Audio Reviews: "Once and Future" (so far)
Well, I did say I would try to post more, but I still don't feel like trying to write anything about RL. So, taking inspiration from scifirenegade’s recent post…
I'm involved in two bands (one concert, one Dixieland jazz) and they both meet weekly at the same rehearsal room which is 20 minutes away from my house. I'd been listening to music during the drive (mostly DW stuff) and then I thought, "Why the hell am I not listening to all these audios I've bought but never listened to?" So I started listening to them, and here are my thoughts on them.
Hm. I listed out all the audios that I’ve listened to in the past few months and it’s quite a few. So, here are the first two reviews, of the two audios so far released for the 60th anniversary’s “Once and Future” series.
Past Lives (Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, Kate Stewart, Osgood)
I've listened to this one twice, once alone and once with my husband (who wants to listen to the 60th audios because the 50th audio "The Light at the End" was so amazing). On the first listen, I was disappointed. On the second listen, it was better, but still pretty much average. The immediate plot was "chase this character, find him, have him slip away, rinse/repeat". The Doctor had a tracker, so there wasn't even any need to figure out how to find and catch him. The overplot was transparent to the point where my husband called the solution 2/3 of the way through. And the story brings Sarah Jane in from right after the Doctor dropped her off in Aberdeen, so, unlike what was stated in "School Reunion", Sarah has seen and adventured with the Doctor since she left the TARDIS. I hate it when expanded universe content contradicts the TV show.
Another disappointment was the continued crappy character of Kate Stewart. This story is set before "The Day of the Doctor", so she and Osgood haven't met Eleven yet. Kate's supposed to be UNIT's scientific advisor, but as in all other appearances, she's an administrator with little scientific understanding. This audio calls even more attention to her father, with every character figuring out that she's the Brig's daughter - one even says it's because she has the same demeanor. Then, the one independent decision she makes foils the Doctor's plan and he remarks that she's just like the Brig. I've really lost hope that she'll ever be an actual independent woman.
On the bright side, the actress who played Sarah Jane was excellent - she sounded just like her, and her dialogue matched the character perfectly. The Doctor's dialogue wasn't particularly sparkling, unfortunately.
The Artist at the End of Time (Fifth Doctor, Jenny)
To really understand what's going on here, you have to know that the Doctor in this series is the Doctor in the Time War (Eight? War? Not sure) being forced backwards through old incarnations, so he's running around trying to figure out what’s causing this. This story has him in his fifth body, and apparently Jenny has met Five previously in another audio, so this one didn’t need to have her figure out who he was and them get to know each other. However, it might have helped if they had.
The concept of this story was fascinating: an artist goes to a world as it is dying to make one last piece of art inspired by it, so that it’s always remembers. However, he discovers as he’s doing this that the worlds are destroyed right after he’s done, and he’s despairing that he’s actively destroying them. The Doctor and Jenny go to visit him to find out what’s happening.
This plot was even more transparent than “Past Lives” - it only took about 1/3 of the way for both me and my husband to figure out what was happening, due to extremely obviously clues placed in the intro. We got interrupted at about the 75% mark and during a conversation with romanajo123 I remarked, “I bet they solve the problem (like this),” and guess what? I was spot on.
The biggest problem, though, that the plot was extremely simple (go to the museum, meet up, find out about the artist, go talk to the artist, do an experiment to prove what was causing the worlds to be destroyed, enact solution). There was no back-and-forth, no problem solving, no twists or turns. Worst of all, it probably would only take up forty minutes of air time, so the other thirty-three minutes consisted of filler: the museum guides trying to sell the art pieces, the Doctor bemoaning the deaths of these worlds, the artist angsting about destroying the worlds (this happened at least twice without meaningful variation), people questioning the worth of their lives. It was simply too long, too linear, too predictable.
One last note: Jenny was misused. She added nothing to the story other than a few fun interactions with the Doctor - no insights inspired by her own experiences, or even any particularly interesting observations to help the Doctor or the artist. She barely existed in the story and it would have worked just as well without her.
Conclusion
So, unfortunately, I have to say that the 60th series has so far been a disappointment. The individual audios aren’t really tied into the overall story arc except for the Doctor saying, “Let me go here to find out why this is happening” - but then he doesn’t find out anything other than where he might go next to ask. Of course, I can’t tell, but maybe it’ll turn out that all of these separate adventures will have a concrete effect on the overall story arc (like the way all of the stories in Series 3 contributed to the three-part finale, such as introducing Harold Saxon and the chameleon arch, setting up the Jones family’s conflicts, explaining proactive time travel (in “Blink”), adding the aging/de-aging technology, etc.). It doesn’t look that way yet, but one can only hope.
I'm involved in two bands (one concert, one Dixieland jazz) and they both meet weekly at the same rehearsal room which is 20 minutes away from my house. I'd been listening to music during the drive (mostly DW stuff) and then I thought, "Why the hell am I not listening to all these audios I've bought but never listened to?" So I started listening to them, and here are my thoughts on them.
Hm. I listed out all the audios that I’ve listened to in the past few months and it’s quite a few. So, here are the first two reviews, of the two audios so far released for the 60th anniversary’s “Once and Future” series.
Past Lives (Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, Kate Stewart, Osgood)
I've listened to this one twice, once alone and once with my husband (who wants to listen to the 60th audios because the 50th audio "The Light at the End" was so amazing). On the first listen, I was disappointed. On the second listen, it was better, but still pretty much average. The immediate plot was "chase this character, find him, have him slip away, rinse/repeat". The Doctor had a tracker, so there wasn't even any need to figure out how to find and catch him. The overplot was transparent to the point where my husband called the solution 2/3 of the way through. And the story brings Sarah Jane in from right after the Doctor dropped her off in Aberdeen, so, unlike what was stated in "School Reunion", Sarah has seen and adventured with the Doctor since she left the TARDIS. I hate it when expanded universe content contradicts the TV show.
Another disappointment was the continued crappy character of Kate Stewart. This story is set before "The Day of the Doctor", so she and Osgood haven't met Eleven yet. Kate's supposed to be UNIT's scientific advisor, but as in all other appearances, she's an administrator with little scientific understanding. This audio calls even more attention to her father, with every character figuring out that she's the Brig's daughter - one even says it's because she has the same demeanor. Then, the one independent decision she makes foils the Doctor's plan and he remarks that she's just like the Brig. I've really lost hope that she'll ever be an actual independent woman.
On the bright side, the actress who played Sarah Jane was excellent - she sounded just like her, and her dialogue matched the character perfectly. The Doctor's dialogue wasn't particularly sparkling, unfortunately.
The Artist at the End of Time (Fifth Doctor, Jenny)
To really understand what's going on here, you have to know that the Doctor in this series is the Doctor in the Time War (Eight? War? Not sure) being forced backwards through old incarnations, so he's running around trying to figure out what’s causing this. This story has him in his fifth body, and apparently Jenny has met Five previously in another audio, so this one didn’t need to have her figure out who he was and them get to know each other. However, it might have helped if they had.
The concept of this story was fascinating: an artist goes to a world as it is dying to make one last piece of art inspired by it, so that it’s always remembers. However, he discovers as he’s doing this that the worlds are destroyed right after he’s done, and he’s despairing that he’s actively destroying them. The Doctor and Jenny go to visit him to find out what’s happening.
This plot was even more transparent than “Past Lives” - it only took about 1/3 of the way for both me and my husband to figure out what was happening, due to extremely obviously clues placed in the intro. We got interrupted at about the 75% mark and during a conversation with romanajo123 I remarked, “I bet they solve the problem (like this),” and guess what? I was spot on.
The biggest problem, though, that the plot was extremely simple (go to the museum, meet up, find out about the artist, go talk to the artist, do an experiment to prove what was causing the worlds to be destroyed, enact solution). There was no back-and-forth, no problem solving, no twists or turns. Worst of all, it probably would only take up forty minutes of air time, so the other thirty-three minutes consisted of filler: the museum guides trying to sell the art pieces, the Doctor bemoaning the deaths of these worlds, the artist angsting about destroying the worlds (this happened at least twice without meaningful variation), people questioning the worth of their lives. It was simply too long, too linear, too predictable.
One last note: Jenny was misused. She added nothing to the story other than a few fun interactions with the Doctor - no insights inspired by her own experiences, or even any particularly interesting observations to help the Doctor or the artist. She barely existed in the story and it would have worked just as well without her.
Conclusion
So, unfortunately, I have to say that the 60th series has so far been a disappointment. The individual audios aren’t really tied into the overall story arc except for the Doctor saying, “Let me go here to find out why this is happening” - but then he doesn’t find out anything other than where he might go next to ask. Of course, I can’t tell, but maybe it’ll turn out that all of these separate adventures will have a concrete effect on the overall story arc (like the way all of the stories in Series 3 contributed to the three-part finale, such as introducing Harold Saxon and the chameleon arch, setting up the Jones family’s conflicts, explaining proactive time travel (in “Blink”), adding the aging/de-aging technology, etc.). It doesn’t look that way yet, but one can only hope.