Doctor Who : Dark Eyes
Jan. 4th, 2014 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI started in on the giant stack of Big Finish audios today. Dark Eyes is a box set with the 8th Doctor and a new Companion, Molly, the Dark Eyes of the title. 3.6 hours according to the player, slightly longer with food breaks. I'm not sure I have much to say about it, except I listened to 3.6 hours of it all in a row and remain :-)
Well, :-) about having proper story to listen to; about 8 I'm more like *hugs* and can we just give him all the tea and cookies ever? Because that guy is having a bad time even compared to himself. Story is in Big Finish continuity after Lucie Miller, and picks up threads of a war between Daleks and Time Lords, as well as the more personal ongoing war between Daleks and the Doctor. Molly is an Irish woman who ends up volunteering to help the wounded in World War I, and the Doctor's reactions seem familiar to her. The emotional effects are one theme, as is the problem of fighting so long you become what you hate.
There's a whole lot of time travel shenanigans, people with secret identities, and reveals under reveals, so it's a set to listen to with my brain in some time. I liked Molly, who is unimpressed by the Doctor and the ultra tech miracles she gets dragged into; she just decides not to sweat the details cause they don't much matter. She also understands war without letting it make her hate. She's been hurt enough to try and keep her distance, but she's still willing to give people a chance. And she understands that while she's on one side of the battlefield patching up her boys, there's a woman just like her on the other side doing the same thing with them. It gives her a perspective on the Daleks that leads her to hope and trust, not ignorantly like Rose, but because she's been through it all and still doesn't write off the enemy as evil. I like her a whole lot. She reminds me of the Doctor. Except this Doctor is having an epically bad day, and has lost hope, at some points seeming to just stand there and wait for the Daleks to end it. She saves him more ways than one. So it's a lot like the post-war Doctor in some ways, except quicker and easier, because the Doctor thinks it's bad now but he still has so much left to lose.
:-(
There's also Time Lord politics and reveals that again echo the TV Time War stuff without plunging right into it.
Mostly it made me think about the TV spot with 8 regenerating, where he listed his Big Finish audio companions, and there was (fair) complaining he hadn't listed everyone or anyone from the comics or EDAs. Especially since Big Finish audios include companions from the comics and books, that seemed a bit annoy. But the people he mentions, they're people who have been epically screwed over by Time Lords, time travel that breaks the laws of time, conflict, and Daleks. Some of them are Companions the Daleks killed. I don't know if anyone from the other media fits that, I didn't read them, but those are pretty good reasons to mention those people in context.
He kept mentioning Lucie and Susan in this set. It bugged me because he didn't mention Alex. That's his descendant, Susan's son, killed by the Daleks. It seems like he should be more of a mention. But he'd barely met the kid, so maybe he's more upset by Susan's loss than he is feeling it as his own loss.
He mentioned Lucie because he was delirious after being gassed and messed up by the mysterious effect of the week. Glowing gas, I don't know, I didn't quite figure that part out before they were off to the next adventure. The young women who heard him mutter, one was a bit upset because she'd already decided he was dishy and here he is mentioning girls, which is daft reaction because he's total stranger and an adult so of course he knows some girl names due to half the planet being girls. Molly was all 'of course' about it, has heard lots of soldiers mumbles, but also reckoned later they were girls he'd dragged into trouble. Which of course from many angles they are. Stomped his guilt good.
I liked the guilt vs hope dance they did with Molly and 8 in this set. Molly tried to be self sacrificing and 8 was good at telling her to hope, but she pointed out right back he was being bad at hope and he should take his own advice. It was a good way to work through his emotional traumas while running away from Daleks a lot.
So I like Molly as a companion and I like this box set. Lots of twisty plot things and emotional follow through.
It's just getting harder to ignore that we know what's next for him. Which makes me want to wrap him up warm in nice soft blankets and keep him somewhere safe, not listen him running around having adventures. But, this way, lots more 8, which is very of the good.
Well, :-) about having proper story to listen to; about 8 I'm more like *hugs* and can we just give him all the tea and cookies ever? Because that guy is having a bad time even compared to himself. Story is in Big Finish continuity after Lucie Miller, and picks up threads of a war between Daleks and Time Lords, as well as the more personal ongoing war between Daleks and the Doctor. Molly is an Irish woman who ends up volunteering to help the wounded in World War I, and the Doctor's reactions seem familiar to her. The emotional effects are one theme, as is the problem of fighting so long you become what you hate.
There's a whole lot of time travel shenanigans, people with secret identities, and reveals under reveals, so it's a set to listen to with my brain in some time. I liked Molly, who is unimpressed by the Doctor and the ultra tech miracles she gets dragged into; she just decides not to sweat the details cause they don't much matter. She also understands war without letting it make her hate. She's been hurt enough to try and keep her distance, but she's still willing to give people a chance. And she understands that while she's on one side of the battlefield patching up her boys, there's a woman just like her on the other side doing the same thing with them. It gives her a perspective on the Daleks that leads her to hope and trust, not ignorantly like Rose, but because she's been through it all and still doesn't write off the enemy as evil. I like her a whole lot. She reminds me of the Doctor. Except this Doctor is having an epically bad day, and has lost hope, at some points seeming to just stand there and wait for the Daleks to end it. She saves him more ways than one. So it's a lot like the post-war Doctor in some ways, except quicker and easier, because the Doctor thinks it's bad now but he still has so much left to lose.
:-(
There's also Time Lord politics and reveals that again echo the TV Time War stuff without plunging right into it.
Mostly it made me think about the TV spot with 8 regenerating, where he listed his Big Finish audio companions, and there was (fair) complaining he hadn't listed everyone or anyone from the comics or EDAs. Especially since Big Finish audios include companions from the comics and books, that seemed a bit annoy. But the people he mentions, they're people who have been epically screwed over by Time Lords, time travel that breaks the laws of time, conflict, and Daleks. Some of them are Companions the Daleks killed. I don't know if anyone from the other media fits that, I didn't read them, but those are pretty good reasons to mention those people in context.
He kept mentioning Lucie and Susan in this set. It bugged me because he didn't mention Alex. That's his descendant, Susan's son, killed by the Daleks. It seems like he should be more of a mention. But he'd barely met the kid, so maybe he's more upset by Susan's loss than he is feeling it as his own loss.
He mentioned Lucie because he was delirious after being gassed and messed up by the mysterious effect of the week. Glowing gas, I don't know, I didn't quite figure that part out before they were off to the next adventure. The young women who heard him mutter, one was a bit upset because she'd already decided he was dishy and here he is mentioning girls, which is daft reaction because he's total stranger and an adult so of course he knows some girl names due to half the planet being girls. Molly was all 'of course' about it, has heard lots of soldiers mumbles, but also reckoned later they were girls he'd dragged into trouble. Which of course from many angles they are. Stomped his guilt good.
I liked the guilt vs hope dance they did with Molly and 8 in this set. Molly tried to be self sacrificing and 8 was good at telling her to hope, but she pointed out right back he was being bad at hope and he should take his own advice. It was a good way to work through his emotional traumas while running away from Daleks a lot.
So I like Molly as a companion and I like this box set. Lots of twisty plot things and emotional follow through.
It's just getting harder to ignore that we know what's next for him. Which makes me want to wrap him up warm in nice soft blankets and keep him somewhere safe, not listen him running around having adventures. But, this way, lots more 8, which is very of the good.