Big Finish Audio 136: Cobwebs
Jul. 20th, 2010 05:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThis is the new 5, Nyssa, Turlough, and Tegan adventure: the full Team TARDIS, back together. There's a mini season of 3 adventures now, and Big Finish just announced there will be more. And I so had my fingers crossed that this would be as awesome as it sounds like. More Doctor Who. Made of win!
So I got Cobwebs on download day... and then sort of looked at it out the corner of my eye and didn't listen straight away. See if I don't listen then it's Schrodinger's Audio and is, in the box, both awesome and not, and I can go lalala and decide which one it is. Once I listen the possibility collapses and I have to pick one based on evidence.
So I just listened...
At first I listened and got pouty. It didn't sound right. Not Proper.
... then I switched the TV audio settings to 'speech' and my brain settings to 'stop being so bloody picky' and settled in to actually listening to the story.
It establishes early and firmly exactly where all the characters are in their personal timelines. On the TARDIS Turlough has just asked to be taken home after Enlightenment, and Tegan is still furious with him, while 5 is being a bit vague on several key topics but does seem to trust Turlough now. Outside the TARDIS Nyssa is on a medical mission. For her it has been 50 years, give or take, (and she has aged visibly, though she says her aging pattern is different than humans and Tegan thinks she looks good for her age). For team TARDIS it has been two days since they last saw her! Time is very, very relative.
I'm rather glad of this setup. Audio Nyssa almost always has more actual personality than TV Nyssa - I don't know why I always found her watercolor but on TV she just seemed kind of standing there. On audio she's interesting. The audios probably go in the gap where Tegan wasn't on the TARDIS but before Nyssa left to treat the Lazars, which sort of limits the character. But now she's been off, done her great work, and has a mission in life. It makes her very definite and goal oriented in a way even Team TARDIS don't get to be. I like it. And while there aren't many spare minutes for people to react in little character ways it's a fun setup to have her come back to a dynamic she once chose to leave and will not fit the same anyway. Plus there will be a difference in how important they are to each other, and how much of each other's lives they've been a part of.
... I didn't zoom in immediately on the angsty femslash potential but it's got some interesting right there.
Tegan is supposed to pick up right after Nyssa left, angry at Turlough, grumbly, grumpy, kind of a hedgehog. Which doesn't exactly do her favours. Surely there was a time she was having fun travelling with the Doctor? In my head she isn't a continual grump generator. But bringing in this Tegan, who doesn't like Turlough and doesn't know Nyssa, when audio audiences have had more change to know and like both, it's not an immediate 'remember why you liked Tegan? Well now you like her more!' So, you know, not an easy in. Even when she's being perfectly sensible. Trusting someone who was sent to kill you is a teensy bit odd.
Turlough is twisty again. It does not exactly establish the whole trustworthiness thing when one suggests to the bad guy he hold your friend hostage for your good behaviour. It clearly works, but it's not the nice thing to do.
*waves hello to Proper Turlough*
Also I like it that Tegan is all 'why always me!' and the bad guy is all 'you know, that's fair, I'll keep him hostage' and Turlough is 'but it was my idea!' and we're like 'yes, and so.' It was funny.
I like it when Turlough suggests destructive and backstabby things that nonetheless have a definite logic. It gives you more story to play with, and it's kind of like they're an RPG group cause there's always That Guy in a group.
So then they all had Plot. Where they ran around and got split up and put together and split up and rescued and ran and rescued and all back together again. You know, as usual.
... okay, no, it was a bit more complicated than that. And it was a good one. The writer used proper time travel stuff to put the team up a BIG tree and keep them there, and was fair enough about how they get out of it, but keeps you running around with them so you don't see it coming.
Also I like it that Tegan is the one who notices when something doesn't make sense. Complaining of usefulness.
So the plot did provide a lot of plotty goodness. Something for everyone to do, getting into pairs in assorted combinations, and some nice SF worldbuilding threaded through.
I did spot one instance of 'paranoid schizophrenia' used where they meant 'more than one personality in the same head'. I don't know if they knew they meant it yet. But it definitely clunked, a use of precise medical terminology where it doesn't bloody apply. Dear Writers: Schizophrenia does not mean what you think it means. Also, stop trying to apply it to computers. No, really, quit it.
I sort of stalled on having thoughts about plot because I wandered off to look up definitions of schizophrenia and to look up which century Nyssa is likely to be in. I found no clues on the latter question. I'd like to place it because it's twisty backstabby Company politics and horrible plagues and probably-humans on a lot of worlds and a bunch of apparently worshipping Norse gods. Stuff about Freya in this one, as well as Modi and Magni. It's an interesting setup to play in.
I liked the plot. It twisted and turned nicely. That's about my whole thoughts on the plot.
Now I want to see how they all get along in this remixed team, younger and older than we're used to them being. It looks like fun.
:-)
So I got Cobwebs on download day... and then sort of looked at it out the corner of my eye and didn't listen straight away. See if I don't listen then it's Schrodinger's Audio and is, in the box, both awesome and not, and I can go lalala and decide which one it is. Once I listen the possibility collapses and I have to pick one based on evidence.
So I just listened...
At first I listened and got pouty. It didn't sound right. Not Proper.
... then I switched the TV audio settings to 'speech' and my brain settings to 'stop being so bloody picky' and settled in to actually listening to the story.
It establishes early and firmly exactly where all the characters are in their personal timelines. On the TARDIS Turlough has just asked to be taken home after Enlightenment, and Tegan is still furious with him, while 5 is being a bit vague on several key topics but does seem to trust Turlough now. Outside the TARDIS Nyssa is on a medical mission. For her it has been 50 years, give or take, (and she has aged visibly, though she says her aging pattern is different than humans and Tegan thinks she looks good for her age). For team TARDIS it has been two days since they last saw her! Time is very, very relative.
I'm rather glad of this setup. Audio Nyssa almost always has more actual personality than TV Nyssa - I don't know why I always found her watercolor but on TV she just seemed kind of standing there. On audio she's interesting. The audios probably go in the gap where Tegan wasn't on the TARDIS but before Nyssa left to treat the Lazars, which sort of limits the character. But now she's been off, done her great work, and has a mission in life. It makes her very definite and goal oriented in a way even Team TARDIS don't get to be. I like it. And while there aren't many spare minutes for people to react in little character ways it's a fun setup to have her come back to a dynamic she once chose to leave and will not fit the same anyway. Plus there will be a difference in how important they are to each other, and how much of each other's lives they've been a part of.
... I didn't zoom in immediately on the angsty femslash potential but it's got some interesting right there.
Tegan is supposed to pick up right after Nyssa left, angry at Turlough, grumbly, grumpy, kind of a hedgehog. Which doesn't exactly do her favours. Surely there was a time she was having fun travelling with the Doctor? In my head she isn't a continual grump generator. But bringing in this Tegan, who doesn't like Turlough and doesn't know Nyssa, when audio audiences have had more change to know and like both, it's not an immediate 'remember why you liked Tegan? Well now you like her more!' So, you know, not an easy in. Even when she's being perfectly sensible. Trusting someone who was sent to kill you is a teensy bit odd.
Turlough is twisty again. It does not exactly establish the whole trustworthiness thing when one suggests to the bad guy he hold your friend hostage for your good behaviour. It clearly works, but it's not the nice thing to do.
*waves hello to Proper Turlough*
Also I like it that Tegan is all 'why always me!' and the bad guy is all 'you know, that's fair, I'll keep him hostage' and Turlough is 'but it was my idea!' and we're like 'yes, and so.' It was funny.
I like it when Turlough suggests destructive and backstabby things that nonetheless have a definite logic. It gives you more story to play with, and it's kind of like they're an RPG group cause there's always That Guy in a group.
So then they all had Plot. Where they ran around and got split up and put together and split up and rescued and ran and rescued and all back together again. You know, as usual.
... okay, no, it was a bit more complicated than that. And it was a good one. The writer used proper time travel stuff to put the team up a BIG tree and keep them there, and was fair enough about how they get out of it, but keeps you running around with them so you don't see it coming.
Also I like it that Tegan is the one who notices when something doesn't make sense. Complaining of usefulness.
So the plot did provide a lot of plotty goodness. Something for everyone to do, getting into pairs in assorted combinations, and some nice SF worldbuilding threaded through.
I did spot one instance of 'paranoid schizophrenia' used where they meant 'more than one personality in the same head'. I don't know if they knew they meant it yet. But it definitely clunked, a use of precise medical terminology where it doesn't bloody apply. Dear Writers: Schizophrenia does not mean what you think it means. Also, stop trying to apply it to computers. No, really, quit it.
I sort of stalled on having thoughts about plot because I wandered off to look up definitions of schizophrenia and to look up which century Nyssa is likely to be in. I found no clues on the latter question. I'd like to place it because it's twisty backstabby Company politics and horrible plagues and probably-humans on a lot of worlds and a bunch of apparently worshipping Norse gods. Stuff about Freya in this one, as well as Modi and Magni. It's an interesting setup to play in.
I liked the plot. It twisted and turned nicely. That's about my whole thoughts on the plot.
Now I want to see how they all get along in this remixed team, younger and older than we're used to them being. It looks like fun.
:-)
no subject
Date: 2010-07-20 11:05 pm (UTC)