beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

I apparently haven't posted since Sunday. 🖖 Hi 🌞
I started watching 12 and Clara and then paused to ponder how Clara is immediately the person I remember and am vaguely annoyed by, and it seemed rather abrupt to me this time.
Some of it is her reaction to the regeneration. It does not make her more likeable, or more relatable to the long time Doctor Who viewer, in theory. But I actually had some problems with this regeneration at the time for unreasonable reasons, since Children of Earth was not fun. So it is a bit interesting watching my own reactions there.
I think the bit about Clara's ego is... new. New? Felt new. And not improved.
But her changing actually makes sense after the whole Impossible Girl thing.
But part of the Impossible Girl thing is how impossible it is for it to have happened any more? So *big shrugs*.
And I'm not sure how new she is vs how different the situation is. The job is a progression, the confidence suits, what is feeling new?
I also think the romance is... for one, not my sort of thing, but for another, not seeming at all romantic to me? Interesting story, sure, the Doctor parallels and the soldier stuff and the tangled up times and everything, certainly a lot of story is going on there. But I don't get why they like each other or are acting that way so. *small shrug*

I have watched up through Listen and I am more interested than I remember being the first time.

But then I picked up the headphones again and have listened to 7 and Mel adventures from Big Finish.

Bang Bang a Boom is not my thing.

Fires of Vulcan is interesting twists amid a lot of Romans I didn't much like listening to. But part of the point is their values don't mesh well with ours so the audio did what it set out to do. So, good, but not always fun.

Flip Flop lost my sympathy by making the bad guys a bunch of blind beings who enslave people to be their guide and who get their own way by complaining anyone disagreeing with them is a hate crime. They call themselves a minority and when it is pointed out they have 90% of the planet they say something like numbers aren't much to do with being a minority. In short this story did not feel like it was punching up, and I did not want much to do with it. I relistened it on fast forward. The alternating structure was a bit interesting in theory but does appear to leave us with two of the Doctor and Mel leaving the planet for further adventures, so I am not quite convinced. The specifics of the story didn't seem to be worth the elaborate setup. Didn't like it.

Unregenerate was one I put off listening to because its stated setting of run down asylum but evil doesn't really have a good side or good options. The story starting with someone doing the classic deal with the devil visit and then coming back on the last day of their deal recipients life to take them to the asylum? Pretty classic as horror set ups go, but, I do not want horror set up asylums. Honestly, neither mental illness nor mental healthcare need making scary. But Mel was quite emphatic about countering some prejudiced statements from a character of the week, so that bit was as good as it is getting I guess. Once the specifics of the alien experiment got made clear it was pretty interesting, ( Read more... ) So I'll just cut tag it so it can remain a mystery if anyone wants to listen to an audio from 2005.
I liked a lot of bits of it but the evil asylum spin loses it a star.

Last of the Titans isn't something I remember listening to before. 7 on his own, meets a nice seeming new sapient who pilots a planet eating ship. ... I don't actually remember how this ended but the options were all sad. Okay so I listened the end again. Big kabooming. Well that's a bad ending for a young being. I never like that, it's another case of inventing a mentally ill person to blow them up.

Robophobia at least had the mentally ill person survive the story.
I didn't much like how the Doctor communicated in this, yelling about people having to listen to him isn't the useful bit of the communicate, he should have led with the urgent words. Mysterious and manipulative only excuses him so far.
The Doctor, traveling alone, meets Liv Chenka, who is interesting enough already.
I like how the story arc goes through how everyone gets scared and then swings them back. Who they blame always makes enough sense.
And I liked the robots.
I feel like it's unlikely there's no course in an entire solar system except the self sacrificing one but as a story beat yeah alright.

Clicking through those adventures reminded me of the thing in the Big Finish app where you cannot seperately unload the interviews and music. If they filed all those bits under bonus you could save so much space. They are nice extras and I always like listening to new chatty bits, especially after the scarier stories, but I wouldn't carry them all around in my phone at all times when I could be carrying more main stories.



My week had a bunch of story in but doesn't feel like it had much week. It's the sleeping backwards but getting woken up a lot, it makes it all feel blurry. Still, pretty okay. 🤞

I have rewatched Doctor Who with 11 and Clara up through Name of the Doctor.
I say rewatched, but aside from remembering just enough images to be sure I watched before, they do feel new to me. I actually looked up my own review to see what I thought. I liked them very well the first time, and they are still solid stories, very enjoyable, and knowing what we know about the anniversary special they do stay on topic and click together in ways that wouldn't be obvious on first viewing. Topic and theme and mystery and answers. Rather well done.

So the not remembering is just my brain. It was my last year at college. Not my favourite, glad that's all done and dusted.

I like Clara better than I remember. She seems nice. She did a very big thing for the Doctor. And the kindness that sets her up for being someone who would, that has nothing to do with the Doctor being all sweep them off their feet, that is from the same place that has her looking after the kids and all. She's consistent and she makes sense. I remember her getting to be a bit... much, later, but I don't feel like that yet, which is nice. She did get three seperate intros that are all about making her memorable. The first two were, like, concentrated? Wowing us. The third when she sticks around unfolds at an easier pace. So I like her better now.

I liked Nightmare in Silver, but more as a collection of ideas than as what they actually did. The Emperor nobody recognises because they made the statues tall is an interesting role. Also a short actor on an SF show gets to play someone very much human. Improvement. I just didn't feel like the other characters were well done, like they'd only got a couple of panels each. But what caught my attention this time was the huge horrible thing done to end the war, and the Emperor who just sympathises with the guy who had to push the button.

Foreshadowing as most of the character moments, there.

Mr Clever was possibly not as well done. But the basic idea of the Doctor's face not having the Doctor behind it is solid. And actors always have fun with that one.


I have some feelings about how disabled people are being treated in this show, but the feelings keep on being sort of a bunch of squichy faces and wiggly hand gestures. Like there's a lot to unpack there, but.

I think I'd rather not.



The maths on people of color could also be better. Like I haven't sat down and checked but they might be running at 100% death scene again? Which is, oddly enough, a bit not good.
Also the suspicion that Strax reads even more badly if you read his skin color is... a thing.
And there's just a lot of very white episodes.

Many things have improved.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS had a lot of interesting though, like a quick tour of TARDIS parts to dream on, and a library where knowledge comes in bottles, and that one big highlighted book. A tree made of TARDIS DNA growing glowing egg circuits that can make anything. The swimming pool. And cracks in time that story falls through, not to be forgotten this time.

All lovely interesting stuff.

I hope it stays in my head this time.

I have finished rewatching 11 and the Ponds.
I still hate how the Ponds end. For one it makes no sense, and for a rather important other there are some behaviours that are just Always No. Instead we get them from the heroes on repeat, like it proves something. No. Hate it.
Live. It's the tricky bit.

That said, there were some chewy fascinating bits in all the previous episodes. Even River's perception of the Doctor's reaction to age makes a certain degree of sense. From her perspective, she gets older and he pulls away, so. It's a plausible read on a lot of his behaviour. But funnily enough it is not an interpretation I like, or one I find plausible currently, so, improvement.

I also like it that the Doctor got a lot older between episodes textually now. Several centuries to fill in there. Even if he has hopped planets in his counting, probably a long time. And he wanders off and makes new friends and brings them together, with dinosaurs. Lots of room for any adventure you can think of.



My flat is still Too Warm but there's only predicted to be one more day of this so it'll be fine. Blergh but fine.


And tomorrow I can watch whatever. Or listen. Or read.
Which is a lot cooler than my flat.

Two adventures from the Monthly range with 6 and no regular companions.

Both of these are quite good, but today I wasn't concentrating well, so I often had to back up a minute when I realised I'd missed things, or pause things when I started inputting a character in Wrath of the Righteous (which didn't work out like I wanted because for some reason Mystic Theurge didn't work like I expected when input in that order). I couldn't keep my attention on just one thing at a time today, so I didn't give story the brain space it deserved.

Lure of the Nomad had the Doctor and a new companion arrive on an apparently deserted ship to answer a distress call, and then there's lots of running around finding things out and meeting the locals. Some of the locals are very unpleasant people, others are trapped, and one was an artist I thought the story might be making fun of but they seemed most sympathetic by the end. I didn't find it compelling but it did what it set out to do and had interesting corners in the ideas. I don't like the Myriad and have decided to believe they are lying or the future looks a but grim. It did a good twist, at least to me, and the Doctor got some good angst fuel. Pretty okay story.

Iron Bright was more interesting but also I was paying less attention. Not the fault of the story, I think. I was trying to figure out what spells to choose through much of the story, since getting a 40th level Legend statted takes ages. I thought I could do both but now I'm regretting not spending more brain on painting the story in my head. Excellent ideas, ( Read more... ) Lots of neat stuff. I should revisit the story some time I'm actually awake, alert, and focused.



I also finished listening to another Lost Story, Point of Entry with 6 and Peri, and I think it was quite good, but I also fell asleep listening to it twice and woke up to turn it off at some screamy bits and, also, empty the tumble dryer when it went beep. Probably not the story's fault this time, see also, didn't focus on the other adventures neither.


Honestly, filling up the time on days my sleep isn't cooperate is just awkward.

This attempt wasn't an unalloyed success and I shall return to the stories another time.

Back at the beginning of the season I think I predicted the ending would be an RTD special made of Big Feelings, and I certainly have Big Feelings about that episode.

But the ones I have at the minute are Angry Sad, which is not my favourite set, honestly.

So.

( Read more... )

Big Feelings time wasn't fun this week.


I do however know I shall eventually have different feelings about a lot of it.

I have started catching up with what Big Finish have been doing with Susan.
There's two stories in the set and I liked both of them.
Family was a strong theme to pick, mothers and sons the first time, more complicated with teachers students guardians etc the second.
They're talky and resolved in a way that fits Susan.
I felt like I could see the resolution a ways in advance both times but seeing people react emotionally to it was a lot of the point.
I gave it 4/5.

I have no idea when my sleep cycle wants to be and my sleep watch reckons I've had 4 hours sleep in the last 24 so detailed thoughts are not resolving.

This set gave me the sort of adventures I hoped it would when I bought it, so, is good.

Once again a box that is difficult to give a star rating because it's three very different things.
I gave it 4/5 but am tempted to take half a star off that. ( Read more... )

They're good stories for what they're trying to do but I feel like it's hard to be in the mood for the three in a row.

This was a *very* good one. I wanted to go back to the beginning and watch it over again at once, but I had to eat a food and my vitamins and so I've sat down with my computer and am writing this.
( Read more... )

I liked that story very a lot but I guess I don't have much to say about it.

See it unspoiled if you can, it's a good one.

I liked that one, I think. SPOILERS ( Read more... )

Am looking forwards to more episodes.

That was fun. Very good introduction, shows her before life all quick and vivid. And you get a lot of chances to remember her name.
Belinda Chandra.

( Read more... )

I liked the episode. Good start.

I don't usually listen to the Big Finish Companion Chronicles range, I like the fully acted ones more than the ones where they narrate what they do, but I was listening to all the stories with the Forge and found this one on the website.

I think it was a good story, time travely and layered and themey and with 7 being very 7 about things. New angles on companions and new information. Proper exciting plot.

But I got distracted a bit before the end by realising one of the characters was played by Amy Pemberton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Pemberton and my head got full of xover ideas instead of paying attention to the ending properly.

The Companion Chronicles mode of talking to me rather than pulling me along with the up close story kind of leaves more gaps for that. But it also gets you inside characters heads in a way the Adventures cannot, and did good stuff with that.

Good story, very distracted listener.

6 and Peri and some dubiously seasonal shorter stories that turn into a bigger story.
This was okay to listen to but I don't thunk it'll be a favourite. The conceit starts with the 59th century deciding any and every belief counts as a religion so some people worship coffee. Or rock stars, ( Read more... )

Overall I liked this audio pretty well, I was happy to have listened to it before I went to sleep, I just didn't love it.
Which is sad because it is doing its own unique thing and turning it into a cunning puzzle.

I think I'm going to rate it 3.5/5 but I considered another half a star for it being seasonal.
(Sort of seasonal. The end went a bit unexpected.)

Bought these because James Marsters playing Captain John Hart.
Had no particular expectations because what is Dark Gallifrey? Whatever Big Finish pleases, I guess.
Listened to the first part and was unsure I understood more at the end than the beginning.
Listened to the second and it was ( Read more... )

So the third part was the trap chewing up Captain John and the Master. Quite a lot of the middle was genre 'terrible things happening to terrible people'. But the ending was just wild. ( Read more... )

So okay, that was very much in character, but I did not see where that story was going at all.

And the story leaves room for the changes to be permanent or to wear off or to be paradoxical, so will Big Finish use this later? I mean, why not, it's their universe.

So: I listened these for more Captain Hart content. And it did have that.

But I am still not quite clear on what the story was doing for quite large chunks of it, so you have to have a pretty high tolerance for weird for this set.

Also for reading this... it's not even a review, I was trying to write down the cool bits to see if they added up, and I think they do. But. It is both very spoilers under those cuts and not making entire sense, sorry.

I think that was fun to listen to but I might have to have another go later.