to make it easier when scenes change, but other than that it’s a good quality production.
BBV The Time Travellers 02: Island of Lost Souls 3/5
Not bad, but not great. A solid story that feels a little slow and bare. Gatiss does rather enjoy his ‘German’ accent.
BBV The Time Travellers 03: Prosperity Island 2/5
This is a slog. A lot of nothing happening slowly. You can tell that this was a story stretched to 2 CDs.
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I remember finding that story pretty fun in general (which was more than several stories in that series lol) but also it leaned into reeeeallyyyy homophobic stereotypes that made me very uncomfortable
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Working my way through the Torchwood Monthly Range currently. Slowly but surely trying to make it to Goodbye Piccadilly so I can listen to Torchwood: Soho; I’ll probably take a break around then.
Just finished Zone 10, which was a pretty good, classic sci-fi story set in remote Siberia, thought it was decent.
My favourite so far has been One Rule, which introduced me to audio Yvonne and was written by Joseph Lidster, a favourite of mine.
And my least favourite has been The Victorian Age, which is one big steaming pile of horseshit.
I’m reviewing them as a I go so you can read them if you want my full thoughts on anything.
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I really struggle with The Highlanders and have never quite got a handle on the story (except to utterly hate the way Polly is characterised).
I did enjoy it a bit more on my most recent rewatch of the recon (which was only a few weeks ago) mainly because I managed to discern more of Troughton’s excellent work in the role.
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Finished The Green-Eyed Monsters this morning, then Test of Nerve, so a Benny, a Sarah Jane, should be more of the same on the way home.
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Test of Nerve is really good.
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Sadly, I’m a bit stressed and distracted by work, so not completely into the stories on the drive, I’m not 100% there fur them, but at least these are straightforward enough I didn’t get lost.
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